The best summer beach reads

When you’re on holiday, reading shouldn’t feel like a slog. To really relax, “ditch boring” and “prioritise pleasure”, said Daisy Buchanan in The Guardian. Instead of taking a hefty tome on your next trip, try bringing a “comforting” novel you’ve read before or look for something that will give you a “dose of delight”. Most importantly: “if you don’t like the book you’re reading, you don’t have to finish it”. Here are some of the best beach reads to help you unwind this summer.

Bryant & May by Christopher Fowler

On my last break “I made a new discovery”, said Camilla Tominey in The Telegraph. Christopher Fowler’s books about two “Golden Age detectives in a modern world” – Arthur Bryant and John May – who head up the Peculiar Crimes specialist police division, are “beautifully written whodunnits”. The novels have all the elements of a “great holiday page-turner” from “plot twists” to “compelling dialogue” and, crucially, “a sense of humour”.

After Julius by Jane Howard

I came across Jane Howard “criminally recently”, said Joumana Khatib in The New York Times, and enjoyed this family saga so much I’m planning to read her better-known multi-book series, “The Cazalet Chronicles”, next. Howard’s “ruthless social observations and wit” are admirable, and she has a knack for capturing the “experience of precarity, whether emotional, financial, social, in incredibly fine detail”.

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The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak’s “vivid” love story stayed with me long after I finished it, said Rebecca Astill in The Telegraph. The action follows the “clandestine relationship” between Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot. Shafak is excellent at sketching Cyprus’ “sun-drenched tavernas” in illuminating detail and she “never shies away from the pain of the civil war”. This is the perfect summer read if you’re after a “pool or beach-side page-turner that still has a bit of grit”.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

This highly “perceptive” book about a pair of freelance digital creatives living in Berlin in the 2010s is “this year’s sleeper hit”, said Henry Wong in Empire. In his scathing fourth novel, Latronico deftly “taps into very modern anxieties and frustrations, while retaining a sense of humour”. A must-read.

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer

Set in 1960s London, this semi-autobiographical novel documents the life of Mrs Armitage – “one of the most compelling characters I’ve ever read”, said Anna Caffola in Vogue. Married four times and “crushed” under the weight of motherhood, she is “unhinged” and “screamingly funny”. I’ve read Mortimer’s book several times in “quick gulps” and I always get the same “jolt of energy” from her “unbridled, perilous prose”.

One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford

“The laughs are pitch black” in Leigh Radford’s novel “One Yellow Eye”, said Siobhan Murphy in The Times. In it, she tackles the “unusual” question: “what would you do if the love of your life became a zombie?” Radford paints an “affecting portrait” of biomedical scientist Kesta as she desperately searches for a cure to save her husband, Tim, who is “secretly sedated and tied to the bed in their flat”. Wonderfully tense and “snort-inducingly funny”, it’s a propulsive read.