Our Favorite Beach Gear & Reads This Summer
Ready to hit the sand? (Or grassy park. Or blanket in the yard.) These fun-in-the-sun products and top-tier page-turners are an easy way to add even more chill to a day outdoors.
Gear Up
Beach days are better with all the best (and prettiest) gear. Whether you’re on the hunt for a new-and-improved towel, a roomy cooler for all your snacks, or other outdoor essentials, we’ve got the season’s best finds.
Business & Pleasure Co. Premium Cooler
Tote your bevs in this stylish (summery stripes and leather handles!) and sturdy vintage-style cooler ($69).
Anthropologie Reusable Travel Flatware
Pack this handy reusable cutlery set ($14), which cleverly nests together, for your seaside snacks.
Birkenstock Arizona EVA Sandals
These shoes ($45) are made for walking—and are a lot comfier than those darn flip-flops that fling hot sand everywhere.
Corkcicle Poketo Canteen & Cup
This cute collab between the design company Poketo and the beverage bosses at Corkcicle is the prettiest way to keep liquids cold for hours, thanks to three layers of insulation. Canteen ($38) and cup ($30).
Sunnylife Inflatable Ring Toss
Why should pool floats have all the fun? This adorable game ($25) is great for you and the kiddos. Psst, it’s also a stealthy way to sneak in a little math lesson.
“I pack a strong picnic game! It’s one of my fave ways to spend an afternoon.”
— Drew
Baggu 3D Zip Set
Use these cheerful washable nylon pouches ($34) for stashing damp suits or keeping a change of clothes tucked away and sand-free all day.
JBL Clip 3 Bluetooth Speaker
Small but mighty, this waterproof speaker ($70) gives you 10 hours of playtime and has a built-in carabiner for take-anywhere tunes.
Turkish T Carry Handle Striped Beach Throw
This oversize throw ($58) is quick-drying and comes with a handy carrying strap, so you don’t have to cram it into your (already overflowing) beach bag.
Sunnylife Underwater Camera
Capture your day on the sand and in the surf with this old-school point-and-shoot camera ($20).
Read On
A summer day spent hanging in a hammock or toes deep in the sand simply isn’t complete without a good page-turner. Consider this your 2020 summer reading list.
Twisty Thriller
Andrea Bartz’s The Herd centers on the disappearance of Eleanor Walsh, the glamorous founder of a women’s coworking space in New York City, and the sisters—Katie, a journalist, and Hana, Eleanor’s BFF—at the center of the case. It’s a modern whodunit full of ambitious women and foul play.
Brainy Nonfiction
Through the 200 interviews with Gen X women in Why We Can’t Sleep, author Ada Calhoun dives into “women’s new midlife crisis,” the social trends and generational burdens that keep them up at night. It’s an empowering look at the state of womanhood today with plenty of hope for tomorrow.
LOL-worthy Essays
Comedian-author Samantha Irby is back with another candid collection of ridiculous, sometimes raunchy, always relatable essays in Wow, No Thank You. In her musings on everything from marriage to middle age to magic mushrooms, Irby tackles the messiness of everyday life, one chuckle at a time.
Topical Memoir
Consider this Mad Men for the ’90s publishing world, written by its Peggy Olson: In In the Land of Men, Adrienne Miller recounts being the first female literary editor in Esquire magazine’s storied history. Watch her go toe-to-toe with the era’s mostly male lit gods, including her sometimes boyfriend David Foster Wallace.
Family Dramedy
In summer 2016, you couldn’t hit a city park bench without seeing someone racing through Emma Straub’s Modern Lovers. Her latest gulpable family drama, All Adults Here, similarly weaves multigenerational yarns, like a widowed matriarch finding new romance and a teenager grappling with gender identity.
“If reading is too mellow for you, try writing! Letters, short stories, poems—see where it goes. Just let your mind wander.”
—Jonathan
By Hannah Baker & Christina Izzo | Photos Courtesy of the Brands and Publishers
