Beach Reads

[kathydwells]

Ok, do any of you have any suggestions for some good beach reads? I try to read at least 2 good books while I am down. I have not found any that just jump out at me. Was hoping I might get some good suggestions from you guys.

I bought a book while I was down last year at Sun Dog Books called "The Edge Of The Gulf" by Hadley Hury. It was a great suspense novel. Loosely based on the 30-A area. The Book Jacket says "In his first novel, Hadley Hury paints an evocative picture of the Gulf Coast and a moving portrait of grief and renewal, underpinning the suspsense with reviews of films that eerily mirror the events overtaking his characters".

Good Read!!!!

 

[beachmouse]

"Dream State : Eight Generations of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans, and Other Florida Wildlife" by Diane Roberts. It's both a family history/biography and a history of northern Florida. And laugh out loud funny.

Part of the first chapter is up on amazon.com if you want to read a little bit of it.

 

[Kurt]

http://www.threeartsalliance.com/publications.html

 

[shakennotstirred]

For a good suspense novel, try the Dennis Lehane Kenzie/Genarro series : the first book in the series is "A Drink Before the War" or any of the "Prey" novels by John Sandford. For a nice story: "Big Stone Gap" by Adriana Trigiani.

 

[sunshine]

I'm reading Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen right now. Kind of inspires the vigilante spirit. Great read, hysterical, typical Hiaasen.

A book that I enjoy giving is How to Build a Tin Canoe by Robb White. My husband bought it several years ago at Sundog and it's a delightful collection of autobiographical short stories about growing up in the wilds of Northwest Florida.

 

[Oldtimer]

Try a couple novels written by the southern writer Cassandra King, Sunday Wife (takes place in the panhandle, Seaside & Grayton) and The Same Sweet Girls, released this spring. By the way she is married to the author Pat Conroy. All of his books are good reading, again and again!

 

[kathydwells]

Thank you all for all these suggestions, I will take the list with me to the store tonight!!!

 

[Paula]

Other great beach reads:

Turtle Moon by Belva Plain
Freakonomics (new book about strange statistics about everyday life - I haven't read it but I'll read it on vacation in a few weeks but my friends love it and say it takes only a day or two to read and is fascinating)
The Red Tent (about what the biblical story of Leah would look like if women wrote the first testament from their perspective - many women I know have read it and loved it -- I bought extra copies at garage sales just to give away to people who want a good book)
Memoirs of a Geisha (both men and women would enjoy this book -- I bought extra ones of this, too)

I'm looking forward to reading Freakonomics, the Nanny Diaries, and probably another Belva Plain book over vacation...

 

[Cil]

I have been reading some really good books in recent months.

The title is terrible, but I wholeheartedly recommend The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. One of the cleverest books I've ever read, and it conveyed sincere emotion rather then cheesy sentimentality.
When you read the title, you think, ick, what a tired, science-fictionish formula--but the book is the freshest and best written stuff I'd read in a long time.

Another escapist novel:
The
Ghost Writer. You'll get shivers even if you are sitting on the beach in the sun. If you have ever read old English ghost tales or plowed through Dickens, you will appreciate this book. Similar to A.S. Byatt's "Possession," it takes place in the present day but is interspersed with stories from the past.
I whipped through it in one weekend.

A book which is a true story (and a wacky, witty, almost too clever by half movie) that explores the funkier, seamier side of Florida is The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.

A beach read which would keep you busy awhile is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (he wrote The Virgin Suicides.) When I read Middlesex's plot, I thought Ugh, I don't want to read this. So I put it off. Someone talked me into trying it--I'd liked his first book--and I was really glad I did.

I don't consciously search out "chick lit" (I guess I am too old) but I do enjoy the works of authors Joanne Harris and Tracy Chevalier--but their stuff is less breezy and more concentrated than the average chick lit novel.