Kicking Back With A Book

Abandon Your E-Mail And Office Memos: What To Read During A Vacation At The Beach Or In The Mountains

By Carla Power and Malcolm Jones | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Jun 28, 1999

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Everything gets sticky in the summer. Vacations mean time to read more than e-mails and office memos, and long hot days make summer reading--like summer loves--sweeter and more intense. Below, NEWSWEEK's roundup of books to lie with on the hammock or the sand:

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. Nathan Englander (Faber and Faber) This pitch-perfect debut provides glimpses of the lives of Orthodox Jews. In the title story, a Hasidim buys a night with a Tel Aviv prostitute to save his marriage; in "The Wig," an aging beauty takes drastic steps to recoup her youth. The book's wit has glimmers of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow; its subtlety recalls James Joyce's "Dubliners."

The Leper's Companions. Julia Blackburn (Jonathan Cape) A mermaid washes up on the shores of a medieval village, leading a group of villagers set out for Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. An enchanting tale.

Happiest Days. Cressida Connelly (Fourth Estate) Happy families may be all alike, but wretched ones, as drawn by Cyril Connelly's daughter Cressida, are fascinating. The finely drawn stories are chillingly accurate child's-eye views of adult worlds.

This Is the Beat Generation. James Campbell (Secker & Warburg) Campbell chronicles the antics of hipsters Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs in savvy, stylish prose. Howl for it.