Books of the summer

Reading  · 

A hot summer means long evenings on the bench outside. Here are the five books that kept me company, from the one I loved most to the one I am still thinking about.

I don't read new books very often. Most of what I read comes from the second-hand shop in town, where the owner sorts novels by the colour of their spines. It is a terrible system and I love it.

The list

  1. A walking diary from the 1950s, found for two euros, with someone's pressed flowers still inside.
  2. A short book about bread, which made me bake every Sunday in August.
  3. A novel set on a lighthouse, slow, quiet, and better than its cover.
  4. A field guide to clouds, now permanently in my bag.
  5. A collection of letters between two friends who never met.

The last one is the one I keep thinking about. Two people wrote to each other for thirty years and never shared a room. Everything they knew about each other came through paper. It made me want to write more letters, and fewer messages.