Unlikely yet brilliant beach reads

Holidays are the perfect excuse to kick back and relax with a good book. The inevitable surge in ‘Beach Reads’ is an expanding market and deciding on the perfect book to take on holiday becomes a crucial decision for those non-kindlers who need the ever precious suitcase space.

However, what makes a perfect holiday read? Should it be ‘lighter’ in tone than what we would read during stormy winter nights? Or does it just need to be entertaining and gripping enough to tear us away from the cocktail bar?

Deciding what to recommend for a summery read proves hard for someone who once took The Shining to the beach. So rather than try to categorise what is ‘beach suitable’ I will instead focus on recommending novels set in an idyllic setting and hopefully reveal that not all beach reads are all sun, sea and sangria.

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The Beach by Alex Garland

You may know it as the awesome Danny Boyle film with the brilliant Dicaprio and Swinton but it’s also a novel – a brilliant one at that. The classic story of paradise found – and lost. Richard begins travelling in search of utopia. In Thailand he is given a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach, and a new way of life. What Richard finds when he gets there is more extraordinary and more terrifying than his wildest dreams. Garland’s novel offers an intriguing stance on the decadent and hedonistic lifestyle of those seeking beauty and pleasure above all else.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Before Tom Hanks and Castaway came the classic tale of shipwreck, survival and friendship in Defoe’s 1719 novel. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being. Amongst the awesome wonder of nature is the tale of the strength of human character in the face of loneliness. This novel will transport you to the quintessential setting of isolated paradise and introduce you to some of literature’s first characters and scenes that have been the inspiration behind all desert island fiction.

Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

This is a powerful novella in which the brooding English sea perfectly captures the tension of misunderstanding, missed opportunities and things left unsaid between newly married couple Florence and Edward. It is an intense exploration of both intimacy and restraint and how even love cannot break down the barriers of individual will.

Lord of the Flies by William Goulding

Another tale of paradise turned sour but with a frightening reality. Goulding’s bestselling novel explores the cruelty of humanity and the dangers of a life lived without rules or fear. After a plane crashes on a seemingly deserted island, the only survivors who are all children must learn to exist and survive alone. The boys’ delicate sense of order fades, and their childish fears are transformed into something deeper and more primitive. Their games take on a horrible significance, and before long the well-behaved party of schoolboys has turned into a tribe of faceless, murderous savages.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Considered to be the best mystery novel of all time, Christie turns her tranquil island setting into a scene of murder and lies. Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion. Over dinner, a record begins to play and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening a member of the party is found murdered. The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again… and again…

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Rhys takes us on an adventure through the West Indies in the untold tale of Antoinette Mason – the first wife of Edward Rochester and the original madwoman in the attic. Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness and her husband into the arms of another novel’s heroine. As hauntingly gothic as it’s inspiration Jane Eyre.

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In classic me style I have managed to recommend novels with dark and twisted themes but I assure you that you won’t be disappointed by any of these tales of tainted paradise.