Back in May, my family and I went on our annual beach vacation to our favorite spot, Destin, Florida. The Emerald Coast is perfect for relaxation, offering a change of scenery that creates a sense of escapism for vacationers. After all, what are vacations if not a way to escape the routine and rituals of everyday life? Since the 19th century, as vacations and beach trips grew, along with the development of mass publication and the decrease in the price of literature, books became part of daily life, not just a collectible.
So, vacation reading, and within this scope, beach reading, has been around for a while. However, according to The Guardian, the concept of the beach read first appeared in the 1990s as a marketing trick to entice readers to pack a book in their suitcases. Publications such as Publishers Weekly and Booklist likely coined it around the summer of 1990[1], before it entered literary journalists’ vernacular.
So, there I was, vacationing with my family in Florida back in May, when I became curious about what constituted a beach read in 2026, since people were still bringing physical books to the beach.
I have to admit my list didn’t grow much, since phones have taken the lion’s share of beach attention. The slow takeover of free time and beachside real estate by phones has grown over the last 10 years, even on vacation. Of course, it would be difficult for the casual sand stroller to know whether people on their phones were reading or doing something else. They did not seem to be texting or scrolling.
As I walked along the sandy shores, my feet in the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico, I could not help but notice that my book was not the only one to have found its way to the lounging chairs of those beachside condominiums. Not to mention the new reading club at my local library, Beach Reads. Although we are far from the beach here in Southern Louisiana, the connection is interesting.
So, what constitutes a beach read in 2026? I didn’t compile the following list with professionals, critics, or publishers in mind. It was born from my personal observations. Before going any further, I want to note that I only listed titles I could read during my morning walks. I had no intention of snooping around, invading, or disturbing a reader during their quiet activity, much less being so intrusive as to read over the shoulders of my fellow vacationers.
Here’s what I spotted this year.
First, some categories stood out; others were totally absent.
Fantasy: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros; The Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer E. Armentrout; Silver Elite by Dani Francis.
Speculative Fiction: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Thriller: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden; The Sentinel by Lee Child.
Romance: The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros; The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo; Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune; No Greater Love by Danielle Steel; The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy.
Biography: The Black Count by Tom Reiss (that was me…)
Christian nonfiction: When Nothing Makes Sense by Karin Hadadan; The Jesus’ Style by Gayle D. Erwin.
At this time and place, I saw no horror, no YA, no MG. More interestingly, the titles didn’t match the Beach Read List at my local library either. So, escapism relied more on other worlds, dystopian realities, and contemporary romance. And, apart from The Black Count, I have not read any of these books. Only two, Fourth Wing and The Handmaid’s Tale, were vaguely familiar to me because I saw them displayed at my local bookstore. I don’t think I will ever read those, but who knows.
A Pew Research Center study found that 64% of readers aged 16 and older get their book recommendations from family, friends, or coworkers[2], 28% from online bookstores or other websites, and 23% from bookstore employees they visit in person. So, yes, a display table with a selection of books could definitely influence a reader to choose a title over another. And, maybe we can add a new subcategory to the list: what strangers are reading…
What I neglected to do, though, was check the display tables at the local Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million stores just a few minutes from where I was staying. Especially now that big book companies like Barnes & Noble have shifted their corporate strategy to mimic independent bookstores by tailoring their content to local readership and trends, it could be interesting to see what professionals in the book industry call a beach read and what people actually consider one. Do they coincide, or is there a discrepancy between the two?
Interestingly, I did not see two vacationers reading the same book.
The beach read is still there, and it seems to be going nowhere. Although the beach read is not a genre, it has become a way of life, a way to read. And perhaps, that’s why the beach read has survived for so long. Now, the question remains. If we talk about beach reads, I would like to propose the new concepts of “mountain reads”, “train reads”, “plane reads”, and, why not, to add some local color to the list, “swamp reads”? The question is open to discussion…
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/02/beach-read-summer-books-holiday-vacation.
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/06/22/part-2-where-people-discover-and-get-their-books/
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