I don't know how you felt about reading it, but I loved writing our profile of indie books coming out in June and have been looking forward to writing July's for a few weeks. However real life intervened and I didn't get this done in the time frame that I wanted, so it's pushing it a bit but here it is!
I haven't even tried to include all of the amazing indie books coming out in July. For more I suggest checking out our twitter list of independent publishers and doing some catalogue browsing!
Even from this small sample of things I've picked up on you can see the vast spectrum encompassed by independent publishers - just one of the many reasons you should support them if you can! As with June's post, titles link to pre-order pages.
First up we have some non-fiction of the pretty intense kind. In The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (Icon Books), Dr Lucy Jones explores some of the biggest natural disasters throughout history and how they have affected our world to this day. Along a similar, although also very different vein is Olivier Kugler's Escaping War and Waves (Myriad Editions), a collection of drawings documenting the experience of Syrian refugees as they attempt to find new lives. The drawings contained in this volume have been displayed in various places including Somerset House in London prior to being released in this format.
Speaking of waves, although of a different kind,The Tidal Wife by Kaddy Benyon (Salt Publishing) is a collection of short stories concerned with islands - both as physical land forms and emotional states, and it's published by Salt so that pretty much guarantees its brilliance. The other short story collection that I'm very excited about which comes out in July is A.M Homes' Days of Awe. Billed as '13 stories exposing the heart of an uneasy 21st century America', Homes is an excellent storyteller and one of those thrilling authors (along with the wonderful Jon McGregor) that I discovered entirely accidentally when I was a teenager and immediately fell in love with. So very excited about this.
An interesting looking YA novel coming out in July is Truth Sister by Phil Gilvin, coming out from Impress Books. Set in 2149, women born through cloning are in charge, and women in general are in charge. It sounds like it might have a bit of a similar feel to Divergent and I'm hoping to start it pretty soon.
The book I'm possibly the most excited about coming out in July is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Portobello Books). It's about a young woman named Keiko who takes a job in her local convenience store to appease her family but finds herself really loving the work. As the pressure mounts she has to decide whether to find a new job, or a husband... And speaking of books about families, The Summer House by Phillip Tier (Serpent's Tail) is a novel about a family on their way to their summer house on the coast of Finland, and the cracks that begin to appear under the surface of normal family life. Finally in this entirely random 'family' category that I have created, A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen (Fitzcarraldo Editions) is about a man returning to Moscow from New York to look after his ageing grandmother and learning to re-navigate the city of his birth.
Also coming out from Serpent's Tail in July is Extinctions by Josephine Wilson. Professor Frederick Lothian has retired from his job and from his life. Determined to be miserable until a series of unfortunate events force him together with his neighbour, Jan, when he begins to realise the damage he could have done by the accumulation of a lifetime's secrets and lies.
To wrap up the month we have a little section of genre and slightly outside of the box stuff. Firstly the latest offering from Nordisk Books, Zero by Gine Cornelia Pederson is a description of life with mental health problems, told in a lyrical style which reads like poetry. Space Unicorn Blues by T.J Berry (Angry Robot Books) has aliens, magic and a half unicorn potential murderer and just sounds absolutely mad in the best way. Finally (well, not really but finally for this blog post) An Untouched House by Willem Frederick Hermans (translated by David Colmer) combines historical fiction with horror and suspense in a story set in the second world war. It's a classic Dutch war novel and sounds enthralling.
Which books are you most excited to read in July? Let us know in the comments!