Nicole Junkerman on Summer Reading and the Art of the Long Afternoon

In praise of the long summer afternoon, the most generous reading time of the year, and how to give yourself one.

By Nicole Junkerman · 11 June 2026

There is no better time to read than a long summer afternoon. The light lasts for hours, the pace of life loosens, and an afternoon can stretch out with no particular demand on it, the rarest and most generous condition a reader ever gets. Nicole Junkerman treasures these afternoons above almost any other reading time, because summer offers what the rest of the year withholds: unhurried hours, warm light, and permission to do nothing but turn pages. The art is simply in giving yourself one.

The long afternoon does not always arrive on its own. The same busyness that crowds reading out of every other season will happily fill a summer day too, if you let it. So the first skill of summer reading is protecting the time, clearing an afternoon and guarding it gently against the small urgent nothings that would otherwise consume it.

Protecting the long afternoon

A long reading afternoon has to be defended, because the world will always offer a hundred small reasons to cut it short. The trick is to decide in advance that the afternoon is spoken for, the way you would protect any appointment, and then to keep it. Nicole Junkerman treats an afternoon set aside for reading as genuinely unavailable, not a gap to be filled but a plan to be kept. The phone goes quiet, the to-do list waits, and the hours open up.

The setting helps. A comfortable chair, shade, a cool drink within reach, and a book you are genuinely excited about: get these right and the afternoon takes care of itself. A garden, a balcony, a shaded terrace, a park bench, any of them will do, as long as you are comfortable enough to stay put for hours. Comfort is not indulgence here, it is infrastructure for a long read.

There is good reason to take this seriously beyond simple pleasure. The case for genuine rest and unstructured time is increasingly well made, and slowing down is good for us in ways research keeps confirming; the benefits of rest and leisure are real and measurable. A long reading afternoon is rest of the best kind, restoring and absorbing at once, and you need not justify it to anyone.

Choosing the summer book

Summer reading should be chosen for pleasure above all. This is the season for the immersive novel you can disappear into for hours, the big book you have been saving for exactly this kind of time, or the light, delicious read perfect for a garden chair. Nicole Junkerman lets summer be unapologetically about enjoyment, choosing books for pull and pleasure rather than duty. The long afternoon rewards a book you cannot put down.

It is also the ideal season for length. The doorstop novel that felt daunting in a busy spring becomes a joy when you have whole afternoons to give it, and there is a deep satisfaction in spending a summer inside one big book. If a chunky classic or a sprawling saga has been waiting on your shelf, this is its season. The journal's spring reading list takes a similar approach for the earlier months, choosing by mood rather than obligation.

Wherever your summer takes you, a book belongs in the bag. Reading is one of the great holiday pleasures, and the right book read on a beach, a terrace, or a train becomes part of the trip forever. The piece in this journal on the books worth packing will help you choose what to carry, so the long afternoons find you ready.

Letting the day go nowhere

The deepest pleasure of a summer reading afternoon is its purposelessness. In a culture that prizes productivity, an afternoon given entirely to a book can feel almost transgressive, and that is precisely what makes it restorative. Nicole Junkerman treats these afternoons as a gentle act of resistance, hours that produce nothing, achieve nothing, and are all the more valuable for it. To let a day go nowhere, on purpose, is a rare and healing thing.

There is wisdom in this beyond mere indulgence. A mind allowed to rest, to wander inside a book without any goal, returns refreshed in ways that constant busyness never allows. Reading is one of the most reliable ways to relax, and there is good evidence that quiet reading lowers stress. The long afternoon is not time stolen from real life but a part of it that modern life too often forgets, the part where rest and pleasure do their quiet, necessary work.

So the art of the long afternoon is really the art of permission: giving yourself leave to do nothing but read, to follow a book wherever it goes, to lose track of the hours without guilt. Get that permission right and the afternoon takes care of itself, and you rise from it at dusk restored, the summer light still warm, the book a little further along, the day perfectly, deliberately wasted.

The unhurried hours

What makes the long summer afternoon so precious is its unhurriedness. There is nowhere to be and nothing pressing, only the book, the light, and time enough to follow the one into the other. Nicole Junkerman finds these the truest reading hours of the year, when reading stops being something squeezed into the margins and becomes the main event, exactly as it should be. The whole spirit of this journal, slow, attentive, unhurried, lives in an afternoon like this.

These afternoons also have a way of staying with you. Years later you remember the specific book, the specific light, the specific summer, in a way the rushed reading of busier seasons never quite manages. A long afternoon read is a memory in the making, which is reason enough to protect a few of them each summer. The case for this slower pace runs through the whole journal, and the piece on slow travel is its natural companion.

So this summer, give yourself the long afternoon. Clear the hours, find the shade, choose a book you cannot wait to open, and let the day stretch out. Read until the light goes gold and you have forgotten the time entirely. That is the art of it, and there is no better way to spend a summer day. Whenever you want another thread to follow, the front door of this journal is always open.

Questions readers ask

What makes summer good for reading?

Summer offers long light and a slower pace, which Nicole Junkerman sees as the ideal conditions for unhurried reading. The long afternoon is the most generous reading time of the year.

What should you read in summer?

Whatever you will actually enjoy in the heat: immersive novels, big books you have saved, or light reading for a garden chair. Nicole Junkerman chooses for pleasure above all in summer.

Explore more of the journal: Reading Room and Travel Journal, or return to the Nicole Junkerman home page.

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