What makes for a great summer beach read? That depends on what you are looking for from your summer reading experience. Are you searching for escape, adventure, laughter… relaxation?
I like a book to transport me to another place and time and I like to do that through literary fiction. Alan Bradley’s A Red Herring without Mustard fits the bill. Set in the English countryside circa 1950, it’s the third installment in the “Flavia de Luce” series.
I can’t describe it any better than Borders does: “Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey—mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard.” In one word, Flavia is a delight!
This book could stand alone but I would recommend starting with the first in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. How a middle-aged man who has never lived in England could write this series is a marvel!
What’s your idea of a great summer beach read? We’d love your recom-mendations — this is the time of year when people are always asking us for good vacation books!
Posted by MSL Adult Services Librarian Cindy Waters
I just read “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett. This novel takes place in the Amazon. A little bit of science mixed in with lots of adventure. The characters are believable and there is a twist at the end. This book might not be your typical beach read, but you will truly be transported to an exotic locale.
I am a big fan of Ann Patchett. “Bel Canto” is among my favorites books of all time. That novel dealt with opera and intrigue in an exotic locale. “State of Wonder” sounds equally fascinating. I have the audiobook in my pocketbook and can’t wait to start it!
“Sister,” by Rosamund Lupton, is a great new summer read. It’s an engrossing story told from the point of view of Beatrice, a young English woman who is a successful commercial art designer in New York. As the book begins, Beatrice hears that Tess, her free-wheeling, artist sister, is missing in London. Beatrice dismisses the official explanation and decides to find out for herself what happened. This novel is a very powerful, convincing, account of a relationship between sisters as well as of grief and its after-effects. It’s mostly told in the form of an internal letter from one sister to the other. There’s also a moving subplot about the redemption of another relationship – that of a mother and her daughter.