10 books to add to your reading list in August
On the Shelf
10 books for your August reading list
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Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your August reading list.
When Shakespeare wrote “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” he didn’t know about August 2023, which follows the hottest July in recorded history. Whether you prefer sweltering in sand or sheltering in place, you’ll need the distraction of a good book or two (or 10). This month’s crop includes books about dynamic ghosts, a privileged woman reckoning with the environment, an under-appreciated tennis great and a jolly grifter’s comeuppance. Keep cool and read on.
FICTION
Witness: Stories
By Jamel Brinkley
FSG: 240 pages, $26
(Aug. 1)
Brinkley’s second short-story collection is superb. At a time when second books often fail and few publishers risk short fiction, Brinkley returns (after 2018’s “A Lucky Man”) with a must-read: stories about how our actions and inaction change everyone’s lives. Set in New York City, these tales of witness involving Black characters insist on attention as they love, lose, succeed, fail and live extraordinary ordinary lives.
The Apology
By Jimin Han
Little, Brown: 304 pages, $28
(Aug. 1)
Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, you might still be haunted by the memory of lost loved ones. In her second novel, Han shows how busy a family ghost can be. Hak Jeonga, a Korean matriarch, dies at 105 before she’s able to intervene in a disturbing family situation. Her past life of privilege often clashes humorously with the errands of her afterlife, but it’s her strong and serene sense of purpose that will delight anyone with relatives who tend to micromanage.
Edan Lepucki breaks down the influences on ‘Time’s Mouth,’ her forthcoming epic on motherhood, magic, California cults and L.A.’s complicated charms.
Time’s Mouth
By Edan Lepucki
Counterpoint: 416 pages, $28
(Aug. 1)
Ursa leads a 1970s Northern California commune, raising her son Ray and introducing women to a method of time travel she discovered as an abused teenager in Connecticut. Ursa ran away then, and later Ray and his girlfriend, Cherry, do the same, absconding to Los Angeles. In order to help Ray and his young child, Ursa will have to engage with Time itself. The novel that results is weird and wacky and wonderful to read.
Mobility
By Lydia Kiesling
Crooked Media Reads: 368 pages, $28
(Aug. 1)
Elizabeth Glenn can’t quite shake her childhood moniker “Bunny,” nor her childhood legacy as the daughter of a U.S. diplomat whose postings awakened her to the importance of fossil fuels in world politics. As she climbs the corporate ladder of a Texas-based oil company, Bunny slowly realizes that energy isn’t just a matter of machines, but also the toughest and scarcest commodity for all modern women.
Lydia Kiesling’s second novel, ‘Mobility,’ is a political novel in the tradition of Upton Sinclair. That made it a great fit for Crooked Media’s publishing imprint
Happiness Falls
By Angie Kim
Hogarth: 400 pages, $28
(Aug. 29)
Kim, whose 2019 novel “Miracle Creek” was an incendiary courtroom drama, returns with a novel (again set in northern Virginia) that will change the way you think about communication. Mia, 20 years old and a chatterbox, narrates a story about a missing person: her father. Does Adam Parson’s disappearance have something to do with his son Eugene, whose Angelman syndrome has left him mute?
NONFICTION
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
By Susan Casey
Doubleday: 352 pages, $32
(Aug. 1)
Casey’s writing about the world’s oceans has been captivating ever since her 2005 book “The Devil’s Teeth,” about the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco and sharks that gather there. In “The Underworld,” Casey proves to be an exceptional adventurer and chronicler but also a member of a community dedicated to exploration and conservation of our least-understood aquatic wild places.
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
By Lara Love Hardin
Simon & Schuster: 320 pages, $29
(Aug. 1)
Once a privileged suburban mom, Hardin funded her heroin addiction by stealing neighbors’ credit cards, was convicted of 32 felonies, and became Inmate S32179. After negotiating prison politics and being released, she found success as a ghostwriter — but her shame tainted her achievements and her dazzling life of encounters with stars including Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Hardin’s narrative to self-acceptance is dazzling too, as momentous as the road she’s traveled.
The 14 most essential works of nonfiction include histories by Kevin Starr, Carey McWilliams, Reyner Banham and, ruling them all, Mike Davis’ ‘City of Quartz.’
Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping
By Shane McCrae
Scribner: 272 pages, $27
(Aug. 1)
The award-winning poet was kidnapped at age 3 from his white mother and Black father by his maternal grandparents, who were white supremacists. They hid his heritage from him as much as they could — or taunted him for it when they couldn’t. The legacy McCrae had to pull into adult life is here told honestly, the author’s lyrical writing heightening the facts and feelings rather than softening them.
Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson
By Sally H. Jacobs
St. Martin’s Press: 464 pages, $32
(Aug. 15)
Harlem-born Althea Gibson knocked the tennis world’s lily-white country-club socks off with her powerful game in the early 1950s. She won at Wimbledon, she won at Forest Hills, she became No. 1 in her sport and was the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Jacobs, a Boston Globe journalist, shows how Gibson endured too much racism and too little admiration while setting the precedent for a more diverse and interesting sport.
Jim Thorpe won two golds at the 1912 Olympics, then had them stripped (and posthumously restored this year). David Maraniss’ new biography honors him.
Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
By Yepoka Yeebo
Bloomsbury: 400 pages, $30
(Aug. 29)
Dr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah told investors he could access Kwame Nkrumah’s Oman Ghana Trust Fund, billions of dollars the country’s first president had supposedly funneled to Swiss banks. He was a classic fraudster, neither a doctor nor operating under his real name. But Ghanaian journalist Yeebo takes it to another level, tracing Blay-Miezah’s scams to the lies of British colonial administrators who toppled Nkrumah. It’s a juicy, wild ride.
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