Every book on Sarah Jessica Parker’s summer reading list

Last month, we rounded up seven celebrity book clubs to follow along with over the summer, and though Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint with Zando publishers may not strictly fall under the ‘book club’ banner in a traditional sense, her recommendations will make you want to make tracks towards your local bookshop quick fast.

Through the imprint, SJP Lit has been bringing sweeping, expansive, thought-provoking, and big-hearted stories from international and underrepresented voices to a wider audience, capturing the contemporary imagination and reflecting a wide-range of voices and experiences. Unsurprisingly, her summer reading list speaks to exactly that.

Posting a carousel of covers to her 9.2 million strong Instagram following, SJP wrote: “My ever evolving summer stack. Most of these books are out now, if not they are available for pre-order from your local independent bookseller or your local library. And you know, a good title is always worth the wait. Happy, happy reading.”

So, here’s what Sarah Jessica Parker will be spending the next couple of months reading…

Trespasses, by Louise Kennedy

Shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy tells the tale of Cushla Lavery, who lives with her mother in a small town near Belfast. At twenty-four, she splits her time between her day job as a teacher to a class of seven year olds, and regular bartending shifts in the pub owned by her family. It’s here, on a day like any other – as the daily news rolls in of another car bomb exploding, another man shot, killed, beaten or left for dead – that she meets Michael Agnew, an older (and married) barrister who draws her into his sophisticated group of friends.

Commenting on SJP’s post, Louise wrote: “I am not supposed to be on here but am back to do the virtual equivalent of running around the garden naked and screaming. Thank you! So much. I hope you enjoy Trespasses.”

Close to Home, by Michael Magee

Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles. It’s a first novel drawn from life, written with the immediacy of thought. It’s about what happens when men get desperate, about the cycles of loss and trauma and secrecy that keep them trapped, and about the struggle to get free.

Also sharing his gratitude at being included in the roundup, Michael commented: “Don’t read mine read @louise.kennedyy it’s much better xx.”

The Soulmate, by Sally Hepworth

Described as a thrilling, addictive novel about marriage, betrayal, and the secrets that push us to the edge, Sally Hepworth’s The Soulmate is set within Gabe and Pippa’s cottage on a cliff in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.

Sally commented: “Wow! So thrilled to see The Soulmate on there. I hope you enjoy it,” before returning to add, “I just hugged my poor house painter when I saw this, who didn’t know I wrote books, didn’t know what any of this meant, and now is extremely wary of me … but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. This is the greatest moment of my career.”

Small Worlds, by Caleb Azumah Nelson

From the award-winning author of Open Water, Caleb Azumah Nelson’s second novel is all about fathers and sons, faith and friendship. Set over the course of three summers in Stephen’s life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exhilarating and expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within.

Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of him when the music fades? When his father begins to speak of shame and sacrifice, when his home is no longer his own? How will he find space for himself: a place where he can feel beautiful, a place he might feel free?

The Red Hotel, by Alan Philps

A book that tells the untold story of Stalin’s disinformation war, former Daily Telegraph Foreign Editor and Russia expert Alan Philps sets out the way Stalin created his own reality by constraining and muzzling the British and American reporters covering the Eastern front during the war and forcing them to reproduce Kremlin propaganda. War correspondents were both bullied and pampered in the gilded cage of the Metropol Hotel.

“I’m overwhelmed to be in SJP’s stack of holiday reads! I’m not sure I really belong here,” he wrote. “But once I got over my shock, I recalled a time many years ago in Baghdad,
Iraq when I was a war reporter in the Middle East. During a bombing raid, I sheltered in a basement with a French photographer who had a copy of the first series of Sex and the City. With the building shaking and all hell breaking loose around us, we calmed ourselves by watching Carrie and co in NYC. When the explosions ceased, I made my way to my room in the Al Rashid Hotel and waited for dawn … Thank you @sarahjessicaparker for being my guardian angel in Baghdad more than 20 years ago.”

Lone Women, by Victor Lavalle

From award-winning author Victor LaValle — who has been described as a modern master of magical suspense — comes Lone Woman, a book that follows a cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape. Telling the tale of a woman desperate to bury (or redeem) her past, the book is set in 1915, and paints a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen before.

No Ordinary Assignment, by Jane Ferguson

A haunting and unflinching memoir from award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, No Ordinary Assignment is a story of ambition and war, from The Troubles to the fall of Kabul. Chronicling her unlikely journey from bright, inquisitive child to intrepid war correspondent, Ferguson’s bold debut shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds.

The Anniversary, by Stephanie Bishop

A book that delves into the life of an ascendant writer, the unresolved death of her husband, and what it takes to emerge on her own, The Anniversary’s active plot will keep you interested until the last page. It’s a novel that asks: how legible, in the mind of the writer, is the line between reality and plot? How do we refuse the people we desire? And what is the cost, to ourselves, to others and to our art, if we don’t?

The Centre, by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what price would you be willing to pay for success?