Photo: Charlie Fabre
Table of Contents
Sometimes on holiday you want to hike every cliff and you want to traipse through all the museums and you want to see absolutely everything there is to see! But other times, maybe you just want to relax and soak up the sun and the good vibes. If that’s your current mood and you’re planning a little seaside getaway, here are some of the best beach reads to accompany you!
Beach reads to make you fall in love
Few things are better than a little summer romance, and if you’re not experiencing one of your own – read about it! These books will have you kicking your feet in the sand and twirling your beach-waved hair.
1. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
Set along the US’ preppy East Coast, The Summer I Turned Pretty is the quintessential beach read. It’s got a love triangle, country clubs, and a gorgeous family home surrounded by wispy beach grass and dunes. The tension between Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah is tantalizing – you could get through the whole trilogy in one holiday.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is also a TV show, and Jenny Han also wrote the popular Netflix film series (and books) To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
2. Beach Read by Emily Henry
I mean… this is an obvious choice. Emily Henry is the master of the contemporary love story, and any of her books would make the perfect beach read, but Beach Read is perhaps the beachiest read of them all!
Two polar opposite authors spend three months living in neighboring beach houses, trying to fight writers block together. She writes sweet delicate romances, and he writes hard-hitting literature, and over the next three months, they’ll inspire something new in each other…
3. Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
Feel like experiencing some second-chance romance? Enter the – quite literally – steamy atmosphere of a summer in New York, where Eva and Shane reconnect twenty years after a mad week of being in love. Caught in the middle of an important literary event, Shane and Eva need to figure out if they can fall for each other again and push away their past traumas, or not…
7 days, caught in the hum of the bustling city, is all they get. This is the perfect little book to tug at your heart strings on holiday.
4. You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Grief. Forbidden love. Second chances at happiness. And tropical islands and glamorous homes. You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty is as much a love story between two people as it is a love story between a woman and life: remembering what it is to be alive and feel the beating of your own heart! This LGBTQIA+ romance is best savoured under palm trees, so you can more closely feel like our dazzling main character, Feyi.
5. Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
Are you a single 18-35 year old traveller just living your best life and constantly being pestered by family members who want to know when you’re going to settle down? Well, this book is probably the perfect beach read for you. With the approach of her cousin’s wedding and a chorus of her best friends telling her to get over her ex, Yinka is on the lookout for a new man. But really, above all, she’s on the lookout for herself. Just make sure you don’t laugh too loud while reading this so you don’t disturb your fellow sunbathers.
Beach reads to make your heart race
Apparently, good and increased blood flow can help your tan develop faster. So… pick up a thriller and watch as you begin to glow!
1. Kala by Colin Walsh
Set against a small seaside village in rugged Ireland, three old friends meet twenty years after a terrifying summer that forever changed their lives. A forced reunion brings back the past, the way tides bring sunken items ashore, and Helen, Joe, and Mush are forced to reckon with the truth of what really happened – and realise it may be happening again…
Kala is dark and twisty and mysterious, and it’ll have you on the edge of your beach chair the entire time!
2. Butter by Asako Yuzuki
The horror thriller phenomenon of 2024, Butter is the beach read that will grip you from the very start and will refuse to let you go until it’s done. A gourmet chef in Japan is found guilty of the serial murders of lonely business men who she seduced into her web with food. So far she has refused to speak with any press, until one journalist writes to ask about one of her recipes…
What follows is a story of food, seduction, and violence. Here’s the question to ponder for all you foodies out there: are we what we eat?
3. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Another summer read set in New England, We Were Liars brings family drama in a slow unravelling of truth. You’ll be taken to a private island and the distinguished holiday home of a mysterious and wealthy family, seen through the eyes of one brilliant – but sick – girl. The picture starts clear and gets blurrier and blurrier until the final conclusion…
Perfect to read while enjoying a lobster roll!
4. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
If you loved Gone Girl, or just generally like angry women, then Sharp Objects is perfect for you. Camille Preaker is called back to her small home town of Wind Gap, Missouri, where she is tasked to report on the disappearances and murders of two young girls. She stays with her mother, Adora, and Camille must not only deal with the false niceties of the locals she once called neighbors, but also the constant subtle barbs of her mother and the creeping claws of her past.
With the sticky and sweltering backdrop of summer-time Missouri, Sharp Objects is cloying and uncomfortable in the best of ways. Make sure to take a dip in the sea to cool off in between chapters, though.
5. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
Part thriller, part horror, part occult, and part gothic novel, Starve Acre is a slow-burning deep dive into grief, and how far the shadow of death casts itself over a family, and how damning a thing like local legend can be. It’s not the cheeriest read, but it is gripping and a real page-turner. With all the slow paranoia building, you’ll find it hard to figure out what’s real and what’s not.
Beach reads for the literary traveller
Spend languid days on the shore with these languid reads which are infused with vibes more than they are plot.
1. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Brought to the Spanish coast in a bid to treat her mother’s mysterious illness, Sofia spends long days under the sun in the company of strangers, reckoning with the strange doctor in charge of her mother, and bridging the gap within herself. It’s a story of mothers and daughters and the odd divide between them that exists at the same time as the threads that bind them together. Slightly delirious, seductive, and very sticky and hot, Hot Milk is the perfect beach read to get lost in.
2. Outline by Rachel Cusk
Travel is all about human connection, right? That’s exactly what Outline delivers here with the story of a writer travelling to Athens to teach a creative writing class and meeting many people along the way. She listens as strangers share their stories with her: failed marriages, lost ambitions and frequent pains, anxieties, the mundanity of daily life. If you’d like to explore the tapestry of life while people watching, this is the one.
3. The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese
Infused with lost innocence, tumultuous first love, and the backdrop of 1930s Italy, The Beautiful Summer is a must-read book. I personally read this one during a summer in Amalfi and I think it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to true bliss, so… It’s short and easy to read, and you’ll be absorbed into the hazy world of bohemian artists and perceived freedom!
4. Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
Short and absurd, Mrs. Caliban is the perfect little novel to pack for your quick weekend getaway! A monster has escaped from the Institute of Oceanographic Research and finds itself inside Dorothy Caliban’s home. While her husband is at work, the eponymous Mrs. Caliban shelters this monster, and finds romance.
5. The Unwilding by Marina Kemp
A family drama which winds between Sicily, London, and the Appalachian mountains, in The Unwilding you’ll follow the lives of Zoe and Nemony, before and after disaster strikes. Having spent a summer with a famous novelist, Zoe becomes fascinated by him and his family. However, the summer ends abruptly, and years later, she finds herself back in contact with the youngest daughter Nemony, now a new mother.
Questions arise and stories are uncovered by both the women as they untangle a web spun by Nemony’s father, all while their relationship deepens.
Camouflage your tears in the ocean beach reads
Because you can’t be happy all the time! Sometimes, you need to feel your feelings, and let those salty tears flow.
1. Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Call Me By Your Name should be on everyone’s beach read list. André Aciman’s depiction of bold and flourishing obsession and of fickle love goes hand in hand with the backdrop of the syrupy Italian countryside. Elio and Oliver’s tumultuous story will tug at your heart strings from the very beginning – even worse if you pair it with the film adaptation’s use of Sufjan Stevens’ Visions of Gideon.
Anything by André Aciman would make a good beach read, actually, but Call Me By Your Name is the most iconic one.
2. Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Summer along the French Riviera sounds blissful and magical, doesn’t it? Well, not for Cécile, a seventeen-year-old girl who is meddling in her father’s love life. Over the course of a lazy two month holiday in a gorgeous villa, Cécile spends time with her handsome widower father, his latest mistress, and the best friend of her late mother. She explores her own sexuality as well, and her meddling eventually has dire consequences…
Short and sweet, Bonjour Tristesse is easy to read in a day, beginning in the morning, following the passage of the sun until the consequences and tragedy of the final resolution set over the horizon.
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Listen, if you really want to spiral on holiday in 2025, then Never Let Me Go needs to be shoved into your backpack or downloaded onto your kindle asap. Tender, beautiful, innocent, and just tremendously heart-breaking, Kazuo Ishiguro’s most popular novel is all about what it means to be human. His words echoed back in 2005 when the book was first published, and they still echo 20 years later, making me weep every time I think about it. The adaptation with Kiera Knightly, Andrew Garfield, and Michelle Williams will also make you very sad, so watch it on the plane with caution.
4. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller
Maybe best enjoyed on a Greek island of some sorts so you can really immerse yourself in the vibes, The Song of Achilles is an epic love story between Patrocles and Achilles, following the two from when they were just boys all the way to tragedy during the Trojan War.
“I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” I’ll just leave that there.
5. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Set in 60s Japan, Norwegian Wood follows Toru, an ever-serious college student, navigating his romantic life and still grieving the loss of his best friend years before. Taken by the withdrawn Naoko, yet tethered to the liberated Midori, Toru does his best to become a lover and a savior, and makes false moves along the way. In true Murakami fashion, Norwegian Wood is as tender as it is strange, and it’s a wonderful beach read for those misguided and hopeless romantics of the world.
Summertime non-fiction
Sometimes you want to read something real. Something that will teach you new things, change your perspective on the world, or just really make you think! These selections will do just that.
1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
I am a firm believer that everyone must read Joan Didion in their lives, but if you only pick up one book then let it be Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Journalist and essayist Joan Didion spent her life critiquing the American present, from culture to power, and this book is a collection of observations about a bright and burning California. Didion discusses her childhood, discusses good and evil in Death Valley, discusses celebrity, and much more.
If you want to get ruminating on your holiday, this is a great place to start.
2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
This is THE travel book of all travel books. Author Elizabeth Gilbert felt that she had everything she ought to want: a husband, a career, an education, a home. Yet it came crumbling down and faced with divorce and depression, Gilbert took this as a sign. She sold her belongings, quit her job, and travelled around the world for a year on a journey to rediscover herself.
Eat, Pray, Love – and the Hollywood film adaptation – is an excellent example of the ways travel can change us and how the world and connection with other people all around it, can move and inspire us to grow.
3. Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Hilarious and yet deeply moving at the same time, Everything I Know About Love is a book that everyone should read in their 20s. Dolly Alderton chronicles her love life in London during that time, but most importantly she chronicles her friendships and tells the stories of the women she’s surrounded herself with and loves deeper than any romantic partner. Often the importance of friendship is put to the side in favour of romantic love, and Alderton is here to remind us of the perfect beauty of friendship.
Personally, this book is my Bible and an absolute must-read!
4. A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
Beloved Anthony Bourdain was, and still is, one of the leading voices when it comes to culinary travel! Any of his books on the delicious foods around the world are worth a read, but A Cook’s Tour details Bourdain’s quest to find the ‘culinary holy grail’. He travels the world in search of the most unique and bold and brave meals on offer, and along the way shows that food really is at the heart of many cultures. Foodies, this one’s for you.
5. The Anthropocene by John Green
Speaking of the heart of many cultures, wouldn’t you like to know about the age of Man we’re living in right now? The Anthropocene is the name of the current geological age – like the Holocene or the Jurassic era – and within this book, John Green nosedives straight into human activity to uncover how we are currently shaping the world we live in. You’re guaranteed to learn something new, and perhaps even become fascinated along the way.
