Beach Reads 🏖️
Book recommendations for lazy beach days.
Tale ⛴️
One of my favorite NYC summer escapes is taking the Rockaway Rocket ferry to the beach. The ferry ride is half the fun: Walking to the end of the long wooden pier in Greenpoint, boarding the bobbing boat, enjoying the spray of water on the top deck, and watching the city skyline slowly recede into the horizon.
The other half of the fun is, of course, the beach itself. I love the feeling of sand underfoot, the bright summer sun, and the sound of the lapping waves. But what I love most of all is lounging under a strategically-positioned umbrella, retrieving my (waterproof) e-reader from my tote bag, and diving into the pages of a fun novel.
This month’s book recommendations are quintessential beach reads: Feel-good novels with a brisk plot, likable characters, and a scenic setting. Happy summer!
Tomes 📚
Malibu Rising
This is a perfectly plotted novel about four siblings that unfolds over the course of an eventful night: The end-of-summer party at the family mansion in Malibu. The novel has all the hallmarks of a shallow summer read—the beach setting, the surfer siblings, the festive atmosphere—but it also has deeper undercurrents. The siblings grapple with their family dynamics, their romantic disappointments, and their burdensome fame. Ultimately this novel is more than just a beach read: It’s a poignant coming-of-age novel. And like with most Taylor Jenkins Reid novels, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!
Hotel Pastis
I discovered Peter Mayle when I was enrolled in a travel writing class at university. He was a British adman turned travel writer, who could almost effortlessly capture the essence of a place. Hotel Pastis is one of his many love letters to the Provence region of France. The novel starts off on a semi-autobiographical note with a burnt-out British advertising executive fleeing to France. Implausibly, the erstwhile executive falls in love with a local, becomes the proprietor of a boutique hotel, and thwarts a bank heist. It’s a ridiculously fun ride.
Park Avenue
I paradoxically find it incredibly relaxing to read novels about overworked protagonists. Jia Song is a corporate lawyer at a prestigious law firm who is constantly toiling. Her industriousness has propelled her to nearly the top of the career ladder as a junior partner, but there’s a final rung left to climb: senior partner. A promotion to a senior partner would give Jia a share of the firm’s profits, elevate her status as the youngest senior partner in the firm’s history, and finally allow her to live the life of luxury she’s dreamed of since childhood. Consequently, Jia jumps at the chance to work with the firm’s latest client, the billionaire Park family. Soon Jia finds herself embroiled in a bitter family feud, hopelessly out of her depth, and traveling all over the globe. This novel is an exciting, glamorous, and slightly stressful read. It’s also a book about self-discovery, identity, and the joy and the despair of chasing a dream.
Tidbits 🧩
The summer got off to a busy start for me so I missed a couple of months of posting on Substack. Sorry!
This has also been a big summer for movie releases, and friends have been dragging me to the movie theater more often lately. This has impinged on my reading time.
But I’m planning several beach and pool days in August to catch up on my book backlog!