One year, my beach read was Rhetorical Grammar.
I'm telling the truth.
I actually found it interesting. But I didn't get far. Just far enough to teach grammar as a rhetorical choice.
This year, having just finished teaching the Vietnam conflict, I grabbed a book I was anxious to reread as validation that I had taught the conflict correctly. It also sounded very interesting. Perfect beach read...until I got to the beach.
But before we'd left, another book pricked my interest. A book I'd read years before and it was sitting on my daughter's book shelf. I packed it just in case.
I also packed both books just in case. Subconsciously, I'd already made the shift and knew I wouldn't be reading McMaster's deep and detailed analysis of the men who'd made so many poor decisions.
I did give it a chance.
A five minute chance.
There is a whole section at the bookstore labeled BEACH READS. A beach read is light enough to take on a holiday, and easily leave it behind on the resort bookshelf. It is engaging enough but not too engaging that the reader won't slip out of a beach chair and build a sandcastle with a child, or take out the kayak, or go for a beach walk. Books that I optimistically choose to read, don't work because they require too much concentration, and we've left our concentration mind at home with the desk, the paperwork, the responsibilities.
But I can't read, as an internet description explains, a typical beach read: steamy romance, steamy sex, and a steamy villain or villainess.
It's a delicate balance-- choosing the correct beach read.
But a balance I have found this trip. I wouldn't leave A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, but it's entertaining enough, peppered with wisdom-gems that require concentration--but only once a chapter.
The perfect beach read--for me.
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