Summer reading

I’ve had a pretty pleasant summer. Biking, swimming, seeing friends. Going on long walks alone. Talking late into the night with my boyfriend. Writing in my diary, sending long voice messages. I’m always a little tired, and depressed by the news. But mostly, there’s a current of happiness that I’m allowing myself to feel. I’m always happy when I’m reading, especially when I’m reading a good novel. This spring/early summer, after many years of skepticism, I read and completed Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan Quartet.

So silly of me to wait so long! And yet, the series re-arrived into my life at the perfect moment. I loved these books—the characters and the experience of the passage of time. And most of all, I just loved the story. Book wise, my usual bread and butter is a relatively plotless story full of questioning and contemplation. The Neopolitan Novels had that, yes—but I found myself most drawn to the plot and the sequence of events, the *story* itself. It was also interesting to read about the Italian political climate during the 20th century and how it affected people’s daily, interpersonal lives. This sparked a curiosity in me that eventually led me to pick up Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon.

The central focus of this novel isn’t necessarily World War II or the Holocaust or the fascist regime in Italy, but these events loom in the background of the characters’ mostly unremarkable days, and as the book goes on, you see how political violence and chaos zoom in and out of focus. The best part of this book is the characters. There are so many of them that it was a bit hard to keep up sometimes, but I loved reading how people zig zag through each other’s lives. I’m going to Italy this Saturday actually. I didn’t intend to read a bunch of Italian books before/during my trip, but I’m on a roll and I figure I should keep it going.

Next I plan to read Alba de Céspedes’ There’s No Turning Back—also a novel set in the early 1900s, it tells the story of a group of women going to college together in Rome. I’ve heard good things about her novel The Forbidden Notebook, so I’m hoping this one is good too! Other books I’ve read? Sometime in June I read Weather by Jenny Offil—fine, but forgettable! Last night, I finished Will and Testament by Vidgis Hjorth—intense and sad, but also a bit forgettable. Here are some other books I plan to read this summer, or sometime this year:

What are you reading, what do you want to read? Beautiful to think we can spend our whole lives answering this question…

Happy summer,
Loré