Best & Worst Beach Reads
I dont agree with the premise of the article in this months Word magazine that we enjoy reading about other people's misery whilst we are lying on the beach. It's an amusing idea for an article but I dont think it's true, do you? I couldn't think of anything worse than attempting some of the books chosen in the article whilst covered in suntan oil. They would put me right off my morning G&T and give me nightmares during the mid-afternoon siesta.
I find that beach reads must be pretty mindless and frothy. As a rule, I struggle to be able to concentrate upon factual works on holiday. My mind, when released from rigours of normal life, heated by the sun & gently doused in alcohol, inclines towards the inconsequential yarn above everything else. I can find myself reading the most terrible pap (books left behind by previous tenants of the rented apartment or purchased by my wife of course); something that I (honestly) dont tend to do the rest of the year.
So let's put our literary cred to one side. What is the book that you have enjoyed reading more than any other on the beach? And equally what book have you read on holiday and been appalled with yourself for doing so?
I offer you:
Book I have enjoyed reading on the beach more than any others:
Timeline by Michael Chrichton
In which our heroes are transported back into 14th century France to explore it and then miss the time machine bus back to 1999. Modern men and women are left to deal with the worst that medieval times can throw at them. Its mind bending, swash-buckling and a breathless read that also gives a really interesting picture of feudal France. I read it in 24 hours and missed the world of the book when I'd finished it. Fabulous.
Book I'm ashamed to have read:
Wicked by Jilly Cooper
Now, unlike most on this website I suspect, I dont mind a bit of Jilly Cooper. Would not dream of reading her at home - but when the sun is too hot to think, its quite nice not having to. With Jilly you know what you are going to get and most of the characters are the same from book to book. Its dreadful but addictive. My horror in this book is that it is based in schools rather than on polo fields. So the characters are all children. The book though is standard Jilly - she has transposed all the normal activity by her adult characters onto these children. These children therefore do all the grown up romping and bedding and quite frankly its more than a little uncomfortable. Cooper then, out of nowhere, manages a finale which ventures clumsily into a child abuse theme. Its astonishingly badly done and in dreadful taste. Jilly is a pretty experienced hack but got this book so wrong. Its 900 pages long, its a car wreck and..........I...finished...it. I am so embarrassed.
What are your best and worst ever beach reads. Be honest!
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Can't think of a worst, but...
I agree, I prefer something light and frothy. PG Wodehouse always fits the bill, and for my forthcoming week in South of France I've got hold of Three Men In A Boat, which I hope will perform similarly well. That ain't gonna last a week, though, so I'll be eyeing further recommendations with interest...
Timeline...
... is the worst book I have ever read. Or at least I thought it was until a freind persuaded me to pick up a John Grisham book, and then I had recalibrate my brain to new levels of awefullness when I accidentally read a Jeffrey Archer novel.
Sorry but I'm a snob when it comes to books, I can't stand mindless paperback pulp. On my recrent holiday I enjoyed Bill Bryson's excellent book on Shakespeare and Kazuo Ishiguro's deeply creepy Never Let Me Go.
My ultimate holiday books have to be Jonathan Franzten's The Corrections, Vikram Seth's An Equal Music, anything by Bill Bryson or Simon Singh, any Flashman book and the finest beach read of them all, Catch 22.
Ahem…
If you're a snob who can't stand paperback pulp, how come you made it through one of the 'worst books' you'd ever read, and also the Grisham and Archer books? Just to check how bad they were?
yup
spot on.
I dont mind a Flashman
or a Bryson myself, but don't get all literary snobby about them - they are just as mid-market as Michael Crichton.
bryson = snobbery?
christ almighty - must have missed that memo; he's pure populist fun!
Might as well out myself as one of those who found Catch 22 boring. I gave up on it after 140 pages, having laughed twice. This was in 1992. Has it gotten any better?
I laughed once
It started on the first page and didn't stop until the end. Apparently there's also some kind of anti war message in there as well but that went over my head.
A couple
Best - "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett; a doorstop of a paperback about the efforts of a mediaeval prior to build a cathedral... intertwined with middle-ages politicking and family feuds etc. Fantastic read for the beach, very absorbing. Read it in Rhodes in 1991, and recently re-read it to prepare myself for the sequel, "World Without End" which is out in paperback this autumn
Worst - "The Engineer in the Garden" by Colin Tudge. Not a bad book as such, but an in-depth exploration of genetics is just WRONG for when you're lying on a beach hungover in Palma Nova :-)
I'm a fast reader so most beach holidays I end up reading my wife's book when she's sunbathing (or more accurately, sleeping. Been through my fair share of Chicklit, Jilly Cooper etc. but by far the worst was Andrew Morton's biography of Diana - bleeeee!
I have just bought "Pillars of the Earth"
It was recommended for just this kind of holiday reading. Its on the runway, ready to go. Great to hear it getting a second vote.
Picked up the Diana booked & felt a bit grubby just holding it. I couldn't get past the picture of Morton on the dust jacket - I just had to put it down. Hats off to you for managing to finish it. That's a big boredom hole needing filling!
Tom Clancy
We stayed at a nice little pension in Greece but I had stupidly forgotten my books! Happily there was a little second hand library in the hall way - unhappily the only book in English was "Executive Orders" by Tom Clancy. The most shameful thing about it was that I got quite into it with nothing to do but chill and wonder if it's time for a beer yet. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone though.
"time for a beer yet"
Don't you mean "ETA for R&R deployment"?
Indeed
All those bloody acronyms - POTUS etc. Dire.
I *love* acronyms!
Particularly TLAs.
Go on then..
TLA stands for?
if you have to ask...
you don't need to know.
*taps side of nose*
that's really annoying.
Thanks
If no-one else will, I will
TLA = Three Letter Acronym.
I went through similar agonies when GLW started getting bandied round on here.
Thank you Paul
..........and what does GLW, mean?
GLW
According to Acronym Finder - http://www.acronymfinder.com/GLW.html - it's one of:
Glasgow Aiport
Gross Laden Weight
Good Lady Wife
My money's on the third...
Scurrilous thought
Glasgow airport might thus become a good byword for GLWs of ample GLW? (As in, she's a bit glasgow airport, that Miss Aday...)
AFZ
I was at a presentation where the salesman started by saying "I'm going to try to keep this an acronym free zone, or an AFZee as we call it". Ho ho.
The DoH
A friend of mine works at the Dept of Health (which used to be the DOH but has become DH since the rise of The Simpsons - can't imagine why!). On his first day in the job he was given a booklet of acronyms and abbreviations that were in use at the time. His favourite was WPB... Anyone?
If you work in IT
You'll know that JFDI is a very popular one.
Don't Panic!!
I have the misfortune of working in IT where we love our TLAs but the fact is we are running out of them. This had led to the introduction of ETLA (or the extended three letter acronym).
carbis bay, cornwall
Best book - Alma Cogan by Gordon Byrne - odd, imagined biography, very well written. I knew nothing about the subject - didn't have to - it could be anyone who had a brief flirtation with fame then drifted away.
Best graphic novel - if you can bear to be seen reading comics for me was DC the New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke - superheroes in the 50s - pure nostalgia, gorgeous stuff. Bright summery artwork throughout.
Worst book - I was Dora Suarez by Derek Raymond - it's not a bad book, it's just horrible - the descriptions of the crime and the self flagellation of the killer are so stomach churning. Made me feel ill.
I've got...
... BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy lined up for my holiday in Italy in a couple of weeks. A friend recommended it. Bit worried though, even the blurb on the back is disturbing! Looks pretty violent.
I read the Bill Clinton autobiography last summer. Well, I half read it. Had to finish it off afterwards at home as its a lenghty read.
Violent?
Oh yes it's violent. I can still recall the first violent incident because it's so unexpected.
Do...
... you think it is as good as all the reviews say it is?
[Just curious, in case I need to make a last minute change].
Blood Meridian
It was the first Cormac McCarthy novel I read and since then I've read pretty much all of them (I've got Suttree but still not read it). So yes, I think it is. You might find his unpunctuated prose style difficult at first. Also the chapter summaries (which only occur in Blood Meridian) as a reference to the likes of Daniel Defoe presumably, can be irritating. I don't mind them, but a friend who read it on my recommendation found them infuriating.
Thanks, Carl...
... looking forward to it.
Bit trashy, but not too dumb, throwaway reads
I’ve very much enjoyed John O’Farrell and Ben Elton novels as trashy, but not too dumb, throwaway reads. Ideal for the beach (not that I really do beaches - prefer to bask on a fell in the Lakes or Scotland).
Ben & Dan
The best trash? I have a soft spot for the early Ben Elton novels: Stark, Gridlock, This Other Eden and Popcorn all helped me pass my time on various beaches quite happily.
The worst? Shooting fish in a barrel time: I read The Da Vinci Code while on holiday once. It was absolute rubbish, but it was all I had.
I'm less adventurous in my
I'm less adventurous in my holiday reading, picking authors I've read before and generally stuff I'm pretty sure I'll like immediately. George Pelecanos always fits the bill.
King Suckerman
The perfect beach novel for the Word massive, I reckon. Imagine the ultimate Tarantino movie if Tarantino movies were actually any good. Pump-action shotguns, obsessive record-rack rearrangers, Steve McQueen cars, low-rent mobsters, blaxploitation drive-ins, basketball sweats. . . and even a proper plot.
It's also one of the few novels to come with its own built-in soundtrack. I see some enterprising soul has actually made a mixtape of songs featured in the book.
Stephen King, Dean Koontz and, lesser so, James Herbert
Used to be my holiday reads. Sadly no longer, as despite continuing output, each have said allthey possibly can, now retreading and recycling the same old themes, making each page up as they go along, guaranteeing increasingly long books with poore and poorer endings.
I think I dropped Stephen King after Dolores Claiborne, which, I am staggered to see, was published in 1992. Prior to that I devoured, with increasing dyspepsia, each and every one, summer by summer.
I think I moved on to Bill Bryson, until he too became dull thru' inflated self-belief in his literary worth.
I now read from a selection of 5 or 6 books chosen the week before any holiday, with new fiction, travel writing and music writing as headings that wil attract. I will scour this blog and list again in August, to catch the recommendations.
It's not the weightiness
but it's ability to engage your mind.
One of my best ever beach reads was "A bright shining lie" by Neil Sheehan. It's a Pulitzer Prize winning recounting of the career of John Paul Vann in the Vietnam war, Ho Chi Minh's attempt to win American backing for his nationalist struggle in the 1940's, giving the background to why the USA could never win the war, the corruption and venality and ultimate failure of the whole enterprise.
Other good beach reads that spring to mind
Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the vanities
George V Higgins - Outlaws
Ian McEwen - Atonement
Stephen Bungay - The most dangerous enemy
Michael Marshall - The Straw Men (and I doff my cap to David Hepworth for recommending it a few years ago)
I'm atonished how heavyweather some of the books are
some of you are clearly not drinking enough on holiday....
I hear you
The beach is for Coppertone, not Atonement.
You wag, Archie
The difference was that Atonement was addictive whereas Coppertone was only necessary.
Oooh!
I have a fairly high toleration factor for crappy books on holiday and the folks nearer the top praising The Pillers Of The Earth are well on the money for holiday reads. Can I recommend two books though?
Valley Of The Dolls - Jacqueline Susann. The first proper bonkbuster and a hell of a lot of fun. Tell yourself it's cultural history and you're fine.
Anything by Karen Marie Moning, esp. The Dark Highlander. An example of what is called time travel romance. Utter crap but hysterically funny. Generally in these books 16th Century Scottish men travel in time, meet modern American women, who they promptly shag but by the end of the book they end up getting taught a certain sensitivity becoming, in the process a fine combination of randy and considerate. The thing is these books are actually supposed to be funny in parts, it's not unintentionally funny all the time. This is why they are actually quite good.
By the way, I'm a bloke.
This is more like it.
I am holidaying in the US of A this year and The Dark Highlander sounds perfect tosh.
and its alright to be a non-lady & like lady books. Honest.
Lady books
"Lady books" are perennially popular with the boys, aren't they?
And Jazz mags appeal....
...outside the genre.
Best reads? For some reason
Best reads? For some reason I took a copy of Adam Thorpe's "Ulverton" to Greece and found its episodic style in different voices was perfectly-paced for leisurely reads between swims. Same author's "No telling" and "1921" were great on non-beach French holidays. Though I've been to Italy but once in the 80s, and hate most crime fiction, I love all the Michael Dibdin Aurelio Zen novels, Donna Leon's Venice-based whodunnits, and Andrea Camilleri's Sicilian mysteries (only just discovered these).
Perhaps I just like things dark and complex, and don't like relaxing.
Worst beach reads? How to choose when there are so many?
From a different perspective, perhaps that copy of the Dice Man returned after it'd been lent to a student acquaintance (later co-founder of Cooking Vinyl record label) and came back dog-eared after an Aegean odyssey. Couldn't help but feel envious....
A couple of drug related memoirs.
I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this i.e. best/worst reads. It's really a couple of recommendations.
James Frey - A Million Little Pieces.
Frey is a 23 year old cocaine/alcohol/pills/glue addict. He's wanted in 3 states(USA)and has almost killed himself in an accident. He lands in a rehab clinic and this is basically the story of his road to recovery. Harrowing but not at all difficult to read!
Rusty Young - Marching Powder
Thomas McFadden is a drugs courier in Bolivia used to bribing officials to get his cocaine out. When the USA crack down on drug trafficking, McFadden is caught and sent to San Pedro jail in La Paz. This jail is completely bizzare compared to what we in the West would call a jail. The prisoners have to pay to get into jail, then they have to buy a jail cell(some take out a mortgage)or sleep outside. Wealthy prisoners have their wives and families living with them inside the jail. There are shops and restaurants inside. There is a cat addicted to cocaine. This is the story of McFaddens time in jail. Like the other book I mentioned, this one can be troubling but it's funny in parts and utterly unbelievable in others. Another fairly easy read.
If Im on the beach , make mine non-fiction
I gobble down thrillers and paperbacks on my to and from work but if I have an endless string of hours on some godforsaken stretch of sand , nothing better than a great big whopping work of non-fiction to stimulate the numbed brain cells.
On my list for the hols
Postwar - Tony Judt. Great big doorstopping tome on the economic,social and political development of post-war Europe.
The Classical World - Robin Lane Fox, one should really brush up on the Greeks and Romans.
Mao, The Unknown Story - Jung Chang/Jon Halliday- because I know bugger all about China.
There, that should fill about 3 weeks.
Big war book
I recommend Hitler's Empire by Mark Mazower. It's all about how they administered their conquered territories during the war. France got to keep a pro-Nazi government of their own, the Dutch were left alone to do what they already doing while in the East law was pretty much abandoned for all non-Germans. Its a solid 700 page book.
Like a bit of non-fiction myself
Last couple of holidays have seen the hungry consumption of Michael Palin's Diaries - Python Years, Christian Wolmars Fire and Steam (history of railways in Britain), California Dreaming by Barney Hoskins and Provided you Dont Kiss Me, the Clough book that won the William Hill prize last year, written by Duncan Hamilton. Recommend them all, particularly the Palin and Hamiltons books.
Used the Damned United (fiction) to wash the Cloughie one down with, absolutely brilliant (as always) by David Peace. Recommend all his fiction.
Going away for a week in August, and fancy the Ronnie Wood book, and hopefully something decent on Gram Parsons. Recommendations anyone?
This escapade of Ronnie's...
... will probably be in the updated edition:
http://home.eircom.net/content/bang/eNews/13255878?view=Standard
The cynic in me
thinks maybe he wanted another chapter to boost sales of the paperback.
Try this
St Agnes Stand by Thomas Eidson. It's a short, heart-stopping novel set in the Old West. A friend recommended it to me a few years ago. I tried it and didn't regret it. And believe me, they'll never film it.
Last summer...
... I needed a distraction from a pretty weighty dissertation, and followed Stuart Maconie's recommendation in Word's Summer Reads feature of a book of Clive James' old TV review columns from the Observer. Long out of print, but I managed to get hold of a copy, and found myself utterly engrossed, so much so that I tracked down the other two volumes. Being too young to remember a lot of the programmes covered within didn't matter, the writing was generally brilliant enough for it not to matter.
I find I'm reading less and less fiction these days, as there's just so much good non-fiction out there, and I love learning new things. On the list for this summer is a biography of Houdini, and Ben Macintyre's 'Agent Zigzag', both of which I'm looking forward to enormously.