Summer reading: the 50 hottest books to read now
From dazzling debuts to unmissable memoirs, prize-winning novels to page-turning histories … Plus our pick of paperbacks and children’s fiction
How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast review – Erica Jong’s daughter on the worst year of her life
In this frank, exposing memoir, Jong-Fast reflects on her dysfunctional upbringing as her family falls apart
Norma Meras Swenson obituary
Sociologist and women’s health activist who was a co-author of the groundbreaking book Our Bodies, Ourselves
Joy Schaverien obituary
Psychoanalyst and art therapist hailed for her bestselling 2015 book Boarding School Syndrome
Pathemata by Maggie Nelson review – a writer’s attempt to describe chronic pain
Woolf said language ‘runs dry’ when it comes to convey the reality of illness. Here is an impressive effort to do just that
Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman review – why you quit your job to make the world a better place
A bracingly hopeful call for high-flyers to ditch corporate drudgery in favour of something far more ambitious
Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girls’ Guide to Life by Frances Ryan review – countering the stereotypes
The journalist’s second book offers positivity in the face of the obstacles confronting disabled girls and women
‘A case study in groupthink’: were liberals wrong about the pandemic?
US political scientists’ book argues aggressive Covid policies such as mask mandates were in some cases misguided
Maybe I’m Amazed by John Harris review – with a little help from John, Paul, George and Ringo
The Guardian journalist’s tender account of how music became a bridge between him and his autistic son, James, is full of wit and wisdom
The Life, Old Age and Death of a Working-Class Woman review – a son confronts his mother’s decline
Didier Eribon’s guilt and shame fuels an angry and eloquent meditation on our attitudes towards the elderly and the end of life