Stories for Summer: And Days by the Pool

  ‘'Remember me to them all,'' cried Mrs.Alladale. ‘'Remember everything. Remember that the jasmine is in flower and how bright the stars are over Florence.''
From France to Lake Como, from Florence to London, these are stories in which some of the most important women writers of the 20th century communicate feelings, thoughts and deeds heightened by the summer ambience. Many see summer as a time of beginnings. I've always thought that summer is a time for beginnings that end abruptly, at times bitterly, leaving their marks on your heart. Most of the stories included dealing with loss, sadness, regret and the burden of a love that may not flourish for various reasons.
Summer is not a time for reading silly romances and ‘'ever-afters'' to...cleanse your palate. If you need to do that, you're not a true reader in the first place and this is God's honest truth, so don't even bother with true Literature. For the rest of us, collections like this one are treasures.
Carnation (Katherine Mansfield): Can you really focus on a lesson when the glory of Nature envelops you in its arms?
Kew Gardens (Virginia Woolf): Kew Gardens is an enticing place to be. A place where relationships unfold, where secrets are being whispered.
‘'Three weeks afterwards found him in the prow of a motor-boat, furrowing Lake Como as he sped towards the villa. The sky was cloudless, the hills to the right rose sheer above him, casting the lengthening shadows of the afternoon across the luminous and oily water; to the left were brilliant and rugged above the clustered villages. The boat shot closely under Cadenabbia and set the orange-hooded craft bobbing; the reflected houses rocked and quivered in her wake, colours flecked the broken water.''
I had the immense happiness to read this collection while vacationing in the Norther Italian Lakes, in Como and Maggiore, and just HOW PERFECT WAS THAT?
Requiescat (Elizabeth Bowen): The loss of a husband and the appearance of an old friend brings repressed feelings to surface in a story set in beautiful Como.
‘'George Bingham looked down across the valley at Florence, across the smoke of grey olive-tress and the black geometrical shapes of the cypresses, black triangular cypresses, smoke-vague olives - and the white-walled houses with their flat roofs, golden in the evening light. The vine-wreathed canopy of the terrace made a dark frame for the landscape. Just below, steeply and deeply below, was a little garden, paved with grey flagstones. There were stone bowls containing little pools of water, dark-leaved tropical plants in grey stone vases, and thin pale grey cats prowling about softly as smoke among them. Mist covered the distant Arno. The copper-red dome of the cathedral glowed above it.
Exile (Sylvia Lynd): Florence, the land of Art, Love and Loneliness...
‘'London in early June hints that this is going to be the loveliest summer, the only summer, the summer of gay adventures and desires come true. You can catch these subtle whispers in the very way the awnings flap in the light breeze; in the brilliance of the window-boxes, scarlet and pink geraniums, on the facades in Mayfair; in the hydrangeas and rhododendrons massed bushily about the parks, and seen through the railings of demure private gardens; in the flutter of light chiffon dresses, in the very cadence of a passing voice, in the glimpse of a cool hall through a doorway left open.''
Black Cat For Luck (G.B.Stern): Summer London sets the stage for a story of a lovestruck, superstitious youth and a flight girl.
The Sand Castle (Mary Lavin): Three children discover that building a castle is the surest way to overcome all differences in a story of that unique innocence that comes with being a child on a beautiful summer day.
‘'Most people get what they live for, but as they do not know what they are living for, they do not always like it.''
The Shark's Fin (Phyllis Bottome): Set in the Caribbean, this is the story of a newly married couple who is already facing cracks in the heaven of their honeymoon, as the woman's whim reveals multitudes about the way they view the world and each other.
‘'Sarah laughed: she had wanted ‘'Italy'' to be like this. It wasn't always. There had been windy nights when the tablecloths flew up and napkins slithered away into the shadows: when the gay Campari umbrellas, threshing a little, swayed from their moorings and suddenly took wing; there had been nights of mist - the lake ‘perspiring': and nights of sudden thunder storms, which blew up without warning - crashing about between the peaks. On such occasions, one ate upstairs in a white-washed dining room, hung with last year's calendars.''
The Lovely Evening (Mary Norton): A night somewhere in a lakeside Italian town hides surprises for three women. Norton got the unique ‘feeling' and the atmosphere of my favourite country to a tee.
The Pool (Daphne du Maurier): A young girl tries to cope with loss resenting her family and begging to be accepted in an imaginary world. A masterpiece by du Maurier, a tale that is the epitome of the psychological study of lost innocence.
In a Different Light (Elizabeth Taylor): Barbara's visit to support her sister following the death of her husband prompts her to see her life back in England in a different light. The Greek aura wins her heart and an encounter with a compatriot married to a horrible woman uncovers thoughts she didn't know she'd been nurturing. A story that contains a plethora of layers with a beautifully tender ending. 
In and Out of Never-Never Land (Maeve Brennan): Excuse me for my shameless self-promotion but Maeve Brennan must have met me in another life. Mary-Ann is the most ‘me' character I've ever encountered in the millions of books I've read. She is perfectly content to stay in her lovely house with her books, her cats and her dog and the hullaballoo of the 4th of July doesn't really do anything for her. On an all-too-conspicuous night, though, she realises that we may not enjoy the company of adults, but children are a different matter. 
Afternoon In Summer (Sylvia Townsend Warner): A serene snippet of a young married couple's afternoon spent at a funeral. It sounds strange and morbid but the tranquility of the story reflects the calmness of a late summer afternoon.
The Fortune Teller (Muriel Spark): A young woman travels with her friends to France. They decide to stay in a lovely chateau, guests of a strange hostess. Thus starts a peculiar interaction between a clairvoyant and a fortune teller in a terrific story by Spark.
Men Friends (Angela Huth): The string of lovers of a deceased woman attend her funeral, I must confess I can't fully grasp why this story was included in this collection...
‘'You have got your wish [...] However, it is a wish that you should not have made.''