Top Ten Tuesday: Sand in the Crack of my Book Spine

I am still on vacay, but I didn't want to miss another Top Ten Tuesday.  I've been reading lots, so I'm going to have quite the backlog of reviews after I get home tomorrow.  I am really in the mood for the topic that The Broke and the Bookish has given us this week: Top Ten Beach Reads.

I've lived near the beach twice in my life: Los Angeles and Santa Cruz.  I love reading on the beach, so I'm excited to share some of my favorites.


10. Megan McCafferty, The Jessica Darling books:  I love these books.  I've had a book crush on them since I read the first one when I was still a teenager myself.  I don't think I've read the last couple, so maybe I'll pick one up this summer.

9. Curtis Sittenfield, Prep: I read and enjoyed this clever little book on the beach in Santa Cruz one summer.  I am also partial to most books set at prep schools.


8. George Eliot, Middlemarch:  I definitely read this over the summer.  It was the summer after I graduated from college to be exact.  However, I definitely didn't read it on the beach.  I read most of it in the breakroom in the Gap where I worked.  It is one of my most memorable reading experiences, since I felt so accomplished when I finished.

7. J.D Salinger, Franny and Zooey:  Here is another one that I read at the beach in Santa Cruz.

6. Jodi Picoult books:  These are my bookish guilty pleasure.  If I happen to be having a bad reading slump, I can usually still read a Jodi Picoult.

5. Jennifer Weiner and Jane Green:  I have to put some straight up chick lit on the list, because (especially when I was in school) I would go straight to these books right after exams, so they really are "summer reads" for me.  My favorites are Jemima J and Good in Bed.

4. Susan Casey, The Wave:  Sometimes I like a good non-fiction beach read, and although I didn't read this one on a beach, I did read it this year and think it would be a perfect fit. I think it just came out in paperback as an added bonus.

3. Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: I read this chunkster over the summer as well.  I associate the book with summer, although I find some of Murakami's fiction, like Norwegian Wood, to be very wintry.


2. Don DeLillo, Underworld:  I've tried to read this a couple of times over the summer, but haven't made it all the way through. One summer, some friends and I even had an "Underworld Summer Fun Club."  The book is about baseball (amongst many other things) and takes place part of the time, in the desert, and it is sort of quintessentially summery.  So, I'm not going to give up.  One summer, I will finish it.

1. Alex Garland, The Beach: I couldn't help it.  Plus, I actually like the book, although it might create some shark attack related paranoia, which is a bummer.