Tower and Town, July 2016

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Summer Reading

So many books, so little space... new titles are coming in all the time, but some that we've enjoyed so far this year include

• Sweet Caress, by William Boyd. Blurring history and fiction this autobiography is convincing, realistic, complex and structurally accomplished while remaining unpretentiously readable. Boyd's many fans won't need convincing, but if you've not read him before, you have a treat in store.
• The Girls, by Emma Cline, out in June, is a debut novel which will be one of the books of this summer. A coming of age story, set in and around a cult, it perfectly captures the edgy, volatile vulnerability of a teenager in thrall to older, cooler girls.
• Another of this year's must-reads is The Kindness, by Polly Samson, brilliantly plotted, bittersweet, and evocatively descriptive.
• The House at the Edge of the World, by Julia Rochester, is a psychological mystery, a family drama, subvertingly romantic, dealing with home and identity.
• Or, for a straightforward, pacey, gutsy thriller, try Vanishing Games, by Roger Hobbs – smuggled gemstones, professional assassins, graphic (really, not for the squeamish) violence, perfect beach or holiday flight reading.
• Angus won't let me finish this brief round-up of choice novels without urging you all to read Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf. It is (Angus says) 'close to perfection'.
• SPQR, by (the utterly fabulous) Mary Beard, is scholarly, yet informally written, and while it doesn't exactly say Everything You Thought You Knew About Ancient Rome is Wrong, it does challenge preconceptions – as she says, about so much, the only certainty is that we really don't know for sure!
• Closer to our own time, A Curious Friendship, by Anna Thomasson, looks at the intense and sustaining platonic friendship between the artist Rex Whistler and Edith Olivier, writer and hostess to a literary and artistic circle which included Cecil Beaton and Siegfried Sassoon.
• If you've been in the shop recently I've probably pressed Crooked Heart, by Lissa Evans, on you, with slightly scary enthusiasm. If you've resisted so far, be warned, I'm not giving up! Also, for a light, funny, touching holiday read, have a look at A Robot in the Garden, by Deborah Install.

Debbie Guest