9 more summer books

From my friends with great taste

Summer in Italy. Heaven

This week, I’ve asked some of my most well read friends to recommend the books they think we should be reading this summer.

Alice:

The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson

Ibbotson wrote children's books too and that checks out because this is a kind of kids' book for adults, complete with dispossessed Russian princesses, handsome heroes and happy endings all round. Delightfully ridiculous and ridiculously delightful. (If you like this, also read Ibbotson's The Morning Gift, which is *slightly* more sexy and just as swoony.)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

What I read on my sunlounger last year. Not an obvious beach read given that it's about terrorists invading a high-society reception in an unnamed South American country and taking all the guests hostage. But don't let that put you off: it's dream-like, romantic, hopeful and heartbreaking by turns.

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Megan:

I have just finished Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Big Country, which, as a new arrival in the US - with all its current politics, small “p” and big “p” - was hilarious and eye opening and brilliant. An American arrives back in his home country (in the late 90s) after two decades in the UK. Has done something to help me understand how culturally different we are - the language is a red herring! 

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Sarah:

The Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante

I’m like a broken record with this one, but I am on the fourth and final book and they have completely taken over my life to the extent that I am not watching any television in the evening, just reading! It’s a beautiful story about the intensity of friendship set against the backdrop of a violent and volatile Naples. An examination of where we come from and the repercussions throughout generations. It’s so bloody good.

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Esther, The Spike:

Coming Home by Rosamond Pitcher - the OG family saga. Extremely long, cosy, atmospheric, romantic. Wish I could read it again. 

Quint by Robert Lautner - totally under-appreciated Jaws fan-fiction. Lautner imagines the life of the Jaws movie’s shark-hunter, Quint, before he arrives in Amityville. Imagination and creativity at its very best.

James by Percival Everett - this is The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn retold by Jim, Huck’s friend. Absolutely gorgeous and very moving.

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Phoebe, author of The Lock In:

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

A witty and bittersweet novel about a motley clique of tightly-bound friends who meet at a bohemian summer camp in the mid-1970s and graduate onto successes, failures and star-crossed relationships - with none of them ending up with quite what  or who they'd expected. 

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Debs:

The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley

Just a good rollicking read about wartime Britain and family, friends and home.

What will you be reading this summer? Please tell the group in the comments. I mean it - I know you all have excellent taste too.

See you next time!

Hannah

P.s I found the new series of The Bear maddeningly pretentious and boring. Steve Metcalf, from the best podcast in the world, Culture Gabfest, nailed it in this episode when he said, “When a child becomes aware that they’re cute, they’re no longer cute, they’re cutesy. When a show becomes aware of its own iconicity, it becomes portentous mush.”