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12 Books Perfect For Your Summer Holiday

Hilarious memoirs, gripping thrillers and alternate realities: the books to bag this summer

Headshot of Olivia OvendenBy Olivia Ovenden
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Whether lounging by an infinity pool in Cannes or sweating it out in your local park, your reading material is essential. But finding something quicker to get through than War & Peace, but less embarrassing than The Da Vinci Code is a tricky task.

SEE ALSO: 12 Books We're Excited About Reading In 2017

You want pacy and compelling reads but ones that leave you feeling a little smarter, not shamefully concealing the front cover. Luckily, we've found a few.

The Idiot - Elif Batuman

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Batuman's first novel after seven years as a staff writer at the New Yorker is about a Turkish-American Harvard student navigating life, love and literature. The alien experience of beginning university is ripe ground for humour and will resonate with more than just ex-Ivy Leaguers.

The Secret Life - Andrew O'Hagen

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The Esquire editor-at-large and novelist dissects three "elusive" individuals' lives in this exploration of identity in the age of the dark web. The line-up is WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and "Ronald Pinn", a fake persona O'Hagan created and assumed to explore the "furthest, darkest reaches" of the internet.

The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness - Arundhati Roy

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20 years after her Booker prize winning The God of Small Things, Roy returns with another novel, this time set in a world where humans and animals have been "broken by the world we live in and then mended by love". The sort of holiday escapism we could all do with this year.

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To Be A Machine - Mark O'Connell

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Journalist Mark O'Connell looks at the moral implications of turning our bodies into ever evolving machines through AI and other robot technology. He looks at "Transhumanism" a movement pushing the limits of our physical capabilities, intelligence and lifespans and where this might lead and leave us.

A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Backman

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After 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, the Swedish novel has been adapted into a popular play and film. Ove is a curmudgeonly man who strikes up a friendship with two chatty young daughters who move in next-door to him after they flatten his mailbox.

Theft By Finding - David Sedaris

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The diaries of bestselling author and comedian David Sedaris that span over 40 years are published here for the first time. The light autobiographical essays recall the daily observations and events in his life in his familiar sardonic tone. A book that'll have you chuckling through your Piña colada.

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Sympathy - Olivia Sudjic

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Set primarily in 2014 New York, Sympathy tracks a young woman's obsession with another, a fixation that is exacerbated by social media. "Imagine Alice Through The Looking Glass for the Instagram generation", The Guardian wrote of Sudjic's debut novel where recent events like the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 crop up.

Irresistible - Adam Atler

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NYU professor Adam Atler investigates our slavish devotion to Instagram, Netflix, Fitbit and email and why we are drawn to technology that promises to make our lives faster and easier - while ignoring the obvious side-effects. One that'll stop you browsing Instagram all afternoon on your sun lounger.

Sirens - Joseph Knox

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Despite Knox's daytime job as a crime-fiction buyer for Waterstones, it took him eight years to write his first novel. Sirens is a noir triller which follows a junior detective named Aidan Watts. He is sent to track down the 17-year-old daughter of an MP and instead falls in with a drug dealer. You'll be transported from your poolside view to the dark depths of a seedy world.

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The Zookeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman

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A non-fiction book written by poet Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife tells the unpublished diary of Antonina Żabińska. She and her husband Jan, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, saved the lives of 300 Jews during the German invasion of Poland which marked the beginning of WWII. A heart-wrenching but uplifting story, which is nice.

All Our Wrong Todays - Elan Mastai

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Don't be put off by the subject of time-travel as acclaimed Canadian screenwriter Elan Mastai manages the genre masterfully in his debut novel.  The novel is set in an alternate 2016 where technology has solved everything: war, poverty and unripe avocados. But, he's lost the love of his life and has to decide whether to save himself or everyone else.  Spoiler: it doesn't go smoothly.

The Rules Do Not Apply - Ariel Levy

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Despite the feminist book marketing treatment, Levy's memoir is more a cautionary tale of wanting too much that is relevant to everyone. The New Yorker staff writer covers domestic life, loss and career anecdotes with brilliance and poise.

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