Friday, August 26, 2011

Summer Gone

They go too quickly, Alberta summers. Driving north from Red Deer yesterday I couldn't help but notice the tinge of yellow in some of the trees along the highway. Sigh. The end of summer always reminds of David Macfarlane's lovely novel Summer Gone - a book that didn't get near enough buzz when it came out in 1999. 
Below a few end-of-summer reads:
Summer Gone by David Macfarlane (1999)
A beautifully-written, elegiac novel about fathers and sons, fleeting Canadian summers, canoeing, Muskoka cottages, secrets and regret.
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead (2009)
Summer brings out memories of the endless sun-drenched summers of youth. Brooklyn writer Whitehead remembers the summer of 1985 (New Coke and The Cosby Show) with this autobiographical coming-of-age novel set in Long Island’s Sag Harbor starring 15-year-old Benji Cooper.
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972)
Swedish writer Tove Jansson distills the essence of summer into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland.