It’s easy to forget the books that gripped the nation in years gone by. If you’re looking for summer inspiration, here are our top ten from the 21st century.
This article was originally published in The Sunday Times, and has been updated with New Zealand relevant shopping links.
Image of Hugh Grant and Renee Zellweger in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Some years, you can spot one book that’s on every other sunlounger — a book that dominates the nation’s summer reading. We’ve looked back over the Sunday Times bestseller lists (compiled by Nielsen BookScan) from every summer of the 21st century to bring together all the most popular beach reads. So if any of them passed you by at the time, you can always pick them up now.
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - by Helen Fielding (2000)
Is there any greater icon of the 1990s and early 2000s than Bridget Jones? The thirtysomething, perpetually single Londoner became the face of a new wave of “chick lit” with Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which she chronicles her relationships with two men. This, the sequel, follows her jealousy-spurred adventures when she suspects her boyfriend, Mark Darcy, is having an affair. Just as full of mishaps, misguided self-improvement and, of course, fags and booze as the first book, but featuring a supposedly spiritual trip to Thailand, The Edge of Reason made for perfect beach reading in 2000 — and still does now.
Buy it in New Zealand at Bay Hill Books!
The Da Vinci Code - By Dan Brown (2005)
To be honest, we could have picked this for 2004 or 2005: such was the undying excitement about Dan Brown’s mystery thriller that it barely left the bestseller list in both summers. Within five years it had sold 80 million copies, and the consequences of that boom can be seen in every charity shop in the country today. In its time The Da Vinci Code had everyone talking on holiday about Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar and, regardless of its literary merit, that’s quite an achievement. The only book that came close to matching its popularity was Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — which could hardly be more different.
Buy The Da Vinci Code book in New Zealand now at Paper Plus
The Time Traveler’s Wife - By Audrey Niffenegger (2009)
The premise is very odd — a man with a chromosomal disorder that makes him time travel against his will and lose his clothes in the process — but Audrey Niffenegger’s raunchy, heart-wrenching 2003 love story just works. Henry’s timeline hopping means he meets Clare when she is a child, already knowing he will one day marry her, which sounds creepy, but somehow isn’t. Meanwhile, Clare spends much of her life waiting for Henry to return after his random disappearances. Thousands of hearts broke for her in 2009 when the book took charts by storm, prompted by the success of the film adaptation starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. And it has lasting power — a new adaptation hit our television screens this year.
You can grab a second hand copy of The Time Travelers Wife from Used Book Haven
The Girl With The dragon Tattoo - By stieg larsson (2010)
The Swedish writer Stieg Larsson created a new kind of crime fiction with this international bestseller. The investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist tries to solve the mystery of a missing girl with the help of Lisbeth Salander, a computer hacker with the dragon tattoo of the title. She has faced horrific abuse and is out for revenge. Horror and abuse — whether fascist or misogynistic — are at the heart of this gripping read, so it’s not for the faint of heart. The book was translated into English in 2008, but 2010 was its biggest year, with a film adaptation starring Daniel Craig appearing in 2011.
Grab your copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at The Nile!
Fifty shades of grey - by e.l. james (2012)
Sorry, we had to include it — Fifty Shades of Grey was a publishing sensation and in 2012 was the book of choice to spice up your holiday. Whether through boldly displayed paperbacks or the more discreet Kindle version, the whips and chains of Mr Christian Grey made it on to the beach — and into quite a few bedrooms as well. Really, who could blame young Ana for being taken in by a billionaire boss, even if he had a creepy red room and a penchant for legal agreements? Now, though, times have changed — those in search of a raunchy beach read will be more likely to turn to Sarah J Maas’s fantasy series, A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Buy yourself a shade of grey at Mighty Ape
The Goldfinch - by donna tartt (2014)
Donna Tartt takes a decade to write a novel, and each of them has been eagerly awaited since her first (and, let’s be honest, best) book, The Secret History. The Goldfinch is her third novel and perhaps her most divisive. It was sold to Bloomsbury for $1 million and won the Pulitzer, but some critics were brutal, claiming it was full of clichés, clunky plot points and stock characters. At times it does lack sophistication, but this story of 13-year-old Theo Decker, the day a bomb changed his life, and his relationship with a painting that spans many years, is utterly gripping — and at a whopping 782 pages, it will last you a full fortnight on the beach.
Head over to Whitcoulls for your copy of The Goldfinch
The Girl on the Train - By Paula Hawkins (2016)
Psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators are always fun — the runaway success of Gone Girl taught us that. Yet The Girl on the Train gives us no fewer than three unreliable narrators, all connected, it turns out, by one man. To say much more would give it away, but suffice to say the twists, turns and slow reveals had us all on the edge of our deckchairs. And, like Gone Girl, it got the blockbuster treatment in 2016 with Emily Blunt playing the recovering alcoholic Rachel, whose observations from the train fuel the shocking events that follow. If you didn’t see the film then, and have avoided the spoilers, it’s still a perfect holiday read.
Get The Girl On The Train online through The Nile
Sapiens - by yuval noah harari (2017)
In 2017 thousands of us decided to travel through time from the sunlounger with Yuval Noah Harari’s remarkably ambitious Sapiens. Moving from the Big Bang to 3017, Harari argues that the appearance of Homo sapiens, with their new-fangled language and superior cognitive powers, was a disaster for the rest of the planet, which we immediately set about exploiting. Yet language and, worse, agriculture were also a disaster for us, he says. It’s packed full of such big ideas and written with power and clarity, so it’s no surprise that so many of us set aside fictional tales for the story of our species. But not everyone — The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena, a gripping thriller about a missing baby, was incredibly successful too.
Don’t miss out on your copy of Sapiens from Bookety Books Books!
Normal People - By Sally Rooney (2019)
It may feel as if Sally Rooney mania has been with us for ever, but really it was only in the summer of 2019 that the phenomenon took off. Normal People, her second novel, follows young Marianne and Connell through sixth form and college as they move in and out of each other’s lives, fail to communicate properly, but never stop loving each other. It’s a pacey tearjerker, but the novel also makes astute observations about class — and for a generation of readers it seemed to sum up the uncertainties of their lives. The BBC adaptation, starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, made lockdown sexy and gave sales a second wind in 2020.
Unity Books has your copy of Normal People, ready to come home! (Available at both Auckland and Wellington branches)
Sorrow and bliss - by meg mason (2021)
A book about mental illness doesn’t sound very summery, but the Aussie Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss was the big hit of 2021. Martha Friel has recently separated from her husband, Patrick, and this is the story of how she got there — her dysfunctional artist parents, rich cousins, cokehead first husband and finally Patrick, who supports Martha through breakdowns, even when she is horrible to him. It might seem very dark, but it’s hilarious and moving. “Read it. It’s unforgettable,” India Knight told readers, and they must have listened — the book stayed firmly on the bestseller list while we all emerged from lockdown last year.
Grab your copy of Sorrow and Bliss at The Women’s Bookshop!