The Man and I aways end up fighting over the books on holidays.
It usually starts when I speed-read my selection and then turn to the novel he is averaging about two pages a day on. Invariably, I’ll start to “co-read” it, much to his annoyance and naturally in a day or so I will have over-taken him. This has lead to a lot of our books being torn in two so that we can share them and is still my most compelling argument against purchasing a Kindle. Also I find reading on a Kindle weird. Unfortunately, my resistance to the Kindle means that the suitcase usually contains more books than pairs of knickers, not something I am proud of but there it is. I should really get a Kindle.
10 best Summer reads for the ultimate escape at home or abroad
1. The “It kinda has to be done” one
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Reading this follow up to To Kill a Mockingbird, we predict, will be one of those prerequisites for taking part in the human race this Summer, like watching Friends in the 90s. It has to be done if you want to have anything in common with your fellow man.
“Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—”Scout”—returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise’s homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her.”
2. The nostalgia trip
In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
If Judy Bloom made you actually yearn for a backbrace when you read Deenie or taught you everything you learned about bras, boys and periods with Are you there God? It’s me Margaret, then rejoice in Blume’s latest novel for adults.
“In 1987, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was fifteen, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Blume experienced in the early 1950s, she paints a vivid portrait of a particular time and place.”
3. The “It was always gonna happen” one
Abroad by Katie Crouch
If true crime is a bit of guilty pleasure of yours, then Katie Crouch’s fictionalised treatment of the Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher saga will surely be in your suitcase.
“The ancient Italian city of Grifonia swarms with students – thousands of them from all over the world. Ostensibly, they’ve come to study abroad. But in reality they are here to reinvent themselves, far from the watchful eyes of parents and others who know them well. Taz Deacon arrives young and insecure, desperate to fit in with a group of girls who expose her to an adult world of parties and pleasure that mask a dark secret.”
4. Revel in the Riviera
Villa America by Liza Klaussmann
Real-life American society couple, Gerald and Sara, are the compelling and tragic protagonists of this satisfying and beautifully written novelisation of that always fascinating era of excess, exploration and endless parties.
“Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Cole and Linda Porter, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos – all are summer guests of Gerald and Sara Murphy. Visionary, misunderstood, and from vastly different backgrounds, the Murphys met and married young, and set forth to create a beautiful world. They alight on Villa America: their coastal oasis of artistic genius, debauched parties, impeccable style and flamboyant imagination. But before long, a stranger enters into their relationship, and their marriage must accommodate an intensity that neither had foreseen. When tragedy strikes, their friends reach out to them, but the golden bowl is shattered, and neither Gerald nor Sara will ever be the same.”
5. The Much-anticipated follow-up
Tender by Belinda McKeon
If you found yourself enthralled by McKeon’s debut novel, Solace, which told a story of love, loss, and regret, then dive into her second novel which confirms her as one of the strongest voices in contemporary Irish fiction. Set in late-90s Dublin, Tender is a coming of age story that will most certainly speak to anyone who grew up during those years (no doing the maths, please).
“Catherine and James are as close as two friends could ever be. They meet in Dublin in the late 1990s, she a college student, he a fledgling artist – both recent arrivals from rural communities, coming of age in a city which is teeming – or so they are told – with new freedoms, new possibilities.”
6. The Talking point
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
If you have yet to have the pleasure of the Jon Ronson experience, drop EVERYTHING and immediately purchase this book. We guarantee you that Ronson is the man behind everything you’ve enjoyed in the last few years; that Guardian article you found so interesting; that TedTalk you accidentally tuned into from the unknown man that was as insightful as it was entertaining. The film Frank (yes the man who kept us from enjoying La Fassbender for two whole hours). We forgive him. He’s just great.
“A captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world’s most under-appreciated forces: shame. ‘It’s about the terror, isn’t it?’ ‘The terror of what?’ I said. ‘The terror of being found out.’ For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us – people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they’re being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonised, sometimes even fired from their job.”
7. The Body Positive Blogger Biography
Fat Girl Walking by Brittany Gibbons aka Brittany Herself
For anyone who is sick and tired of the phrases “Beach ready” and “Bikini body”.
“Fat Girl Walking isn’t a diet book. It isn’t one of those former fat people memoirs about how someone battled, and won, in the fight against fat. Brittany doesn’t lose all the weight and reveal the happy, skinny girl that’s been hiding inside her. Instead, she reminds us that being chubby doesn’t mean you’ll end up alone, unhappy, or the subject of a cable medical show. What’s important is learning to love your shape. With her infectious humor and soul-baring honesty, Fat Girl Walking reveals a life full of the same heartbreak, joy, oddity, awkwardness, and wonder as anyone else’s. Just with better snacks.”
8. The Star on the ascent
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
Named as one of Amazon’s Rising Stars of 2015, to say much more about this electric debut from Irish author, Lisa McInerney would be to ruin one of the literary treats of the year.
“Biting, moving and darkly funny, The Glorious Heresies explores salvation, shame and the legacy of Ireland’s twentieth-century attitudes to sex and family.”
9. An Oldie but a Goodie
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
Three words: Romance, suspense and Corfu. Holiday read done.
“When Lucy’s sister Phyllida suggests that she join her for a quiet holiday on the island of Corfu, Lucy is overjoyed. Her work as an actress has temporarily come to a halt. But the peaceful idyll does not last long. A series of incidents, seemingly unconnected – but all surrounded in mystery – throws Lucy’s life into a dangerous spin, as fear, danger and death – as well as romance – supplant the former tranquillity.”
10. When in doubt, never leave home without…
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
If you’ve never read it, read it. If you have read it, read it again.
“Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever.”
