The kids are going back to school. The daylight lasts not quite as long. That luxurious feeling of having time, the extra time, to sit on a beach and read is slipping away with summer.

But with just the right books, set in just the right places, you can keep hold of that reading feeling all year long. Cape Cod seems like just the right setting to put you in that reading mode, don’t you think? It evokes thoughts of summer and possibility and history. The whole Cape seems like it’s a novel unto itself — beaches with character, landscapes full of charm and portent, people who have seen, lived and learned so much.

So, with the long Labor Day weekend coming up, we went to an expert — author Nina de Gramont — for a list of books set in Cape Cod. (Nina did not include her own, outstanding novel,  The Last September, which is set in Cape Cod. But we are. It’s not to be missed. It falls into the category that Book Riot’s Rebecca Schinsky describes as “dark stories set in beautiful places.”)

Here’s Nina’s list (and thoughts) of Cape Cod reads:

The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken: A brilliant, beautiful, and quirky love story between a Cape Cod librarian and the tallest boy in the world.

Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund: An epic imagining of the woman who received fleeting mention in Moby Dick. Where else would it begin but on the shores of Nantucket?

The Big House: A Century of Life in an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt: The story of a house on Wing’s Neck, its meaning to a large extended family, and the difficulty of holding onto it.

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates: A terrifying and illuminating re-imagining of Ted Kennedy’s notorious accident on Chappaquiddick.

Isabel’s Bed by Elinor Lipman: Funny and deliciously engrossing, this novel tells the story of a writer who moves to Truro to ghostwrite a memoir for a wealthy and eccentric woman.