20 new books to read in August

Summer is winding down, so don't miss these hot new titles before your last lazy beach day of the season
By David Canfield
July 31, 2018 at 11:55 AM EDT
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August's Hottest Reads

Summer is winding down, so don't miss these hot new titles before your last lazy beach day of the season.

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The Distance Home by Paula Saunders

Credit: Random House

Saunders' ambitious, decades-spanning debut runs the gamut in its depiction of a postwar American family, tackling themes of sibling rivalry, sexuality, failure, and much more. (Aug. 7)

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Dopesick by Beth Macy

Credit: Little, Brown and Company

A sensitively written and rigorously reported book on the opoid epidemic, Macy (Factory Man) combines intimate portraits of real addicts with detailed history of a burgeoning American crisis. (Aug. 7)

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If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim 

Credit: William Morrow

Kim's first novel juxtaposes the horrors of war with the love of family, building into a timely portrait of refugee life. It traces the saga of two "ill-fated" lovers who make difficult choices and face devastating consequences as they live through the Korean civil war. (Aug. 7)

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The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor

Credit: Catapult

A companion piece to his Man Booker-longlisted Reservoir 13, McGregor's latest works perfectly well as a standalone, offering an alternately sweet and suspensful depiction of a community as it reacts, person by person, to the disappearance of a teenage girl. (Aug. 7)

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So Much Life Left Over by Louis de Bernières

Credit: Pantheon

The pained sequel to the author's acclaimed novel The Dust that Falls from Dreams goes in-depth into the lives and struggles of a British family in the early 20th century. (Aug. 7)

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The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg

Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The nightmarishly vivid second novel by van den Berg (Find Me) explores grief, marriage, and travel, following one widow's journey across Cuba and what happens when she locks eyes with her supposedly late husband. (Aug. 7)

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An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena 

Credit: Pamela Dorman Books

Lapena fans should know what to expect here: The Couple Next Door author writes another nail-biter perfect for an all-nighter. Here's the hook for her latest: "A weekend retreat at a cozy mountain lodge is supposed to be the perfect getaway . . . but when the storm hits, no one is getting away." (Aug. 7)

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Attention by Joshua Cohen 

Credit: Random House

Joshua Cohen, named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists and with multiple novels under his belt, moves into nonfiction with this prescient book of essays. Attention reveals a fresh, vital literary voice as it covers seemingly every imaginable topic relating to modern life, both at home and abroad. (Aug. 14)

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Cherry by Nico Walker

Credit: Knopf

One of the summer's most exciting literary breakthroughs, Cherry is a profane, raw, and harrowingly timely account of the effects of war and the perils of addiction, a novel written in the first-person by a man currently serving an 11-year prison sentence. (Aug. 14)

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Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Credit: Penguin

Translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft, this elliptical novel requires a certain mental commitment, tracing from page to page various figures' experiences with time and space. But profundity lurks for those who stick with it. Don't just take our word for it: Flights won the 2018 International Man Booker Prize. (Aug. 14)

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A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

Credit: Penguin

Celeste Ng and Emma Cline are just two of the authors who have already sung the praises of this powerful debut. It centers on a pregnant woman who emigrates from China with an eye toward the American dream, and traces her determined journey to manifest it for herself. (Aug. 14)

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Credit: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Reminiscent of of Barbara Kingsolver, this Southern-set period novel unfurls a whodunit against a typical coming-of-age tale, when a mysterious "Marsh Girl" becomes the primary suspect of a grisly crime. (Aug. 14)

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Heartbreaker by Claudia Dey

Credit: Random House

Pitched as a deeply felt mash-up of Twin Peaks, The Handmaid's Tale, and Stranger Things, this '80s-set novel centers on a young woman's troubled relationship with her mother, and is told from three perspectives: a daughter, a murderous dog, and a teenage boy named Supernatural. (Aug. 21)

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How Are You Going to Save Yourself by JM Holmes

Credit: Little, Brown and Company

How Are You Going to Save Yourself follows the lives of four friends as they drift apart and come back together, navigating adulthood as black men living with traumatic legacies who have been offered very different fortunes as they come of age. Holmes’ searing study in masculinity is offset by irresistible heart and biting humor. (Aug. 21)

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Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Credit: William Morrow

The ever-popular crime novelist is back with another pulse-pounding standalone, this one considering the twisted relationship between a mother and a daughter after the latter realizes she may not know the woman who gave birth to her at all. The book is currently in development to be adapted as a TV series. (Aug. 21)

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Vox by Christina Dalcher

Credit: Berkley

In the wake of Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale adaptation — and the volatile political climate that helped popularize it — urgent feminist dystopian fiction is all over publishing right now. Vox presents a vision of a near-future America in which women are allowed to speak a maximum of just 100 words per day. (Aug. 21)

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Whiskey When We're Dry by John Larison

Credit: Viking

Larison's neo-Western, about a young woman who heads West while disguised as a boy, is already generating plenty of buzz: film and TV rights have already been acquired by the team behind the Planet of the Apes reboot. (Aug. 21)

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French Exit by Patrick deWitt

Credit: HarperCollins

White-collar crime is the milleu of choice for this outrageous family romp. A caustic older woman and her adult son — oh, and his slowly-dying cat — are forced to flee New York for Paris and escape scandal, only for things to get (hilariously) worse. (Aug. 28)

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Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden

Credit: Akashic Books

McFadden, writer of great, imaginative novels for years now (including Sugar and Gathering of Waters), is back with one of her best yet. Exploring ritual sacrifice in contemporary West Africa, Praise Song offers a fascinating, painful glimpse into a world beyond America's shores, filled with tragedy and love and hope. (Aug. 28)

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The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien

Credit: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The final installment of the fantasy mastermind's "Lost Tales" Middle-Earth trilogy, The Fall of Gondolin is a must-read for any Tolkien fan. J.R.R.'s son Christopher compiled the book, which features gorgeous original illustrations by Alan Lee. (Aug. 30)

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