Whether you're planning a staycation in Belgium, driving to the coast or jetting off to a far-flung resort, you'll need a good book to help you unwind this summer.
From historical fiction and thought-provoking political analysis to escapist beach reads, the Brussels Times has got you covered.
Our trusty team of bookworms has come up with a list of recommendations that will hopefully inspire you to toss aside your smartphone for a few hours and get lost in a good book.
Fiction
Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez (chosen by Maïthé Chini)
Justin is cursed: every woman he dates finds her soul mate immediately after they break up. After he posts this on Reddit, Emma slides into his DMs to say that she has the same problem. As the title suggests, they agree to date each other just for the summer and cancel out each other's curses. But will it work?
A friend recommended this book to me as the "ideal beach read" and it certainly delivered. Very easy, fun and romcommy, but with a lot of heart.
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe (chosen by Ugo Realfonzo)
This book was sitting on my shelf for years, but I decided to take Jonathan Coe’s bestseller on my last holiday. The novel is about a hapless family biographer who turns on his subjects after uncovering decades of corruption, greed and immorality.
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe. Credit: Penguin Books.
It reads like non-fiction, travelling through decades of the wealthy Winshaw family’s misdoings in many sectors: media, politics, art and more.
The book magnificently encapsulates the political and social environment in 1980s Britain, right up until the first Gulf War in 1991. A powerful satire on wealth in politics and society which can, at times, make the reader feel like it could still be set today.
Death at Intervals by José Saramago (chosen by Rita Alves)
One day, in an unnamed country, people stop dying. What happens next to the locals, the church, the mafia and the rest of the state is what the Portuguese author José Saramago explores in Death at Intervals.
Published in 2005, the novel features themes of love, death, and purpose in the typical sarcastic and ironic style of the famous Nobel laureate.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (chosen by Katie Westwood)
This debut novel by Dutch-Israeli author Yael van der Wouden recently won the Women's Prize for Fiction, and it is easy to see why it has received so many plaudits.
The Safekeep is set in the Netherlands of the 1960s and is told though the eyes of Isabel, an emotionally stunted young woman living alone in her dead mother's house. Her life is upended by the arrival of her brother's girlfriend, Eva, who decides to stay for the summer.
The book is unusual in that it is both beautifully written and has a superb plot, with a brilliantly executed twist. It has several themes, including desire, loneliness, the meaning of home and the legacy of the Second World War.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Credit: Penguin Books.
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (chosen by Isabella Vivian)
This magical realism novel by Turkish writer Elif Shafak bounces back and forth between Cyprus and London. The story has two timelines: one set in 2010s London following 16-year old Ada Kazantzakis, and the other mainly in 1970s Cyprus, following Defne and Kostas, Ada's parents.
A third narrative voice is a fig tree, which lives in the middle of a tavern in Cyprus, before Kostas took a cutting and planted it his English garden.
Shafak masterfully ties together the lives of her characters with the Cypriot history and culture. The story explores love, trauma and resilience in a beautifully poetic way and offering readers a new perspective on people and nature.
Non-fiction
Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (chosen by Phil Herd)
“The original sin of Election 2024 was Biden’s decision to run for re-election — followed by aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment,” Tapper and Thompson write.
There have been and will be many books written about the Biden presidency and his legacy, but this book is different in that it is a step-by-step, blow-by-depressing-blow account of how Biden, stubborn to the end, his inner circle, and, to a degree, the media, were all complicit in enabling his run for a second term, and subsequently in hiding the former president's failing capacities.
It is written by two senior US journalists - Tapper from CNN and Thompson from Axios, so rather than being a dry, nebulous plod through the years, its an easy-to-read, engaging and colourful narrative, with enough exclusive revelations and not before heard anecdotes to keep you turning the pages by the pool.
Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Credit: Penguin Random House.
The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behaviour is Almost Always Good Politics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith (chosen by Chris Richards)
If you're confused about the rise of authoritarianism around the world, especially in democracies, this is the book. It explores power - how it is won and how it is kept. It reveals that even in democracies the same rules apply for those who wish to keep power, the only difference to authoritarianism is in the number of people who have to be bought off.
Now with a second edition, the book is a must read for those who want to understand the world beyond what they may have been taught by their well meaning university lecturers.
