I possess a book on reading at the beach. How to Read a North Carolina Beach* is one of those few books you need a beach to enjoy fully, one that prompts you to verify its contents by actually walking on the beach!
The notion of reading at the beach began in the latter nineteenth century with the rise of summer vacations (not necessarily all at the beach) and this leisure time to read was promoted by the publishing industry producing entertaining, light, or fun works of literature. Thus, “beach read” eventually rose as a pejorative phrase in the 1990s centered on best-sellers.
While visiting my grandmother during summers growing up, I remember that after lunch our cousins and my siblings had to wait an hour before we could go swimming in Long Island Sound. We were encouraged to rest on our beds and read. But I also remember at home my older brother would spend a perfectly pleasant Saturday afternoon inside reading while I wanted to explore the woods or creek. Doesn’t every boy need a creek?
For some people today, this idea of a beach read may allow a sneak read of a trashy romance that they would not admit to at home or office, let alone display on the coffee table. Or, on the other hand, beach reading might be when others tackle lengthy tomes of fiction sans Max Perkins’s editing or the classics like War and Peace, Moby Dick, Bleak House or the recent object genre of Mark Kurlansky: Cod, Salt, and Paper.** These approaches require an extraction from distraction.
Is it sad that we rent a pastel colored mansion perhaps hundreds of miles away from apartment or house to achieve a sunburn read, a sand-itchy read, a smelly wrack line read? Maybe the tradition takes advantage of the fact that babies need naps, teenagers their ice cream, uncles their fishing pier or aunts their shell collecting. The peace and quiet might just be worth the week’s rent.
Instead of suggesting up-to-the-minute best sellers, my purpose here is to list a few books as post-beach reading though not necessarily tailored for the back-to-school season. Though one thinks of crisp and colorful autumn days, what do you do on those clammy, rainy, gray, chilly afternoons of the turning season? Will you allow the anticipation of year-end holidays to distract? Maybe by reading these you will know the perfect gift for an uncle, son-in-law, a sister, a colleague.
I have a stack of books waiting patiently to have their spines cracked, their pages turned, or the time it takes to travel cover to cover. I can’t say these titles indicate a wide ranging eclecticism, but simply a few that the inquisitive might enjoy. Several are re-reads which inform our thinking about current events.
The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginning of England, 400-1066 by Marc Morris.
Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie.
Profiles in Courage (fiftieth Anniversary Edition) by John F. Kennedy.
Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes.
Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf.
Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor by Donald J. Robertson.
The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester.
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters.
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller.
So be not afraid, snuggle up, throw another log on the fire (or turn up the thermostat.) One comfort in this distinctly uncomfortable world is a good book. Read them while you can.
* How to Read a North Carolina Beach: Bubble Holes, Barking Sands, and Ripple Runnels by Orrin H. Pilkey, Tracy Monegan Rice, and William J. Neil. (2004)
** Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. (1997).
Salt: A World History. (2002).
Paper: Paging through History. (2016).
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