Summery Books

Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you? (I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)

This is harder than it seems. There are several books that make me think of hot weather, such as Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry or the whole Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, but those are books set in hot climates, not books related to summer in particular. There are also a few books that remind me of summer because I happened to read them in the summer, like Jim Harrison's pre-The Road Home novels, which I tore through in the summer of 1994. But I guess if I had to pick one novel that captures the idea of summer, I would go with Huckleberry Finn. The adventures, the river, the kid out of school -- it all feels like summer. In fact, this one is going back on my TBR shelf to re-read this summer.