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My Summer Holiday Reading List

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As much as I love travel that includes exploring and adventures, every now and again it’s nice to spend time in the sun with a simple of agenda of good food, daily dips in the pool and an extremely long reading list. The last time I went on that kind of holiday was two years when my three friends and I went to Mykonos and filled up on gyros and days spent on the beach wedged into bean bags (seriously, bean bags on beaches are the one – who knew?). That time however, I wasn’t well prepared in the book department and the spent the week desperately waiting for my mates to finish their books so I could read them and flicking through the few magazines that I’d brought along with me for the 19th time that trip. This time round though, I’ve sorted out my reading list well in advance…

It’s got to be said that the Amazon algorithm is kind of amazing when it comes to the ‘Recommended For You’ section. It’s a website I try not to visit that often because whenever I check my homepage, at least one thing accidentally gets added to my basket and arrives at my door the next day. Enabling qualities aside I do find it helpful when it comes to book suggestions and Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Big Magic’ was something that I saw popping up time and time again. It’s a book that comes up often in Jess Lively’s podcast and my mate Lauren, recommended it to me too. It’s a self-help book, but from reviews I spotted online it’s accessible and easy reading that should be light enough to dip and out of between pool trips.

Along the same lines is ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving A Fuck’ by Sarah Knight which I’ve seen lots of people go mad for. It’s a tongue-in-cheek self-help book and during a quick flick through I spotted the f-word on each page about 10 times. Nice. I popped up a picture of it on Instagram recently and not only did Sarah herself comment underneath (I squealed – what a fangirl), a load of you commented to say that not only is it a belly-laugh filled read, it’s practical and applicable at the same time.

Now kind of on the other end of the spectrum is Jojo Moyes’ ‘Me Before You’. What I should have done is read this before I went to see the film at the cinema, but I’ve been a knob as I’m doing it the wrong way round and boy let me tell you – I have never cried so much at a film in the cinema. Everyone in the audience spent the last 20 minutes doing one big collective, blubbering sob and my friend and I struggled to talk without our voices cracking on the way home. I think I’ll save this to the end of the holiday just before I see Mark again as I’ll probably have one of those ‘HOLD ME‘ moments at the end.

Finally, there’s one book that I was so excited to read that I might have dipped into it already – Emma Gannon’s ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’. I’m a huge fan of Emma – I practically favourite every single one of her tweets and love getting her newsletters on a Sunday (sign up for those here). She’s just one of those people who is truly a babe and after reading the first couple of chapters I’d say that if you’re in your mid-to-late twenties and still remember the days of dial-up internet and having to log off MSN so your Mum could use the phone, then you’ll love this. I’ve chuckled my way through about a third of it already and look forward to finishing off the rest on a sun lounger instead of sitting on the floor of a packed train because all the seats are taken. Man, the school holidays and Southern Rail delays are really quite the combination.

Photos by Lauren Shipley

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