10 books to add to your reading list in August

Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your August reading list.

When Shakespeare wrote “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” he didn’t know about August 2023, which follows the hottest July in recorded history. Whether you prefer sweltering in sand or sheltering in place, you’ll need the distraction of a good book or two (or 10). This month’s crop includes books about dynamic ghosts, a privileged woman reckoning with the environment, an under-appreciated tennis great and a jolly grifter’s comeuppance. Keep cool and read on.

FICTION

Witness: Stories

By Jamel Brinkley

FSG: 240 pages, $26

(Aug. 1)

Brinkley’s second short-story collection is superb. At a time when second books often fail and few publishers risk short fiction, Brinkley returns (after 2018’s “A Lucky Man”) with a must-read: stories about how our actions and inaction change everyone’s lives. Set in New York City, these tales of witness involving Black characters insist on attention as they love, lose, succeed, fail and live extraordinary ordinary lives.

The Apology

By Jimin Han

Little, Brown: 304 pages, $28

(Aug. 1)

Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, you might still be haunted by the memory of lost loved ones. In her second novel, Han shows how busy a family ghost can be. Hak Jeonga, a Korean matriarch, dies at 105 before she’s able to intervene in a disturbing family situation. Her past life of privilege often clashes humorously with the errands of her afterlife, but it’s her strong and serene sense of purpose that will delight anyone with relatives who tend to micromanage.

Read more: Cults, cannabis and a little time travel: Edan Lepucki's California novel is quite a trip

Time’s Mouth

By Edan Lepucki

Counterpoint: 416 pages, $28

(Aug. 1)

Ursa leads a 1970s Northern California commune, raising her son Ray and introducing women to a method of time travel she discovered as an abused teenager in Connecticut. Ursa ran away then, and later Ray and his girlfriend, Cherry, do the same, absconding to Los Angeles. In order to help Ray and his young child, Ursa will have to engage with Time itself. The novel that results is weird and wacky and wonderful to read.

Mobility

By Lydia Kiesling

Crooked Media Reads: 368 pages, $28

(Aug. 1)

Elizabeth Glenn can’t quite shake her childhood moniker “Bunny,” nor her childhood legacy as the daughter of a U.S. diplomat whose postings awakened her to the importance of fossil fuels in world politics. As she climbs the corporate ladder of a Texas-based oil company, Bunny slowly realizes that energy isn’t just a matter of machines, but also the toughest and scarcest commodity for all modern women.

Read more: Can politics, fiction and podcasting mesh? Lydia Kiesling and Crooked Media give it a try

Happiness Falls

By Angie Kim

Hogarth: 400 pages, $28

(Aug. 29)

Kim, whose 2019 novel “Miracle Creek” was an incendiary courtroom drama, returns with a novel (again set in northern Virginia) that will change the way you think about communication. Mia, 20 years old and a chatterbox, narrates a story about a missing person: her father. Does Adam Parson’s disappearance have something to do with his son Eugene, whose Angelman syndrome has left him mute?

NONFICTION

The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean

By Susan Casey

Doubleday: 352 pages, $32

(Aug. 1)

Casey’s writing about the world’s oceans has been captivating ever since her 2005 book “The Devil’s Teeth,” about the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco and sharks that gather there. In “The Underworld,” Casey proves to be an exceptional adventurer and chronicler but also a member of a community dedicated to exploration and conservation of our least-understood aquatic wild places.

The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

By Lara Love Hardin

Simon & Schuster: 320 pages, $29

(Aug. 1)

Once a privileged suburban mom, Hardin funded her heroin addiction by stealing neighbors’ credit cards, was convicted of 32 felonies, and became Inmate S32179. After negotiating prison politics and being released, she found success as a ghostwriter — but her shame tainted her achievements and her dazzling life of encounters with stars including Oprah Winfrey and the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Hardin's narrative to self-acceptance is dazzling too, as momentous as the road she’s traveled.

Read more: The Ultimate L.A. Bookshelf: Nonfiction

Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping

By Shane McCrae

Scribner: 272 pages, $27

(Aug. 1)

The award-winning poet was kidnapped at age 3 from his white mother and Black father by his maternal grandparents, who were white supremacists. They hid his heritage from him as much as they could — or taunted him for it when they couldn’t. The legacy McCrae had to pull into adult life is here told honestly, the author’s lyrical writing heightening the facts and feelings rather than softening them.

Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson

By Sally H. Jacobs

St. Martin’s Press: 464 pages, $32

(Aug. 15)

Harlem-born Althea Gibson knocked the tennis world’s lily-white country-club socks off with her powerful game in the early 1950s. She won at Wimbledon, she won at Forest Hills, she became No. 1 in her sport and was the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Jacobs, a Boston Globe journalist, shows how Gibson endured too much racism and too little admiration while setting the precedent for a more diverse and interesting sport.

Read more: Review: A legendary Native athlete is restored to glory by the Olympics and a rich new biography

Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

By Yepoka Yeebo

Bloomsbury: 400 pages, $30

(Aug. 29)

Dr. John Ackah Blay-Miezah told investors he could access Kwame Nkrumah’s Oman Ghana Trust Fund, billions of dollars the country’s first president had supposedly funneled to Swiss banks. He was a classic fraudster, neither a doctor nor operating under his real name. But Ghanaian journalist Yeebo takes it to another level, tracing Blay-Miezah’s scams to the lies of British colonial administrators who toppled Nkrumah. It’s a juicy, wild ride.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.