From Miranda July’s free-spirited new novel about midlife to Constance Debré's erotic Paris-set memoir, here’s what the AnOther team are reading (and recommending) this summer
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
“I love historical fiction because it’s just so immersive. I’m trying to work my way through the classics and this one is a blockbuster but so easy to read – perfect if you’ve got nothing but time. It’s a classic, you learn a bit of French and you might learn some history – what more could you want?”
– Rebecca Perlmutar, Fashion Editor
All Fours by Miranda July (2024)
“I keep buying All Fours as presents for my female friends – thrusting it on them over-enthusiastically – so I would be remiss not to recommend it here for a holiday read. Miranda July’s lead character is assertively free-spirited, a little unhinged, so real and so funny in her midlife rediscovery of her sexuality. Her voice is immediately enthralling – you get straight inside July’s head and she gets in yours – and the character arc is more a loop-the-loop than a curve, so you’ll be a little transformed by the time you get home.”
– Sophie Bew, Editor
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
“I’m reading Frankenstein. I’m excited about Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation, which comes out next year. I have just shot someone who will be in it for our next issue …”
– Katie Shillingford, Fashion Director
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis (2023)
“I’m halfway through The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis (late to the party, I know) and I’m quite hooked. Set in 80s LA, it’s got everything: sun, sex and a serial killer on the loose. What more could you want?”
– Ted Stansfield, Editorial Director, AnOthermag.com
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett (2021)
“Following her mesmerising short story collection, Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett’s debut novel Checkout 19 is an enchanting, funny and poignant tale about growing up and discovering the vast pleasures and possibilities presented by reading fiction. Constrained by circumstance – be it as a pupil in the classroom of a failing secondary school or, later, as a disillusioned student in her less-than-salubrious university digs and behind the till at her part-time supermarket job – the narrator both evades and elucidates the disappointments and limitations of her working class upbringing amid the grandeur and drama of the novels she immerses herself in. It’s one of the very few books I’ve finished reading and then immediately opened at page one and begun again.”
– Emily Dinsdale, Contributing Editor, AnOthermag.com
And Their Children After Them by Nicolas Mathieu (2018)
“This book is so French. With love and sex and sun-strewn summers, it’s a coming-of-age story following the lives of a few teenagers in a small post-industrial town in the 1990s. Mathieu’s simple, easy writing captures a generation caught in between fading promises of the past and an uncertain future. Hedonism born from utter boredom feels pretty relatable right now – everyone gets that urge to start chaos over summer, right? And it’s fun to imagine every scene in this book through Willy Vanderperre’s lens, painting this nostalgic picture of unvarnished, hot, heavy, uneasy adolescence.”
– George Pistachio, Social Media Editor, AnOthermag.com
Queen of Fashion by Caroline Weber (2006)
“I am constantly re-reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber because I am a complete geek and because it has the best subtitle ever. Close second is No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel by Janice Dickinson, which I am also always re-reading, and which is perhaps lower impact. Her anecdote calling Helmut Newton a dirty old perv is priceless.“
– Alexander Fury, Fashion Features Director
Playboy by Constance Debré (2024)
“This is the most addictive book I’ve read since I can remember. Published in France in 2018 but translated into English for the first time this year, Constance Debré’s Playboy chronicles the author’s hedonistic new life as a gay woman; she discards her husband, her career as a lawyer, and her bourgeois tastes in the pursuit of pleasure, favouring a simpler, more monastic mode of being. Set in Paris, it’s bleak, bratty, intense and highly erotic – Debré’s observations about how men see women, and how she now sees women in turn, as a lesbian, are brutal and revelatory. Read the earth-shatteringly emotional Love Me Tender next, where Debré fights to keep custody of her young son post-divorce, despite her ex-husband’s best efforts.”
– Violet Conroy, Deputy Editor, AnOthermag.com
Read our interview with Constance Debré here.
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt (2021)
“Susie Boyt’s Loved and Missed is about the shuddering power of familial love, and how easily it can emancipate or destroy you. Ruth is a teacher living in London, whose adult daughter Eleanor is estranged and hollowed out by addiction (more of a “haunted house” than an actual person). Ruth forcibly takes over the care of her granddaughter, Lily, to save her from the same fate, but also to absolve her own guilt and heal the wounds of the past. It’s a story that burrows into your heart, but in a creeping, unexpected way – I actually don’t remember the last time a book moved me this much.”
– Dominique Sisley, Senior Editor, AnOthermag.com
Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell by Javier Maria (2007)
“I’m currently on the final tome of Javier Maria’s trilogy. The sentences are slow and twisted with beautiful, often unsettling, insight into what it means to be human navigating our strange world. Not a word is wasted – everything about Maria’s writing is so precise.”
– Madeleine Rothery, Contributing Editor, AnOthermag.com
