With temperatures reaching record highs, there’s never been a better time to head to the beach, park or pool to escape the heat with a transporting book in hand. And this summer, lovers of queer books have a plethora of titles to choose from — from page-turning romances to provocative anthologies and steamy thrillers.
“A beach read is a mindset,” Nina Haines, the founder of the Sapph-Lit book club, told NBC News on a call from her parents’ beach house, where she was escaping one of New York’s recent heat waves. “Beach reads are books that make you giddy and excited — and a little horny.”
When the heat index goes up, Haines said, she tends to reach for her favorite authors, including “Red, White & Royal Blue” and “One Last Stop” scribe Casey McQuiston, and “steamroll” through series with interconnected characters and immersive worlds. On her list of go-to sapphic series writers are Ashley Herring Blake and Alexandria Bellefleur, whose books come in paperbacks bearing wholesome covers, exactly what the book club founder wants while lying in the sand.
“These are paperbacks that you can chuck in your beach bag. You can get them wet, you can dog-ear the pages, and then you can pass them off to your friend as soon as you’re done,” she said of her favorite summer books, joking that they often have “cutesy illustrated covers” to hide “the dirtiest smut you’ve ever encountered.”
“They’re compulsive, easy-to-read romances you gobble up in one sitting. It’s a short relationship, but it’s still very meaningful,” she added, as if referring to a whirlwind fling.
But summer isn’t only about sapphic smut and blockbuster romances. For New York-based publishing veteran Jesse Aylen, a great warm-weather read could be an engaging memoir or short story collection, as long as it marries brevity with escapism — whether via a tantalizing relationship or, for fantasy lovers, a trip to another planet.
“People are hot and looking to put their brain somewhere else. Why not on Mars?” Aylen said with a laugh, adding that while some people may want to read Tolstoy in the summer, he prefers transportive, bite-size texts that he can eat right up.
“I love a long book, but if it’s 80, 90, 100 degrees outside, I want something that’s going to match the breezier mood for the season,” he said.
Aylen, who belongs to a book club that focuses on topical nonfiction, also values summer reads that spark conversation and offer humor — from Armistead Maupin’s comedy-of-manners series “Tales of the City” to the wry “Fran Lebowitz Reader.”
“I love book clubs, and I love yammering on about books to friends — sharing the beauty and bounty of what’s out there,” Aylen said, adding that when it’s hot out he particularly likes to recommend books that “broaden people’s palates.” “The worst thing that a book can be is siloed.”
Whatever’s on the reading list, summer is a time to tear through books, thanks to slower work schedules and a greater emphasis on being outdoors and among friends. That makes it a prime season not just for sandy solo sessions with a romance and discovering new favorites at book club but also curated bookstore sections designed for perusing.
At Provincetown Bookshop, located in the storied gay beach destination on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, the warm weather brings a surge of shoppers checking out the store’s seasonal beach reads section.
“It’s basically our whole year,” Provincetown Bookshop manager Derek McCormack told NBC News, explaining that the store, which also once employed filmmaker John Waters, makes half of its annual sales during July and August.
To cater to the diverse tastes of the summer clientele — which McCormack said runs the gamut from idle vacationers looking for a less challenging book to professors who want something a bit more substantial — the store’s beach reads section includes a mix of romance and thrillers, some of which have a local flair. (This year’s lineup includes new releases like “Providence” by Craig Willse alongside the 2022 hit “Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield.) But shoppers also have a tendency to anoint their own beachworthy favorites.
“A great beach read is propulsive, easy to get lost in, ideally very portable,” McCormack said, adding that the sleek reissue of Edmund White’s “Nocturnes for the King of Naples,” a novel told through love letters, has become one of this year’s unofficial picks. “A variety of things could be classified as a beach read, but they all do that, at the very least.”
Across the board, what seems to make a great summer read for most people — whether it’s classic literature or new adult romance, highbrow or lowbrow — is a captivating paperback that’s primed to be devoured, shared and eventually destroyed by sun, sand and boozy summer drinks. And if it happens to have a little (or a lot of) sex, well, that certainly doesn’t hurt.
“Like what you like and don’t be guilty about it,” Haines said, quipping she’d rather be friends with someone who reads smut exclusively than the person who has read all 100 best books of the 21st century. “Reading is supposed to be fun.”
In addition to the aforementioned recommendations from Haines, Aylen and McCormack, here are a few other queer beach recommendations from book connoisseurs and NBC News’ own bibliophiles:
‘A Good Happy Girl’
Iris Tobin, a bookseller at Madison, Wisconsin’s A Room of One’s Own — where it’s officially “brat summer” — recommended Marissa Higgins’ “masochistically wonderful” novel about a self-destructive young lawyer who takes up with married lesbians.
‘Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous’
Leah Koch, co-owner of the bicoastal romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice, named Mae Marvel’s novel about high school best friends who reconnect after their lives take different paths as her current summer favorite.
‘Giovanni’s Room’
Trailblazing writer James Baldwin’s slim, captivating novel about a tragic love affair between an American expatriate and an Italian bartender in 1950s Paris is necessary reading this summer, which marks 100 years since Baldwin’s birth.
‘Hot Summer’
Elle Everhart’s addicting new release is about a woman who goes on a “Love Island”-like show to win a promotion and finds herself unexpectedly falling for a fiery-haired contestant.
‘In Tongues’
Thomas Grattan’s new novel about a gay 20-something’s quest for self-discovery, which upends the lives of a powerful New York art couple, is another of McCormack’s go-to recommendations this summer.
In K. Patrick’s enthralling and erotic debut novel about identity, seduction and obsession, a junior staff member at an English girls school becomes enthralled with the headmaster’s wife, leading to a taboo affair. “Mrs. S.” was on NBC News’ top LGBTQ books list last year and is NBC Out editorial director Brooke Sopelsa’s top beach read pick this summer.
‘Sluts’
Bookseller Raquel Espasande of New York’s Bluestockings Cooperative promised this anthology featuring works — from erotica to experimental — by “a slutty who’s who” and edited by Michelle Tea “does not disappoint.”
‘The Future Was Color’
In Patrick Nathan’s new slow burn of a novel, a mysterious narrator recounts a gay Hungarian screenwriter’s professional and sexual exploits in decadent postwar Los Angeles and New York.
‘What Belongs to You’
Ahead of the fall release of “Small Rain,” revisit Garth Greenwell’s debut novel, an exquisitely written meditation on desire that centers on an American professor who falls in love with a Bulgarian hustler.
‘Women’ by Chloé Caldwell
Haines described Chloé Caldwell’s recently reissued erotic sapphic novella, which features passionate romance and devastating heartbreak, as “the perfect beach read right now.” “Women” is also one of NBC News senior producer Jillian Eugenios’ favorite summer books.
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