THE HOT 100 BOOKS
FOR THE BEACH
(This cheeky monkey’s choice is reviewed on
FICTION
68. ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’ by George Saunders (Bloomsbury, €12.59) The winner of last year’s Man Booker prize is a strange but brilliant study of grief and bereavement as Abraham Lincoln mourns his 11-year-old son Willie.
69. ‘Conversations With Friends’ by Sally Rooney (Faber, €10.99) A dazzling debut by the Mayo writer following student Frances and her ex-girlfriend Bobbi, who fall into an emotionally charged foursome with a charismatic older couple.
70. ‘The Idiot’ by Elif Batuman (Vintage, €12.60) The New Yorker writer’s first novel is told through the eyes of gawky overthinker Selin, who embarks on her first year at Harvard and soon finds herself overwhelmed by the possibilities of life – and of language.
71. ‘Home Fire’ by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury, €9.99) British Muslim Isma is studying in the US when her brother becomes trapped in a Raqqa jihadi camp. A timely reworking of the Greek myth Antigone, which scooped this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.
72. ‘The Songs’ by Charles Elton (Bloomsbury, €12.59) Elton’s darkly funny second novel centres on the octogenarian folkmusic legend Iz Herzl and his mysterious past.
73. ‘Munich’ by Robert Harris (Arrow, €8.99) This agile thriller imagines a different outcome to the infamous 1938 meeting between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, from the vantage point of two diplomats who try to avert the course of history as we know it.
74. ‘A State Of Freedom’ by Neel Mukherjee (Vintage, €12.59) The stories of five different characters are loosely interwoven in Mukherjee’s masterful third novel to create a powerful yet disturbing tapestry of deprivation and vitality in modern-day India.
75. ‘The Explosion Chronicles’ by Yan Lianke (Vintage, €13.99) In the latest of Lianke’s scathing satires about contemporary China, a fictional village undergoes a volcanic transformation from rural community to corrupt, sprawling metropolis.
76. ‘Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine’ by Gail Honeyman (Harper Collins,€9.99) Honeyman’s best-selling debut is a tender account of socially awkward Eleanor, who endures a solitary existence until a chance act of kindness makes her rethink her uber-orderly approach to life.
77. ‘The Zoo’ by Christopher Wilson (Faber, €11.20) Brain-damaged 12year-old Yuri is the official foodtaster for a dying Josef Stalin in this darkly comic adventure set amid the power struggles of the dictator’s final days.
NON-FICTION
78. ‘Air Force Blue’ by Patrick Bishop (William Collins, €13.99) Bishop looks back at arguably the most dramatic period of the RAF’s history: the Second World War, in which the force transformed from ‘garage mechanics’ into our golden heroes.
79. ‘A Life Of My Own’ by Claire Tomalin (Penguin, €12.90) The award-winning literary biographer turns her forensic eye on herself in this beautifully written memoir.
80. ‘This Is Going To Hurt’ by Adam Kay (Picador, €10.99) The diaries of Kay’s six years in obstetrics and gynaecology as a junior doctor are both painfully funny – and seriously shocking.
81. ‘Adventures Of A Young Naturalist’ by David Attenborough (Two Roads, €12.60) A beautiful new edition, with a fresh introduction, of the naturalist’s account of his travels for the BBC and London Zoo in the Fifties.
82. ‘To Be A Machine’ by Mark O’Connell (Granta, €14) What if the human body was just another device that technology could augment and improve? That’s what ‘transhumanists’ believe and O’Connell explores in this funny and thoughtprovoking book.
83. ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker (Penguin, €12.90) An eye-opening look at shut-eye and why it’s ‘the elixir of life’. Don’t read it in bed.
84. ‘Ma’am Darling’ by Craig Brown (Fourth Estate, €14) Every complicated aspect of the Queen’s colourful sister Margaret is on display in Brown’s hugely entertaining book.
85. ‘The Cow Book’ by John Connell (Granta, €14.99) Connell’s family have farmed for generations but he never saw himself following suit. Until one winter, the Lonford man discovered his sympatico with the land.
86. ‘Gastrophysics’ by Charles Spence (Penguin, €13.99) A feast of fascinating facts reveals the multisensory experience of eating. Did you know that if you hold your nose you’ll be hard pressed to tell the difference between red wine and cold coffee?
87. ‘Other Minds’ by Peter Godfrey- Smith (William Collins, €13.99) Apparently, octopuses can solve puzzles and are capable of contempt – and playfulness. This fascinating book is packed with astonishing anecdotes.