Summer Reading Sorted
Twelve page-turning books to escape into this summer.
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I don’t keep a note of all the books I read in a year nor do I set reading goals. For me, reading has always been one of my favourite leisure activities and I can’t imagine why I’d want to introduce any order into it. As a mood reader, my taste is varied and I read nearly all genres, happily skipping between literary and commercial in the turn of a page.
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If you’re looking for light, beachy reads, then this list probably isn’t for you. If you want books that get you thinking, sentences that you re-read for the sheer beauty of the prose, and ideas that will ruminate inside you - I’ve got you.
I’ve pulled together six of the best books I’ve read this year and six that I’ll be reading over the summer. I haven’t duplicated any I’ve already shared in my Brain Food newsletters, so keep reading for new recommendations.
I’m a teacher, educational consultant and novelist with an academic background in English Literature, Philosophy and Psychology. Learn more about my free-to-read fortnightly newsletter for deep thinkers and creative souls.
Six of my favourite books so far this year…
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Historical fiction makes up a huge chunk of my reading. I’m not fussy, anything from the last three millennia will do. Saying that, if there’s a dual-timeline WW2 novel on offer, I will most definitely read it. The Secret Keeper is my second Morton novel and my favourite so far. I was totally gripped. As in, coming home from work and reading a few chapters instead of getting the dinner on gripped.
It starts with a teenager witnessing a shocking event in the 1960s and decades later she’s still trying to make sense of what really happened. The story then jumps between wartime London in the 1940s and the present day, slowly peeling back layers of family secrets. If you like historical fiction with a mystery at the heart, and a few twists I didn’t see coming, this is the book for you.
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Give me a book about witches any day of the week. Give me a book with women who fight against being silenced. Give me a book by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Give me The Mercies. Cold sea air at the edge of the arctic. Neighbours pitted against each other. Subversive love and male witch hysteria. All delicately wrapped up in Hargrave’s exquisite prose.
Set in 17th-century Norway and based on a real witch trial, I knew I’d love this book as Hargrave is an auto-buy author for me. A coastal storm wipes out the men of a village, leaving the women to fend for themselves until fear and suspicion arrive in the form of male outsiders. I’m drawn to stories where survival is both literal and emotional, especially when they explore power, gender, and superstition.
All Fours by Miranda July
As a woman of a certain age, this is the first novel I’ve read about the menopause that truly captures the tumultuous shift in energy and life-force that takes place in our 40s. I’m new to Miranda July’s writing, she’s a multi-disciplinary creative, and I now want to find out about everything she’s ever produced.
All Fours follows a sculptor who thinks she is setting out to drive from LA to New York but ends up camping out in a local motel for a few weeks, lying to her husband and son about her whereabouts. Nothing she does is pre-planned but her rocket-paced trajectory into obsession with a younger man, creation of a new home away from her real life and surreal self-discovery makes complete sense in the context of her life.
There is so much depth to the story that I’m going to need a while to ponder and process my thoughts. I didn’t read any reviews before I picked it up and having a look afterwards I wasn’t surprised to see that it divides opinion. People seem to love it or hate it. Remember, books are art and art is subjective. What speaks to me won’t necessarily speak to you, and that’s what makes us human.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Speaking about rockets, Atmosphere is another story about obsession. I listened to the audiobook and the narration is still reverberating within my soul, as are the characters. I’m going to be feeling the pain of this book break-up for a while. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a master at plucking those heartstrings and pulling you deep inside the characters minds.
Set in the male-dominated world of NASA in the 1980s, this novel follows a female physicist who earns a place in the first mixed-gender astronaut training programme. During her training she discovers her sexuality when she falls for a fellow female astronaut, but the homophobia of the time means they must keep their love hidden. Their romance plays out against a nail-biting mission emergency, during a spacewalk gone wrong.
Go As a River by Shelley Read
I bought this novel during a 99p stuff your Kindle sale, drawn to the cover, I didn’t even read the blurb. It must’ve been fate as this is already one of my favourite ever books. The story starts in 1940s Colorado, where a teenage girl is holding together a household of damaged men. Then she meets an Indian boy who offers her a glimpse of happiness and the tenderness of love.
What follows is a story of prejudice and loss, of silence, and survival. Told with so much beauty it hurts. If you loved Clare Leslie Hall’s Broken Country, you’ll love this too.
The Lotus Shoes by Jane Yang
I’ve been interested in novels set in 18th and 19th Century China since I read Jung Chang’s Wild Swans, many years ago and I’m looking forward to reading the follow-up when it is released in September.
The Lotus Shoes follows the intertwined lives of two women in 19th-century China who come from the two extremes of society. One has been sold into child slavery by her mother, the other is her mistress who sees her slave as nothing more than a thing to service her needs. When fate upends their worlds, each is humbled in their own way and must claw their way back through grit and determination. Only one can escape into a better life.
Bonus Book - My current read!
I’m currently reading the Nobel Prize for Literature winning Human Acts as a buddy-read with the wonderful Bookstagrammer @WhatIThinkAboutThisBook and it is my first novel by this author. I know from reviews of her other books that she isn’t afraid to explore the most unsettling corners of the human experience. Human Acts begins with the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea and follows the reverberations of a young boy’s death across time and memory. I’m bracing myself for something harrowing yet necessary. There’s something about the way Kang writes that makes this painful story feel like I’m witnessing history.
Six books I’ll be reading over the summer…
The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota
Sunjeev Sahota’s China Room was one of my debut novel comparison titles (comps) in my query letter last year, as I searched for a literary agent. He’s also one of the authors who inspired me to write and I recommend you read all of his backlist.
The Spoiled Heart has themes of DEI union activism, the class divide, identity and gender politics. The story centres on Nayan, who lost his family in a possibly racially motivated fire 20-years ago, a tragedy which colours his present. As he campaigns to become General Secretary of his union, he finds himself up against a wealthy woman of Indian descent whilst being emotionally drawn to a mysterious white woman who gets tongues gossiping.
This novel has been waiting patiently on my Kindle for six months, and it was the unique premise that drew me in. Mason traces the history of a single house in the New England woods over centuries, from colonial times to the present. As different inhabitants come and go, the echoes of their lives linger in the land and the walls. I’m curious to see how Mason connects the reader through time and space with a cast of changing characters.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
I love a sweeping intergenerational saga, especially when it draws me into a world I’m less familiar with. Building on the world Orange created in There There, this novel follows two families of Native Americans from the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 through colonial atrocities and cultural erasure, right up to the present day. For me, fiction that can both immerse me in unfamiliar worlds and teach me what I should know is always a winner.
A Thread of Light by Neema Shah
After enjoying Kololo Hill, which traces the fate of a family of Ugandan Indians who find themselves refugees in England, I’ve been looking forward to Shah’s second novel (which has just been published). A Thread of Light explores the contributions made by Indians who were based in England during the Second World War, as well as the freedom fighters working to free India from colonialism. The themes of sacrifice and the search for belonging amongst immigrants are ones I always enjoy reading about.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
I don’t read as much dystopian fiction as I used to, but I saw this recommended somewhere and was intrigued. Set in a near-future America ravaged by climate disaster and societal collapse, a teenager is forced to flee her destroyed community. She journeys through chaos and danger, gathering followers along the way. Although Butler wrote the novel in 1991 and set it in an imagined 2024, its themes of inequality and environmental breakdown feel prophetic.
A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry
What can I say that hasn’t already been said before about Neneh Cherry? She’s an icon from my childhood who has maintained her mystique and allure, and I just want to know more about her. From her early days of moving to London at 15, living in a squat and joining The Slits, to the award-winning years post-Buffalo Stance. She’s such a creative soul, and she’s done it all without losing her deep-rooted love for family and friends. This one has been recommended to me by multiple people and I think it will be my favourite non-fiction read this year.
A few more of my reading recommendations and reviews:
Brotherless Night by V.V.Ganeshananthan
The Daughters of Madurai by Rajasree Variyar
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
Have you read any of these books? What are you reading over the summer?
From thoughts to page, how I came to writing with lots of detours.
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also, I'm so ancient, I had to look up the meaning of 'inspo'.
Thanks for this Article - I have saved it. My favourite read: ‘Waking the Women.’ 100 pages. Perimenopause themed.
Not
a novel or a memoir. More a philosophical deep spiritual dive into perimenopause - seeing it not as a decay but as a rebirth. It gave me so much energy. Loved it. Reviewed it on here in Phoenix tales - my second SS - in August.