My August Wishlist
The Booker Prize longlist and some new publications I'm excited about
It’s August! How scary! We’re now seven months into the year, and I still feel like I’m only just getting started. Some things I’m looking forward to this month: a trip to Edinburgh for the Fringe and Book Festival, a Greek holiday where I intend to switch off my phone, a quieter month of work (hopefully!) and some time to make a dent in The Booker Prize longlist.
The Booker Prize
Like most snooty people in Publishing, I get very overexcited when The Booker Prize longlist is announced at the end of July. Like it or not, it becomes my unofficial reading list for the rest of the Summer. I’ve stopped trying to read the whole list since Ducks, Newburyport was on it in 2019 (it’s 1000 pages long and written as one long sentence), but I still love following the conversations around the 13 titles that make up the ‘Booker Dozen’. I haven’t read any of the longlist this year, but it seems like quite a good selection.
Top of my reading list is Percival Everett’s James, a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn which became an instant bestseller when it was published in April. I know I’ll love it, and I suspect this longlisting will give me the kick I need to finally pick it up.
I’m also excited to read Richard Powers’s Playground, although this isn’t published until late September (so I’m going to try my best to get my hands on an early copy). If you haven’t read Powers’s chunky, 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Overstory, I’d recommend to start there in the meantime; it’s a stunning, sweeping story of trees and environmentalism. Playground moves from the forest to the ocean, and I can only imagine it’s equally beautiful and powerful.
Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot sounds thrilling and original. A novel about eight teenage girl boxers, told through a series of face-offs during a championship games, this could be the perfect accompaniment to your Olympics viewing this August.
Alongside these three big American novels sits the quieter, more introspective Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, which is set in a monastery in rural Australia.
With three debuts, six American authors, five books about displacement and exile and the first Dutch and Native American authors on the longlist, this year’s Booker Dozen feels expansive and inspiring. The novels take readers from the depths of the ocean to outer space, exploring universal themes through remarkably specific and original concepts in the way of all great fiction. The chair of the judges, Edmund de Waal says “this is timely and timeless fiction, in which there is much at stake”; the books all sound uniquely moving and inspiring, and I can’t wait to start reading.
Have you read any of the longlisted titles? Or which of them are on your reading list?
Publications on my wish list
Although August is generally a quiet month in the Publishing calendar, there are still quite a few new titles on my radar. I guess publishers want to make the most of the downtime and give big books room to breathe? Here are some of the books I’d like to get my hands on this month - of course, I have neither the time nor the money to read them all, but some of them might take your fancy. Let me know if you read any of them - we could even do a book swap!
Rare Singles, Benjamin Myers - 01/08
Benjamin Myers’s ambitious Cuddy won the 2023 Goldsmith’s Prize, and I’m excited to read this new novel. Pitched for fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Coe, it sounds a little more accessible than Cuddy, but no less moving.
The Wedding People, Alison Espach - 01/08
A novel about a hijacked wedding in Rhode Island, this could be the perfect summer holiday read. Pandora Sykes compares the writing to Katherine Heiney, so count me in!
Banal Nightmare, Halle Butler - 01/08
I loved Butler’s previous novel, The New Me, and this sounds no less brilliant. Although it opens with the classic trope of a big city girl returning to her hometown and her roots, the reviews promise a more audacious, unapologetic read than the blurb suggests. With rave endorsements from Zadie Smith and David Sedaris, I’m curious to see what it’s like.
Ex-Wife, Ursula Parrott - 01/08
This reissue of a forgotten classic has been published to perfection, from the covetable caps to the distinctive cover design which brings a new life to this bestseller from 1929. But these much-hyped books can sometimes disappoint, so I’m intrigued to see what the buzz is all about.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Her, Kate Weinberg - 01/08
This sounds like another tender, commercial read which balances beauty and pain. Inspired by the author’s own experience of long covid, the novel explores grief, chronic illness and mental health. It sounds like it might be a hard read, but reviews promise a lightness and hope alongside the dark themes.
Wife, Charlotte Mendelson - 08/08
I’ve been waiting all year to read this, so may move it to the top of my holiday TBR pile. It’s about motherhood, love and passion, and promises to be just as good as Mendelson’s previous novels of turbulent families.
Mina’s Matchbox, Yoko Ogawa - 15/08
From the author of The Memory Police comes another novel of memory and secrets. It’s the story of a young girl who leaves Tokyo to stay in her aunt’s mansion, and the magic and mysteries she uncovers from their family’s past. It’s won the Tanazaki Prize when it was first published in the Japanese original in 2006, and has now been translated by Stephen Snyder. It sounds similar in themes to a book I love that we’re publishing next year, and I really like the matchbox-inspired cover design, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it.
Liars, Sarah Manguso - 22/08
This is one of those books whose cover lures me in: I’ve seen it all over Instagram. It also sounds like a thrilling read, telling the story of a woman forced to choose between her flourishing artistic career and her floundering marriage. If Miranda July, whose recent novel, All Fours paints an entirely original picture of a marriage in crisis, calls it “formally daring and rigorously uncompromising”, then I’ll definitely give this a read.
Cuckoo, Nell Frizzell - 29/08
I didn’t love Frizzell’s last novel, The Panic Years, but I’d still like to give this a try. It’s a novel about a young woman who discovers she has a half brother at the same time she realises she’s pregnant: “who gets to be in the family?”, the strapline asks. It sounds like a tender exploration of modern families, for fans of Meg Mason and Caroline O’Donoghue.
Do any of these sound up your street? Let me know if I’ve missed any other August publications, and please share your thoughts on the suggestions above!