Beach Reading

July is in full swing, and many people are heading to the beach or pool. Do you like to read by the water, Thingamabrarians? What do you consider good "beach (or pool) reading?"

https://www.librarything.com/tag/beach%20read

A book that's small enough to fit in my bag.

Well seeing that I can read on the dock out back, and often do, it isn't exactly a beach, but it is a river full of distractions (and friends with boats). So I need something I can socket into really hard so that it stays in my head. Nothing too cerebral, but there has to be a really good hook for my imagination to stay engaged.

I like books that when my gaze turns to the clouds or water, I have something to think about and savor.

If on a winter's night a traveler was an excellent read while floating in the pool one vacation.

Another summer, L. M. Montgomery was my pool companion. That was shortly after i got a water-safe kindle, a wonderful thing! i no longer had to keep to the side of the pool. :)

When I was able to, I used to enjoy biking up to the river with a book and snack, and stopping at a dock to read a bit before heading home. It was mostly an excuse to sit riverside and enjoy the view, if I'm honest, and I read (or "read") all sorts of things. That was a different mode than pool reading.

>2 lilithcat: Yes! Exactly that! Thank you.

Sitting in the comfy chair in my back garden with a book and icewater (or hot tea) is just about my favourite summer thing. The closest thing I have to water are my two bird baths. I like watching the flowers and the various pollinators, a

I read the same kinds of things in summer as the rest of the year.

Summer is actually the best time to read something deep and difficult, I can pay more attention.

I prefer to read things that are in keeping with the emotional uplift that summer is, lasting in Texas April through September. Interesting nonfiction to ponder, minor lofi adventures, quirky short story collections. Anything that is not depressing.

In fact, Summer reading is getting to be my preferred reading style all year long. :)

I find it hard to focus on the beach itself—I just want to stare at the waves. Poetry is the thing that suits me best on the beach.

>9 Charon07: I just gotta ❤️ that.

I’ve never got the “sitting on the beach” thing — I go to the beach to walk, usually in winter when it’s good and stormy and not so unpleasantly hot. If the wind isn’t howling too much I might listen to an audiobook.

>11 thorold: Pitifully, it's been ages since I've been to the beach but when I lived near the sea, I loved winter walks (sans book), too. Living in West Texas now, I am distinctly not enamored with outdoor sweaty summer reading. So all the advertising hoopla about Beach Reads doesn't make a dent in my consumerism.

Autumn, sweet Autumn, now that's a different story....and different books ;)

I think the weather will probably impact my reading choice for the "beach".
Walk Through Fire, The Big Burn, The Hinckley Fire, Firestorm at Peshtigo , Under a Flaming Sky and others in a similar vein will probably be my first choice. :-)

>13 alco261: I recommend The Burning Earth: an environmental history of the last 500 years / Sunil Amrith.