Now that summer's (officially) arrived, here are some ideas for a good read

Mogador, Alberto Ruy Sanchez

A Rosario Castellanos Reader, Maureen Ahern and others, translators

Bolero, Angeles Mastretta

First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century, David Lida

The Orange Tree, Carlos Fuentes

The Traveler's Companion to Mexican Literature, C.M.Mayo, ed.

The Life of Pi, Yann Martel **

The Beloved Returns, Thomas Mann

Mission to Paris, Alan Furst

The Sea, John Banville

Himalaya Poems, Ko Un

White Egrets, Derek Walcott

Word into Silence, John Main, OSB

Istanbul Passage, Joseph Kanon **

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Bleak House, Charles Dickens*

Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen**

Richard II, William Shakespeare (reread)

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens*

The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places, Bernie Krause

Chorister at the Abbey, Lis Howell**

River of Smoke, Amitav Ghosh

Aim High, Achieve More: How to Transform Urban Schools through Fearless Leadership, Yvette Jackson and Veronica McDermott

Van Gogh Up Close, Cornelia Homburg, editor

Ulysses, James Joyce*

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce*

History of Butoh, Khadija Anderson (full-length poetry collection)

Worlds Apart, Dorothee Lang and Smith Murthy

I Stand Here Shredding Documents, Kristin Berkey Abbott (poetry chapbook)

Balance, Robbi Nestor (poetry chapbook)

Saga of the People of Laxardal (from Sagas of Icelanders)

What the Twilight Says (essays), Derek Walcott

A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Marly Youmans *

Living Buddha, Living Christ, Thich Naht Hahn

Emptiness Dancing, Adyashanti *

Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental journey Through Quebec, Taras Grescoe

Roads to Santiago, Cees Nooteboom

The Common Reader, First Series, Virginia Woolf *

The Most Beautiful Thing, Fiona Robyn *

The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht *

Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal,  Rob Rieman

That Woman, Tom Montag (poetry chapbook)

Hundreds and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary

Letters from Iceland, W.H.Auden and Louis MacNeice

Fight the Wild Island, Ted Edwards

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (audio book read by Richard Morant)

The Wide, Wide World, Susan Bogert Warner

Vatnsdœla saga, from The Sagas of Icelanders

Egil's Saga, from The Sagas of Icelanders

Opening the World, Dale Favier (poetry chapbook)

The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje (audio book)

Open City, Teju Cole (rereading)

Ice and Gaywings, Ken Pobo (poetry chapbook)

The Book of Ystwyth, six poets on the art of Clive Hicks-Jenkins

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene

Triplicity, Kristin McHenry (poetry chapbook)

Paper Covers Rock, Chella Courington (poetry chapbook)

Phaedrus, Plato

The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde*

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf*

I Stand Here Shredding Documents, Kristin Berkey Abbott (poetry chapbook)

Possession, A.S. Byatt

The Years, Virginia Woolf*

The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett*

The Throne of Psyche, Marly Youmans

Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy. Adaptation for the stage by Mark Healy.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (reread on its centennial)*

Allied to all this reading, here are some ideas of how to put a 'spring' into your step

• In the fridge have cottage cheese, turkey, game - gives you the happy chemical seratonin
• Vitamin C - orange juice, broccoli, green peppers
• Essential fatty acids from mackerel, tuna, evening primrose oil
• Vitamin D  from eggs, oily fish, sunshine
• Calcium from milk, yoghurt, cheeses, nuts, pulses, canned fish
• Warming soups and stews
• Garlic to help the immune system
• Keep your head warm (55)
• Blackcurrant juice, red peppers, sunflower seeds, green vegetables are all antioxidants for blood circulation and chilblains
• Keep exercising