No. 20. Ennui & Carcasses: The True History of Beach Reads

From "Beach Bodies", a work in progress.

I

A “beach read” connotes something light and throwaway, a work of escapism to be consumed quickly while on vacation. I first encountered this category of text in childhood, in the holiday homes my parents rented in Saint Andrews on the east coast of Scotland. Some of them contained beach reads, which I found baffling: why would you want to spend your ho…