10 books you should know about | GKreads

hi it's grace welcome back to my channel i hope that you're all doing really really well today i am going to be filming a video about some books that i think need to be on your razor because they are online uh and they're all books that are coming out the rest of the year so i'm kind of too late to do a second half of the year i'm too early to do like a september onwards although august is not really giving us much it does feel a little bit autumnal but these are the 10 books that i am most excited about that are coming out for the rest of 2021 and there's a couple of like quite well known ones on here i've avoided putting on like the sally rooney although i am of course very excited about it um but yeah a lot of these i hadn't really heard of until i was going through publisher catalogues looking on the bookseller and so i thought it would be fun to share them with you because i think they all sound really interesting and yeah i'd love to spread the joy and get you excited about them as well i've put these in publication order oh i'm also not including any books that i already have in proof form this is like i have a couple of books that have already been sent to me that are coming out in september that i'm excited about i probably already hauled them or talked about them these are books that are yet to make their ways into my grasp but that i'm excited about nonetheless so let's go first book i want to talk about is coming out on the 7th of september and it is happy hour by marlo granados and this book i mean i love the cover of it it will be here and this book just sounds really interesting um and a little bit more like maybe like lighthearted i feel like a lot of the books on here are quite intense vibes and this one just sounds like it's going to be really nice it's like it has been described to a tesla mosh peg in terms of its bite but also like the charm of nancy mitman i think it's just going to strike a really nice balance um between like that little bit more lighthearted but also still really literally and interesting so it says it kind of captures a summer in new york city and i know like new york is a little bit tired maybe some people might say um i'm not too put off by it i don't like seek out books necessarily set new york but doesn't put me off but the idea of being in summer we know i love a summer book something that is just encapsulates a kind of small amount of time and a perfect moment and we're following a 21 year old girl called either who yeah is spending the summer in new york it says that she is wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure and yeah they go to new york for like a summer adventure her and her best friend it says by day they kind of try and make money by selling clothes like a market store and then by night they're kind of going out going to kind of like glitzy parties really wanting to experience that new york um kind of dream i guess that people have and it says they're kind of trying to build up social capital and it's kind of testing their friendship so i do think it's going to be quite alike in a good way but like of quite a frivolous novel a lot of like parties and that kind of coming of age feel i feel like you get it a lot in like tv shows where it's like two girls in the city like trying to make it good and i don't know i just think that like i say something i feel like a lot of films are about a lot of tv shows and sometimes it can be a little bit um just a little bit more surface level and i quite like the idea of translating that into a literary novel um and potentially like interrogating this idea of the new york dream and the sort of i can imagine it being a bit of a comedy even of manners um in the kind of people it looks like the kind of people who are on that scene and we all know i love books about female friendship and i don't know i just think it could be fun i like the idea of it being a little bit gritty a little bit charming um yeah i think it just sounds nice the next book is pleasant view i might move a bit actually so i've got room to put the book there the next book is pleasant view by celeste mohammed this is a piece of caribbean literature set in trinidad i do really like caribbean literature i have loved particularly some books set in trinidad and actually two of the books that i love that were sent trinidad um is love after love by ingrid person one of my favorite books and golden child by claire adam and they've both already like blurbed this so i feel i feel confident going into it if it's already got that kind of like support but i do think this is going to be i mean both of those books are quite bleak in part but i do think this is going to be a pretty heavy pretty kind of difficult novel and i just think it's interesting because i'm finding that in many of the caribbean books that i read uh thinking recently about how the one-armed sister sweeps a house or um here comes the sun by nicole dennis ben there's that real i guess clash of a sort of paradise a kind of idealistic view of the caribbean with a lot more of a realistic look at it and you know an unflinching take on that and i don't know i think it's just interesting that that's a theme that's coming out and i'm keen to keep like reading and building up my ideas around that if that makes sense i think this book is gonna particularly look at an election that's taking place there so it talks about election night one of the candidates who's obviously like a man and then he i think is violent in some way towards a woman or another candidate basically someone in this election someone who's like politically involved in trinidad um really violently beats up a woman and she then wants to enact her revenge it says it kind of looks at the consequences of how that all plays out for different people in the community and and in on the island and again something i really like that kind of um looking at a place a place with a very strong sense of self i think is something i find really interesting or a really um somewhere that you feel very grounded in that place and then exploring how things play out for a variety of characters especially when you're interrogating like social class and gender struggle and so i already feel well set up to enjoy this because it is adopting a lot of the tropes that i've already enjoyed it says it's written in a blend of the english language but also i'm a very like place-based creole and i love books that do interesting things with language and yeah it just talks about in the synopsis the kind of dichotomy of the generosity and the cruel scene the optimism and the despair um and yeah i just think it sounds so up my street but also love the idea of like a woman taking revenge and with the fact it's on election night makes me feel like it is gonna be pretty political so yeah very excited about that one and if i didn't say that one comes out on the 14th of september i believe no i was wrong the 9th of september the next one comes out on the 14th of september and that is one of the more well-known ones on this one i've talked about this a few times and it is harlem shuffle by colston whitehead i read the nickel boys by coulson whitehead last year and adored it it was one of my favorite books of the year and although the underground railroad is still on my shelf i feel like this one is really sounds very up my street because i've heard it's kind of like a crime novel or like masquerading as a crime novel um but also a bit of a kind of like a dark romp kind of vibes and we're following a main character called ray carney who it says to his customers and neighbors in harlem he is your like upstanding normal guy he's varied he's trying for a second child but it says few people know he descends from a line of crooks and that when cash starts to get tight for ray and his family he kind of turns to maybe some more like criminal nefarious goings on basically there's this big plan like this kind of idea to heist um this hotel that he gets involved with and it's saying that it looks at like as he gets more pulled into a kind of criminal underworld he begins to lead a double life and you kind of look at the strain that puts on him like which side he is going to be pulled to and also how in being i guess part of that criminal underworld he is learning more about like the way that harlem operates so i do think it's going to be like pretty you know have a lot of social commentary and a little bit of like political social take on it but then also i've heard like it really has like the fun of a heist novel and the kind of pace and the kind of vibrance and i think that'll be really interesting i think that's a really interesting kind of form for a novel and i'll be interested because the nickel boys were so kind of earnest like it was really really beautiful and really sad and it was very restrained i would say and not melodramatic but yeah it was it was kind of a had a somber tone and so i'm interested i know cause of my head's a really like versatile writer and he's written more kind of like thrillery almost maybe like dystopian things before um but because i've only read the nickel boys i'm interested to see him yeah read something where there's a little bit more fun to it a little bit more durability but then i'm sure he will also be you know writing very beautifully and taking a very like astute look at harlem so that sounds great then on the 7th of october we have case study by graham mccrae burnett um so this is published by sarah band you're an independent publisher based in the north west who's i love and i love gray mccrea burnett he's most famous for um his bloody project which was shortlisted for the booker prize and i have that book but i am yet to read it classic putting other books on my tbr and i haven't read other ones i already own but um yeah that's a kind of like historical not really a crime novel it's like about a crime but it's really not it's about kind of i believe like history and storytelling and psychology but he's also written two novels that are in like uh a kind of series about a small town in france and they're kind of these like detective noir novels and i just absolutely love them so kind of yeah that real typical noir feel where it's so like environmental and so atmospheric but then i think his mysteries are really um wily and a little bit rye so i absolutely love those so i've been anticipating this new one and it also sounds probably more similar to his bloody project but appealing to me maybe a bit more than his bloody project it's set in london in 1965 and it says an unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist has driven her sister to suicide like immediately that's just a great setup for me like i love there's already kind of mystery i love reading books about psychology or like psychotherapist particularly and and yeah there's a kind of intrigue already it says intent on confirming her suspicions she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client recording her experiences sorry recording her experiences in a series of notebooks but she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything even her own character and yeah i just think that's such a good little synopsis i think that it sounds like it's gonna have a little bit more of that playfulness maybe that um that i think the french series has kind of like false identity like the drama of it but also kind of i love books that explore like identity and i guess um the idea of kind of like it says you know she can't really be certain of anything like i'm imagining maybe some obsession or maybe some like slipping of boundaries and i think it's really interesting and it's also like kind of based on a true person i think it says um graham mcrobinet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into colin's birth weight so again like it's doing something a little interesting with form because we're gonna get a kind of um diary fiction format which again i like i love a diary and then also some autobiographical bits that's the only bit that scares me a little just because i'm thinking of like another book i read which was like fiction interspersed with autobiography and i found it a bit jarring it was um site by jessie greengrass and i don't know i found the autobiographical stuff like so much less interesting but that was autobiography about like um biologists in the like 18th century and a 1960s psychotherapist who was potentially dodgy is just a lot more appealing to me anyway it's the kind of thing i would potentially read i don't think a non-fiction book about if that makes sense um and it says it's wickedly humorous a meditation on the nature of sanity identity and yeah i just think he's a really interesting great writer and i'm excited about it okay so next up on the 14th of october we have lemon by kwan yeo sun which has been translated by janet hong i'll just give you three words haunting literary okay four words crime story does that not does that not just sound like me as soon as i saw this book i was like oh i need to read you now and then was very upset when i realized it didn't come out in the translation until october um but yeah i'm really really excited about this it's translated from the korean and set in korea um in the summer of 2002 and i do love me i do love me a little like early 2000s moment i feel like fiction or a lot of fiction kind of takes a while to catch up to itself it's either like really contemporary or it's like specifically historical and i think being in the 20s scary it's quite interesting to see like reflections on the early 2000s from that viewpoint if that makes sense to be fair that i don't know when this was initially published so it could have been out in korea for ages but it says in the summer of 2002 summer we'd love to see it 19 year old kim heyon was murdered in what became as the ha known as the high school beauty murder there were two suspects in jun who had a rock-solid alibi and han manu to whom no evidence could be pinned the case went cold immediately i love a cold case and that's just something that i love in crime fiction it says we're kind of 17 years have passed so i guess the murder was in 2002 and then the present storylines in 2019 that makes sense um and grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister unable to move on with her life she tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she's lost and basically her younger sister is trying to find out the truth of what happened it says told at different points in time from the perspective of her sister two of um kim heyon's classmates so also quite like a multiple perspective thing in crime and it says it's a piercing psychological portrait that takes the shape of a crime novel i always love things that are like ostensibly a crime novel but are also looking into a lot of other stuff and i think it does take quite a sharp look from what i've read about it at um social issues in korea and yeah i just love a book where you have the fun you have the pace like persistence of a mystery to be solved but then that is used as like a vehicle to explore other things and love a cold case love multiple perspective love a sister it's got a lot a lot going on for me and yeah i'm really excited about it next up also on the 14th of october we have trust by nico stanone and this is published by europa um i believe who are like a small independent publisher and it's translated from the italian like europa published and foreign i believe it's translated from the italian by jumper lahiri which i just think is cool like i know jumpa lahiri's latest book whereabouts she wrote in italian and then translated it herself sick um and so yeah i think that's interesting that it's a book translated by arguably like maybe not in italy but definitely over here i'd say a much more famous author and i typically just really like the stuff you wrote and this sounds really really really interesting and it's about two people who have a love affair pietro and teresa and it says after another terrible argument she gets an idea they should tell each other something that they've never told another person like the deepest darkest secret something they're too ashamed for like the world to know and she thinks that will keep them together like bomb them and kind of find them and i don't know allow an extra i lost more intimacy and that will allow them to kind of stay together a few days after they've exchanged their secrets they break up pietro then meets someone else falls in love gets married but um but then it says the secret that he confessed to teresa kind of haunts him like the idea that someone is out there knowing his darkest secret i'm not sure if we all know what it is at that point or if they just will exchange them off page i'd be interested in either and theresa starts kind of like periodically reappearing in his life but then it says or is it he who seeks her out and it says trust asks how much we are willing to bend to show the world our best side and i just think this book sounds so good like so much good stuff to be unpacked here like relationships i love like the idea of you know what you will do to keep your relationship together the idea of like secrets and sharing that most vulnerable part of yourself with self with someone but then also like the aftermath like the paranoia the obsession of pietro the way that like secrets can kind of take their toll on you and yeah it just sounds like it's going to be really like a bit like twisty and like edgy dynamic between these two people and it's giving me like a tiny bit um it's not really the same and it's probably just because it's italian translation published by europa but the way that in days of about of abandonment by el niforente you see like a relationship break down and then you see like paranoia and obsession creep in and it kind of explores like the the links and the bonds between two people who have been together i just think it sounds so good so yeah i'm very very very excited about this one i feel like a lot of people who might not know about it would also think it sounds amazing then on the 21st of october we have born of no woman by frank boucy well see i'm really showing how badly i am at pronouncing names in this video and i don't think this is a translation it's like set in france and it's had a lot of like french press but then usually like it would show you the translator and it it doesn't so bear with me on that i'm not sure um but it has been described as a word of mouth international bestseller and i can kind of see why this sounds like such a interesting concept and yeah i'm just obsessed with it i hate the cover i hate it but i can get past that so it's set in 19th century rural france love the france quite like the rural 19th century's maybe not my typical thing but just bear with until you get to the synopsis i mean spitting out limbish so it says before he is called to bless the body of a woman at the nearby asylum father gabriel receives a strange troubling confession hidden under the woman's dress he will find the notebooks in which she convided the abuses she suffered and the twisted motivations behind them and as this woman rose's terrible story comes to light sold as a teenage girl to a rich man hidden away in an old manor house deep in the woods and caught in a perverse web manipulated by those society considers her betters a girl whose only escaper is to capture her life in all its devastation and hope in the pages of her diary doesn't that sound good like we've got the diary thing again we have that like religious drama which i love me like a confession you don't mean like a priest gives a little bit of spice a little something um and it sounds like a pretty bleak um situation we already know like from the beginning that this girl is this woman is dead um but the idea of her recording her life in the pages of her diary and kind of telling her own story and then it being read by someone else it's kind of giving her a bit of agency back and autonomy and and again it sounds like it has that kind of gothic melodramatic you know like an old manor house in the woods where she's been kept um a secret or you know like prisoner but then also i'm assuming like some pretty hard-hitting stuff about women in those days about class in france and yeah i think it sounds really interesting i'm hoping it's not too i mean it's obviously gonna be really dark but i guess it'll be interesting to see where that balance is between like the storytelling and the not fun but you know the kind of drama of it or if it'll just be like a super depressing thing about like oh you're a poor woman born in france you're a woman born any time unlucky but yeah it's got so much good reviews and fuzz around it i'm hopeful that it'll be really good then we have on the 28th of october in every mirror she's black by lola akinmade akerstrom uh this sounds amazing and it's set in sweden is it sweden yes so it's about three black women who live in stockholm and are all kind of connected by one um influential white man so initially just love a multiple female perspective where they're all kind of like linked by something and it says it's like a really timely book it's obviously like a lot about race i think it's really interesting to explore um the experience of black women in in sweden in stockholm it's not something i've read before i feel like i've read stuff in the u.s of course and stuff in the uk but interesting and to look at that experience of of racism potentially of you know misogynoir in a scandinavian country because i don't know scandinavia is interesting in that it is on the one hand and seen as a very kind of aspirational place because they have you know very high quality of life yeah i think it'll be interesting to explore that in um scandinavia and so it says there's a successful marketing executive who has moved from the u.s yes she's kind of looking for love then there is a flight attendant who meets this man he's really influential and then there's a refugee and he's lost her entire family and finds a job cleaning the toilets at this man's office and yeah we're gonna explore all of these women's experiences with this man and living in this place and i just think it sounds really really interesting it's been described as like really nuanced um obviously very like timely which you know the word that gets thrown around a lot but it really is um and yeah i love a multiple perspective female narrative i'm really interested as i've mentioned in looking at like the experience of racism and social issues in scandinavia for black women and yeah this sounds great it's giving me like the new such a fun age vibes which is a book that i loved and yes very excited about it another one that is a little bit more well known and is coming in coming on the 11th of november is the fell by sarah moss i am a big ceremony fan i have read summer water which came out last year and ghost wall and i really like them both again i haven't got to her back list yet which like i really should do i'm just trying to stop myself buying books um you can request them if they're new and then they're free that's how i justify to myself but this does sound really really amazing and i actually think it's a book that is engaging with the pandemic which is something i feel a bit uh conflicted about i was about to do such a name drop there and be like i was speaking to pat barker the other day booker winning author of habakkuk but i mean i was and we were filming an event for the festival durham book festival program live now go check it out it's great and she was saying and that she thinks that coronavirus might be a bit of like the world war where people didn't write prose about the second world about the first world war until like there was time after it and i think that's really interesting like there are a couple of books already that are being written about the pandemic obviously this potentially um burn coat by sarah hall which is another book that i'm massively anticipating that's coming out in october i think that's set during lockdown kind of um or like inspired by lockdown but i do think it'll be really interesting to see if contemporary writers want to engage with this topic or if they feel like they want the space or if people consuming it needs some space and i guess the difference with like the war is you know it there's no definitive like over date for corona and the pandemic like it is continuing so anyway that was an aside but this book does engage with it um says she's doing her for coronavirus what summer water did for brexit so high praise um says at dusk on a november evening in 2020 a woman slips out of her garden gate and turns up the hill and she's in the middle of a two-week quarantine period but she can't take it anymore so she goes like out for a little walk she's like the more no one'll be on the mall it'll be fine no one will know but then her neighbor alice sees her leaving um and they realize kate's son then realizes that uh she's missing because you know she really wanted a little walk but she's actually fallen and badly injured herself and and then there has to be like a big mountain rescue operation to get her back and it says it's unbearably suspenseful witty and wise it asks probing questions about the place the world has become since march 2020 and i think that is a really interesting way of exploring the pandemic because it's very light touch well not like touch but it's in it's talking about it in a very um specific individualistic way and then it can look out from there it's not trying to write like the pandemic novel or like the political novel it's you know one person thinking i'm just gonna go for a walk and then not having um like massive effects on it and i imagine as with summer water it's gonna be a lot of like the different ways people respond to that decision you know some people would say well okay it's just a walk she wasn't hurting anyone she didn't think she was gonna fall over i imagine others would be like that's completely selfish we're all staying in why can't you and yeah it might be might be a little bit too soon but i do think that um it'll be really interesting and it does sound very like suspenseful snappy as sarah moss always is then finally on the 11th of november is things we do not tell the people we love and that is by huma qureshi and this is a short story collection who is she obsessed with short stories now really into them uh and this sounds amazing like definitely like i say so much more into short stories now and this is the one that i've heard a lot of buzz about i think sounds really amazing and it says it's a collection about mothers and daughters children lost unborn grown up grown apart and the distance between lovers looks a lot like families um and the parts of ourselves we never really reveal is what it says and i do love a short story collection that looks at interpersonal relationships it's probably my favorite kind of short story i do think this sounds maybe kind of sad or like i don't know a little bit like sorrowful but then it could potentially be quite beautiful and these are all themes that i really like to engage with this is also looks at like displacement and belonging um and also this collection includes a short story called the jam maker which won the harper's bizarre short story prize of 2020. so i feel like these are going to be some new exciting short stories and i'm excited about them okay well they are all the books that i wanted to talk about please do let me know what books you are most anticipating for the rest of the year or if you think any of these sound interesting thanks so much for watching hope you enjoyed it obviously i would love if you subscribe to my instagram my story graph will be linked down below and i'll see you my next one bye

Channel: GK Reads

Views: 2,600

Rating: 4.9466667 out of 5

Keywords: GKreads, Uk booktube, Literary fiction, Anticipated releases, New books

Id: dAghhvjZFYY

Length: 25min 45sec (1545 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021