Right now, I’m recommending:

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell

Sure, I read this one last summer – but it’s Mr. Durrell’s 100th birthday this year and recently I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit… and a year on, it hasn’t lost its magnificent power even a year later.

I was introduced to the first book in the series on a hot Friday afternoon, sitting in a bar and heading a few drinks in.  I was told, in the same way that Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State tells Zach Braff that The Shins will change his life

Justine was unlike anything I’d ever read before. It’s elliptical, mysterious, beautiful.  It’s the story of a love affair but also the story of people in a time in a place.  That sounds so simple, I know, but it’s so much more than you’d believe.  I’ve never been to Alexandria but after reading this book, I felt like I’d been there all summer.  I immediately tracked down the beautiful Faber collected edition and dove into the rest of the quartet.

It was a complicated and drawn out summer – hot, busy, emotional.  I found myself drawing out the experience of reading the quartet to last me the entire summer – and for regular readers, you’ll notice that I’m usually reading at more than twice that pace.  The reading of this quartet is like the perfect summer: you feel the way you do in the heat of a clear summer evening, on the beach during a sunny day, hiding in a cafe under a sudden thunderstorm.

To celebrate Mr. Durrell’s 100th birthday, you should at least read Justine this summer.  The quartet stands like a towering monolith over everything I’ve read in the last year – it is singularly the most accomplished and best work I’ve ever read.  Ever, I think.

Read more about my thoughts in the full reviews of Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea.