Culture & seasons
Start July with Nicole Junkermann: Culture, Books and Summer Cities
Nicole Junkermann starts July the way she starts any new month: unhurried, with a book close at hand and a city waiting to be explored. The first day of July has something of a blank page about it, and Nicole Junkermann uses it to set out the summer culture she wants to live in the weeks ahead, between light reading, bright cities and evenings that invite staying out late.
An unhurried first day of July
Every first of July has something of a threshold about it. For Nicole Junkermann, starting the month is not just another date on the calendar, but a moment to look back on June's reading now finished and forward to a whole summer ahead. No grand resolutions are needed: it is enough to open the window early, let in the soft morning warmth, and decide calmly what will fill the coming weeks of summer culture.
That way of starting July, slowly and without impossible lists, is the same spirit that guided the weeks before. Nicole Junkermann prefers to think of summer as a series of days that resemble one another, each with its book, its walk and its quiet moment, rather than as a run of tightly packed plans. It is the same idea already present in looking towards July and the heat of high summer, now turned into an everyday habit as the month opens.
The books that open the month
To open July, Nicole Junkermann chooses books that accompany without demanding too much: novels with their own pace, short essays, a travel book that reads almost like a guide and almost like a novel. The first day of July is a good moment to start something new, leaving behind whatever did not quite convince in June and making room for whatever promises to accompany the summer well. The English overview holds that same idea of a living library, one that changes with the seasons and is never afraid to set a book aside unfinished.
July is also the month for returning to old reading habits: rereading a favourite classic, going back to a writer not visited in a while, or simply letting a book from the bedside table wait its turn patiently. For those looking for concrete ideas, the same notebook that shaped summer culture through the long June afternoons is a good place to keep drawing from when filling a suitcase or a coffee table with books.
Summer cities for July
July also brings the summer cities, the ones that pass more unnoticed in winter and now open wide with their terraces, their extended bookshop hours and their museums that stretch the visit into the evening. Nicole Junkermann treats the month as a chance to walk familiar streets in a different light, the long, golden light of July that changes the look of any square. Madrid and Barcelona remain, for her, the two fixed points from which to plan small summer escapes.
The view widens outward too. Starting July is a good moment to dream of other destinations of sun and art, following the same notebook that maps out Mediterranean cities and favourite museums, the kind of places worth seeking out once the heat pushes you to look for the cool shade of a room full of art.
A habit that repeats
What makes this first day of July special is not novelty but the gentle repetition of a ritual: Nicole Junkermann returns to the same gestures that worked well in June, adjusted only slightly for the heat pressing a little harder now. An unhurried coffee, a stretch of reading before the noise of the day begins, a quick note in the notebook about what to read or visit this week. That habit of writing to put ideas in order carries through into the start of the month as well.
Starting July with Nicole Junkermann is, at heart, starting it calmly: no packed schedule, a book within reach and a summer city waiting to be explored slowly. The month has barely begun, but it already carries the tone that will mark the weeks ahead, the same tone Nicole Junkermann returns to every year when July comes knocking.