7 short books to bust your reading slump

We all have reading slumps, and July is definitely when I feel it most; something about the heat maybe; summer is no longer new. But there is opportunity too; lazy afternoons on porch hammocks or the gentle rocking of a boat are for reading just as much as a cozy window seat with a cup of tea in November.

So in the interest of helping us all have the best reading summer of our lives, I thought I’d compile a short list of my best literary slump-busters. I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments as well!

1) Summer by Edith Wharton

Summer made a shocking impression when it was published in 1917. It’s known as the most erotic of Wharton’s works, a tale of forbidden passion that follows a summer in the life of a wild and petulant young girl who feels trapped inside her puritanical New England town. The book is not one of Wharton’s better-known works today, which is a shame.

It’s short, around 200 pages, and a page-turner. I have mixed feelings about the ending (would love to hear readers' takes - comment below!) but that seems to have whetted my appetite for similar tales. I keep thinking about this book, and wanting more. It reminds me of Jane Eyre, but with a more modernist tone, reminiscent of Willa Cather or even Faulkner. If you’ve found yourself unable to get into reading the classics for a while, Summer retains the prose and tautness of great literature with the pacing and drama of pulp fiction.

“She was blind and insensible to many things, and dimly knew it; but to all that was light and air, perfume and colour, every drop of blood in her responded. She loved the roughness of the dry mountain grass under her palms, the smell of the thyme into which she crushed her face, the fingering of the wind in her hair and through her cotton blouse, and the creak of the larches as they swayed to it.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the ultimate blend of adventure and romance, a combination that makes it irresistible even to the most burned-out reader. Damsels in distress, a rekindled love affair, danger and play against the backdrop of a world historic event, secret agents, informers, disguises, dangerous fanatics and a ticking clock on the last chapters of the book combine to form an absolutely irresistible reading experience. All in just over 200 pages.

When I finished The Scarlet Pimpernel, I was hungry for more; luckily the book has sequels. It also made me launch into more ambitious projects, like Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three and re-reading A Tale of Two Cities.

“He was calmly eating his soup, laughing with pleasant good-humour, as if he had come all the way to Calais for the express purpose of enjoying supper at this filthy inn, in the company of his arch-enemy.”

For my next suggestion, I’m about to do something that I’ve never done in this newsletter - recommend a book written in the 2020s. Yes, it’s a big step for me.