<p>And if you haven’t already, the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich are fabulous vacation reads.</p>
<p>I love love love taking theme reading on vacation.</p>
<p>(edited because I went back and read your first post! Sorry.)</p>
<p>More classics:</p>
<p>Middlemarch
The Woman in White</p>
<p>A few I have enjoyed on vacations:</p>
<p>Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Any Jodi Picoult
Any Nelson DeMille
Any Ana Quindlen
Janet Evanovich-in number order</p>
<p>Two I just picked up in paperback but haven’t read yet (they were suggested on the CC book thread):</p>
<p>Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery</p>
<p>I am throwing in another vote for Poisonwood Bible as a nice long book that would be good to read on vacation and should be available in paperback at Half Price Books. 
And, thinking about other books people have suggested, I loved Time Traveller’s Wife and Water for Elephants and Memory Keeper’s Daughter and all of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books (you don’t really have to read them in order) - great vacation books if you ahve not read them.</p>
<p>I don’t usually read historical fiction but I liked The Alienist, so if you generally like historical fiction and you have not read it, you might really enjoy it.</p>
<p>A favorite long book: I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb. Sometimes you are sorry to finish a book, it’s so good.</p>
<p>OMG, I second the Wally Lamb book if you haven’t read it. It is amazing.</p>
<p>I actually own Middlemarch…bought when I was on a “read the classics” kick. But it has seemed so daunting…maybe I should add another criteria:</p>
<p>Large enough type so that I can read by the pool without reading glasses (do they make reading sunglasses?)</p>
<p>THEY DO! I bought them for H a couple of years ago - he loves them.</p>
<p>Okay, retracting Middlemarch on those new grounds. But really, I re-read it recently and it just resonated in 100 new ways. It’s wasted on h.s. kids. Read it after vacation!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nothing that makes a woman feel aged like sitting around a pool in her reading glasses…but I’m willing to do it in my own back yard, so I’ll save it for a bit.</p>
<p>If you have already read Into Thin Air and loved it, the next book on the list should be Savage Summit by Jennifer Jordan. It tells the sories of first five women to climb K2. None of them is alive today. A wonderfully wirtten book.</p>
<p>Second the reccomendation for The Madonnas of Leningrad.</p>
<p>Have you ever read anything by Arturo Perez Reverte? My favourite is The Club Dumas.
I also reccomend anything by Matthew Pearl : The Dante Club, Poe Shadow or new Last Dickens</p>
<p>Missypie, you must be a young mom if you’re still worrying about reading glasses by the pool - I gave up that vanity years ago! If you have time, go to peepers.com for reading sunglasses, they’re the best thing to have in the backyard or on vacation.</p>
<p>Not young, but not accepting of my poor near vision. I had remarkable near vision until I had LASIK…they did monovision, so I kept the near vision in my left eye…but in the past year or so, it’s started to go, too. It’s like Awakenings or *Flowers for Algernon *- I had it, then lost it.</p>
<p>Oops. I recommended a book called “The Tender Bar” but gave the wrong author name.
The author is J.R. Moehringer (not JR Mohr). He’s a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.</p>
<p>This book is a occasionally funny, interesting story about a young man coming of age with a neighborhood bar on a nearby corner. This Bar boasts many unique characters and the story is full of excellent insights. Highly recommend.</p>
<p>Agree with Harriet about rereading Middlemarch and finding it resonating much more so now. (possibly my favorite book). Someone mentioned Our Mutual Friend which I reread last summer and felt the same way about–has become my favorite Dickens.</p>
<p>Here’s a good one: Helen of Troy by M. George.
It’s The Trojan War, the gods, mortals and a touch of magic woven into a well written story. I really loved reading it in colorado. I’ve given it to several of my friends with all good results.</p>
<p>garland - that might have been me, too. Our Mutual Friend is my favorite Dickens novel, and I am a pretty rabid overall Dickens fan. But I might have just said David Copperfield, because it’s somewhat more vacation-y.</p>
<p>I’m finishing Lincoln by Gore Vidal (so good its like drinking fine wine). I also started
Mapplethorpe by Patricia Morrisroe. Its a bio. about the art photographer that caused quite a stir with some of his photos. Wonderful, but you have to order cuz its out of print.</p>
<p>Come back and tell us what you bought, Missypie!</p>
<p>oooh, ooooh I forgot about Ines of My Soul (mentioned by MarinMom). Fascinating.</p>
<p>Now all I can think about is how nice it would be to be going on vacation and shopping for these books! Lucky you, missypie! :)</p>