How to end the reading year on a beautiful warm sunny day in June but with the effortlessly perfect opening chapter of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’. Perfect in the way the narrative, the descriptive details of the ironic omniscient narrator, are brought to life by the dialogue, the conversation between Mr Wodehouse, Mr Knightley and Emma herself, with all the future misunderstandings and ‘blunders’ seeded in eight consummate pages. It is a must read before leaving school. We briefly looked at three other great titles for the summer, ‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ by the underrated Mary Braddon and Edith Wharton’s ‘The Age of Innocence’ with its astute depiction of New York Society on the cusp of change. Three great novels by three great women writers about being a woman in a man’s world – in case we should forget. Oh yes, and the fourth; well, I was considering reading the famous first line of ‘Anna Karenina’ but didn’t when later that afternoon one of our English students said that she must read ‘Anna Karenina’, so here is its first line:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Perfect summer readings; enjoy them all if not perhaps on a train.