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: