Summer Reading 2014

Summer Reading 2014

When I was a child growing up in the South I spent a lot of time in the summer trying to get cool.  Southern summers are hot but like most people on our street my parents considered air-conditioning to be an affectation for the less than hardy Southerner, so our rooms were cooled at night by the stalwart efforts of an oscillating fan placed strategically in the hallway between my bedroom and theirs. This method, while completely fair, was often sadly ineffectual.  How well I remember lying in my bed in the humid heat, listening to the crickets in the woods outside my window as I waited for that fan to finally swivel my way.  

But every summer, as soon as school holidays began, we would visit a building unlike any other I knew; blessedly cool, quiet, and entirely magical.  The main branch of our public library was a colossal grey stone edifice that presided, cathedral-holy, over the busiest street downtown.  Approaching it on a hot June day when steam rose up like an unnatural fog from the blistering streets and everyone wore the damp, listless expressions of the truly miserable as they plowed their way through the heavy air was akin to nearing an oasis in the middle of a inhabitable land; a land that vanished as though it had never existed as soon as I pushed open that library door.  It was not only a place where, amazingly,  you were allowed to take as many books as you wanted home with you but full as it was of fat, comfortable chairs, it was a cool and utterly delightful place to read the afternoon away.  

In summer, where one reads has always been sweetly tied to what one reads.  Hence the description, Beach Book, I suppose.  More than any other season, summer holds out handfuls of tempting places to read: windswept beaches, coastal cottages, fragrant gardens.  In this, my annual Summer Reading list, I decided to pair books with places as beautiful as they are inviting.  Each looks like the most wonderful place to read on a summer's day.  And thanks to the National Trust of Britain, they all can be rented!   Just click on the photograph and you’ll be whisked away for all the details.  Same goes with the books, just click the picture of each to find out more.  Also, a marvelous children’s book closes out each separate list.  

The months of summer are brief, I know that now.  When I was a child, of course, they stretched out before me like an unbroken ribbon of carnival candy creating enough delicious memories to last a lifetime.   I’m glad those memories include books and I hope you’ll make some wonderful new literary memories of your own this summer.  As I was writing this post it occurred to me that it was six years ago this month that I began writing here at From the House of Edward.  I can’t think of a lovelier way to celebrate than with a passel of tempting new books, can you?  Remember now, do leave comments to tell me what you’re planning to read this summer.

  Love to you all,

 Pamela, and Edward too, of course.

xoxo

Doyden Castle, Cornwall

The Sea House

by Elizabeth Gifford

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

Bittersweet

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

The Night Gardener

by Jonathan Auxier

***

Helston Lodge, Cornwall

My Brilliant Friend

by Elena Ferrante

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

by Genevieve Valentine

What Are People For 

by Wendell Berry

Three Bears in a Boat

by David Soman

***

Tan y Bwlch, Wales

This House is Haunted

by John Boyne

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

The Silkworm

by Robert Galbraith

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

by Jonathan Auxier

***

Tintinhull House, Somerset

The Romanov Sisters

by Helen Rappaport

Sissinghurst

by Vita Sackville-West and Sarah Raven

One Man’s Folly:  The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood

by Julia Reed

The Minpins

by Roald Dahl