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Sunday, July 9, 2017

Best holiday reads 2017, picked by writers – part two

What to pack along with the aftersun and flipflops? From novels about gay footballers and updated Greek classics to biographies and poetry, our guest critics offer their holiday must-reads PART ONE: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Julian Barnes and more pick their summer reads COLM TÓIBÍN’s exhilarating _House of Names_ (Viking £14.99) is a retelling of Aeschylus’s drama on the sacrificing by Agamemnon of his daughter Cassandra and its tragic consequences, including the murder of Agamemnon by his wife, Clytemnestra. The book has a controlled, hushed quality, like that of a Morandi still life, which only serves to heighten the terror and pity of the tale. MICHAEL LONGLEY’s latest collection, _Angel Hill_ (Jonathan Cape £10) – what a genius he has for titles – is at once lush and elegiac, delicate and muscular, melancholy and thrilling. I shall not be going anywhere – hate holidays – but will stay happily at home, rereading EVELYN WAUGH’s second world war _Sword of Honour_ trilogy (Penguin £14.99). Pure bliss. Continue reading...


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