This Summer's Hand Luggage Reads

Okay. So you've booked the flights, ordered a taxi and even have the after-sun cream ready for post-poolside lounging. But what about the all-important reading material? Here are five new books screaming out for a spot inside your summer hand luggage...

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1. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (out 12 Aug)

Murakami’s latest, which sold more than one million copies in his native Japan in its first week of release, is comparatively short after his epic IQ84, and returns to less trippy themes as seen in Norwegian Wood. It also has ‘design-your-own cover’ stickers.

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2. The Way Inn by Will Wiles (out now)

The British author returns with a follow-up to last year’s Care Of Wooden Floors, taking a simple premise – a businessman staying in a chain of bland hotels – and horrifyingly turning it on its head. It’ll make your skin crawl.

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3. Shadows On The Road by Michael Barry (out now)

If you’re gripped by the Tour de France, Michael Barry’s book is an essential read. His account of riding in Team Sky, back to racing alongside Lance Armstrong and the dark days of doping, is a long way from the usual dry sporting biographies.

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4. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes (out 31 Jul)

Following up an international bestseller is never easy, as the Johannesburg-born author no doubt found after The Shining Girls became a phenomenon last year. But she makes it look easy – here, instead of a time-travelling serial killer, it’s one who fuses animals to humans. As you do.

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5. Beastings by Benjamin Myers (out now)

The latest from Gordon Burn Prize-winning author Benjamin Myers sees a teenage girl flee with a baby, tracked across the unforgiving Cumbrian landscape by a priest and a poacher in the early 20th century. One for Cormac McCarthy fans tired of waiting for his new book.