Beach Reads for 2017
We love the feeling when we start a book, and 30 pages in, we are hooked. If you're looking for some light reads that keep your thumbs busy flipping the pages meanwhile your toes are in the sand, then we recommend the books below!
The Ramblers is a well written book by Aidan Donnelley Rowley. It is about Manhattan located, 30-Something BFFs. Each character in The Ramblers is “at least a tiny bit broken.” Their vulnerably and flaws will resonate with readers, reminding them that everyone is carrying burdens we don’t see, that “no one emerges from childhood totally unscathed.”
Readers will want for these characters what they want for themselves: supportive family, loyal friends, faithful lovers, fulfilling careers, and to do the best they can. This book at times can get spicy and NSFW (if you know what we mean). This is the perfect book for when you're drinking a vodka soda and soaking up the on spring break.
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Crazy Rich Asians is an amazing book if you're interested in fashion, lavish celebrities, and international travel. Kevin Kwan writes his book around new Asian stereotypes. We've left the familiar waters of kung fu fighting for a whole new wave of stereotypes. Kwan delves into the world of the Singaporean "overseas" Chinese – an elite breed sporting Huntsman blazers and matching Queen's English accents, who shoot off to island getaways in their private jets.
Highly recommend if you're trying to plan your next overseas adventure to Asia, since a lot of the book references different Asian cities: Singapore, China, Taiwan, and more!
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A New York Times Bestseller, The Girls is a story set in Northern California at the end of the 1960s. Evie Boyd, a lonely teenager, takes notice of a group of girls in the park at the beginning of summer. She is caught by their freedom, careless dress, and aura of abandon. She soon finds herself in thrall to Suzanne, an older girl, and is drawn into a soon to be famous cult. Their run down ranch is located in the hills, but Evie views it as an exotic and thrilling place where she feels the desperate need to be accepted.
Evie spends more time away from her mother and the normal path of her day to day life as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies. She soon finds herself wrapped up in her involvement with Suzanne and the cult, and fails to realize she is coming closer to unimaginable violence.
Fabulously written and a real page turner, The Girls is a great work of fiction and has been named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and NPR. We initially picked up the book because we saw that Lena Dunham recommended it, and she is a badass.
When Breath Becomes Air is an extraordinary book about something terribly ordinary: how to live and how to die. It is a short read for the ultimate busy bee. This book has many important things to tell us, as individuals and as a society. For anyone interested in living, this book is mandatory reading. Kalanithi is a young, talented neurosurgeon who is destined for great things. He takes the reader on an extraordinarily sensitive, breathtaking, at times heartbreaking and utterly compelling journey through a young man’s struggle with terminal illness. But Kalanithi is not writing about a patient he has treated, he is writing about himself.
Aged 36, and approaching the pinnacle of his career, Kalanithi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When Breath Becomes Air is his unique, poignant account of living with the knowledge that one’s death is imminent. This book had us constantly smiling, and at one point, even crying because of Paul's brilliant prose. Must read.
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5.) The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
The Blue Sweater is the inspiring personal memoir of a woman who has spent her life on a quest to understand global poverty and to find powerful new ways of tackling it. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of Acumen, Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen’s Founder and CEO, brings us a series of insightful stories and unforgettable characters — from women dancing in a Nairobi slum, to unwed mothers starting a bakery, to courageous survivors of the Rwandan genocide, to entrepreneurs building services for the poor against impossible odds.
She shows, in ways both hilarious and heartbreaking, how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called “patient capital” can help make people self-sufficient and change millions of lives. More than just an auto-biography or a how-to guide to tackling poverty, this book challenges us to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink our engagement with the world.
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Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations. The book is originally written in Swedish but was remastered to English! This book has recently been turned into an amazing movie but be warned, you'll need to read subtitles!
