What's in your beach bag?

Books made for that grab-onto-summer time of year

Summer is almost through, and we’ve found time to read on a sunny beach with our toes in the sand, a shady porch with a glass of iced tea, and stretched out on a sofa with the rain pattering down as we turn the pages.

Toes in the sand, photo by T. Elizabeth Bell

We’ve had time to enjoy light-hearted beach reads as well as books on weightier subjects. This is what we’ve read and loved:

JAN: I’ll go first! In the lighthearted department, I’ve already reviewed Sheepish by T. Elizabeth Bell, so I’ll open with Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce, an entertaining absurdist journey of a British woman in the post WWII years, who travels to New Caledonia in the South Pacific to try to discover a golden beetle. You might learn more about insects than you want to, but you’ll laugh out loud.

Also, in the lighthearted department – at least lighthearted for any Jane Austen fan – was The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, which explores what might have happened to the only one of the five sisters not graced with good looks or breezy personality, poor Mary Bennet. It’s impressive how much it is written in keeping with Jane Austen’s style, so I loved it. But I would love to hear other opinions, as Jane Austen fans can be pretty picky.

In a slightly weightier category, Sally Rooney’s, Intermezzo. I listened to this one on audio. Had to increase the speed because the narration was so slow, but wound up enjoying it. Fabulous writing, and it definitely made me think.

KATE: Of course I devoured our Washashores Review. So much variety, so many insights, so much feeling.

I loved reading Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks. Having been widowed (twice!) people told me I should avoid this story about her great loss when her husband died suddenly. But this isn’t a wallow in sorrow. It’s a beautiful portrait of a person, of a marriage and family, of life and choices made. It didn’t remind me of my own experiences, but these may have affected how deeply I cared for Geraldine’s. Add to that, I enjoyed her poetic descriptions of place. In fact, I think I will read this book again just for the pleasure of her beautiful way with language.

I’ve probably spent more time this summer reading sewing patterns than books, so I have nothing else to report!

BRENDA: I read less than I like this summer—other projects are keeping me hopping. But there are two I devoured:

• A Ghost in the Throat. Irish author Doireann Ni Ghriofa feels like my partner in obsession. While I’ve been writing about a forgotten 19th-century operetta star, A Ghost in the Throat is about Ghriofa dealing with her own crises by uncovering the forgotten author of an epic 18th-century poem. That Ghriofa is a poet too made this hybrid memoir go down as smoothly as a glass of summer rosé.

An obsessive quest to tell the life story of a poet drives this hybrid memoir.

• Bring Your Lover Back. This independently published novella by Mo David is fueled by one of the funniest unreliable narrators I’ve seen. Peter is an out-of-work architect; he’s in love with a woman named Wendy. And with names like those, he reasons, surely they must be soulmates. When Wendy rejects him, Peter turns to a quirky storefront psychic who’s advertised a love potion guaranteed to bring a lost lover back. Craziness ensues.

A fun, fast-moving story of a “lost boy” (cue the Peter & Wendy theme). [Photo: Mo David]

TRACEY: I’ve been reading in a Vineyard-author theme this summer. Here on the Island, we’ve been blessed with a superabundance of remarkable writers in every genre. I feel like I could read for years and barely make a dent in the stack.

What got me turning the pages this summer was Boy by Nicole Galland. Based in part on the true story of Alexander (Sander) Cooke, the most famous of Shakespeare’s “boy players, ” this rollicking foray into Elizabethan England sets the stage with the beautiful, talented, and promiscuous Sander and his childhood friend, Joan Buckler, who is as bright and curious as she is thwarted in her academic endeavors by her sex. Mix in some gender-swapping, a role for Sir Francis Bacon, love, Shakespearean theater, and political intrigue, and you’ve got a world to get lost in.

My copy on the beach at Quansoo. Photo by T. Elizabeth Bell

Right now, I’m in the middle of Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee, an award-winning journalist and Aquinnah Wampanoag. Weaving in his own family’s story (and many about Aquinnah I’d never heard), it’s a fascinating exploration of his Wampanoag identity and the issues faced by not only Native Americans but by Indigenous people around the world. Rejecting stereotypes and easy answers, the author writes about land, power (both internal and external struggles), autonomy, and tradition against the pervasive legacy of colonialization.

And finally, since it’s the end of August, it was time for a beach read. I’m currently hanging out in 1965 and 1978 in Our Last Summer by the talented and wonderful Brooke Lea Foster. (Not exactly a Vineyard author, but she’s summered here enough so I’m counting her in!) I’ve only just started it, but I’m loving the family dynamics arising from the three very different sisters and their mother forced together by the father’s untimely death, the Martha’s Vineyard setting, and the promise of secrets to be unearthed. Foster does her research, grounding her novels in details from the setting and the era. Not just the food, clothes, music, local businesses, etc., but the issues of the day too— in the case of Our Last Vineyard Summer, the nearly forgotten but pervasive discrimination against women that gave rise to the Women’s Liberation Movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s shocking to me to think about where we were only 50 years ago, and how much could be lost.

Happy reading!