Leading authors recommend the best recent books, from a forbidden love affair at the Western Front to a murder mystery set in Egypt
• See this year’s pick of 50 books for the summer
David Nicholls
I’m not sure if it counts as a traditional summer read – there were several moments that made me profoundly anxious – but I loved Claire Kilroy’s frantic, furious account of early motherhood, Soldier Sailor, a horror story at times, but full of love, too. Cecile Pin’s debut, Wondering Souls, manages to be both heartbreaking and hopeful and I’m also looking forward to Paul Murray’s new family saga, The Bee Sting; he’s such a sharp and funny writer.
Zadie Smith
I recently devoured Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. So enjoyable. I think Susan Sontag’s On Women is perfect if you want to think about the aesthetics of fascism and internecine feminist warfare during the summer – which I find I do. I also just finished Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner, out in July. Rare to find a novel with real stylistic and political ambition. Summer is the time for murders set somewhere interesting: Christopher Bollen is the master of these. His latest, The Lost Americans, set in Egypt, is a treat. On my holidays I’ll be packing Kairos because it’s by Jenny Erpenbeck, Nicole Flattery’s Nothing Special – because it sounds intriguing – and The Mess We’re In by Annie Macmanus, because it’s set in the early 00s, in Kilburn, and full of music. Finally, in the hand luggage: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph. I’ve had that one in manuscript form for over a year but didn’t dare read it because I was in the trenches, writing my own historical novel. Now I can’t wait.
