Summer reads

I read local hero Frankie Barnet's Mood Swings over a few sweltering park afternoons—pure delight on a sentence structure and one of the funniest books I've read all year, like if Alissa Nutting or Alexandra Kleeman spent a lot of time on the 80 bus... At a chalet surrounded by nature, I read the extremely urbane A Year on Earth With Mr. Hell, luxuriating in Young Kim's languid language (and learning that Richard Hell uses emojis to sext 🍆). Worth it alone just for the descriptions of the gifts she gave him over the course of their relationship—there may not be a classier, more materialistic woman alive... Speaking of hedonism, I too read All Fours and admittedly spent most of it wondering who could be cast as Davey in the eventual adaptation, but the ending really won me over... Clara Drummond's Role Play was a perfect afternoon cocktail companion in the depths of July: picture a female Patrick Batemen, and then throw her into Brazil's art world. I felt hungover after reading it in one sitting... Summer, from Ali Smith's seasonal quartet, convinced me that her fiction is some of the most important of the century... Driving 10+ hours across Ontario was only bearable because I listened to Jessie Buckley narrate the audiobook version of Colm Toibin's Long Island, delighting at the way she brought each fully-formed character—Italian, Irish, whatever!—to life... My first proper beach read was Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman's second novel (her first, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., is one of my all-time favs). Based on Waldman's experience with low-wage work at a big-box store, Help Wanted is Jane Austen meets Barbara Ehrenreich, perfectly observant and sharply affecting (a good Labour Day read!)... Another anticipated follow-up: Clare Sestanovich's Ask Me Again, a work of such deep intimacy that it make me weep on the sand (her short story collection, Objects of Desire, is equally wonderful)... Needing an emotional pick-me-up I turned to Carrie Fisher's Surrender the Pink and remembered once again why she is the unparalleled G.O.A.T... In a Hollywood mood, I followed that with The Goodby People, a recently re-released 1971 novel by Gavin Lambert stuck somewhere between Didion and Babitz, aimless and aloof in the best L.A. way... With one rural weekend left, the library gods blessed me with Liz Moore's The God of the Woods, the platonic ideal of a summer thriller—camp murder!—and impossible to put down: I stayed up until 2 a.m. reading it (and jumping at coyote howls in the distance)... now I've barely read a single word in the past two weeks because of an all-consuming move, but: happy New Rachel Kushner Release Week!