What to read in August 2025? Here's a selection of the most interesting new releases this month
August is an ambiguous month: some wait for it all year as a promise of lightness and disconnection, while others can’t wait for it to be over. Whether you’re staying in the city, heading elsewhere, or pretending it’s just another month, reading remains one of the most enjoyable ways to make it through. But the real question is: which book to choose? nss G-Club brings you stories of a pianist and her double, a community in the far north of Sweden, love in exile, both metaphorical and geographical, on the edges of Europe, and a different kind of summer entertainment. Five titles, five distinct voices, all united by a gaze that knows how to go deep, even when summer seems to ask only for surface.
Books to read in August 2025
Deborah Levy - August Blue (NN Editore)
Last summer, everyone, at least in my small Instagram bubble, was reading Real Estate, the final volume of Deborah Levy’s Living Autobiography trilogy. The acclaimed South African writer will see all three volumes released in a single collection this November. On July 8, NN published her new novel, August Blue (Italian translation by Gioia Guerzoni). Continuing the path begun in her Autobiography, this novel explores the fragmentation of thought in a renowned pianist undergoing an identity crisis, haunted by the vision of a woman who seems to be her double. What happens in terms of plot and events is secondary: readers must suspend their desire for a tightly packed narrative, and instead follow what many describe as a dreamlike journey.
Shon Faye - Love in exile
In an interview, Sally Rooney shared how love, to love and be loved, radically changed her life from a young age. One can debate the implications of that statement at length, but a meaningful way to reflect on it is by reading Love in Exile by Shon Faye (translated into Italian by Clara Nubile). A breakup with a man prompts Faye to examine love today, and what happens when even a political act becomes a commodity. As a trans woman, Faye often felt exiled from the closed world of heterosexual love; however, what emerges in her book is that this feeling of exclusion is not isolated, but widely shared. You can find a brilliant conversation with the author here.
“At the time I didn’t have such coherent words for it, but I realized that the true practice of love, as bell hooks writes, is the desire to nurture spiritual growth—our own and that of our beloved. I knew it, because in that relationship, my feelings and my will were in conflict. I realized we weren’t cultivating anything worth keeping.”
Niviaq Korneliussen - One night in Nuuk
Niviaq Korneliussen is one of the most acclaimed writers of the moment: the New Yorker declared her the "unexpected literary star" of Greenland. A land that lives within the contradiction of two scales: it has the lowest population density in the world and is also the world’s largest island, 80% of which is covered in ice. In this vast land on the edge of Europe, Korneliussen gives voice to five characters in One night in Nuuk, her debut novel. Published in Italy by Iperborea and translated by Francesca Turri, she wrote the book at just 24. Mixing stream-of-consciousness with text messages, Facebook posts, and songs, there’s even a playlist at the end, Korneliussen crafts a polyphonic novel, deeply rooted in Greenlandic cultural and linguistic identity. Its dual nature is its strength, exploring universal themes through a highly specific lens.
Annika Norlin - The Colony
Novels focused on small and isolated communities are captivating for many reasons: in a small group, you can focus on the collective dynamic, what unites people in choosing that life, or dive deep into individual traits in the search for truth. Writer Annika Norlin explores these questions in The Colony, translated by Carmen Giorgetti Cima and published by E/O. The protagonist, Emelie, is a thirty-something in full burnout, who retreats to a remote part of northern Sweden. She becomes intrigued by a group of people who, on the surface, have nothing in common: and that mystery pulls her in.
Sara Caterina Tzarina Casiccia - August is a black hole
One of the most relatable moments in Too Much, Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series, is when the main character Jessica says: “If I wanted to relax and fall asleep instantly, I’d watch Dateline. We’d watch the unsolved murder of a respectable female pastor. It really puts things in perspective!” With this mindset, you might enjoy August is a black hole (Eris Edizioni) by Sara Caterina Tzarina Casiccia: a kind of advent calendar for true crime lovers. Thirty-one events for thirty-one days, all equally tragic: political cases, poets and writers who died by suicide, and notorious crimes (including the Monster of Florence). Especially clever is the Dark Crossword at the end: “four pages of macabre rest.”
