10 summer reads

Heat + laziness + romo (relief of missing out) = top reading time

If there is one thing I love it is reading other people’s book recs, especially if said person is somebody whose taste I’m into. I don’t know if I’m that person to you, but considering you’re subscribing to my newsletter the chances are you might be!!

As I’m writing this by my window, I’m watching two people on the street taking photos of a hole in the ground. Has there always been a hole in the ground on the pavement next to my flat? Should I be concerned? I am now concerned. I have also overcome with desire to go outside and inspect said hole. And, I’m running late to go to the cinema to watch the first ep of Twin Peaks on the big screen, so I must run anyway.

I’m leaving you with ten summer book recommendations. As I was listing them I realised there are three or four distinct categories all these books I love fit under, so without further ado:

Epic family sagas that span over decades and have a very specific sense of place:

Eleana Ferrante - Neapolitan novels 1-4
Every time I meet someone who hasn’t read the Neapolitan novels I want to scream WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! and I’M SO JEALOUS I WISH I COULD READ THEM FOR THE FIRST TIME AGAIN!! When I think about my favourite summer reads I realised I have memories of reading many of them in the summer, in the heat, at the park etc., and that’s definitely the case with these novels. I remember laying in the park for hours cause I just had to finish the book I had at hand. I love these novels. They have it all: intense complicated friendships, love, sex, betrayal, class, communist fuckboys, and decades of Italian political history.

(Me and my friend Eleanor love the books so much we took a trip to Naples in 2023 and very much followed in the footsteps of Ferrante: after walking through the tunnel we ate pastries in the neighbourhood of Rione Luzzatti [where sitting on the piazza with the nonnos Eleanor suddenly thought she was having an allergic reaction to the nutty bisquit, but it turned out she wasn’t dying it was just an incredibly salty bisquit] and later took a ferry to the island of Ischia. Towards the end of our stay we were having drinks (called Free Palestine) in one the leftist/bohemian/crusty bars on Piazza Bellini and got chatting to the waiter who was a Napoli local. When he asked why we’d come to Naples I proudly said “Well you see we are huge fans of Elena Ferrante and L’amica Geniale.” The waiter went quiet for a bit, it looked like he was pondering something, and then he said “Elena Ferrante? I hate!”.)

Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
I could say everything I said about the Neapolitan novels also about The God of Small Things, except now we’re in Kerala. Devastating and devastatingly beautiful. What I love to read in the summer are novels that transport me somewhere else and make me FEEL, and this is exactly that.

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
I often come late to classics and that’s what happened with Middlesex which I finally read this year. It’s another epic family saga that spans from 1940s Turkey to 1960s Detroit and contemporary Berlin with a witty and sharp narrator.

Memoirs from people who have lead way wilder lives than I ever will:

Julia Fox - Down the Drain
It’s no secret I love Julia Fox and absolutely gulped down this memoir like I will gulp down any memoir of a person who has Lived A Life. From going to high school in Italy to working as a dominatrix in New York to dating K*nye West to losing her best friend to addiction, this is a wild ride told with raw candidness, humour and vulnerability.

Cookie Mueller - Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
Before the modern day julia foxes there was Cookie Mueller - muse, writer, go-go dancer, actor, West Village icon. She was friends with the likes of Nan Goldin, John Waters and David Wojnarowicz. I love this era of art and popular culture, of New York, so much. This is a collection of Cookie’s writing which I absolutely adore, it’s hilarious, irreverent, full of life, no bullshit. She chronicles her life and various adventures from the 60s to the 80s, from living in Haight & Ashbury and acting in films in Baltimore to how she’s facing her AIDS diagnosis and ultimate death. Reading Cookie makes me want to put my phone down and go out and live.

The funny, the idiosyncratic, the offkilter:

David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
In the summer I often want to read something light and funny, but something that isn’t an airport novel about a woman with a shopping addiction (no shade, this genre just isn’t for moi). David Sedaris is the master of comedic writing, however this is the only collection I’ve read from him and I definitely want to read more. I remember reading it in Finland and needing somewhere funny to escape, and I remember laughing out a lot. I remember one story where a turd was thrown out of a friend’s bathroom window and an another one about how humiliating it is to learn and speak a foreign language as an adult.

Elif Batuman - The Idiot
I ADORE Elif Batuman’s writing, and I adooooore The Idiot. I adore Selin, the 19-year-old protagonist who starts her first year at Harvard studying linguistics and who is incredibly smart and clueless all at once. Selin reads Russian classics and learns how to use email (the novel is set in 1999) in order to chat to her Hungarian crush, fellow linguist Ivan. Elif’s writing is so singular, funny, sharp, her observations about life and human relations painfully accurate and complex. I also just bloody love (an intellectual) college novel. There’s since been a sequel Either/Or, which I also love and which I read during a summer holiday in Greece, which it was perfect for. Elif Batuman is one of those writers I will read everything she ever publishes.

Kevin Wilson - Nothing to See Here
A little novel that took me by surprise and made me want to read Kevin Wilson’s whole back catalog. Set during the course of one summer, it follows a woman who goes to care for her estranged friend’s children who…randomly combust. Set on fire. Sounds odd and it is, but it’s not quirky for quirky’s sake - this novel is a tender exploration of loneliness and being different, of family and acceptance. I loved it. It’s also sharp and funny. I came across it when Taffy Brodesser-Akner said in an interview it’s the best thing she read that year, and I’m forever grateful for her for this rec.

Autobiographical writing from older literary women who have lived unconventional lives (and who all seemed to have communist families):

Vivian Gornick - The Odd Woman and the City
There’s just something about summer that makes me want to read memoirs and autobiographical writing. Transport me to another time, to another city, to another life! Vivian Gornick walks around New York with her old gay friend Leonard and muses on life. This is a genre that is truly for me. Vivian grew up in a communist Jewish family in 1950s Bronx. She got married, became an artist and got a divorce. She speaks for us who love living in cities in the middle of the chaos. Like all the writers I love, her voice has a delightful wit to it.

Pirkko Saisio - Lowest Common Denominator
I am SO excited that Pirkko Saisio, one of my favourite Finnish writers, is getting translated into English and Penguin is publishing the first of her famous trilogy this August. Pirkko Saisio is a heavyweight writer, playwright and director well respected in Finland. This first volume in the autobiographical trilogy is set in Helsinki in the 1950s where Pirkko grew up as the only child of communist parents. I’m so excited that her works will become available beyond the borders of Finland.

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Some books I’ve placed in the library reservations queue/am hoping to read this summer are The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey, The Coin by Yasmin Zaher, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, and Ex-wife by Ursula Parrott.

What are YOU reading/recommending for the summer pile?