Books of the month: From David Mitchell’s Utopia Avenue to Frances Cha’s If I Had Your Face

Martin Chilton reviews five of July’s releases for our monthly book column

Under the covers: Amanda Craig and Richard Holloway also feature (iStock/The Independent)

Three powerful memoirs out in July are part of what is more like the usual monthly publishing avalanche. Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray writes about her own battle with obesity in Fat Cow, Fat Chance (Doubleday). Murray admits to the pain she’s suffered after getting vile abuse about her size. Her candid book is an eloquent reminder that “fat-shaming is hate speech”.

Fragments of My Father (4th Estate) by Sam Mills is a poignant memoir about being a carer for a father who suffered from mental illness. Mills melds her own touching story with reflections on the literary figures – including Zelda Fitzgerald – who have been through similar struggles. The third bitingly honest autobiographical tale is Terri White’s Coming Undone (Canongate), in which the Derbyshire-born editor-in-chief of Empire movingly documents how she rebuilt her life after incidents of physical and sexual abuse.

There are a host of terrific novels out in July, including John Boyne’s heavyweight A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom (Doubleday) and Caoilinn Hughes’s The Wild Laughter (Oneworld), which is full of energy and mordant wit. Kathleen MacMahon’s impressive love story Nothing But Blue Sky (Penguin Ireland) is a tender dissection of marriage.