Books |
Beach Reading
By
Published: Jul 08, 2010
Category:
Fiction
In Ye Olde Days, I used to do all my heavy reading in the summer and, if possible, on the beach. This made sense — to me, anyway. Why read deep books on serious subjects when it’s cold and dark and your body is screaming for warmth and light? It’s in the dead of winter when you want comedies, travel books, memoirs of desert life.
So, in Ye Olde Days, you might find The Plague on my summer reading list. (And, indeed, I re-read it the week after Katrina; it was a bookend to the White House disdain for New Orleans.) Or Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell, the first and last book you need to read about genocide. This summer, if it were cooler, I’d suggest you read the eye-opener of the year: Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Or, the ultimate: Proust.
But Ye Olde Days, they’re gone — whatever the explanation for this heat and the doldrums that are its first cousin, serious reading looks like cruel and unusual punishment. You want “heavy” this summer? We’re redefining it to mean thick, as in lots of pages. Thus: Stieg Larsson.
This summer, I’m thinking Reading Lite. An iced drink, (make mine an Arnold Palmer). A cool breeze. A careful application of sunscreen. A thin book, so I can get through it and still grab some zzzs. And make it fiction, so I can experience life through other eyes.
Books like these:
The Alchemist: Every list needs a Spiritual Quest, and this has captivated 30 million readers. To your camel!
A Sport and a Pastime: Rural France in the fall and winter, a rich young American, a willing French lover, and James Salter’s elegant prose.
Spies of the Balkans: Read one Alan Furst novel, you may end up reading them all. Most are set in and around Paris as World War II begins; this moves to the mountains of Greece, with an exceptional hero and a more beautiful woman than usual.
Childhood’s End: Arthur C. Clarke’s masterpiece about kids who are alright, just not like us.
Elective Affinities: In Goethe’s wise and erotic tale, a friend comes to stay with a couple who thought they were happily married.
A Farewell to Arms: Of the Ernest Hemingway novels, this is the one that goes down like cold beer. (Bonus: The Garden of Eden, his “dirty” novel about a honeymoon that goes off the rails.)
Focus: In the heat of a New York summer, just after World War II, a man starts wearing eyeglasses — and is thought to be a Jew.
How I Became a Famous Novelist: A slacker can’t quite cut it in the job market, but he can surely write a bestseller. Majorly funny.
In the Lake of the Woods: Go as far north as you can in Minnesota. And there, in the Boundary Waters, Tim O’Brien spins a chilly mystery.
Identity Theory: South Africa, computers, spycraft — Peter Temple’s novel has it all. (He’s just won Australia’s top literary prize for Truth, if you’re in the mood for a complex police thriller.)
Mildred Pierce: In this Depression-era saga, a divorced woman slaves for success so her daughters can have a better life. But it’s a James M. Cain novel, so the twists are fast and thick…
Shining City: A nice guy in LA inherits a prostitution ring from his brother. Will he? Won’t he? And for how long? Still the funniest book I’ve read in years.
Surrender, Dorothy: When her daughter dies in a car crash at the start of the summer, her mother takes her place in a Hamptons share house.
The Art of Racing in the Rain: I loathe stories with animals. I couldn’t put this down.
The Four Just Men: The author of ‘King Kong’ took on terrorism is this short nail-biter of a thriller. Don’t expect easy, conventional answers.
The Good Earth: Pearl S. Buck’s classic takes you to 19th century China. You won’t want to leave until her characters’ lives are finished.
The Queen’s Gambit: In the ‘Rocky’ of chess, a young orphan has amazing skills — and even bigger problems. You’ll cheer.
The Stories of John Cheever: The world of ‘Mad Men,’ chronicled by a sharp New England eye. Some of these stories evoke New York, others take me right to the Nantucket beach.
