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What makes a good summer read?
If reading is something that you list as a hobby on any questionnaire, then you have probably asked yourself this question countless times. It’s not necessarily what makes a good vacation read, but what makes a good summer read, and it really depends on what summer means to you. If you are a teacher, summer means something very different than if you are an ice-cream shop owner. If your kids are babies, or if they are teenagers running from camp to camp to working at the ice-cream shop, then the time an quality of reading opportunities is very different.
There are three categories of summer reading that appeal to me.
- Reads that transport me somewhere else, a peaceful interlude.
- Reads that I don’t have time for the rest of the year.
- Reads that are designed to sit on the beach with.
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The first category is found often by just stumbling upon an author or series, and very often you don’t know what it is until you are there. Very often these will be from an author you know that you love, or from a friend who knows your reading habits as well as your own. The Summer of 2023 was a summer of re-reads for me, of books that I knew to transport me. The Ruth Galloway series, giving me a cozy murder mystery to sink into. The Fablehaven books, allowing me to be a teenagee again on some wild dragon related adventure. The ACOTAR series, which skips by far faster than their hefty weight would lead you to believe. But this category is not just a comfort series, it might be The Summer Book by Tove Janson, where you get to spend a summer on a Scandinavian island. Away With the Penguins by Hazel Prior, where you can join a cantankerous woman on her Antarctic endeavors. Anything by Penelope Fitzgerald, whose sense of character and place will whisk you away to an old English bookshop or a European village like a transporter in Star Trek. These books will keep your feet in the sand long enough for the tide to come in. This year I would recommend The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy and The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen.
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The second category has been my favorite over the years and is the one I am generally most interested in. Beginning with the summer when I was 20. It was early June and I was still at college. Every day I would bring a drink over to Keele Hall, and sit in front of the grand house reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Even though I work 12 months of the year, my body is hard wired to summer vacations, and once June hits, my natural inclination to a quick lighthearted read, can be transformed into a hefty tome like Middlemarch. Just give me a comfy chair, a light breeze, and a good view.
One summer I read Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet in parks and on beaches across the state of Maine, and it was a worthy investment of considerable time. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a weighty, all consuming book, but so compelling. Then there are the classics. I certainly won’t be carrying War and Peace to the beach, but I am already toting The Tenant of Wildfell Hall across New England and will most likely follow this with The Mists of Avalon by the problematic Marion Zimmer Bradley. I am also due a re-read of a teenage favorite of mine, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.
Will this be the year I finally take up my brother’s 23 year old suggestion of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov? With a big book I am probably most affected by how the physical book feels in my hands. Is it an old copy, will the pages irritate my eyes in the sun, will the cover feel cool to the touch on a hot day? Reading is a sensual experience, and with a big book the tactile nature of the tome can have a great effect on the enjoyment. Especially on a hot day. My favorite podcasters over at Novel Pairings feel much the same as I do about big summer reads and are preparing to read Victor Hugo’s classic Les Miserables over the summer months this year. I thoroughly enjoyed reading that almost twenty years ago, but don’t think I’ll be joining them for this one.
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The third category is probably the most popular, and certainly the one most booksellers gravitate towards. You’ll see them everywhere at the moment, these brightly colored covers with big white lettering for the titles, an appealing array of summer reads lined up like gelato. I have a few lined up for this year myself. The Next Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine comes out this summer, and I already have Beach Read by Emily Henry ready to go. No doubt I will snag a few more from bookstores we visit over the summer. Your local independent bookstore is bound to currently have a table full of suggestions in this highly popular and satisfying category.
Where last year saw me visiting several old friends, this year for me will be all about making time for my big reads. What is your favorite kind of book to read for the summer months? Head on over to our socials and tell us all about it.
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