Hey guys- I need some help from the book lovers on this forum…
With summer fast approaching, I am looking for a list of books that are about summer, or at least largely take place during the summer. You know, books where the summer is almost like a character in itself. Some examples of what I’m talking about:
—Dandelion Wine by Bradbury
—Tender Is the Night by FSF
—the Lake Wobegon series by Keillor [I’ve never read any of these, but I think they usually take place during the summer]
So, I’m not looking for a Summer Reading List, but, rather, books where the summer is an integral part of the plot.
And, one more nitpick, I’m not interested in any ‘genre’ books, like serial killer thrillers that take place during a summer heat wave, or anything like that.
Hi everyone
This thread of mine is 4 years old and has not received a single response! So, I thought I’d throw it out there again to see if anyone has any ideas.
-Greg
Well, the first thing that came to my mind is in your OP – Dandelion Wine – and I’ve never yet encountered another book that is so infused with summer as that one, so it’s hard to make a similar recommendation.
How about Faulkner’s Light in August? Here’s a passage:
I haven’t read it myself, but I’ve been told that Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend is very summer-centric.
I can’t think of a lot of books ABOUT summer, and I LURVE summer. But there is one: “Far Tortuga” by Peter Matthiessen. It’s the story of tramp smugging/fishing boat and the people who crew it. Entirely set in the Caribbean, mostly at sea, it’s a modern day pirate tale of sorts. The weather and the sea are major characters. It’s written with such spare language and such intensity that some have described it as 'almost poetry" and yeah, it is almost poetry, but it’s prose, and a great story.
“Our Virgin Island” by Robb White is a hard to find little book, a biographical piece about a one of those crazy-ass writer types who takes his wife away to an uninhabited island in the Virgin Islands to literally build a life for themselves with their bare hands.
What, no one mentioned “Jaws”?
Carl Hiaasen’s stories are almost always set in Florida and have plenty of Florida feel to them. “Tourist Trap” might especially fill the bill for you.
I know both of these have “summer” in their titles, but I do think that the season plays a large role in the stories (each of them is a Bildungsroman, as it turns out):
[ul]
[li]Herman Rauscher’s novelization of his screenplay for Summer of '42[/li][li]Summer of the Monkeys, by Where the Red Fern Grows author Wilson Rawls[/li][/ul]
