Read Alert

Summer holidays are the best time to get stuck into a good book

It’s time for our annual tradition. You head out for your summer break. And I share my reading list with you in the hope that you may enjoy some of the titles I loved. So here goes with this year’s summer reading list. Dive right in! 

• Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: This is one of the best book I have read in the past decade. When chemist Elizabeth Zott has to resign from the all-male team at a research institute she is offered a job as the host of a cooking show. Against her own instincts she signs on and her revolutionary, science-based approach to cooking soon makes Supper At Six a national sensation, with housewives following her lead to change things around — ‘one molecule at a time’.

• The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett: This is the first of three whodunnits which feature — wait for it! — Queen Elizabeth II as the sleuth who investigates murder mysteries with the help of her close aide, Rozie. The conceit works brilliantly, with the author weaving in scenes from royal life lived on royal estates with the intricacies of an investigation run by an invisible royal hand. An absolute treat for those who love both the late Queen and suspense thrillers. 

• Whips by Cleo Watson: If you adored Jilly Cooper then you will absolutely love this whip-smart (pardon the pun!) debut from former political aide to Boris Johnson, Cleo Watson. (And if you haven’t read Jilly Cooper then drop whatever you’re doing and go out and buy a copy of Riders!) Set in the dog-eat-bitch world of Westminster, this is a bonkbuster in the best Cooper tradition, with politicians standing in for polo players. And though Watson insists that her characters are not based on real people (ha!) half the fun lies in deciphering the faces behind the caricatures. 

• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner: This memoir by the indie rock singer, Japanese Breakfast, came out a couple of years ago but I only read it recently on the recommendation of Brunch editor, Rachel Lopez. Michelle Zauner writes movingly about the death of her mother and her fear that she will lose her Korean heritage in her mother’s absence. Her only recourse, she writes, is to cook the dishes her mother used to make for her. The only way to cope with her mother’s loss is to become her - at least in the kitchen. A universal story of love and loss that is, nonetheless, life-affirming, this will resonate with everyone who has ever grieved for a loved one. 

• The School For Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan: What happens when a young, frazzled mother has a bad day and ends up abandoning her infant daughter for a few hours? She is reported by her neighbours, loses custody of the child, and in a dystopian world, is sent off to a school set up for women who have to be retrained in the art of good motherhood. In the tradition of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, this chilling story will leave you thinking hard about how we idealise motherhood and the unbearable pressure we bring to bear upon mothers, both good and bad.