10 Trending New Books of July ’21

Told through actual journal entries, steamy short stories, personal emails, a few haikus, and at least one dirty limerick, 44 Chapters About 4 Men chronicles the year I spent toying with my husband’s mind and ignoring all ethical standards of psychology.

I decided to publish it in the hopes that someone out there might benefit from my discovery—or at least laugh at it—but in doing so I’m risking more than just my career. If word of this book gets back to Ken, I could lose the very man I’ve worked so hard to perfect.

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience.

In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs – opium, caffeine and mescaline – and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison.

Dante is a know-it-all who has a unique perspective on life.

When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they develop a special friendship – the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about the universe, themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world.

This unprecedented insight into Basquiat’s art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist’s life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

Before anyone else is awake, on a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the glorious freshwater pond below ‘The Paper Palace’ — the gently decaying summer camp in the back woods of Cape Cod where her family has spent every summer for generations.

As she passes the house, Elle glances through the screen porch at the uncleared table from the dinner the previous evening; empty wine glasses, candle wax on the tablecloth, echoes of laughter of family and friends. Then she dives beneath the surface of the freezing water to the shocking memory of the sudden passionate encounter she had the night before, up against the wall behind the house, as her husband and mother chatted to the guests inside.

The inspiration behind the hit Netflix series, Lupin.

The year is 1905. Meet Arsene Lupin: a gentleman and a thief. An enemy to the rich and powerful; a friend to the poor – Arsene Lupin will stop at nothing until he gets what he wants.

When Arsene Lupin is arrested, the police think it’s all over. But the most dangerous place for Lupin is to be behind bars…

The step-by-step plan to help your baby love their broccoli as much as their cake.

Based on a vegetable first approach, the perfect way to develop healthy eating habits and to tackle fussy eating before it begins, you’ll be hand-held through the first 30 days of weaning as well as given lots of delicious recipes all the family can enjoy.

Packed with tried and tested tips, as well as the latest evidence-based guidance, How to Wean Your Baby will fully equip and empower you to take this exciting next step.

From the award-winning author of Ash comes a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1950s.

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father – despite his hard-won citizenship – Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

My body, your body,
every different kind of body!
All of them are good bodies!
BODIES ARE COOL!

This heart-warming, inclusive book, filled with detailed and friendly illustrations is a celebration of every kind of body that exists in the world. Through an empowering, rhythmic text that is perfect for reading aloud, little ones can explore various skin tones, body shapes, hair types, and more, in an accessible way that instils body positivity and confidence.

Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.

There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal. Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.

El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions – never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school. Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it… that is, unless she has no other choice.