When I think about summer reading, I think about relaxing with an easy page-turner … but I also think about finally having the headspace for the more complex, challenging books that have haunted my bedside table during the busy year.
Summer reading is often characterised as paperback romance or detective fiction. And it is that. But it’s also anything your tired, finally well-rested brain wants to apply itself to in the sunnier months: on a beach, by a pool or splayed on a couch under an air conditioner.
We asked six avid readers what they plan to read this summer – and their answers reflected all of the above and more. I’ve already stolen a few ideas to add to my own hopeful pile. (So far, it includes Susie Boyt’s much-raved-about novel Loved and Missed, a biography of her father Lucian Freud, Dominic Amerena’s literary satire, I Want Everything … and Anna Karenina.)
