shortish books to bring on vacation

also known as a "summer" "reading" "guide"

I said I’d do one of these, and look at me, keeping my word. It’s the summer and anything is possible.

When I think of vacation/beach reads, I don’t necessarily think of light subject matter, but of physically light novels. When I’m traveling and frolicking, I don’t wanna carry a heavy book in addition to the sunscreen, phone, keys, wallet, years-long collection of crumpled receipts, and hand sanitizer of it all. A girl’s gotta impose a few limits on herself. If not me, who, etc.

Like, I think Steinbeck would be pleased with this situation. He seems like the kinda guy who’d have appreciated the sunscreen in the background.

Languid, portable prose is what we’re looking for here. Stories to while and wither away the long summer days. I mean, I like committing to a massive novel as much as the next girl, but during the hottest months of the year I prefer to switch it up—I enjoy a revolving door of shorter works. Tl;dr: I’ll wait till October to finally tackle Middlemarch.¹

With that said, below is a list of 21² books I have brought or would bring with me on vacation or to the beach or to the pool or like, to the park on a sunny day. To a coffee shop after work, even. Work with me here. Summer is a time to photosynthesize, you just gotta find a place to do it. I’ve kept them all under 250 pages, which was challenging, so please clap.

Asterisks denote books in translation (nine of 21!), and the links are to my bookshop.org affiliate shop, although as per usual, I strongly urge you to visit your local bookshop, if only to marvel at the deranged and incredible novels the staff is recommending.

(Scroll to the end to find the completed graph referenced in the below:)

Shortish books to bring with you on vacation, etc.

1. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961) (160 pages)

2. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (1943) (224 pages)

3. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1601) (140 pages)³

4. The White Album by Joan Didion (1979) (224 pages)

5. Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich* (1970) (192 pages)⁴

6. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019) (198 pages)

7. A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux (1983)* (96 pages)⁵

8. Heartburn by Nora Ephron (1983) (192 pages)

9. So Much Blue by Percival Everett (2017) (236 pages)⁶

10. The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel Garcia Marquez* (1970) (128 pages)

11. Valentino and Sagittarius: Two Novellas by Natalia Ginzburg* (1957) (134 pages)

12. Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri* (1294) (128 pages)⁷

13. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (2021) (224 pages)

14. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952) (160 pages)⁸

15. The Carrying by Ada Limón (2018) (229 pages)⁹

16. The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck (1957) (176 pages)¹⁰

17. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger (1957) (176 pages)¹¹

18. Greek Lessons by Han Kang* (2011) (192 pages)¹²

19. First Love by Ivan Turgenev* (1860) (112 pages)

20. Água Viva by Clarice Lispector* (1973) (88 pages)

21. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico* (2022) (136 pages)

    a millennial's search for meaning

*

And now, for the chart:

The y-axis is the crucial one here btw. My elementary (middle?) school math teacher would be so proud.

Does this (and the 349 footnotes below) make me look deranged? If he saw it, would Fox Mulder put together a cute little personality profile? The project kept my emotional support Canva tab open for hours, so I can’t begrudge it.

Happy reading, friends.¹³

*
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1. I promise. It’s on my list.

2. I don’t enjoy even numbers.

3. Plays are forever good vacation reads because they are slim! I bought Richard III a couple weeks ago and will bring it with me on a beach day in the coming weeks—I’m slightly self-conscious about how much Shakespeare I haven’t read, so I’m using this summer as a catch-up of sorts. Normal things.

4. If I had to pick one book of the whole list to recommend, I might choose this one. It’s severely underread.

5. I could frankly make this a guide solely composed of Ernaux works, and actually an Ernaux summer might be just what the doctor ordered, so don’t, for the love of God, let me stop you.

6. Id re having an Everett summer. I’m constantly trying to get people to read this one, my favorite of his novels of the eight (I think?) I’ve read thus far.

7. If you want to read Dante but are overwhelmed by/reluctant by the idea of The Divine Comedy, I suggest starting with Vita Nuova, which is much shorter and also a delight. If you’re proficient/working on your Italian, I recommend the dual Italian-English edition, which is the one I have. For obvious reasons, it’s slightly longer.

8. I feel so strongly that everyone should read this, actually.

9. This is a poetry collection and it will change your life tbh. All of Limón’s work is excellent and wonderful.

10. Yes, another Steinbeck, SUE ME. But there’s too much being made of Of Mice and Men and not enough of Pippin IV, truly one of the funniest, smartest novels I’ve ever read. I need everyone to get on it.

11. Salinger sometimes gets a bad rep because we like disparaging the books we were told were Great as teenagers, and fair enough, but his work very much holds up. The prose is tailor-made for a day of rotting at the beach.

12. I’m very close to becoming a Kang completionist, and this still remains my favorite of hers.

13. Last footnote, this one to acknowledge the existence of e-readers. No hate whatsoever, I just don’t use one, and I know a lot of other people don’t, either, hence this list. That’s all!