I tend to gravitate to the books I have read during summers past, books that have strong associations for me — including Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and The Old Man and the Sea, depending on whether I end up on a beach or an urban holiday. I'm not sure when I stopped experiencing Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as a mere school read and recognized that it was a masterpiece. Perhaps it was the sweltering claustro-phobia of small-town Maycomb, or the nostalgia of childhood phantoms and fears or my ability to finally tap into Scout's admiration of her father that made it an absolute summer must for me.
Obreht's debut novel is The Tiger's Wife.