The air wafting through my open window has a special feel today. It’s drowsy, dreamy and transportive. It is blowing from some far away childhood summer afternoon, and brings with it the feelings and thoughts of those days, taking me back to imaginary summers long before I was born. It brings timeless thoughts and feelings of connection and freedom, the essence of summer on a breeze.

Timelessness

Nature repeats itself every year. I was standing on the edge of Mission Lake last week and something about the view made me think of a view master reel of National Parks that I used to look at. What I was seeing was exactly what tourists fifty years ago would have seen. It is just like I saw it the first time, nearly twenty years ago. Tall grass, blue skies, hazy mountains all stay the same summer after summer. These books capture that sense of timelessness for me. They try to explain something I cannot quite grasp and express a yearning or longing for something lost.

Connection

Summer is the time when I connect more to the past, like simple meals from the garden just like my great grandmother could have cooked. I want to visit to a museum or a grand historical house with green window shades and back staircases for servants. Even walking through my garden I feel a connection to women before me. They grew these very herbs and depended on them to treat their families. They planted vegetables so their children could eat. They preserved the harvests. The rhythm of living off the land is real in summer. Summer brings memories of childhood and wonderings about my ancestors.

Freedom

We shed the shoes and coats, schedules and obligations. And you can always escape to a book where this is magnified, especially in the form of an adventure or journey. For me freedom often takes the form of a road trip. You take only the essentials and trust whatever you need will be found on the way. Or freedom took the form of imaginative play. Favorite summer haunts for me were the playhouse, the attic, the front porch, across the yard under some large cottonwood trees. Or way out in the trackless pasture, where I could walk until I couldn’t see any houses.

Little Town on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (I attended an outdoor enactment of this book many times in my summer childhood) One evening at supper Pa asked, “How would you like to work in town, Laura?” Laura could not say a word.

Master Cornhill by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. (an orphan finds frienship and courage in London) The spring frosts were over now, and from all directions, by water and along jolting, boggy roads, Londoners who had fled their plague-ridden city the summer past were heading home, thanking God they’d finished with 1665 forever.

The Velvet Room by Zylpha Keatley Snyder. (middle grade mystery) When the tire went flat for the third time that day, it went with a bang. The car swerved sharply to the left and then to the right, and came to a sudden stop. Robin’s chit hit something, perhaps her own knee, and she bit her tongue.

The Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright. (choose the high road) It was corn-planting time, when the stranger followed the Old Trail into the Mutton Hollow neighborhood.

Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart. (gentle mystery in England) It is 1947, a calm still day of just. On the wide spreading moorland the ling is dark and as yet unflowering, but the bell heather is out,and the bees are busy.

100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons. (sweet contemporary romance of hope and getting back up when life knocks you down) The black pickup truck flies through the red light, heading straight for us. My blood freezes in my veins. I want to scream; to warn Grandma, who sits next to me in the drivers seat.

Flint’s Gift by Richard Wheeler. (Southwestern historical adventure, first book in a trilogy) A white-clad lady was coming. Sam Flint steered Grant and Sherman, his big mules off the two -rut road and halted them. He would let the approaching spring wagon by.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. (travel back to a vanished way of life in pioneer Montana) When I visit the back corners of mylife again after so long a time, littlest things jump out first. The oilcloth, tiny blue windmills on white squares, worn to colorless smears at our four places at the kitchen table.

A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr. (a meaningful interlude) When the train stopped I stumbled out, nudging the kicking the kitbag before me. Back down the platform someone was calling despairingly, “Oxgodby…Oxgodby.”

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. (reflections on a life of service) It seems increasingly likely that I reall will undertake the expedition that has be preoccupying my imagination now for some day. An expedition, I should say, which I will undettake alone, int he comfort of Mr. Farradays Ford; an expedition which, as I forsee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England.

The Passable Cook by James Jesser. (takes place in DeSmet, S.D. where I grew up, a story about human connection and home-cooked meals) I came home from school to find Mom and Dad sitting at the table and staring at a box from Aunt Karlina. It was addressed to me.

Second Nature by Michael Pollen. (profound and mundane thoughts on the joys and trials of gardening, non-fiction) This book is the story of my education in the garden. The garden in question is actually two, one more or less imaginary, the other insistently real.

Humble Roots by Hannah Anderson. (a devotional connecting humility to rhythms of rural life) Like many of you, I am in the throes of responsible adulthood – my days spent caring for family, serving the church, and pursuing good work. And just like many of you, I often find myself overwhelmed by these good things.

Now the early morning sun is shining in gold bars on my walls. The sprinkler is circling on the lawn. An American kestrel hovers over the pasture. Bees buzz in the raspberry patch. Summer has circled round again and it’s here for enjoying.

Choose one book and read it slowly. — Liz

P.S. If this list makes you think of more summery books, please share them in the comments. Thank you!

The above quote comes from The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls