11 New Book Releases Coming to Your TBR Stack This Month
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.
Whether you’re singling out which books to bring on an upcoming vacation, luxuriating in low-key Sunday afternoons, or hiding out in bookstores until the temperature mercifully drops somewhere below hellscape, this month offers a host of new book releases to scoop up. From debut fiction to fresh work from award-winning authors and non-fiction galore, there’s enough to (maybe) lure you away from seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer on opening weekend. Below, check out some of the top new books getting released in July.
More from Rolling Stone
NASCAR Live Stream: How to Watch the NASCAR Racing Season Online
F1 Live Stream: How to Watch the Formula One Racing Season Online
UFC Fight Night Livestream: How to Watch MMA Online for Free
This Must Be the Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City – Jesse Rifkin
If you’re a New Yorker (past or present), returning to streets of bygone days can be a dizzying experience — what once were memory-riddled landmarks are often reimagined into new spaces. This is especially the case for places that housed music’s most influential scenes. Author, historian, and tour guide Jesse Rifkin traipses down memory lane (literally) and, through interviews with acts like Moldy Peaches, Sonic Youth, and Suicide revisits how New York City’s landscape served as a canvas for acts to experiment, form, and flourish.
This Must Be the Place
Crook Manifesto – Colson Whitehead
In Crook Manifesto, the follow-up to Harlem Shuffle, Ray Carney, protagonist in the sweeping Harlem series by Pulitzer-prize winning author, Colson Whitehead, is tasked with keeping his business above board and getting his hands on Jackson Five tickets for his daughter — by any means necessary. Readers catch up with Ray in the Seventies (they last saw him in the Sixties) and, true to Whitehead’s savvy story-weaving abilities, the drama is nearly as electric as a Taylor Swift audience waiting for the singer to take the stage. For a full-send of fictional fun, be sure to (re)read Harlem Shuffle before picking up the sequel.
Crook Manifesto: A Novel
Elsewhere: Stories – Yan Ge
Making her English-language debut, award-winning Yan Ge, who’s written 13 books in Chinese, unfurls a collection of short stories centered on the concept of longing — or summertime sadness as it were. Here, Ge applies her trademark stylistic prowess to bitesize stories, which follow protagonists as they navigate the sense of otherness with varying degrees of success. Pour a crisp glass of something and settle in for a ride, it’ll be time well spent.
Elsewhere: Stories
Nothing Special – Nicole Flattery
What’s better than a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Manhattan? A coming-of-age tale set at the Warhol Factory, of course. Already drawing comparisons to millennial-whisperer, Ottessa Moshfegh, debut novelist Nicole Flattery sidesteps the usual tropes associated with the familiar premise and instead investigates the nature of female friendships, power dynamics between artist and muse, and the adolescent practice of hollowing oneself out to supplant a new personality. Hired as a typist to transcribe Warhol’s famed tape recordings, teenager Mae finds herself swept up in a fast-moving scene that can be thankless to its members, no matter how iconic. But Mae isn’t impressed by what she hears (she’s a native New Yorker, after all), but hypnotized by the Warhol superstars’ sense of selves. In Nothing Special, hard lessons are learned, parties rage, and yes, a screen test or two are filmed.
Nothing Special
Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush – Tom Doyle
Regardless if you’re a diehard fan or recently succumbed to her wizardry thanks to Stranger Things, Kate Bush stans of all stripes will delight in this comprehensive biography by Tom Doyle. Between exclusive interviews with Bush, chats with longtime collaborators like David Gilmour, and a return to pivotal moments in her career, there’s plenty of new material within the book’s pages to make it worth checking out.
Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush
Owner of a Lonely Heart – Beth Nguyen
Becoming a parent can sometimes inspire self-reflection. Such is the case in memoir Owner of a Lonely Heart. Author Beth Nguyen meditates on leaving Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War and that decision’s enduring repercussions. An infant at the time, Nguyen, her father, sisters, and grandmother crossed borders while her mother remained behind. Reunited with her mother after almost two decades, Nguyen digs into her American upbringing, the experience of becoming acquainted with her mother as an adult, and assuming the role of a parent herself.
Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir
Too Late to Stop Now: More Rock ‘n’ Roll War Stories – Allan Jones
If you love being regaled with stories of days gone by, you’re in for a treat. British music journalist Allan Jones welcomes you to the fold and revisits some of the most outlandish encounters, anecdotes, and ordeals from his time as writer and editor at Melody Maker beginning in the 1970s. With Chrissie Hynde’s hot take on the Pretenders, John Cale’s tea on his toxic frenemy-ship with Lou Reed, and even more drugged-up antics from the glory days of music journalism, the book does not disappoint.
Too Late To Stop Now: More Rock’n’Roll War Stories
Counterweight – Djuna
There’s nothing like entering an alternate universe that low-key resembles an episode of Black Mirror. And in the case of Counterweight by Djuna, the popular (but anonymous) South Korean sci-fi author, it makes sense — the book was initially meant as a script for a low-budget film. It works better on the page, though. Think of the novel as the cosmic lovechild of Hackers, The Matrix, and pretty much anything by H.P. Lovecraft, kinda.
Counterweight: A Novel
The Sunset Crowd – Karin Tanabe
If you’re searching for something super juicy, pick up a copy of The Sunset Crowd, filled with bad behavior in pursuit of the ever-evasive achievement of making it. The novel follows three young Hollywood players: Evra Scott, the nepo baby; Theodora Leigh, the bloodthirsty corporate girlie; and Bea Dupont who snaps photos for none other than this publication. While they may seem to have nothing in common, the characters share a savage willingness to stamp out any threats to rise above the rest.
The Sunset Crowd: A Novel
Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones – Elizabeth Winder
Parachute Women spotlights four powerhouses whose influence on The Rolling Stones can still be felt today. The book tracks how Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg introduced the band to groundbreaking art and new ways of dressing, wrote certain songs, and connected the group to instrumental figures in the film and art scenes, all of which contributed to the band’s growth and evolution. In Parachute Women, Winder pays homage to women who are often left in the footnotes of a band’s folklore and places them on the mantle of music history, right where they belong.
Parachute Women
How Can I Help You – Laura Sims
Bringing workplace politics to a fever pitch, How Can I Help You is a delicious mystery begging to be enjoyed beachside. Ever find yourself wondering about a quiet colleague? So has Patricia who’s grown increasingly curious about Margo, a fellow librarian who’s cagier than a co-worker caught lurking in public Slack channels. Patricia becomes a dog with the bone after a patron is found dead in the library’s bathroom, leading her to dig further into Margo’s past — worse of an idea than eating someone else’s lunch found in the shared work fridge. Equal parts cozy mystery and nail-biter, Laura Sims’ latest novel is sure to satisfy just about any thriller craving.
How Can I Help You
Bonus Books
Immortal Longings – Chloe Gong; available now: This retelling of Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra already has BookTok in a fantasy-laden tizzy. Cliff Notes could never.
At the End of Every Day – Arianna Reiche; available now: The debut thriller set at an amusement park is creepier than a house of mirrors.
Small Worlds – Caleb Azumah Nelson; available now: A sophomore novel that’s just as riveting as the debut before it. Thank us later.
Best of Rolling Stone
