Books on holidays: What are you reading this summer?
Our writers are revealing their favourite reads to stretch out in the sun with and we want to see, and hear about, yours. What books are you packing? Where are you taking them? And while youre at it, what are your favourite reading memories from summers past?
From the grey (OK, only some days), air-conditioned comfort of Guardian Towers, we want to hear about your summer reading list and see it, in its holiday context. Perhaps you're packing some of the best holiday reads of the year as recommended by top authors? Or perhaps you're taking this as a chance to catch up on your piles of "to be read" books.
Weve seen your shelfies, and now were after your sand-filled pages and your travelling books in front of foreign cityscapes, jungles, mountains, nearby beaches or wherever your summer is taking you, even if it's just the tube.
I was one of those kids who had to be kicked out of the door to enjoy the sun and play with friends, as I would much rather be curled up with a good book. However, the Scottish weather usually ended up on my side and I had many a day indoors as the rain battered the windows. And back then it was Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton, Goosebumps, Beverly Cleary, so many different books.
I read Love in the Time of Cholera during a holiday in Antigua many years ago, especially during torrential downpours, and the experience has never left me. If you have the opportunity to start it during a summer rain storm, preferably with doors open (I'm assuming you'd be inside somewhere), I'd really recommend it!
Tom Jones, I read on the beach in Spain on holiday, and it always reminds me of sun and sand. It helps that my copy is smeared with suncream. I memorised big chunks of John Donne's poetry on my tea breaks whilst working in a fish factory, and can still smell the smoked salmon when I think of him. I read Marlowe's complete plays in between serving pints in a pub one summer. The essays of Addison and Steele are inextricably linked to interrailing around Eastern Europe. etc.
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