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10 New Summer Books to Add to Your 2022 Reading List

If you are a reading enjoyer and have enough free time to dedicate to a summer reading book, but can’t decide what genre or author to pick, we will help you out. No matter whether you’ve already packed your laundry bag or are simply counting down the days until you can finally lay out that blanket and unwind, the greatest summer novels will give you an experience like you’re soaking up the rays regardless of what the environment is like. A great book can transform even the little pauses in between duties into a peaceful getaway, whether you’re sitting on a beach in your own garden or on the couch in the living room with the doors open and the fan running. Whether you’re looking for sizzling adventure, spine-tingling suspense, historically accurate fiction, or true-to-life autobiographies that offer you a glimpse into another person’s life, there are a plethora of options to choose from our list below.

1. All The Lovers in The Night

Our first choice for your summer book will be “All the Lovers in the Night”, written by Mieko Kawakami. Fuyuko is a shy, solitary, and introverted woman who works as an independent editor. She’ll be thirty-five in a few months, and she has no idea how she’ll ever be in an emotionally or romantically fulfilling relationship with the way things are right now. She is tormented by memories of the past days. Fuyuko Irie despises her mirror because she sees a gloomy lady who can’t bring herself to smile. Fuyuko chooses to change, but there is always a price to pay. It’s an eloquent depiction of a life lived on the edges.

2. On Gin Lane

On Gin Lane by Brooke Lea Foster is a must-read this summer if you’re a fan of historical novels. In the summer of 1957, New York heiress Lee Farrows appears to have it all: a gorgeous fiancé, a swaggering fortune, and a beachfront hotel on Southampton’s Gin Lane. Lee’s portrait existence is unexpectedly disrupted when a horrific occurrence happens during the hotel’s opening weekend and she is expected to address her own mortality.

3. Woman Of Light

Stop looking for cheap essays that will not even tickle your imagination and instead, take this book to your hands. Sabrina & Corina, a nominee for the National Book Award, was Fajardo-first Anstine’s novel. Once again, she has returned with an intergenerational story about the Lopez clan, an Indigenous Chicano American family in the West. A heartfelt and personal tale. Using lyrical, unpretentious writing, Fajardo-Anstine beautifully captures the complexities of the several female characters in this novel, giving the reader a fresh outlook on how the previous time may help shape the present.

4. Bridgerton

If you are in search of books to read this summer, perhaps an excellent romance like “Bridgerton” would suit you. Romance novels set in the summer heat are the epitome of perfect summer reading. Author Julia Quinn’s very successful ‘Bridgerton’ series is the subject of this proposal. When Quinn was in Dubai for the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in February, she revealed to us how Shonda Rhimes became a fan of her series. Producing executive Shonda Rhimes took books with her on vacation, because she is an avid reader. That’s what occurred to me. She also ran out of textbooks this time.

5. Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell

Anna, which is widely regarded as the “conclusive” memoir of Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, is a biography that tells the riveting tale of her life via conversations with the design powerhouse’s intimate coworkers. The book, which was authored by fashion writer Amy Odell, is now the number one bestselling on Amazon.

6. Chronicles From the Land of The Happiest People on Earth

If you seek the best books to read this summer, you shouldn’t miss this masterpiece by Wole Soyinka. In the most recent book written by Wole Soyinka, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, four friends, each of whom is brilliant in their manner, make a pact to make Nigeria a better place. In this intricate critique of abuses of power and unethical practices, the writing is electrifying, and the conspiracies go deep.

7. Deacon King Kong

This book hides a story that will make it one of your best summer reads for sure. Let’s find out why. By focusing on the people who were directly impacted by the spraying bullets, McBride creates an evocative portrait of everyone involved: the victim, the African-Americans and Latinx inhabitants who observed it, the white residents who lived nearby, the local police officers assigned to the case, and the representatives of the Five Ends Baptist Church, where Sportcoat served as deacon during the time of the incident.

8. Harlem Shuffle

With this book on your side, you can forget about having an essay shortener alongside – it won’t be needed anymore. It’s understandably written by Colson Whitehead, even for novices in the English language. “The Nickel Boys,” Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 2019, serves as a prequel to this new book. Between 1959 and 1964, Harlem is the setting for this criminal novel and family tale.

9. The Hotel Nantucket

For the ones that want to have a little fun while reading, the plot of this phenomenal book will be ideal. Grace Hadley, a 19-year-old housemaid, tragically died in a fire at the Hotel Nantucket in 1922, and the resort went from a golden era jewel to a substandard budget-friendly lodging to an uninhabited eyesore, until London millionaire, Xavier Darling, acquired it and completely refurbished it.

10. Lapvona

An orphaned shepherd kid becomes the unusual center of a power battle that tests all faith in a medieval dominion buffeted by natural calamity. He was raised by his father, a rural shepherd, who informed him that his mother had died in childbirth. Marek’s relationship with the blind rural nurse, Ina, who breastfed him as a baby, is among the few lonely individuals in his life.

Conclusion

A lot of people don’t want to bring The Brothers Karamazov with them to the beach because they think it’s too heavy for summer reading. A good beach book may be intelligent, literary, and interesting all at the same time. It’s also just a plain pleasure to read, and in these trying times, what’s wrong with that? To enter into the story, all you have to do is pick a time and place that works for you.

Essential Gambling References within Pop Culture

The public image of gambling has had many ups and downs over the years. Once considered purely a vice, gambling and casinos owe much of their cooler current image to pop culture. When we think of casinos, many of us picture James Bond in black tie, arching his eyebrow over a game of baccarat.

On the other hand, popular culture doesn’t always paint gambling in a glamorous light. Certain songs and movies haven’t shied away from portraying the seedier side of the activity. Gambling is now more accessible and acceptable than ever before, so let’s take a dive into some of the essential gambling references within popular culture.

Gambling in the Movies

Ian Fleming’s book Casino Royale was the first in the James Bond series, and some credit both the novel and the subsequent Bond movies with putting baccarat on the map. When Daniel Craig’s Bond featured in the first official Casino Royale movie, more than half a century after the book was first published, the casino scenes reflected the changes in taste that had taken place. While Connery’s Bond smouldered over the baccarat table, Craig’s version had moved on to poker for his tense casino scenes.

A far cry from the glamour of Bond is the 1995 crime epic Casino. Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, and showcasing the talents of Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, this movie showed the uglier side of gambling. The plot follows a couple of mobsters as they make their mark in 1970s and 80s Las Vegas. Greed, power, money, drugs and murder all feature in this dark tale that laid bare the extent of mafia involvement in the scene during that time.

Celebrity Endorsements of Secure Online Casinos

Despite the cool factor bestowed by Bond and other characters in the popular culture, gambling has always suffered from an image problem. The public are all too aware of the connotations of vice, crime and problem gambling. All that is changing now, with the proliferation of legal and secure online casinos that are accessible to all. One of the ways that these safe casino sites boost their image and visibility in a crowded market is with celebrity endorsements, and many of these celebs have found that it is a good way to make some easy money. These days, you can’t turn on the television without seeing some famous personality promoting safe online casinos.

Even if they are not actively endorsing a particular casino site, many celebs these days are enthusiastic and open gamblers. Canadian megastar Drake is known for his high-rolling casino nights, and Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul famously faced off against Cristiano Ronaldo in a game of poker. There’s no doubt that the involvement of famous names has elevated the profile of gambling in the public consciousness, especially when it comes to poker.

Gambling in Music

The era of songs about gambling seems to be mostly over, with most of the most recognisable ones belonging firmly in the category of golden oldies. There are some great tunes out there, covering the whole spectrum on the topic. Elvis was firmly on the side of glitz and glamour when he sang Viva Las Vegas back in 1968, but other songs are more ambiguous. Both Luck be a Lady – popularised by Frank Sinatra – and Billy Joel’s Easy Money tell tales of gamblers dicing with desperation.

More recently, Lady Gaga used a lot of gambling imagery in her smash hit Poker Face. This song is avowedly not about gambling, and all the language is used as a metaphor for flirting – and a bit more than that. What’s interesting about the song is that it showcases exactly how entrenched in our common language poker terminology has become.

Gambling on Television

Gambling features in a huge number of popular television shows, and it is a common conceit within sitcoms. Witness Monica and Rachel losing their apartment to Chandler and Joey after Monica’s competitive side couldn’t resist making the stakes too high. Barney from How I Met Your Mother was also portrayed as slightly addicted to gambling. On the more serious side, the hugely popular historical crime drama Peaky Blinders is largely about the gambling underworld of the early twentieth century.

Aside from these and numerous other examples, there are and have been many shows dedicated to gambling as a topic. This can range from televised poker competitions, to game shows, to docu-series that follow the lives of people who work in and frequent casinos.

There is no doubt that we find gambling to be a fascinating topic, as proven by its prevalence in popular culture. It can also be an engaging story-telling tool, or a convenient plot device. When you factor in the popularity of gambling with stars of movies, music and sports, it’s little wonder that we see and hear so much about it.

FKA twigs Releases New Single ‘killer’

FKA twigs has released her new single ‘killer’, which she recently debuted during her ‘Tiny Desk (Home) Concert’ for NPR. Co-written with Jimmy Napes, Amanda Ghost, and Jonny Coffer, the track was produced by twigs and Coffer and features additional production by El Guincho. Check it out below.

Speaking about the new song, twigs said in a statement: “It’s dangerous to be a woman in love”- when at its worst the effects of heart break can define one’s trajectory much more than the beauty of the love itself, in my song ‘Killer’ I explore this concept. The navigation, the hunt and the kill. The death of promises, dreams and the future that was once promised. But like the wildest plucked roses, I find myself more beautiful delicately wilted, in shadow, forced solace, darkened at the edges and achingly thirsting to be tended to again.’”

FKA twigs dropped her mixtape CAPRISONGS back in January. She’s since unveiled videos for the tracks ‘meta angel’, ‘thank you song’, ‘oh my love’, and ‘which way’.

Steve Lacy Announces New Album ‘Gemini Rights’, Shares New Single ‘Mercury’

Steve Lacy has announced he has a new album on the way. Gemini Rights is set for release this summer via RCA, and it includes the new song ‘Mercury’, which was written, performed, and produced by Lacy. Check it out below.

“‘Mercury’ was done for like a year,” Lacy told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe. “The track was done for a year and then I didn’t write it till like a couple weeks before we finished the album. All of the singles, they all have a dual side, they all switch up, so like Mercury’s the first half and then the second half is something else, and then the singles do the same thing.”

Lacy issued his debut studio album, Apollo XXI, back in 2019. He’s since shared compilation record The Lo-Fis as well as collaborations with Thundercat (‘Black Qualls’), Love Regenerator (‘Live Without Your Love’), and Ravyn Lenae (‘Skin Tight’).

Flying Lotus Releases New Songs ‘The Room’ and ‘You Don’t Know’

Flying Lotus has released two new tracks, ‘The Room’ and ‘You Don’t Know’, both of which feature vocals from Los Angeles-based soul singer Devin Tracy. Take a listen below.

Since releasing his last studio LP, 2019’s Flamagra, and the accompanying Flamagra (Instrumentals), Flying Lotus has composed the score for LeSean Thomas’ anime series Yasuke and shared the title theme for the documentary series They Call Me Magic. Earlier this year, he also announced his second feature film, a sci-fi horror movie called Ash.

Claud Returns With New Song ‘Go Home!’

Claud is back with a new single called ‘Go Home!’. The track “is about falling into that hole of feeling awkward and uncomfortable in your own skin that all you crave is going home and sliding into whatever is familiar,” the artist explained in a statement. Listen to it below.

Claud’s debut album, Super Monster, came out last year. They recently completed a run of shows opening for Phoebe Bridgers, whose label Saddest Factory Records released the LP.

Lambchop Announce New Album ‘The Bible’, Share Video for New Single

Kurt Wagner has announced his latest Lambchop record: The Bible will be out September 30 through City Slang and Merge in North America. Lead single ‘Police Dog Blues’ comes paired with an Isaac Gale-directed video created using the Unreal 3D graphics engine. Check it out below.

“During the unrest surrounding the horrific injustice in Minneapolis in 2020, I had been re-listening to a song by Blind Blake, ‘Police Dog Blues’,” Wagner said of the new track. “Of note, it was originally recorded in 1929, the year my father was born, and it seems John Peel played it on his show on Sept. 11, 1968. It was deceptively upbeat musically and not what I remembered at all. Then I remembered a police dog is a Shepherd.”

Gale added of the visual: “We took the police dog from the song title literally and imagined a city, post cop-apocalypse, overrun by German Shepherds just kinda doing their thing “White privilege and apathy in the face of disastrous reality. I don’t think it’s stretching it to compare the police in Minneapolis—where myself and the producers of the record, Ryan Olson and Andrew Broder, all live—to a human-made catastrophic disaster.”

Commenting on the album’s title, Wagner explained: “I had this idea that—I’m not a religious person but I do believe that there’s a spirituality to a lot of people and they’re not religious. You don’t have to be religious to be a spiritual person, right? You just don’t have to, there should be an acceptance, or a way of recognizing spirituality without it being overtly religious.”

The Bible also marks the first time Wagner has worked with outside producers on a Lambchop album. “Ryan and Andrew, they’re like two sides of my personality,” Wagner commented. “And if you put them together as a team, they represent me”.

The Bible Cover Artwork:

The Bible Tracklist:

1. His Song Is Sung
2. Little Black Boxes
3. Daisy
4. Whatever Mortal
5. A Major Minor Drag
6. Police Dog Blues
7. Dylan At The Mouse Trap
8. Every Child Begins The World Again
9. So There
10. That’s Music

Belief Unveil Video for New Song ‘WOT’

Belief, the project of Stella Mozgawa and Boom Bip, have shared ‘WOT’, the latest single from their forthcoming debut self-titled album. Following earlier cuts ‘Art of Love’, ‘Jung’, ‘I Want To Be’, and ‘Ulu’, the single arrives with an accompanying video by Jim Hosking. Check it out below.

“‘WOT’ is a playful track that we added last minute to the album,” Mozgawa explained in a statement. “It has a cheeky, mischievous spirit that we felt was missing from the record. It all came together quickly and in a shared flow state.”

“Stella came to me with this killer Oberheim part, which is the main synth in the track,” Boom Bip added. “It has this driving energy and atonal quality that sits satisfyingly alone quite well.”

“I once glimpsed a man in Oxford busking by performing a one footed dance and he was making a lot of money,” commented Hosking. “I remembered him when I heard the track “WOT” by Belief—the track burrows into your brain and never relents, rather like the one footed dance I once glimpsed in Oxford. The video was shot in Willesden Green in London where the sun always shines. That’s why they call it the L.A. of London.”

Belief comes out July 15 via Lex Records.

DC Gore Releases New Song ‘Sisyphus’

DC Gore has released a new song called ‘Sisyphus’. It’s set to appear on his upcoming album All These Things, which is set to land on July 29 via Domino. Give it a listen below.

“’Sisyphus’ is a song about giving up on trying to pretend you know what the hell is going on or what you’re supposed to do,” Gore explained in a press release. “It feels like because we have access to the internet, now everyone has to have an opinion on everything all of the time and yet the complexity of the world we live in makes that impossible. I suppose the question the song asks is – after clumsily struggling through your life would it be possible to give in and actually enjoy it?”

Whitney Announce New Album ‘SPARK’, Share New Single ‘REAL LOVE’

Whitney, the Chicago duo comprised of Julien Ehlrich and Max Kakacek, have announced their third album, SPARK. The follow-up to 2019’s Forever Turned Around is out September 16 via Secretly Canadian. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the lead track ‘REAL LOVE’, which comes with an accompanying Aaron Brown-directed video. Check it out below, along with the album cover and tracklist.

Ehlrich and Kakacek wrote most of SPARK while quarantining together in Portland during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic; ‘REAL LOVE’ was the first song they wrote upon returning to Chicago in May 2021, and the first one they finished before heading to Texas to record the LP with producers Brad Cook and John Congleton.

“Max and I wrote ‘REAL LOVE’ in June 2021 right after a cross country move back to Chicago,” Ehlrich explained in a statement. “I was experiencing heightened levels of anxiety and panic, while the entire city was re-emerging from isolation. I’ve been running away from and self medicating my anxiety for as long as I can remember, but for whatever reason, it felt like it was time to dive straight into it. During late night sessions over a two week period, we captured the embrace of anxiety and fear in a way that resonated with us immediately. We spent the next few summer nights driving on Ashland with the windows down and the song turned up. It felt like an emotional and musical burst of light and we’re so grateful to finally be sharing that with people.”

SPARK Cover Artwork:

SPARK Tracklist:

1. NOTHING REMAINS
2. BACK THEN
3. BLUE
4. TWIRL
5. REAL LOVE
6. MEMORY
7. SELF
8. NEVER CROSSED MY MIND
9. TERMINAL
10. HEART WILL BEAT
11. LOST CONTROL
12. COUNTY LINES