The Last White Man: A Novel

"Mohsin Hamid ( The Reluctant Fundamentalist , Exit West ) returns with The Last White Man, a work of speculative fiction in which people wake up, unexpectedly, with different skin tones. Kirkus described it as “a brilliantly realized allegory of racial transformation.” (Out August 2.) I’m also intrigued by Louisa Reid’s novel-in-verse The Poet ( out now in the UK , available as ebook or audiobook in the US), a story of a dysfunctional relationship that should appeal to fans of Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation . Plus there’s Nell Zink’s latest, Avalon , a coming-of-age story featuring a Californian plant nursery, biker gangs and a pretentious college student boyfriend. The book I’ve been raving about recently to anyone willing to listen is the French writer Emmanuel Carrère’s new (and somewhat controversial ) work of autofiction, Yoga . Autofiction is a slippery term—it usually refers to a novel that draws heavily on the author’s own life, but with a veil of doubt drawn over the narrative—and this case is one of the slipperiest of all. In it, we follow the author through a major life crisis as he suffers a mental collapse, spends time in a psychiatric institution, volunteers in a refugee camp, and (off-screen) experiences the break-up of his decade-long marriage."