Summer Beach Reads

              If I do a Google search for beach reads of 2021, I get many hits. Publications ranging from to Harper's Bazar to Good Housekeeping to Business Insider have articles on beach reads because it seems no matter what your reading tastes are, this is a topic that blogs and magazines know is a hot topic to cover for the summer.

              This year, I could not help but research what exactly a “beach read” is. According to an excellent article in The Guardian, it emerged in the 1990s in trade book publications for summer releases and since then has emerged as a way to be marketing books that are released around the summer season.

              However, it is not a new concept. In 1939 when the mass market paperback was introduced it not only made paperback books more affordable for the average person, it also opened up more possibilities on the places people were able to read as well. This made it easier to bring a book to read to a wide variety of places.

              The type of literature that is considered a beach read is up for debate. However, according to a 2020 article in Book Riot there are elements of a story that can deem it a beach read.  They have summer settings such as Brenda Novak’s recently released Bookstore on the Beach.  Or they have elements of romance like Casey Mcquiston’s One Last Stop. The characters in beach reads often have low stakes involved, for example the characters are wealthy like in  The Hunting Wives (disclaimer: I haven’t read this one yet) or there are low stakes involved for the characters.  These are things that are easy to distinguish.

              But then some of the things that are mentioned in the Book Riot article are that they are compulsively readable and are fun to read.  What one person might consider fun another person might not find as enjoyable. For example, my mother loves reading historical fiction while I can’t get enough stories about haunted houses. It is likely that what characterizes a beach read is debatable because people have different tastes.

              However, everywhere I have looked the consensus is that a beach read would be considered a light and escapist read. As a result, reading a Stephen King book a would not be deemed as a beach read because they are definitely not light reads. Nor would a book that is exposing the dark history of multilevel marketing companies would definitely not be considered a beach read either as it would be considered too academic.  By this definition, the majority of my bookshelf would not be considered beach reads as it is full of horror novels and women's studies books. My guilty pleasure of Harlequin romance novels would likely fit the bill but it is not the genre I usually turn to first.

           Regardless of whether or not my reading tastes lean towards conventional beach reads, my favorite place to read is in the pool area of my apartment. In my last blog post I mentioned that I do acknowledge that I read more than the average person does so whatever I am reading turns out to be what I deem to be the beach read of the day.  This is why the concept of the beach read was one that fascinated me.

           But regardless of what anyone chooses to read in the summer, the danger of reading by the water is the possibility of getting the book wet.  All you would have to do would be to follow the steps that are outlined in Book Riot’s How to Save a Wet Book to fix the damage!  I have needed to deal with this with this on more than one occasion since I find reading by the water to be a luxurious experience. It has become one of my (many) excuses for owning books because then I do not feel guilty about getting a library book wet! However, the risk does not stop me as I love reading by the water in the hot summer months.