This blog will take a break for the month of August – during which time Mrs. P. hopes to enjoy the company of her family (most likely in a fair bit of British rain) and some tranquil reading in a seaside setting, together with 150,000 gannets.

Mrs. P’s summer reading, currently gathered in an unsteady pile by the side of the suitcase, looks something like this:

Sofi Oksanen’s Purge (Atlantic 2011 [2008] – Finnish/Estonian]

John le Carré’s The Secret Pilgrim (Penguin 2011 [1991] – the final Smiley novel)

Giorgio Scerbanenco’s A Private Venus (Hersilia Press 2012 [1966] – Italian noir)

Jason Webster’s A Death in Valencia (Chatto & Windus 2012 – British/Spanish)

Reginald Hill’s On Beulah Height (Harper 2009 [1998] – British)

Perfect combination… (copyright Lizzy Siddall)

and finally a rogue book that isn’t crime (gasp):

Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal (Vintage 2012).

The Kindle’s also coming along, in case that lot’s not quite enough!

Wishing you all lots of lovely summer reading, hopefully with a bit of sunshine thrown in…