Whether poem, essay, novel or tome, literature should accompany you wherever you go this summer. We thought we would recommend some summer-themed literature for you, all of which are suitable for pupils older than 14.
At the end, we have recommended one foundational book per subject discipline in case you also want to use this summer to “get ahead”.
Summer Corkers
- Bonjour Tristesse. A sensual, dreamy account of a summer on the French Riviera, capturing the melancholy of youthful romance, written by Francoise Sagan when she was just 18 years old.
- L’Etranger. Albert Camus’ existential novel about a man who apathetically murders an Arab man on a beach in French Algiers.
- Anything by P. G. Wodehouse. Throw off the morose French novelists above with a hearty dose of English aristocratic ballyhoo!
- Three Men in A Boat. Ditto.
- Love in the Time of Cholera. It’s sultry, it’s saturated in love and, with the death of Marquez this year, it’s timely.
- The Alexandria Quartet. Escape to Greece with one of Paddy Leigh Fermor’s friends and inspirations.
Subject Foundational Texts
- Biology. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species.
- Chemistry. A Short History of Chemistry.
- Classics. Peter Jones’s Veni, Vidi, Vici.
- Economics. Economics for Dummies.
- English. F. R. Leavis, The Great Tradition.
- Geography. James Delingpole’s Watermelons.
- History. Norman Davies’ Europe – A History.
- Mathematics. Men of Mathematics.
- Modern Languages. Foreign language newspapers.
- Philosophy: Thomas Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?
- Physics. Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces.
- Politics. Andrew Heywood’s Political Ideologies.