Summer is the ideal time to catch up on some reading, and recommended reading lists are popping up by the dozen. But this year magazines and blogs are adding a bit of a fashion-y twist that had me grinning from ear to ear: it appears the matchy-matchy trend has now crossed over to the bookworld!

Fashion site Who What Wear is pairing up this season’s stylish carryalls with their favourite beach reads. While Kate Imbach at Matchbook is taking it a step further, insisting that matching your bathing suit to your book cover is the height of Summer style. She has the matchmaking down pat, and is doing a mighty fine job of putting together delicious pattern and colour combos. Love it!

Of course no one expects us to run out to the store to invest in a new bag to match our current reading material. This is all just a bit of vacation fun, so I thought we could play along and see what we can come up with from our own closets. I’ll go first. I’ll throw this week’s book choice — Art Deco Fashion — into my cream and green colour-blocked crossbody bag, so I have it on hand when I plop down in an outdoor café for a cool drink. The black piping nicely matches the black band around the cover girl’s sunhat, and the creams, green and light turquoise go together as well. Unfortunately, I only own one swimsuit, a royal blue Speedo with lighter blue and coral red piping. Not entirely in keeping with the book cover’s colour palette, I’m afraid, so I’ll keep looking for that matching bikini…

Over to you: what’s on your Summer reading list, and do you have the “right” bag to carry your books around? Bonus points if you have a swimsuit to match.

Now in YLF Books

From flapper dresses, feathers and beaded evening frocks for dancing the Charleston to sporty outfits and chic ensembles designed for luxury travel, fashion exploded during the Roaring Twenties, when clothes became a symbol for a more liberated lifestyle. Suzanne Lussier’s compact book, Art Deco Fashion, focusses on the art deco trends of the 1920’s and uses sketches, outfit and jewellery photos, images from fashion magazines and evocative illustrations from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s dress collection to recreate this glamorous era.