10 anti-beach reads
Emily Henry, to the back please—weirdos, divas, and goblins to the front
There's nothing wrong with a classic beach read—hell, I just finished Fever Dream by Elsie Silver, and am a longstanding Emily Henry stan. However, by July, sometimes even the most Elin Hildebrand-ed brained of us need a reset button.
Hence, 10 anti beach reads: a niche selection of things to read on the shore for everyone from the environmentalist to the corporate goblin in your life.
This is part of a new series for monthly for paid subscribers, where I recommend a set of 10 books that somehow evoke the month or season in my eyes (for August, I’m already chewing on 10 books that embody the bittersweet end of summer).
What are you reading, beachside or otherwise, this summer?
A beach read for environmentalists
Is a River Alive? | Robert MacFarlane
Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.
Robert MacFarlane is one of the rare writers that captures both the beauty and wonder of the natural world and the threats it faces. However, he does so with such a tender, almost loving hope. Journeying through Ecuador, India, and Canada, along the rivers and with the people of each, takes readers across the globe and into environments scarcely comprehensible.
A lot of nonfiction books centered on the environment will break your heart on the beach, but Is a River Alive? will remind you there’s much still to fight for.
A beach read for the autumn girl trapped in summer
The Summer Book | Tove Jansson
An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Here, a fierce yet understated love emerges—one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty morning hours of May 2, 1981. Berendt interweaves a first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
I should have known I wouldn’t be able to pick just one book across at least a few of these categories, but here, allow me to defend myself—there’s more than one type of autumn girl.
For someone that enjoys the coziness found inside: ciders and crackling fires and puzzles and looking out at the world as the leaves change, there’s The Summer Book. As the name suggests, if you can believe it, it is set in the summertime but it captures that sort of insular feeling by being set on an island, as well as the warmth, loyalty, and complexities that come with family.
For someone who loves autumn for all the spookiness it brings and the mystery it tempts out of everyone, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is the bet. The heat and slow creep of Savannah itself projects this nonfiction along, as do the dizzying array of characters the reader meets as we seek to uncover the whodunnit of it all.
