A Restful Summer Reading List

The books I’m reading, slowly, over the next twelve weeks

This summer is for rest.

For years, I’ve resisted the seasonal shift, trying to maintain the same rhythm I keep during the rest of the year. I wanted to produce new artwork daily and move steadily from one goal to the next. But summer has its own momentum. My days are filled with family at home, long mornings at the community pool, and afternoons that stretch into the best kind of unplanned time with friends.

Instead of fighting the slower pace this year, I’m leaning into it.

These twelve weeks feel like a reading season. Not in a structured or ambitious way, but in small pockets of time: poolside, between swim practices, in quiet stretches of sun, and in the familiar rhythm of summer days.

It feels like the right moment to spend time with books about rest, slowness, and paying attention.

These are ideas that already shape my work. My prints and writing have always been drawn to spaces that feel like a retreat, places where the natural world and built structures meet, and where time softens at its edges. But I haven’t always given myself permission to live at that same pace.

So this isn’t a dramatic shift. It’s a decision to go with the rhythm that’s already here.

Here’s the list* I’m moving through this summer, in this (tentative) order:

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The Restful Summer Reading List

1. Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
   To return to a slower, more reciprocal way of seeing the natural world.

2. Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey
   As a reset, to challenge assumptions about rest and productivity.

3. The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl
   For grounding in the quiet, steady rhythms of the natural world.

4. How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell
   To reconsider attention, and what it means to step outside constant productivity.

5. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, Haemin Sunim
   For small, steady reminders to move through days with more care.

6. The Book of Modern Ceremony, Shari Dunbar Boyer
   To explore simple rituals that can shape a slower, more intentional life.

7. In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honoré
   To better understand what it looks like to live at a more human pace.

8. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
   To learn how rest supports good work.

9. A Philosophy of Walking, Frédéric Gros
   To think more deeply about walking as both movement and practice.

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Alongside these, I’m slowly working through (10.) The Listening Path by Julia Cameron as a quiet daily practice. Her work has guided me for years, and this feels like a natural companion for the season.

As I move through each book, I’ll share reflections here - quotes that stay with me, along with a few thoughts on what I’m noticing and taking with me.

More than anything, I’m giving myself space to rest and listen, and to see what begins to take shape.

If you’re moving at a slower pace this summer, too, I’d love to hear what you’re reading.

May you settle into a slower rhythm this summer, and find rest in the quiet spaces it makes for you.

With love,
Sarah K

If we haven’t met: I’m Sarah K., a printmaker based in Richmond, Virginia.

My website, including more writing like this, is at makeforgood.com. I’d love to have you.