If you only read one book this summer … make it this one

If our 2017 holiday reading list was too long for you, here are some suggestions, from beach reads to history, science to sci-fi

Saturday 8 July 2017 08.00 BST

Literary page turner

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fleet)

Both harrowing and thrilling, this is a genre-bending tour de force in which the abolitionist network becomes a real railway taking escaping slaves into different possible versions of America.

Beach read

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin)

This year’s Baileys winner is simultaneously a high-concept thought experiment and a rollercoaster, action-packed read.

Book in translation

A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman, translated by Jessica Cohen (Vintage)

An Israeli stand-up walks on stage and starts falling apart, in this short, sharp shocker about family, community and nationhood (with jokes). The winner of the Man Booker International prize.

Historical novel

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (Faber)

Perhaps the cleverest, funniest book of the year: high-spirited shenanigans in 1746 New York combined with a scholarly delight in 18th-century language.

Science fiction

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (4th Estate)

A gigantic flying bear lays waste to a post-apocalyptic landscape: following his Southern Reach trilogy, VanderMeer goes from strength to strength with a typically weird sortie into non-human sentience.

Crime thriller

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips (Doubleday)

An adrenaline-soaked, edge-of-the-seat account of a mother and her four-year-old son locked in a zoo with gunmen on the prowl.

Book for 8-12s

The Incredible Billy Wild by Joanna Nadin (Little, Brown)

When Billy finds a greyhound in his shed, he’s determined to keep her – and free hundreds more like her, despite hardship at home. A tender, unsentimental adventure, filled with family ties, love and courage.

Teen read

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli (Penguin)

After 26 secret crushes, is 17-year-old Molly ready to risk rejection at last? This is the perfect warm-hearted, hilarious summer romance.

Current affairs

No Is Not Enough by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane)

For those who want to understand the drive and hope behind the Corbynite Labour movement, Alex Nunn’s The Candidate is your best bet. The even bigger story is Trump, who, Naomi Klein writes in this stirring, ultimately optimistic work, wasn’t “a rupture at all, but rather the culmination … of a great many dangerous stories our culture has been telling for a very long time”. This isn’t a book for policy wonks, but for those wanting real political change.

Science

Behave by Robert Sapolsky (Bodley Head)

An ambitious and amusingly written explanation of why humans act as they do. Informed by the latest research, Sapolsky sets out to tackle such big issues as free will, kindness and why we go to war.

Memoir

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (Allen Lane)

The father at the centre of this joke-filled, highly original memoir is a feminist-hating, gun-loving, anti-abortion, midwest Catholic priest, fond of wearing nothing but see-through underwear.

History

Queer City by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto)

A rambunctious chronicle of “gay London from pre-Roman times to the present day”. The story is one of persecution and punishment, but ultimately Ackroyd is determined to celebrate queerness, and write an alternative and subversive history that “represents the ultimate triumph of London”.

THE GUARDIAN