This weekend, the boyfriend and I are heading to my parent’s cabin (soon to be retirement home) in northern Wisconsin for some family celebrations. Prepping for the first summer weekend at the lake always gets me thinking about what makes a good beach read.

The kind of book that’s good for a long, warm, boozy afternoon is a rare beast, but after many cabin weekends I’ve got a pretty good idea of what kinds of books work particularly for me. Here are the four things I look for, plus a few books that I think fit the bill for a beach read.

It’s easy to pick up and put back down.

Most of my time at the beach or on the lake is also time spent with other people. While I love a good, absorbing book, one of the things I’ve been working on is remembering that many of the best moments in life happen when you look up off the page and engage with what’s happening around you. A good beach read is one that grabs my attention, but that is also easy dip in and out of as the day goes on.

It has simple prose and a simple plot.

This goes back to to my first quality. Good lake reads are books that don’t take much extra mental energy to read. I tried a Jane Austen book at the cabin once and I just couldn’t do it — classic prose seems to take too much effort. I also need the plot/structure to be relatively straightforward because I’m often too distracted to follow plot jumps or other experimental prose.

It’s not depressing or political.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that beach reads have to all be light and fluffy. I don’t mind reading books that take on substantive topics while I’m by the lake, but I don’t want something that’s entirely grim because I’m just not in the mood for that. And I tend to avoid political books at the beach because I don’t want to get into drawn out conversations about those kinds of topics when I’m with so many other people — nobody likes a current events debate while trying to enjoy a margarita.

It’s a paperback.

This one is negotiable. I prefer to read paperbacks at the lake — they’re lighter, cheaper, and easier to stow away — but I’ll bring a hardcover if that’s what is calling my attention at the time.

With all that in mind, here are a few of my favorite books that I also think would be great reads by the beach:

• Packing for Mars by Mary Roach — I was tempted to recommend my favorite Mary Roach book, Stiff, but figured a book on dead bodies doesn’t scream “beach read.” But Packing for Mars, all about what we do to prepare astronauts for the rigors of space travel, is pretty much perfect. It’s funny, has short and simple chapters, and is full of fun facts to share with other readers.
• Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters — “Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962…and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later.” I read this book on the beach in Greece last fall and just adored it.
• The Great Beanie Baby Bubble by Zac Bissonnette — If you have any nostalgia for the Beanie Baby crazy of the 1990s, then this book is a must read. The story behind the craze, and eccentric creator Ty Warner, is such a fun read.
• Americanah By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — At first glace, a story about race and identity in America seems like a tricky choice as a beach read. But the love story at the core of this book keeps everything moving along, and Adichie’s observations about how we talk about race in the United States are often very funny.
• Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman — Just out of college  in 1986, Susan and her friend Claire decide to travel around the globe, starting in the People’s Republic of China. This memoir heads in such crazy directions, it’s hard to even describe. I loved it on audio, and I think it’d be great on the beach.

I’m still trying to decide what books I’m actually going to bringing with me this weekend. I’m leaning towards Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam (which breaks my paperback rule, but otherwise seems excellent) and You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (a collection of essays by the head writer of Inside Amy Schumer I grabbed at BEA). But that all may change as we’re heading out the door tomorrow — given my abysmal reading record so far this month, I definitely need to go with mood reading now more than ever.

What beachy reads are you planning to pick up this summer?

I love coming across a good HEART OF DARKNESS reference.

Briefly | I’m feeling so sad and so defeated by the mass shooting in Orlando yesterday. I’m not sure what it takes to accept that there’s a problem in the United States related to gun violence, and that we need to do something to address it. President Obama’s comments after a PBS News Hour town hall earlier this month have been on my mind, even more so since yesterday.

Reading | Reading has been incredibly slow so far this month. I decided to put Swamplandia! aside for something a little more fast-paced, Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. It’s a pretty good page-turning thriller so far, and comes with a Liberty Hardy endorsement, so I’m optimistic it’ll stay good.

Watching | I missed watching the Tony’s last night — we were at a friend’s house for game night — but I’m hoping I can catch the highlights from the broadcast online today.

Listening | The boyfriend and I are off to the lake this weekend, so we’ll need an audio book for the car. I’m trying to settle on something we’ll both like — I’m thinking Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, but we’ll see.

Cooking | Summer salads are here! We had a caprese salad over the weekend that was pretty delicious.

Blogging | I reviewed some books this week — Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and LaRose by Louise Erdrich. Yay!

Promoting | I got to interview Mary Roach for Book Riot! I learned a bunch of new stuff about the reporting and writing of her newest book, Grunt, that I managed to pull together in a relatively coherent Q&A.

Hating | I had a lot of things percolating for “hating” this week, but the events in Orlando over the weekend made all of that seem petty. So I’ll just say I hate that we’re at such a polarized moment in our country that there seems to be no interest, by some, in having a reasonable conversation about what should be done to start addressing an epidemic of gun violence.

Loving | This weekend was also my sister Jenny’s birthday. She’s an amazing sister, and has grown into such a good friend and travel companion. I couldn’t ask for a better sister in my life.

Can’t Let It Go | I’m stealing this last one from the NPR Politics podcast, which uses this prompt for their last segment every week. This week, I can’t let go of the fact that two of my favorite actors from Hamilton — Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr) and Chris Jackson (George Washington) — had small roles on Person of Interest! Leslie Odom Jr. played a privacy terrorist/advocate named Peter Collier for a multi-episode arc, and Chris Jackson was Random Inept Security Guard for one episode. So funny!

During my vacation last month to Milwaukee and Chicago, I found myself totally absorbed in a couple of big, epic family stories. While they’re set in totally different places, both authors are really skilled at weaving together historical and contemporary threads. And despite covering huge topics, both books manage to feel specific and character-driven in a way that kept me turning the pages.

LaRose by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich’s newest novel, LaRose, starts out with a rather horrifying premise. While out hunting deer, Landreaux Iron kills five-year-old Dusty Ravich, the youngest child of a neighboring family. Law enforcement rules the shooting an accident, but Landreaux can’t accept that answer. After consulting with their ancestors via a sweat lodge, Landreaux and his wife, Emmaline, give their son, LaRose, to the Ravich family as an act of atonement. Peter, his wife Nola, and his daughter Maggie welcome the boy into their family, although LaRose maintains a connection to his parents and siblings, tieing the two families together while other forces in their community threaten to topple the carefully balanced peace.

It’s hard to say enough wonderful things about this book. It manages to perfectly balance beautiful writing, a compelling plot, and historical context in a way that’s easy to read while still being substantial. Maybe that’s sounds a little snobby, I don’t know, but it’s the perfect kind of balance I feel like I look for in fiction. While the story of how the Irons and Ravich families manage to survive after a terrible loss is gripping, I also loved the way Erdrich weaves in history – LaRose is the most recent in a line of family members with that name, all previously women, with their own harrowing stories. Erdrich’s just an incredible writer, who is able to blend history and contemporary storytelling so beautifully – I really want to dive into more of her backlist later this summer.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I stood in line to get a copy of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi at Book Expo America because a bunch of the writers at Book Riot have been raving about this one, and for good reason – it’s pretty stellar. Homegoing starts with the story of two half sisters living in different villages in Ghana. Effia is forced to marry an Englishman who is part of the British slave trade in that region. Esi is a prisoner of the British who is eventually sold into the Gold Coast slave trade and send to America. Each chapter of the book follows the generations on both sides of the family, looking at the way the slave trade affected individuals on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, touching on colonization, the Civil War, the Great Migration, and on into the present.

This book is just so great. I know I’m going to be recommending it a lot. I loved the structure, which is right in between interconnected short stories and an epic family drama. You get a sense of the big story of these families and how they fit into history, but every chapter is also a portrait of an individual at those times. It manages to be both very specific and incredibly broad, which feels like such an achievement. And through all of that, it’s just a really great read – I started this one on my plane ride home from BEA and hated putting it down until I was finished.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links through Amazon. If you make a purchase through any of those links, I will receive a small commission.

Briefly | Happy Monday! I case you missed it last week, I’ve decided to go with a slower blogging schedule this summer, just posts on Monday and Thursday. I’m not sure if every Monday will be a Currently post, but for now I like the format and think it’ll do nicely.

Reading | Over Memorial Day weekend I finished two very different books about war — Grunt by Mary Roach and Ashley’s War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. This weekend, my reading was much slower. I managed to make it a a ways into Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, but didn’t get into much else… too much time in front of the television.

Watching | I am deep in the middle of a binge of Person of Interest. The show didn’t get on my radar until just recently, when Alan Sepinwall, a tv critic I tend to trust, wrote about how he’s revisiting the show as the final season airs. I’m deep into the series and don’t see myself coming up for air anytime soon.

Listening | I’ve got a full slate of NPR podcasts queued up each week: Code Switch, NPR Politics, and Pop Culture Happy Hour. I feel like a stereotype.

Making | You’d think that all the time spent watching tv would mean that I’m making progress in the two baby gifts I’m crocheting, but no dice… still way behind on that.

Blogging | I shared some quick thoughts on Girls and Sex and Spinster, and did a May reading wrap up.

Promoting | In case you missed it, my interview with Leigh Bardugo, author of The Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows, was posted to Book Riot last week. She was a lot of fun to talk to, and shared some good stuff about her upcoming book Crooked Kingdom and plans for a YA adaptation of Wonder Woman.

Hating | I did a few behind-the-scenes blog updates on Friday night, and now everything seems to be a little bit wonky. I’m not sure which plugin isn’t cooperating with the current version of WordPress, but I fear finding out means dismantling a bunch of stuff I’ve set up. Technical maintenance is by far my least favorite part of blogging.

Loving | The weather was pretty stellar over the weekend. I got outside for long walks on both Saturday and Sunday — one with friends and one on my own. I crushed my FitBit step goal both days, which is exciting!

Anticipating | If everything goes as planned, the boyfriend and I are going to get away to the cabin once in June, and then again in July for Independence Day. The drive is about 4.5 hours, so it’s not exactly a quick trip, but even for a weekend it’s so worth it.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links through Amazon. If you make a purchase through any of those links, I will receive a small commission.