L4Q Round up - Summer Reading

It seems that for many of us, especially in the western and southern regions of the U.S. and Europe, extreme heat is in store for the remainder of the summer.

Time to grab a good book or two, some ice water, and settle in.

Dear Friends,

I’m a huge fan of women writers. Ann Patchett, Toni Morrison, and Margaret Atwood come to mind as writers who dazzle us with their creative, prodigious work.

The following list is more offbeat. Call it Jane’s Favs; books I’ve read, or am currently reading, and a few on the summer nightstand.

Spoiler: I’ve got a weakness for history, fictionalized or not. It's not everyone’s cup of (iced) tea.

Talking Classics by Mary Beard.

• A preeminent classicist and brilliant writer of both ancient history (SPQR) and women in public life, in Women and Power. Professor Beard presents the ancient world (across the globe) as a source of inspiration for the modern world, rather than the purview of intellectual elitism. Beginning with her own sense of thauma1 as a youngster seeing a piece of ancient Egyptian bread, held up close at the British Museum, she saw ancient life in the context of the ordinary. And we can share that thauma, too.

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel2

• Hilary Mantel’s deft treatment of historical fiction weaves the actual events, people, and culture of Thomas Cromwell’s 16th-century Tudor life and ultimate downfall into a spell-binding tale of opportunistic diplomacy, political and personal scandal, duplicity, corruption, manipulation, and court favorites. Does any of this sound familiar?

  The Mirror and the Light is the third book of the Mantel trilogy on Cromwell. The first two in the series, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies, each won the Booker prize.

Vampires of a Certain Age by Stella Fosse

• Readers may be familiar with her work as an author, organizer, mentor, and promoter of women writers. They may know her Substack newsletter Creative Crones with Stella Fosse. They might not be aware of her skill in crafting a historical/vampire thriller that draws on her past work in biotech, her familiarity with suburban Chicago, and her experience in the erotica genre. Throw in gender fluidity for good measure and spice things up a bit. Now this is a summer read!

The Correspondent - Virginia Evans

• This debut novel unfolds around letters and emails exchanged between the protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired, proud, distinguished law professional, and the people closest to her: adult children (living and deceased), her brother, and a dear, longstanding friend. Sybil’s diminishing eyesight, a fact she does not share, challenges her fierce independence.

  I found this more captivating as an audiobook. Listening to the chapters made the best “bedtime stories” and Sybil’s predicament more intimate.

Medium Rare - A. Natasha Joukovsky

• This novel, published in early 2026, is about college basketball, specifically the March Madness craze that determines the NCAA winner. I would have considered the entire topic a snore before the weeks leading up to “Knicks in 5” and the unfathomable phenomena of prediction markets. Together, the wild swings of serious sports and the capricious nature of sports betting lead you to wonder if our fictitious hero Phil couldn’t be the next folk hero - IRL.

Marseille 1940: The Flight of Literature - Uwe Wittstock

• In the early days of WWII, after France fell to Nazi forces, writers and intellectuals, including Walter Benjamin, Heinrich Mann, and Hannah Arendt, ended up in Marseille with the hope of fleeing persecution and certain death. A young American journalist, Varian Fry, under the auspices of a private American aid organization, was sent to Marseille with the mission to rescue as many artists and intellectuals as possible. I’m looking forward to getting into it this summer when I have the bandwidth to focus on this remarkable story.

Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage - Belle Burden

• This memoir was an immediate bestseller. It has all the elements for a face-pressed-to-the-glass audience intrigued with generational wealth and privilege. And perhaps not a small bit of schadenfreude when things go sideways. Which, of course, is unfair. Isn’t she entitled to the same state of rage when the father of her children declines custodial responsibilities? Doesn’t she suffer from the same humiliation of marital betrayal?

  I’m interested in her story, in a large part to see how it maps with my own (minus the wealth). We’ve got some common ground here, starting with behavioral expectations, embedded in the “Belle the Good” rearing of discretion and compliance. How about you?

As we close out June, have a great upcoming week, and Happy Fourth!

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