25 books to love and lose yourself in this summer

Who doesn't love a list, ladies & gentlemen?

I’m doing something a little different this time…focussing on one thing: BOOKS. I was inspired by this truly excellent list from James Marriott (whose Substack as a whole I heartily recommend) of absorbing holiday reads.

I love a list full stop - but I particularly love a list of books and one that introduces me to titles I’d never heard of without making me feel like an uneducated moron are the absolute bees knees in my eyes.

Given we are all either already in the throes of summer holidays, or just teetering on the brink of a break, I thought I would share a few of the titles which have completely engrossed me over the years - stories in which to luxuriate, which make you want to cancel plans, or read through lunch, or stay up all night because - whilst you don’t want them to end - you simultaneously must get to the end.

No TL;DR this week - but the description of each book isn’t terribly long so you should zip through in no time. I do hope you enjoy this bumper edition!
& please share your unputdownables in the comments!

Life by Keith Richards (2010)

First up a memoir from The Rolling Stones’ inimitable guitarist, Keef, ably assisted by writing partner James Fox.

At the time of publication in 2010, Life appeared with the quote “Believe it or not, I remember everything” from the man himself - & he does. What a life it has been thus far. I have the happiest memories of inhaling this whilst on a sunlounger next to a pool during a girls’ holiday to Portugal in 2011 - all the while listening to the Stones’ back catalogue on a loop simultaneously. I listened to certain albums depending on where I was in the story of Richards’ life and I felt so incredibly cool the entire time. The perfect accompaniment to a cold beer and a pack of salted Lays.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (2013)

A novel this time but one which I also inhaled whilst next to a pool - this time in Sotogrande in the south of Spain, if you must know. (& this from someone who doesn’t really go on a sun holidays per se…)

This is a book I have recommended time & again to anyone who listen - and some who won’t. The Interestings tells the tale of a group of friends who meet as teenagers at a summer camp for arty kids in 1974 and how their lives unfold into adulthood. Some grow up to be wealthy & successful, others waste their talent and many are riddled with envy, torment and frustration. Wolitzer is a character-creation genius and the world she builds will pull you in hook, line & sinker.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (2008)

You may be relieved to hear I have no more poolside recollections - instead, from here on out, it’s just thigh-slappingly good storytelling.

This modern classic from Curtis Sittenfeld is hardly a hidden gem but definitely one of the most captivating books I’ve ever read. With this & the more recent, Rodham, Sittenfeld has carved a mini-niche for herself in literary imaginings of what could have happened for real people / characters very obviously based on real people. In this instance the American Wife is George Bush Jr’s wife, Laura. It tells the tale of a young woman falling in love with and marrying the scion of a political dynasty and the life they go on to share beset by addiction, idiocy and enormous success. Sittenfeld is another writer who crafts her characters with art and delicacy delivering a emotional and human page-turner of a read. No mean feat.

The Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson (2004-)

This series of books was very kindly gifted to me by a friend and I couldn’t get enough of them.

And as soon as I was finished, my husband motored through them all as well. It shouldn’t be the case but so often books and authors can divide down gender lines when really: a great tale is a great tale. No matter who is doing the telling. Jackson Brodie is a private detective with all sorts of skeletons who aren’t really that well hidden in the proverbial closet. In each book, Atkinson creates a panoply of seemingly disparate storylines only for them all to become immaculately woven together during the course of Brodie’s investigation into cases for clients which usually all start out seeming quite innocuous. Not a whodunnit of the standard variety - but in many ways, of a better variety. Case Histories is the first and best to follow the order - though that’s not a hard & fast rule.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (2023)

This title was on that first table you come across in a Waterstones for ages last year - but I’m not sure how many people on this side of the Atlantic actually came across it.

I hadn’t really been aware of McBride prior to picking it up, but he won the National Book Award in the US in 2013 for The Good Lord Bird, so I would imagine my ignorance has done him no disservice. Set across the 1920s and ‘30s in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, it tells the story of the Chicken Hill area in the town where the Black and Jewish communities live side by side - centring around The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. It actually opens in the 1970s, when skeletal remains are found during the opening stages of construction of a housing complex…we are then taken back to the 1920s to tell the story of how it wound up there. It’s a tale of community and decency which grows into a bit of a page-turning exhilaration in its later stages.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

Zevin’s computer-game-focussed novel was everywhere when it came out but I fear quite a few may have been put off by the gaming element.

Rather than being about gaming though, it’s really about the friendship and heartbreak between Sam and Sadie - childhood friends who reconnect at university - and Sam’s college roommate Marx as they build a gaming company together. It’s another story of growing up and how our relationships ebb and flow as we become adults, deal with success & loss and how we continue not to know what the hell we’re really doing as once we’re no longer kids - as well as the Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow quote nodding to Macbeth’s lament of our march toward death.

Educated by Tara Westover (2018)

In this memoir, Westover recounts growing up in rural Idaho, the youngest child in a survivalist Mormon family.

Her father is paranoid the government is out to get him, her mother is a midwife and herbalist and neither of them believe in formal education or traditional medical care - electing to keep their children home as much as possible with a small amount of homeschooling. Westover discovers an interest in and flair for academics which results in abuse at the hands of one of her older brothers, Shawn. Another brother Tyler encourages her to stick at it and she winds up going to university in Utah before heading to Cambridge followed by Harvard. Educated is an incredible story of overcoming the odds but mainly of a young woman’s desire to be who she is ruptures her relationships with her family - and how after everything they do to her, she continues to give her parents’ another chance.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945)

Back in 2006, I managed to have the great fortune of travelling back from Thailand in the immediate aftermath of the authorities in the UK foiling the terrorist plot to blow up a load of planes using various liquids. Y’know, the thing that meant we had to use utterly tiny clear plastic bags to fit all our liquids in whenever we fly? (which is meant to have been rectified by now but still hasn’t…it’s only been 20 years guys, take your time) This meant that upon arrival at Bangkok airport I was informed I could bring only my passport and wallet on board. Anything else I brought with me would be rigorously checked prior to boarding & then would not be allowed off the plane once in London. Even a book. But I’m stubborn little shit so I took Brideshead on with me, read it from cover to cover before landing. I then left it on my seat, either for some lucky cabin crew or for the bomb squad to dispose of it.

It’s the original tale of a chap of modest origin heading to Oxford only to befriend an uber-rich, uber-posh upper crust English pal who comes from an absolute pile in the Home Counties. And written by Waugh, so: chef’s kiss.

Girl Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo (2019)

Evaristo rightly won the Booker Prize for this stunner of a story (sharing it with Margaret Attwood).

Well, twelve stories really. Which sounds like a lot but it works effortlessly. Through these dozen characters, Girl Woman Other touches on racism, sexism, sexuality and various kinds of privilege in modern-day Britain. It’s hard to describe and could easily have been a heavy tome given the serious and sensitive subject matter - but this novel is both an education and a joy. Evaristo weaves the lives of these women & one non-binary character together into one brilliant whole with an absolute cracker of a twist at the end.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (2017)

John Boyne reduced me to actual tears several times throughout this book.

I had a truly visceral and physical reaction to this story - I think because it is the story of many Irish people who grew up in a country very much under the unrelenting jackboot of the Catholic Church from the outset of the Republic in the early twentieth century. The Heart’s Invisible Furies opens in 1945 with a young Catherine Goggin dragged in front of her local congregation to be castigated and shamed by the parish priest for ‘getting in the family way’. No mention of the bloke involved of course. Cast out from her family home, Catherine makes her way to Dublin where she has the baby - Cyril - and puts him up for adoption. From there we follow the story of Cyril’s life, learning about his sad, loveless adoptive family and his burgeoning awareness of his homosexuality. Just thinking about this book still gives me butterflies in my stomach.

When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman(2011) & Still Life by Sarah Winman (2021)

Do you want an absolute joy of a book to captivate you on your holidays? Then, ladies & gentlemen, I present to you: Sarah Winman. The eagle-eyed among you will know I have recommended the more recent title previously: but frankly these two books cannot be recommended enough. When God Was A Rabbit is about Elly who moves from Essex to Cornwall, has a pet rabbit named God, an older brother called Joe and a horrible secret.

Her parents do up an old Cornish pile to run as a guesthouse and wind up attracting a hilarious hotch potch of guests - some of whom become repeat customers…others who simply forget to leave.

Still Life is about Ulysses Temper who at the beginning of the book spends a night in a wine cellar of a deserted Italian villa with art expert Evelyn Skinner at the end of WW2.

His night of illumination and education influences the rest of his life. We follow him back to London once the war is over and see how Evelyn’s subtle but definitive influence on him takes him back to Italy. Everyone needs to read both these books to be reminded of the joy and hilarity and quirks of life.

Capital by John Lanchester (2012)

This novel is similar to Girl Woman Other in that it weaves multiple different character’s stories together as well as a fantastic depiction of London at a specific time.

That time is 2007/8: before and during the financial crash of 2008. Pepys Road, a fictional street in Clapham, is the focus with the various storylines coming the people who live and work there. It covers everything from economic inequality, immigration, celebrity and extremism. Again, like GWO, it’s hard to explain because of the range of characters and their hugely diverse experiences living and working in London…but man, it’s good. And funny!

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)

We all know about this one, right!? It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015. It was sold many millions of copies and has been made into a Netflix show.

But just in case any of the 11 people in the world who haven’t quite got around it to it, happen to read this newsletter, All The Light We Cannot See is one of those novels that draws you in, does something close to emotional abuse to you for several hours and then leaves you bereft and longing for more when you reach the conclusion. It’s about love (paternal, familial, unrequited), kindness, bravery, radios and the oppressive, terrifying reality of life under a murderous, bloodthirsty occupying regime.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)

This was on my To Be Read pile for many years, but I never quite got around to it until very recently.

For a novel written almost one hundred years ago, its detailing of the interior life of a woman is painfully accurate is unique for its period - an examination of impostor syndrome and social anxiety as relevant to today as it was it was written. We never learn the name of the second Mrs de Winter, the protagonist. Instead it is her husband’s dead first wife - Rebecca - whose presence looms large in their country house of Manderley and in the lives of all those in its orbit. This psychological thriller has it all: a terrified heroine, a terrifying housekeeper, exquisite descriptions of nature & character and a twist that may give you whiplash when it drops.

The Devil & The Dark Water by Stuart Turton (2020)

Another dark tale - this time set on the high seas in the 1600s.

The world’s greatest detective Samuel Pipps is arrested in the Dutch East Indies and sent back to Amsterdam on board a ship with his assistant Arent Hayes, the governor-general Jan Haan, his wife Sara and others. But soon the murders start and with Pipps locked up, it’s left to Arent and Sara to investigate. This is kind of a locked-room mystery in that when the killings start, there is a finite cast of potential suspects but also a very strong likelihood of demonic interference.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)

I reread this extraordinary tale recently and it took me just two days.

A Thousand Splendid Suns was hugely anticipated when it first came out as it followed on the heels of Hosseini’s other amazing novel The Kite Runner. I was one of millions who couldn’t wait to get their hands on this. And it didn’t disappoint. It’s the tale of two women in Afghanistan. Maryam born out of wedlock into poverty in the 1950s and Laila born to academic parents in Kabul in 1978. The two women’s lives wind up inextricably linked as the Taliban wreak havoc on the Afghani people following the Russians’ exit in the early 1990s. This story is as gripping as a spy novel and as emotionally devastating as A Little Life - all the more so now that we know that the Taliban are back and worse than ever in Afghanistan - though I couldn’t finish A Little Life and I’ve now ripped through this twice.

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (1990)

This is the first instalment of a series called The Cazalet Chronicles, of which there are five - published from 1990 to 2013.

And Howard’s books have developed such a cult following that a further three have been commissioned - to be written by her niece novelist, Louisa Young. The Light Years introduces us to the Cazalet family in 1937; consisting of three London-dwelling sons - Edward, Hugh & Rupert - each married with families of their own and their unmarried sister Rachel who lives with their parents - William and Kitty, better known as the Brig and the Old Duchy - at their house, Home Place, in Sussex. To begin with, I struggled with the substantial cast of characters - despite the family tree at the start - but then I remembered I managed all the Jilly Coopers so I put my big girl pants on and got on with it. It’s well worth the time as you get to know many of the characters as children and Howard paints each & their interior worlds perfectly no matter their age or background. It’s a book that truly envelopes you and its short chapters kept me reading ‘just one more’ until the wee hours repeatedly. I’ve yet to get through the rest of the series; but I can’t wait!

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)

It was a toss up between this and Wild Swans by Jung Chang - which is a memoir of Chang’s life, her mother’s and her grandmother’s lives in China published in 1991.

I went with this merely because it was published earlier. But both are truly excellent and have lingered on long in my head. In The Joy Luck Club we have sixteen separate stories; that of four Chinese immigrants to the USA and their four daughters, all born in America. The title refers to the name of the mahjong club that brings together as they live in San Francisco. At their mahjong games, they reminisce and boast and share stories of their lives as well as the food of the country they left. Like Girl Woman Other and Capital above, its multiple storyline structure renders it tricky to sum up but, as with the earlier two titles, Tan’s writing in by equal turns funny, eloquent and magical throughout.

All The Colours of The Dark by Chris Whitaker (2024)

This is one of more unusual books I’ve ever read in that it is a crime novel but it also is so much more than that.

It’s part social commentary on poverty, race and gender, part emotional exploration of a boy/girl friendship, part ingenious, multilayered crime saga. Patch and Saint are best friends who are at the bottom of the pecking order of cool at school. Until Patch intervenes in the attack of the town’s most popular girl, Misty Meyer. Patch’s bravery is rewarded with his own abduction and detention at the hands of a man kidnapping and killing his way around America. There’s no escaping it, parts of this are utterly brutal. Think that TV show Criminal Minds about the worst serial killers. But a lot of it is beautiful and moving.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982)

I wrote my dissertation for my degree on this novel and I remember vividly the snobbery around it having been written by a woman and the many snide assumptions, allusions and downright accusations that Allende had ripped off Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude.

There can be no denying that there are similarities. They are both Latin American family sagas with magical realism and Allende has acknowledged the influence Garcia Marquez’s classic had on her - but the appeal of Allende’s writing to me was the more overtly political subject matter and moreover the strong women in the Trueba family, Clara, Blanca and Alba. At the beginning of The House of the Spirits we learn of Clara’s premonitions and that she also has the power of telekinesis. Clara foresees her sister’s Rosa’s death and that her late sister’s fiancé, Esteban Trueba, will seek her hand in marriage. From there we set off on the epic tale of Esteban and Clara’s family - one to really get stuck into.

Precipice by Robert Harris (2024)

This was published to enormous fanfare last year, as tends to happen with anything Robert Harris touches. And with very good reason. The man’s a genius.

In Precipice he tells the story of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s affair with high society socialite Venetia Stanley in the early part of the twentieth century. Harris was given access to a trove of Stanley’s papers, still in the possession of her family, from which to draw as clear a picture as possible of her temperament and personality as well as the actual letters Asquith sent to Venetia. The letters sent to the prime minister by the young lady have been lost…and this is where Harris makes his novel. Against the backdrop of a malcontent section of the Irish population hellbent on independence and growing disquiet turning to all-out war on the Continent, Harris crafts their liaison. Asquith is a lovesick dope telling his paramour things she has absolutely no right in knowing whilst Venetia tires of the old man. The kind of book that makes you feel like you’re intelligent for being clever enough to read it.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022)

This is yet another title which has already probably reached market saturation but for those who haven’t come across the book or, indeed, Apple’s TV adaptation: you’re in for a treat.

This was yet another title that I quite simply inhaled. I read it in about three days - staying up until 2am to finish it, only to find myself wholly unable to sleep as my nerves were jangling from the fact I could no longer return to the story as it had come to its conclusion. Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant scientific mind who gets kicked off her doctoral course after she refuses to apologise fro stabbing her rapist. I know, her audacity. Wildly unfair and plain wrong treatment of women continues on throughout the story despite Zott falling in love, getting a dog and having a baby. It’s a large part of what makes a quirky life story into yet another page-turner that couldn’t be more ideal as a holiday read.

Nana by Emile Zola (1880)

One of my favourite books of all time.

This is the ninth instalment of Zola’s twenty part epic about the Rougon-Macquart family. The daughter of two alcoholics, Anna (Nana) Coupeau leaves an abusive home to live on the streets, working as a prostitute. But this ain’t no regular lady of the night. Using her few smarts and only talent - that of being able to get men to do whatever the hell she wants - she elevates herself to the stage and then onward into the beds of some of the richest and most powerful men in France. A brilliant rags to riches story of a woman taking power for herself from an era when women’s stories were rarely told.

Absolutely anything touched by the hand of Marian Keyes - and Maeve Binchy as well, come to think of it

Two of Ireland’s greatest storytellers. Their entire back catalogues are a joy. But of particular note from Keyes is the series about about The Walsh Sisters starting with Rachel’s Holiday and from Binchy, look for Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle and Tara Road.

So - there you have it. My magnum opus for engaging, absorbing, enthralling summer reads. I need a lie-down now.

And please share your favourite summer reads in the comments!