Marcia's Musings: Beach Reads?
/By Marcia Appel — Last Updated: July 10, 2025
July finds beach life in full swing in Minnesota, the Fourth of July weekend leading us into the ripe richness of summer’s lull. Tubing, waterskiing, and sailing on rivers and lakes and swimming and fishing on them – you name it – most of us in the North Star state seek out water and stretch out on beaches (or alongside pools) one way or another.
Over the years I bet you’ve read dozens or maybe hundreds of lists calling out “The Best Beach Reads”. You’ve probably saved them somewhere for future reference, as have I. Forget all that. Use this handy guide to branch – I mean drift – out into new waters. You can locate the old lists later.
When talking about beach reads, list-makers usually stress romance, mystery, intrigue, family dramas, period pieces, or crime capers to carry us away from our work-a-day worlds. My list contains two categories: reads to deepen your yoga and meditation practices and calm your spirit, and selections meeting the more predictable criteria mentioned above. Whatever you choose to read, though, above all, grab that book, find a beach or big, beautiful pool, and place your tired body on a fluffy towel spread over a comfortable chaise lounge or on warm sand and escape as often as you can.
Beach Reads to Create Curiosity About Your Practices
The Mama Sutra: A Story of Love, Loss, and the Path of Motherhood by Anne Cushman: A faculty member for my 300-hour training in Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation at Spirit Rock (the Buddhist center in Northern California), Anne is a pioneer in the integration of mindfulness, embodied meditation including yoga, and creative expression. In this book, one of several she has penned in addition to essays for publications such as the New York Times, Yoga Journal, and Tricycle, she traces 18 years of motherhood as a spiritual practice. From her first pregnancy, which sadly ended in her daughter’s stillborn birth, to the joys and challenges of raising her son, to the “meltdown” of her nuclear family into a new and joyful form, this book opens fertile new ground in thinking of parenthood with exquisite tenderness.
The Relationship Book: A Soulful, Transformational, and Artistic Inventory of Your Connective Life by Rachel Awes: With nearly 100 poignant meditations colorfully illustrated by the author, a psychologist living in St. Paul, Minnesota, I found myself earmarking so many pages that finally I stopped. Rachel brings a fresh perspective to personal relationships from a positive point of view that is long on healthy boundaries, absent of guilt and shame, and uncannily prescient about the nature of how we connect to and manage relationships. Stressing self-esteem, affirmation, and creative play, she offers a full basket of possibility.
Devotion by Dani Shapiro: This book from a noted memoirist and fiction writer lands on my Top 10 books about spiritual searching while telling a good (and true) story. I found this synopsis about Devotion to hit close to home: “A timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life.” I read it or listen to it every year for two reasons: It helps me to sleep when I’m questioning what’s important in life and my spiritual path. And as a faculty member of Green Lotus’s 200-hour teacher-training program, I chose it as a text to help us to delve into meditation. (Also annually, I listen to her book Inheritance, in which she comes to grips with learning that her beloved father is not really her father – gut-wrenching and freeing for me as a reader.) The Buddha gave full-throated support to the pursuit of deep inquiry, and Dani Shapiro digs deep and helped me to do so. Devotion appeared to me in the winter of my life and helped me to find an invincible summer within me, to paraphrase French philosopher Albert Camus.
Wisdom in Our Wings: Poetry for Life, Yoga and Yonder by Dawn Schaefer Stumpf: Dawn is a fellow faculty member in our 200-hour teacher-training program, a certified yoga therapist, and holds a master’s in curriculum development. Her daughter illustrated this little jewel of a book which weaves together poems lit by joy, discovery, gratitude, healing, and much more. Scribbles, ideas, and discoveries are inked onto most pages in my copy, unveiling secrets I might have been keeping even from myself. Dawn also co-authored Journal of an ADHD Kid with her son, Tobias. What a team!
And the Other Kinds of Beach Reads
When you want a change of pace, try one of these novels. If you belong to a book club or receive recommendations from friends or news sources, you may have read them already. If not, grab a waterside chair, a cool drink, and one of these books and start turning those pages.
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn: Of the two books I’ve read by this bestselling author, this one left a stronger impression. Set in the 1950s – a decade often romanticized by TV, yet less idyllic for most – this novel stood out and sticks with me. After helping win a world war by going to work in offices, factories, schools, and on farms, women got the boot when fighting ceased and instead were incessantly encouraged to have more children to rebuild the population (and future labor force). Civil rights earned scoffs from a great swath of the country, much of which lived in poverty. McCarthyism reigned, until the mean-spirited kingmaker finally was dethroned. Immigrants faced an unwelcoming electorate. Told through the stories of the inhabitants of a boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., a more rounded picture of the decade emerges.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach: This story of an unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start over swept me away, moved me through a cast of characters by turn endearing, annoying, funny, sad, tormented, and complex. I laughed, I cried, I worried, I puzzled, and I was surprised repeatedly. Every so often, I whisper to myself, “I wish I could have written that.” This book represents one of those times. This wise author writes tenderly with nuance and a rich range of emotions and voices. Don’t miss it.
Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce: Readers pick up books based on professional reviews, of course. Even more powerful, though, may be recommendations shared by friends and colleagues. Person A enthuses Person B about a title, and that person tells another and so on it goes until an invisible web builds a community around just this one book. As Rebecca Airmet, editor of Green Lotus’s newsletter (who wears other hats for the company) and my colleague, prepared this Musings for publication, she emailed me a lovely recommendation for Miss Benson’s Beetle. She summarized, “[This book] also takes place in the 1950s and provides a beautiful and humorous perspective on female friendship and following our dreams.” Rebecca’s note prodded me to recall that I, too, had read this novel of two overlooked women who take a risk on an unlikely adventure. What does this mean? Keep talking about books and keep recommending them. Doing so builds and deepens friendships. Thank you, Rebecca, for reminding me of that.
Well, there you have it, a list of great reads to consider beaching it with between now and Labor Day. Happy summer and happy reading.
Postscript: You go to bed one night with generous thoughts of loved ones, especially your children, grandchildren, parents, and closest friends. The next day disaster strikes. The Oxford Dictionary defines disaster as “a sudden event, such as an accident or a natural catastrophe, that causes great damage or loss of life.... A distinction is sometimes drawn between natural and man-made disasters.” A catastrophic flood tore through the Texas Hill Country the Fourth of July weekend, obliterating lives, property, and animals, both wild and domestic. Young and elderly lives ended amidst heroic efforts to save them. My heart heavy, I considered rewriting this Musings.
I realized after sitting in mindfulness meditation with these that with all the reporting, all the pleas for help and prayers, the best words I could offer are the simplest ones: I care. We care. May we be grateful that we can still read. May it always be so.
