Fiction pick Anyone who devoured Brodesser-Akner’s hit 2019 novel Fleishman is in Trouble – or the TV adaptation it inspired – will be glad to know her second book is just as intelligent, engrossing and wryly funny. While her debut interrogated the structures of a marriage, here she turns her attention on family dysfunction and trauma – and somehow makes it a riot to read. The novel’s catalyst is the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher, the repercussions of which are felt across four decades and a sprawling cast list of his relations.
Long Island Compromise is almost guaranteed to be the book of the summer. (Wildfire) Nonfiction pick As someone who has experienced living in disrepair himself, Kwajo Tweneboa is acutely familiar with the UK’s current housing crisis . Now an activist who has gone on to advise on government policy, he has penned the kind of book which should be necessary reading.
Partly a memoir, partly a manifesto for change, Our Country in Crisis weaves in interviews with everyone from Grenfell survivors to his own parents to demonstrate the scale of the housing emergency we are in – while also putting forth a convincing path forward which can help us rebuild. (Trapeze) Best of the rest French author Camille Bordas is loved by the likes of Zadie Smith , Rachel Cusk and George Saunders, and reading this, her first novel written in English, you can see why. Following a group of comedy students and their teachers over the course o.
