A Summer Reading Guide

Persuasion by Jane Austen
A vintage treasure by the indelible Jane Austen that follows a woman in her late twenties who grapples with letting go of her first love due to his lack of rank and wealth. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
A modern classic published in the early 1990s where a group of eccentric and wildly clever students, under the influence of their professor, discover a new way of thinking that goes beyond the boundaries of normal morality, leading them to slip gradually from innocent to evil. 

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Designed to serve as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, this novel is set in Jamaica during the post-emancipation 1840s and tells the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole woman who, in Rhys’s imagining, becomes the madwoman in the attic in Brontë’s classic. 

The White Album by Joan Didion
An American classic that examines key events and celebrities of the 1960s, including Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and the Black Panthers and attempts to make sense of mass culture at the time it was published in 1979. 

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld 
A modern take on the traditional romantic comedy, this fictional story follows a late night script writer and her unlikely relationship with a film star. 

My Year Of Rest And Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The internal monologue of a twenty-something woman living in early noughties New York as she attempts to escape her daily life by inducing a year-long sleep. 

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
A lighthearted comedy that explores the age old question – have we made the right decision? This fictional London woman discovers what her life would have been had she spent them with multiple different husbands. 

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley
The fictional story of an engaged thirty-something magazine editor, who after running into several of her exes on the streets of New York, discovers a high-concept cult has orchestrated these events in order to teach her ‘something’ about love.

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton 
A beloved memoir that offers relatable and honest accounts of what it’s like to fall in love, navigate friendships and relationships in a modern world and the importance of self-love. 

Conversations On Love by Natasha Lunn
A heartwarming collection of essays that intertwines personal experience with multiple different interviews, exploring love in all its many forms. From romantic love to friendship, loss and how relationships can evolve over time.

How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? by Pandora Sykes
A series of essays that breaks down the different myths and anxieties that consume women in a modern day society, tackling topics from happiness to wellness, consumerism and cancel culture.

Tell Me I’m An Artist by Chelsea Martin
A fictional coming-of-age story of a struggling artist attempting to find her place in a new social class with wealthy, well-connected peers. It grapples with themes of social hierarchy and privilege, and ruminates on the shame that follows choosing a path that has not been laid out for you

Liars by Sarah Manguso (available July 23)
A deep dive into the fictional collapse of a marriage and what it means to be both a wife, mother and an artist. 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (available September 24)
The best selling author of Normal People returns with the tale of two very different brothers who are both grieving the death of their father and how they navigate their relationships with the women in their lives. 

Scrap by Calla Henkel (available August 20) 
A black humour-style novel that tells the story of a young woman, obsessed with true crime podcasts, who finds herself thrust into a murder mystery when her enigmatic boss is killed.