Nookish Notes: Five Short Books to Kickstart Your Summer Reading
Plus two for the writers among us
Summer reading is here…Is there anything better than getting lost in a book on a hot, summer day, especially pool-side or ocean-side or in-side escaping the heat? Reading in the summer is one of my favorite childhood memories, mostly because it was my preferred way to escape the boredom of living in the countryside, which felt much too far from all of my school friends.
Sometimes, when my reading feels like it’s entering a slump, what I really need is a good, short book to kickstart it. I find that reading a whole book in one or two sittings can be such an immersive experience, and when the book is beautifully written, even better.
Here are seven short books I highly recommend to get your summer reading started right:
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
A simple but heartbreaking story: a girl doesn’t want to leave her beautiful country home when her Anglo-Irish parents are caught up in the path of the Irish civil war and plan on fleeing back to England. In a fit of childishness that leads to a consequential misunderstanding, the girl fakes her death, and her parents leave without her. And in an age when you couldn’t simply email someone and tell them what had really happened, a lifetime of regret and sadness ensue.
Will Lucy ever reunite with her parents?
This story of Lucy Gault’s life is beautiful and melancholy and explores what it means to forgive (especially yourself).
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
World War I veteran Tom Birkin barely survives The Great War and returns to an occupation of restoring old art work. His current assignment for the summer is in the beautiful, rural English countryside, uncovering an old mural on the inside of a church. While there, he is caught up in the humdrum drama of small town life and begins to find his way back from a past that still haunts him.
Can he find healing from the emotional and physical wounds of war? A beautifully told story of a man trying to find peace.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
The only one of the books in this post that I haven’t yet read, I still have full confidence endorsing it because of the beauty of another short work by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These.
“In So Late in the Day, Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently; in The Long and Painful Death, a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions; and in Antarctica, a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger.”
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Oh, the beauty of this story! A 1937 classic of the Harlem Renaissance, it tells the story of Janie Crawford, a Black woman navigating Florida in the early 1900s, trying to find her way. Whether it’s coming of age, starting her own business, or surviving a hurricane, Janie personifies perseverance in the midst of the Jim Crow South, enduring and accomplishing things no one thought a woman, much less a black woman, could ever do.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen
“Inspired by the ancient teachings of St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers,The Way of the Heart clears before us a spiritual path consisting of three stepping-stones: Solitude (learning not to be alone but to be alone with God); Silence (the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive); and Prayer (standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart).”
A beautiful work of nonfiction that will give you much to think about when it comes to the spiritual life.
Order it direct from Nooks or pick it up on Bookshop.
Two bonus books for the writers among us:
