With Memorial Day weekend just around the bend, it’s time to start planning your summer beach reading list. Yesterday, the AP came out with a list of books that “blend food and travel,” including the appetite-worthy titles of Hamburger America and Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris, the latter of which the author blogged about here on TWS just last week.

As far as my list is concerned, I’ll kick off my summer with Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, which is my book club’s next selection, but beyond that, I’m not sure. Should I go with a Pulizter Prize winner, the best-seller list on the New York Times, or one of my friends’ picks on the book recommendation sharing web site Good Reads?

If you’re looking for a suggestion, here are five books I’ve recently read that I think will pair well with sandy toes:

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
This work of fiction enters into the bizarre and entertaining world of the American circus during the depression era. It’s got a ragtag and rowdy cast of characters (including animals) and is well written and absorbing, yet still an easy read and a page turner.

2. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Although this book has its critics, I found it a very enjoyable read about a woman who takes the ultimate trip: she spends an entire year split between the countries of Italy, India, and Indonesia pursuing pleasure, devotion, and balance. While I wouldn’t have made the same choices the author does, it’s fun to muse on where I’d go if I had a year abroad to play.

3. Mortified: Real Words, Real People, Real Pathetic by David Nadelberg
Before the Internet made self-confession ubiquitous, teenagers actually used to keep secrets. In this compilation, they let forth, no holds barred. It’s hilarious (and a bit poignant) to read the true diary entries, poems, stories, and letters of real kids who trusted their hearts, souls, and—often—very misguided thoughts to the notebook page.

4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
A beautiful, stark little book with big ideas, about an aging minister in a small town in Iowa. While the book’s setting is landlocked, it touches upon the power of many of the elementals that make up a beach: earth, sky, sun, water, moon. The author’s concise yet moving prose epitomizes, to me, what great fiction is all about.

5. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin (series)
I’m partial to this series of seven books because they’re set in San Francisco, and despite the fact that the plot lines and characters can range from the slightly melodramatic to severely soap-opera-esque, they’re all fabulously fun and not too taxing on the beachside brain.

So now it’s my turn to ask you. Do you agree/disagree with my choices, and what books would you recommend for this summer's beach reading?