|
Stocking the Outer Banks Beach Bag
by Jamie Layton
The house was booked months ago, you've packed (and unpacked!) the SUV, shopped and loaded the fridge with groceries and figured out who's cooking each night. Your bathing suit is laid out, your favorite sand chair awaits, drinks are in the cooler; forgetting anything? How about the most important part of a relaxing yet mentally stimulating vacation making sure your beach bag has plenty of good beach books.
Are you often dismayed by the toll taken on books that are brought to the beach? The Beach Book (Melcher Media, $16.95) delivers the solution. It offers a fabulous collection of short stories, many penned by prize-winning writers and all taking place in seaside locales across the globe, from the Caribbean to the Kenyan coast. Authors like Anthony Doerr (The Shell Collector, a twitchy tale of a blind hermit who spends his days gathering specimens and, without the sense of sight, trying to avoid the many poisonous aspects of both the coral reef and the human world that surrounds him), and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
only a few pages in length, but packed with mysterious imagery) are showcased in this easy-to-handle tome. Many of the stories are haunting tales of life in paradise, or rather what should be paradise but seldom ever is. The best part, and the reason why it belongs
in your beach bag, is that The Beach Book is completely and entirely WATERPROOF!!
Go ahead, fall asleep with the tide coming in or set yourself down in the surf to read with peace of mind; this book can handle it.
A great choice for beach daydreamers is Patricia Schultz's best-selling 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (Workman Publishing, $18.95). Part travelogue, part wanderlust wish list, it really does list one thousand of the most incredible places on earth. Organized by country (and in the case of the USA, by state), the list includes museums, mosques, National Parks, islands, hotels and restaurants and covers the world from Italy to Peru to Denmark and beyond. Already on my list is French Polynesia's Moorea, a contender for World's Most Gorgeous Island; The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which boasts more than 150,000 works of art, and that's just what's on display; and, of course, the French Riviera's Hotel Du Cap because its the Hotel Du Cap! For planning your next trip, or just for its fantasy value, this is a fun book to peruse and to pass around at cocktail hour.
While technically not books, the Folding Guides published by Steven Lewers & Assoc. ($6.95-$7.95) are a must for every visitor to the southeast Atlantic coast. These are really some of the best (and handiest) regional guides available. Choose from Birds of the Southeast Atlantic Coast, Fishes of the Outer Banks, Shells of the Southeast Atlantic Coast and Fishing Regulations for the South Atlantic. All are map-sized and laminated for weather resistance! The illustrations and descriptions are concise, accurate and will have you making correct identifications in no time. Is that a spotted sandpiper or a least sandpiper? Quick! Check the guide! What's the legal size limit on flounder? Consult the guide! Did Nancy just find a calico clam or a channeled duck clam? Look it up in the guide! Having the knowledge to discern what your eyes are taking in is priceless, doubly so when helping children discover the world around them. Really, no beach bag (or boat or backpack) is complete without the entire set.
There's one vacation task that must be done and nobody wants to talk about; cooking. That's about to change. In 2003, Debra Ponzek and Geralyn Delaney Graham served up a wonderful collection of recipes entitled The Summer House Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, $30). The subtitle is Easy Recipes for When You Have Better Things
to Do With Your Time and that just about sums up the offerings in this well-organized, simply written book. In the introduction, they talk about getting into the Summer House State of Mind, which can be applied not only on vacation, but throughout the entire summer when everything other than the kitchen beckons. Especially valuable are their tips, lists and recipes for stocking a good, summer pantry with items like roasted garlic, sea salt, herbes de Provence and more. By going over their three pantry lists (one each for dry pantry, refrigerator and specialty items), you can be sure to have in stock the more intrinsic ingredients required for easy summer cooking. Additionally, many recipes can be made ahead of time so you can enjoy a fun day in the sun without worrying about what to make for
dinner! We've tested many of the recipes and can vouch for their simplicity, quick preparation and, most of all, their molto
delicioso factor! At the top of our list are the Watermelon Cooler (did you know you can puree a watermelon in less than two
minutes? Add good lemonade, a smooth vodka and prepare to discover an awesome new hot weather drink! Make a second pitcher sans vodka for the kids); Sweet & Spicy Nuts (cayenne and cumin add an extra zing!); the Soy, Ginger and Lime marinade (makes an incredible grilled London Broil); the tapenades, the salads, the luscious desserts É it's really quite hard to choose just a few favorites. One thing is guaranteed, the recipes in this book will be used over and over, here at the beach and at home, and will put an end to the dread of dishing up vacation cuisine.
You never know how true the statement "so many books, so little time" is until you are lucky enough to work in a bookstore. To wrap things up, here are a few more titles (all headed for the bestseller lists) I would highly recommend adding to your list:
Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy (Ballantine Books, $24.95). From the best-selling author of The Third Secret, a thriller that focuses on the legendary Knights Templar and the treasure they have protected for centuries. For Da Vinci Code lovers, this is the next big one! (Both my husband, Chris, and our friend, Denver, read the advance of this one and highly recommend it.)
Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co., Maria Amparo Escandon (Three Rivers Press, $12.95). The life story of a young woman incarcerated in a Mexicali women's prison who spins her tale (which she passes off as fiction) in serial format during weekly meetings of the prison's "Library Club". Touching and quite humorous, I'm recommending this book to everyone,and they're loving it!
A few years ago, a little movie called Pay It Forward got a lot of attention. Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of the book, is back with Love in the Present Tense (Flying Dolphin Press, $21.95). It tells the story of Pearl, a teenage mother from the street out to protect her innocent, bespectacled child, Leonard, from the foreboding dangers of her former life. They are befriended by a neighbor, Mitch, with whom Pearl one day leaves Leonard, never to return. This is such a hope-filled book; it really examines the power that can be wielded by one's love for a child. I'll be hand-selling this one all summer.
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon, $22.95). This one is definitely on my to-read list. Brockmeier creates a world called 'the City' where people can only live if they are recently deceased and still exist in the memory of someone still living. In the real world, a scientist named Laura Byrd struggles to stay alive on the tundra of Antarctica while avoiding a deadly virus that is sweeping the planet. In 'the City' her parents find a second chance for love, but only if Laura can stay alive thus preserving (and protecting) their memory.
In The Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant (Random House, $23.95). Dunant writes great historical fiction and she is at it again with Courtesan, her latest novel. In it she weaves the story of Fiammetta Bianchini, a celebrated Roman courtesan, and her
companion/"procurer", a dwarf named Bucino Teodoldo. They have fled to Renaissance Venice to ply her trade and, as usual, Dunant has done her homework, painting a vivid and beautiful picture of life in 16th-century Italy, and the tragedies of beauty lost and love found.
And then there's always The Big Oyster, The Glass Castle, A Year of Magical Thinking, Julia Child's My Life in France, Saving the World, You're Wearing That?, Rough Crossings, The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (both in paperback for the first time), CrazyBusy, Rachael Ray's Express Lane Meals, Marley & Me, Summer Crossing (Capote's lost novel), Shanks for Nothing like I said before, "so many books".
About-the-Beach Reads:
This summer brings some terrific new Outer Banks books plus a staple for every beach-comber's shelves. For years, everyone has been asking for a book about the wild horses of Currituck's Outer Banks. It is finally here and was it ever worth the wait! Fresh off the presses is Mustangs on the Beach, by Sandra Waugaman (sugg. price $15). Published by the Carova Beach Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary, with informational assistance from the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, this glossy soft-cover combines a wealth of historical knowledge with a literal treasure trove of photographs. The book includes chapters like "What Makes a Mustang Special", "Caring for the Herd" and "Special Horses". It also documents the evolution of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund and its admirable endeavors to protect and preserve the herd. Every Outer Banks
visitor who has ever been fascinated with the idea of these horses, or been lucky enough to have spent a few captivating minutes observing them, will welcome this excellent volume. (FYI: Carova lies about twelve miles north of Corolla, reachable only by four wheel drive. It boasts a year-round population of people and horses! Proceeds from this book will go to the Carova Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary and the Corolla Wild Horse Fund.)
Another new book for 2006 is the latest novel from former Outer Banks resident, Wendy Howell Mills. Island Intrigue unfolds on Comico Island where Sabrina Dunsweeney retreats to reflect and recover from the loss of her mother and a recent cancer scare. Sabrina gets caught up in an old feud between two island families and the murder of a new acquaintance; a player in the feud. With its coastal setting and Mills' inimitable mix of descriptive narrative, quirky characters and suspenseful style, Island Intrigue (Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95) is a good mystery to take to the beach, as are her earlier novels from the Callie McKinley series Death of a Mermaid and Callie & the Dealer & a Dog Named Jake, both of which feature the Outer Banks as their backdrop.
Published in 2004, but still on our bestseller list is Orrin H. Pilkey, Tracy Monegan Rice and Williams J. Neal's How To Read A North Carolina Beach: Bubble Holes, Barking Sands and Rippled Runnels (UNC Press, $12.95). Written by a trio of esteemed geologists, this book (whose working title was "Everything You Need to Know About Beaches Except Seashells" ) is written for the layman beach bum whose interest in the surrounding environment goes beyond just seeing it as a sandy spot to catch some rays. Chapters range from "What Makes and Shapes a Beach", in which the authors discuss how the beaches we love came to be and what they are made of (mostly quartz and feldspar) to "Beach Clues", which interprets swash imprints, wrack lines, blisters, pits and volcanoes (intriguing names which lead to inquiring minds). Avid beachcombers will delight in the chapter on "Life Signs", which offers a list of common birds and shells (despite the working title, shells are included), and offers hints on how to spot turtle tracks, ghost shrimp burrows and more. The final chapter, "Conservation of Beaches", is a must-read for every beachgoer. You may not like the message, but if you are a true beach lover you can't help but agree with their final assessment of the future of North Carolina's beaches. An informative glossary of beach terminology not only helps during the reading of the book, but provides names for many features you've noticed, but didn't
know what name to give them. For instance, that gravelly bed of broken shell bits often found on the beach? It's called shell hash! (Incidentally, a great place to sift around for beach glass!)
There are so many more; Pure Sea Glass by Richard LaMotte, the BIBLE for all sea glass hunters; Outer Banks Edge: A Photographic Portfolio by Steve Alterman, the ultimate souvenir of any trip to the Outer Banks; local cookbooks like Beach Cuisine and Taste of the Outer Banks, Volumes 1, 2 and 3; Hatteras Blues by Tom Carlson; a favorite anthology of mine that covers the history of the Outer Banks through a series of essays edited by David Stick, An Outer Banks Reader. The list goes on and on but, unfortunately, this column does not. If you don't see anything here that appeals to you, come find me at Duck's Cottage and I'll find you the perfect book. Until that time, happy reading and have a wonderful vacation.
|
