As you’re reading this blog, you probably know I like lists and I especially like lists of books. I’m constantly reading reviews and recommendations and listing the books I want to read – on one hand, I enjoy the process, on the other, I also find the lists useful. They remind me of things I’ve wanted to read and discipline me to a certain extent. Not that I ever read all the books on my lists, but so what.

My tastes are quite eclectic and occasionally very low-brow, but I have no problem with that. I’m not able to read serious stuff all the time, so I’m changing it up and always have several books on the go (especially with non-fiction). Here are a few things I plan to read this summer, in no particular order:

1. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. As a big fan of To Kill a Mockingbird (who isn’t?), I’m both excited and terrified by this one. There is a risk this’ll be disappointing, but I’m going to live dangerously and read it anyway when it’s released on 14 July.

2. The Glorious Angels by Justina Robson. The reviews are mixed, but a book set in a matriarchal high-tech/magical world with a grown-up woman who has two daughters as a protagonist? I cannot not read this.

3. The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon. This is long overdue – I’ve been planning to read The Pillow Book at least since this post by Bois de Jasmin, probably much longer. Remarkable Women in History is one of my favourite genres.

4. The Price of Valour by Django Wrexler. This is going to be my summer fantasy fun, an odd mixture of magic, Napoleonic atmosphere and progressive gender politics. It probably doesn’t make any sense without reading the first two books in the series, so you can check out my review of book No 1 here.

5. Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Another fantasy book, but of a different persuasion – a fairy tale-inspired YA novel. I have not read Novik’s popular Temeraire series and the blurb for this one left me pretty indifferent, but I was convinced by the review at The Other Side of the Rain.

6. The First Bad Man by Miranda July. This book is likely to be too cool and quirky for me, as I know for a fact that Miranda July is very cool and quirky in that intellectually superior way. But I’m going to give it a try anyway, as she’s an interesting woman and one cannot only read books about magic and cross-dressing.

7. The Strangler Vine by MJ Carter. I used to read a lot of mysteries and detective stories, but gradually, these have been replaced by fantasy and science fiction. This sounds tempting, however, especially because of the 19th century Indian setting and because the author seems to know her history.

8. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. One of my absolute favourite type of books is what I call macro or meta books: non-fiction that explores things on a really large scale and tries to find patterns or draw some fundamental conclusions. Sapiens covers about 100 000 years, so I’ve got very high hopes for a serious dose of meta.

9. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Catching up on classics is a constant struggle and as I’m not feeling like reading Dostoyevsky or Proust at the moment, I’ve gone for Nabokov. Lolita is the only one I’ve read so far, so filling that gap in my literary education is in order.

10. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. I’m not a great reader of memoirs, but this one about grieving and training a goshawk is getting such good reviews that I am intrigued. Plus I have a thing for birds of prey. From a distance.

11. The Ruby in her Navel by Barry Unsworth. This was recommended to me by the incomparable Kate from Drivel about Frivol (sadly, I don’t know her, but we are connected through the genius thing that is Goodreads). She said: “Norman kingdom of Sicily! Cheekily topical religious and political tidbits! Eleanor of Aquitaine cameo!” and I was completely sold. The only problem is I have to physically order it, as there is no Kindle version.

12. Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman. I’ve owned this monster of a book for some time already. I have browsed it often, but haven’t had the energy to read properly. This summer is going to be the time. See also the comment above on liking macro/meta books.

13. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I keep trying to read more books by writers who are not native English speakers and Ferrante has been on the list for ages. A brilliant novel about brilliant women, they say. And I’ve now realized it’s not on the picture, as it’s upstairs beside my bed.

14. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. I don’t need to be convinced that climate change is horrible and real (I worked several years for a Minister of Environment), but I hope to find some new ammunition with which to bedazzle my opponents.

15. The Geneva Strategy by Robert Ludlum/Jamie Freveletti. Yes, I know, Robert Ludlum is dead and it shows in the quality of the books that still keep being published. But I’m including this in the spirit of truthfulness, as I’m of course not spending the whole summer reading Nabokov and door-stopping history books. The Ludlum Brand is all about conspiracies that are political and ridiculously far-reaching and that’s how I happen to like my conspiracies as well.

If you have any recommendations, please feel free to share. And if you are curious about how I’m getting on with any of the books listed above, ask me in the comments after a while and I’ll report back.