It’s summer. Happiness. However, researching summery books, I’ve discovered that writers like summer to mean not just happiness and laziness and warmth: there can be a distinct wintery edge too; summer can be a harbinger of, if not doom (or Mt Doom, as the case may be), then unpleasantness and a certain amount of suffering*. Still, it’s nice to read summer books in summer.

1. Black Rabbit Summer, Kevin Brooks. A long, hot, lazy summer. Then a teenage starlet disappears and Pete decides to investigate. First sentence: “The summer of this story started for me on a hot Thursday night at the end of July, just as the sun was beginning to go down.”
2. Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson. Melinda calls the cops on an end-of-summer party, causing herself to become a social leper: she doesn’t let on why she does this and what has made her retreat into herself.
3. Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, Deb Caletti. A “quiet girl” breaks out one summer and in an effort to rein her in her mother (a librarian) takes her along to the Casserole Queens, a book club for, um, older people. But senior citizens can have stories that surprise you and teach you about life.
4. How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff and Remembrance, Theresa Breslin. Summer during war is hardly idyllic. In How I Live Now, a near-perfect summer (of love) is shattered when terrorists invade England in a non-specific, imagined 21st century war. Remembrance begins at a picnic on a beautiful summer day, an illusion of peace and tranquillity (what’s more tranquil than a summer picnic?) shattered by the Great War.
5. In Summer, Jeremy Jackson. This book is all about summer, specifically the summer between finishing school and starting whatever comes next. First sentence: “I woke up at eleven and went downstairs and ate my bowl of cereal standing at the counter.”
6. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald. The great American novel. Nick Carraway is a student who rents a cottage between two mansions in West Egg (yes!) on Long Island. One of the mansions is owned by the enigmatic Gatsby, whose extravagant lifestyle Nick is drawn to, with languidly shocking results.
7. Under the Mountain (plus DVD), Maurice Gee. Summer holidays in Auckland, with a science fiction twist of course. Watch the DVD for amazing retro 1980s effects.
8. The Lord of the Rings, J R R Tolkien. The epic journey to return the ring to Mount Doom begins just after midsummer. A fairly trivial fact perhaps, but the point is midsummer is merriment and Bilbo’s party and stuff, and then it’s all down hill from there, until the seemingly impossible task is accomplished.
9. Summer of my German Soldier, Bette Greene. I lurved this book way back when… it was soooooooo romantic (think like a 12 year old again) and sooooooo sad. Reread it this summer!
10. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares. I couldn’t not add this one: great summer reading for those of us who enjoy some quality chick lit.
     

* I also note a distinctly chick-flavouredness about books about summer (one or two aside), which interests me. Is summer not a manly season, I want to know?