Our book of the month is Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein’s utterly fabulous memoir. A number of us here at Readings have been hanging out for this book to arrive, and like our reviewer, I am completely besotted by it. But I hear your concern, dear reader: you are worried that it’s ‘not for you’ because you’re not keen on music bios, or perhaps you have limited interest in the riot grrrl scene and its radical feminist politics, or maybe you are afraid to admit you’ve never heard of the author or her band, Sleater-Kinney. Don’t worry: Brownstein will win you over with her prose – it’s so, so good – and her irresistible account of finding (and finding out) what matters. I really love this book! Speaking of iconic feminists, Gloria Steinem has also been writing a memoir – My Life on the Road – and it’s in stores now. It’s easy to take for granted the ground that was won by Steinem and her generation of activists, but life as we know it would be very different had they not fought so hard. Coincidentally, the collection, I Call Myself a Feminist, appears this month, with contributions from writers under 30, part of a growing ‘fourth wave’ of feminists. Allow me to be in the room should they ever meet up with Brownstein and Steinem!

Brontë aficionados take note: Debra Adelaide uses Wuthering Heights as muse in her new novel, The Women’s Pages, which explores the transformative powers of reading and writing. It’s another big month for international fiction releases, with Orhan Pamuk, Isabel Allende, Umberto Eco, Colum McCann and David Mitchell all releasing new work, as does one of the originators of my love for the Big American Novel, John Irving. Speaking of such books, if you’re looking for a whopping great tome to occupy your summer holidays, you couldn’t do better than the book that has set the US publishing world alight, Garth Risk Hallberg’s 900-page epic, City on Fire: it’s on my ‘must-read’ list. Also on that ever-expanding list is another book garnering a lot of praise internationally, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, a story set in Vietnam in 1975. And while I’m talking about 1975, people who were born that year probably don’t need reminding that they have (or have had) a significant birthday this year, but they might be interested to discover that they share that number with Ian McEwan’s first book, the short story collection, First Love, Last Rites: a 40th anniversary edition is out this month.

Readers of political non-fiction will be excited to learn of the publication of Kerry O’Brien’s Keating, and Paddy Manning’s investigation into the life and times of our current PM in Born to Rule. I know more than a few Ancient Rome history buffs will be hanging out for Mary Beard’s new work, SPQR. Meanwhile, foodies have loads to choose from this month too, including books from hometown heroes George Calombaris and Karen Martini; and, at last, Black Inc. is republishing the much-loved classic that has been out of print for many years, Mietta’s Italian Family Recipes.

Alison Huber