Beach Reads

We know you wouldn't dream of embarking on a long-awaited—and much-deserved—vacation without a carefully chosen book. Going beyond the traditional notion of beach reads, we've chosen readable fiction and nonfiction alike to pack with your sunscreen.

FICTION

REVIEW BY SARAH E. WHITE

Jack Burns, the protagonist of John Irving's 11th novel, Until I Find You, is a successful movie actor trained to focus on his "audience of one," for him the father who left his mother before Jack was born.

The novel traces Jack's quest to discover the true story of what happened between his parents, not what he thinks he remembers or what he's been told by his mother, a second-generation tattoo artist living in Toronto. Jack attends a formerly all-girls school where his father taught. There, he is abused by the older girls (older women will always define Jack's life) and he begins to act, often playing a woman (another recurring theme). People who knew his father, an organ-playing tattoo addict who looked exactly like Jack, seem to be waiting for the day when Jack's personality will resemble his, too. Because of this, Jack vows not to have children until he has proof his father had a child he didn't leave. He is a rich, famous actor but has no real relationships with women other than a longtime friend and his therapist.

This dense novel (by far Irving's longest) is dark in many places, dealing with sexual molestation, prostitution, the damage caused by the absence of a parent, death and Hollywood scandal and spanning Canada, the U.S., several North Sea countries and the intricately painted worlds of tattooing, organ music and acting. As in all of Irving's books, the characters are strikingly real in their flaws and lovability, and they have something to say to everyone about the way the stories we tell ourselves and the stories others tell us combine to make the truth of who we are.

This book is not a fast read, or an easy one, but Irving's fans have always proved up to a challenge. This story will not disappoint them.

Sarah E. White is a writer and editor in Fayetteville, Arkansas.


SUSPENSE

REVIEW BY PAUL GOAT ALLEN

What would you do if a sadistic serial killer forced you to decide who his next victim was? That's the crux of Dean Koontz's newest psychological thriller Velocity, an intimate, masterfully understated novel that will terrify readers with its almost subliminal metaphors and symbolism.

Bartender Billy Wiles gets off work one day and finds a note under the windshield wiper of his truck: "If you don't take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher somewhere in Napa County. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours." With this discovery, Billy begins an unwilling descent into darkness that will bring him face-to-face with the long-buried demons of his past and force him to delve into the twisted subconscious of a maniac. As the killer draws Billy deeper and deeper into his "performance," he also plants pieces of evidence at the crime scenes that will implicate Billy if he refuses to play along. While the notes continue, and innocent people meet brutal deaths because of his decisions, Billy realizes that the killer's next victim may be his fiancée, who has been in a coma for the last four years. Will Billy be forced to order the death of his fiancée in order to give a stranger a chance at life?

One of the most popular suspense novelists in the world, the prolific Koontz delivers the spine-tingling goods in Velocity. With its tightly woven plot and break-neck pace, this dark exploration into what it means to be alive will keep readers up all night—with all the lights on, of course.

Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer in Syracuse.

TRAVEL

REVIEW BY KELLY KOEPKE

Part travelogue, part political treatise, Finding George Orwell in Burma traces Orwell's experiences in 20th-century Burma while keenly observing the realities of daily existence under the brutal dictatorship that rules the country today. Asian-born American journalist Emma Larkin (a pseudonym used to protect her ability to continue reporting) follows the footsteps of the dystopian author's formative years as a policeman in Burma in the 1920s. Along the way she discovers how much the Southeast Asian country's repressive leadership has patterned itself after the ruthless regimes of Orwell's fiction.

Larkin, who speaks fluent Burmese, sprinkles her eyewitness reports on the villages and neighborhoods of Orwell's in-country years with passages from his first novel, Burmese Days, and his more famous works Animal Farm and 1984.

Daily life in Burma (Larkin never refers to it as Myanmar, a name given it by the generals in power as a way of rewriting history) is difficult. Inflation and corruption are rampant, free speech and a free press are nonexistent, and spies for military intelligence hover everywhere. Torture, imprisonment and disappearance are common, even for minor infractions. Despite grinding poverty, unemployment and lack of basic human rights, the Burmese people Larkin describes are optimistic about their future, bolstered by secret libraries of banned literature, clandestine meetings and hushed discussions with the occasional foreigner.

Larkin's dispassionate prose sketches a portrait which is instructive but never maudlin, enlightened but not judgmental about the Burmese people's reactions to their plight. After all, as they say, it can't really get any worse. Readers of Finding George Orwell in Burma will soon come to understand why Orwell is revered there as a prophet.

Kelly Koepke is a freelance writer in Albuquerque.

LA VIE FRANÇAISE

REVIEW BY TRISHA PING

If the rising price of airline tickets has you spending your summer vacation on American shores instead of jetting off to the Côte d'Azur, Stephen Clarke's hilarious new book is the perfect antidote. (Readers too relaxed to turn the pages can check out the audio version, which is also reviewed in this issue.) As you might have guessed from its irreverent title, A Year in the Merde doesn't follow in the worshipful footsteps of such travelogues as A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun. Instead, Clarke's roman à clef (loosely based on his own experiences as an Englishman working in Paris) is a laugh-out-loud comedy of errors as the hapless anglais Paul West moves to Paris to open an English tearoom. Language and customs are immediately an issue—Paul struggles with his French co-workers' ideas about what is English, tries to find a decent place to live in pricey Paris and juggles liaisons with his boss' daughter and a French photographer.

The appeal of A Year in the Merde (the title comes from Paul's unfortunate propensity for stepping in the dog droppings that litter Parisian sidewalks) isn't its sometimes slapstick plot but its droll observations on everyday life for a foreigner in France. Paul's difficulty ordering a normal-sized café au lait and his amazement at the lengthy list of French greetings (not limited to "good morning" "good afternoon" or "good night," they also include the very specific "have a nice rest-of-the-afternoon," among others) will strike a chord with anyone who's ever tried to get by in a foreign country. Clarke, who originally self-published his book in France, clearly knows the country inside and out, and his unvarnished but affectionate portrait is escapism at its best.

Trisha Ping spent a year as an English assistant in Mulhouse, France.

HISTORICAL FICTION

REVIEW BY SIOBHAN O'LEARY

It is difficult to imagine how a novel that deals with the sterile formality of relationships in 19th-century China could also bring to light the poignant tale of two young girls from very different backgrounds who build a friendship that exceeds even their love for their own families. In her mesmerizing novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See deftly accomplishes this task.

Madame Wang, matchmaker extraordinaire, arrives one day at the home of young Lily in the village of Puwei. Though Lily comes from a family of poor farmers, Madame Wang senses her potential, which lies primarily in her impeccably formed feet—seven-centimeter-long "golden lilies"—which are the key to marrying into a wealthy family.

Lily is presented the rare opportunity to enter into a relationship with a laotong, or "old same," a match with another girl considered as significant as a good marriage. In this case, Lily is paired with Snow Flower, who lives with her upper-class family in Tongkou village. Madame Wang gives Lily a fan which bears a secret language developed by the women of Hunan Province as a means of communicating in spite of their isolation. Lily and Snow Flower use this secret writing to send messages to one another at significant points in their lives.

See explicitly depicts the horrors of foot-binding and the grand ceremony with which relationships are cemented. The journey of the two girls—one married into a wealthy family, one promised to a less than regal butcher—is cinematic in scope and touching in execution as the two "old sames" seek to weather the many storms that shake their friendship. See offers delicate insight into the private world of women whose lives are in so many ways an object of public display.

Siobhan O'Leary has traveled extensively in China.

CRIMINAL SCIENCE

REVIEW BY JAMES NEAL WEBB

In this day and age when science has caught up to criminals and most substances can be readily detected, why go to the trouble to use poison when guns 'n' bullets are available by the gross at your local superstore? While modern-day poisoners are rare, the subject of poison remains fascinating, and John Emsley has captured the true, shall we say, flavor of poison in his new book, The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison. This absorbing volume is equal parts chemistry, history and mystery, but you don't need to be a scientist, historian or murderer to appreciate all three facets.

Emsley opens with a short history of alchemy, that age-old effort to conjure gold from other elements. While the alchemists never succeeded in this quest, they did manage to discover the principles of modern-day chemistry—not to mention any number of ways to kill themselves and others. Accordingly, Emsley delves into each of the alchemic poisons (mercury, arsenic, antimony and lead), explaining its chemical properties on the molecular level, then following up with a history of each substance, how it was discovered and its practical uses.

Finally, he gets to the juicy bits—murder! The crimes range from carefully thought-out plots to some that strain the limits of credulity. (Some victims were so unaware of what was being done to them that it almost seems they deserved to be poisoned.) After covering the poisons from ancient history, Emsley gives us a look at something a bit newer: thallium, discovered in the mid-19th century, but no less fatal than its older cousins.

While all of these elements have some benefit to mankind, their malevolent uses are best left to the dustbin of history. The Elements of Murder shows us what an interesting history it was.

James Neal Webb only read this book for pleasure—not research. Honest!

WOMEN'S FICTION

REVIEW BY IRIS BLASI

In their follow-up to last year's The Botox Diaries, co-authors Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger turn again to a group of suburban 40-somethings coping with love and life. Sara Turner has just moved into a wealthy gated community on the outskirts of New York City with her new fiancé. She's struggling to smooth out life for her son and her unhappy teenage almost-stepdaughter while at the same time pursuing a new career as a television chef on the food network. Suddenly—without warning—her ex-husband reappears from a decade-long retreat in the wilderness of Patagonia, demanding to meet the son he's never seen and throwing everything out of whack. Thank goodness Sara has her wise and witty friends to support her.

They aren't without their own baggage, however. Sara's friend Kate Steele is a gorgeous dermatologist with a Park Avenue office who finds herself falling for a very successful—and very married—real estate tycoon. And Berni Davis, Sara's neighbor, is dealing with the aftermath of her decision to abandon a career as a cutthroat talent agent in favor of being a mom to her new twins.

The book is full of hilariously over-the-top situations, like the sex toy party thrown by a group of suburban women to welcome newcomers to the neighborhood. Yet the steady stream of witty zingers occasionally swells to an overwhelming avalanche of clichéd humor. It's only when the patter of jokes is slowed down ever so slightly that the characters are finally able to shine through.

The three women emerge from their mid-life crises relatively unscathed, concluding that the bumps in life are what make the journey all that more exciting. Mine Are Spectacular! is a welcome addition to hen lit and a great choice for a summer read.

Iris Blasi is a writer in New York City.

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