Continuing JOUISSANCE’s new series, A Literate Passion, where writers, creatives and thinkers in our circle share their curated personal library – an idea inspired by our forever literary muse Anaïs Nin’s letters and the secret confessions she exchanged with fellow writer and lover Henry Miller.

We begin by checking in with collaborators from our ongoing erotic short story series, The Collector. This week, Julia Armfield, author of 'Holds', talks us through her treasured summer reads, dream sun-kissed spots and most evocative scent. Just in time for your holidays, whether home or away…

It's hard to define exactly what makes a summer read, it's not that the novel itself needs to be set in the summer (though it helps) but rather that something about it needs to speak to the liminal sense of the summer as a point wholly separate from the rest of the year.

If the novel lends itself to being read by the pool with an icy beer, so much the better.

Jaws by Peter Benchley

It by Stephen King

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

Democracy by Joan Didion

Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down

I love to read by the river in Cumbria, which is where my wife's family is from. Getting in the river, then getting out, then spending 40 minutes trying to warm up, then reading… that's ideal.

I love LES CAHIERS SECRETS, particularly because it reads very differently on me than on my wife. The powdery notes are very femme on her and far less so on me, whereas the spice comes through much more on me, which I find really fascinating!