Fun Beach Reads

Summer is the season for reading...well, actually I love snuggling on the sofa under a cozy throw by the fireplace and reading in winter, but I'm just as likely to take a nap. To me, summer is all about fun beach reading. It doesn't have to be deep, it doesn't have to be shallow, it just has to be fun. You should not be sitting at the beach/pool/lake/chaise lounge on the back patio struggling to get through a book (unless of course, it is required course work for whatever you are doing and in that case, sorry, but it will be so worth it in the end). Save the painful books for winter when you can offset the struggle with a cup of hot tea.

So in addition to the usual stack of magazines, here are a couple of my summer reads this year:

#1 - Driving Sideways by Jess Riley. I would like to thank Stephanie of Sea Glasses for posting this one on her sidebar. When my book club was looking for a book for June...er, July (we're a bit tardy with setting the date), per my suggestion, we decided to go with this one.

Sample dialogue from early in the book that I fell in love with:

Instead I say, "I'm fine. You've got to trust me. I wouldn't do anything stupid." Which was, of course, probably the same thing Katie Holmes said to her manager before her first date with Tom Cruise.

I finished it at the Lake and was sad when it ended, since I wanted more of the story. So I wait hopefully for Ms. Riley's next book! Very interesting read, very entertaining. I love her style of writing - it's so clever and so conversational. I was laughing out loud at quite a few lines in the story.

#2 - Freakin' Fabulous: How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better than Everyone Else by Clinton Kelly. Some rather colorful language, and a fun read. I am about 2/3 through this one. (I started it, but set it aside when I picked up #1 above.)

Sample dialogue that I fell in love with:

You might be asking yourself what gives me the right to tell you how to speak. The answer is simple: 40 grand, roughly how much I spent on my master's degree in journalism. So suck on that.

It's not going to solve all the problems of the world but it's a great little reference book, and who doesn't want to be more fabulous? And grammar is more fun when you are talking about drinking gin or someone who is dating the same guy as her mother. I'm just about to start the How to Eat chapter, and the reviews on Amazon indicate that his 4 recipes to know by heart are supposed to be fantastic.

#3 - Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich. My mom & I are huge fans of the Stephanie Plum series - the number ones not the interim ones with "Plum" in the title. The newest in the series always comes out at the end of June. Why? Because, duh, summer reading. This one came out last Tuesday but I haven't picked it up yet. I will probably try to nab it before heading to the river on Wednesday so that I can pass it to my mom when I am done. This one hasn't gotten great reviews so far, but I'll read it because hey, it's summer, that's what we do. The series is supposed to end at 16, so my OCD side feels compelled to finish it out.

What are you reading for summer?