Albert Einstein famously said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
But Associate Editor Julie McGuire's featured essay in the current issue of The Internet Review of Books comes at a great time: at the apex of the summer season.
Julie notes "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."
Funnily enough, Julie's take on the subject came at the same time Janet Maslin tackled beach reads for The New York Times with an essay titled "On the Beach, Under a Tiffany-Blue Sky."
A few of Maslin's recommendations?
- All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown
- Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag by Michael Tonello
- The Day I Ate Whatever I wanted: and Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg
But, personally, I'd start with Julie's list. Hey, Julie actually went to the beach!
- 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
Click on the logo to read all of Volume One, Number Ten of The Internet Review of Books.
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