I love the first moments after he goes inside, at the start of the book, and we understand how much he knows — what skill and knowledge about craftsmanship he takes for granted.
Summer read: AS Byatt's Virgin in the Garden is a wonderful 1950s summer memory. Also The Go-between...and most recently, Ann Patchett's Tom Lake. Favourite place to read...on a lounger, by a pool, with a glass of wine!
This is a very tempting prospect, Mackenzie, especially with Meryl Streep as narrator. (Listening to an audiobook while walking the dog is a more likely prospect for me than lounging by a pool, let's face it.)
It was my Audible listen, beautifully read by Meryl Streep. Some of it hit a very deep chord with me, and I loved the little twists. I think Patchett is a great writer.
It hit a deep chord with me as well. I agree, she really is a great writer. That was the first book of Patchett's that I had ever read, it makes me eager to read some of her earlier works.
Those are all great suggestions, Sarah! I like the idea of going back to an old favourite for summer reading, as well as the indulgence of going out and buying a brand new paperback. I'm with you on the lounger by the pool + glass of cold white wine suggestion.
My first library was the splendid Carnegie Library in Pillgwenlly Newport with 'knowledge is power' on the pediment (immortalised by the Manic Street Preachers in 'Design for Life') - and if I remember correctly, it loaned out paintings as well as books.
Thank you Art - that sounds like a wonderful and memorable library, with that great quotation from Francis Bacon. I hadn't heard about libraries loaning paintings, what a good idea.
Lovely post, Ann! I’m not sure that I have one book that I associate with summer reading, but in general I like to read a big novel, something kind of 19th C.-ish, like Alice Elliot Dark’s FELLOWSHIP POINT, or Gabrielle Zevin’s TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW.
Thank you Sarah! I love the idea of a '19th-centuryish' novel and I felt similarly about Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot. I have taken note of your suggestions, and look forward to exploring a bookshop soon.
My first library was my tiny local library in Wolverhampton, given the unlikely name of Spring Vale. I owe so much to this place, having few books at home, I was often taken there by my granddad and was introduced to so many reading joys. It was here that I found Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising " sequence and spent a summer holiday reading one after another.
So interesting to hear this Deborah, and I know what you mean about owing so much to one library. As kids we got books as gifts, but usually limited to Enid Blyton as she was the one we always requested! The public library was the place to discover new things. How amazing that your tiny library was where you came across Susan Cooper's series.
E. M. Forster's "A Room with a View" always makes me think of summer.
The hammock I have in a shaded part of my guesthouse, just next to the breakfast area, is my ideal reading spot during autumn and winter when there are no flies about! During spring and summer, probably my bedroom or the guesthouse's reception area.
A Room With A View is a great suggestion for summer reading, Ollie (though I'd rather visit Florence in a less hot season!). I love the sound of your hammock, if there aren't too many flying creatures about... and reading while lying down in the daytime sounds lovely.
Wonderful, Ann - as always. Love these library images. So civilized!
As I'm in an Elizabeth Taylor mood I shall say that her novel In a Summer Season is what I feel the urge to read when (if) it gets hot... such a sensual atmosphere, nothing obvious but how it stays with you....
Many thanks Laura, and I will have to seek out A Summer Season for my holiday when that happens! I agree with you about the delights of reading in the bath, and I guess paperbacks just have to involve risks to their flimsiness sometimes...
There was a small library at the end of our street that my mother took us to every week. There were no books in our house - my parents were poor & books were never an option, which is why I bemoan the lack of libraries available now- due to yet more cuts.
My favourite place to read now is a small library corner that I have set up in my house, complete with squishy sofa
I love the sound of your library corner, Wendy, I think I will have to establish one in my own cluttered home! Agree with you very much about the importance of public libraries, now more than ever.
Many thanks Emma, its name was a new discovery for me but I knew how celebrated it was, so had to pop up there for a look while I was ostensibly working in the (less picturesque) archives. The archivist there is really helpful.
For some reason I tend to associate Mark Twain and his work most with summer, though I don’t necessarily read his works every single summer. Most of Jane Austen’s work, as well - Emma specifically!
Ah, thank you Mariella! I must re-read some Mark Twain - I love Tom Sawyer. Very interested in the new Percival Everett book 'rewriting' Huckleberry Finn.
Definitely Arthur Ransome , more recently I have loved The Fortnight in September, by RC Sheriff- delightfully quirky, a lovely picture of a bygone quintessential British holiday .
Loved my local library as a child , luckily I have seen photos that it is still there, we had an enlightened Junior Librarian who let us work on the desk, attend book groups etc. Now I volunteer at The Summer Reading Challenge every summer holiday in my local branch library and that gives me a good excuse to sit in a library and read!
Thanks Di, I will add your novel suggestion to my summer reading round-up! Great that you volunteer in your local library over the summer, shows the lasting influence that junior librarian's encouragement had on you.
Thank you very much for your comments about "Wrong Country," and now, when I opened you, I would be very glad to follow your amazing articles. My remembering of summer reads: Andrei Bolkonsky, wounded, lying under oak-tree, looks at the green, living, summer leaves, understands that he will survive (scene of his first wound) in Tolstoy's War and Peace; Mrs. Dalloway is going to buy flowers by London streets; Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva summer poems.
I loved our St. Petersburg university's library, write about it in my memoir.
The library in my elementary school was nothing special, but I loved it! I felt like I knew the place by heart - and if I could go back in time I could still walk up to most of the shelves and tell you which books were there. Actually, I'd love to do that...because many of those books whose stories I remember so well I've forgotten the name of!
I remember spending one summer when I was about 12 binge-reading Agatha Christie books while laying out in the hot sun...and so I always associate her books with summer.
That sounds like a lovely memory of your school library, Jodi! And I remember those childhood summers of reading book after book by the same author - such a treat.
Well, it's the depths of winter here but... Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift is full of heat and hard bright light. In fact, I think I first read it in winter and found myself bathed in sunshine every time I opened the cover. It's a memoir written in the fifties about Clift and her family's year long stay on the Greek island of Kalymnos.
Summer reads - JL Carr's A Month in the Country and Swallows & Amazons.
Thanks Shelley for your great suggestions! I loved JL Carr - but somehow never got round to reading Ransome - never too late.
I love A Month In The Country.
It's such a beautiful book.
I love the first moments after he goes inside, at the start of the book, and we understand how much he knows — what skill and knowledge about craftsmanship he takes for granted.
Always nice to see Swallows and Amazons references. I posted some thoughts about the importance of Ransome’s books to me on my own Substack.
I enjoyed your piece on AR and adventure. Oddly enough I was planning to share a piece on AR from my archive on here later this week!
https://open.substack.com/pub/shellydennison/p/arthur-ransome-nature-writer?r=d4yil&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Summer read: AS Byatt's Virgin in the Garden is a wonderful 1950s summer memory. Also The Go-between...and most recently, Ann Patchett's Tom Lake. Favourite place to read...on a lounger, by a pool, with a glass of wine!
I finished Tom Lake last month. I think I binge-read it actually, ha! It was such a great read :)
This is a very tempting prospect, Mackenzie, especially with Meryl Streep as narrator. (Listening to an audiobook while walking the dog is a more likely prospect for me than lounging by a pool, let's face it.)
Meryl Streep is a fantastic actress, I bet she does a wonderful job doing the narration!
It was my Audible listen, beautifully read by Meryl Streep. Some of it hit a very deep chord with me, and I loved the little twists. I think Patchett is a great writer.
It hit a deep chord with me as well. I agree, she really is a great writer. That was the first book of Patchett's that I had ever read, it makes me eager to read some of her earlier works.
Her most well-known, I think, is Bel Canto, but my favourite is Run.
Good to know, thanks Sarah! I’ll add these to my TBR :)
I'm a big fan of her essays too - especially this one:
https://www.annpatchett.com/thisisthestoryofahappymarriage
Those are all great suggestions, Sarah! I like the idea of going back to an old favourite for summer reading, as well as the indulgence of going out and buying a brand new paperback. I'm with you on the lounger by the pool + glass of cold white wine suggestion.
My first library was the splendid Carnegie Library in Pillgwenlly Newport with 'knowledge is power' on the pediment (immortalised by the Manic Street Preachers in 'Design for Life') - and if I remember correctly, it loaned out paintings as well as books.
Thank you Art - that sounds like a wonderful and memorable library, with that great quotation from Francis Bacon. I hadn't heard about libraries loaning paintings, what a good idea.
Lovely post, Ann! I’m not sure that I have one book that I associate with summer reading, but in general I like to read a big novel, something kind of 19th C.-ish, like Alice Elliot Dark’s FELLOWSHIP POINT, or Gabrielle Zevin’s TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW.
Thank you Sarah! I love the idea of a '19th-centuryish' novel and I felt similarly about Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot. I have taken note of your suggestions, and look forward to exploring a bookshop soon.
Summer novels: The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird
Thanks Susan! Excellent suggestions.
My first library was my tiny local library in Wolverhampton, given the unlikely name of Spring Vale. I owe so much to this place, having few books at home, I was often taken there by my granddad and was introduced to so many reading joys. It was here that I found Susan Cooper's "Dark is Rising " sequence and spent a summer holiday reading one after another.
So interesting to hear this Deborah, and I know what you mean about owing so much to one library. As kids we got books as gifts, but usually limited to Enid Blyton as she was the one we always requested! The public library was the place to discover new things. How amazing that your tiny library was where you came across Susan Cooper's series.
Libraries such as this are so precious. I am very relieved to say it is still there!
E. M. Forster's "A Room with a View" always makes me think of summer.
The hammock I have in a shaded part of my guesthouse, just next to the breakfast area, is my ideal reading spot during autumn and winter when there are no flies about! During spring and summer, probably my bedroom or the guesthouse's reception area.
A Room With A View is a great suggestion for summer reading, Ollie (though I'd rather visit Florence in a less hot season!). I love the sound of your hammock, if there aren't too many flying creatures about... and reading while lying down in the daytime sounds lovely.
Wonderful, Ann - as always. Love these library images. So civilized!
As I'm in an Elizabeth Taylor mood I shall say that her novel In a Summer Season is what I feel the urge to read when (if) it gets hot... such a sensual atmosphere, nothing obvious but how it stays with you....
I adore reading in the bath, fatal to paperbacks.
Many thanks Laura, and I will have to seek out A Summer Season for my holiday when that happens! I agree with you about the delights of reading in the bath, and I guess paperbacks just have to involve risks to their flimsiness sometimes...
There was a small library at the end of our street that my mother took us to every week. There were no books in our house - my parents were poor & books were never an option, which is why I bemoan the lack of libraries available now- due to yet more cuts.
My favourite place to read now is a small library corner that I have set up in my house, complete with squishy sofa
I love the sound of your library corner, Wendy, I think I will have to establish one in my own cluttered home! Agree with you very much about the importance of public libraries, now more than ever.
My childhood library, accessed by bicycle, was a former church, a sweet, dark, quiet place
That sounds incredibly atmospheric, Lise! Hope you found nice books there.
What a great nugget of feminist history! I've never visited the McMorran Library but now I'll certainly have to...
Many thanks Emma, its name was a new discovery for me but I knew how celebrated it was, so had to pop up there for a look while I was ostensibly working in the (less picturesque) archives. The archivist there is really helpful.
For some reason I tend to associate Mark Twain and his work most with summer, though I don’t necessarily read his works every single summer. Most of Jane Austen’s work, as well - Emma specifically!
Ah, thank you Mariella! I must re-read some Mark Twain - I love Tom Sawyer. Very interested in the new Percival Everett book 'rewriting' Huckleberry Finn.
Definitely Arthur Ransome , more recently I have loved The Fortnight in September, by RC Sheriff- delightfully quirky, a lovely picture of a bygone quintessential British holiday .
Loved my local library as a child , luckily I have seen photos that it is still there, we had an enlightened Junior Librarian who let us work on the desk, attend book groups etc. Now I volunteer at The Summer Reading Challenge every summer holiday in my local branch library and that gives me a good excuse to sit in a library and read!
Thanks Di, I will add your novel suggestion to my summer reading round-up! Great that you volunteer in your local library over the summer, shows the lasting influence that junior librarian's encouragement had on you.
Thank you very much for your comments about "Wrong Country," and now, when I opened you, I would be very glad to follow your amazing articles. My remembering of summer reads: Andrei Bolkonsky, wounded, lying under oak-tree, looks at the green, living, summer leaves, understands that he will survive (scene of his first wound) in Tolstoy's War and Peace; Mrs. Dalloway is going to buy flowers by London streets; Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva summer poems.
I loved our St. Petersburg university's library, write about it in my memoir.
These are lovely reading suggestions and memorable scenes from great books, Larisa - thank you.
The library in my elementary school was nothing special, but I loved it! I felt like I knew the place by heart - and if I could go back in time I could still walk up to most of the shelves and tell you which books were there. Actually, I'd love to do that...because many of those books whose stories I remember so well I've forgotten the name of!
I remember spending one summer when I was about 12 binge-reading Agatha Christie books while laying out in the hot sun...and so I always associate her books with summer.
That sounds like a lovely memory of your school library, Jodi! And I remember those childhood summers of reading book after book by the same author - such a treat.
Well, it's the depths of winter here but... Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift is full of heat and hard bright light. In fact, I think I first read it in winter and found myself bathed in sunshine every time I opened the cover. It's a memoir written in the fifties about Clift and her family's year long stay on the Greek island of Kalymnos.
Oh I love the sound of this. Might have to plan a holiday in Kalymnos as a suitable background... thank you!