Lucy Beresford

Summer reads

Summer reads: doesn’t the very phrase conjure up unfortunate images of lobster sunburn?

issue 17 June 2006

Summer reads: doesn’t the very phrase conjure up unfortunate images of lobster sunburn?

Summer reads: doesn’t the very phrase conjure up unfortunate images of lobster sunburn? But what to do, when a long summer stretches ahead and there are still hours in the day to kill after you’ve finished watching the footie, or the live feed of Big Brother 7? (I know! compulsive viewing, isn’t it? But that’s for another article.) So, whether you intend to laze on your yacht, trek for gorillas, brave the Bognor rain, or find yourself stranded at Gatwick, everyone needs an undemanding book somewhere in their Louis Vuitton.

You don’t have to be so well-heeled to enjoy Plum Sykes’ second novel, The Debutante Divorcée (Fig Tree, pp. 250, £12.99): you just need to be interested in people. People whose lives are gloriously out of proportion, admittedly, but that’s the fun of reading aspiration-lit.

The plot is incidental.

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