beach reads

When someone asks for a book recommendation from me, my first reaction is joy - my friend is going to read a book! People DO still read books! Wahoo!
My second reaction is hesitation and fear - ohmygosh what if I tell them to read a certain book and they do and then they hate it and think I'm insane and they'll never want to read a book again?


Lately a few friends have been asking for beach read recommendations. Aren't beach reads the best? I personally mostly read memoirs, literary fiction and general fiction. Most of these are books I read in 2010 (here) and the books I read in 2009 (here). I don't have Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult on here but both authors provide good beach reads-- though you might need to bring tissues in your beach bag.

women's fiction and my two favorite memoirs
The Help
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Coming Home (or any Rosamunde Pilcher book-- they are old school but they're beautiful and sweet)
Belong to Me
The Girls
If You Lived Here
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Courtyard
Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight (memoir)
The Glass Castle (memoir)

if you want to laugh:
The Nanny Diaries 
A Year of Living Biblically
It Sucked and Then I Cried

if you want to be inspired:
An Ordinary Man
The Same Kind of Different As Me
Girl Meets God


books for both guys and girls:
The Kite Runner
The Hot Zone
AJ Jacob's books
Bill Bryson's books