Bumper book special: from 2024’s hottest titles to all-time fave reads

Straight Up

We’re talking books this week, hunnies, as what better time of year than to get stuck into some summer reads than holiday szn? From the hottest books of 2024 (think: Butter, Blue Sisters and Brotherless Night) to the all-time faves we're still thinking about years on, these are the titles we suggest adding to your bucket-list immediately. Thank you so much for your reccs so far, we've added the ones we didn't get a chance to talk about today below and will keep on ploughing through, please do send more!

We are so excited to have finally announced our live event with The Trouble Club on 26th September at The Dally in Islington. Get your ticket for £15 with the code STRAIGHTUP50 here: https://www.thetroubleclub.com/events/straight-up-live-podcast-recording

DM us your thoughts on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠@straightuppod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or email us at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ and as ever please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and a rating on Spotify, lysm!

Thanks so much to our amazing partners:

Whitebox Cocktails, who make the tastiest canned cocktails we have ever tried, from Maragritas and Negronis, frozen Martinis to Old Fashioneds. GET 20% OFF with our code SU20 at⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://whiteboxcocktails.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

Incite Nutrition, a UK based supplement company making our favourite Vitamin D spray and biotin (plus marine collagen and lots more). Incredibly reasonably priced and amazing quality. GET 15% OFF via Amazon with the code STRAIGHTUP at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://amzn.to/4eY4odu⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Books / culture discussed:

• Butter by Asako Yuzuki
• Slutty Chef column, Vogue
• Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
• Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler
• Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan
• A Little Dust on the Eyes by Minoli Salgado
• Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
• The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
• 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
• Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
• Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagnee
• Kill Your Friends by John Niven
• The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
• Reach For the Stars by Michael Cragg
• Educated by Tara Westover
• How Lucky Blue and Nara Aziza Smith Made Viral Internet Fame From Scratch, GQ
• The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
• What Tweens Get from Sephora and What They Get from Us, Jia Tolentino for the New Yorker
• No one is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
• The Unwilding by Marina Kemp
• You Are Here by David Nicholls
• Us by David Nicholls
• The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
• Margot’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
• Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagen
• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
• Experience by Kate Young
• Mrs S by K Patrick