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Memorial Day weekend feels less like the official start of summer and more like a brief intellectual delusion brought on by salt spray, full sun, and a tote full of books you fully intend to finish.

The woman who reads Colette before noon. The woman who keeps nectarines in the fridge. The woman who disappears to the beach with a paperback and returns six hours later slightly pink and impossible to reach emotionally.

Beach reads, despite the name, are rarely actually read on beaches. They travel between towels, ferry rides, guest room beds, shady backyards, and 24 hour diners. They absorb sunscreen fingerprints, bend at the spine from being shoved into straw totes, and eventually develop a faint curl from salt air and condensation. This is part of their charm.

Your uniform for lounging:

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There is a particular pleasure in learning casually over summer — absorbing cultural history horizontally, half-asleep under an umbrella. These books drift easily between memoir, criticism, art history, recipes, and social observation. They also tolerate interruption gracefully:

• Bread of Angels by Patti Smith, for those romanticizing New York with near-religious intensity
• Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing, for reading between museum visits and existential spirals
• No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain, for those who plan entire trips around lunch
• How It Feels to Be Alive by Megan O’Grady, for women casually reconsidering everything
• The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich, for the person who always lingers in front of paintings long enough to look like they work there


• Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton, for poolside reading with a slight undertow of melancholy
• Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert, for decoding pop culture while your hair dries
• The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, for those who enjoy family histories with excellent objects
• On Looking by Alexandra Horowitz, for becoming more observant on walks to buy tomatoes
• A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women by Siri Hustvedt, for beach intellectuals with oversized sunglasses
• See What You’re Missing by Will Gompertz, for anyone trying to understand contemporary art without humiliation
• In the Company of Women by Grace Bonney, for career envy and studio voyeurism
• Oranges by Diana Henry, for those who prefer their summer reading heavily punctuated by recipes and Sicily

By Monday evening, the pages will be slightly warped, the spine cracked in two places, and you’ll have learned something pleasantly unnecessary about performance art, coastal Italy, or the correct glassware for vermouth. Which is to say: a successful long weekend.

For poolside readers:

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