summer requisites
a guide to living seasonally with books, films, scents, and small rituals
i’ve always had a complicated relationship with summer. sometimes it feels unbearable. peaches go bad before you can finish them, you’re sweating through your clothes and everything grows too quickly. gardens, weeds, social calendars, expectations.
but there are things i love about it, too. lingering outside after dinner because there’s still light in the sky. reading with the windows open. spending too long at the farmers market deciding between peaches and apricots. bringing home more fruit and vegetables than i realistically need. but i never regret it because there’s always a recipe calling for them.
more than anything, i notice how different the world feels when the day refuses to end. people stay out later and the evening feels less separate from the afternoon. for a few weeks each year, time seems to loosen its grip a little.
this essay is a collection of the things helping me stay close to the season lately: the books, films, meals, perfumes, and small rituals that have found their way into my days. a little sunburnt and overripe, but lovely because it won’t last forever.
books
bonjour tristesse by françoise sagan
during a summer on the french riviera, 17 yr old cécile spends her days swimming, flirting, and enjoying a carefree life with her widowed father until the arrival of a sophisticated family friend threatens to change everything.
we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson
merricat blackwood lives with her sister constance in a crumbling house on the edge of a village that despises them. after a family tragedy leaves most of the blackwoods dead, the sisters retreat into a strange, insular world that becomes harder and harder to protect. one of the best unreliable narrators ever written.
rebecca by daphne du maurier
a young woman marries the wealthy maxim de winter and moves to his estate, manderley, where she finds herself living in the shadow of his late wife, rebecca. gothic, suspenseful, and filled with some of the most memorable atmosphere ever put on a page.
água viva by clarice lispector
this book follows an unnamed narrator as she reflects on art, time, existence, and what it means to be alive in a particular moment. strange and unlike almost anything else i’ve ever read.
just kids by patti smith
patti smith's memoir of her relationship with photographer robert mapplethorpe and their years as young artists in new york city. a portrait of friendship, ambition, poverty, and the kind of creative devotion that shapes an entire life.
franny and zooey by j.d. salinger
two connected stories about the glass family, centering on franny's spiritual crisis and her brother zooey's attempts to help her through it. part family drama, part philosophical conversation, part nervous breakdown.
at the existentialist café by sarah bakewell
biographical nonfiction about the major figures of existentialism: sartre, de beauvoir, camus, merleau-ponty with enough charm and clarity to make you feel like you’re drinking aperitifs with them.
the sea, the sea by iris murdoch
an aging theatre director retires to a seaside cottage to write his memoir, but becomes obsessed with a long love. what follows is delusion, jealousy, and an unraveling ego. the sea is vast and wild, but so is the mind. messy and brilliant.
the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas
after being falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, edmond dantès escapes, acquires an immense fortune, and sets out to exact revenge on the people who betrayed him. wildly entertaining and nearly impossible to put down despite its size.
swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski
a summer love story set in 1980s poland. lush, political, and painfully tender. feels like reading someone’s last memory of being young and in love before the world got harder.
summer by edith wharton
charity royard, a young woman living in a small new england town, begins a romance that offers a glimpse of a life beyond the one she knows. one of wharton's most sensual novels and far darker than its title suggests.
the summer book by tove jansson
a grandmother and granddaughter spend a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of finland, talking about life, nature, death, and everything in between.
the rest of this newsletter lives behind the paywall.
you’ll find films, meals, perfumes, and small rituals that will make your summer last a little longer.
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