It's that time of year when I'm trying to plan out my summer trips. And one of the reasons I enjoy summer vacation is because it's the time that I power through an obscene amount of books. (A good beach read to me is a book that doesn't require a lot of brain power and will not make me overly sad or mad.)
So in the spirit of upcoming summer vacations, below is a list of books that I have on my list to read and seem like some solid beach reads....
Abbreviated Amazon.com Review
Beginning, appropriately enough, on New Year's Day with a divine luncheon in a quaint restaurant, Mayle sets the scene and pits his British sensibilities against it. "We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers," he writes, "looked with an addict's longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window." He describes in loving detail the charming, 200-year-old farmhouse at the base of the Lubéron Mountains, its thick stone walls and well-tended vines, its wine cave and wells, its shade trees and swimming pool--its lack of central heating.
Indeed, not 10 pages into the book, reality comes crashing into conflict with the idyll when the Mistral, that frigid wind that ravages the Rhône valley in winter, cracks the pipes, rips tiles from the roof, and tears a window from its hinges. And that's just January.
In prose that skips along lightly, Mayle records the highlights of each month, from the aberration of snow in February and the algae-filled swimming pool of March through the tourist invasions and unpredictable renovations of the summer months to a quiet Christmas alone. Throughout the book, he paints colorful portraits of his neighbors, the Provençaux grocers and butchers and farmers who amuse, confuse, and befuddle him at every turn. A Year in Provence is part memoir, part homeowner's manual, part travelogue, and all charming fun.
A good friend of mine recommended this book (and author) to me. It sounds reminiscent of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun (also a book...which I haven't read). I really enjoy books like this because they usually transport you somewhere really lovely and inspire you to travel and take the reins on those impossible-seeming dreams.
Publishers Weekly Summary
It's small town, big drama in Schaffert's sublime latest (after Devils in the Sugar Shop) as Essie Myles, an 83-year-old widowed obituary writer for a small Nebraska newspaper stumbles onto the story of her life.
The paper's printing press has been working double-time since a New York publisher contracted it to print part of the print run for the final installment of a wildly popular YA novel series—part of a plan to keep the book's contents under wraps—and Essie kicks into high gear as well when she gets a tip from a local that her daughter, Lenore, has been abducted by her photographer boyfriend. But the more Essie digs, it becomes less evident whether the tale is true or the concoction of a lonely woman desperate for attention. Meanwhile, parts of the YA novel are leaked, the missing person story blows up, and the once quiet town suddenly finds itself on the national stage.
Schaffert spins out the story and its offbeat characters with compassion, spoofing the nation's voracious appetite for "news" and suggesting that perhaps not all stories are created equal. Piercing observations and sharp, subtle wit make this a standout.
This sounds like something with a little more substance to break up the steady stream of trash books that I like to read.
20 Times a Lady by Karyn BosnakAbbreviated back of book summary:
Delilah Darling is 29 and single. Her younger sister Daisy is getting married, her mother is driving her crazy, her grandpa has gone all Las Vegas on her and she has just lost her job. But all these things Delilah can handle. The thing that really throws her world into a spin is when she reads a New York Post survey that announces the average person has 10.5 sexual partners in their life. Delilah has slept with 20 different men. Does this make her a high achiever or something else?
Self help book junkie Delilah needs to find out if the number of lovers she has had is a direct result of the way her life is panning out. To answer these questions, Delilah decides on a crazy scheme to track down her ex-boyfriends to see if one of them is indeed the one for her. Her quest sends her on a madcap road trip across America, with her dog Eva Gabor, to scope out what happened to her ex-lovers. What she finds makes her question her past as none of these men are normal. In fact they are plain weird. From Amway salesmen to Muppeteers to jailbirds, Delilah will stop at nothing to work out if 20 is too much. Along the way she begins to seriously question her choices. Did she have something to do with how these men turned out?
This sounds right up my alley as a solid chick-lit book to submerse myself in for a couple of days. It's not anything that's going to make me think a lot and there's a good chance that I'll finish it and proclaim "that's a cute book!" and recommend it to other girlfriends for their vacations.
TIDBIT: Just found out that they're making a movie out of this!
Back of book summary:
It’s the beginning of summer in North Hampton, and beautiful Freya Beauchamp is celebrating her engagement to wealthy Bran Gardiner, the heir to fair Haven and Gardiners Island. But Freya is drawn to Bran’s gorgeous but unreliable brother Killian, and sparks fly when the two decide to play a dangerous game, following an ancient story of love, betrayal and tragedy that harks back to the days of Valhalla.
Witches of East end follows the Beauchamp family—the formidable matriarch Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid. Freya, a sexy bartender, has a potion to cure every kind of heartache, while Ingrid, the local librarian, solves complicated domestic problems with her ability to tie magical knots. Joanna is the witch to see when modern medicine has no more answers; her powers can wake the dead. Everything seems to be going smoothly until a young girl, Molly Lancaster, goes missing after taking one of Freya’s irresistible cocktails. As more of the town’s residents begin disappearing, everyone seems to have the same suspects in mind: the Beauchamp women.
The book is written by a well-known YA author (of the Blue Bloods series...I haven't read). It's being released on June 21. I love a good paranormal romance book and it's also the first in a series of books...so this is perfect for me. I looked up early release reviews of the book and the reviews have been run of the mill. Apparently this reads very much like a prequel. As in, the majority of the book is setting the stage and the last portion of the book is when we finally start to get somewhere. But I think I can get over that and hunker down with it on a lounge chair somewhere.
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