What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in May
I have been a devoted fan of Welsh author Carys Davies since reading her collection of stories The Redemption of Galen Pike a decade ago. Her new novel, Clear, is deft, atmospheric, mythmaking and wears its historical setting with light but sure authority. It is set in the mid-19th century, and follows a minister dispatched to a remote Scottish island to “clear” the last remaining inhabitant, who has no intention of leaving. It’s her best novel yet.
Every so often, I read a shortlistee of the Goldsmiths prize for innovative fiction, and I recently discovered Xiaolu Guo’s A Lover’s Discourse that way. It is the story of a relationship between a Chinese immigrant to England and an Australian-born son of a German father and English mother. The novel’s innovation is subtle, with lines of dialogue occasionally repeating like a skipped record – but in a new context, with a different lead-up and consequence – showing how slight shifts in energy and tone and honesty can have a radical effect on a relationship. As wellmeaning as we can be, we sometimes fail to say quite what we intend, and we fail to hear things just as they are meant. After all, languages are involved! How close can we really get to an exact translation? A calmly searching, contemplative novel.
• The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes is published by Oneworld (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. ***
Jiaming, Guardian reader
I have just binged RF Kuang’s Yellowface. As an Asian American, I found the subtle and ingrained racism portrayed in the book so spot-on that I finished the book in two days. And Blaze Me a Sun by Christoffer Carlsson is an amazing and unique book if you are a fan of Scandinavian noir.
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Lauren Mechling, senior editor at the Guardian US
Adelle Waldman made a splash a little over a decade ago with The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P, a whip-smart account of literary scenesters mating and negging in Manhattan (and the surrounding boroughs). Her follow-up, Help Wanted, sets its sights on a very different milieu: a big box store in upstate New York, whose overnight shift workers don’t earn enough to buy groceries, let alone pursue their dreams – even those who hold down second and third jobs. What blew me away was how Waldman’s timely, political fiction reads like a richly woven 19th-century novel, switching perspectives among a vast and colourful cast of characters.
And I would have read Alexandra Tanner’s Worryway faster, had my husband not continually grabbed it away from me for his own bedside reading pleasure (the last time this happened was when I was trying to read Jen Beagin’s zany and brilliant Big Swiss, which could be this book’s cousin). Worry is about two twentysomething sisters who live together in Brooklyn. Novels about young New York women who work at astrology websites and agonise over dating apps can be too cool for school, but there’s warmth and originality at play here, as well as a strong emotional undertow to Tanner’s tale of anti-vax momfluencers and the indignity of splitting the cheque at birthday parties held at expensive small-plates restaurants.
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Jane, Guardian reader
I am rereading the Shardlake novels by the late CJ Sansom and have just finished Sovereign, which is set in York during Henry VIII’s progress. I had forgotten the plot since the last time I read it, and really enjoyed it all over again. Getting to know the main characters again, the wealth of historical detail, and the whodunnit aspect.