Books for beach reading: Sizzling suggestions to fill your suitcase
From the tale of Eleanor Oliphaunt to the last stories of William Trevor, offers a range of sizzling suggestions to fill your Kindle or suitcase.
This book begins with an inventive and irresistible premise — what if you knew the date on which you’d die?
It is the captivating story of how the four Gold siblings visit a New York psychic who tells them when they’ll meet their maker — and how they deal with that information.
A hugely entertaining read, it will also have you asking some thought- provoking questions of your own life and family.
An author who has produced engaging and incisive fiction for decades and built up a hugely loyal following, Wolitzer has yet to have the breakout hit she deserves.
This timely novel tells the story of student Greer Kadetsky, who is enchanted by old-school feminist icon Faith. Years later, she happily accepts a job at Faith’s foundation devoted to telling women’s stories, but what story is really being told?
A study of feminism by stealth, cloaked in Wolitzer’s trademark wry observation and humour.
This deceptively understated book has grown into a phenomenon since it was released last summer. Honeyman won a well-deserved Costa award for the beautifully crafted study of a lonely woman who struggles to navigate modern life, with cryptic allusions to a childhood incident adding a sense of mystery.
You will root for the skilfully-drawn central character all the way and its closing twist will have you reaching for the hankies.
Reese Witherspoon has already snapped up the movie rights so get ready for the Big Little Lies treatment.
This highly engaging read could be alternatively titled ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’. The New York Times writer covered two Clinton campaigns and details the ineptitude, in-fighting and inhuman stresses involved in trying to win votes in a vast and hugely divided country.
Chozick’s well-informed perspective on the campaign which ended with Donald Trump’s election makes for an entertaining, informative and funny read. Not just for politics junkies.
English’s voice is a familiar and welcoming presence to listeners to RTÉ Radio, but she has also attracted many readers with her work on the page.
This, her fourth novel, is the story of how the calamitous events at a party in the 1980s have affected the lives of the four protagonists as they move from adolescence to adulthood.
English’s storytelling skills are evident and she has an engaging style reminiscent of the legendary Maeve Binchy.
Someone who definitely won’t be compared to the late Binchy is Jade Sharma, the US-based author of this razor-edged novel. Published by the Tramp Press, Sharma’s debut has been attracting much word-of-mouth buzz.
A challenging, whip-smart and funny read, it follows Maya, a young New Yorker juggling an escalating drug habit with various relationship issues.
It’s There is no shortage of explicit content so beware not to leave this one lying on the sun lounger when inquisitive young readers are around.
A book of short stories is ideal holiday reading because you can dip in and out at your leisure. Very few can match the late William Trevor as a purveyor of the miniature masterpiece, and there was no slackening off in quality in his twilight years, as these stories show.
There are some archetypal Trevor characters and settings on display — the lonely and the lost, municipal parks in winter and tea rooms in small English towns.
If Trevor is the master, American writer Sittenfeld makes an able apprentice. She came to prominence with novels such as the superb American Wife and Eligible, her reworking of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but not every novelist can turn a good short story.
Sittenfeld can, however, with these piercing examinations of lives that often take an unexpected turn — not always for the better. A good companion to the Trevor book if you want to pack two with the sunscreen, and they echo each other in unexpected ways.
Though only on the shelves since late last month the buzz about this one has been building steadily. Miller’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut novel, Song of Achilles brings her back again to the myths and legends of ancient Greece, to Homer’s Odyssey, and it’s fair to say that Circe is as gripping as its predecessor.
This is a vivid, entrancing chronicle of the life of Helios’s errant daughter — the Circe of the title — when she’s exiled by her fellow gods for being a witch.
This is a thought-provoking look at the impact of social media on our lives and psyches, particularly timely in the context of recent debate around the threat platforms such as Facebook pose to democracy.
Former AI pioneer turned tech philosopher Lanier gives his take on the addictive nature of social media, examining, among many issues, its effect on how we consume news and how we have become content zombies.
This debut thriller by Australia-based Irish author Dervla McTiernan has already been optioned for a screen adaptation.
Set in the west of Ireland, The Ruin follows detective Cormac Reilly as he revisits a case involving two children whose mother died of an overdose. It delves into the dark side of small-town Ireland, examining corruption and institutional abuse.
Former reporter Lippman has won many awards for her crime fiction, though her name isn’t as widely known as that of her husband, David Simon of The Wire fame.
Sunburn may change all of that — Lippman’s take on classic noir tells the story of Polly, who kills her abusive husband and goes on the run when she gets out of prison. She meets Adam, but does he have an ulterior motive?
Laing’s non-fiction books, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City, blended memoir and biography to exhilarating effect.
Now she has turned her hand to fiction in her eagerly-awaited novel Crudo, out at the end of June. Set in the summer of 2017, it looks at artist Kathy’s attempts to make sense of a world teetering on the edge of chaos, one in which a single social media post from the reality-show president can throw the shadow of annihilation over the planet.
Having written two Sherlock Holmes novels, the prolific Horowitz was commissioned by Ian Fleming’s estate to write the James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis.
This follow-up is once again in safe hands, not departing much from Fleming’s entertaining formula, to imagine exactly how Bond got his licence to kill.
Horowitz’s light touch and smooth plotting create something close to the ideal holiday read. Perfect accompaniment to a martini by the pool. Shaken, not stirred, of course.
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