This is a place to list: great books that you’d never heard of, and found in vacation houses; great books you’ve finished and left in vacation houses; great books that seem like the kind of book you might have found in vacation houses; okay books you’d heard of and did find in vacation houses. Okay? we’re off!
- Gondar, by Nicholas Luard — Quite lurid, but also surprisingly good. Lots of characters. Some sex. Historical. It reminds me of …
- The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, about which many of the same things could be said. I doub anyone would leave it in a vacation house, because it’s actually really good.
- The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum (I think). It did go on, but the premise was so cool.
- The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher.
- Anything by Maeve Binchy.
- Those books by Alexander McCall Smith (found at my mother’s beach house — left by who knows — perfact mindless summer reading.
- Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, found (but not read, sadly — not enough time) at Irish Beach.
Reader's Guide to . . . 
I love the Outlander series by Gabaldon. Not enough people have taken the time to try it. Maybe it’s the 600+ pages of each of the books 🙂
Me, too!
I love the McCall Smith books about Botswana and the female investigator. And I loved the Outlander series too.
Every once in a while I stumble across some good old Christie murder story – which I totally enjoy, though I must have read all of them a hundred times.
We share a beach house with my aunt and uncle and cousins. Every year I leave novels by Carl Hiaasen and Harlan Coben on the bookshelf, because they’re perfect beach vacation reading. I’ve also left Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, and Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. Two years ago, I left James Patterson’s Beach Road, because, you know, the beach…
My aunt leaves romance novels with flowery covers. Famous bestselling author, can’t remember her name. I’ve never found anything there that I wanted to read, but there’s an excellent bookstore in town and a decent library, so that’s never been a problem.
Such excellent vacation house reading! I would love to share a beach house with you! Could it be Rosamund Pilcher? Or Maeve Binchy? Also excellent choices, I think.
Rosamund Pilcher is the Gideon’s Bible holiday cottages.
A few years ago we found Even Cowgirls get the blues, by Tom Robiins, which was much much worse than I remembered it, and I didn’t like it the first time around . . .
When we rent a house in South Carolina, we always find a book or two by Dorothea Benton Frank or Mary Alice Munroe, because they write fiction set in the area. There’s another woman, too, whose characters are always divorced, working in local restaurants, and getting their hair “blown out” which always conjures up violent images in my head. Sometimes there’s a Pat Conroy or two; I haven’t found anything I liked in a beach house yet.
What does that even mean? To have your hair blown out?
Sadly, I have not been to any vacation beach houses lately. I was at a B and B in Maine, but I was busy and not looking for reading, and the only thing I found was the guest book. that was entertaining, too.