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10 books I'm looking forward to reading in Summer 2016

Reading Austen in the park earlier
made me want summer to come so much faster! 
Over the past three years of my undergraduate English degree I have culminated a somewhat small (read: large) collection of unread books. Gathered on my multiple trips to the two Waterstones in Lincoln (1 and 2), Lindum Books, and various charity shop raids, these books have lay relatively dormant on my bookshelves at home and university.

Here are 10 of the masses that I'm most looking forward to delving into this summer:

1) The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss; the sequel to the incredible The Name of The Wind, this hefty tome promises to enchant just as much as it's former friend. I've had this for about a year now, but haven't had the time to delve into it's 600 or so pages. I cannot wait!

2) I am Malala: The Girl who stood up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai; One of the first books I bought when I started working at Waterstones in 2014, Yousafzai's story is one that I've been meaning to read for such a long time.

3) The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett; The Little Princess was always one of my favourites growing up, and when I saw this Persephone Books edition of Hodgson Burnett's lesser known work, I had to have it. Persephone are so, so beautiful and they publish neglected works from the mid-twentieth century.

4) The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith; I bought this book after seeing the film, and memoir/biography is a genre of reading that I've recently very much fallen in love with.

5) Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion; after reading an article on Didion in PORTER magazine, I decided to look into her works. Following very much the same line as above, I want to read more memoir, and where better to start than Didion.

6) The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent; this book looks very much like my cup of tea. After seeing it advertised in the window Lincoln High St Waterstones, I knew I would very soon be purchasing it (I'm yet to have that pleasure).

7) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte; I have an aim to read all of the Bronte's works in the next year, and I've never read any Anne, despite my love for them all. Anne tends to get forgotten behind Charlotte and Emily, and I'd really like to look into why.

8) Hardy, Hardy, Hardy; I'd also like to go through all of Hardy's works in the next year as well. Good job I've got some long train journeys ahead of me.

9) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; after reading Zadie Smith's comments, and my friend's dissertation on this book, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I'm currently borrowing my friend's copy, so I need to get it read before I move out of Lincoln at the end of this month!

10) The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad; a memoir about books, about censorship, and about the power of reading. Need I say more?

Happy summer & happy reading!

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