What does summer bring to mind for you? What does it look and feel like? How does it smell and taste? What changes from the other seasons does it provoke in you and others? How would you convey those thoughts and feelings to someone who never shared your experience? How would you bring the season to life that would make others experience summer in a new way? Here’s a list of books that successfully use summer as a setting, a catalyst, a symbol or even a character:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare
Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Dangerous Summer – Ernest Hemingway
Summer Sisters – Judy Blume
Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann

Find a sunny beach, a shade tree, a crisp mountaintop or a soft meadow; any place that speaks of summer to you. Take along a great summer book and experience the season anew.