Traveling with a new book is wonderful. But traveling through a book provides passage over time and space (and it’s easier on the budget and gas tank). Here is a wide-ranging list of books that have been recently released or are coming out this summer. Release dates are subject to change.
May and June
Fiction
“Barkskins” by Annie Proulx (Scribner; June 14) — A 717-page epic, Proulx’s novel is already being teased by Publishers Weekly as perhaps “her finest work.” With it, she traces three centuries beginning with theNorth American frontier and timber men stripping it for riches. A much broader canvas than her Pulitzer-winning “The Shipping News” and her famous story “Brokeback Mountain.”
“Before the Fall” by Noah Hawley (Grand Central; May 31) — A small airplane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean with 11 passengers, most of them influential and wealthy. Only one adult and one child survive, and questions arise about whether the crash was an accident or a plot. By the creator of TV’s “Fargo.”
“Charcoal Joe” by Walter Mosley (Doubleday; June 14) — Easy Rawlins is back, this time investigating the case of a brilliant black physicist accused of murdering a white man in 1960s LA.
“The City of Mirrors” by Justin Cronin (Ballantine; May 24) — Final book in an apocalyptic trilogy will, at more than 600 pages, keep Cronin’s fans busy for a while, wondering whether the evil caused by infected creatures (known as virals) over almost a hundred years is truly gone.
“End of Watch” by Stephen King (Scribner; June 7) — The third in a trilogy that started with “Mr. Mercedes,” King’s novel brings the evil, formerly comatose Brady back to pursue revenge against Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney.
“The Fat Artist and Other Stories” by Benjamin Hale (Simon &Schuster; May) — Seven stories by the author of “The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore” include a variety of protagonists, such as a dominatrix hired by a U.S. congressman and a performance artist who tries to eat himself to death.
“First Comes Love” by Emily Giffin (Ballantine; June 28) — Two sisters who suffered a tragedy when young struggle with happiness in adulthood. By the author of “Something Borrowed.”
“The Girls” by Emma Cline (Random House; June 14) — Debut novel about a 14-year-old California girl who becomes involved in a Manson-like cult during the free-love ‘60s.
“Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf; June 7) — A story of slavery and racism begins in Ghana with two half-sisters, one wealthy, one enslaved and sent to America. Their descendants face war, and change, in both countries.
“I Almost Forgot About You” by Terry McMillan (Crown; June 7) — A middle-age, divorced optometrist decides to quit her job and seek out past loves to tell them what they meant to her. Will she rekindle romance?
“Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals” by Jesse Armstrong (Blue Rider; June 7) — TV writer Armstrong (“Veep”) sends a collection of do-gooders into war-torn Yugoslavia. Comic satire of idealists trying to promote peace by performing plays from their van.
“The Mandibles” by Lionel Shriver (Harper; June 21) — When a wealthy family goes belly-up in 2029 after an international cyberattack on the U.S., a new lifestyle proves difficult in this satire by the author of “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”
“Marked for Life” by Emelie Schepp (Mira; June 14) — Swedish head of asylum cases is found shot in the U.S. debut by a Swedish suspense novelist.
“Marrow Island” by Alexis M. Smith (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; June 7) — Journalist who left her island home after a devastating quake returns to find it inhabited by an eerie, suspicious colony run by a former nun.
“The Mirror Thief” by Martin Seay (Melville House; May) — Three stories set in various Venices (16th century Italian city, 1950s California and modern-day Vegas casino) are intertwined in a tale of money and magic.
“Redemption Road” by John Hart (St. Martin’s; May) — Page-turning thriller about a boy who seeks revenge against a former cop believed to have killed his mother.
“The Second Life of Nick Mason” by Steve Hamilton (Putnam; May) — Edgar-winning author offers a new hero who, newly released from prison, is still under the thumb of a criminal leader.
“Vinegar Girl” by Anne Tyler (Hogarth; June 21) — The master of the family drama rewrites “The Taming of the Shrew” as a novel. Part of a series that transforms Shakespeare’s plays.
“Wintering” by Peter Geye (Knopf; June 7) — In Geye’s third novel, a son remembers a journey he and his father took into the Minnesota wilderness that turned into a quest for survival.
Nonfiction
“Breaking Rockefeller” by Peter B. Doran (Viking; May 24) — Turn-of-the-century tale of how two men stood up to Standard Oil, forming Royal Dutch Shell and breaking a monopoly.
“But What If We’re Wrong?” by Chuck Klosterman (Penguin/Blue Rider; June 7) — With attitudes changing, and discoveries made, Klosterman discusses how 21st century certitudes could be proven false — even gravity or time.
“Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China” by Eddie Huang (Random/Spiegel &Grau; May 31) — Author of “Fresh Off the Boat” ventures back to China, examining family, love and food with edgy humor.
“The Dragon Behind the Glass” by Emily Voigt (Scribner; May 24) — One of the world’s most expensive aquarium fish, the Asian arowana, is pursued passionately by wealthy owners — and the author.
“Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece ‘The Sun Also Rises’” by Lesley M.M. Blume (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; June 7) — After Hemingway and friends went to see the running of the bulls in Spain in 1925, the author would write his first novel, lose his first wife and get unexpected editing from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“The Gene” by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner; May) — Author who won the Pulitzer for his biography of cancer, “The Emperor of All Maladies,” now makes intriguing everything we didn’t know we wanted to know about genetics.
“Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War” by Mary Roach (Norton; June 7) — The popular writer who can make almost anything interesting (guts, cadavers, etc.) now opens readers’ eyes to the ways scientists try to make war survivable, including oddities such as the study of body odor and why shrimp are more dangerous to sailors than sharks are.
“Voyager: Travel Writings” by Russell Banks (Ecco; May 31) — Novelist compiles nonfiction that includes traveling to Cuba to interview Castro and to Edinburgh to marry for a fourth time.
“William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country” by James Lee McDonough (Norton; July 14) — Sherman (buried in Calvary Cemetery) was known for his Civil War victories, but his personal life was plagued by debt, worries and distance from family.
July
Fiction
“The Black Widow” by Daniel Silva (Harper; July 12) — Art restorer/spy Gabriel Allon is called to investigate an ISIS bombing in Paris and to try to stop the bomber before further terrorism takes place.
“The Hopefuls” by Jennifer Close (Knopf; July 19) — Send-up of inside-the-Beltway Washington with ambitious young couples vying for power.
“How To Set a Fire and Why” by Jesse Ball (Pantheon; July 5) — A gifted but troubled adolescent girl living in a garage dreams of setting fire to the world.
“The Innocents” by Ace Atkins (Putnam; July 12) — Mississippian Quinn Colson is back in his hometown trying to help a brassy sheriff find out why a former cheerleader was set on fire.
“Listen to Me” by Hannah Pittard (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; July 5) — A road trip goes bad for a tense young married couple.
“Ninety-Nine Stories of God” by Joy Williams (Tin House; July 12) — Williams makes her short stories even shorter (more like vignettes) in these unsettling interactions and searches for the almighty.
“Problems” by Jade Sharma (Coffee House; July 5) — Getting by with a dead-end job and a heroin addiction in New York becomes more difficult for Maya after her husband leaves her. Billed as “dark, raw and very funny.”
“Siracusa” by Delia Ephron (Penguin/Blue Rider; July 12) — Two couples (and one daughter) vacation together in Italy, but infidelity and other secrets tear at the marriages.
“The Trouble With Goats and Sheep” by Joanna Cannon (Scribner; July 12) — Both misfortune and humor are found in a British community in 1976 in which a young girl learns that many of her neighbors hold secrets.
“The Unseen World” by Liz Moore (Norton; July 26) — In 1980s Boston, a young girl is taken in by her eccentric father’s friend and works to unravel her family’s past.
“Truly Madly Guilty” by Liane Moriarty (Flatiron; July 26) — Trouble in suburbia starts during a barbecue with three families in this latest by the best-selling author of “Big Little Lies.”
“Underground Airlines” by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland Books; July 5) — In this alternative history, the Civil War never took place, and slavery still exists in four states. By the author of the Last Policeman trilogy, the new novel features a black man who works as a bounty hunter.
“White Bone” by Ridley Pearson (Putnam; July 19) — Partners Grace Chu and John Knox face elephant poachers, militant fighters and vaccine theft in Kenya.
Nonfiction
“Bobby Kennedy” by Larry Tye (Random House; July 5) — The author of “Satchel” digs into the making of a “liberal icon” using new files and unpublished memoirs.
“You’ll Grow Out of It” by Jessi Klein (Grand Central; July 12) — Comedian Klein, head writer for “Inside Amy Schumer,” writes about her own “transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man.”
“The Wicked Boy” by Kate Summerscale (Penguin Press; July) — True crime report investigates a lurid case of a 13-year-old Victorian boy accused of murdering his mother and how the case cultivated discussion about sanity and the danger of pulp fiction.
August
Fiction
“Another Brooklyn” by Jacqueline Woodson (Amistad; Aug. 9) — Fresh off her National Book Award (youth literature) for “Brown Girl Dreaming,” Woodson writes about an African-American woman and her friends growing up in the 1970s, her first adult novel in 20 years.
“Arrowood” by Laura McHugh (Spiegel &Grau; Aug. 9) — Twenty years after her little sisters disappeared, Arden returns to the family mansion in Iowa that she has inherited.
“Surrender, New York” by Caleb Carr (Random House; Aug. 23) — A profiler and an evidence expert are called in on a series of murders of abandoned children. By the author of “The Alienist.”
“To the Bright Edge of the World” by Eowyn Ivey (Little, Brown; Aug. 2) — Novel by the author of “The Snow Child” tells a 19th century adventure tale through the diaries of an Army colonel in Alaska and his left-behind wife.
Nonfiction
“American Heiress” by Jeffrey Toobin (Doubleday; Aug. 2) — Coming off the O.J. Simpson TV series inspired by his book, Toobin takes a new look at Patty Hearst and her 1974 kidnapping, collaboration with revolutionaries and another notorious, circuslike trail.
“The Fire This Time” by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner; Aug. 2) — Collection of essays about race by a “new generation” of writers from Edwidge Danticat to Claudine Rankine.
“The Glamour of Strangeness: Artists and the Last Age of the Exotic” by Jamie James (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Aug. 9) — A look at several artists (including Paul Gauguin in Tahiti, Walter Spies in Bali and Isabelle Eberhardt in Algeria) who sought inspiration in the unknown.
“I’m Supposed to Protect You From All of This” by Nadja Spiegelman (Riverhead; Aug. 2) — The daughter of “Maus” creator Art Spiegelman focuses her memoir on her mother, a French-born art director, and her grandmother.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
