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5 Books Zed Contributors Can’t Wait to Read This Summer
From a biography of four women who shaped the Rolling Stones to literary fiction from Deborah Levy, here's what we're taking on holidays. / BY Zed Staff / July 11th, 2023
When the beach or the dock beckons, you can bet there will be a book in our tote bags, because holidays give us time and space to tune out the noise of life and burrow into the pages. From a biography of the four women behind The Rolling Stones rock stars to literary fiction from Deborah Levy, here are the books Zoomer contributors – all avid readers – are diving into this summer.
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1The Whispers My favourite way to unwind is to devour as many mysteries and thrillers as I can cram into my suitcase. I do love a psychological drama, and no one mines motherhood angst like Ashley Audrain, whose breakout debut, The Push, won the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Best First Crime Novel award. In The Whispers, the master of internal maternal conflict writes about a “picture-perfect hostess” who erupts in anger at a neighbourhood barbecue when her son disobeys her. Not long after, the boy falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night, and I want to know why his mother refuses to speak as she keeps vigil over his hospital bed. — Kim Honey
My favourite way to unwind is to devour as many mysteries and thrillers as I can cram into my suitcase. I do love a psychological drama, and no one mines motherhood angst like Ashley Audrain, whose breakout debut, The Push, won the 2022 Crime Writers of Canada Best First Crime Novel award. In The Whispers, the master of internal maternal conflict writes about a “picture-perfect hostess” who erupts in anger at a neighbourhood barbecue when her son disobeys her. Not long after, the boy falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night, and I want to know why his mother refuses to speak as she keeps vigil over his hospital bed. — Kim Honey
2PageboyElliot Page, who was once notoriously shy and private – a rare quality in Hollywood these days that only makes this reader nosier – will reveal all in Pageboy: A Memoir. I’ve been a fan since he starred in the 2005 thriller Hard Candy, but would never have guessed that, as Hollywood aggressively pushed the Oscar-nominated Juno actor to embrace conventional starlet status, he was exploring his queer identity. The Halifax-born Umbrella Academy star hid his true self until the pressure became unbearable, and he came out as a trans man in 2020. Since I’m always inspired by – and aspiring toward – authenticity, especially when it requires vulnerability, Pageboy is coming to the cottage with me this summer. — Rosemary Counter
Elliot Page, who was once notoriously shy and private – a rare quality in Hollywood these days that only makes this reader nosier – will reveal all in Pageboy: A Memoir. I’ve been a fan since he starred in the 2005 thriller Hard Candy, but would never have guessed that, as Hollywood aggressively pushed the Oscar-nominated Juno actor to embrace conventional starlet status, he was exploring his queer identity. The Halifax-born Umbrella Academy star hid his true self until the pressure became unbearable, and he came out as a trans man in 2020. Since I’m always inspired by – and aspiring toward – authenticity, especially when it requires vulnerability, Pageboy is coming to the cottage with me this summer. — Rosemary Counter
3The CelebrantsI definitely want to roll up in a hammock with this novel, touted as The Big Chill for a new era, with shades of Four Weddings and a Funeral. From the author of The Guncle – a gem, if you know it – it hinges on a very particular friendship pact. —Shinan Govani
I definitely want to roll up in a hammock with this novel, touted as The Big Chill for a new era, with shades of Four Weddings and a Funeral. From the author of The Guncle – a gem, if you know it – it hinges on a very particular friendship pact. —Shinan Govani
4August Blue “To unfold any number of ideas through all the dimensions of time is the great adventure of the writing life,” Deborah Levy writes in The Cost of Living, the second book in her magnificent “Living Autobiography” trilogy. Her novels, like her non-fiction, are tightly packed with ideas, elliptical and beguiling. I’m excited to read her latest, August Blue, about a famous pianist undergoing a crisis. If it’s like Levy’s other novels, it will make my brain whirr in the most pleasant way. —Elizabeth Renzetti
“To unfold any number of ideas through all the dimensions of time is the great adventure of the writing life,” Deborah Levy writes in The Cost of Living, the second book in her magnificent “Living Autobiography” trilogy. Her novels, like her non-fiction, are tightly packed with ideas, elliptical and beguiling. I’m excited to read her latest, August Blue, about a famous pianist undergoing a crisis. If it’s like Levy’s other novels, it will make my brain whirr in the most pleasant way. —Elizabeth Renzetti
5Parachute Women Parachute Women turns the lens on ’60s icons Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, four sophisticated women who shaped the image of the Rolling Stones, as wives and girlfriends of the rock stars. The latest from Elizabeth Winder, who specializes in excavating female lives in biographies like Pain, Parties, Work (Sylvia Plath) and Marilyn in Manhattan (Marilyn Monroe), promises to set the record straight on how this quartet’s fluency in the film, fashion and literary zeitgeist helped cement the Stones’ mythic cultural status. — Nathalie Atkinson
Parachute Women turns the lens on ’60s icons Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, four sophisticated women who shaped the image of the Rolling Stones, as wives and girlfriends of the rock stars. The latest from Elizabeth Winder, who specializes in excavating female lives in biographies like Pain, Parties, Work (Sylvia Plath) and Marilyn in Manhattan (Marilyn Monroe), promises to set the record straight on how this quartet’s fluency in the film, fashion and literary zeitgeist helped cement the Stones’ mythic cultural status. — Nathalie Atkinson