Kathy Hamilton Spring is here – Well, if you go by meteorological guidelines it is! Basically, I’m jumping on any excuse to wave goodbye to Winter. And since it’s been unseasonably warm in the UK recently it seemed like the perfect time to share 5 books that feel like spring with you.
Spring is a beautiful time of the year. Bursting with new life and beginnings. Yet curiously, it’s an underrepresented theme in Fiction. Perhaps this reflects our reading habits. In Winter, when we curl up inside and crave cosy activities -we are drawn to books. And so art imitates life, providing us with a copious number of Wintry books.
When I was choosing the 5 books that feel like Spring, I wanted to convey all the elements of the season. Warm, sun-kissed days, freezing shade, rain, snow, regrowth and renewal. Each of the books in this contains something particularly “Spring-Like” in my opinion. And, because it’s Women’s History Month – they’re all written by women. Because you know I could never pass up that opportunity!
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, cowed and neglected by their husbands, make a daring plan: they will have a holiday. Leaving a drab and rainy London one April and arriving on the shores of the Mediterranean, they discover a flower-filled paradise of beauty, warmth and leisure. Joined by the beautiful Lady Caroline and domineering Mrs Fisher, also in flight from the burdens of their daily lives, the four women proceed to transform themselves and their prospects.
Ever wondered what the best way to solve all your problems is? Renting a castle in Italy with your friends of course! At least if you are Elizabeth von Arnim that is. And what better way to start this list of books that feel like Spring than with a book that has April in its title! This is a gentle story. At once an ode to the transformative power of travel and also a sun-drenched fairy-tale.
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the ‘essential nature’ of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.
Honestly, I try to fit this book into as many posts as I can! It’s such a soul-renewing read. Like a bracing walk on a blustery spring afternoon, when the sun is warm but the shade is icy cold, this book will clear your head and breath fresh air into your lungs. It’s a meditative, celebratory exploration of Nature at is most beautiful and desolate. Perfect for reading on the first truly warm day of spring, surrounded by nature.
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church-the only available shelter from the rain-and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister and widower, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security.
Although this book is actually the third instalment in a trilogy, it stands on its own merits. Lila takes us back to the untamed wilderness of Iowa in the 1920s and charts the life of title character. This book is full of quiet epiphanies as we follow the complex character of Lila and her marriage to the preachers John Ames. I have chosen it for this list of books that feel like Spring because it is searching, full of grace and intrinsically linked to nature. If you want a book that will make you think, then Lila is perfect.
Spring (Seasonal Quartet) by Ali Smith
Spring will come. The leaves on its trees will open after blossom. Before it arrives, a hundred years of empire-making. The dawn breaks cold and still but, deep in the earth, things are growing…On the heels of Autumn and Winter comes Spring, the continuation of Ali Smith’s celebrated Seasonal Quartet, a series of stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected (as the seasons are), wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories.
Okay, this is cheating a little. At the time of writing, Spring by Ali Smith hasn’t even been published (it’s due out on 28/03/2019 in the UK). So why include it on a list of books that feel like Spring? I feel like the title is a dead giveaway! This is the next instalment of Ali Smith’s critically acclaimed Seasonal Quartet. It follows the first two instalments, Autumn and Winter. Similarly to Lila, though, Spring works as a stand-alone book too. Plus, if early reports are to be believed it’s a beautiful and evocative work of literary fiction. A perfect book to read as Spring unfurls around us.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
A masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past.
Although this novel takes place over the course of many seasons, I most associate it with spring. Whether because it’s title features “March”. Or because nature seems to play such an important part in it. It’s definitely one of the best books that feel like Spring. From bracing walks to windswept gardens, it’s the season that seems to sum up Middlemarch the most. I found that I couldn’t put this book down, the characters, atmosphere and descriptions of Victorian life are beautifully drawn. Pick this one up on days when erratic Spring hurls every imaginable weather at you and going outside seems risky. As an added bonus, coming in at 800+ pages, there’s a good chance this book will take you all of spring to read!
**Bonus** Poetry That Feels Like Spring
There’s something particularly poetic about Spring, don’t you think? There’s a whole world of Spring-based Poetry to explore. But since I’m certainly not an expert I thought it would be nice to share this article with you instead. It seems like a good place to start.
Do you have any books that feel like Spring?
The books that I selected for this post were all chosen because they evoke something specific about Spring. As a season, I think it’s one of our most ambiguous. From changeable weather to flowers bringing colour into the world, you never know what you’ll get with spring! Do you have any books that you strongly associate with seasons?
