Summer is the perfect time to read short books: instead of scrolling through Instagram or just for pleasure. In our selection, there are five different books, from the novel by Joan Didion to the work of the science fiction classic Robert Heinlein, which can be devoured in one evening.
“Play It As It Lays,” Joan Didion
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A brilliant writer who began her career at the editorial office of American Vogue, a Hollywood screenwriter, an intellectual, a style icon: Joan Didion is a woman who inspires. Her texts, which are a model of new documentary and combine the power of fiction with sharp reportage, have practically not been translated into Ukrainian, and “Play It As It Lays” is a great opportunity to finally get acquainted with Didion’s work for those who have not yet read her in the original.
The 1970 novel tells about California in the 60s: glamorous, cruel, cynical. The main character, Maria Wyatt, is an actress who failed to make a career in the world of brutal competition, is experiencing a marital breakdown and an inner crisis, trying to find herself in chaotic relationships. The events unfold between Hollywood and desert highways, which become a symbol of her escape and isolation. “Play It As It Lays” is a subtle and sad novel about Hollywood, loneliness, and unfulfilled dreams.
“Urbino”
“Baumgartner’s” Novel, Paul Auster
Paul Auster is a popular American author, known for the novels “Moon Palace,” “Timbuktu,” “Mr. Vertigo,” and screenplays for many films, including “Smoke” and “Lulu on the Bridge.” His short novel “Baumgartner’s” Novel is a poetic, beautifully written, and meditative story about feelings, fragility, and love after death.
Seymour Baumgartner is a philosophy professor, a widower, a man trying to learn to live after the death of his wife. Many years have passed, but the memories of their life together do not weaken – they fill his daily life, take him back to the past, force him to re-evaluate love, creativity, and the randomness of human fate again and again. This novel is perfect for unhurried reading somewhere in the mountains or at the dacha – preferably in silence and solitude.
“Stary Lev Publishing House”
“The Listening,” Katie Kitamura
Katie Kitamura, whom you may know from the novel “Intimacies,” is one of the most interesting contemporary American writers, a person deeply versed in philosophy and art, whose novels dissect modern man and his relationship with himself and his surroundings. Her acclaimed novel “The Listening,” which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025, has been published in Ukrainian. In it, she explores the masks we wear in relationships with loved ones and colleagues.
Two people meet in a New York restaurant. She is an acclaimed actress immersed in rehearsals for a new play. He is an attractive young man who claims to be her son… And then the play begins: the book consists of two parts, and in the second, the heroine already acknowledges the man as her son, although this cannot be. The author makes us wonder: where is the line between play-acting, hypocrisy, and reality?
“The Door into Summer,” Robert Heinlein
Robert Heinlein is a classic of world science fiction, a bestselling author who knows how to create captivating worlds you want to escape to.
“The Door into Summer” is his bestseller, first published in 1956 and since then repeatedly recognized as the best science fiction novel. Heinlein’s protagonist is engineer Dan Davis, who invented a unique robot assistant. While Dan was busy with ingenious inventions, he was betrayed by his fiancée and friend, who took over his company and sent him to a place from which there is no return. However, the talented engineer finds a way to travel through time and find his door into summer to return home and… to his beloved cat.
“КСД”
“Where the Sun Sets,” Olena Pshenichna
Olena Pshenichna’s novel tells the story of a pensioner, Vera, who finds herself in a nursing home at the beginning of the full-scale war. Confused 72-year-old Vera, whose son is completely engrossed in volunteering and cannot care for his mother, meets embittered, prickly old people in the home who simply watch day by day as their lives, like the sun, set beyond the horizon. Olena Pshenichna’s touching, very humane book focuses on a theme that rarely gets attention – the feelings, fears, and hopes of older people at the end of their lives.
“Laboratoria”