Books for summer 

loved the list ! btw my dear european book readers: where do you buy "New York Review Books" so that we don't obliterate our wallets? i'm from Portugal and here any 100 page nyr book costs something like 25-29€........ thanks in advance and good summer readings :)

"we're heading into much less chill territory: tHe BelL jAr" 😭😭😭 this is literally the kind of summer i want to have. thank you for reminding me that i have some Iris Murdoch on my shelf that i need to get to! and yes! i would love the your summer tbr list! give us the list!

The Sea, The Sea is so much more than a summer read 💕

the vibe of this list is immaculate!! ferrante gives me such summery vibes, i’m hoping to get to the second book in the neapolitan novels soon and days of abandonment is also high up on my list!! i neeeeeed to prioritize baldwin and murdoch and woolf!!

Oooh how icy I love Bonjour Tristesse! Baldwin! Now this is a book I have to get to! Ooh an Iris Murdoch! The book I wanted to read but haven’t yet. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed re-reading The Bell Jar. I couldn’t agree more about Whereabouts. ❤❤❤

Excellent list, I'd also add Mrs Dalloway and The Shadow of the wind, which are both set in June. And of course, no summer is complete without a Great Gatsby reread.

Thank you ! The French books you mentioned intrigue me. I also enjoy Celine, Sartre, Camus. Am eager to read Suicide by Edouard Leve… & you must read The Map & The Territory by Houellebecq… Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland … Some more recommendations for you … James by Percival Everett… Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux … Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders …Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell … The Known World by Edward P Jones…The Bee Sting by Paul Murray…to name a few… Of course The Stranger is a classic … My favorite Woolf is To the Lighthouse … I love the line in the Bell Jar where she writes The Vodka was like dead water. Ah, the stagnation of summer … ha Loved the Neapolitan series … Right now I’m reading The Morning Star…by Knausgaard… you may wanna check out his My Struggle books … My arbitrary to the season TBRs are Rats by Sullivan (it’s non-fiction), My Dark Vanessa, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Fishermen by Obiama, The Rabbit Hutch …etc (I’ll be here all day ha) 😊

What a good list! Sample chapters downloaded for The Colony, Whereabouts, Sag Harbor, A Month in the Country, and The Days of Abandonment.

You look very French girl chic… beautiful!💋😍 I just finished Giovanni’s Room week and it is a great summer book even though it’s sad and pretty depressing - that’s my kind of summer read anyway, lol! I am adding several of these to my summer reading list. I would like to get to A Room With a View this summer. I have never heard of Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor but I’m definitely going to look for it. Great video, Sophie! ♥️

great recs, and I love love the red lip hehe!

Festering summer is my favourite

bonjour tristesse being the ultimate french teenager summer read is so accurate

What a faaaab list of books. I’m really keen to read more Colson Whitehead and Sag Harbour sounds like it could be quite different. I can’t believe I’ve still not read any Cusk. Lots of wonderful classics in the mix, I think A Month in the Country is an almost perfect book.

I read Bonjour Tristesse and a Certain Smile last summer and adored them! I have another Sagan lined up for this summer - The Still Storm ☺ I'm planning to read my first Cusk as well, The Last Supper, and I might also try dipping my toe into the Claudine series and or The Vagabond by Colette 👌 Would love to see a projected summer TBR from you 😁

Hello, welcome back! A fantastic list of recommendations. I haven't got a thick TBR because I don't really work like that but for now here is the base for what I want to read. 1. Negroland by Margo Jefferson, a memoir about upper class black Americans. 2.Lucie by Amalie Skram 3. Pachinko 4. A Pin To See The Peepshow 5. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I'd also like to do some reading of Glass and God by Anne Carson and the Black Boards by Lars Morch Finborud. I want to get through the books I already own :)

Thank you for the summery lit fic recs! 😊

Audrey Magee’s “The Colony” would pair well with a book I just finished reading, “Whale Fall” by Elizabeth O’Connor (2024). The story is set on a remote island in Wales. Our protagonist is a young woman named Manod who lives with her father and younger sister on the island. Two English ethnographers (outsiders, the same as in “The Colony”) arrive to study the island culture, and they threaten the fabric of the community.

Such a good list! Bonjour Tristesse and the Sea, the Sea are such perfect summer books. A Room with a View is on my very loose summer TBR for this year 😊

Love this summer list -- literally the exact kind of books I read in the summer haha. Have you ever read The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras? It feels very much on theme with the fetid summer at a European seaside-vibe that most of these have.

Im all for festering summer 🌞 but sophie w those earrings red lip and brooch combo you having a slaying summer 💃🏻 i squeal w glee at this summer reading rec list. So good!!!

you really hit the nail on the head with these recommendations ! thank you :)

loving the red lipsticks on u, alsoo loved the book recs

so many good books!! definitely my kind of summer reading list. i will be taking this as a personal reminder to finally read some iris murdoch this summer x

Brilliant list!! My shopping baskets are all fat, both the English and the French-speaking one 😅

A Month in the Country is a great summer recommendation and there are some wonderful books in your list. The idea of L’etranger as a beach read is darkly humorous! At least one of the books I am reading this summer is The Offing by Benjamin Myers.

wonderful list and wonderful video! thank you sm sophie (:

Brilliant, thank you

Thank you !! ☀🍰

oooo i’m trying to make a small summer tbr list for myself & this is the final push to add giovanni’s room to my list. also yess days of abandonment is such a great rec for a summer read!! gonna be adding ‘the colony’ to my tbr, hadn’t heard of it before. i also need to get to the bell jar…so maybe ill get to it this summer. would also love to see what you end up putting on your summer tbr list ✨

Hi Which lipstick are you wearing?

great now I want to read all of the books you recommend! 🤣😍 Funnily “days of abandonment” and “outline” were already on my summer tbr, besides these two I really want to get to “summer without men” by Siri Hustvedt and in light of recent events I would also like to try a Paul Auster novel - can you recommend anything by him? 📚 sending good wishes from Mainz, Germany

I was wondering if you have read anything by Yasmina Reza? If so, what did you think? Somehow I like reading her books in summer, maybe because they are usually very dialogue heavy.

Hi! Love your list and your earrings…can you tell us where can we find it?

yeah, it would very interesting to see your summer tbr!! on my list is russian authofiction by Maria Stepanova about her jewish family story in XX century, idk how to translate the name and was it published in eng before, "To memory memories", i guess? I also plan to end book on the vision of the world in Chinese, Korean and Japanese art by art historian Vinogradova + to end "Daughters of smoke and fire" by Ava Homa (coming-of-age of kurdish girl. it's challenging) hope to read two Rilke novels and some books from your recs too (Cusk, Ferrante)