Fiction Nation - Smart Reviews for Modern Readers - Hosted by Kim Alexander

Beach Book Roundup '09

I'm Kim Alexander and this is Fiction Nation. This week it's the Beach Book Roundup.

Summertime, and the decisions aren't easy! Margarita or pina colada? Beach or pool? SPF 35 or 70? (Me, it's always 70. Thanks, Eastern European shtetl-dwelling ancestors!) And most importantly, what to read? Well, three times makes it a tradition, so here it is, The Third Annual Fiction Nation Beach book Roundup. Got your Sirius XM fired up? You'll hear sneak preview interviews from some of my favorite writers. (And if you hadn't heard, there's an app for that!) This summer I'm featuring everything from comedy to romance to crime...these are the books you'll want to stick in your carry-on no matter where you're going. Let's get started.

My friend Lauren Lipton is terribly chic, lives in New York City, blogs, has just had an article appear in Forbes Woman (!), and writes romantic comedies with wit and charm. She creates women I'd like to pal around with, and the men? Oh yes, I can see the appeal. We spent some time talking about her new book, Mating Rituals of the North American WASP, which she is quick to point out is not a book about insects.

In this book, Lauren creates a sort of steel cage death-match of wills between level-headed but chronically self-critical Peggy (representing the great city of NYC) while in the other corner, Serious Old Connecticut Money and Êthe Weight of Generational Responsibility as embodied by the super hot WASP of the title, Luke. Oh, it's also about two strangers who accidentally get married in Vegas.

Our next pick for the beach book roundup is Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper. If you like medical dramas but don't think they're violent enough, or you like books about the mob but notice they don't have enough footnotes, or if you just want a crazy tough, fast-paced, deeply unusual, undeniably brilliant first novel, get this book. I couldn't put it down, except for two scenes where I HAD to put it down, and take a minute to compose myself. Dr. Peter Brown is having the worst day of his fairly crummy life. It gets(so much) worse when someone recognizes him from his old job — hit man for the mob. And the race is on. But it's so much more. You'll just have to trust me, and keep this one away from the kids. (By the way, the audiobook absolutely floored me.)

And now for something completely different. We met Kate Furnivall two years ago with her debut novel, The Russian Concubine, which began with Kate's own mother's childhood in Communist China. Kate took that idea and created the clever, independent young thief Lydia Ivanova. By the end of the first book, Lydia has fallen in love with the brave Chang An Lo, but her future is very much up in the air. Kate Furnivall is back with the sequel, The Girl from Junchow, and Lydia's story can now continue, this time out of the frying pan of Chinese civil war to the fire of Stalin-era Moscow. Lydia may be the only character I've ever come across trying to break in to a labor camp. It's romantic, lush, historically accurate and just begs for a slightly overheated miniseries, which I would totally watch and cry.

And finally, the Beach Book Roundup just wouldn't be the same without a little chaos, and for that we turn to South Florida mystery master Tim Dorsey. Serge Storms is back, this time taking out the trash in the Sunshine State in Nuclear Jellyfish. If you don't know Tim Dorsey's work, think of these easy phrases: gleeful mayhem, justifiable homicide, itinerant internet travel writer, howling personification of the much abused state of Florida. And there you have the anti-est of heroes, Serge Storms. The plot has something to do with travelling salesmen, scamming tourists, drug dealers, there's even a babe with a mysterious past, but mostly it's a chance for Serge to rant as only he can. Also, head over to www.timdorsey.com. Here is a man who understands the mysterious power of the internet.

Hear my Beach Book Roundup on Fiction Nation, on Book Radio, Sirius 117 and XM 163.

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