The best new books to read in July

I’d never considered the superficial similarities of the names John McPhee and John McAfee until a friend came in late to a conversation and confused the two.

“Wait, the writer for the New Yorker is also some sort of libertarian tech millionaire-slash-alleged murderer?” she asked, in so many words. Once we got it straightened out we could not stop laughing.

Blessed are those (computer viruses) who’ve never heard of the latter, rest his troubled soul. But also: Blessed are those who’ve never heard of the other, for they have many great books ahead of them.

Now 92, John McPhee — author of dozens of works of sterling longform journalism and literary nonfiction, including 1968′s marvelous The Pine Barrens and 1999′s Pulitzer Prize-winning Annals of the Former World — has opted to put some ellipses at the end of his long career by launching an “ongoing project, the purpose of which is to keep the old writer alive by never coming to an end.”

The witty and charming Tabula Rasa: Volume 1 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28, July 11) is framed as the first in an unending series of spring cleaning collections of previously unpublished mini-essays from the realms of science, history, art, and the author’s own life — a life he reasons must continue as long as he has more words to write.

During pretty much lifelong posts at Princeton University and the New Yorker, McPhee has met people, seen things, and been to places which left indelible marks in his literal and mental notebooks. His joy at finally devoting ink to these is infectious.

Given the stochastic nature of the endeavor, Tabula Rasa Volume 1 may be the delightfully discursive author’s most efficient book yet — still thoughtful and elegant, but wily and whip-smart in its scene-setting. Oddly, this may make it an optimal place for the uninitiated to dig into the John McPhee bibliography. The publish date for volumes two through infinity have not yet been announced.

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And now, here are some more items for your infinite to-be-read checklist.

» READ MORE: 6 books to read this summer, according to Philly librarians

Five years after it was first published, “the most important Brazilian novel of the century so far” finally makes its English-language debut. Believe the hype. On page one we’re introduced to two sisters who at a very young age are about to commit a small, thoughtless act that will change the course of their lives: While rooting around in their grandmother’s things they discover a large, mysterious knife and decide they want to taste it. Why? Who knows. Kids are weird. The incident leaves one of them mute and both of them scarred, and sets the tone for this vivid, memorable, lightly magical novel about a close-knit community of Black subsistence farmers in post-slavery Brazil. (Verso, $19.95, out now)

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Cassie’s life is fraying at the edges: She’s disillusioned, anxious, and doing just enough cocaine to keep up with her job at a sketchy Silicon Valley start-up that slaps its logo on everything while exploiting user data with terrifying success. Outside the window on her long commute she sees disturbing signs of poverty and unrest (a tent city, a self-immolating protester, etc.), and her only distractions are the music in her earbuds and the tiny black hole in the seat next to her that nobody else can see (“a dark dot on the film of my life”). At once grim and playful, Ripe succeeds where other dystopian novels sometimes fail, by emphasizing the personal and particular agony of a single frazzled rat in the capitalist maze. Now based in L.A., the ex-Philadelphian Etter will celebrate the release of Ripe at A Novel Idea July 12. (Scribner, $25, July 11)

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Prolific Philly-based graphic novelist Brian “Box” Brown has carved out a niche for himself by investigating recent history with journalistic integrity and a playful and stark illustration style. No matter the focus — be it pop culture phenomena like Tetris, Andy Kaufman, and Andre the Giant or higher stakes subjects like Vladimir Putin and marijuana legalization — Brown can be counted on to unspool eye-opening, entertaining books that often feel like documentary films. This time around he takes aim at ‘80s playthings and the corporate/political forces at work outside the toy aisle. Brown will be at Brave New Worlds on July 12, and Partners + Sons on July 20. (First Second, $26.99, July 11)

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Attentive readers of this space may notice a few running themes: 1. We’re in a golden age of dystopian fiction. 2. Books about books (and authors, and star-crossed 20-somethings working at prestigious publishing houses) should be met with suspicion. 3. The mushrooms are coming for us. Blight lays it out in no uncertain terms: As the world has gotten smaller and warmer, it’s also become an increasingly safe space for fungi, molds, spores, and other tiny creeping things. Animals, crops, immune systems, entire ecosystems — all are facing new and complicated threats, says Emily Monosson, who worked as a toxicologist before dedicating herself to globally conscious and morbidly curious science books like this one. Citing ongoing situations and historical precedent, she confirms everything our nightmares (and The Last of Us) have been trying to tell us: The war against the mushrooms has begun.

(WW Norton, $28.95, July 18)

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Nobody wants to hear that old “the city is a character” trope, so let’s just say that Colson Whitehead uses his ‘70s NYC setting to great effect in this gripping and stylish sequel to 2021′s Harlem Shuffle. The heat, the fires, the trash, the grates, the graffiti, the dealers and dirty cops and gangsters, the perpetual tensions over race and class and machismo — all these factors immerse the reader in a dangerous, fascinating, and mostly bygone cityscape just as surely as they surround our returning hero, Ray Carney. Well, he’s kind of a hero. In Crook Manifesto, the small-business owner and family man is once again dragged into the criminal underworld despite his best efforts to walk the straight and narrow. Whitehead, perhaps better known in book club circles for The Nickel Boys and Underground Railroad, is also one of the most exciting voices in literary crime fiction, and Crook Manifesto is easily one of most anticipated books of the year. (Doubleday, $29, July 18)

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The well-decorated sci-fi author spins a road trip-romcom about an alien (who looks like a tentacled tumbleweed, apparently) and the motley crew of oddball abductees along for the ride. (Del Rey, $28, out now)

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Always exciting to see a new Patrick DeWitt novel on the shelf. This time the author of 2011′s The Sisters Brothers and 2018′s French Exit tells the gently twisted story of a retired librarian whose chill exterior hides a colorful and surprising backstory. (Ecco, $30, July 4)

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Anisa ekes out a living writing subtitles for Bollywood romances until her multilingual boyfriend clues her into a secret program that teaches you how to master new languages in no time. A speculative thriller brought to you by Gillian Flynn’s eponymous publishing imprint. (Gillian Flynn Books, $28, July 6)

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Colin Dickey has built a career out of book-length demystifications of superstitions and legends by uncovering the historical and psychological factors that spawned them. Having already busted ghosts, cryptids, and aliens, he’s now going after the clandestine cabals that supposedly rule the world. (Viking, $30, July 11)

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Since 2020′s Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia has been a reliable source of disarming noir and nerve-rattling horror; both itches get scratched in this story of magic filmstock and Nazi occultists on the fringes of the ‘90s Mexican movie biz. (Del Rey, $28, July 18)

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