Books

[brigdh]

NPR is holding a poll to find the "100 Best Beach Books Ever". You can vote here for your top 10, but today is the last day for voting.

Here is the list of the 200 finalists. I chose my votes based on 1) I've actually read it, 2) I liked it, and 3) it is a 'beach read'*. My ten were:

Affinity, by Sarah Waters
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostyevsky**
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Lamb by Christopher Moore
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Stand by Stephen King
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

Tell me what you voted for! Tell me what I should have voted for (mostly because I haven't read them, although there are several there that I have in fact read, but loathed).




*Come on, people, why is War and Peace even on this list?

**I know, I know, this seems as bad as War and Peace. But in my defense, I did actually read it on a cruise. Although I read War and Peace in a desert in Syria, so, um, I suppose I should stop complaining about other people's choices.

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Beach Music by Pat Conroy
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

but I have very specific definitions for beach reads: ideally a little to extremely trashy, long, meaty, and absorbing, and available in a single paperback. Bonus points for sensual description of food and drink, and heavy enough to not fly away in a sudden breeze. Also shouldn't involve lots of winter scenes, I find the disconnect bizarrely jarring.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

In my undergrad, they had this 'summer reading program', where they suggested a book or two for all the students to read. It wasn't required, but the school would have the authors come and give talks, and it was supposed to promote community, because you could talk about the book to new people and make friends (totally happened at all the frat parties, really). Anyway, I tell you this because the book my freshman year was 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'.

Also, I own a copy of A Suitable Boy but have not yet gotten around to reading it. Clearly, I should!

(totally happened at all the frat parties, really)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

SARCASM, WILL ROBINSON, SARCASM!!!

Robertson Davies

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

One of the side splittingist funny things I've ever seen on TV(Canadian TV, of course)was Robertson Davies and Margret Atwood singing a duet to the tune of Anything You Can Do,I Can Do Better.
"I can write it quicker/And be even sicker!"

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Stand by Stephen King

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ooo, all good ones.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I would recommend Song of Solomonby Toni Morrison. I selected books that I know I could stand to reread again, and that is one I come back too every so many years/decades(it came out in 1972, which was a pretty good year all things considered.)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I tell a lie, it was 1977, which was just a horrendous year, all things considered.
The Internet is good for catching the mistakes of scholarship!
If not life.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, cool. I've read Beloved, by the same author, and didn't much like it, which is why I haven't read anything else by her. But I know everyone seems to adore her, so I really should try again, I suppose. Thanks for the rec!

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't think that I've ever read Beloved.
I don't think I'd risk it as a beach book, though. Beach books are like bus books;one you decide to haul it along instead of of something else, you're kind of committed. Hence the value of old reliables.
(You took Tolstoy to Syria? Did this plan take you a long time?)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I did take Tolstoy to Syria. The dynamics of archaeological digs (and the rate at which I read) mean that there's a huge balancing act involved in figuring out enough books to last for 10 weeks, when there is extremely little chance of being able to acquire additional books in English once there, while keeping in mind the need to keep the luggage weight under the airline's requirements. Extremely thick books tend to work better than lots of little ones, and extremely thick classic novels are the best, since they are often available in cheap paperback versions at second-hand book stores, making them easy to abandon once I've read them.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the difficulties. I would have begrudged War and Peace the space and weight that could have been some other not War-and-Peace-like book's. But if that was your first time through it,and you knew you wanted to read it at least once someday, it's not a bad choice. Just not mine.
It was easy to come up with just ten books from the NPR list, because each book had to displace some other book I could live without.(I probably wouldn't take ten books to an actual beach, as the nearest ocean is on the other side of the Rockies, so Ocean is a pretty big draw by itself. At my age I'm more likely to have to decide which ten books they'll let me keep in the Home!)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was the first time I read it, and though I liked it much more than I expected to, I'm not sure I would bother again. Vanity Fair, though, I've really been in the mode to reread, so that may be coming with me next dig.

And heh. I always tend to overpack with regards to books, at least if I can manage to do so. It's not unknown for me to bring three books for one afternoon on the beach (and even I don't read that fast!).

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Falgg
Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakamki
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger


Man, now I want to reread all of these books. Also, I've never been quite clear on what constitutes a "beach read."

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ooo, several I haven't read! I will have to check those out. I have to say, everyone but me adores Murakami. I just can't get into him, despite having given him several tries.

But I haven't read Fried Green Tomatoes or Sick Puppy either, so I should check those out! And your others are all ones I like a great deal.

Also, I've never been quite clear on what constitutes a "beach read."

Me neither. I went with books that seem fun, or light-hearted, but a couple of my choices defy even that meaning.

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

Definitely pick up Fried Green Tomatoes. It's a great read.

And, huh, looking at my bookshelf, I seem to have confused Sick Puppy with a different Hiaasen book. So, I actually haven't read that one.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Karamazov is nothing like War & Peace! Much more diverting, and therefore, far better for the beach.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I actually liked War & Peace, but it's not really a beach read. Whereas Karamazov is awesome and funny and enthralling.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Much better for the beach.
Tolstoy not so much. More a bad weather sort of companion, yes?

[iilii.livejournal.com]

Very interesting list! My beach reads (or campsite reads?):

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

What did you try to read by Murakami and not like? Some of his books are definitely better than others.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I read Dance Dance Dance, and I'm certain that I read one other, but I have so completely forgotten the plot that, even with reading the summaries on Wikipedia, I can't remember which one it was. Maybe After the Quake? Or Norwegian Wood? Or South of the Border, West of the Sun?

[iilii.livejournal.com]

I didn't particularly care for Norwegian Wood, though I know it's kind of popular. I love when Murakami is completely off-the-wall and mind-blowing, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is tops for that. Crazy, super creepy. Kafka on the Shore is pretty good for that too--how could you not love the advertising mascots Johnnie Walker and Colonel Sanders being characters in the story?? There are some pretty graphically violent sections to those books, though, and my mom couldn't get through them. I think she liked A Wild Sheep Chase, though. And I actually taught Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World in a class, and I think everyone thought it was pretty entertaining.

Anyway, I think you should give him another try! You've gotta read some of his good stuff! :)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Maybe I just happened to read his not-so-good ones, then! I suppose I should try him again, it really does seem like there must be a reason why everyone adores him.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Catch-22
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Hunt For Red October
The Moonstone
Presumed Innocent
Red Dragon
The Secret History
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Stand

I have to assume that War and Peace is less ponderous in Russian. If so, I can sort of see it as a beach book -- it's long, and stuff happens in it, right? Which is part of the way I define a beach book: it has to have a reasonable number of pages, because what else is there to do at the beach? At the same time, it has to not be so utterly demanding/compelling as not to admit of distractions like staring off into the sea.

Catch-22 works because it's cripplingly funny and can be read in short bursts; also, because it bears re-reading. Most of the others are there because they're long, because they have strong narrative lines and often interesting background information along the way, and because the writing is strong enough not to make your brain hurt (and often considerably better).

I have to assume that War and Peace is less ponderous in Russian

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

All reports indicate not.
Some authors survive translation, some defy it, some few would appear to be improved by it. Tricky.

Examples:Camus isn't funny other than in French.
Molière would be funny translated into Klingon!(I shouldn't suggest things like that in public. Someone would *do* it.)
Some German works are genuinely improved by a translator being forced to impose punctuation upon them.

Re: I have to assume that War and Peace is less ponderous in Russian

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

All reports indicate not.

Then, why, oh Lord? Why??

I mean, I understand about how it tackles Big Ideas and upsets the conventional and sentimental trope about war being heroic and a maker of men, and the epic sweep and all. I would have to understand, because Tolstoy making a point -- at least in English translation -- makes Martin Luther nailing theses to a church door look delicate and oblique. I read along, and somewhere around the third or fourth time he reinforces a point I find myself thinking, Leo, honey, we get it. Okay? You can stop with the giant hammer any time now, really.

But he never does stop. The giant clue hammer comes down over and over and over, and by the time I'm done I need to go and read some Jane Austen just as a corrective, to un-flatten my brain.

Re: I have to assume that War and Peace is less ponderous in Russian

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Tolstoy gets idea. Tolstoy takes idea down to river bank. Tolstoy beats idea to death with rock. R.I.P."War is Bad."

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

You have so many more thrillers on your list than I ever pictured you reading!

Catch-22 is one of the books that everyone loves (including even my vaguely illiterate younger brother), and that I know I need to read, and yet just haven't gotten around to it yet.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Ah, but they're geeky thrillers.

Red October is filled with stuff about submarines and sonar. Presumed Innocent is good on the criminal justice system. All Le Carre's books are strong on the actual operations of British Intelligence during the latter half of the 20th century. The Secret History is what I always think Pamela Dean's Tam Lin should have been, but didn't quite manage: that is, a look at a set of students who're wildly in love with their studies, in an environment that supports it. (For all that no one ever killed anyone at my school -- at least, to my knowledge -- I recognize some aspects of the atmosphere in The Secret History, while Tam Lin was utterly foreign to my own experience.)

The Stand and Dune (which I see I inadvertently left off my list here, although I voted for it) are special cases: both are books that can be read when one is severely sunburned, feverish, and unable to actually leave the hotel room for the beach. If your skin is pale enough, any list of beach books needs to include one or two that are very long, possibly improved by fever, and sufficient page-turners that you won't really mind when you're too sick to sleep, or go outside when that big yellow glowing thing is in the sky, or anything. I have reason to know that both these books qualify.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. The only one I've read myself is Red Dragon, and I agree that it is very good.

both are books that can be read when one is severely sunburned, feverish, and unable to actually leave the hotel room for the beach

Ha! That is so true. One of the books I read when I had pneumonia was an old, abandoned Stephen King paperback (Desperation) I found in a trunk. It was so exactly suited to the situation and my mood that I now wonder at the luck. Well, except for getting pneumonia in the first place.

[catiechu.livejournal.com]

Re: your Kavalier & Clay comment above: SO JEALOUS! I love that novel, *ahem* , but it's so damn long that it couldn't make my list (see reasoning below). Still, I'm pretty calm/reserved/dead/passive by nature, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was one of few reads that provoked *GASP*-ing and laughter of a volume my friends probably found offensive.

Trying to visualize what I have at home, as I'm not actually AT home right now. I'm sure I'll leave out an obvious choice...


Seconding Catch 22
Seconding Cat's Cradle
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Demian by Hermann Hesse
The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
9 -
10 - (slots to be filled when I get home; it's been a long day and I'm brain-dead)


My criteria for "beach book" means something that is on the short side of average, length-wise. Probably because I imagine most of the country doesn't get to spend much time on beaches and so, unless they read like you seem to, would need a book they could finish in a relatively short period of time. :p

As for Murakami... I liked Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and I liked After Dark. But Murakami loves to ramble to the point of absurdity, and, unlike Dumas, never seems to get the hang of doing it well (or at least amusingly), consistently.

All this talk of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency has inspired me to get my hands on the copy. My friend had it in his bookstore, and I actually fell asleep reading it there, somewhere around page fifty or so. Like I said... long day! So tired. x_x

Edit: Now I realize the point was probably to choose books from the list in composing mine... Oh well!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ooo, you have several on your list I haven't heard of before. The Flame Trees of Thika, particularly, is an awesome title. And a friend of mine recommended The Master and Margarita to me a while ago, but I haven't yet gotten around to reading it.

No one seems sure what 'beach read' really means. I went with the sense of fun and engaging, but clearly everyone has their own idea. Which kind of makes it difficult to pick a top 100!

Ah, Murakami. I suppose I'll have to give him one more try. But yeah, I have not previously been into him.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is so good! It's very different from most of what I read; it has this pleasing simplicity to it, very light and fun and sweet. It took me a while to really get into that mode, but I adore it. The HBO series based on the books was also great.

And hee, no worries! You won't be able to vote for some of them, but I like hearing people's titles. And get some sleep!

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Dumas was paid by the sentence, but was serialised in newspapers, which forced him to ramble well.

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Deptford Trilogy - Robertson Davies
The Drifters - James Michener
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
L. A. Confidential - James Ellroy
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Well these are just my favourites (alphabetical) from the list. What makes a 'beach book?' I would read anything at the beach. I remember reading Crime and Punishment (alas absent) and the Harry Potter books at the beach.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

What makes a 'beach book?

It seems to have been pretty much left up to the individual to define, which is odd, because people seem to have opposite definitions of what counts as a 'beach read'. Like, I personally would never consider Les Miserables as a beach read. But I like your list! It has a few new ones to me on it. This is kind of a great way to get recommendations.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

It is! :)