Alex Clark on novels - past, present and future - about summer and change

Available for over a year

From the darling buds of May to the final days of a longed-for holiday lease, no season lends itself to fiction as often or as variously as summer. Over a virtual picnic, Alex Clark and guests discuss the many roles which a summer backdrop provides, not all of them "sunny" in tone. Novelist Adam Thorpe discusses one of Edith Wharton's lesser known novels, Summer, as well as Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan, and F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Having grown up partly in Cameroon, he also shares his experience of trying to recall and write about a childhood experience of intense heat. Journalist Sarah Shaffi recalls her early love of Enid Blyton's books set during the summer holidays, and discusses how novels such as Sag Harbour by Colson Whitehead or Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon explode the narrowness of the traditional summer book. Book List – 28 August and 1 September The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff Friends Like These by Meg Rossoff How I Live Now by Meg Rossoff The Famous Five by Enid Blyton The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton The Last Last-Day-of-Summer by Lamar Giles Just William by Richard Crompton Summer by Edith Wharton Sag Harbour by Colson Whitehead Real Life by Brandon Taylor Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan Swimming Home by Deborah Levy The Accidental by Ali Smith The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Atonement by Ian McEwan The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley The Past by Tessa Hadley The Tree of Man by Patrick White Voss by Patrick White Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon The Burning World by J. G. Ballard The Day It Rained Forever by Ray Bradbury Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam Pieces of Light by Adam Thorpe Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara