Don't let your beach break read become the story of the blues

Jul 29 2008 By Richard McComb

Insect repellent: check. Smith Kendon travel sweets (mixed fruit): check. Speedos: check. Crosby, Stills and Nash CD: check. Hawaiian shirt/Tropic: check. Tablets for the trots: check.

And so the holiday packing is complete, or almost.

There is only one thing standing between you and a spiffing summer holiday.

(Actually, there are quite a few things – Greek arsonists, binge-drinking Brits, rip-off tourist restaurants, ferry and plane delays, pick-pockets, beggars, foreign drivers, the excess on your hire car’s collision damage waiver – “Signor, you scratch bumper. That 750 euros. Kaput! So, so sorry. ..” And then there is the fact that you may not be able to afford a holiday this year, that you are joining the ranks of the “staycation” generation – too young to die, too skint to afford a week in Bognor, let alone Bologna.)

So, suspending disbelief, there is just one final hurdle to leap before you tune in, drop out and cool off a la piscine.

And it’s this: choosing the right book. Get it wrong and you’ve ruined everything. The holiday, no matter how good you try to make it sound in retrospect, will be a write off.

For it is not the weather, the food, the scenery, or watching the tent burn down – it is a book that defines a holiday.

Of course, these things are subjective, and one man’s Jeffrey Archer is another man’s Fyodor Dostoevsky – and believe me, if you see anyone reading either of these blokes I would give them a wide berth at the all-you-can-eat Cajun breakfast buffet.

I’ll lay my cards on the table – for that is what columnists are meant to do – and go on record as saying that I have never found a holiday read to top The Day of the Jackal. Nerve-jangling drama, forensic attention to detail, the best assassin in the world (he’d make mincemeat of Jason Bourne), rumpy pumpy, and a fickle twist of French fate.

I was 13 when I first read it, which was a major achievement as up until that point I hadn’t read a single book while on holiday, and very few when I wasn’t.

Ever since, August books have had to measure up to The Jackal, and subsequently Jaws, which also had nerve-jangling drama, forensic attention to detail, the best assassin in the world (he’d eat Jason Bourne), rumpy pumpy, and a fickle twist of Amity Island fate.

I know the musings of Forsyth and Benchley are no match for the imaginative sweep of Joyce’s Ulysses (which I have ploughed through) or War and Peace (which I will never plough through), but they are masterpieces of escapism and their textual thickness makes them superb poolside drinks’ coasters.

Incidentally, don’t ever be tempted to go down the Tolstoy route.

My chum iPod Dave, a fellow school-run dad, is fastidious in his commitment to eye-watering reading challenges.

As part of his book group, he reads stuff about rudimentary medicine in the furthest outposts of Russia, and Palestine. Imagine that at bedtime: Palestine.

iPod Dave proudly boasted he was going to do War and Peace, and told me, in great detail, about the intricacies of the new translation he’d acquired – “It’s taken Tolstoy to a whole new level,” he said as I scanned the playground for someone else to talk to.

Unfortunately, he ran up the white flag well before Prince Andrei Bolkonsky headed off for battle.

It was a failure of epic proportions for iPod Dave.

I have got a £10 token to spend in Waterstones and have been mulling over this year’s options.

I am toying with a Nevil Shute, just because he is so out of fashion.

A couple of years ago, on the recommendation of a loaded QC, I read On The Beach, which sounded like an ideal holiday read until I realised it had nothing to do with beaches and plenty to do with the end of the world.

Subconsciously, I am convinced I hoped some of the QC’s financial gold dust would rub off on me. It didn’t. But the book rocked.

I have tried to get inspiration from the book charts but they are stuffed with Richard and Judy stuff, and everybody’s going to be reading them.

The only option looks like a retro move. Maybe it’s time to do Shogun, the James Clavell tome.

I know it will irritate my wife if I buy it, but Naff Lit is under-estimated.

It’s probably going to be a flip of a coin to choose between feudal Japan and a Stephen King spook-athon.

They might be trash, but as King says, they’re not bad trash.

And I’ll throw in Michael Herr’s Vietnam classic Dispatches, just in case the tempo drops.

If it bleeds, it leads.