13 books that cannot be missing from your reading list for the second half of the year

Assemble the reading agenda includes outstanding debts, from great classics to postponed wishes. But new publications are constantly emerging for add to the listand to choose we can be guided by critics’ reviews, recommendations from book clubs and publishers, and awards given to books or authors.

In addition to the winners, we can open the range to the “short list”, those who have reached finalists of famous awardslike the Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker, Nadal, Strega and many others from different countries.

And there is also the selection of great media, such as Guardian (England) or New York Times (United States) or the magazine Granta which is dedicated to young writers. These lists appear every year and appearing on them is a valuable recognition.

If you have not yet put together your agenda, today we propose 13 high impact books so that you take them into account this second half of the year according to the launches of large publishers such as Grupo Planet and Penguin Random House.

1) Baumgartner, by Paul Auster (Seix Barral)

The book world has just said goodbye to one of the most beloved contemporary authors. Auster wrote Baumgartner in his final days, while fighting cancer. It is a reflection on the love endured by a 71-year-old writer who lost his wife, Anna, nine years ago. Today he remembers the different ways a man loves a woman at different stages of life. That 40-year relationship left many microstories that also make up the novel.

2) The city and its uncertain walls, by Haruki Murakami (Tusquets)

The main couple met at a student competition. They haven’t seen each other too many times, but in parks and on the banks of a river, she tells him about a strange walled city, located in another world. Over time she tells him that her true self is in that mysterious city. Fall has entered, He receives a letter that he interprets as a farewell. Years of sadness will pass until he sees the possibility of finding her again. The narrator discovers that this walled city exists at some point that escapes reason.

3) The daughters of the maid, Sonsoles Ónega (Planet)

The novel that received the 2023 Planeta Prize tells some family secrets with the tone of a gathering around the fire. In the winter of 1900, Clara and Catalina were born with their destinies already assigned. But an unexpected revenge will shake the lives of all the Valdés. It is a story of magical realism, in a Galicia out of serieswith characters who fight against destiny in search of the truth.

4) So Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara (Lumen)

This story covers the 30 years of friendship of four young people in Manhattan. Everyone has to survive economic, social and emotional crises. Some successfully, some not, but all experience the limits of human nature. The author masterfully supports the psychology of the characters and through each of them seeks answers to universal questions. It was considered the best novel of 2023 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Guardian, The Economist, Newsweek, People, Time Out New York, Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Review.

5) The Germans, by Sergio del Molino (Alfaguara)

Alfaguara Prize 2024. During the First World War, 600 German refugees who surrendered in Cameroon arrived in Spain, a neutral country. Some are installed in Saragossaamong them the great-grandfather of Eva and Fede, who, a century later, are found, together with their father, in the German cemetery in Zaragoza. They are the only ones left of the Schusters, a family that carried on an important trade. But the past returns to stir up the present and bring into play the guilt inherited from the Nazis, plus the possibility and obligation of forgiveness that the children face.

6) A wild animal, by Joël Dicker (Alfaguara)

In a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Geneva, Sophie Braun celebrates her fortieth birthday. But her idyllic world is about to be shaken. Her husband is entangled in her little secrets and her police neighbor, obsessed with her, knows the most intimate details of her life. The story travels to the past to find the origin of this intrigue from which everyone is hurt. Rhythm and suspense in this thriller written by the author of the successful detective story The Truth About the Harry Quebert Case.

7) Paris woke up late, by Máximo Huerta (Planeta)

Alice Humbert has been abandoned by the love of her life. In 1924 Paris prepared to host the Olympic Games. The streets are abuzz and Alice lets herself be enveloped by joy. She works as a dressmaker, writes letters and takes care of her siblings. With the support of her friend Kiki de Montparnasse she will become a famous fashion designer. She meets a man who dazzles her, but the past returns and the fear of feeling lost again disrupts her happy present.

8) The silent patient, by Alex Michaelides (Alfaguara)

The renowned painter Alicia Berenson kills her husband and never speaks again. The tragedy becomes a mystery for all of England. Six years later, Theo Faber, from his place as a therapist at The Grove psychiatric hospital, insists on investigating the mystery and discovers that Alice’s inability to speak has a cause that not everyone can hear. Maybe neither does he.

9) Zeal, by Sabina Urraca (Alfaguara)

The novel that established Sabina Urraca as narrator tells the experiences of La Humana, a 33-year-old girl who returns to Madrid fleeing the town and her ex-partner. She adopts a stray dog ​​and discovers that she is in heat. The animal’s sexual drive awakens a panic in La Humana that leads her to face group therapy. There she will meet Mecha, a fascinating 50-year-old woman who leads her into an unexpected relationship.

10) The Year of the Locust, by Terry Hayes (Planet)

From the same author of I Am Pilgrim, The Year of the Lobster is a long spy novel with an addictive plot. Now the protagonist is Kane, a CIA spy sent to the triple border shared by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, with the mission of rescuing a man who has substantial information for the security of the Western world. But neither the man nor things turn out as expected.

11) The boy, by Fernando Aramburu (Tusquets)

From the author of ‘Homeland’ and ‘Self-portrait without me’, this time the Basque Fernando Aramburu tells of the accident that caused a gas explosion in a school in Ortuella (Vizcaya) in 1980, which left 50 children dead. This event, which shocked the Basque Country and all of Spain, is narrated from the suffering of a destroyed family and from the point of view of a grandfather who visits the grave of his grandson every Thursday of his life.

12) Almudena, by Luis García Montero (Tusquets)

One of the greatest poets in Spain brings together in this volume the love poems that he dedicated to his wife, the writer Almudena Grandes, during their shared years, from 1994 until the narrator’s death in 2021. Love in every stage of life, with what remains and what is transformed, what has been enjoyed and what has been suffered and the moments of mourning.

13) Paris 2024, by Francisco Ibáñez (Magos del Humor 222)

The most famous characters in Spanish comics, agents Mortadelo and Filemón, return with an adventure at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, trying to resolve a situation that puts the international event at risk. With a prologue by Arturo Pérez Reverte, there are twenty pages of typewritten script and pencil vignettes. A gem for fans of the genre and laughter, who will access a work that has already made history in Spanish literature.