Have you ever picked up a book and wondered where it had been before, well welcome to the world of bookcrossing!

Bookcrossing is a wonderful place to share your love of reading with people all over the world and follow a book as it continues on its travels.

Please journal this book, describing where you found it, and then if you want to, what you thought of it. You can remain anonymous if you want to, though if you create a screen name you will be able to get notification each time someone else journals this book in the future.

When you have finished with it please pass on the book to a friend or release it by leaving it somewhere where it will be found (please make a journal entry stating where you left it), and let it continue its journey.

Help keep its journey alive!

Following this books travels can be very fun.

Bought in bookshop in Beijing.

Summer is a novel by Edith Wharton published in 1917. The story is one of only two novels to be set in New England by Wharton, who was best known for her portrayals of upper-class New York society. The novel details the sexual awakening of its protagonist, Charity Royall, and her cruel treatment by the father of her child, and shares many plot similarities with Wharton's better-known novel, Ethan Frome. Only moderately well received when originally published, Summer has had a resurgence in critical popularity since the 1960s.


Charity Royall – Born in an impoverished mountain community, Charity was “brought down from the mountain” at age five by Lawyer Royall. Her mother had been a prostitute. When she is 17 a drunken Mr Royall intruded into her bedroom. He later urged her to marry him. Mr Royall helps her procure the position of town librarian, in spite of her lack of education. It is in the library where she meets the learned Lucius Harney.

Lawyer Royall – The most successful man in North Dormer, Lawyer Royall became Charity’s guardian when she was five. He twice proposed to marry her, and offers to force Harney into marrying her after discovering their affair.

Lucius Harney – He comes to North Dormer to sketch some old houses and starts an affair with Charity Royall.

You know all the way through way is going to happen to summer. It is an old age story: girl feels alone and neglected, then gets the attention of a man who makes her feel special. However, 'real life' is not a fairy tale where all ends and well.

Beautifully written, I like that Summer did not turn into a weak self pitying character.

Posted to booksandmusic who chose it from the first sentances VBB.

Received, thank you!

This is a cautionary tale for young women who follow their hearts and their bodies, throwing common sense out the window in the pursuit of love. We might all have been there at one time or another.
The setting is a small town where most people have never traveled farther than a train ride to the next town which is bigger than their own. Charity is in her late teens, a girl rescued from up the mountain and brought to live with her protector Mr. Royall. Charity is bored, impatient, longing for something to happen. She works at the library where almost no one goes and one day in walks a young man. Her future is pretty much writ from that point on; romance is inevitable, marriage is not. What does a girl do? What she does seems inevitable as well; respectability is necessary and the other options are even grimmer.

I am listing this in the ABC VBB.

This was not selected in the ABC VBB so it is AVL until I wild release it.

Little Free Library on 37th NE near 55th NE in Seattle