Best Summer Reads

With Summer drawing to a close, I thought I'd look back at some of the best summer-time books l've read over the years.

Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid

What more could you want from a beach read than a book set in Malibu? Malibu Rising fits in to the so-called Taylor Jenkins Reid literary universe, telling the story of the Hollywood part of the year hosted by fictional supermodel Nina Riva and her siblings. Throughout her three most recent novels (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and the Six, and Malibu Rising) Reid creates an astonishingly believable universe of Hollywood celebrities from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Malibu Rising - which can be read as a stand-alone - is a fantastic addition to this universe, containing Hollywood glamour that makes you feel like you're brushing shoulders with her fictional celebrities. Reid has a wonderful way of developing her characters to show the multifaceted state of human existence, and its easy to laugh and cry along with the characters as if they were real people. The setting of the book - taking place within 24 hours in a lovely Malibu mansion - and its lovely writing make this easily one of my favourite books that I've read this year.

Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

The wildly popular "Where the Crawdads Sing" is a fantastic summer read because of the way that Delia Owens crafts such a clear image of the natural world in North Carolina. Those who have watched Netflix's Outer Banks will understand why the descriptions of the marsh make me automatically picture the summer time, and that's without Owens' fantastic imagery drawing the reader into the world she creates. I read this book sitting outside during a heatwave and even though I was worlds away from the marsh that Kya grew up in, I felt like I was alongside her in the marsh. Aside from the setting, I would recommend this book as an easy to read, well-paced and exciting novel - it is a murder mystery, after all.

The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley

I like to mix reading modern fiction with some classic books like those from the English canon. I got into reading classics as part of my English A Level, and whilst they can be heavy going sometimes, The Go-Between wasn't too difficult to read and beautifully conveyed the sense of an English summer. The book is an interesting commentary on Edwardian society, which as a history nerd I greatly enjoyed. I think classical books have a particular value in translating what society was like in the past, and even if history isn't your thing, The Go-Between has the fantastic redeeming quality of its plot centering around an illicit affair that ends in disaster. Plus, it has one of my favourite quotes of all time: "the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".

Ariadne - Jennifer Saint

Being a Greek myth retelling, Ariadne is the perfect book to be reading on a beach in Greece (or anywhere else!). Saint presents a feminist retelling of the story of Ariadne and her sister Phaedra, the daughters of King Minos (the guy with the Minotaur monster trapped in a Labyrinth under his palace) and Theseus, the Prince of Athens. Although my knowledge of Greek mythology is lacking (limited to what I remember from a picture book I read as a kid), I found this book thoroughly enjoyable as Saint captures the reader with her enthralling descriptions of Greece, transporting the reader into an ancient world of Gods and monsters. The love and tragedy carefully woven throughout the novel were enough to make me cry at the end, so I'm marking this down as a great read.

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

I read this book a year ago when I was on holiday in Cornwall, and my overriding memory of it is how infectious the glamour was of the 1920s summer in Spain described by Hemingway. Another classic novel, Fiesta was the book that established Hemingway as a writer, but like The Go-Between it is easy to read and, whilst it does contain historical context, it is largely a novel describing the passions and jealousies of a group of friends set against the backdrop of the Pamplona bullfighting. Hemingway's descriptions excellently conjure images of the European summer; warm evenings in Paris, idyllic days fishing in the Pyrenees mountains and the baking heat of Spain. The novel also perfectly captures the hedonistic drinking and partying that the 1920s have become famous for in an easy-going but insightful commentary on love and human nature.