Marginalia: my secret to reading through the summer holidays
Audiobooks are the answer. Here are my favourites.
Welcome to Marginalia — my speedy, from the front-line-of-motherhood, round-up of the very best things I have been trying to read whilst looking after my two young sons.
If you are looking for the most recent issue of my signature Crib Notes newsletter you can find it here:
I love summer. Somehow, parenting seems much easier when the weather is warmer (and finally it is). Since school broke up, we've been to The Flooded Garden at the Tate; to the lush, shady springs at Elephant Park (my favourite SE London hot weather hangout), and I've had some peaceful one-on-one time with my five-year-old. But, wow, we are also only ten days in (!) and, between looking after my boys and trying to write, I'm already exhausted.
So, in the spirit of the summer juggle, July’s Marginalia is about my secret to reading through the holidays.
This isn't radical or revolutionary:
Audiobooks are the answer.
Audiobooks are ideal for hands-on, full-on parenting days: they can be listened to in the playground; whilst cooking or packing for holidays, and during a five minute walk to holiday club pick-up. Or, if you're in the early days of motherhood, audiobooks can keep you in good company during night-feeds and laps around the park with a pram. Audiobooks can make you feel like you've had a luxurious sliver of me-time on the most humdrum days. Being told a story can make you feel less isolated, if you are facing a summertime drought of childcare and adult company. And even at the end of a glorious day out – one of those truly joyful days that reminds you what parenting is all about – you might feel too shattered to pick up a book at bedtime. At these times, it can feel blissful listening to something beautifully read before you drift off.
Below, you'll find nine of my favourite audiobooks, along with their length and some thoughts on listening ease.
Going analogue? Buy your books from Crib Notes Bookshop.
If you aren't into audio, trust me, you'll still love this list. Almost every single book on it is hugely readable, hugely enjoyable and relatively low-effort – ideal if you are committed to doing your summer reading in analogue. And, all of these titles are available in convenient paperback editions!
If you’d like to support what I do please do consider buying your books from my storefront. I'll receive 10% commission on every title you purchase. Click here to browse and buy!
What the Summer Juggle Means for Crib Notes
As you know, I write this newsletter in the margins of motherhood, in spare moments amid looking after my five-year-old and two-year-old. In the summer holidays, I have even fewer of these moments, and so you'll have to wait a little longer for the next Crib Notes, which will be with you in September. But in the meantime, I'll be sending out regular real-time Marginalia posts over the holidays. Some of these will be free, and some will be for paid subscribers only.
Meanwhile — you can find out what's on my own personal Hot Mum Summer Reading List here:
Audiobooks are the answer — here are nine of my favourites.
1. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
If you’re looking for good, old-fashioned storytelling, Great Circle is the audiobook for you. This breathtakingly expansive, gorgeously immersive novel sweeps across the globe and spans the entire twentieth century. Briefly summarised, it tells the story of Marian Graves, who grows up fiercely independent in 1930s Montana, dreaming of becoming an aviator. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: 25 hours and 16 minutes. It’s epic, but trust me – you’ll be swept up by this story. It is read by Cassandra Campbell, one of my favourite audiobook narrators.
2. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
This audiobook is elegantly-told, lusciously-detailed and narrated by Meryl Streep (!!!). Tom Lake is about wild, dizzying first love, and deeply tender married love; the bond between mothers and daughters, and life’s bittersweet unpredictably. Just writing about this novel makes me want to fall headlong into it over and over again. Swoonworthy. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: A manageable 11 hours and 22 minutes.
3. Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest
In this memoir (brilliantly performed by the phenomenal Indira Varma), newly divorced writer, Emma Forrest, trades in her LA mansion for an attic flat in North London. Wondering how she might begin life again in her 40s, Forrest reflects on the years she spent in pursuit of love, and decides to give solitude (and celibacy) a chance. I adored this book and luxuriated in its grown-up pleasures (vintage clothes, classic movies and iconic Hollywood hotels). A seductive, beguiling and sensuous listen – the perfect antidote to moments when domestic life feels like a dirge. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: An undaunting 7 hours and 56 minutes. Though once I’d finished Busy Being Free, I just wanted to start it all over again!
4. Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel
Set in early 00s Berlin, Other People's Clothes is an addictive blend of female celebrity (think Paris Hilton, Britney et al.), art, clubbing, queer sexuality and frenemies, served up with a sharp murder plot. The audiobook absolutely nails the novel’s tone: smart, blackly comic and slightly brat summer-esque. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: 10 hours and 44 minutes.
5. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
American Wife is probably my favourite audiobook of all time. Alice Blackwell is the First Lady of the United States of America, but she is married to a man whose politics she does not agree with. This is an emotionally compelling and evocative novel about the private life (the innermost thoughts, seccrets and desires) of a woman in the public eye. I fell deeply in love with American Wife as I listened during the late stages of my second pregnancy. You can read my full review here.
Audiobook length: It's another long one – American Wife is perhaps more of a slow burn listen than some of the other audiobooks on this list, but it is just as engrossing.
6. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Okay, so I did try to pick only one Curtis Sittenfeld novel, but Prep is a close second to American Wife in terms of my Top Tier audiobooks, so it seemed silly to leave it out. Prep is a subtle, shrewd study of wealth, privilege and the casual cruelty of teenagers, set at an elite East Coast boarding school. It's a compulsive listen and it got me through a hellish week of house-arrest when my toddler had tonsillitis a few years ago. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: A scintillating 17 hours and 16 minutes.
7. Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
Fire Rush is an electrifying novel about Black womanhood; the tangled histories of the Windrush era, and the healing power of music. The audio edition brings its heady, sensuous, reggae-infused narrative vividly to life. It thrums with music, poetry and rhythm, and rivets the reader like a thriller. One of the very best audiobooks I listened to last year. Read my full review here.
Audiobook length: 11 hours and 3 minutes.
8. Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
I know I bang on about Elizabeth Gaskell all the time, but believe me, this audio edition (read by Laura Aikman) of her final novel, Wives & Daughters is a blissful listen. Set in 1832 in the quaint, gossipy village of Hollingford, the novel is about loveable seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson, and is full of family secrets and gentle romance. Read my review here.
Audiobook length: It’s a whopping 26 hours and 56 minutes, but I found it very soothing returning to the novel again and again, when I listened to it during my sickly second pregnancy.
9. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
Enter Ghost is my favourite audiobook of 2024 so far. It tells the story of Sonia, a spiky Palestinian actress. Reeling from an affair with a theatre director back in London, she travels to the homeland for the first time in many years, and is drawn into a production of Hamlet in Gaza’s West Bank. It is a powerful and passionate novel, which delves into questions about political engagement, art as resistance, and how we hold on to humanity amid conflict. You can read my full review here.
Audiobook length: Unlike most of the other books on this list, Enter Ghost requires the reader’s full attention – it is an intricate and fascinatingly detailed account of everyday life in occupied Palestine. 11 hours and 42 minutes.
Meanwhile - what I'm reading in the margins of motherhood right now
Writing the above review for Calla Henkel’s Other People's Clothes made me hungry for more of her writing. And so, I've downloaded the audio edition of her second novel Scrap, which promises to be ‘Laced with pitch-black humour and conspiratorial unease [...] a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge’.
I'm also reading Lauren Elkin’s Scaffolding – a novel about two married couples living in the same Parisian flat, fifty years apart. It's intellectual and erotic; melancholy and full of unsatiated desire. Essentially, a combination of things that are literary catnip to me! I'm reading on kindle, but I wish I had the elegant hardback edition.