I must stop now, I could go on and on! Lovely to catch up.Eva and the Vagabond Tales is a four piece antique folk/western saloon ensemble, from Riverside, CA. I think both the setting and the climate have to be right! 'The Pursuit of Love' is fine anywhere, as is anything by Salley Vickers. I didn't really like 'Jonathan Strange' much, 'The Shipping News' was great but not very summery. During the heatwave three years ago, I read most of AS Byatt's Frederica books lying on the tiled kitchen floor, which was the coolest place I could find. I liked reading Mary Renault's ancient historical novels, including the Alexander Trilogy, on Greek holidays too. 'My Family and other animals' is a wonderful summer read, I think, with the strawberry pink, lemon yellow and snow white villas, which always sound like ice cream. He later begged my forgiveness when he told me he'd been reading 'Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow' on a beach in the Maldives, since he knoew I'd consider it most inappropriate! I once went on holiday with a friend hiking round the Peloponnese, we read The Odyssey out loud to one another. And, I am currently reading Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenneggerġ3. every summer, by tradition, I would leave for the beach on the very day the latest HP was released, just to sit by the sea and escape all alone to Hogwarts. How To Make An American Quilt by Whitney OttoĤ. My Family And Other Animals by Gerald DurrellĢ. Oh, and don’t be shy.please share one of yours!!ġ. Here is my list, a baker’s dozen of my favourite summer books, each one read during the summertime of a year past and each one more than worthy to be tucked in with the Vogues and Verandas on the way to the beach. From under my sun hat, I still look for stimulating conversations with the books I chose to read, even if those conversations take place in a hammock in the garden, or on a beach chair with the sound of the surf in my ears. While I may not be reading textbooks in summertime, I still long to be dazzled by unique imaginations and to occasionally paddle around in the deep end of the pool. I listen eagerly for every summertime book review broadcast on NPR. Some change your mind.Įvery year, I greedily await the summer reading suggestions published in newspapers and magazines. Some are secretive, as if reluctant to reveal their deeper meanings until one gets to know them a bit better - some are witty, some are strange, some whisk the reader away to another country, another world. Not unlike people, books have definite personalities. Occasionally, some books become so beloved, they are invited to reside in your library or on your bedside table, never far from reach, a veritable part of the family. You spend time with them - sometimes an afternoon, sometimes a week - and some even accompany you on your summer holiday. Pleasant enough, but rather uninspiring.īooks are like people in a way. Time spent with those books generally considered to sit squarely in that category is, to me, rather like being stranded in the shallow end of the pool, with no waves and no challenges. A real book”.īoth of these examples, one imaginary and one quite real, pretty much sum up my difficulty with what is often called,“summer reading”. With a crestfallen change in expression he said, “Oh. “Whatcha readin’?”, he inquired, displaying a rather alarmingly white smile aimed in my direction. I’ll have to ask you to come with me.” This in turn reminds me of the afternoon I was approached by an overly gregarious chap as I myself sat seaside, reading Edith Wharton. Clad in the requisite attire of shorts and flip-flops, he is squinting up at a stern policeman standing over him who says, “I’m sorry, sir, but Dostoyevsky is not considered summer reading. For instance, I have always loved an old New Yorker magazine cartoon of a fellow reading at the beach. Whenever I find a cartoon particularly funny, it is usually because I recognize a bit of myself within it.
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