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The Summer Book

Book Synopsis

The Worldwide Classic about a tiny island and larger love.

An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself.

Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. With a foreword by Esther Freud and an afterword by Sophia Jansson (on whom the child ‘Sophia’ is based) who returns to the island during the pandemic at the point of becoming a grandmother herself.

Includes a 15pp epilogue by Tove’s niece Sophia Jansson – the inspiration for ‘Sophia’ – on a personal and moving return to the island.

Our Review Panel says...

The protagonist, Sophia, spends months with her grandmother on their remote family island in the Gulf of Finland. They row boats, collect bones and driftwood, visit the magic forest, adopt a cat and build Venetian palaces in the middle of the night.

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