TTT: My Non-Beach Books

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from The Broke and the Bookish is: Top Ten Books I’d Recommend As Good Beach Reads. I have a confession. I’m not a beach person. My idea of a relaxing getaway is not lounging on the beach with a cool drink and a book. I’ve never been an outdoorsy kind of person. Whenever we’ve gone to the beach as a family, sure I might venture out onto the sand, walk around, perhaps even sit and watch the kids. But for fun, I’d just as soon go back to the hotel room and read. The wind, waves, and sun don’t particularly enhance the atmosphere for me. That might be rank heresy to some of you, but that’s just the way I am.

As you can imagine, then, the concept of a “beach book” is quite foreign to me. As I understand it, the “beach book” is the light, entertaining novel you take on vacation. You can lie on the beach reading it without fear of being reduced to tears, or being brought to the verge of some existential meltdown, in public. If you want to catch some z’s (that’s zees in the US, zeds in the UK and Commonwealth), you can mark your place and put the book down–you don’t feel compelled to keep reading until you’re straining your eyes in the moonlight, or you’ve turned into a lobster because you couldn’t stop to apply more sunscreen. Yet, hopefully you enjoy the book enough that when you awake, you’ll want to pick it up again and continue. Get the idea?

Given that I don’t think I own any books that would fit this description (nothing against those books, but I don’t actively hunt out beach reads… because I don’t beach-read), I thought I would have some serious problems with this list, so I asked my family for help. My wife suggested I list the books I think are the most inappropriate beach reads. Great idea! We even got a laugh discussing this in the car. So, inspired by my wife, here are my Top Ten Books I DON’T Recommend as Good Beach Reads:

	WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy I haven’t read this yet, but the edition I own is in three tiny-print volumes. You’d probably get serious eye strain trying to read this with sunglasses on. And think how many extra bottles of tequila you’d fit into your bag instead!
	MEIN KAMPF by Adolf Hitler The Fuhrer’s plan for world domination may turn a few heads. Probably not in a way you’d like, though. Again, not a book I’ve read… but I confess to being curious. I mean, the opportunity to get inside the head of one of the most (rightly) vilified excuses for a human being for at least the last century is a little tantalizing–especially to a writer. But perhaps not while sunning on Myrtle Beach.
	ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT by Erich Maria Remarque Another book I haven’t read, but my wife has. She says it’s the kind of book you read on the beach only if you plan to tie a brick around your foot and throw yourself off the pier afterwards. A little depressing, is it?
	INTRODUCTION TO BIBLICAL HEBREW by Thomas O. Lambdin Okay, so maybe not the kind of book you would take to the beach. But for me, this would be the perfect opportunity to work on Hebrew verb forms–when the kids are all at the beach and the hotel room is nice and quiet.
	A GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH by A. T. Robertson See the previous book. Also, the size of this volume is particularly intimidating to other beach-goers. They might think you’ve brought some kind of offensive weapon.
	FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley This story features boats and large expanses of water, but probably not enough to qualify as a beach book. In fact, I don’t recall there being much beach at all. Yeah, skip this one.
	UNDER THE DOME by Stephen King Honestly, I wonder if there is such a thing as a good Stephen King beach book. What books do you suppose Stephen King takes to the beach? Perhaps he’s like me, and would rather be holed up in the hotel room with something less beach-y, with only a window view of the sea to remind him he’s on vacation. I picked this Stephen King book because 1) I’ve read it; 2) the story is tense and horrific (not so much in the blood-and-guts sense, but in terms of how people treat one another… though there’s a healthy dose of blood too); and 3) it’s big. If you’re traveling by plane, you’d probably have to pay extra to take it with you.
	1984 by George Orwell I think dystopian is the category to avoid at the beach. Unless there’s some light-hearted, humorous dystopian novel out there with a nice romance element to it. Perhaps Terry Pratchett has written something like that, which would be just like him to do. But Terry Pratchett isn’t beach reading to me. If you disagree, then scrap this list and put me down for his first ten Discworld books!
	WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronté Unless you’re listening to Kate Bush on your iPod while reading, this might be a little sad and intense for a beach book. And if you’re listening to Kate Bush, you probably aren’t paying much attention to the novel. Especially since this is, IMO, one of her best songs ever.
	SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY by Louis Berkhof Really I could have picked any of a number of systematic theologies. I happen to like Berkhof’s. Yes, it’s another one of those books I would take, but probably not many others would.

Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m not putting down beach books. Not every novel needs to be edge-of-the-seat, or action-packed, or philosophically dense and deep. Books can–and often should–be fun and entertaining. I’m curious to see which books those who are more educated in the area of beach reading selected for today’s Top Ten. Join me over at The Broke and the Bookish’s Linky List!