A very trusted source for what to read next, Lizzy Hadfield shares her summer reading list—books to carry on vacation or enjoy on slower days. As host of Buffy’s Book Club, she brings together readers in beautifully chosen corners of New York and London, over great literature and conversation.

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Our most recent book club read, and it went straight into my all time favourites. Charles Arrowy, a retired theatre director, moved to the northern coast of England in the pursuit of solitude. Plans go awry when various women from his past descend upon him from London, while he finds himself in a relentless pursuit of his childhood sweetheart who happens to live in the same village. Charles is an unreliable narrator at its very best. Led entirely by his ego and self-delusions, the reader is only offered his point of view, and the result is maddening and entertaining.

Pew by Catherine Lacy

An eerie short novel then I think would be a great holiday read, it achieves the rare success of being incredibly readable but without being an ‘easy read’ as such. Pew wakes up on a church pew in Bible Belt America, with no discernible race, gender or age. They are taken in by the community, and the story follows Pew’s interactions with the locals. Lacy manages to hold a delicate tension throughout the novel. I recommend this book to a lot of people and it is always really well received!

Close Range by Annie Proulx

I think a collection of short stories can be a perfect summer read. My holiday reading strategy recently has been to pack one LONG book that I have been putting off for a while (last summer I tackled Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark. I loved it but it’s over 1000 pages and when do we really want to be carrying a book that long around day to day), and a book of short stories. Inevitably around 400 pages into your mammoth novel, still holding the bulk of it in your right hand, you will need a break. Enter the short story; a palette cleanser. Proulx’s Close Range stories are all set in Wyoming (it’s the collection in which she wrote Brokeback Mountain), and are atmospheric and heartbreaking. She is a master of the short story, which is no small feat.