As usual, time seems to have a life of its own. How did we reach summer already, when the year has barely started?

I always enjoy contemplating which books to read over the summer, when the days are longer and work is – hopefully – less stressful. Of course, summer means lots of unputdownable beach reads. In my opinion, crime fiction is ideal for this purpose. To mix things up a bit, I’ve also added a few seasonal novels, which just have to be read during the summer months and couple of nonfiction books to ponder on. Bring on the summer!

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson may be best known as the creator of The Moomins, but she also wrote book for adults. In The Summer Book we meet an elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter. While spending the summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges—one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

After having read Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, I’ve started to connect Woolf with summer reading. The Waves is apparently one of her more experimental novels. Since I didn’t find her other books particularly easy to read, that makes me somewhat apprehensive, but I am ready for it. Weaving together soliloquies from the novel’s six characters, Woolf delicately and expertly explores universal concepts such as individuality, the self, and community. 

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee

A Rising Man was on my Summer TBR for 2021, but I never got to it. Now I actually own a copy, so hopefully 2024 will be the year, I finally pick up this popular blend of crime fiction and historical fiction, set in Calcutta (now Kolkata) towards the end of the Raj era with rising political instability and lots of tension between various groups.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

I loved Liz Moore’s novel, Long Bright River, which belongs to the slow character-driven crime fiction, where the mystery isn’t the main attraction. On the 2nd of July, Moore has a new novel out, which is quite exciting. The God of the Woods is a story of love, inheritance, identity, and second chances, a thrillingly layered drama about the tensions between a family and a community, and a history of secrets that will not let any of them go.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Hiking is one of my favourite holiday activities and I also enjoy reading the occasional tale from the trails. Wild is the story about Cheryl Strayed, who hiked more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail without training. Hiking is a cathartic experience, which may be tough and challenging, but also endlessly rewarding. I look forward to read Cheryl’s story, which has been on my radar for ages.

Dark Matter & Dark Energy by Brian Gregg

I may be the only person, who have books about physics as a stable on the summer TBR. But to me there is nothing more fascinating than all the weird and wonderful aspects of our universe and the fundamental structure, which we still don’t fully understand. For instance, to explain our observations, there must be “stuff” in the universe beyond what we can see. Actually, to make the math fit, the matter and light we can see only make up 5 per cent of everything. What is the rest? Don’t tell me, that isn’t fascinating…

These were some of books, I may pick up during the summer Do you have any books lined up? And what kind of books do you typically like to read in the summer?