book review the beach

The Literary Edit

Review: The Beach – Alex Garland

I adored the film, and found its depiction of Thailand and the characters therein both fascinating and somewhat disturbing. It wasn’t, however, until 5 years later that I got around to reading Garland’s most famous novel. I took a gap year, horrifically middle-class I know, post Henley College and set off round the world beginning my adventure in India. It was while I was on the final part of my Indian journey in Palolem, the most southern part of Goa, that I came across a copy of the book, and just days away from flying to Thailand I settled into the sand and began.

It tells the story of a young English traveller called Richard, who, when staying in a cheap hostel off Koh San Road, is left a hand drawn map of an allegedly hidden island off the Gulf of Thailand by a strange Scotsman who later commits suicide. The novels follows his journey as he meets young and beautiful French couple – Étienne and Françoise and they set out to find this hidden haven. Their search for this unspoiled paradise certainly resonated with me at the time of reading the novel. In a time where Western culture has infected much of the world, it is almost impossible to find untainted land. Even in India, which certainly wasn’t considered a traditional holiday destination when I was there, I was shocked by the infiltration of tourism in parts of Goa. Thus, while on its surface, The Beach is very much an adventure story, it also explores deeper issues, such as why we, as humans, seek such heights of Utopia.

When the trio arrive on the beach, the plot takes a sinister turn and it is clear that Garland was quite heavily influenced by works such as Lord of the Flies , which also examines claustrophobic relationships in isolated situations.

The Beach is a relevant, thought-provoking book, and one of the most profound novels I’ve read, particularly given my interest in travel. It is a stunning combination of a gripping plot and perfectly illustrated characters, and leaves the reader questioning the very fine line that distinguishes heaven from hell.

About The Beach

Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. In Thailand, he is given a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach – and a new way of life. What Richard finds when he gets there is breathtaking: more extraordinary, more frightening than his wildest dreams.

But how long can paradise survive here on Earth? And what lengths will Richard go to in order to save it?

About Alex Garland

Alex Garland (born 1970) is a British novelist and screenwriter.

Garland is the son of political cartoonist Nick (Nicholas) Garland. He attended the independent University College School, in Hampstead, London, and the University of Manchester, where he studied art history.

His first novel, The Beach , was published in 1996 and drew on his experiences as a backpacker. The novel quickly became a cult classic and was made into a film by Danny Boyle, with Leonardo DiCaprio.

A Revisit to My Old Self – A Review of The Beach by Alex Garland

Home » All Reviews » A Revisit to My Old Self – A Review of The Beach by Alex Garland

Where the Hungry Came to Feed

My gorgeous and bright novel, The Beach, was not about the things I thought it was as an impressionable 20-year-old. Quite the opposite, really. I thought it was about the glories of travel and hedonism. Instead, I now know that it was about how utopia is overrated, and the beautiful and shiny might be rotting inside. That Richard was a beautiful, unique butterfly, just like all the rest of the unique and beautiful butterflies doing the same thing. Richard was a child, instead of the wild king I had remembered him being.

I did not learn any of this till I reread the book 20 years later. What a difference twenty years makes.

On the one hand, I felt foolish, looking back on my younger self through the lens of 20 years of growth and wisdom. To my credit, while I did have an astonishing naivete to many things in life, I recognized the most important thing about the book, and it is this. Under the glossy covers, the terrible movie and the fantastic music was an important idea. I, at a young age, just grabbed on to the wrong one.

I read this book when I was right out of high school and entirely in love with the idea of a wild wonderland—a paradise filled with gorgeous people and no responsibility. I wanted to see, do, and experience that life. I wanted to suck the marrow out and let it dribble down my chin. I still do now, older and grayer. However, those ideas are now tempered with age, trust, and hopefully, steadfastness. Wild abandonment and hedonism sound great on paper until you think about all the people you abandon. I am no longer willing to do that.

I looked up to Richard and his friends at the time; I yearned to have the same cultural experiences he had in the book. Am I strong enough to fly to Thailand alone? The bright and the dirty, the wild, and the serene. I wanted to lay on the beach, have crazy sex, drink water coming from a waterfall, and live in this idyllic commune. I wanted it all so much.

And yet, instead of traversing the world, I went to college. Lived at home, dated the same man for years, and lived a quiet life. I resented that life, but at the same time, I felt like I was achieving something. And that wild hedonistic dream slowly started to slip away to be replaced with different dreams.

The problem was that when I reread the novel instead of the inspiration, I was left unsettled and feeling dirty. It felt like someone had taken my brain and used it to scour pans for an afternoon. The book was like a beautiful Honey Crisp apple sitting on a shelf, but it is full of maggots when you cut into it. The novel’s plot is “ After discovering a seemingly Edenic paradise on an island in a Thai national park, Richard soon finds that since civilized behavior tends to dissolve without external restraints, the utopia is hard to maintain. ” Richard, the main protagonist of the story, lives a very plus lifestyle at home, enough that he can set out to travel the world, mostly alone.

Richard ends up in Thailand, where he meets a young french couple. Richard experienced something he didn’t have much experience with, jealousy. He wanted her. They hear a rumor and see a map to a hidden paradise. Honest to God untouched paradise unsullied by tourism. They take a boat out, follow the island’s plan, pass some through fields of marijuana, and come to a waterfall.

They jump, and because they jumped, they are introduced to a community of people just like them.

That community is idyllic on the outside, but a scene that I thought was just sad then is horrifying to me now. A group of Swedes who are part of the community surf in the lagoon while the tide is low. They know that sharks come into the cove at this time to fish, but it is so beautiful the surfing couldn’t be missed. The sharks promptly murder and eat a few group members while leaving one with just his leg hacked off.

The commune has a choice, take the man back to safety via boat and not be allowed to come back to the idyllic island and then the man will probably live. Or leave the man on the beach on a comfy blanket and hope for the best. And, in best, they mean to let him bleed to death. In their minds, they are sacrificing the individual for the good of all. I see this often in novels and later in life, which is terrifying. Covid has shown the true colors of many people.

“Trust me, it’s paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is the generation that travels the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite & never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience— And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.” ― Alex Garland, The Beach

It had not lived up to my fantasies. I felt cheated and weak. What was weak was my perspective and understanding of life beyond my hometown at the time. “The Beach” has nothing to do with paradise, but the outlook on what constitutes a paradise, the darkness in people, and the lengths to which one would go to protect it. It is a smart book and subtle in its narration. Its overall gravitas was not something I could appreciate at the time, but it is something that I can look back on now and understand.

One of Garland’s subtler things and I noticed on rereading it, is that Garland keeps the travelers’ everyday life very mundane. He describes the day-to-day tasks that they need to accomplish; Fishing, farming, and partying. At the time, all I read was background noise. However, I see this as how each of the character’s reactions to the mundane subtly hints at the darker parts of the characters’ psyches. It reminds me of a much less ham-fisted and more eloquent lord of the Flies, but for a more modern audience. In the end, the characters are scarred both mentally and physically.

“The first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Ko Sanh Road.” ― Alex Garland, The Beach

If you are looking for a book that tears you up inside a bit, look no further. It is worth the second read, especially if you have some life experiences behind you.

Read The Beach by Alex Garland

Beth Tabler

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Very interesting review. I liked the explanation of your life experience in contrast to the book.

Thanks! For some reason, my writing got a little jumbled somehow on the way to posting. But I fixed it.

Beth very insightful view of this book. As we sometimes experience things in different times in our lives, they can be interpreted with many temperaments.

Your writing is very good! Thank you for sharing Looking forward to more Heidi Mancini

Thank you so much!

Total blast from the past. I’ll never forget reading this one. Great thoughts!

Did you get the same impressions? I read it as a young impressionable kid versus reading it as the old shrew that I am now. 🙂

I think my naive self loved it. The idea of escape and the fact that I could do that at the time. Sorta did a couple times, but always had a return ticket… but I did run into that tainted paradise, that vice creeps into everything.

Kinda like a gorgeous piece of cake with worms in the middle. Vice run amok. It was a great experience reading something 20 years apart and reviewing it. Shows how much I have changed and grown, for better or worse.

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Leonardo DiCaprio as Richard in The Beach (2000)

Alex Garland’s cult novel The Beach, 20 years on

The author’s 1996 debut, about a group of young backpackers who discover an ‘idyllic’ island off Bangkok, captured the late-90s zeitgeist. But does it still thrill?

I n my mid-20s, in the early 1990s, I moved to west London from Scotland. I remember meeting them, at parties in Notting Hill flats, in nightclubs, at raves. They’d be tanned, unshaven and stoned and they’d be saying things like, “No, man, Koh Samui is over. Phuket is just touristville now. You have to go to … ” I was moving among the backpacking, one‑upping, (mainly rich) young things that Alex Garland would skewer in his fiction debut a few years later, when he was, enragingly, just 26 years old. (Enragingly to me, at any rate: I was struggling with the outline for my own first novel, whose eventual publication was still nearly a decade in the future.)

The Beach is a recollection told in the first person (“Thinking about Thailand tends to make me angry, and until I started writing this book, I tried not to do it”) and it is peppered with cataphoric references (“Considering that two of them ended up dead and the other ended up nuts, I feel bad that their names mean so little to me”): tropes of horror fiction that conspire to create a feeling of dread, a warning about what is to come. Garland’s narrator Richard arrived at the Britpop feast like the Ancient Mariner, had Coleridge’s cipher been raised on Platoon , The Simpsons and Nintendo.

The premise was simple and cleanly executed: in Bangkok a young traveller is given a map to a hidden beach by an older traveller, Daffy, who then kills himself. Having first made the mistake of copying the map for two American backpackers he has formed a casual acquaintance with (an act that will later have horrific consequences), Richard and his two new friends – Étienne and his lover Françoise – find the beach and the small community of travellers who have been living there for several years in a small, self-sufficient community that, at first, resembles Eden. Gradually, of course, Eden is revealed to have the dynamics of the playground. There are rivalries and tensions. There are alpha males, chest-beating and jockeying for position. And there are serpents: the drug lords who control the huge marijuana patch on the far part of the island. And then there is Richard himself …

He was not the kind of child who just built Airfix model aircraft. He was the kind of child who built Airfix models, stuffed them full of cotton wool, doused them in lighter fuel, set them on fire and then threw them from the highest window in his house. When on the island he kills a small shark, its death throes appear to him as “something out of a comic-book fight”. He knows how to deal with a certain situation because he had seen it done on the TV series about the Vietnam war, Tour of Duty . Stalking the guards who patrol the marijuana patch, he notes that the only thing missing is “a Doors soundtrack”, presumably exactly like the one that covers the bloody climax of Apocalypse Now . Learning to walk quietly through the jungle when on patrol, he gives himself “three lives” whenever he steps on a twig or makes a noise, “in deference to video games”. Disaffection, ennui, is built line by line, paragraph by paragraph. At one point, the characters sit, stoned, naturally, in front of a spectacular Thai sunset – “red sky faded to deep blue … orange light threw elastic shadows down the beach” – and Richard notes that they watch it “as intently as if we were watching television”. Television being the primary reality, the gold standard to which all others must be calibrated.

Richard’s disaffection gradually gives way to brutality, to the point where, halfway through the novel, on discovering a junkie couple on a beach, the man already dead from an overdose, he can say: “I wasn’t bothered about the guy because he’d come to Thailand and messed up, so that was his lookout.” His only concern is for the girl’s feelings when she wakes to find her friend, or lover, dead, so Richard makes fast work of hiding the body while she is still unconscious. It is a strange, surrealistic episode, unconnected to the plot, but it reveals the truth of what Richard may be capable of later. Another striking aspect of the novel is the strange absence of sexuality: a couple of dozen young people are living in close quarters in the middle of nowhere and – apart from an inconclusive flirtation between Richard and Françoise – there is almost no sex. It is something the movie adaptation tried – not wholly successfully – to address.

A scene from the film adaptation of The Beach (2000)

FNG, LZ, frag, DMZ, KIA … the Vietnam war terminology is relentless. And, most of all, “the World”: the term used in the novel to mean anywhere that is not the beach, but which was coined by US GIs in-country to designate home, America, anywhere other than Vietnam. For Richard, of course, all of this is second hand: mediated knowledge learned through film and books. Hermann Hesse and The Deer Hunter . A generation or two earlier, men in their late teens and early 20s had only gone to remote jungle countries to fight wars. They witnessed things many of them would never talk of, although some would write books about them: Tim O’Brien ’s If I Die in a Combat Zone from the Vietnam war, just a generation before the one Garland writes about; Norman Mailer ’s The Naked and The Dead from the Philippines campaign of the second world war, from the generation before that. The Philippines is another place Richard has travelled to. (And which Garland would revisit for his next novel The Tesseract . Coincidentally, The Naked and the Dead was published when Mailer was 25: around the age Garland was when he wrote The Beach . It is not a long list: enduring novels written by people in their mid-20s. Some of us may find comfort in this.) But, of course, Mailer’s generation came home with very different stories to tell. “I do not want to die here,” Étienne says to Richard, terrified as they hide from the armed marijuana farmers. The line is straight out of any number of war movies, spoken by the terrified grunt from Bakersfield or Pittsburgh as he cowers under gunfire in a hot LZ. However, for generation X in 1996, there were no wars to fight. Only the war against boredom.

And, ultimately, Richard is bored. He is bored that all his experience has been through a screen. He is eventually bored by the beauty of the beach, by all the fishing and the farming and the carpentry. As his psychosis deepens during his solo jungle patrols, and the blood-spattered Daffy starts appearing to him during his waking hours as well as his sleeping ones, he wants something to happen. He wants the confrontation that will come when the Americans and their friends arrive. He wants to be discovered by the marijuana guards. Like the bored grunt on his fifth non-event mission, Richard wants enemy contact, he wants some action. He wants that Doors soundtrack to kick in and the tracer fire to start tearing apart the jungle canopy.

And so does the reader. It is a neat trick of Garland’s narrative that the violence at the novel’s denouement lands not only as shock but as release.

“I don’t travel with a camera … My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost. Apart from that the photographs never seem to be very evocative.” ( The Beach )

Strangely and fittingly, I find myself writing this on a beach in the Gulf of Thailand (Koh Samed, not a location Richard would have approved of: far too popular) and, looking up and down the sand, I can count half a dozen selfie sticks trembling in the air, and twice as many smartphones. Today, everyone travels with a camera.

It is at once easy and almost impossible to imagine the novel recast now, for the millennials, the children of the characters Garland wrote about two decades ago. Easy because, instead of looking at the sunsets and jungle outlines through the prism of Vietnam movies, instead of looking up from their Game Boys (Tekken, Sonic the Hedgehog, Alien 3, Super Mario … to the average teenager today the list of video game references in The Beach will read as archaically as a catalogue of relics from a pharaoh’s tomb) towards the sparkling water, they would be looking up from iPhones and laptops, they would be filtering their reality (literally, scrolling through “monochrome”, “fade”, “1970s” and all the other options in the bar at the bottom of the screen, or perhaps, daringly, not doing so and simply hashtagging the image with “nofilter”) through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

And it is almost impossible, because how can we imagine the book’s central premise surviving two minutes in the contemporary cyclone of location services enabled? Today, Daffy’s crude cartography would have been fed into Google Maps, then shared, retweeted and liked until something out of one of Garland’s future creation 28 Days Later happened: a zombie apocalypse of backpackers heading like a tidal wave for the beach within 48 hours.

Part of the novel’s astonishing success at the time (a bestseller and then a movie with the hottest director of the moment, Danny Boyle, and the biggest star in the world, Leonardo DiCaprio) was its hotwiring of the zeitgeist. By 1996-97, it wasn’t just the trust-fund kids from W11: everyone was backpacking in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. But – as long-out-of-print works by everyone from Jack London to Terry Southern will attest – briefly touching the zeitgeist is no guarantee of still being in print 20 years later. What will the generation that reads the novel now, and those that come after them, find in its pages? They will find what generations before them found in the pages of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway , as their protagonists drank and smoked and gazed at the landscapes of Italy, or Spain, or Africa: characters damaged by where they have come from, looking for release – or correction, or illumination – in strange new corners of the world and finding only disaffection, ugliness, self-absorption and ego.

Finding only the things they have brought with them.

Alex Garland

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Burma (myanmar).

Garland used novels Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness as well as various Vietnam war movies as inspiration for his novel, which sees protagonist Richard search for that most mythical of all things travel: a perfect, pristine beach, known to next to nobody. Richard is left a hand-drawn map to the beach by a traveller who commits suicide in a Bangkok flophouse; the story sees him and two French travellers hunt down and find the titular beach. In the process Garland seeks to explore the question of whether Western travellers effectively ruin the very thing they set out to find — you can pretty easily guess the answer, but the book is a page-turner while it teases the analysis out. Having read the book while backpacking in Southeast Asia in 1997, it would be interesting to give it a re-read to see how it’s stood the test of time. Of course it’s hard to imagine a similar beach staying off the radar today, thanks to the internet and the power of social media. Are the backpackers of today looking for the same escape as those of 20 years ago anyway? Whether they are or not, the story remains a page-turner.

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ON THE BEACH

by Nevil Shute ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 24, 1957

In 1939 Nevil Shute wrote a horrifyingly prophetic book, , which made the life of the average citizen under bombardment only too real, as time proved. In 1954 Philip Wylie wrote a grisly story of what the future might hold for an unprepared citizenry in Tomorrow. And now comes Shute again with a portrait of the last stand of mankind against an enemy over which there was no control- radiation, gradually encompassing and destroying the world. There has been a brief atomic war, launched by two nations and resulting in mutual destruction within a brief month. But then the real catastrophe comes, as the death dealing effects encompass the living world. In Australia, where only the upper fringes so far lie within the circle, the people of the community of which he writes have exact scientific knowledge of when their doom will descend. To some it brings cessation from all activities; to others, indulgence in excesses of one kind or another; to still others, refusal to face the inevitability of the end, and a grim determination to go on as if next Spring would find the blooming of bulbs planted in the Fall — and they there to see it. In the harbor is the one known surviving submarine of the U S A Navy. This submarine is sent on an expedition to determine through periscope and radar, what is behind the continued sending from a Puget Sound post. One sailor jumps ship- and goes back to his home. He is not allowed back, because of contamination; but his report is part of the record. The dead- caught in their daily round of living; no sign of life. But he has chosen. He prefers to meet his end, fishing familiar waters of his youth. The people of the story are very real; their tragic awareness becomes the possession of the reader. One hopes- to the end- for a miracle. But there is no miracle. It is an obsessive, nightmarish book, the more so because it is written on almost a deadpan level of narration, deliberately shorn of histrionics.

Pub Date: July 24, 1957

ISBN: 0307473996

Page Count: 250

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1957

SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

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by Nevil Shute

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Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

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THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA

by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.

Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune ( The Art of Breathing , 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY

More by TJ Klune

by TJ Klune

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The continuing relevance of “On the Beach”

By Beverly Gray | August 3, 2015

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“It frightened the hell out of me. I’m still frightened.”

These words mark the reaction of a young Australian named Helen Caldicott to a story of the aftermath of mistaken nuclear war, in which those who never even took sides were faced with the slow advance of deadly nuclear radiation on their shores. On the Beach , first a best-selling novel and then a major Hollywood film, confronts the viewer with a number of questions: How would you behave if—in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse—you knew you only have a few weeks or months left to live? Would you carouse riotously, knowing the end is near? Deny that the entire thing is happening? Hope against all logic for a miraculous reprieve? Try to maintain a core of decency in the face of imminent death? Wish that you had done something long ago to prevent nuclear war in the first place?

The story’s effect on Caldicott, then a 19-year-old Melbourne medical student who’d just learned about genetics and radiation, was profound. She went on to become both a pediatrician and a feisty anti-nuclear activist, an inspiration to others in the non-proliferation community and in the nuclear humanitarian initiative . She is renowned for warning, “It could happen tonight by accident,” and with the onset of nuclear winter, “We’ll all freeze to death in the dark.”

But what about the book itself and the 1959 movie made from it? Recently, after watching a 2013 documentary called Fallout (produced by Rough Trade Pictures in association with Screen Australia and Film Victoria) that ponders these questions, I sat down with Karen Sharpe Kramer, widow of the producer-director of On the Beach . Stanley Kramer was well-known for releasing such “message” films as Judgment at Nuremberg , Inherit the Wind , and Ship of Fools . Of On the Beach he once wrote, “Its subject was as serious and compelling as any ever attempted in a motion picture—the very destruction of mankind and the entire planet.” Kramer died in 2001, but as the Iran nuclear agreement, renewed US-Russian nuclear tensions, and the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings make headlines, his Eisenhower-era movie retains an unfortunate relevance.

A different time—or maybe not so different. Sixty years ago, as the Cold War intensified, the end of the world seemed much too close for comfort. The threat of nuclear destruction, implicit in the newspaper headlines of the day, naturally leached into popular culture. The first filmmakers to incorporate the potential for global apocalypse into their work were the makers of low-budget horror flicks, like 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and 1954’s Godzilla . Such movies both shocked and titillated young audiences by positing that nuclear tests had unleashed huge, fearsome monsters that—metaphorically standing in for the Bomb itself—could not be contained.

While teenagers were at the movies, their parents were building backyard fallout shelters in hopes of surviving the coming nuclear holocaust. Then suddenly a book appeared that spoke on an adult level to the futility of bomb shelters and the era’s duck-and-cover drills. This was On the Beach , published in 1957 by a British-born aeronautical engineer. Nevil Shute, who had once worked on the first British airship, spent much of World War II helping the Royal Navy develop experimental weapons in preparation for the D-Day invasion. By the time Shute transplanted his family to Melbourne, Australia, he had already begun publishing a long string of adventure novels. But in the post-war years, he felt a special need to convince the public of the dangers posed by nuclear proliferation. Through the character of Julian, he acknowledged the complicity of the scientists who had helped create weapons of mass destruction. In many ways, Shute personally identified with Julian, who must admit that “the devices outgrew us, we couldn’t control them. I know. … I helped build them, God help me.”

This dialogue comes from the 1959 film version. Shute’s On the Beach had quickly become a worldwide sensation. In its first six weeks, the American edition of the book sold 100,000 copies, dislodging the steamy Peyton Place from its top spot on the nation’s bestseller lists. Of course a cinematic adaptation was inevitable, and the socially aware Stanley Kramer (whose just-released prior film, The Defiant Ones, had tackled racial prejudice in the Deep South) quickly bought the movie rights. He cast major Hollywood stars in the central roles and moved his company to Melbourne to shoot one of the first feature-length Hollywood movies ever to be made on Australian soil.

The plotline of On the Beach is simple but powerful. Somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, some kind of horrible misunderstanding has launched a nuclear war, quickly wiping out most of the world. As one character in the book puts it: “No, it wasn’t an accident, I didn’t say that. It was carefully planned, down to the tiniest mechanical and emotional detail. But it was a mistake.” Though Australia and a few other countries at the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere have remained untouched, its citizens must now await the coming of the radiation that is sure to kill them all. (In the words of the Daily Telegraph , “a city waits, defeated, for the end of the world, whiling away the remaining hours with suicidal sport.”)

In this highly charged environment, a married American submarine commander (Gregory Peck), posted to Melbourne in the line of duty, is attracted to a beautiful and hedonistic local woman (Ava Gardner). Meanwhile, a young Aussie couple (Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson) struggle with the realization that when the sickness comes, they may need to kill their infant daughter as well as themselves. As for Julian the scientist (played by an unlikely but mesmerizing Fred Astaire), he tries to cope by way of cynicism and a reckless disregard for life and limb while competing on a local speedway.

Transferring the book to film must have been a challenge in itself; the book begins with the lines: “This is how the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper.” Consequently, there is not much room for big visuals or special effects; there are no big fiery explosions, and no scenes in which a John-Wayne type can charge up a hill in the face of the enemy. In fact, we see nothing of the millions who would have died of burns, internal injuries, or other unspeakable afflictions from a nuclear war. As modern-day fans of Nevil Shute’s literary work can attest: “For a novel about the complete extermination of life on Earth, On The Beach is surprisingly quiet. The distance from the original war, with its obviously horrific consequences, and the fundamental decency of the characters, shields the reader from the mess. Indeed, when Peter Holmes shouts at his wife the effects of radiation sickness on their baby, it is possibly the most stomach-wrenching part of the book.”

In the film, the most haunting section is similarly quiet, involving the submarine’s voyage to the west coast of the United States in hopes of finding survivors. Stanley Kramer’s direction is at its best in this segment, filmed completely without sound or musical scoring. One by one, each of the crew members takes a turn looking through the periscope at a still and silent San Francisco. On the wharves, on the bridges, not a single sign of life.

The intensity of this moment is matched by the film’s final shot. Kramer’s On the Beach opens with a montage of Melbourne’s lively downtown business district: pedestrians and vehicles come and go, while a sidewalk evangelist gathers a crowd under a banner that proclaims “THERE IS STILL TIME … BROTHER.” At the film’s end, after the deadly radiation has made its presence felt, the banner continues to flap in the breeze. But there’s no one to read its message of hope.

The audience take-away. On the Beach , of course, stems from an era when nuclear weapons were primarily in the hands of two world superpowers. Today there seems to be powerful nuclear capability in virtually every global neighborhood. Which makes the message of this novel and this film all the more timely.

“THERE IS STILL TIME … BROTHER” can be taken as the underlying message of On the Beach. Both novel and film are consciously urging the public to avert calamity. One who responded strongly was Caldicott, who vividly remembers the impact the book made on her: “It just penetrated every bone of my body. … That an episode in the Northern Hemisphere could destroy the Southern Hemisphere and everything on it was almost unimaginable.”

And a young Hollywood actress named Karen Sharpe, who’d been featured in The High and the Mighty , was one of many who fell under the spell of the Stanley Kramer film. She saw it at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, deliberately choosing an afternoon performance to beat the crowds. It didn’t work: the big auditorium was jam-packed. She has never forgotten her first reaction to On the Beach : “It was devastating.”

Seven years later, Karen Sharpe came to know Stanley Kramer; they were married from 1966 until his death in 2001. The two worked together on several of Kramer’s later films, notably Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Still, of the entire Kramer output, On the Beach remains perhaps Karen’s favorite. She staunchly defends Kramer against the complaints made by Nevil Shute at the time of the film’s first screening. Shute had loudly protested that the film was a “bastardization” of his work because of its American cast and what he saw as the soft-peddling of the horrors of radiation sickness, which include nausea, vomiting, fever, skin and hair loss, massive ulcers, blisters, burns, emaciation, destruction of the soft tissues, bone marrow depletion, and ultimately inflammation of the membrane around the heart, leading to a slow, agonizing death.

Shute, who never depicted adultery in any of his novels, seemed particularly outraged that the characters played by Gardner and Peck discreetly consummate their relationship within the film, even though he’s technically a married man. Karen Sharpe Kramer firmly believes in Stanley’s choice: “You never know what people will do in time of disaster. People will cling to life and hope and love as long as they can.” Besides, there’s a practical consideration: “I don’t think you can have a platonic relationship for two solid hours when you have the end of the world. You have to have something to give the audience to really care about those people.”

Karen also applauds her late husband for his marketing savvy. Hoping to make the greatest possible stir on the global scene, Stanley Kramer scheduled premieres of On the Beach in 18 world capitals —including Tokyo, London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Caracas, and New York City—on the very same day, December 17, 1959. Heads of state attended many of the screenings, along with the movie’s stars. Ava Gardner, for instance, was dispatched to Madrid, while Gregory and Veronique Peck traveled to Moscow, where they watched the film in the company of 1,200 Soviet apparatchiks.

This innovative world premiere helped nudge the United Nations toward considering disarmament talks, while also drumming up business at the box office. It didn’t hurt to have a publicity campaign that featured the tagline, “The Biggest Story of Our Time.” And most print ads of the day were also emblazoned with this imperative: “If you never see another motion picture in your life, you MUST see On the Beach .”

Critical response to the film was mixed, however, and audiences—at least in the United States—did not turn out in the numbers Kramer had hoped for, despite the packed theatre at Grauman’s. The film recorded a loss at the time of $700,000. Of course the grim subject matter surely kept many moviegoers away. Variety said that “the final impact is as heavy as a leaden shroud. The spectator is left with the sick feeling that he’s had a preview of Armageddon , in which all contestants lost.”

In Australia, however, On the Beach seemed to do better. Partly this relates to the fact that the movie was made on location in Melbourne, with local sights and sounds featured on screen—always enticing to an audience. (Philip Davey has written about the excitement generated by the film’s production in his When Hollywood Came to Melbourne .) Also, On the Beach dealt explicitly with the dilemma of what the Southern Hemisphere would face if the Northern Hemisphere resorted to nuclear war. But there may have been a deeper reason, connected with the differing nature of the two countries: Australia is a land of stoics, with a fatalistic view, based upon the country’s founding as a prison colony, while (most) Americans came here willingly. The two nations have also had different histories and different experiences with their respective vast, untamed continents—as is reflected by each country’s choice of frontier heroes. While American heroes tend to be victorious strivers who subdue the land, nearly every Australian national hero dies, from the fatal Burke and Wills expedition in the outback to Simpson at Gallipoli . We Americans like winners; the Aussies admire the beautiful loser, who retains his humanity, defiance, and sense of life, even in defeat. Consequently, the themes of On the Beach have had a special resonance down-under.

Film critics in the Northern Hemisphere seemed to have missed that point, with a notable exception being Bosley Crowther of the New York Times , who wrote in his 1959 review that “[t]he basic theme of this drama and its major concern is life, the wondrous thing that man’s own vast knowledge and ultimate folly seem about to destroy. And everything done by the characters, every thought they utter and move they make, indicates their fervor, tenacity and courage in the face of doom. … Mr. Kramer and his assistants have most forcibly emphasized this point: Life is a beautiful treasure and man should do all he can to save it from annihilation, while there is still time.”

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Keywords: popular culture Topics: Analysis , Book Review , Nuclear Weapons , Special Topics

This is beautifully written and an accurate analysis of this incredible book. I’ve just finished reading it for the second time and watched the film again last night. Both stay with you for a very long time because you can’t stop thinking about the inevitability of the end. Not pleasant, but the feeling makes you appreciate what you’ve got. As for Peck and Gardner getting it on in the film, I think it’s closer to reality than Shute wanted to go in the book. I admire his restraint, but let’s face it – the human condition in those circumstances will … Read more »

Beverly Gray

Beverly Gray, who once developed 170 low-budget features for B-movie maven Roger Corman, is the author of Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers ,... Read More

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REVIEW: THE BEACH BOYS BY THE BEACH BOYS

By David Beard

FROM ENDLESS SUMMER QUARTERLY – THE BEACH BOYS PUBLICATION OF RECORD

THE BEACH BOYS BY THE BEACH BOYS Standard hardcover edition Genesis Publications

INTRODUCTION:

The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys is the long overdue hardcover book that beautifully encapsulates the group’s amazing multi-decade career. Covering their earliest days of California family life, this book begins with insight from Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Bruce Johnston spinning memories drawn from their innocent youth. Their respective neighborhoods, musical environments, and experiences forge a book that states without hesitation that The Beach Boys are Brian, Mike, Al, Dennis, Carl, and Bruce. This consistency is what makes this book special from cover to cover.

The cover of the book – whether it’s Artluxe, Deluxe, or standard hardcover – features six members of the group: Brian, Mike, Al, Dennis, Carl, and Bruce. [ Note: the cover images are aligned differently on the Artluxe and Deluxe set as a single offset row in the sequence listed above, while the standard version has them in two rows in a different configuration .] In the years covered in this book (the 1950s to 1980), the group’s biggest-selling single was “Good Vibrations,” and the images on the cover are stills from the filmed footage during the recording of that song. So, anyone who knows the band’s history would immediately recognize this and would also know David Marks, Blondie Chaplin, and Ricky Fataar were not in the group in 1966. So, the question is: should David, Blondie, and Ricky be on the cover? Let’s have a discussion.

At no point in this 400-plus page book is anyone or anything ‘glossed over,’ which is probably why they had to stop at 1980. Everyone is given their due. There are roughly 50 pages that span David Marks’ time in the group. Throughout the coverage, there are rare photographs of David combined with quotes from the aforementioned members, including Bruce and his insightful ‘outside the group’ perspective. David is given the opportunity to contribute and does. It isn’t as much as I’d liked to have seen, but every member (including Bruce) sings David’s praises and gives absolute credit to his invaluable contribution in crafting and creating The Beach Boys’ sound. Ultimately, I came away with a great feeling regarding his time in the band and believe his story is well represented.

Blondie and Ricky, who made their own lasting impression on the group with their performance styles, and musical contributions recorded by the group during their tenure are recognized over a twenty-five-page spread. Like David, their contribution is recognized with warmth and appreciation. All in all, this book honors David, Blondie, and Ricky with duly noted respect, and as you might guess, Glen Campbell is included.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

The fifteen-chapter book encapsulates the early years through to the July 4, 1980, concert in Washington, D.C. Before the book arrived, I wondered why they would stop in 1980 when their career as a group went up to 2012. This book represents The Beach Boys as they were while Dennis Wilson was in the band. I imagine Mike would have preferred the book go to 1988 and cover the release of “Kokomo,” but the content here focuses on telling the story of the six Beach Boys who are and were the longest-tenured members.

Dennis and Carl are woven throughout the storyline as living presences, marrying their words with the other members. This includes introductory and closing statements by both. I’ve been interviewing The Beach Boys and those associated with them for over thirty years, so I set the bar high when it comes to weaving a precise and coherent story combining copy and photos. This book is very cool and although I’ve been interested in new Beach Boys products over the years, I haven’t felt this engaged in one – musical or otherwise – since Carl passed away.

This curated path of the group’s history is woven through the culture of the time and perfectly marries it with the needed connective tissue that embodies the California aesthetic and its effect on the group. In turn, it illustrates how they created a sound that changed history and the way we listen to music. That said, it’s the little things that I discovered in this book that made the biggest and most lasting impressions.

Carl referred to their early music as ‘hippy music’; rare hand-written images of Brian’s initial proposed lineup for the Surfer Girl album, constant reminders of the insane pace at which they were churning out albums – three weeks between Surfer Girl and Little Deuce Coupe – and a continuous steady reminder of all the great songs they successfully recorded. When it comes to often discussed songs like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “I Get Around,” and others, Mike might cite familiar stories of how he came to write lyrics, but having his recollections succinctly pieced together with the other members creates a full, fresh, and vivid view of even the most well-known accounts from the past, which breathes new life into everything. And to this book’s credit, Brian’s voice is as present as the other members. This is as much his story as it is the group’s. Poignantly, when the book gets to 1977, Brian discusses the Adult Child music and album, and proper love and respect is given to Dennis’s solo outing Pacific Ocean Blue . This is a book where all the members share the stage.

If Sunflower is the group’s best album, then this is the best book about the group. There has never been a book done this well that gathers The Beach Boys together. And, because Carl and Dennis are presented with a voice they feel very much alive. This book brought me back to my earliest discoveries of the band, and the feeling that every member is alive and well. That’s quite an accomplishment. This book is a must-have for any fans of The Beach Boys! As for the team that put this book together? BRAVO!

This is a book that no Beach Boys fan should be without.

ORDER THE STANDARD HARDCOVER BOOK HERE

Terry Newsome

Are autographed copies available? Are the other versions available?

Gerald Edgar

Perhaps Sunflower from a music critic’s view was the BB’s best but I’ll take any of the early ones up thru Good Vibrations. Whether you’re playing an old cassette in your “01 Sebring convertible, a CD in a newer car or even old/new vinyl singles & albums BUT especially what’s constantly playing on the radio, songs from Sunflower are NOT in the mix (pun intended). I have heard them live a half dozen times in the past 40 yrs, Chicago-area in 1989, State Fairs, the legendary “Surf” ballroom and it’s always those 1st albums everyone wants. You can’t beat perfection!

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The 15 best beach reads of all time to pick up before labor day.

There’s something so pleasurable and relaxing about picking up a book set in the heart of the Jersey Shore or the richly detailed Italian Riviera.

Typically clad with aesthetically pleasing, pop-art covers and an interesting premise (beach murder? Second-chance romance?), the best beach books of all time will be memorable to read and filled with all their fun-in-the-sun detail.

So, before Labor Day hits, the Post Wanted team wants you to pick up one of the best beach books we’ve read, reviewed and researched. Whether you opt to listen on audible or pick up a physical copy, you’ll be well-prepared for whatever the upcoming three-day weekend has in store.

RELATED : Best mysteries and thrillers we read, ranked and reviewed

For more reading, check out our full reading guides to Reese’s Book Club and Read with Jenna .

Best Beach Reads

“happy place” by emily henry.

Goodreads rating: 3.99/5 stars

About the book : “Happy Place” by Emily Henry is a romantic comedy about a couple who, despite breaking up, pretend to still be together during a summer vacation with friends, leading to humorous and heartfelt revelations about their relationship.

The Queen of Beach Reads, Emily Henry, whipped up her latest read, “Happy Place.” This escapist novel is the ideal flip-through book with engaging characters and an intriguing plot. We can’t stop glossing over the cover, either.

Buy on Hardcover | Buy on Paperback | Buy on Kindle

“This Summer Will Be Different” by Carley Fortune

Goodreads rating: 4.03/5 stars

About the book : “This Summer Will Be Different” by Carley Fortune follows a young woman who returns to her childhood beach town to confront her past and find herself, leading to unexpected personal growth and romance.

From the author who brought us “ Every Summer After ” comes “This Summer Will Be Different,” which features a more compelling plot, in our humble opinion. The character dynamics are some of the best we read about, too.

“Shark Heart” by Emily Habeck

About the book : “Shark Heart” by Emily Habeck tells the story of a woman whose life changes dramatically when her husband undergoes a mysterious and transformative condition that turns him into a literal shark, challenging their love and resilience in unforeseen ways.

Undeniably unique in every sense of the word, “Shark Heart” by Emily Habeck proves that love knows no bounds. This thought-provoking read will have you feeling all the feels.

“Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood

Goodreads rating: 3.75/5 stars

About the book : “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood is a gripping novel about a charismatic and dangerous man who seduces and manipulates women, unraveling the complexities of power, deceit, and personal transformation as the Greece-set story exposes the dark side of his charm.

As one of the best summer books we read this season, “Ladykiller” by Katherine Wood takes place in the wonderland of all beach reads: Greece. Your jaw will drop and you won’t be able to refrain from turning each page.

Buy on Hardcover | Buy on Kindle

“The Summer House” by James Patterson

Goodreads rating: 4.25/5 stars

About the book : “The Summer House” by James Patterson is a thriller about a group of friends who reunite at a luxurious summer home, only to find themselves caught in a web of murder and deception as their idyllic escape turns into a deadly nightmare.

As one of the most respected authors of our generation, James Patterson has the quintessential beach read up for grabs: “The Summer House.” We recommend adding this to your reading list for a thrilling novel full of suspense, intrigue and immaculate storytelling.

“The Fury” by Alex Michaelides

Goodreads rating: 3.38/5 stars

About the book : “The Fury” by Alex Michaelides is a psychological thriller set in Greece that centers on a woman with a troubled past, who becomes entangled in a dangerous game of revenge and deceit involving a high-profile case of a missing person.

Meet the book we read in a day: “The Fury” by Alex Michaelides. With dynamic characters and a who-dun-it vibe, the book is told from the narrator’s point of view and they’re not afraid to break the third wall!

“Where The Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens

Goodreads rating: 4.38/5 stars

About the book : “Where The Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens is a compelling blend of mystery and coming-of-age story that follows the life of a solitary young woman who grows up in the marshes of North Carolina and becomes entangled in a murder investigation that reveals deep secrets about her past and the community.

We have a special place in our hearts for “Where The Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens. Transformed into a motion picture on Hulu , this sweet story has award-winning characters and the atmosphere of reading a classic, all wrapped into one beautiful, emotionally pulling novel.

“Bad Tourists” by Caro Carver

Goodreads rating: 3.72/5 stars

About the book : “Bad Tourists” by Caro Carver is a darkly humorous novel set in the Maldives about a group of misfit travelers whose disastrous behavior on an exclusive tour leads to unexpected and chaotic consequences, revealing deeper truths about themselves and their relationships.

New on our TBR list (that’s to-be-read, for short), “Bad Tourists” by Caro Carver already has us hooked with its setting at the Maldives. With twists and turns, it’s sure to be a good beach read.

“A Summer Affair” by Elin Hilderbrand

Goodreads rating: 3.60/5 stars

About the book : “A Summer Affair” by Elin Hilderbrand is a novel about a woman who, while trying to balance her family life and career, finds herself entangled in a passionate summer romance that forces her to confront her desires and the consequences of her choices.

An oldie but a goodie from renowned beach read writer Elin Hilderbrand, “A Summer Affair” was one of the most engaging of her novels we’ve had the pleasure of reading. Not to mention, it’s part of her Nantucket series, with “ The Castaways ,” “ The Perfect Couple ” and “ Swan Song ” succeeding it.

“Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D'” by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina

Goodreads rating: 3.67/5 stars

About the book : “Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D'” by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina offers a humorous and insightful behind-the-scenes look at the glamorous and often chaotic world of high-end dining in New York City through the eyes of a seasoned maître d’.

For the foodie who’s looking for a nonfiction pick-me-up at the beach, we recommend “Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maître D'” by Michael Cecchi-Azzolina. If you’re mesmerized by the food scene like we are, this book will have you wholly entertained. It’s one of our favorite great beach reads.

“Beach Read” by Emily Henry

Goodreads rating: 4.00/5 stars

About the book : “Beach Read” by Emily Henry follows two rival authors, each facing writer’s block and personal struggles, who swap genres and spend the summer challenging each other’s perspectives on life and love, leading to unexpected romance and self-discovery.

How could we neglect “Beach Read” by Emily Henry in our roundup of the best beach reads of all time? On-the-money name aside, it was a spectacular book and one we still think about to this day. Peaceful and pleasurable .

“One Italian Summer” by Rebecca Serle

Goodreads rating: 3.59/5 stars

About the book : “One Italian Summer” by Rebecca Serle tells the story of a woman who, after the loss of her mother, travels to Italy where she discovers a new sense of self, and experiences a transformative connection with her mother’s past.

“One Italian Summer” by Rebecca Serle is the epitome of well-written literary realism, set in an idyllic Italian hotspot. The relationship dynamic between mother and daughter is emphasized in the most compelling way throughout this recommended beach read. You’re sure to enjoy it.

“The Paradise Problem” by Christina Lauren

Goodreads rating: 4.14/5 stars

About the book : “The Paradise Problem” by Christina Lauren explores the complex dynamics of a vacation romance that blossoms between two individuals with differing views on commitment, leading to both personal growth and unexpected challenges.

New from author duo Christina Lauren, “The Paradise Problem” isn’t your average rom-com. You’ll instantly fall in love with both protagonists like we did and we’ll go on a whim and say you may even finish it in one sitting.

“Island Time” by Georgia Clark

Goodreads rating: 3.24/5 stars

About the book : “Island Time” by Georgia Clark follows three women on a tropical getaway as they navigate personal dilemmas and unexpected romances, ultimately discovering new perspectives on life and themselves.

Filled with splendid characters and set on a cute little island, Georgia Clark knows how to write a captivating rom-com with this hit, “Island Time.” We also recommend reading her two other novels we loved, “ It Had to Be You ” and “ The Bucket List .”

Buy on Paperback | Buy on Kindle

“The Bridesmaids” by Victoria Jenkins

Goodreads rating: 3.8/5 stars

TLDR: a summertime murder mystery taking place at a bachelorette party, where a bridesmaid is a suspect? Sign us up . Among all the books on this list, “The Bridesmaids” by Victoria Jenkins holds the most out-of-the-box, suspenseful plot.

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Are They Still Beach Books if You’re Not Reading Them on the Beach?

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By Elisabeth Egan

Aug. 13, 2020

What a strange summer this has been. The lead-up was an excruciating blend of boredom and heartbreak, and the actuality is a series of quandaries that feel like an unwinnable round of Scruples: Is it safe to eat a burger off your neighbor’s grill? Do you need to wear a mask while biking? Can the virus survive chlorine?

Then there’s the less fraught but still critical question of when you will have a chance to grab a fat novel and hotfoot it down to the water’s edge. We’ve given up so much already, do we have to add beach reading to the mix? I’m planting a flag in the sand: The answer to this question is no. But, just for this year, I’d like to propose a pared-down vision of the traditional approach. It’s inspired by long-ago family vacations on Bailey Island in Maine, where days were diving into icy waves and doling out Pringles to people with pruned fingers. Nights were for books.

After kids were tucked between gritty sheets, adults tiptoed onto the porch with love stories, war sagas and family dramas tucked under sweatshirted arms. The lamp tacked to the side of our rental cottage was of toaster-oven wattage, barely bright enough to illuminate a page. The rocking chairs were splintery, uncushioned, always missing a slat where one was most needed. Even if you could locate a match, the single spluttering citronella couldn’t hold back the swarms of mosquitoes and gnats. But the reading! In that cool, piney air, every book was a page-turner. Every sentence was memorable and meaningful — quotable, even — and let’s just say Shakespeare did not show his spine in our stack of beat-up paperbacks.

So here’s the beach reading vibe I’m prescribing: kindred spirits gathering in blue twilight with good books. Crickets providing the soundtrack. A full day behind you, sound sleep ahead. If you’re near water, mazel tov. If you’re not where you thought you’d be, join the club. Grab one of these novels, find a little light and plant yourself in its glow.

If had a Choco Taco for every time a friend has asked me to recommend a book like “ Where’d You Go, Bernadette ,” I’d be the Good Humor woman. Happily, Lucie Britsch’s slightly sour, witty debut, SAD JANET (Riverhead, 276 pp., $27), fits the bill. It’s surprising and irreverent; the main character is a cantankerous, Christmas-loathing misanthropic goth who works at a run-down dog shelter. (She also hates summer: “People’s brains change in the summer. They go from gray gloop to neon pink, dumb and throbbing like a giant penis.”) While Bernadette lost herself in the logistical challenges of architecture, Janet’s means for escape is the bone-wearying predictability of caring for canines.

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The Beach Hardcover – February 10, 1997

Print length 371 pages
Language English
Publisher Riverhead Hardcover
Publication date February 10, 1997
Reading age 18 years and up
Dimensions 9.3 x 1.27 x 6.3 inches
ISBN-10 1573220485
ISBN-13 978-1573220484
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The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1): Post Apocalyptic Fiction

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Amazon.com review.

What makes this a truly satisfying novel is the number of levels on which it operates. On the surface it's a fast-paced adventure novel; at another level it explores why we search for these utopias, be they mysterious lost continents or small island communes. Garland weaves a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that suggests we are, in fact, such products of our Western culture that we cannot help but pollute and ultimately destroy the very sanctuary we seek

From Publishers Weekly

From booklist, from kirkus reviews, product details.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Hardcover (February 10, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 371 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1573220485
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1573220484
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 1.27 x 6.3 inches
#2,773 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
#27,768 in Action & Adventure Fiction (Books)

About the author

Alex garland.

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Dawn of the Light Catchers: Book 1 of the Rise of the Light Catchers Series: A Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic Series

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Customers find the book in great condition. They also praise the writing style as well-written, exciting, and brutally realistic. Readers also appreciate the great characters.

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Customers find the plot exciting, believable, and twisty. They also say the author captures wanderlust really well, and the book has far more depth and emotion than the movie. Readers mention the book takes them away to an exotic location halfway across.

"...It was so beautiful, mesmerizing, and intense . The plot, the casting, the acting, the scenery, the photography it all worked together seamlessly...." Read more

"...The book explores themes of escapism , the complexities of utopian ideals, and the raw beauty of nature, all of which resonated deeply with me...." Read more

"...The characters are also weak.It starts out very interesting ...a run down hostel in Bankok with dope fiends. a Map Etc...." Read more

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Customers find the writing style gripping, descriptive, and frank. They also appreciate the fabulous story that carries them along.

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What if John Lennon didn’t die? Novel reimagines a life where the Beatles live on

Title: Reunion: A Rock ‘n Roll Fairy Tale
Author: Gary Burr
Genre: Novel
Publisher: Adave Books

Let me take you down

’Cause I’m going to strawberry fields

Nothing is real

And nothing to get hung about

Strawberry fields forever

The Nashville songwriter, producer and first-time novelist Gary Burr has written Reunion: A Rock ‘n Roll Fairy Tale , an entertaining if unambitious what-if yarn that imagines reunion concerts by the four Beatles in New York’s Central Park and London’s Hyde Park in 1998. Obviously, in this scenario, John Lennon was not assassinated on Dec. 8, 1980.

The book is fun – guaranteed to raise a smile for Beatles fans at least. Its fiction is fact-based, conjured by an informed author. One imagines Burr watched Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary intensely, because a lot of Reunion ’s dialogue has the vibe of the real thing. Lennon cracks jokes, Ringo Starr is charismatic, an impatient George Harrison keeps checking his wristwatch and Paul McCartney keeps his bossiness somewhat in check.

Books we're reading and loving this week: Globe staffers share their book picks

They are a democratic quartet in 1998, and Burr nails their Liverpudlian wit and needling repartee. Harrison: “Remember, we must accept the world as it is. We can only change our mental attitudes toward it.” Lennon: “Well, you certainly got your money’s worth from the Maharishi, didn’t you?”

The reputation of Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, is somewhat rehabilitated. Characterized as a dragon lady and blamed for the Beatles’ breakup, Ono, in this fairy tale, is wise, softened and approving of the reunion.

Over all, there’s more humour than bickering tension. Introducing the band on stage at Central Park, David Letterman stresses the monumental significance of the reunion. “You know,” he quips, “I had tickets to see Cats .”

The straightforward narrative is presented in 55 short chapters. It begins with the death of McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney, who died of cancer in 1998. The group, which split apart in 1970, reconciles for a pair of charity concerts for the benefit of cancer research.

The concerts are proposed, conceived, prepared for, rehearsed and performed with little drama. A better novelist would have developed a parallel story to accompany the nuts and bolts of the shows. At 226 pages, this feels like half a book.

In the early 1970s, Pete Townshend of the Who wrote the song Pure and Easy , about an eternal note of music which, when struck, galvanizes humanity and restores a united consciousness: “The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering.” The premise, while certainly hippie and maybe even a little dippie, speaks to the power of music.

I thought of Pure and Easy toward the end of Reunion .

The first song performed at the Central Park concert is A Hard Day’s Night , a Beatles classic which announces itself with a crashing mystery chord played on guitar, bass and piano.

Author of Reunion: A Rock ‘n Roll Fairy Tale, Gary Burr. Supplied

The technical breakdown of the complicated chord has been debated for years – in 2004, Dalhousie University mathematics professor Jason Brown published a report titled Mathematics, Physics and A Hard Day’s Night – but lay people recognize it instantly. (Chances are it’s in your head right now.)

The author refers to it as “the Chord.” Before the reformed Fab Four strikes it on stage, Lennon suggests to the crowd that it is the Beatles’ job to “make everybody feel young again.”

It was an unfair job and a heavy weight. But when the Beatles were the Beatles, the world was springtime and groovy. Upon their breakup in 1970, the world grew older overnight. And when Lennon was assassinated, something died with him.

In Reunion , the Chord is hit – the noise we are hearing is a million people cheering in Central Park.

We long for more Beatles. With his 2021 book Like Some Forgotten Dream: What if the Beatles hadn’t split up?, Daniel Rachel creates a historically feasible final Beatles album beyond Abbey Road and Let It Be .

In Danny Boyle’s fantastical 2019 rom-com Yesterday , a 78-year-old Lennon is alive, well and dispensing wisdom in a cottage by the sea.

But if Lennon were alive today, as McCartney and Starr are, it’s hard to imagine him participating in a reunion. In his 1970 song God , he sang that he didn’t believe in the Beatles: “The dream is over – what can I say?”

For some, the dream is not over. For those Beatles believers, Reunion is sure to strike a chord.

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12 best Hilton all-inclusive resorts

Over the past few years, major hotel companies have invested heavily in all-inclusive resorts and started breathing new life into a vacation format that might once have been considered less than stellar. Now you can stay at fabulous all-inclusive resorts that are perfect for honeymooners , ones that are just for adults and many that are great for the whole family .

One brand that has really leaned into new all-inclusive resorts is Hilton , which opened a slew of all-inclusive hotels in Mexico and the Caribbean in the past few years, including the Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe All-Inclusive Resort. More are on the way, with Zemi Miches All‑Inclusive Resort, Curio Collection by Hilton in the Dominican Republic set to open next year.

Though Hilton's all-inclusive portfolio is smaller than those of its competitors, its resorts pack a powerful, value-added punch. So, whether you're a die-hard Hilton Honors member wanting to cash in points for an all-inclusive stay or a free agent just looking for a good deal, chances are there's a Hilton resort for you.

Here are TPG's favorite Hilton all-inclusive resorts to consider for your next getaway.

One of Hilton's newest properties in Cancun, Mexico, is an all-inclusive resort winner with its views and amazing restaurant lineup — as TPG found out when we checked into the property earlier this year. The Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe All-Inclusive Resort is just the place for you if you're looking for a sunny getaway that earns top marks for service, has spacious rooms and suites, and keeps guests well fed.

All of the resort's 540 guest rooms and suites come with balconies, and some suites even have private plunge pools. Modern furnishings with tropical flair, a complimentary minibar restocked daily and either ocean or pool views are offered across all rooms and suites. If you're in the mood to splurge, book an Enclave room or suite for a private lounge and pools, as well as special welcome amenities — some Enclave suites even feature direct beach access.

From the international breakfast buffet to a rooftop nightcap at Chala Sky Bar, the Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe keeps you well fed and hydrated all day long. We're especially fond of Maxal, the resort's Mexican fine dining restaurant. Of course, don't forget to have fun in the sun: The resort features 13 swimming pools, kids and teens clubs and a spa for those looking for a little more tranquility and rejuvenation in their getaway.

Rates at the Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe All-Inclusive Resort start at $414 or 100,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

There's a staggering number of great all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica, but one of the best is Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa . The hotel checks all the boxes for a great stay. In fact, our most recent review ended with the writer saying she'd 100% return to the property with her family.

Set on a sunny 400-acre stretch of Montego Bay, Rose Hall is an all-inclusive resort that has activities for every member of the family. For starters, there's an on-property water park, Sugar Mill Falls, with a 280-foot waterslide, a lazy river and lots of waterfalls to swim around. Guests can also lounge by or swim in two different pools or head to the beach to soak up some sun in a lounge chair.

The 489 suites here are also designed with relaxation in mind. Offering views of the resort grounds, surrounding mountains or the cerulean Caribbean Sea, each suite has a furnished balcony, a flat-screen TV, travertine floors and a bathroom with granite countertops, among other amenities.

The resort is home to seven restaurants, a coffee shop, a jerk hut and two bars, so there's sure to be something for everyone. Grab breakfast at the international buffet, order Jamaican street food for lunch by the ocean and feast on Mediterranean dishes at Seaside Restaurant & Bar for dinner. Just note that some of the restaurants at Rose Hall require reservations that can be made up to two days before arrival.

For some rest and relaxation, parents can drop the little ones off at the free Kids Klub before heading to the Radiant Spa for a romantic couples massage.

Rates at Hilton Rose Hall Resort & Spa start at $270 or 61,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy. Children 2 and under stay for free.

One of Hilton's newest all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, the Hilton Cancun has been a hit since it began welcoming guests in late 2021. We sent a reviewer out a few months after opening, and one thing was immediately clear: This resort is great for families.

About 20 minutes away from Cancun's Hotel Zone, this all-inclusive resort is in a shared complex with Hilton's Waldorf Astoria Cancun . Both resorts occupy more than 100 acres, giving visitors plenty of room to stretch out while vacationing in Mexico.

At the 715-room Hilton Cancun, guests are treated to modern accommodations with at least 430 square feet of space and amenities like wardrobes and spacious bathrooms. Plus, most rooms and suites have balconies or patios. Book a swim-up room for an even more memorable experience so you don't have to go far to cool off.

With 10 different restaurants, bars and specialty snack shops, nobody will go hungry. Considering it's a relatively new resort, the Hilton Cancun's restaurants have a much more upscale vibe than what you'd expect to find at an older-generation all-inclusive resort, with options ranging from an international buffet to a taqueria with a walk-up window to an open-flame grill serving sizzling steaks and seafood. There's even a place that specializes in ice cream and churros, should you crave a sweet treat.

During the day, visitors can enjoy a swim in two infinity pools or post up at the beach, where activities like soccer and volleyball are scheduled at regular intervals to keep folks busy if they want to be. Families will particularly love that there are teens and kids clubs with an array of activities to keep younger guests entertained throughout the day. At night, live entertainment like performances at the on-site amphitheater and themed parties is available across the resort, making for special family-friendly evenings.

Rates at the Hilton Cancun, an All-Inclusive Resort start at $414 or 99,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Related: 14 best all-inclusive resorts in Cancun

In Willemstad, Curacao, grab a beach chair and enjoy the crystalline waters of the Caribbean. This resort, part of Hilton's Curio Collection, is another excellent family-friendly affair. It comes with a water park with a cobra-themed waterslide, four different swimming pools, a scuba diving center and sports like volleyball on the private stretch of sand. Kids can enjoy a playground and various daily activities specifically tailored to younger guests.

When we say this 399-room resort was built for families, we mean it, especially when you factor in that one of the room setups features a king-size bed plus two twins. But no matter what size room you need, from a standard king to the two-bedroom presidential suite, expect modern decor with bold colors, private outdoor spaces and air conditioning.

Food at Mangrove Beach comes in many forms, including sushi at Dushi Sushi Club, Italian at Ristorante Siciliano and barbecue at Cor & Don's BBQ Restaurant. Drinks are served 24 hours a day at Pera Lobby Bar & Patisserie, while the pool and beach bars serve drinks until midnight. Don't miss The Don Cigar Lounge, where cigars and cognac are on offer.

Beyond that, guests can book a beachside massage in one of several thatched-roof cabanas to unwind. Bike rentals are available as well for those who'd rather venture off-site to check out their surroundings.

Rates at Mangrove Beach Corendon Curacao All-Inclusive Resort, Curio by Hilton start at $328 or 124,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Like Hilton's first all-inclusive resort in Tulum, Mexico, the upscale Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya , the Hilton Tulum dials up the wow factor. In early 2023, our reviewer was impressed with the laid-back vibe, top-notch amenities and eco-sensitive design. Chances are you'll feel the same.

Across the resort's 735 rooms and suites, all of which have balconies, guests will find natural touches reflecting the property's environment, as well as modern amenities like high-definition TVs and ample storage space. For a more premium experience, reserve an Enclave-level room, which comes with access to a private lounge with food, drinks and a concierge; exclusive reservations and dining options; two private pool areas; and special fitness and wellness activities.

There are a whopping 13 bars and restaurants to enjoy, ranging from the chic La Luce Italian restaurant and must-have sushi at Noriku to an elegant steakhouse and a poolside seafood restaurant. If you prefer lots of options, be sure to visit Vela Sur, where a variety of international and Mexican dishes are available buffet-style.

Activities are seemingly endless at this Mexican resort. You can relax by the pools (one of which has a special splash zone for kids), hit up the neighboring Conrad's spa for a treatment, take advantage of the kids and teens clubs, partake in a yoga class, learn about local art and so much more.

Rates at the Hilton Tulum Riviera Maya All-Inclusive Resort start at $321 or 84,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Related: TPG's favorite points hotels on the beach in Mexico

When we sent a writer to the Hilton Playa del Carmen , he was quick to say he couldn't wait to start planning a trip back. Why? Because the resort was ideal for both fun and relaxation.

That description makes sense considering this adults-only, all-inclusive resort, which is about an hour away from Cancun International Airport (CUN), has everything one could need for a vacation that's equal parts fun and rest and relaxation. To start, you'll find multiple pools with hot tubs, a spa with a traditional stone steam bath, a nightclublike experience with DJs for fun in the evenings and a beautiful beach made for a romantic date night under the stars.

An all-suite resort, this Hilton outpost's 524 accommodations offer in-suite jetted tubs, balconies or terraces, stocked minibars and sitting areas, among other amenities. All suites are large, ranging in size from the entry-level junior suite (which measures 653 square feet) to the nearly 2,000-square-foot presidential suite.

Taste buds need not worry here, as dining venues range from Asian-inspired Asiana to a variety of Mexican restaurants and a Mediterranean-inspired venue with both buffet and a la carte options. Grab drinks at the casual sports bar, which is open 24 hours a day, or stop at Tequileria for a tequila tasting. If you still need more, 24-hour room service is always just a phone call away.

Rates at the Hilton Playa del Carmen, an All-Inclusive Adult Resort start at $338 or 76,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Related: Best Hilton hotels and resorts on the beach, from the US to the Maldives

Another hot spot for all-inclusive resorts is the Dominican Republic, where beautiful beaches with towering palm trees are a sight to behold. For Hilton loyalists, the Hilton La Romana is a great place to experience those sights free of children, thanks to the adults-only nature of the property.

The 356 rooms and suites at this tropical property are oversized and bright, with vivid pops of color on accent walls and linens, large bathrooms with dual sinks, minibars stocked daily and balconies or terraces that overlook the pools, gardens or the Caribbean Sea. Guests can upgrade to a club-level room for access to a VIP lounge with food and drinks, an exclusive breakfast restaurant, a private beach area and a private pool with a swim-up bar.

The resort makes it possible for guests to do something different every day thanks to its wide range of activities. Join other guests for Spanish lessons and dancing sessions, hit the beach to go kayaking and snorkeling, unwind at the spa or venture to the casino for some thrilling bets. You'll even have the opportunity to become a certified scuba diver if you wish to explore farther beneath the water's surface.

It's easy to get wrapped up in all there is to do here, but make sure you set aside plenty of time for eating. On-property venues include Mare Grill & Restaurant for steaks with a sunset view, Chinola for Latin American fare, a cafe and two bars. Should you crave even more options, visit the family-friendly, all-inclusive Hilton resort next door.

Rates at Hilton La Romana, an All-Inclusive Adult Only Resort start at $329 or 121,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Overlooking one of the town's most upscale streets, the adults-only Yucatan Playa del Carmen feels more like a boutique hotel with all-inclusive offerings than its larger counterparts. It's a great place for travelers who wish to experience the area's natural beauty without sacrificing proximity to Playa del Carmen, Mexico's best shops, bars, restaurants and various cultural attractions.

With just 60 rooms and suites, you won't get lost at this hotel. Accommodations are modest yet modern, with at least 538 square feet of space, minibars restocked daily and plenty of light coming through floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors that lead to furnished outdoor areas. Reserve the 1,160-square-foot master suite for a private outdoor hot tub.

While you won't have as many guest amenities here due to the resort's smaller size, that doesn't mean you'll find yourself lacking ways to pass the time. Head to the infinity pool on the rooftop for sunbathing and socializing with fellow guests, plus DJ-led parties on Saturdays. Or, visit the on-site spa for a locally inspired treatment, such as the Mayan Herbal Cure massage or the Agave, Lime & Chaya Detox Wrap.

For meals, you'll have your pick of three restaurants, as well as a self-service coffee corner and room service. Sit for breakfast at El Mural (named after its colorful, eye-catching artwork), then make your way to La Terraza for ceviche and cocktails before savoring Asian-fusion dishes at Sakura Maru after the sun sets. If that's not enough to satisfy your appetite, upgrade to the All-Inclusive Plus package to enjoy access to all the food and beverage options at the nearby Hilton Playa del Carmen.

Rates at The Yucatan Playa del Carmen All-Inclusive Resort, Tapestry Collection by Hilton start at $188 or 40,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

People flock to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico's Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort to enjoy a Mexican beach vacation — and it's easy to see why.

For starters, all of the 444 rooms and suites have balconies with ocean views. Additionally, each accommodation has a spacious bathroom with a walk-in shower, a minibar, a Nespresso machine and a smart TV to help you catch some z's in comfort. Should you wish to upgrade your experience, book an Enclave room to receive a welcome amenity, nightly turndown service, a minibar with premium goodies and access to the Enclave Lounge, where breakfast, coffee, snacks and happy hour beverages are served daily.

Activities and amenities abound here, though nothing is better than sidling up to one of the two oceanfront infinity pools and grabbing an ice-cold margarita from the swim-up bar. The Eforea Spa deserves a special shoutout, too, as it offers a full treatment menu, plus hydrotherapy pools to recharge and rejuvenate in. For a bit more action, partake in sports competitions at the beach or attend the resort's nightly pool parties.

Make sure you bring your appetite, as the property's restaurants feature a panoply of cuisines on their menus. Maxal is the place to go for authentic Mexican dishes, while La Luce will satisfy your craving for trattoria-style Italian fare. If you'd rather savor a mix of Southeast Asian flavors, check out Sunan. Not to be missed are the Mojito Lounge, where you can sip a cocktail from an indoor swing, and the chic Sky Bar.

Whether you're traveling as a family or a couple without kids in tow, know that there's space for everyone. The resort has an adults-only wing, as well as kids and teens clubs with age-appropriate activities.

Rates at the Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort start at $324 or 82,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Not all of Hilton's all-inclusive resorts are in Mexico and the Caribbean; a handful can be found in Turkey, including in the celebrity-loved areas around Bodrum. You might be surprised to hear that one of the region's resorts is an all-inclusive take on the popular DoubleTree brand.

Facing the Aegean Sea, the DoubleTree by Hilton Bodrum Isil Club All-Inclusive Resort has something for everyone. Resort highlights include a pool that looks out over the sea, a kiddie pool with waterslides, a beach area with lounge chairs and water sports, a common area with pingpong and billiards tables, and a tennis court to practice your backhand swing on. There's even a spa with a full menu of treatments and a Turkish hammam, a facility you probably weren't expecting to find at a DoubleTree.

When your stomach starts to grumble, you'll have four dining outlets to choose from: an indoor-outdoor buffet open throughout the day, an Italian restaurant with beautiful outdoor seating, a seafood restaurant by the water and a casual poolside spot for breakfast, snacks and more. Of the three bars, the Sunset Lounge Bar is the most memorable due to its location on a massive outdoor terrace.

Inside the 277 guest rooms and suites, you'll find all you need for a restful night's sleep. The predominantly white spaces come outfitted with minifridges, high-definition TVs, walk-in showers and attached balconies or terraces, among other modern-day amenities.

Rates at the DoubleTree by Hilton Bodrum Isil Club All-Inclusive Resort start at $248 or 72,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

Related: 8 lessons I learned from my first all-inclusive vacation

The Aegean Sea also finds Hilton's other Turkish all-inclusive resort, but this time in Mugla, a city east of Bodrum. This one happens to sit at the Dalaman River's mouth along the coast, so there's even more to do, see and experience here.

At this 493-room resort, accommodations come in all shapes and sizes, from entry-level king guest rooms with balconies to the over 1,500-square-foot Lake House villas with swim-up pool access, living rooms and soaking tubs. If you need to sleep 10 people, go all-out and book the three-bedroom presidential suite; it comes with butler service and round-trip ground transportation from the airport, plus a kitchen and four bathrooms.

Getting bored at the Hilton Dalaman Sarigerme Resort & Spa is practically impossible. There are 10 pools to explore, waterslides to whiz down, a private beach, a kids club and a sprawling 24-hour fitness center. You can even try out water sports like kiteboarding and windsurfing. If that all sounds like too much, skip the adventure for a day and instead pamper yourself at the Elysion Spa.

To satiate your appetite or quench your thirst, stop by one of several food and beverage venues. Options run the gamut from an Instagram-cool teppanyaki restaurant and a glitzy Italian eatery to a piano bar and an international buffet. Should you start to feel sluggish, head to Citrus Patisserie & Bar for an authentic Turkish coffee to serve as a little pick-me-up.

Rates at the Hilton Dalaman Sarigerme Resort & Spa start at $456 or 80,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

For an all-inclusive vacation somewhere unexpected, why not head to the Red Sea? Specifically, the Egyptian coast, where incredible snorkeling, delicious seafood and tons of fun await at the Hilton Marsa Alam Nubian Resort.

At the resort, which is very affordable, guests will find simple but comfortable rooms ranging from an entry-level king or queen to connecting family rooms and one-bedroom suites with views of the water. Rooms come with a bed, a desk, a walk-in shower and Egyptian touches like hanging lanterns and colorful art.

For food, guests can dine surrounded by pastel columns at the international, buffet-style Marsa Restaurant or munch on seafood on an open-air balcony at Amasis Fish Restaurant. Other restaurants and bars include regional cuisine, Italian fare, a beach bar, a lobby cocktail bar and a bar with live music.

For fun, make plans to go snorkeling or scuba diving, as the Red Sea has some of the most stunning reefs in the world. For something more relaxing, lounge by the resort's pools (make a pit stop at the swim-up bar) and then take in some sun at the beach. And, if you're traveling with your family, there's even a kids club for some great entertainment for the little ones.

Rates at the Hilton Marsa Alam Nubian Resort start at $149 or 30,000 Hilton Honors points per night, based on double occupancy.

IMAGES

(PDF) BOOK REVIEW
Beach Read By Emily Henry Book Review
25 of the Best Beach Books for Kids
Summer Reading List: Best Beach Reads
Reading On The Beach
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COMMENTS

The Beach by Alex Garland
Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult ...
THE BEACH
A strict report, worthy of sympathy. Share your opinion of this book. A mesmerizing first novel, already a hit in the author's native England, that manages to be many things at once: a smart look at a generation way beyond mere disillusionment, an anti- travelogue to the most exotic of locales, a study in small-group psychology, and a ...
Review: The Beach
Freelance writer and book blogger at The Literary Edit, Lucy Pearson reviews Alex Garland's The Beach, a modern classic and rite of passage for all who travel in the search of paradise.
The Beach (novel)
The Beach is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers.
A Review of The Beach by Alex Garland
If you are looking for a book that tears you up inside a bit, read The Beach by Alex Garland, a book that gave me a new perspective.
Amazon.com: The Beach: 9781573226523: Garland, Alex: Books
The Beach. Paperback - February 1, 1998. by Alex Garland (Author) 4.2 5,440 ratings. See all formats and editions. The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute's On the Beach, originally published in 1957, is a post-apocalyptic novel which takes place in Melbourne, Australia a year or so after a nuclear World War III. This final world war was so devastating that radioactive clouds are slowly traveling the earth, and killing all people and animals in its wake.
News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's US edition
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A review of The Beach by Alex Garland
The Beach Set to be re-released by Penguin on July 7 to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of its publishing, The Beach by Alex Garland was hailed as being the quintessential Southeast Asian backpacking novel.
The Beach by Alex Garland: 9781573226523
The Khao San Road, Bangkok — first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach.". The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a ...
The Beach by Alex Garland, Paperback
The Khao San Road, Bangkok — first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend ...
ON THE BEACH
In 1939 Nevil Shute wrote a horrifyingly prophetic book, , which made the life of the average citizen under bombardment only too real, as time proved. In 1954 Philip Wylie wrote a grisly story of what the future might hold for an unprepared citizenry in Tomorrow. And now comes Shute again with a portrait of the last stand of mankind against an enemy over which there was no control- radiation ...
Amazon.com: Beach, The: 9781501284489: Alex Garland, Michael Page: Books
The Beach, as Richard comes to learn, is a subject of legend among the young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for thousands of years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled into a communal Eden.
Book Review: 'The Beach at Summerly,' by Beatriz Williams
In "The Beach at Summerly," Beatriz Williams weaves two standbys of summer fiction into one escapist story.
The continuing relevance of "On the Beach"
The plotline of On the Beach is simple but powerful. Somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, some kind of horrible misunderstanding has launched a nuclear war, quickly wiping out most of the world. As one character in the book puts it: "No, it wasn't an accident, I didn't say that.
REVIEW: THE BEACH BOYS BY THE BEACH BOYS
The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys is the long overdue hardcover book that beautifully encapsulates the group's amazing multi-decade career. Covering their earliest days of California family life, this book begins with insight from Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Bruce Johnston spinning memories drawn from their innocent youth. Their respective ...
Best Beach Reads for Summer 2023
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read, as well as the forthcoming Happy Place. She lives and writes in Cincinnati and the part of Kentucky just beneath it.
The Beach
The Beach Kindle Edition by Alex Garland (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 4.2 5,400 ratings See all formats and editions Celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Beach, a classic story of paradise found - and lost, the book that inspired the major film starring Leonardo DiCaprio Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia.
Summer's Best New Beach Reads
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
The Beach at Summerly
June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, the daughter of Summerly's year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island's settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of ...
The 15 best beach reads of all time, recommended by book-lovers
"Happy Place" by Emily Henry Amazon. Goodreads rating: 3.99/5 stars. About the book: "Happy Place" by Emily Henry is a romantic comedy about a couple who, despite breaking up, pretend to ...
Miranda July to David Nicholls: 12 of the best recent beach reads
The book follows a 40-something semi-famous artist (much like July herself) who, after receiving an unexpected lump sum, decides to embark on a solo road trip, leaving her husband and child back ...
From horror to romance, round out summer with these 4 beach reads
Those with an endless appetite for both writing and food will savor New York Times book critic Dwight Garner's "The Upstairs Delicatessen." Subtitled "On Eating, Reading, Reading About ...
Book Club on the Beach: A Summer Reading Send-Off
Book Haul Is Back! 50% Off Hundreds of Hardcovers Book Haul Is Back! 50% Off Hundreds of Hardcovers. ... Book Club on the Beach: A Summer Reading Send-Off. ... The Reviews Are In! Best Reviewed Books of August 2024. Trends. The 10 Most Popular Books Right Now. B&N Reads, Fiction, Guest Post, We Recommend ...
Are They Still Beach Books if You're Not Reading Them on the Beach?
And listen to us on the Book Review podcast. A version of this article appears in print on , Page 14 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Beach Reads / Summer Stories.
The Beach: Alex Garland: 9781573220484: Amazon.com: Books
Amazon.com Review In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land--forget searching for pristine islands or continents. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human progress has reduced Eden to a secret little beach near Thailand. In the tradition of ...
Beach Read
Beach Read was a New York Times Bestseller.It was listed in the Indie Next List for June 2020 and chosen as one of The Oprah Magazine's 38 Romance Novels That Are Set to Be the Best of 2020. [2] PopSugar named it the Best Romance Book of 2020. [3] The novel was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance, coming in second place. [4]Kirkus Reviews called Beach Read a "heartfelt ...
Review: What if John Lennon didn't die? Novel reimagines a life where
Title: Reunion: A Rock 'n Roll Fairy Tale Author: Gary Burr Genre: Novel Publisher: Adave Books Pages: 226 Let me take you down 'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields. Nothing is real
12 best Hilton all-inclusive resorts
Drinks are served 24 hours a day at Pera Lobby Bar & Patisserie, while the pool and beach bars serve drinks until midnight. Don't miss The Don Cigar Lounge, where cigars and cognac are on offer. Beyond that, guests can book a beachside massage in one of several thatched-roof cabanas to unwind.