The Best Beach Reads Are Long, Dark and Difficult – Really via GQ UK

Earlier this month I reminded you to rethink your idea of the beach read and to broaden what you consider worthy of that title. Click here for that full post.

Today I have a follow up because GQ UK addressed the same issue earlier this week, publishing an article entitled, "The Best Beach Reads Are Long, Dark and Difficult – Really." From the intro to their list of suggestions:

So, what should you be reading as you singe on the sand? The longest, most difficult and most depressing books you can stomach. This might seem counterintuitive. It isn’t. If you’re up for taking on challenging books – which you should be, whether for dinner party bragging rights or simple aesthetic refinement – the next question is when to take them on. Trying to trudge through the anguished pages of Shuggie Bain or A Little Life in winter, with less than eight hours of sunlight a day, is a truly harrowing experience.

Which is why you should reserve those books for the beach. You’ve finally got enough time to crack the spines of properly long novels. Your attention span isn’t being picked apart by work emails or social engagements, so you can properly focus on intricate writing. And because you’re sitting in the sun, drink in hand, you’ve got enough mental fortification to submerge into the grimmest of plots without having your own mood brought down. We’re not quite recommending you take full-fat academic theory poolside, as Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady did in the first series of The White Lotus – but here are some other suggestions, to make sure you don’t squander those precious weeks when you’re in peak reading mode.

I love this idea of thinking about the reading experience over the type of book when considering something a beach read. The idea that you should take a book that you know will need more of your attention (not less) to the beach makes so much sense. I encounter so many readers who want to read the more dense, complicated, or difficult books but just know they will not have the chunks of time needed to devote to said book. 

[I for one often search these books out in audio precisely because I can carve out more time to read them while doing menial tasks or exercising. But I too have been known to take a difficult book on vacation precisely for the reasons mentioned-- especially when I have a long plane ride.]

Many of these readers would also never think of taking these books to the beach because so much of the marketing tells them that a "beach read" should be light and fluffy. But again, as I have noted many times, that is not true and perpetuating that idea with our displays and marketing does not allow us to help all readers.

Summer and/or vacation are often the only chance the vast majority of our patrons have read the 1-3 books survey data says the average American adult is reading per year. We need to be more open about the fact that ANY book can be a "beach read." And it is our job to use the RA Conversation to figure out what type of book people are looking for and not assuming if they are going to read it on a beach that it must be a certain preordained type of book. And yet, for some the "beach read" may 100% meet the traditional marketing and that is great too.

Check out this article from GQ UK though because it presents a specific type of reader and in doing that, it serves as a reminder to all of us that everyone comes in to us with reading preferences that are unique to them. And it is our job to figure those out and help them where they are, not where we think they should be.