June 27, 2025, 4:04am

July is here! And, amongst other things, that means another month of excellent paperbacks to consider, which I hope will provide a few brief antidotes to the toxicity of the political landscape. Below, you’ll find twenty-five intriguing options in fiction and nonfiction; if you missed them in hardcover, now is the chance to get them in fresh new paperback editions.

You’ll find multiple books on Joan Didion (as well as multiple books on sharks, both subjects I, at least, quite enjoy), one of which also explores and complicates Didion’s connections to Eve Babitz; a look at the politics of food (including school lunch) in America; new fiction from Rachel Kushner, Kiley Reid, Ayşegül Savaş, Ben Shattuck, Laura van den Berg, Clare Pollard, and many, many others; and much, much more.

I hope you enjoy these! Stay safe, as always, and curl up somewhere cool, or at least shaded, with one of these this month.

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Yasmin Zaher, The Coin
(Catapult)

“The Coin feels like a distinctly Palestinian novel—concerning itself, as it does, with its narrator’s statelessness and increasing sense of isolation…also does the vital work of reminding the reader that there is no single story to be told about any group of people….Zaher’s protagonist struggles under the weight of immense trauma, yes, but she’s also a fashionista, an obsessor, and an educator doing her (sometimes-flawed) best to impart wisdom…dizzying and delightful.”
–Vogue

Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
(Scribner)

“Creation Lake reinvents the spy novel in one cool, erudite gesture. Only Rachel Kushner could weave environmental activism, paranoia, and nihilism into a gripping philosophical thriller. Enthralling and sleekly devious, this book is also a lyrical reflection on both the origin and the fate of our species. A novel this brilliant and profound shouldn’t be this much fun.”
–Hernan Diaz

Ayşegül Savaş, The Anthropologists
(Bloomsbury)

“So I loved, absolutely loved The Anthropologists. It’s by the Turkish writer Aysegül Savas….The book is really about how you make a life together with someone else. And what is the bedrock of this book is that the relationship is really loving, but that It doesn’t mean that the big questions of life are easily settled.”
–Alexandra Schwartz

Lili Anolik, Didion and Babitz
(Scribner)

“As Lili Anolik argues in this joint biography, Didion & Babitz represent more than what it means to be a woman who writes: They’re two halves of American womanhood. It’s a big swing, but one that Anolik knocks out of the park, showing readers how Didion was the sun to Babitz’s moon, the superego to her id.”
–Bustle

Evelyn McDonnell, The World According to Joan Didion
(HarperOne)

“Evelyn McDonnell has written a wonderfully fitting tribute to Joan Didion: one that avoids simple platitudes, approaching the great writer with a fierce, probing intelligence, flawless language, and the impulse, which drove Didion’s finest work, to understand the dreams of another.”
–Hua Hsu

Shalom Auslander, Feh: A Memoir
(Riverhead)

“Auslander blends both a sense of despair and a self-deprecating whimsy in his latest….Part personal history, part self-examination, and part social commentary, his book addresses everything from Kafka to capitalism….A page-turning memoir that shouldn’t be missed….It could motivate readers to keep trudging onward, even when life seems overwhelming.”
–Library Journal

Kiley Reid, Come and Get It
(Putnam)

“Reid returns after her smash hit Such a Fun Age with a sardonic and no-holds-barred comedy of manners….Reid is a keen observer­—every page sparkles with sharp analysis of her characters. This blistering send-up of academia is interlaced with piercing moral clarity.”
–Publishers Weekly

Laura van den Berg, State of Paradise
(Picador)

“With exquisite prose, smart lines on every page, a building sense of growing strangeness tinged with dread, and surprises all the way to the end, State of Paradise might be van den Berg’s best novel so far…this book is at once an adventure and a treat, a deep study of Florida’s psychogeography and a creepy story about ghosts, missing people, cults, and technology. Don’t miss it.”
–NPR

Uchenna Awoke, The Liquid Eye of a Moon
(Catapult)

“[C]ompulsory reading for fans of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and Imbolo Mbue….Awoke’s style is reminiscent of Chinua Achebe’s, drawing on oral storytelling traditions and embodying the Nigerian proverbial style of speech. Yet it also has notes of Homer’s Odyssey…explores a part of Nigerian culture and tradition not often examined in literature by questioning an ancient and harmful caste system, and the result is a novel that is gripping and unforgettable.”
–Booklist

Barrett Brown, My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir
(Picador)

“A masterful foray into the darkest recesses of media, intel, and disinfo that somehow manages to be as hilarious as it is frightening. It’s plain to see why such lengths have been taken to silence the author. Barrett Brown is our Hunter S. Thompson.”
–Frankie Boyle

Storm Jameson, Journey from the North: A Memoir
(Pushkin Press Classics)

“Her frank voice is as relevant today as ever it was in her own time—and it may still speak to many of our own anxieties around freedom, democracy and the future of liberal thought.”
–Times Literal Supplement

Andrea Freeman, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
(Metropolitan Books)

“Ruin Their Crops on the Ground nourishes readers with jaw-dropping stories and revelatory data about the use of food as a tool of oppression. This passionate book enlightens and enrages. A glass of milk will never be the same.”
–Paul Butler

Ben Shattuck, The History of Sound: Stories
(Penguin Books)

“Shattuck has recovered what was thought lost—in American history, natural history, and unspoken human longing—and returned it to us on the page. This is what great art does. Lovingly detailed, beautifully told, with interconnections that make the reader gasp aloud, these stories are unlike anything on your bookshelf. I love The History of Sound and you will too. Get it now.”
–Andrew Sean Greer

Mai Sennaar, They Dream in Gold
(Zando/SJP Lit)

“A remarkable chronicle of a young couple separated by mysterious circumstances and their families’ attempts to forge better lives in the American South and Senegal….Sennaar impresses with her colorful cast of characters and deep well of stories. It’s a stunner.”
–Publishers Weekly

Asha Thanki, A Thousand Times Before
(Penguin Books)

“In expertly crafted prose, Thanki reinvents generational memory, conjuring inheritance as a tapestry of love, trauma, and choices that echo through blood. The memories within wormed their way under my skin and made me reflect about the collective of past lives that reside within all of us. A profoundly tender and complex debut that I didn’t want to put down.”
–Sequoia Nagamatsu

David Chaffetz, Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires
(Norton)

“A dog may be humanity’s best friend, but the horse is certainly the greatest ally. With the strength of horses added to their own modest physical abilities, humans radically changed everything from agriculture and transportation to sports and warfare. From milking to marauding, David Chaffetz’s Raiders, Rulers, and Traders takes the reader on a well-paced ride through the history of this revolutionary and emotional alliance of human and animal.”
–Jack Weatherford

Jasmin Graham, Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist
(Vintage)

“Graham had to face the sharp-teethed truths of academia, while creating a world of curiosity and discovery around the complex lives of sharks. To combat the racism she encountered in academia, Graham created an ‘ocean of her own’ to become an independent scientist and a champion of social justice.”
–Martha Ann Toll

Michael Taylor, Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion
(Liveright)

“A truly marvelous book: superb research and a sparkling narrative dramatize an epic battle of ideas and an intellectual thriller. Michael Taylor succeeds in reanimating those famous dinosaur wars of the nineteenth century with real brilliance, and makes them as fresh and furious as ever. Exuberant, stylish and brilliantly sustained throughout.”
–Richard Holmes

John Long, The Secret History of Sharks: The Rise of the Ocean’s Most Fearsome Predators
(Ballantine Books)

“Exhilarating. Long brings to life the incredible story of sharks….Each adventure is pulse-pounding, giving readers a front row seat to the discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of shark evolution….This accessible and engaging book is not only an enlightening read for those curious about marine life, but also a compelling case for why their survival is essential to our own.”
–American Scientist

Clare Pollard, The Modern Fairies
(Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)

“Funny, filthy, dancingly clever, The Modern Fairies is a delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairy tales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s Versailles. I gobbled it all up.”
–Joanna Quinn

Fernanda Trías, Pink Slime
(Scribner)

“Like a faintly distorting mirror, Pink Slime reflects back to us the image of a dying world. In this country, abandoned by God and government, the only consolation is the compassion and silent heroism of a few human beings. With her meticulous prose and the painful lucidity characteristic of her work, Fernanda Trías immerses us in a dystopia that expands around us like a poisonous perfume.”
–Guadalupe Nettel

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, Off the Books
(Holt)

“Beneath a budding romance and roadside banter, the story of the humanitarian crisis of the Uyghurs in China is masterfully presented, interweaving an international story with a more domestic one of what it means to be Chinese in the U.S. Frazier’s debut proves to be an enthralling ride, perfect for those who love an American road trip with a twist.”
–Booklist

R. Jisung Park, Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming Planet
(Princeton University Press)

“[A] deeply researched book….With gripping prose, this book encourages policymakers to consider the many hazards associated with the unavoidable increases in global temperature that the world faces. This is a call to arms addressing one of the most critical issues of contemporary times.”
–Library Journal

Tita Ramírez, Tell It to Me Singing
(Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books)

“The concept alone is brilliant—telenovela meets novel. The result is a book so fantastic and funny, so full of life, and so full of genuine heart that, like your favorite binge-worthy show, you’ll have trouble pulling yourself away.”
–Cristina Henríquez

Lauren Aliza Green, The World After Alice
(Penguin Books)

“In The World After Alice, Lauren Aliza Green lays bare the mysteries of grief, growth, and love in the wake of unthinkable loss. Green writes with a poet’s ear and an impressionist’s eye, and the result is a wise, elegiac novel that is impossible to put down even after turning the last gorgeous page.”
–Bret Anthony Johnston