I’m taking this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic (Beach Reads), hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, literally. I would like to say ‘literally’ in the sense that I’m posting this from the beach but no, it’s winter in Melbourne… So while my northern hemisphere friends are looking for light fiction that you can pick up and put down between swims, I’m bunking down with ‘wintery’ tomes. Nevertheless, the beach and swimming is never far from my mind so this week, I’ve picked ten five books that feature the beach.
1. Tigers in Red Weather by Lisa Klaussman – one of my favourite books of 2012. Just read it.
2. Puberty Blues by Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette – it’s about growing up in Australia in the 1970s but it is as relevant today as it ever was. Frighteningly so. And if you dare call anyone in Australia a ‘slack-arsed moll’, you’ll fit right in.
3. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume – Blume for grown-ups doesn’t disappoint.
4. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan – this book divides McEwan fans. I loved it, if only for it’s OMG moment.
5. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier – so it’s not bikinis and scorching summer sun but Chevalier’s story about two English women in the 19th century, searching for fossils on the cold, windswept British coast is enchanting.
And although I don’t ordinarily include children’s books on this blog, there are two beach stories for kids that I really love:
How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers (image at the top)
Sally and the Limpet by Simon James (below)
