High summer, and if you are enjoying a stay-cation, you may be looking for a few books to read by the pool.

Balzac wrote that to be elegant, a man must visit Paris at least once a year. If you’re not going to make it this year, bring a bit of Paris home with Paula McLaine’s The Paris Wife.

Told by Hadley Richardson as she meets and marries Hemingway and then expatriates to Paris during those first crazy years after the war this is a moveable feast of an historic novel.

You’ll meet Ezra Pound, F Scott and Zelda, the Murphy’s, and the people who will populate Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises.

I can’t recommend highly enough Everybody Was So Young by Amanda Vaill. The true story of Gerald and Sara Murphy-the American couple who pioneered the summer season on the French Riviera and inspired a lost generation of writers and artists-motivated me to start a blog dedicated to the art of living well regardless of what life has in store for you.

Finally, there is William Boyd’s Any Human Heart. The book is even more engrossing than the PBS series. I found the story uplifting, even my wife, Mrs. E., found it to be heart-breakingly beautiful.

It is possibly the best novel I’ve read in a decade. Like the other two books on this list, you will encounter a fascinating cast of historical figures as the English protagonist lives through the years between the wars, does his part in the Second World War, and spends the next few decades looking for love and meaning on three continents.

Find a bit of shade, a glass of chilled rose and remember how lazy and endless a summer can be with a good book.

Notes from an EasyandElegantLife.com: Chris Cox’s blog is devoted to ‘the search for everyday elegance and a study of the art of living well.