How to Pack for a Week at the Beach

Oh you thought I meant clothes? No but what books are we taking?!?!

The glorious thing about car travel is that there is basically no limit to the number of books you can bring. They’re small, and the weight of the tote bag is no object, as evidenced by this image:

You can’t even tell but my Kindle is in there too and it’s packed. I read fast, and I like options!

There is a list of what I brought below, but what’s more important is WHY. Yes, I have a total of FIVE books with the word “Summer” in the title (and I could have had more). And yes there are three—or maybe four depending on your definition of “spy”— total books that feature spies and overall a definite beach/ocean theme.

So maybe that seems like a big pile of much the same thing, but no. What really matters is that there’s a wide variety of VIBE.

There’s comedy, thrillers, and mixes of the two. There’s a lot of romance, but itself with a range from “more about the people and the story” to “more about the emotional journey”. There’s “don’t talk to me I’m reading” and “sure, let’s walk to the candy store”. There are people behaving badly, and people showing the best of what people can be.

There are books for people who finished theirs or didn’t bring one :). There’s also a stack of assorted magazines, one book in Spanish that I’m probably kidding myself about and a couple of notebooks because I’ll undoubtedly need to make a few lists from my beach chair.

There is zero chance that I’ll read it all but also zero chance that I’ll feel like I don’t have anything to read.

Honestly, the feeling of incredible bounty is part of the point. Even if in the end I read only one book I will have felt the glorious possibility that my tote bag represents—and that’s part of the fun of this annual trip. I’m not the only one who does this, right? Do you have a trip where you get to stack up all the books as though you will read for hours, no matter what you ultimately do?

Next week I’ll share what I actually read. Meanwhile—if you’ve read any of these, spill! Make sure I don’t miss something good!

THE LIST

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

Wreck: A Novel by Catherine Newman

Songs of Summer by Jane L. Rosen

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

The Blonde Who Came in From the Cold by Ally Carter

The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn

Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

The Carpool Detectives by Chuck Hogan

Mean Moms by Emma Rosenblum (Sample Chapter)