He marries a brilliant woman named Helen, and the first quarter of “Trust” tracks their respective upbringings and the life they build together. On page one of “ Trust ,” we meet Benjamin Rask, a reserved, laconic scion of a tobacco trading dynasty, who becomes a wildly successful New York financier more interested in how money moves than the luxuries it affords. This novel at first reads like a sweeping, smartly written biography of an early 20th-century financial titan and the upper-crust society he occupies-a bit like “Downton Abbey,” but rather than an upstairs-downstairs depiction of affairs, this story is solely about the upstairs set. To which he replied: “I’m a guy who read ‘War and Peace’ by the pool.” I can relate to Morrissey last time my toes were in the sand, I had an experimental novel by a 19th-century Brazilian writer in hand, “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. “You must be the first person in history to take Henry James to the beach,” author Marlon James said to his editor, Jake Morrissey, on a literary podcast. Whether you want a frothy romance, pulpy thriller, weighty biography, no-holds-barred memoir or a collection of literary short stories, we’re not here to pass judgment.

Let’s reclaim the idea of beach reads, shall we? If you read it on a beach, it’s a beach read. Yes, sometimes beach reads get a bad rap: They’re too juicy, too plot-focused, too pedestrian, too predictable. Whether you’re traveling to a picturesque resort or strolling to your local beachfront, it’s nice to have some mesmerizing reading material. Summer is nearly upon us, and with it warmth, sun and that sandy old haunt, the beach.

Beach read book review