Five of this summer’s best fiction reads

By Sally O'Reilly, Honorary Associate in Creative Writing, The Open University
Alice Kelly, Assistant Professor of Literature and History, University of Warwick
Emily Zobel Marshall, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, Leeds Beckett University
Jane McBride, PhD in, University of Galway
Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor in Department of English, UCL

Looking for a great read to take on holiday with you? We had our experts review some of the hottest books of 2024. From love stories to tales of murders and food, there’s something for every fiction lover.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

How do we make meaning out of death, especially when it is violent and senseless? This question preoccupies Cyrus Shams, the protagonist of Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, Martyr!.

Cyrus is trying to make sense of the death of his mother, Roya, in an aeroplane shot down by US military forces over the Persian Gulf. In the…

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~	Lebanon: Israeli military’s overly broad mass evacuation orders sowing panic and fuelling humanitarian suffering

~	Iran: Internet Shutdown Violates Rights, Escalates Risks to Civilians

~	New Report Warns Trump EPA Undermining Health

~	Cameroonian Separatist Leaders Arrested in Belgium

~	Public health needs steady budgets – and federal funding uncertainty causes real harms, even if the money is later restored

~	Most Saharan dust is generated by ‘hidden thunderstorms’ high above the desert

~	Russia Declares Leading LGBT Rights Group ‘Extremist’

~	China’s muted response over war in Iran reflects Beijing’s delicate calculus as a concerned onlooker