Writers and Guardian readers share books they enjoyed in July, ranging from literary fiction and horror to memoir and hybrid nonfiction. The selections highlight recurring interests in community, identity, women’s lives, environmental harm and unsettling or claustrophobic settings.

– Max Porter recommends Joan Barfoot’s Gaining Ground, Robert Frost and Stacy Skolnik’s Robert Frost, and Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s forthcoming End Times Fascism.
– Reader Richard praises CJ Leede’s horror novel Headlights, comparing its ambition to Stephen King and noting its environmental themes.
– Daisy Johnson recommends Sylvia Townsend Warner’s convent novel The Corner That Held Them and Olga Tokarczuk’s surreal sanatorium tale The Empusium.
– Reader Sarah highlights Tamarin, Under Water, My Cantopop Nights and Said the Dead, drawn to works about women facing personal change and questions of home.