Taking a PAGE

This summer's crop of books is guaranteed to entertain and engage, as getaway reading once again becomes a possible pastime

Keziah Weir

Vanities/Books

THISWILL ALL BE OVERSOON

Cecily Strong

SNL's sharp impressionist lays her own life bare— social anxiety and depression included— in this memoir of losing her young cousin to brain cancer in early 2020. (Simon & Schuster)

RADIANT FUGITIVES

Nawaaz Ahmed

Very pregnant Seema's estranged sister and mother visit her in San Francisco and grapple with differing views on religion and sexuality—as told, beautifully, by her child in the moment of his birth. (Counterpoint)

THE COUNCIL OF ANIMALS

Nick MeDonell

What if our fate was in the hands of the animals? What if they all spoke "grak"? What if one powerful decision-maker was a crafty lab baboon? What if the question was whether to let the humans live—or eat them? (Henry Holt)

THE STARTUP WIFE

Tahmima Anam

In a world where consent and death are handled on apps, married couple Asha (coder) and Cyrus ("spirit guide") build an idealistic social network that Silicon Valley-ifies spirituality. It's downhill from there. (Scribner)

FALLING

T.J. Newman

In this thriller, a marital excavation written by a former flight attendant, a stranger rigs a pilot's family with explosives; if he doesn't crash his plane, his family will die. A film adaptation is already in the works. (Avid Reader)

SEEKYOU

Kristen Radtke

An essayistic memoir wrapped in the casing of a graphic novel, this awesome study in loneliness— "one of the most universal things any person can feel"— spans laugh tracks, ham radios, and the science of isolation. (Pantheon)

ALEC

William di Canzio

Blending scenes from E.M. Forster's towering 20thcentury novel Maurice with fresh avenues of exploration, this novel focuses on gamekeeper Alec Scudder, the great love to Forster's title character. (FSG)

HELLOF A BOOK

Jason Mott

In increasingly intertwining narratives, a Black novelist with a penchant for noir dialogue and a shaky grip on reality tours his debut novel; a boy, bullied for his dark skin, comes of age. (Dutton)

STEREO(TYPE)

Jonah MixonWebster

In this crackling debut collection from the Flint, Michiganborn poet and PEN America Literary Award winner: "Come guillotine. Come gallows. Come gas soaked pyre. Come charred jaw..." (Knopf)

VIRTUE

Hermione Hoby

Luca, an aimless intern at a lit mag, becomes entangled with a glamorous older couple; he chooses a desultory seaside summer with them over the political roil of New York in 2017, to lasting effect. (Riverhead)

AFTERPARTIES

Anthony Veasna So

This posthumous story collection centers on Cambodian American identity: A Khmer man stays at a temple after his father's death; sisters observe a stranger at the family doughnut shop; a woman recounts a school shooting. (Ecco)

SOMETHING

NEWUNDER

THESUN

Alexandra Kleeman

When Patrick lands in a near-future L.A.— the water system is privatized and suspect—to monitor his book adaptation, he and loose-cannon starlet Cassidy tangle with WAT-R's shady investors. (Hogarth)

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