As Smith puts it: “It would be easy to be sentimental here. The slim volume tells the story of a grandmother and granddaughter exploring, arguing and playing together during a summer on the island. It also feels, as we navigate the climate crisis and generational culture wars, highly relevant. It’s not hard to see why it is so loved: the novel is, as the author Ali Smith wrote at the time of its reissue, “a masterpiece of microcosm, a perfection of the small, quiet read”. The Summer Book, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, now has a sizeable British fanbase, largely thanks to the independent press Sort Of Books reissuing the title in 2003. This kind of deep respect for nature is characteristic of Jansson’s writing, from the Moomin books, which focus on a family of trolls who live in harmony with their surroundings, to The Summer Book and the nine other novels and short-story collections she wrote for adults.
50th anniversary edition of The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.
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