The days seem longer, hotter, hazier and much slower paced. It's not unusual to find me reading, a lot at this time of year. As the heat warps and curls pages, I escape. Drink breaks happen intermittently. Books are mulled over. I thrust Normal People x Sally Rooney in to the hands of one of my girlfriends, telling her to read and enjoy. It moves to the top of her reading pile. Summer, you and the reading have certainly been kind. Here's the tomes whose pages I have turned this season...

woolgathering x patti smith: A revisited read. Reunited and it feels so good. Patti's words are wondrous and I love this thin slip of a book. Her photographs are interspersed with reflections of childhood and finding wonder and imagination in the world around us. 

winter* x ali smith: The seasonal juxtaposition which on the hotter days of reading had me yearning for cool, for coats and for coffee-piping hot. Winter showcases what Ali Smith does best; bringing together a host of eclectic characters who in many ways teach one another something whilst speaking to our present-day society. I love how these seasonal stories are so evocative and really capture the essence of the time periods they're written in. Roll on Spring which will be read in the last glimpses of this season. 

mayhem x sigrid rausing: The events of this book were much more publicised internationally, more so in Europe I believe. So to me I knew nothing of the Rausing dynasty, bar that Sigrid is Granta magazine's editor.  Side note: if you're reading this, it is worth doing background research alongside it, as I chose to. Her memoir looks at the painful, lifelong effects of addiction and self destruction. How it impacts the addicts and their personal worlds. It's brilliant, articulate and well written. Though it left me musing over the gaps and neglected details. Much of which Rausing explains. Yet it got me thinking about how we naturally subconsciously edit. Fiction or elements thereof are so intrinsically rooted in life nowadays. It's fascinating.

night photograph x lavinia greenlaw: An exquisite, haunting and ethereal collection of poems. This book was my first introduction to Greenlaw's words and the experience was magic. 

becoming* x michelle obama: This book became an instant bestseller and rightly so. Michelle shares her personal memories and musings from life growing up in Chicago, through to college, the White House and everything in between. Her not so typical upbringing. How she worked and works hard for everything she sets out to accomplish. How education is everything to her. How bettering the lives of the world's young, impressionable citizens is paramount to her. It is an inspiring and incredibly memorable read. The perfect book to commence the year ahead with.

and here's what I am intending to read throughout the rest of the season:

the accidental x ali smith: re-read, see my review here

too much and not the mood x durga chew-bose: re-read.

essayism x brian dillon

insomnia x marina benjamin

in the city of love's sleep x lavinia greenlaw

everything under x daisy johnson: half-read and demanding to be finished.. 

-What have you read during Summer?

*Review Copy