🌞 The Best Books I Read this Summer 2023 🌊

Autumn is officially here, which means that this is the perfect time to reflect upon all the books I read in the summer months and devote a bit of time and space to my favourite ones. Are you ready for some book recommendation? I hope that your answer is yes! 

1. The Serious Game by Hjalmar Soderberg (1912)

Arvid, an ambitious and well-educated young man, meets Lydia, the daughter of a landscape painter, during an idyllic summer holiday and falls in love. Lydia, however, has other suitors, and Arvid is frightened of being tied down by his emotions. Trapped inside loveless marriages of convenience, they struggle in later years to rekindle the promise of their romance with tragic results.

2. Paul by Daisy Lafarge (2021)

Frances is a graduate student spending a summer volunteering in rural France, in the hope that tending vegetables and harvesting honey will distract her from a scandal that drove her out of Paris, her research unfinished and her sense of self unmoored. 

At the eco-farm Noa Noa, she comes under the influence of its charismatic and domineering owner, Paul. As his hold over her tightens and her plans come unstuck, she finds herself entangled in a strange, uneven relationship. On a fraught road trip across the South of France, both are forced to reckon with uncomfortable truths. 

3. Plays by Anton Chekhov 

At a time when the Russian theatre was dominated by formulaic melodramas and farces, Chekhov created a new sort of drama that laid bare the everyday lives, loves and yearnings of ordinary people. Ivanov depicts a man stifled by inactivity and lost idealism, and The Seagull contrasts a young man's selfish romanticism with the stoicism of a woman cruelly abandoned by her lover. With 'the scenes from country life' of Uncle Vanya, his first fully mature play, Chekhov developed his own unique dramatic world, neither tragedy nor comedy. In Three Sisters the Prozorov sisters endlessly dream of going to Moscow to escape the monotony of provincial life, while his comedy The Cherry Orchard portrays characters futilely clinging to the past as their land is sold from underneath them. 

In this edition Peter Carson's moving translations convey Chekhov's subtle blend of comedy, tragedy and psychological insight, while Richard Gilman's introduction examines how Chekhov broke with theatrical conventions and discusses each play in detail. 

4. Dear Child by Romy Hausmann (2019)

A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them. 

One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. The police and Lena's family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn't quite seem to fit. 

5. Heartstopper by Alice Oseman (2019)

Charlie and Nick are at the same school, but they've never met... until one day when they're made to sit together. They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance. 

But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is more interested in Charlie than either of them realised. 

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness. It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us. 

🌞

What was the best book you read in summer?