Sunscreen, shades and coolest reads of summer

2024-05-19 - BY LORRAINE BERRY

TH E R E WA S A T I M E when “summer books” meant popcorn reads you consumed in a sunbaked afternoon — disposable books devoured and left behind for the next hotel room guest. ¶ Not that there’s anything wrong with the joy of a high-paced thriller, the passionate heights of romance or the horror that raises goosebumps in the heat. We love them ourselves. But summer is also a time for slowing down to taste lots of literary flavors, whether it’s the spiciness of a globe-trotting adventure, the sweetness of late-life companionship or the bite of salt-and-vinegar short stories. Summer 2024 is an overflowing picnic basket of choices. ¶ Here are 20 forthcoming books — publishing between late May and August — that we recommend to kick off the reading season. For those of us unable to travel this year, nothing beats the simple pleasure of a great book with a cold drink on a summer afternoon.

KITTENTITS Holly Wilson

Zando-Gillian Flynn Books:

368 pages, $28

May 21

Ten-year-old homeschooled Molly is bored with life at the nun-haunted House of Friends. Scuzzy daredevil Jeanie arrives at their living community after a disastrous fire, leaving Molly enthralled. After Jeanie fakes her own death, Molly runs away to find her at the 1992 Chicago World’s Fair and to connect with their dead moms. Molly learns a passel of things in this surrealist, carnivalesque bildungsroman.

SWIFT RIVER Essie Chambers

Simon & Schuster: 304 pages, $28 June 4

Chambers’ funny debut is set in a 1980s New England mill town in decline. Seven years after her father’s disappearance, Diamond Newberry and her mother are struggling, but Diamond’s observations provide comic leavening. During summer 1987, her mom files to have Pop declared dead, which is when things get complicated. Diamond receives a letter from an unknown relative that starts her on a path to learn the history of her family — and the nation.

GODWIN Joseph O’Neill

Pantheon: 288 pages, $28

June 4

The “next Pelé” or the “next Messi” are words sure to ignite the fantasies of soccer fans anywhere. After tech writer Mark is contacted by his sports agent — half brother Geoff — Mark leaves Pittsburgh to join him on a madcap adventure to find such a phenom: an African teenager known only as “Godwin.” O’Neill combines the brothers’ exploits with sharp observations about international business and issues such as greenwashing and corruption that have tarnished the world’s game.

THE PHOENIX BALLROOM Ruth Hogan

William Morrow: 320 pages, $19 June 11

How late is too late for a woman to change her life? In Hogan’s novel of life during widowhood, Venetia Hargreaves searches for a new self in her 70s. After 50 years of marriage, Venetia, who used to be an accomplished dancer, embraces her newly independent life. While on a walk, she passes an old building that had once been the Phoenix Ballroom, which she buys and restores. In hopes of a return to her youthful days, Venetia finds community in an entertaining motley crew of lost souls.

SONS OF EL REY Alex Espinoza

Simon &Schuster: 384 pages, $29 June 11

Lucha libre has taken its hold in Mexico, and its high-flying masked performers are the superstars in its freestyle wrestling rings. In this entertaining and poignant novel, Espinoza writes of Ernesto Vega’s fame and fortune as a luchador known to his fans as “El Rey Coyote.” In East Los Angeles, Ernesto’s son, Freddy, fights to save his dad’s gym while Freddy’s gay son, Julian, seeks purpose. As Ernesto reaches the end of his life, his son and grandson will find their own answers in the streets of 1980s L.A. and the present reality of West Hollywood.

BEAR Julia Phillips

Hogarth: 304 pages, $28

June 25

One of “Grimms’ Fairy Tales” inspired Phillips, a 2024 Guggenheim fellow and lauded author of “Disappearing Earth.” Sisters Sam and Elena live on an island off Washington state, a birthplace that’s become a dead end for them both. When Sam spies a swimming bear from the ferry where she works, she is shocked, but it’s an even bigger surprise when the bear shows up at their house. A retelling of “Rose Red and Snow White,” “Bear” is a fantabulous delight.

ANOTHER NORTH Jennifer Brice

Boreal Books: 240 pages, $18 June 25

Brice previously chronicled her Alaska youth in “Unlearning to Fly.” In “Another North,” she returns to Fairbanks as a divorced woman longing for a sense of home. The new collection takes readers from her life as a professor in New York’s Leatherstocking Country to her days piloting small planes in the Alaska bush. Brice is a beautiful prose stylist, and her book navigates the turbulence of middle age with a steady — and elegant — hand.

PINK SLIME Fernanda Trías

Scribner: 240 pages, $24

July 2

Trías won the National Uruguayan Literature Prize in her native country, and “Pink Slime,” newly translated by Heather Cleary, is a great display of her chops. The book is set in a city diminished by plague and a poisonous algae bloom, and the narrator focuses attention on her remaining relationships. In writing about the ways folks hold together during difficult times, Trías untangles the myths and realities of resilience.

THE GOD OF THE WOODS Liz Moore Riverhead: 496 pages, $30 July 2

Moore takes readers to an Adirondack summer camp in the mid-’70s. When Barbara Van Laar’s bunk turns up empty one morning, it sets off a frenzied search by the surrounding community. Barbara appears to have suffered the same fate as her brother, who disappeared 14 years prior. Moore’s familiarity with the Adirondacks — and the area’s long history as a playground of the rich — inspired this multilayered novel about wealthy wilderness camp people and the blue-collar folks who must accommodate them.

ALL THIS & MORE

Peng Shepherd

William Morrow: 512 pages, $30 July 9

Shepherd, a finalist for a 2023 L.A. Times Book Prize, returns with another clever novel that plays with time and space. Here readers meet Marsh (short for Marshmallow), a 45-year-old woman who is disappointed with her lot in life. Happiness beckons when she is selected to star in a reality show where all her past mistakes can be fixed, if she is willing to accept the consequences. Shepherd includes “choose your own adventure” moments for readers, so Marsh’s fate is in their hands.

THE HEART IN WINTER Kevin Barry

Doubleday: 256 pages, $28

July 9

The Irish Booker Prize nominee traverses the Atlantic in this story set in 1891 Montana. Immigrant workers toil in the copper mines that build Butte’s fortunes. In the midst of the archetypical frontier town, Tom Rourke fuels himself by drinking, doping and writing. When he falls head over heels for the mine captain’s new wife, Polly, a cadre of crazy Cornishmen takes off in hot pursuit of the poet and his muse.

BAD TOURISTS Caro Carver

Avid Reader: 336 pages, $29

July 9

In addition to malfunctioning airplanes, one of the hazards of traveling is getting caught up in a group of bad tourists. In Carver’s tropical paradise of a book, a trio of friends heads to the Maldives to make over their 40-something lives. What should be fun turns dangerous when a body shows up on the white beaches outside their resort. In this book, both a romp and a thriller, Carver immerses readers in secretfilled waters.

THE STRIKER AND THE CLOCK On Being in the Game Georgia Cloepfil Riverhead: 208 pages, $27 July 16

A watershed moment in women’s sports this past spring has cast a light on the athletes who, instead of riches, face uncertain futures after graduation. In this riveting memoir by the professional soccer player, she takes readers on a trip with her to find a living playing in South Korea, Australia, Lithuania and other far-flung locations. A paean to the beautiful game, the book chronicles how Cloepfil overcame adversity to strike joy.