Friday, July 21, 2006

 

Beach days

Yesterday was one of those perfect-weather days around here - they used to be called State O'Maine Days - when high pressure builds in from Canada and the air is dry and clear, with a deep blue sky and lots of sunshine. I haven't had enough beach days this year, so I closed up the shop and took off to the coast, to a favorite little town beach I like, one with a view of Mount Desert Island and the open ocean beyond. Very quiet - the road stops when it goes into the sea, and there's a tiny parking lot - when I got there there was only one other car. The beach is mostly rocks and just enough sand to put a towel on, and after dipping my feet in the ice-water I got my watercolors out and sketched the shapes of the seaweed-covered rocks as the tide fell:

I took the John La Farge book I've been working on all week, and made a little progress with it, but I mostly lazed, painted, ate my lunch, and watched the fog. When I arrived at the beach it was far offshore, and four hours later when I left it had just hit the land, filling Frenchman's Bay like it was pouring from a funnel, it was very beautiful and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in about half an hour, so I bundled up and drove to the local take-out (best crab rolls in town) before heading home.

Re beach reading selections: I remember the Sylvia cartoon in which one of her superhero characters, Book Cop, confronts people reading trashy novels at the beach. "Quick honey, it's Book Cop! Hide the Judith Krantz... get out the Flaubert!" Now, I've never read a Judith Krantz novel, but I have read a Danielle Steele novel - just one - because I was desperate for some trash and it was free. It was about - wait for it - the love affairs of a glamorous food photographer-slash-ranch owner. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about it, from that scanty bit of information. Usually when choosing a beach book I'll reach for something I've read a hundred times, one of the books I read and re-read as a teenager, my mother's Mary Stewart novels, or my grandmother's Georgette Heyer romances. Something I can read a chapter of and then snooze in the sun, because I know exactly what's going to happen and can stand to lay the book down for a while. What are people's thoughts on this? Anyone have any perennial favorites for beach reading?

Comments:
I've never actually read on a beach but there are some books I go back around this time of year,like Little Women or some Jane Austen(Mansfield Park is diverting me at the moment).

I've never read Danielle Steel but have indulged in a few Jackie Collins novels in my time and of course,the classic Valley of the Dolls. They don't make them like they use to.

A fun modern beach read author is Tilly Bagshawe-she's written Adored(about Hollywood)and Showdown(horse racing). Her books have that old school glam read vibe,plus I love her name!
 
Dear Sarah,

Beautiful sketch!

I read Dennis Lehane's Mystic River last month on Cape Cod beach days. Whenever the tension ratcheted too high, I jumped in the water.

This week I had an interesting coincidence. I brought two books with me to read while one of my sons had an appointment. One of the books had a reference to the other. C.E. Montague's Disenchantment is a castigation of the government, military command, press, ... during the first World War. In a chapter on the press he mentioned Bacon's "three recipes for deceiving". The second book was Bacon's Essays, so I was able to read "Of Simulation and Dissimulation" on the spot.

Maybe not such a big coincidence after all, since I'm reading both books on the recommendation of Christopher Morley. (In fact, I'm thinking about developing a Morley number for authors, analogous to Erdos numbers in mathematics and degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon in film.)

Dan
 
L.T.: Jackie Collins has never tempted me, but, I may be in a remote village in Africa and her books might be the only thing on the shelf, so never say never. This happened to a pal in the Peace Corps - except it was Maeve Binchy she came across. Re "Valley of the Dolls" - I think Jaqueline's agent was Michael Korda? He wrote a fabulous gossipy memoir about agenting the soon-to-be rich and famous, "Another Life." Good stuff. In that vein, I used to read Harold Robbins, and the original James Bond novels. You take what you can get when you're fourteen.

Tilly Bagshawe - indeed a great name. A friend has a dog named Miss Tilly Belle. Big dog, don't remember the breed...

Dan, in one of Nick Hornby's essays in "The Polysyllabic Spree" he says he wishes he had friends who would recommend books like Dennis Lehane's to him. Intelligent, suspenseful, gripping... I haven't read anything by him, but now I think of Hornby, whom I love, whenvever I see a Lehane book.

The Ransom Humanities Center at the University of Texas published a collection of Morley's prefaces - he wrote a wonderful preface for a reprint of Bacon's Essays. I seem to recall he wrote they stayed with you like their entrails were packed with ice.
 
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