24 Books We Can’t Wait to Read: August 2024

Fiction 

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter – August 6 (Hogarth Press)

“Exquisitely drawn characters, scenes that jump off the page, and international locales that’ll make you want to pack a bag and go: The Rich People Have Gone Away is a novel that fearlessly defies conventions to deliver a satiating, five-star experience. A keen observer of people and class, Regina Porter has crafted an inventive, hilarious, and wholly unpredictable work full of vibrant prose and genuine tenderness. . . . A seven-course meal that gets better and better.” –Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck

Mammoth by Eva Baltasar (translated by Julia Sanches) – August 6 (And Other Stories)

The followup novel to International Booker-shortlisted Boulder is a story of queer motherhood and survival deep in the countryside. Mammoth’s protagonist is a disenchanted young lesbian. She’s inexperienced, irritated by life, eager to gestate, and determined to strip everything else down to essentials. She seduces men at random, swaps her urban habitat for an isolated farmhouse, befriends a shepherd, nurses lambs, battles stray cats, waits tables, cleans house, and dabbles in sex work–all in pursuit of life in the raw. This small bomb of a novel, not remotely pastoral, builds to a howling crescendo of social despair, leaving us at the mercy of Eva Baltasar’s wild voice.

Villa E by Jane Alison – August 6 (Liveright Publishing Corporation)

Along the glittering coast of southern France, a white villa sits atop an earthen terrace–a site of artistic genius, now subject to bitter dispute. Eileen, a new architect known for her elegant chair designs, poured the concrete herself; she built it as a haven for her and her lover, and called it E-1027. When the hulking Le G, a founder of modernist architecture, laid eyes on the house in 1929, he could see his influence in the sleek lines–and he would not be outdone. Impassioned, he took a paintbrush to the clean, white walls. . . . Thirty years later, Eileen has not returned to Villa E and Le G has never left–his summers spent aging in a cabin just feet away. Mining the psyches of two brilliant, complex artists and the extraordinary place that bound them, Jane Alison boldly reimagines a now-legendary act of vandalism into a lushly poetic and mesmerizing novel of power, predation, and obsession.

House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias – August 6 (Mulholland Books)

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo’s mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree. Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.

Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey (with Leslie Jamison) – August 13 (Random House)

Rebecca Godfrey’s Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune. Rebecca Godfrey’s final book–completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey’s death in 2022–brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.

Silken Gazelles by Jokha Alharthi (translated by Marilyn Booth) – August 13 (Catapult)

Raised as sisters, Ghazaala is devastated when her friend Asiya is forced to leave their small mountainside village following a tragic circumstance. It’s a separation that haunts her into adulthood, and she never gives up on finding a love that might replace the bond they shared. Years later, Ghazaala’s family moves to Muscat, where she falls in love with a professional violinist who lives in their building. She completely surrenders herself to his charm and, despite her parents’ opposition, runs away from home to marry him. While balancing the duties of a new wife—caring for her husband, their home, and, before long, their twin boys—Ghazaala resumes her education and enrolls in university. Ghazaala’s sharp wit catches the attention of another student, Harir, during their freshman year. In the pages of her diary, Harir recounts the story of her deepening, transformative friendship with Ghazaala over the course of ten years. The elusive, ghostly existence of Asiya exerts a force over both their lives, yet neither Ghazaala nor Harir is aware of the connection. From the brilliant mind of Jokha Alharthi comes a tale of childhood friendship, and how its significance—and loss—can be recalibrated at different stages of life.

The Palace of Eros by Caro de Robertis – August 13 (Atria/Primero Sueno Press)

Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives. When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Before long, Psyche’s nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros’s true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both–and transforms the very heavens.

Napalm in the Heart by Pol Guasch (translated by Mara Faye Lethem) – August 13 (Fsg Originals)

“Pol Guasch has written a punk novel whose title quotes Iggy Pop’s ‘heart full of napalm,’ but there is no rock here and no animal roaming the streets. We instead find ourselves in a mysterious world of the future, or of the past. It is a world of desire and survival, in the aftermath of an apocalypse marked by different languages, obscure repression, and prose as mysterious as it is beautiful.” –Mariana Enríquez, author of Our Share of Night

The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao – August 13 (Melville House Publishing)

A mesmerizing epistolary tale of a sensual queer love affair set against the backdrop of Las Vegas’ gritty underbelly. The Italy Letters is a slim, powerful shot of literary fantasia from one of America’s best-kept secrets. Long an underground favorite, visionary writer Vi Khi Nao weaves an unforgettable and highly distinctive story of a love affair suffused with longing, erotic passion, and heartbreak–all while painting a picture of the gritty underside of Las Vegas.

The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya – August 13 (Pantheon Books)

“Brilliant. Thrilling and unpredictable, it struck me as a story of misunderstanding and failed connection, told with a dreamy, Sofia Coppola-esque quality. As a portrayal of artistic creation fuelled by bitterness, The Hypocrite uncovers an uncomfortable truth: how a piece of art can both unify and alienate.” –Natasha Brown, author of Assembly

The Avian Hourglass by Lindsey Drager – August 13 (Dzanc Books)

The birds have disappeared. The stars are no longer visible. The Crisis is growing worse. In a town as isolated as a snowglobe, a woman who dreams of becoming a radio astronomer struggles to raise the triplets she gave birth to as a gestational surrogate, whose parents were killed in a car accident. Surrounded by characters who wear wings, memorize etymologies, and build gigantic bird nests, and bound to this town in which young adults must decide between two binary worldviews–either YES or NO–the woman is haunted by the old fable of the Girl in Glass Vessel, a cautionary tale about prying back the façade of one’s world.

Vague Predictions & Prophecies by Daisuke Shen – August 13 (Clash Books)

“Daisuke Shen is the best and smartest talent working in the short long form today. Shen’s characters satisfy both expected and eccentric, terrestrial and astrological, humanoid and primal demands. Sharp in pungency and volatile like soy nuts in their composition, Shen’s recklessly unforgettable characters are wasabi-like in their delivery and psyche-stimulating in their inventions. Shen’s stories capture their suffering, distress, oddity, madness, futility, dejection, love, and misery with depths of empathy, sharp honesty, and clear foreshadowing. These stories ooze with nail polish, sandpaper, with horseradish roots. Vague Predictions & Prophecies is a rice cake on fire.” — Vi Khi Nao, author of War is Not My Mother

Wild Failure: Stories by Zoe Whittall – August 20 (Ballantine Books)

“How do I describe this short story collection that distracted me from my cooking and almost caused me to burn my dinner? It’s like Zoe Whittall cut these slice-of-life stories with a serrated knife whose blade is sharp enough that we see an expert storyteller in her element and dull enough that the wounds of her characters hurt so good.” –Catherine Hernandez, author of Scarborough

Swallow the Ghost by Eugenie Montague – August 20 (Mulholland Books)

Things are going well for Jane Murphy, or so it seems. She’s making it in New York, a sort of wunderkind at the social media marketing startup where she works. She’s put an experimental writer, Jeremy Miller, on the map by helping him concoct a viral internet novel, told in fragments through various fake social media accounts. But privately, Jane feels trapped, ruled by her routines and her compulsions with food and social media, caught up in an endless cycle of soothing and punishing herself. There is so much that she has to keep hidden, especially from Jeremy as their professional relationship transforms into something more. But then, tragedy strikes, and the story changes track. As the perspective shifts, so too does our image of Jane and those in her orbit as what we think we know begins to unravel. Audacious, emotionally precise and head-spinning in its ingenuity, Swallow the Ghost interrogates our public identities and private realities through the kaleidoscopic portrait of one woman’s life.

Euphoria Days by Pilar Fraile (translated by Lizzie Davis) – August 20 (Great Place Books)

What makes a happy life? In a slightly off-kilter Madrid of the near future, María, a data analyst, has devoted her career to answering that timeless question with computer programs and algorithms—until a recurring nightmare about worms throws her life into disarray. Others have sought happiness elsewhere: Blasco has turned to internet porn; his wife, Diana, to motherhood; Angélica to what she thinks might be love; and the hapless Carlos to substances and a spiritual guide who may or may not be a hack. But in a world increasingly governed by data, are anyone’s decisions really their own?

Non-Fiction & Poetry 

Transgenesis by Ava Nathaniel Winter – August 6 (Milkweed Editions)

“These poems of eros, erudition, and epistemologies achieve more than the sum of their parts; they hold the body in a care that’s rare in life and rarer still in words. Winter’s debut is a finely wrought gem, one that doesn’t shy away from centering the grand yet vexed idea of love–but rather expands on what love can do, what it is, and, ultimately, who it is for.” –Ocean Vuong, author of Time Is a Mother

“But Did You Die?” poems by Precious Okoyomon – August 6 (Asterism) 

“Precious is every kind of artist but they could only be a poet. They ‘also’ barge into every world, their work is pure manifesto, stopping to laugh, it’s bawdy and pretty, handsome, cataclysmic and righteous. It’s food. It’s impatient and entirely on their own time and I think they touch ours, everyone else’s, in a burn the earth Jimi Hendrix way. No, they’re post him. The earth is burnt. Precious starts there.” – Eileen Myles

An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work by Charlotte Shane – August 13 (Simon & Schuster)

“With An Honest Woman, Charlotte Shane’s already-formidable clarity and grace as a critic and essayist are here turned so honestly, so ruthlessly to an examination of womanhood–of how women make ourselves known to ourselves and to each other under patriarchy. She is one of the very, very few writers I want to read writing about our lives with straight men.” – Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work and staff writer at The New Republic

Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life by Sofia Samatar – August 13 (Soft Skull)

“Opacities is a writer’s notebook that we get to read pre-posthumously, a conversation with the self and the dead, a gesture toward the fantasy of publication without publicity. A book for Rilke’s ‘narrow ledge,’ full of intimacy and intensity, comforts and agitations, the haunting desires of artists.”  –Elisa Gabbert, author of Normal Distance and Any Person Is the Only Self

My Race Is My Gender: Portraits of Nonbinary People of Color Edited by Stephanie Hsu and Ka-Man Tse – August 16 (Rutgers University Press)

My Race is My Gender is the first anthology by nonbinary writers of color to include photography and visual portraits, centering their everyday experiences of negotiating intersectional identities. While informed by queer theory and critical race theory, the authors share their personal stories in accessible language. Bringing together Black, Indigenous, Latine, and Asian perspectives, its six contributors present an intergenerational look at what it means to belong to marginalized queer communities in the U.S. and feel solidarity with a global majority at the same time. They also provide useful insights into how genderqueer and nonbinary activism can both energize and be fueled by such racial justice movements as Black Lives Matter.

Planes Flying Over a Monster: Essays by Daniel Saldaña París (translated by Christina Macsweeney and Philip K. Zimmerman) – August 20 (Catapult)

From one of Mexico’s most exciting young writers, a cosmopolitan and candid essay collection exploring life in cities across the world and reflecting on the transformative importance of literature in understanding ourselves In ten intimate essays, Daniel Saldaña París explores the cities he has lived in, each one home to a new iteration of himself. In Mexico City he’s a young poet eager to prove himself. In Montreal–an opioid addict desperate for relief. In Madrid–a lonely student seeking pleasure in grotesque extremes. These now diverging, now coalescing selves raise questions: Where can we find authenticity? How do we construct the stories that define us? What if our formative memories are closer to fiction than truth?

Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma & Inheritance by Ari Richter – August 20 (Fantagraphics Books)

Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz is an act of self-discovery and the resuscitation of historical memory. At its heart is the intersection of a genocidal political moment in 20th century history and the author’s own family history. Told from the perspectives of four generations of the author’s family, spanning pre-war Germany to post-Trump America, it is both a celebration of Jewish cultural resilience and a warning of democracy’s fragility in the face of the seductive forces of authoritarianism. Part travelogue, part memoir, part historic retelling, author Ari Richter recreates his family’s journey leading up to and extending beyond the Holocaust.

Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith – August 20 (Graywolf Press)

Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures.

I Don’t Want to Be Understood by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza – August 27 (Alice James Books)

A transsexual woman pieces together fragmented details of a repressive religious childhood and an unsupportive family, drawing from autobiographical experiences of the poet’s life. I Don’t Want To Be Understood is a work of resistance against the conventional trans narrative, and a resistance against the idea that trans people should have to make themselves clear and understandable to others in other to deserve human rights. This is a compelling, urgent collection about the body and survival that asks how we learn to love in a culture where normal is defined by exclusion and discrimination.