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Reading is the Best Escape

Here Are Your 2023 Beach Read Recommendations

Juliana DiBattista Pisanzio of Deep River is looking forward to her upcoming trip to Capri, a charming and picturesque island in Italy’s Bay of Naples, for so many reasons. There are the fabulous food and hotels, the island’s spectacular natural beauty, the fabulously clear blue sea, and the gorgeous beaches, many of them tucked into tiny coves.

Those beaches, she says, are the perfect place to dive into a great beach read. She’ll come to the island thoroughly prepared, thanks to a stop she made recently at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison. She bought a tote bag and stuffed it with nine beach reads to purchase, books from authors she loves, along with suggestions from the booksellers.

“I had to stop myself from buying 10 more books,” she says. “I guess I’ll get more before we leave next month for Italy.” When she gets through the books and back home, she plans to leave then to her family’s restaurant, La Marea in Old Saybrook, at the front desk and invite customers to take them with them and then pass them on when they are done.

“Reading is the best escape,” she says. “Thank goodness for books and local bookstores.”

Heck yes to that, and thank goodness we live here on the Connecticut shoreline, packed with great beaches, and where we have a wealth of local bookstores and friendly booksellers happy to talk with us about what we like and then to provide recommendations. We also live among many book-obsessed book lovers happy to pass on book recommendations and the books themselves. Here are this year’s beach read recommendations from Breakwater Books in Guilford, R.J. Julia, Harbor Books in Old Saybrook, and the Griswold Inn Store in Essex.

Books To Love From Breakwater

Dani Howard, who, with her husband Rob, owns Breakwater Books, 81 Whitfield Street, Guilford, says she is enjoying a bunch of books she missed the first time around, rather than new releases. She says The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, despite its suicidal protagonist, “was surprisingly uplifting” and “ended just the way I had hoped it would, which I like in a beach read.” She’s also re-reading Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, “because I loved it so much, and our customers echo this sentiment. Everyone who comes in has either read it and gushes over it or snaps it up off of our Books To Love table.

One thing she often looks for in a beach read is humor.

“Customers have raved about Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes, where you go to a school for assassins, and your graduation requirement is to kill someone who deserves it and get away with it. It’s not a staff pick because we have not allowed any of our booksellers to read it for obvious reasons.”

Breakwater’s store manager, Sue, recommends Ms. Demeanor by Eleanor Lipman, “a hilarious romp about two apartment neighbors under house arrest.” Dani’s husband Rob recommends Swamp Story by Dave Barry, “a ridiculous scenario where two entrepreneurs make a reel for their failing business, and a reality TV team is searching for an Everglades hermit. One of their videos goes viral, and chaos ensues.”

For parents interested in taking a break from the beach or looking for something to do on a rainy day, Breakwater’s new owners have spiffed up the children’s books area in the back of the store, complete with a table where children can color while their parents shop. They also offer timely suggestions for great books to read on their social media feeds, including Facebook (www.facebook.com/BreakwaterBooksGuilford), and announce events there as well.

Ultimate Beach Reads From RJJ

Pisanzio wasn’t the only one grabbing a book tote at R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, and stuffing it with books to buy. It was part of a Build-A-Bag promotion, which ran through the end of July, which offered between 10 and 20% off for as many books as customers could stuff into the back.

That promotion was scheduled to end July 31, but other promotions continue, says RJJ Marketing Manager Liz Bartek, including the Summer Reading Program for kids with passports available upstairs in the bookstore’s Kid’s Department. There is Summer Reading Bingo for adults, with cards available at every register. And R.J. Julia is hosting Monday evening story time on the beach at Madison Beach Hotel, 94 West Wharf Road, Madison, through Monday, Aug. 28.

“We love summer at R.J. Julia,” she says.

In her spare time this summer, she’s been reading North Woods by Daniel Mason, due to come out in September. It’s described as a “sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries…” Bartek says. “I live in a 200+-year-old house, so it certainly speaks to me! I’m headed off to Maine today for a long weekend and hoping for some reading time.”

R.J. Julia, in addition to featuring a staff of booksellers who will offer personal recommendations, also hosts an ongoing series of book events in the store for both adults and children. More information about events is available at www.rjjulia.com.

Beach Reads At Harbor Books

When asked about what his customers are looking for when it comes to beach reads, Grahame Burton, the owner of Harbor Books, 146 Main Street, Old Saybrook, notes that it’s interesting that Emily Henry burst onto the best-selling lists with Beach Read in 2020. She currently has the number four best-selling hardcover book in Happy Place. And she’s high on the list of authors his customers are looking for when they walk in the door during the summer.

“If I had to name a few of the authors that customers who come into the store looking for beach reads end up buying, it would be Elin Hilderbrand, Emily Henry, Kristen Hannah, Ali Hazelwood, and Colleen Hoover,” he says.

Elin Hilderbrand is not only popular for her books, he says, but also for her hospitality. “A couple of our customers have been to her annual get-togethers on Nantucket and say how nice she is,” he says. He describes Kristen Hannah as a romance author turned contemporary romance author “but with some good more general best sellers like The Nightingale and The Four Winds.”

He admits that Colleen Hoover is derided by some of his older customers who consider her books “not particularly well written,” while at the same time, she remains “very popular, particularly with the younger crowd who hear about her books on social media.”

In addition to popular beach reads, Harbor Books sells new and used books on a variety of subjects and has books about nautical subjects and about local legend Katharine Hepburn. Find out more here: www.harborbooks.com.

Two Favorite Books From Griswold Inn Store

At the Griswold Inn Store, 47 Main Street, Essex, one of the booksellers, Christine, says she’s recommending two of her favorite books this summer: The Spectacular, by Fiona Davis, and Daughters of Nantucket, by a new author, Julie Gerstenblatt.

“Fiona Davis's new book is an interesting nostalgic story, part romance, history, and mystery, all revolving around the Spectacular Radio City Rockettes,” she says. “Daughters of Nantucket is a wonderful piece of historical fiction, which also has a romance, and centers around the great fire of 1846.”

Daughters of Nantucket focuses on “the lives of three very different independent women are affected by [the fire] and the times they are living in. And besides, who doesn't want to read about Nantucket in the summertime!”

The Griswold Inn Store also has a section called “recommended reads” on its website store.griswoldinn.com.

Living editor Pem McNerney also works as a part-time event host at R.J. Julia Booksellers.