Welcome to mama eats, a twice-weekly newsletter inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. This week’s post, summer reading, is free to all readers. I try to provide as much free content as possible, however, this newsletter is a labor of love and I am a busy mama to three. If you have the means, and find value in what I share, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which also gives you access to the growing archive of posts older than a month.
Summer reading has a special quality to it, a luxury to sink into a little longer than most of the year- reading in the afternoon to escape the peak of the day’s heat, or in the longer evenings when the warm air envelops your body like silk. The deliciously languorous feeling of reading while lying down stretched out in bed, in a hammock, on hot sand at the beach. Reading in bed always feels especially pleasant and tranportive- “We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind” observes Anna Quindlen in How Reading Changed My Life.
Below I’ve compiled a small list for you of books that encapsulate a summer feeling for me. For some on the list it’s due to the story itself- perhaps set near the sea, in summer, etc; or the overall mood/feeling- easy to sink fully into and let the walls of reality become more permeable, fever dream-like.
I hope you enjoy and can sink into that summer feeling of relaxing and letting go of organization and cares, if just for a bit- Joan Didion, in her piece American Summer, urges us, reminds us:
“For a few priceless weeks, we can be- if we work at it- free: we can have time to recover, to re-coup whatever winter losses we incurred… We can sit in the sun, and let the edges begin to heal; steep our nerves in salt water and in iced fresh water and even in (it works just as well, sometimes better) the chlorinate filtered water of aquamarine blue pools and keep for a while to our disorganized selves. We do not remember summer, after all, for its organization. What we and our children remember later are the alone moments, the impromptu.”
Please do add your recommendations of your essential summer-feeling books in the comments to keep the list going. Happy reading xx
For adults:
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki
The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk (nonfiction)
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
The Guest by Emma Cline
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Sula by Toni Morrison
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
Daughter by Claudia Dey
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
Run River by Joan Didion
American Summer by Joan Didion (short piece from May 1963 Vogue)
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
As They Were by MFK Fisher (autobiographical essays about food and travel)
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
August Blue by Deborah Levy
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim
The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo (nonfiction)
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and the 3 others in this series
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
Devotions by Mary Oliver (poetry)
For young children:
Summer by Gerda Muller (no words board book with beautiful summer scenes)
How Does My Garden Grow? by Gerda Muller
Brambly Hedge Summer Story by Jill Barklem
Sneakers the Seaside Cat by Margaret Wise Brown
Bustletown Summer by Rotraut Susanne Berner (oversized, wordless board book with very detailed scenes on each page depicting a summer’s day in a town)
Blueberries for Sal by Rober McCloskey
Peter In Blueberry Land by Elsa Beskow
Little Farm by the Sea by Kay Chorao
Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall
Alfie on Holiday by Shirley Hughes
Summer by Shirley Hughes (one small book in her 10 book nursery collection, which we love and is great to read to even the littlest babies)
Lucy & Tom At the Sea by Shirley Hughes
On Vacation by Richard Scarry
Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner
Films:
My favorite quality I look for in a film is that it is visually beautiful- the ones listed below encapsulate a summer feeling for me.
The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999
Call Me By Your Name, 2017
The Lost Daughter, 2021
La Piscine, 1969
La Grande Belleza, 2013
One Deadly Summer, 1983
La Ciénaga, 2001
Mid-August Lunch, 2008
Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019
A Bigger Splash, 2015
Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975
A Room With a View, 1985
Thank you so much. I am excited to dive in.
This is a fantastic list! I’ve never been steered wrong by a book recommendation from you. I read a few books this winter that you shared and devoured them. Looking forward to lounging in the sun with a few of these ones. 💛