The Summer Book - Couverture souple

"The Summer Book is a marvellously uplifting read, full of gentle humour and wisdom. -- Daily Telegraph, 24 May 2003 Justine Picardie (extract)

"A marvellous book.... The prose is sublime: plain, but not oppressively so. -- Independent on Sunday, 11 May 2003, Murrough O’Brien (extract)

"Few books since Robinson Crusoe have evoked the joys of island living so powerfully as this Finnish novella. -- The Observer, PAPERBACK OF THE WEEK, 15 June 2003

A wonderful novel to devour in the sunshine . . . full of charm and character. -- The Independent, 50 BEST BOOKS FOR SUMMER, 28 June 2003, Benedicte Page

An odd but beautiful novel which blends humour and poetry with detailed observation of tiny things. -- Daily Mail, 30 May 2003, Georgia Metcalfe

Every so often, a book is published that captures something in us. . . . The Summer Book is one of those. -- The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2003, Rachel Simhon

It's hard to describe the astonishing achievement of Jansson's artistry . . . a perfection of the small, quiet read. -- The Guardian, BOOK OF THE WEEK, 12 July 2003, Ali Smith

Jansson was a genius, a woman of profound wisdom and great artistry, and this is a book to treasure. --The Guardian, HOLIDAY READING, 28 June 2003, Philip Pullman

In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—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. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love. “On an island,” thinks the grandmother, “everything is complete.” In The Summer Book, Jansson creates her own complete world, full of the varied joys and sorrows of life.

Tove Jansson, whose Moomintroll comic strip and books brought her international acclaim, lived for much of her life on an island like the one described in The Summer Book, and the work can be enjoyed as her closely observed journal of the sounds, sights, and feel of a summer spent in intimate contact with the natural world. 

The Summer Book is translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal.