12 of the best recent beach reads

From Colm Tóibín’s beloved sequel to Brooklyn to a Miranda July coming-of-age tale to a quirky time-travel romance, here are our picks of recently released books to pack in your late-summer travel bag.

For many of us, summer brings with it that most precious asset: time to immerse ourselves in a great book. Whether it’s on a sun lounger, a long flight, or even just an hour in the park, it’s a chance to tackle your TBR pile and catch up on some of the best new novels published this year.

The best beach books don’t have to have a sun-soaked setting (though that’s a plus), and they don’t have to be frivolous either. But they do have to be compelling enough to transport you somewhere else for a few hours. From buzzworthy debuts to long-awaited sequels, word-of-mouth hits, and future awards contenders, these 12 books all fit the bill.

Some books aren’t just recommended, they’re whispered and thrust into the hands of others. Miranda July’s second novel is a perfect example of this: a coming-of-age story that has become one of the word-of-mouth literary hits of the year. The book tells the story of a mid-40s, mid-famous artist (much like July herself) who, after receiving an unexpected lump sum, decides to leave her husband and children at home in Los Angeles and go on a road trip alone. But just 30 minutes into the journey, she gets off the highway and checks into a small-town motel. This is the first of many unexpected twists in a story that The New York Times has described as “a most brilliant” as it touches on aging, desire, marriage, friendship, motherhood, sex, creativity and more. “The First Great Menopause Novel”.

Author Colm Tóibín has said he doesn’t like sequels, but when the idea for a sequel to his wildly popular 2009 novel Brooklyn came to mind, he had to write it. And he’s so glad he did. Set 20 years later, the novel begins with Brooklyn heroine Eilis Lacey (now Eilis Fiorello) living on Long Island with her husband Tony and their two children. A few paragraphs in, their lives change when there’s a knock on the door and Eilis returns to her native Ireland for the first time since her abrupt departure at the end of the original novel. The story is told through the eyes of the three main characters, but Tóibín makes even the most minor characters jump off the page; you’ll feel like you’re in Enniscorthy.

The cover of The Hypocrite depicts two characters lounging in the Mediterranean sun, but don’t be fooled. Most of the novel is set in the stifling confines of a London theatre, with a father watching his daughter Sophia’s first play. But the novel also flashes back to a long, hot summer in Sicily the couple spent together ten years earlier – the longest time Sophia had spent with her largely absent father, and the holiday that inspired her play. In just 230 pages, it’s a thought-provoking book that is sharp, funny and thought-provoking throughout, while raising complex questions about parent-child relationships, generational divides, memory and the ethics of the arts.

Harry Butler’s previous book, The New Me, was a humorous yet dark look at the modern workplace. Jia Tolentino of The New YorkerHer new book deals with what happens as that generation heads into middle age. “Millennial midlife crisis novel.” Modi is a woman in her 30s who, after breaking up with her boyfriend of 10 years, leaves Chicago and returns to her hometown for the summer to reassess her life. There she reflects on how useless she was to the world: childless, unemployed, middle-aged and single. She also realizes that many of her old friends are suffering in the same way. If you choose this book as your late-summer reading, you’re sure to find some good company. Zadie Smith said it would be “a spectacular way to end the summer.”“It’s hilarious, it’s clever, it’s completely wicked and it’s just fantastic.”

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut novel, Fleishman is in Trouble, a story of a Brooklyn couple’s bitter divorce from two very different perspectives, was one of the most talked-about books of 2019 and was made into an equally talked-about TV show starring Jesse Eisenberg and Claire Danes. In the sequel, Brodesser-Akner moves to suburban Long Island to write a story inspired by the real-life kidnapping of wealthy businessman Jack Tyke in the 1970s. In Long Island Compromise, Styrofoam factory owner Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway. But the book isn’t about the crime itself, but rather the ripple effects it had on this wealthy Jewish-American family, examining the intergenerational trauma that occurs before and after the crime.

On the surface, The Ministry of Time is a quirky time-travel romance in which a civil servant in near-future London ends up living with a Victorian polar explorer thanks to a secret new government program. But British-Cambodian author Karian Bradley’s debut novel is not only a page-turner, it also tackles bigger themes, including climate change, colonialism, corruption, immigration and genocide. TV rights were snapped up months before the book was released, and A24 has produced a series for the BBC, with a screenplay by Alice Birch, who also wrote the acclaimed film adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Ordinary People. Now’s the time to read it before it’s made into a movie.

If you think the perfect holiday is more about long walks through windswept landscapes than lazing around in the sun, you’ll find a lot to like in David Nicholls’ latest. Marnie and Michael are strangers who end up walking miles together across northern England, with differing levels of passion, thanks to a trip arranged by a mutual friend. Both are on the brink of middle age, with failed marriages and struggling with lives that aren’t what they expected and are lonely. one day As we all know, Nichols is a master of creating flawed, beautifully drawn characters whose lives you can’t help but empathize with, and you’ll root for these two to succeed — and not just by the end of their grueling hike.

Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, combines complex ideas and multi-layered storylines with beautiful, vivid prose to create an immersive world. Her latest book is perhaps her most ambitious to date, drawing on a narrative that spans two decades and tackling themes of love, faith and astronomy. Set in the fictional Essex town of Aldrey, it follows the unlikely friendship between 17-year-old Grace Macaulay and 50-year-old newspaper columnist Thomas Hart. It’s an old-fashioned story in the best sense, and Perry’s “A precise ability to make earthly things new and strange.”

Newly divorced, Phoebe Stone arrives alone at a luxury Rhode Island hotel feeling like she has nothing to live for. Bride-to-be Lila, who thinks she’s commandeered the hotel for her meticulously planned overseas wedding, is initially terrified. But the two women forge an unlikely friendship, and even as they crash the celebration, Phoebe finds reason to feel hopeful again. Released in midsummer and already a New York Times bestseller and with film rights already acquired, The Wedding People’s dark humor has drawn comparisons to Meg Mason’s Sadness and Bliss.

After the critical and commercial success of Barbara Kingsolver’s take on the Dickens classic, Demon Copperhead, comes another modern reinterpretation of a 19th century novel. Percival Everett’s James re-tells Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of fellow slave Jim Huck. You don’t need to have read Twain’s classic to enjoy Everett’s thrilling interpretation, which tackles horrific themes with Everett’s trademark savage humor. This is the 24th novel written by Everett in his extremely prolific 40-year career, and perhaps his best yet. It has been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, and many critics are already raving about it. Clearly expected to be a winner.

Could anything be more evocative of “summer reading” than “Patricia Highsmith meets White Lotus”? The latest novel from the author of “The End of Mr. Y” is about a couple on honeymoon on a remote Greek island. Marriage has just begun, but already cracks are appearing in their relationship and secrets abound. All is not as it seems at the hotel either, as a tale of a tragic past on the island emerges. Told through a series of letters, audio recordings, photographs, pages from the hotel guestbook, and other documents, the book will keep you intrigued and guessing until the very end.

Hisham Matar’s latest novel, which was on the Booker Prize shortlist and won this year’s Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, has been praised by authors including Elif Shafak and Colm Tóibín. It tells the story of three Libyan men living in exile in Britain after protesting against Colonel Gaddafi’s regime. (Matar’s own father, a vocal opponent of Gaddafi, was kidnapped when Matar was a child; he writes about his futile search for him in his Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book, The Return.) A moving examination of what it means to be exiled from your homeland, it’s also a story about friendship. Like Elena Ferrante, I did it for female friendship.Matar’s ambitious, decade-long book explores in great detail the nuances of male bonding.