The Six Books On My Summer TBR

A revised list, some chunky eBay bargains and a typically British moan about the weather

(me in my element)

I think I speak for most people who live in the U.K when I say this summer has been dreadful. I’ve been longing for the days to sit in my garden, lazing with a book and basking in the sunshine. So far, such days have been rare, and I can count them on one hand. I’ve been contemplating if we’ll even get any better weather now we’re mid July with nothing forecast that looks promising.

I have been on a real reading roll lately, though. In June, I struggled to tune into anything without my attention wavering pretty quickly. Since July arrived, I have been so lucky with the books I’ve read. That thirst for reading is firmly back, and I have read some real bangers in the last couple of weeks.

Although summer feels like it hasn’t appeared and we are mid-season, I thought I would share the remainder of my TBR for the season. This is rather ambitious given how chunky some of these are but I welcome the challenge!

Rabbits by Hugo Rifkind - As I write this, I’m already just 30 pages into it, and it is so different from anything I’ve read lately. Described as Saltburn with kilts, I was immediately reeled in by that marketing! Here is the synopsis:

Tommo has just moved to a prestigious boarding school. A product of the middle class, and with new-found independence thrust upon him, he finds himself invited into fading crumbling country houses.

It's the early nineties and the elite he is now surrounded by is struggling for relevance. Alienated from the mainstream, and running low on inherited wealth, his peers have retreated into snobbery and fatalism. Initially awed by their poise and seduced by their hedonism, Tommo gradually becomes aware of sinister undercurrents and a suppressed rage that threatens to explode into violence.

In this world, half-remembered traditions mix with decadence and an awful lot of small dead animals. And sometimes, not just animals. When Tommo's friend Johnnie's brother is found dead, a shotgun at his feet, he realises there are secrets that everyone knows, but no one speaks about, or even acknowledges. And those secrets can no longer be hidden.

I’m loving this so far. The writing is engaging and so slick. I will be sure to post my final thoughts on this one in my wrap up posts.

Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren - Ooooft, this is one chunky book. Clocking in at 650+ pages, this Swedish best-seller really caught my eye. Here’s the plot via Goodreads:

Several years after the disappearance of his wife Cecilia, Martin Berg is tumbling into a life crisis. The owner of an ailing Swedish publishing house, he's left wondering what could have been. Feeling out of place and restless in the city, Martin's daughter Rakel finds a possible clue to her mother's fate and her world begins to unravel. A family saga of several generations, Collected Works is a story about enduring love, absence, friendship, and art in the intersection of truth and fiction.

I managed to grab this book in absolute mint condition for £5 including delivery from eBay. Bargain!

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante - I have attempted to read the first of this much loved quartet on two different occasions and I just wasn’t in the headspace to absorb all of the characters at the time. There are SO many. However, so many creators who’s recommendations I trust sing this series praises and I want to give it another chance.

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.

I adore books on female friendship and this ticks all of the boxes for a novel I will love. Let’s hope it is third time lucky.

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen - Another chunky book on the list coming in at 592 pages. I have always seen Franzen’s work receive heaps of praise. Family sagas are one of my favourite type of books to read and this sounds so perfect:

It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless--unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who's been selling drugs to seventh graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

This was another eBay gem. I got the hardback in like new condition for £3.50 including delivery. After seeing another Franzen novel make the top 100 Books of the 21st Cenutry lists - both journalist and readers versions - I can’t wait to dive into this.

The Member of The Wedding by Carson McCullers - This Penguin classic is a fairly new book to my TBR. At a more digestible 163 pages, I’m hoping this will be a short palette cleanser between the larger books I have on this list.

Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother's wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin—not to mention her own unbridled imagination—Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself.

Set in summer, this book is meant to perfectly capture the agony of adolescence. Sold!!!

A Wreath For The Enemy by Pamela Frankau - This wound up picking this up on my recent solo trip to London. It has such a gorgeous cover and sounds like the perfect seasonal read since it is set in the French Riveria.

When Penelope Wells, precocious daughter of a poet, meets the well-behaved middle-class Bradley children, it is love at first sight. But their parents are horrified by the Wells' establishment- a distinctly bohemian hotel on the French Riviera- and the friendship ends in tears. Out of these childhood betrayals grow Penelope, in love with an elusive ideal of order and calm, and Don Bradley, in rebellion against the phillistine values of his parents. Compellingly told in a series of first-person narratives, their stories involve them with the Duchess, painted and outre; the crippled genius Crusoe; Crusoe's brother Livesey, and the eccentric Cara, whose brittle and chaotic life collides explosively with Penelope's.

I think once I’ve concluded Rabbits, this will be up next for me!

Like I say, this is ambitious to tackle in roughly two months. I know I will be up against my mood reading tendencies but I think this is a real, well-rounded list of all the tropes/themes I typically enjoy. Have you read any of these? Have you read any of these? I'd love to hear your thoughts on them or what you have planned to read for the rest of the summer.

Thanks for reading as always! You can find me on IG & TikTok in between newsletters.