Lucky for some: 13 literary and televisual delights for the summer break

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Cinzia Bianco @Cinzia_Bianco on X

Visiting Fellow

This is the first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize. It is also the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English. “Celestial Bodies”tells the story of a rapidly changing Oman – a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Set in the fictional village of al-Awafi, it traces the stories of several generations of the same family, from the final decades of the nineteenth century to the early years of the new millennium. Alharthi focuses on three sisters and their marriages, allowing her to explore the changing roles of women in Omani society.

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Teresa Coratella @TaszuC on X

Programme Manager, ECFR Rome

This book takes you on an absorbing trip around Kaliningrad, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It traces the roots, stories, lives, and tragedies of 20 people from the region who have shaped history, culture, politics, and society. Brokken sensitively tells the personal stories of, among others, Hanna Arendt, Gidon Kremer, Arvo Part, Mark Rothko, Mikhail Baryshnikov – and their experiences during the Nazi and communist regimes, the Holocaust, the second world war, and their aftermath.

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Teresa Coratella @TaszuC on X

Programme Manager, ECFR Rome

In this comedy drama, Sandra Oh plays Professor Ji-Yoon Kim – the first woman to be appointed chair of the English department at the fictional Pembroke University. The series charts her personal and professional life as she struggles to be a good mother to her adopted daughter, a feminist role model, and a collegial rock for her younger colleagues and students. And as if that was not enough, she also finds herself tasked with figuring out her friendship with a former colleague – who was fired for doing a Nazi salute while teaching absurdism and fascism.

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Marie Dumoulin @dumoulinME on X

Director, Wider Europe programme

Of course, Le Carré’s final novel is a story about spies. This one, however, is very much about the backstage: agents’ family stories, doubts about the lives they have chosen, and more. This is often the case in Le Carré’s novels. But the sense of disillusionment is even stronger here than it was in earlier books.

Two main stories play out. One is about a financial trader who has quit the City to open a bookshop in a small British town. There, he meets a strange Polish man who happens to have been at college with the former trader’s father. The other features the head of internal security of the British intelligence service, who investigates a security breach involving a former analyst (incidentally, the wife of the strange Polish man).

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Rafael Loss @_RafaelLoss on X

Policy Fellow

While attending a nuclear strategy workshop at the NATO Defense College in Rome, I was reminded of the legacy of Janne Nolan. A cherished and central figure in Washington’s nuclear community, she passed away in 2019. Nuclear weapons are regaining prominence due to Russia’s war in Ukraine – and this analysis of the people behind America’s cold war nuclear strategy is a must-read.

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Jana Puglierin @jana_puglierin on X

Head, ECFR Berlin
Senior Policy Fellow

Finally, FINALLY, after many long years of waiting, there is a fourth season of Borgen. I was delighted to see Birgitte Nyborg as the Danish foreign minister, even if the series is even less “hygge” this time around. And there were far too few episodes. But it was, as always, an absolute pleasure to watch her (try to) juggle politics, family, and career.

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Marlene Riedel

ECFR Alumni · Communications Officer

This novel is so magnificent that it will blind you – blind you with strange stories, characters, and places (by turning the familiar – a summer house in Sweden – upside down and inside out). It will also leave you baffled, not quite understanding what just happened. We follow three siblings, triplets (or are there four?), as they navigate their lives, dealing with their past, future, family history, and climate anxiety. We also meet a very moral monkey – what more can I say?

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Michel Seibriger @mseibriger on X

ECFR Alumni · Campaigns Officer

If you could change any one of your past decisions and live your life again, with all the differences that entailed, would you do it? In his fantasy novel, Haig sets out warnings about the pitfalls of unrealistic dreams without ever succumbing to doom and gloom. This is an easy summer read, but it nonetheless carries a powerful message about the choices we make – and coming to terms with the life we are living.

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Jeremy Shapiro @JyShapiro on X

Research Director
Director, US Programme

The much-hyped Neapolitan series by the pseudonymous Italian novelist Elena Ferrante portrays, over four novels, the complex, lifelong friendship of two women – the fiery, uncontainable Lila and the bookish Elena – who met as children in 1950s Naples. The description of the Neapolitan society of the era is vivid and even transporting. But I picked up the books for insight into the phenomenon of female friendship, a critical part of the social fabric that most men (or at least me) don’t understand at all. The concept still largely eludes me but, halfway through the four novels, I am starting to get at least a hint.

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Adam Teufel

In this fictional memoir, the protagonist Nico tells the story of how he and his father survive a global pandemic that kills 95 per cent of humanity. After travelling across South Africa in a lorry, they build a new community – eventually becoming self-sustaining for food, electricity, and biofuel. But the dangers of the post-fever world pose challenges for the nascent society – which Nico and his father are forced to navigate at their peril.

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Tara Varma @tara_varma on X

ECFR Alumni · Head, ECFR Paris
Senior Policy Fellow

This is a wonderful story of how the seaside resort of Varosha in Cyprus became a ghost town. After the Turkish invasion in 1974, the division between the two parts of the city brought about its decay – crushing the dreams of many on both sides. At a time when war has returned to Europe, “Au Café de la Ville Perdue” reminds us of the atavistic nature of human beings – yet the writer never allows us to lose hope that we will learn from past mistakes.

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Pawel Zerka @PawelZerka on X

Senior Policy Fellow

As I head off on holiday, I have just received the first issue of this long-awaited, beautifully designed – and largely crowdfunded – literary magazine. It has pride of place at the top of my suitcase. The titles of some articles – like “The EU goes to church”, “Who will speak European?”, or “On American discoveries of Europe” – look particularly intriguing and promising. My European sentiment is surely set to get a booster shot.