literature girl summer

The days are getting longer, the air is getting hotter. Everything is sweatier, heavier, yet lighter as the prospect of early dawn and no work is within touching distance. I write this in 35-degree heat, one more exam left and my brain fighting the urge to skydive out of my head and fall onto the floor with a satisfying plop only to evaporate into thin air. I promise, I’m fine. What keeps me going is the thought of long, lazy summer days with a glass of iced water, a bowl of cherries and a book with an inhumane amount of words. The kind that can only be digested in the summer.

This season is the one where I devour more books than ice-cream and finish an average of two a day. This is life at its best.

I’m nearly there, so nearly there. I can already feel the grass beneath my bare feet, the gentle breeze and occasional downpour of a European summer. The flies don’t bother me, if they sit on the page I’ll let them read along.

But what to read? All good thinking about it, I must start thinking about it. I need a list of books to look forward to, arranged like a menu in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Each one complementing the next: aperitif, main and a little side dish. All followed up by a sweet dessert melting in my mouth, the taste lingering as I pick up the starter of the next meal.

A pile has been sitting in the corner of my room for months. Let me correct that: it has become more like two piles. I counted them this morning, just for fun. Just to set my unattainable reading goal in stone for it to taunt and excite me simultaneously. 40 books. Plus the two I am reading. Morals of the Ancient World were abandoned as my Greek and Latin exams passed. A Passage to India is still keeping me entertained, the descriptions of muggy air and hot weather are setting the mood. The rest are sitting there, waiting. Each carries a story within their pages, a story that the future me will discover.

Some are too heavy for the lazy days to come. Don’t give me Sophie’s World or Sherlock Holmes, they’ll have to wait for the harsh winds of autumn.

Instead, let me start by arranging my first meal. My first fortnight of reading. I’ll dive right into them once the last word of E. M. Forster has been read. With a splash into the crisp pages as ripples pass over the clear water around me.

A little appetiser first, to set the mood. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf will have to do. Short and sweet, a cover of vibrant colours.

A sturdier starter will follow, the official start of this literature summer. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Let’s see how hot the flames can make me, how much the story’ll cause me to cherish these books even more.

And now for the main. The centre of the meal, the huge chunk of writing that I’ll digest slowly, the words settling in my stomach besides sprouting watermelon seeds. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. The perfect vibe for a summer full of musings and discarded journal entries.

As a side I’ll have Angela Carter’s Book of Wayward Girls and Wicked Women. I’ll take bites out of it as I please, when I please.

The dessert’ll be The Song Of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, considering the fact that as a major Greek mythology fan I really need to read this book. I’ve read pretty much every other retelling known to mankind, so finishing my meal with this sweet and easy treat will be perfect.

And so, the plates are cleared away as stars start to appear in the sky. Wine, air, philosophy and literature stretch into the summer night.