2 Books for a Hot, Languid Summer

New York Times

8 hours ago

By Sadie Stein
Dear readers,
During the hot and humid dog days of my childhood, my mother would tell us to dampen our sheets in the bathtub, wring them out and then spread them over ourselves in bed. 'By the time they dry, you'll be asleep!' she would say.
Summer makes me blue. I don't know if it's reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder or the feeling of everything slipping by, slipping away, so fast — or is it just that, for a grown-up in the city, it's much like the rest of the year, only hotter?
I recommend leaning into the bittersweetness. These books may not qualify as conventional beach reads, but for those of us for whom ambivalence loves company, the following are as complicated and melancholy as a summer's day.
—Sadie
'The Go-Between,' by L.P. Hartley
Fiction, 1953
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