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
