By Elaine Viets
Summer comes with many temptations, from scanty clothes to rampant hormones. Moralists believe young women should be protected from them all. But one summer temptation really riled preachers.
I’m talking about . . . beach books.
They especially upset a sourpuss named Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage. The Rev. T fulminated against beach books in 1876, cautioning his congregation, “Do not let the frogs and the lice of a corrupt printing press jump and crawl into your Saratoga trunk or White Mountain valise.” Beach books, the rev said, were “literary poison.”
“I really believe there is more pestiferous trash read among the intelligent classes in July and August than in all the other ten months of the year,” he said.
It would take ten months to plow through Talmage’s own tomes. Want to stretch out by the pool and read The Abomination of Modern Society? How about 500 Select Sermons?
Personally, I think Talmage was a tad jealous of beach books’ popularity.
The young women of the 19th century sensibly ignored Talmage’s rants, and stuffed their vacation valises with summer reads. They sighed over Marion Harlan’s With the Best Intentions: A Midsummer Episode, set among the Gilded Age’s beautiful people. And devoured Laura Jean Libbey’s fiction about poor girls who worked to survive.
Laura’s titles were real grabbers. A Dangerous Flirtation Or, Did Ida May Sin? And Miss Middleton’s Lover; Or Parted On Their Bridal Tour makes me want to slap on some sunscreen and start reading.
These novels and other light summer reading are the descendants of today’s beach reads, though the term “beach reads” didn’t show up until the 1990s. Most of this information comes from Smithsonian Magazine.
Beach reads were easy to pack and hold. They were also a marketing scheme. July and August are traditionally the time when book sales drop. So clever publishers came up with books specially designed for vacations. The books were often set at resorts, and gave young middle class women tips on fashion and manners, in case they met a handsome young millionaire. In the beach books, these encounters usually ended in marriage.
Exactly what is a beach book?
Blogger Victoria Wood has a good definition. She quotes the Macmillan Dictionary, which says a beach read is “a book you can take on holiday, which is good enough to keep you engaged but not so serious it will spoil your holiday.”
“I think that’s a good starting point,” she said, “but I’d add this: the best beach reads are immersive, entertaining, and just plain fun—whether or not you ever set foot on sand.”
Traces of the prune-faced Rev. T prevail. Many beach books are written – and read – by women. Some are romances, others are thrillers or mysteries, and they can be scorned as frivolous. “Beach book” is sometimes used as an insult.
But beach books are a rite of summer. About Memorial Day, publications from the New York Times to Booklist magazine trot out their beach reads, many with bright covers and snappy dialogue.
Emily Henry boldly calls her beach romance Beach Read. It’s about a romance writer who no longer believes in love, and a literary writer stuck in a rut.
Kristin Hannah, who wrote The Women, about nurses who served in Vietnam, has the much lighter Summer Island.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, spanned the summer season in 2022, with the hardcover released in April and the paperback in August.
And, if there’s room for me on this golden beach, I have two beach books: Sex and Death on the Beach (2025) and Beach Blonde Betrayal (2026).
Both were released in July.
And my readers are extremely intelligent. Take that, Reverend Talmage.
What are your favorite beach reads, TKZers?
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My books are available at most booksellers, including Amazon, Thriftbooks.com, and Left Bank Books in my hometown of St. Louis. Beach Blonde Betrayal (Florida Beach Mystery #2) | Left Bank Books
Oof. I’m very glad to have been spared Talmage’s influence and sermons! Sounds like a ready-made literary villain to me.
The last time I read something of lighter fare, it was the fantasy version of a beach read: Travis Baldree’s series, starting with Legends and Lattes.
They’re very short books, easy to read back to back, with likable characters and mild stakes. Entertaining, and made for a good palate-cleanser between my usual grimdark titles.
Sounds perfect, Cyn.
I thrive on beach reads (or what I call airplane reads). I write them, too. I like escaping when I read. I just re-read The Dangerous Edge of Things by Tina Whittle.
Yes! I hate to fly, so I definitely need to escape when I’m trapped on a plane.
Ahhh, 150-200 pages that don’t need too much thinking. The good guy is the good guy, the hottie gets a ‘happily ever after’ and the sun sets on wherever we happen to be. Add some sun and a drink with a little umbrella and I am fine. I have been known to read such a book snuggled into a blanket with snow piling up outside.
The beach read is one place e-readers shine. No one sees the cover of my book, no one can call my book of the week trash. And if my beach read leans a touch “steamy”? No one knows that either. When I was travelling in Israel, our bus driver was reading something with a bright bubble gum pink cover with a one word title in neon yellow. We thought he was reading porn while we toured museums. Someone took a harder look. The one word was The Betsy. He was reading Harold Robbins.
You said it better than I could, Alan.
To be fair, THE BETSY does at least verge on porn.
Even by today’s standards.
I like Cyn’s idea of the good Reverend as a literary villain.
My beach reads are often set in Florida. The juxtaposition of beautiful scenery with awful crimes works. Lots of exotic wildlife, and I’m not just talking about alligators, armadillos, and flamingoes. Perennial favorites are Travis McGee, Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, and of course Elaine Viets.
Proud to be in that company, Debbie.
I read purely for entertainment (unless it’s a craft book). I just finished Patient 7…could not put it down.
Thanks for the recommendation, Patricia.
The beach is for beaching. I did all my reading inside. A giant tote bag of many genres always came with me, but none was ever a beach read. Not my kind of book.
Excellent, Elaine.
I’d never insult a beach read. They’re too fun to read. And the movie adaptations are some of my favorite to watch.
Yes. “The Housemaid” movie was good and creepy.
Loved the book—the film was good in a different way.
Agreed.
Mary Oldham’s lovely Poison Garden series.
Yes!
From one of my reader’s reviews of Pride’s Children: NETHERWORLD:
—
“Even if you are a dedicated bookworm, discard the notion that you are going to rip through this novel in an evening. At nearly 700 pages (in my Kindle version), this is a vacation book, not a gentle way of passing an evening.
I almost called it a beach book, with the picture in my mind of a lawn chair under an umbrella, and a glass of lemonade to the side. However, the characters do some significant travel in the book (India, Ireland, and various locations in the US), and I think you will want to have a bit of that experience as well. So, my suggestion is that you book a cruise, accompanied by a trusted and devoted significant other, who will be willing to share you with this engrossing novel while your ship moves from port to port.
—
He suggested a cruise book, instead.
I like that, Alicia.
Sadly, my husband is not a beach kind of guy, so it’s been decades since I read at the beach. When I need a bit of light relief in the air conditioning, I love some M.C. Beaton Hamish MacBeth or Agatha Raisin. Light, but still murdery!
“Light but still murdery!” The best description for a beach mystery.