Monthly paperback roundup: Allen‑Paisant, Anne Tyler and other new releases

The Guardian’s monthly paperback roundup highlights a mix of memoir, fiction, politics, psychology and crime, featuring Jason Allen-Paisant’s The Possibility of Tenderness and Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June among other titles. Jason Allen-Paisant’s memoir is rooted in Coffee Grove in the May Day Mountains of Jamaica, where his early childhood lacked electricity and piped water.

The book repeatedly returns to nature and cultivation — “grung” plots, fruit trees and walking — and consists of riffs and local conversations rather than a single clear narrative, with attention paid to maps, herbalist Rastas and the everyday habits of hillside people. Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June is described as a gentle, comic account of a divorced couple, Gail and Max, whose unresolved feelings surface when an infidelity upends their daughter’s wedding plans; a scene late in the book compares their lives to Groundhog Day.

Reviewers praise Tyler’s character work and the novel’s understated ending.

Key Topics

Culture, Jason Allen-paisant, Anne Tyler, Coffee Grove, May Day Mountains, Jamaica