Summer Sapiosexuals : The Coco de Mer Reading List
With long evenings upon us and holidays on the horizon, it’s time for a new Coco de Mer Reading List.
Expand your sapiosexual horizons this summer with a fixating plot and a curling page or two…
Overspill - Charlotte Paradise
Tender, brutal, devastating - in the most divine ways. This is a luminous, shattering story of love, trauma and self-acceptance, perfect for the hopeless new romantics among us.
The Lovers - Paolo Cognetti
A remote nook of the Italian Alps, a Milanese chef, a woman on a journey to find her own "North Pole”... A chance encounter blossoms into a brief, luminous romance, both intensely personal and profoundly shaped by the surrounding mountains. A story full of the romance and reality of self discovery, posing a world of profound questions in the most romantic ways.
The New Age of Sexism - Laura Bates
We are besotted with this book for a number of reasons. It is so important, exploring how emerging technologies are being insidiously shaped by existing misogynistic biases. Bates exposes how this embedding of sexism threatens to roll back progress in areas including education, work, relationships, and safety. This is such an intelligent blend of investigative reporting, real-world examples, and expert interviews to argue that techno-feminism must triumph - or we risk digital inequality becoming a new addition to the current status quo. A must read.
Under the Lemon Tree - Emma Cowell
Grecian sun, romance, love, restoration… What more do you need for a classic summer novel?? This is soul-stirring, a wonderful journey of healing, heritage, and the hope that blooms under the Grecian sun. Just what the doctor ordered as we see it.
The Safe Keep - Yael Van Der Wouden
Buried secrets and an intense affair - a flawless formula for a summer page turner. The Safe Keep explores the collision of personal longing and historical guilt in postwar Netherlands, journaling the unraveling of a woman’s carefully ordered life when desire, memory, and moral ambiguity converge. As buried secrets surface, the novel delves into intergenerational trauma, forbidden love, and the quiet ways in which complicity lingers. Intimate, unsettling and wonderfully moving, it is a story about what we inherit - and what it costs to face it. Tender and psychological in equal measure.
Intermezzo - Sally Rooney
"What can life be made to accommodate, what can one life hold inside itself without breaking?" Evidently, quite a lot.
‘Intermezzo’ is a thoughtful, stylistically daring exploration of grief, sibling bonds, desire, and a precarious dance of connection. As steadfast lovers of wordsmithery, we can’t help appreciate the entendres of the word ‘intermezzo’ - meaning an interlude in a drama, opera, or musical work, which can also refer to a light palate cleanser between courses. Intriguingly, ‘Intermezzo’ is also the brand name of a form of the insomnia medication, Zolpidem. But more relevant to Rooney's novel is its sense as an unexpected move in chess - with the narrative itself making many game-changing surprise moves.
Nobody writes romantic entanglements like Rooney, so it is a delight to see this feature, sprinkled with quotes from a number of literary classics, paying homage and adding layers of meaning. This is a story about accepting loss and pain, that ultimately leads to profound liberation. Highly, highly recommended.
The Poetry Pharmacy - William Sieghart
A gift of literature, in every instance. This is a book that keeps on giving, a beautifully curated anthology of poems meant to heal the soul. By framing poetry as a remedy, Sieghart organises selections by emotion and life circumstances - loss, love, exhaustion and hope as just a few chapters - sharing context, reflections, and dosage recommendations. Take this as a literary self-care toolkit: read the poem - truly perfect for when words can’t express what you’re feeling. One for every bookshelf.
Liquid: A Love Story - Mariam Rahmani
A fittingly modern tale of romance, loss, family and belonging, quite unlike anything we’ve seen before. The electric satire of this writing is so contagious, with verve and originality - a classic romantic comedy recipe with a poignant consideration of one’s own purpose in life and in love. A Summer page turner to treasure - the 100 date spreadsheet really is inspiring.
All Fours - Miranda July
Miranda July has a loyal following and with exceptional reasoning. ‘All Fours’ is an unforgettable story of a woman in her mid 40’s embarking on a cross-country trip with her husband - but on the first night, she quietly veers off course, checking into a motel alone. And so begins a surreal, intimate journey of self-reinvention, erotic awakening, and existential inquiry. Woven across chance encounters and inner revelations, July explores themes of desire, aging, autonomy, and the fluid boundaries of identity. Darkly funny and emotionally raw, ‘All Fours’ is a bold meditation woven with mischief, looking at what it means to be a woman still searching.
The World’s Wife - Carol Ann Duffy
A national treasure of a poet, this is such a witty collection that retells familiar myths, historical anecdotes, and literary tales from the perspectives of the "wives" or female counterparts. At last, we hear from Mrs Midas, Mrs Darwin, Queen Herod, Mrs Tiresias, Medusa, Anne Hathaway, and more. It’s witty, intimate, and sometimes biting, often with a modern twist. Through dramatic monologues mixing humour, satire, and the most perfect choice of language, the poems challenge gender norms, power dynamics, and the absence of women’s voices across history. We’re manifesting a brilliant evening of poetry reading with friends and family alike.
We highly recommend heightening your reading experience with a few additions - a Roseravished Massage Candle, a glide or two of our Enraptured Figment Massage Oil, the iconic addition of the Seraphine Robe perhaps - we’re here to assist and encourage your Summer of Love.
We have a number of other reading lists with phenomenal reasons to flick over, so do peruse The Reading Room in all its glory.