I’m heading off Friday for the Pundits annual pilmagrage to Hilton Head, SC. I plan on plopping my body on a fluffy towel and reading many books on the beach.
Any good beach novel recommendations?
By this, I mean something that is not heavy. No War & Peace, though a good mystery would be okay. It must be something I can put down and pick up multiple times in case the children are being attacked by a shark or something. Last year I re-read the entire Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich, but I don’t know where to turn next.
If nonfiction is eligible – Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods – ridiculously funny. One summer I took it to the beach, and it got passed around to at least four other people in the house before the week was out.
The Secret History - can’t remember the author, but it was a mystery/thriller about genius misfit university students, couldn’t put it down.
If you’re into light fantasy, Diana Wynne Jones’s Castle in the Air, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Dark Lord of Derkholm and The Year of the Griffith are all great.
Oh yeah, A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing! Just read it. Funny coming-of-age girl novel.
Right now I’m reading The Informant by Kurt Eichanwald.
It’s about the ADM price-fixing scandal in the 1990s. That sounds like dry-stuff for beach-reading, but I’m telling you. . .it reads like a Tom Clancy novel. It’s got wire-taps and lies and double-crosses and money and the FBI. I got it when I was looking for Eichenwald’s new book about the Enron collapse – “Cpnspiracy of Fools” – and saw it sitting next to it on the shelf.
It’s the most enjoyable book I’ve read in a long time.
