Pack a book for the beach
Essay by Julie McGuire
Summer afternoon—Summer afternoon...the two most beautiful words in the English language.
—Henry James (1843-1916)
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on one’s point of view—Henry James’ novels are not on most people’s must-read list for the beach. James’ affection for summer afternoons, however, is one shared by multitudes of beach-goers. The media industry has capitalized on that sentiment. Note to the reader: Insert your favorite summer vacation spot—lake, cabin, couch at home, airplane; these are all interchangeable with “beach” for purposes of a look at the “beach read” phenomenon.
Google “beach read” and the hits go on for pages. Amazon.com, The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, and the local Walmart all have sections devoted to the summer hits. I surveyed family and friends and found that almost all of them had a favorite beach read, and spoke with some authority on just what a “beach read” is. And not wanting to ignore the best source of all, last weekend I took a day trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina on a spy mission.
So what conclusions can I draw after all this research? That I have some very opinionated family and friends, that I, and thousands of others, love the beach on a summer afternoon, and that the essence of the perfect beach read, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I did, however, find common threads in my relentless pursuit of “the truth.” When it comes to summer vacation, we want to leave the work behind. We turn off the cell phones and the Blackberries and leave the literature at home. We want to relax—our bodies, and our minds. The other universal “truth” was that beach reads are paperbacks. Although opinions vary widely as to specific titles that qualify as beach reads, there is no question that we all know it when we see it.
Growing up, I rarely went to the beach on vacation. Instead, my family packed into an RV and explored the American West. While my geologist father pointed out the spectacular rock formations and my photographer mother snapped shot after shot of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah scenery, I sat riveted to my seat, glued to anything that Phyllis Whitney wrote. I’ve never been a huge fan of historical or romantic fiction, yet on vacation, historical romance novelist Whitney was who I wanted to read. I wouldn’t have been caught with these books at school—I considered myself to be a serious reader—but on vacation it just didn’t matter what others thought about my taste in books. They were reading books that were equally “summerish.” I don’t remember much about the landscape on those trips (Looking back, I wish I’d paid more attention) but I sure do remember the reading.
One of my writing friends said that a beach read “provides a certain amount of mental stimulation—without the need to work those brain muscles too hard—is a perfect beach book for me. I don’t mind something historical or literary, but if the prose is dense, the plot hard to follow or the ideas too complex, I’ll roll over and take a nap.” A fellow editor described his idea of a beach read as “a brunch of a book instead of a formal dinner.” My college professor friend, prone to reading philosophy and history during the school year, dives into anything “trashy and dreamy” on vacation. A fellow book reviewer noted her favorite beach book as All the President’s Men, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. She acknowledged that this book broke all her rules of a beach read “except one. It was a paperback.” She read it in 1977 while “poolside overlooking the ocean in La Parguera, Puerto Rico.”
As for me, I echo my friend Ruth’s idea of reading on vacation. She wants “a vast selection of books beside my bed—a pile of 10 to 12—that I can read into the wee hours, not having to get up early.” Now that is my style. The more books the better. I know I won’t read them all, but I love having them near me. I love knowing that there are no deadlines, no work crises and that I can read whatever I want—without embarrassment, with abandon.
It is that sense of abandonment that I believe is at the heart of the beach read. The titles may change, but the sentiment is the same. So here is a list of recommended beach reads that I collected from folks all across the United States:
- The Outlander (and the rest of the series) by Diana Gabaldon
- Anything by Dick Frances or Carl Hiaasen
- Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (this was listed both as an all-time favorite beach read,
and the exact type of book someone else said they wouldn’t read on vacation) - Amethyst Dreams by Phyllis A. Whitney (yes, this is my recommendation)
- The Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
- Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
- Digging to America by Anne Tyler
- One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
- Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
May you find something to add to your list. May you read without embarrassment and with complete abandon.
Happy summer reading!
Julie McGuire, fiction editor of The Internet Review of Books, is a paralegal. Her personal essays and poems have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and several small periodicals. She and her family live in Virginia.
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