We're passionate about beach reads. Or, more specifically, we're passionate about the act of reading on the beach. The act symbolises a pause from the hustle of life. It's you declaring to the world: For the next hour (or, in my case, five hours), it's going to be me, the sun, the sand, and this story.
Vacation offers the opportunity to slow down from obligations and catch up on other important facets of life — build relationships, have adventures, and yes, read those books you've been meaning to read. That's why choosing the a beach read you're excited about is crucial. When else will you have this chance to sit and really delve into a story?
This brings us to the eternal issue: How do choose what to read next? A new batch of incredible books comes out each week, but some of the best-ever beach reads have existed for more than 100 years. These are our picks for the iconic, "bucket list" beach reads — the kind of books you can cross off your list once you're done and feel just a bit more accomplished.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (1934)
In 2006, we got snakes on a plane. But back in 1934, we had murderers on a train. Agatha Christie's iconic mystery looks at what unfolds after an unsavoury man is murdered by a fellow passenger on the Orient Express. Luckily, Detective Hercule Poirot happens to be there. And Poirot thought he was on the Orient Express for vacation! If the ending of Murder on the Orient Express has been spoiled for you by the movie, check out Christie's Crooked House and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier(1938)
Rebecca may be 80 years old, but it remains the ultimate gloomy psychological thriller to this day. While on vacation in Monte Carlo, our unnamed narrator meets and marries Max de Winter, an older man. He takes her to his estate, Manderley, where the ghost of his dead wife, Rebecca, lingers on the lips of everyone who knew her. Our narrator will never measure up.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck(1952)
If you watch Westworld and were confused by Ford's mention of the word "timshel," read East of Eden for clarification. The word, which translates to "thou mayest," is the crux of John Steinbeck's incredible East of Eden, an ambitious book about two sets of fathers and sons in the Salinas Valley of California. It's an essential American read. It's also a total page-turner — don't let the moniker "classic" dissuade you from reading this uplifting, important book.
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith(1955)
All — and I repeat, all — psychological thrillers featuring charming, almost likeable psychopaths narrators stem from Highsmith's masterpiece. Tom Ripley is sent on a mission to Italy to bring Dickie Greenleaf back to his family. Instead, Tom finds that he rather likes Dickie's easy lifestyle. He'd quite like to have it himself.
Kindred by Octavia Butler(1979)
In the year 1976, Dana is a Black woman living with her new white husband in her home in California. Suddenly, she's pulled back in time to a plantation in the antebellum South. Before she has time to process anything, she sees a man drowning, and saves him. While Dana returns back to California (and her timeline) after the incident, for some mysterious reason, she keeps being pulled back to this hostile environment. Butler masterfully uses a science fiction plot device to talk about slavery, sexism, racism, and America. Kindred should be required reading in every high school classroom; if you didn't read it then, read it now.
Little, Big by John Crowley (1981)
Little, Big is a cult classic with all the elements of a compelling read: a huge and slightly magical house, a huge and very magical family, and fairies. Smoky Barnable is a young man who travels from the City to Edgewood, a place on the borderlands of our world and another realm. He marries a woman named Daily Alice Drinkwater, and so our story about love and destiny begins. Little, Big is a magical book that defies explanation, and should be experienced rather than described.
The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende(1985)
Allende's magical realism masterpiece tracks four generations of the Trueba family in an unnamed South American country, and especially focuses on the family's women. Allende's characters are truly singular. Who could forget Rosa's green hair and yellow eyes, or Clara's clairvoyance?
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)
Amy Tan's sweeping multigenerational epic tells the stories of four sets of mothers and daughters, each grappling with the same divide between immigrant and first-generation. The mothers all came from China; the daughters all grew up in California. Tan describes their unique stories and their unique (and long-awaited) emotional breakthroughs. I cry just thinking about this book.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn(1989)
The Binewskis are a family of human oddities traveling across the country in a famous sideshow. And the Binewskis have a secret. They've used a combination of amphetamine, arsenic, and chemicals to ensure their children are deformed in a way that sells — for example, Arturo the Aquaboy has flippers instead of limbs, Iphy and Elly are conjoined twins. Geek Love is a twisted twist on the family story. Any American Horror Story fan will love it.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt(1992)
After transferring to a small New England college, Richard is pulled into his Latin class's strange clique led by their eccentric classics professor. The six students believe themselves superior to the rest of campus — and superior to conventional notions of morality, too. Tartt's vivid characters will imprint themselves on your mind; you'll be casting the movie version of this book everywhere you go.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy(1997)
Seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel's lives are changed when their cousin, Sophie, visits their family in India, and events veer toward tragedy. Estha and Rahel communicate in an innovative language of their own making, which is a joy to read and figure out.
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding(1996)
You know the rom-com, but do you know the singular voice that Helen Fielding first brought to life in her 2001 novel? This hilarious book encapsulates all that makes Bridget Jones unforgettable.
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume(1998)
My coworker called this the best summer read ever, and it's easy to see why — Summer Sisters is about an enduring friendship set on Martha's Vineyard. In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard makes the fateful decision of becoming friends with the reckless and entrancing Caitlin Somers. Years later, when Caitlin invites Victoria to her wedding, Victoria is forced to confront what caused the rupture in their friendship.
Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem (2003)
The upcoming movie Sorry to Bother You may be set in an off-kilter, futuristic Oakland, but this Lethem book did it first. In the Oakland in Gun, With Occasional Music, the police measure citizens' karma levels, and animals are full-fledged members of society. Among this, Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf is an investigator solving the mystery of a dead doctor. A fellow Refinery29er said she read this hardboiled mystery over the course of a day at the beach.
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood(2003)
As you know from The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood is the queen of dystopias. Oryx and Crake is the first of Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy, which looks at a futuristic world on the brink of environmental collapse. Oryx and Crake is narrated by Snowman, who now lives in a post-apocalyptic world and may be the last human on earth.
How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan (2004)
Stella does it all. She's a 42-year-old successful investment banker with an 11-year-old son, and has everything perfectly in place. Then, Stella takes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Jamaica and meets a younger man who makes her reconsider her fast-paced way of life.
The Island by Victoria Hislop(2005)
Off the coast of Crete is a tiny island. By the time Elena Petrakis visits, it's abandoned. But years earlier, when her ancestors lived there, the island had been a leper colony — and, as she'll learn on her trip, her family has a major connection to this (very real) place, Spinalonga.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides(2002)
Mdidlesex is a modern Greek epic that tracks the Stephanides family's journey from Asia Minor to Detroit, and eventually how that journey produced Cal Stephanides, the self-described "most famous hermaphrodite in history."
How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez (2010)
As girls, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía Garcia must flee the Dominican Republic because of their father's involvement in a political coup. They end up in New York in 1960, where they are forever straddling two worlds.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn(2012)
Gone Girl is a good book, but you probably know that already. Flynn's third novel about a couple's secrets was an absolute cultural sensation, and it's not too late to figure out why Amy Dunne is literature's best modern antiheroine.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed(2012)
In this memoir, Cheryl Strayed recalls her journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail of the United States at the lowest point in her personal life. If you've already read Wild, check out Tara Westover's Educated, published this year.
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (2012)
This delectable book shuttles between modern Hollywood and a quaint coastal resort in Italy's Cinque Terre. While the novel spans 50 years and multiple geographic locations, the locus of the action is the almost love affair between a innkeeper and the American starlet who stayed at his hotel.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson(2013)
Ursula Todd dies. And then, again and again, she comes back to life. In this compelling and complex book, Atkinson invents a narrator who's forced to relive her timeline in mid-century England until she "gets it right." Ursula lives (and dies) through some of the most dramatic portions of 20th century history, including WWII.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan(2013)
You might want to bring Kevin Kwan's entire trilogy about the uber-rich of Singapore — that's how addictive these books are — to the beach. The action in Crazy Rich Asians is set off when Rachel Chu is invited to Singapore to meet her boyfriend, Nick Young's, family, and discovers what he really is. In addition to being a kind and dreamy professor, Nick Young is crazy rich.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
Who would've though the end of the world could be so lyrical? Mandel's soaring novel uses multiple perspectives to track a global pandemic and its aftermath. We meet a doctor in hiding, a cartoonist on vacation, and a Shakespeare troupe performing for communities of survivors, among others.
The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (2015)
This is the perfect beach read for people who are obsessed with the Royal Wedding and Meghan Markle. In The Royal We, an American woman marries a British prince. Check out more royal-centric reads here.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)
Cora is a slave who dreams of escape. When she meets another slave who shares the same fire and bravery, she decides to run away just like her mother had. In this version of American history, however, the Underground Railroad is a physical train that runs beneath state lines, transporting fugitive slaves to mysterious locations around the country. Cora boards a train north. Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning book is a fascinating reimagining of American history; the TV adaptation is forthcoming.
Swing Time by Zadie Smith(2016)
On her first day of dance class, our unnamed narrator meets Tracy, the only other Black girl in the room. Tracy would go on to become her best friend throughout her 20s, and an incredibly successful dancer. Though Tracy's career takes off, our narrator's doesn't. She becomes the assistant to a pop singer and follows her own path, but is forever tethered to Tracy.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
The Best New Books Out This July
Florence Welch On Ghosts, Selfies & Her Own Brand Of 'Useless Magic'