Beach Bag Books for Old Farts

It’s that time again when AARP makes a few suggests for adult summer reading. I suppose that the designation of “beach reads” allows for a tendency to suggest breezy popular fare but I can reasonably predict that I will not be reading any of these titles this summer. In New Jersey we rented a house at the Shore every year and three families (or so) spent a week or two toasting in the sun, overeating, and trying to read while the swim suits got smaller and smaller on the women and girls cavorting in the surf (so distracting). For me this was a chance to read some of those truly fat and difficult books that otherwise would gather dust on my shelves year after year. For some reason I tended to go for the Russian authors.

I know I read these titles while laying on the beach in the hot sun:

1. War and Peace
2. The Magic Mountain
3. Anna Karenina
4. For Whom the Bells Tolls
5. The Alexandria Quartet
6. The Snopes Trilogy
7. Underworld
8. The Brothers Karamazov
9. The Idiot
10. Gravity’s Rainbow
11. Queen Margot
12. Twenty Years After

There were assuredly many other titles, but the question is: are they beach reads because I read them at the beach? Somehow I think the term “beach reads” suggests a book you can read wearing sunglasses and a silly hat, that doesn’t tax your mind, and has thick pages perfect for soaking up tanning lotion.

Here are the suggestions from AARP:

1. Save the Date by Mary Kay Andrews
2. The Bees by Laline Paull
3. The Hidden Child by Camilla Läckberg
4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
5. Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
6. China Dolls by Lisa See
7. We Are Called To Rise by Laura McBride
8. The Bourne Ascendancy by Eric Van Lustbader
9. The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
10. Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce by Sylvia Jukes Morris
11. Cop Town by Karin Slaughter
12. The City by Dean Koontz
13. Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman
14. The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
15. Wars of the Roses: Stormbird by Conn Iggulden
16. Angels Make Their Hope Here by Breena Clarke
17. In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
18. Np Safe House by Linwood Barclay
19. Love Letters by Debbie Macomber
20. Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough
21. I’ll Be Back Right After This by Pat O’Brien

Excited? Overwhelmed?  Well, at least none of these titles will require you to put in your teeth before reading them.