Welcome to Litsy!

It‘s a chilly, windy day here in Florida but we can still take a trip to the beach!

First book to finish this year! Not very wintery but I started it on a holiday so I guess that‘s alright.

Richard follows a secret map to a paradise beach in Thailand. He soon adapts to the life there and tries to protect it at all costs. Unfortunately, it cannot be protected forever…

It started slow but it was captivating as I was living this experience as Richard. Definitely a pick if you haven‘t seen the movie!

I read this with my book group. Sadly it wasn‘t my cup of tea. I couldn‘t engage with it although I think it‘s well written and even easy to read. The ending just left me thinking, well, what was that all about, then? Much ado about nothing. 🤷‍♀️

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I did this backward. I loved this film many years ago, and at the time, didn‘t realize it was a novel. It feels like a fairly realistic commune. And it didn‘t hurt that I was picturing Leo and Tilda Swinton as the leads. It‘s an island with a naturally formed hierarchy, alliances, etc. They SOUGHT a utopian society. Stop the Lord of the Flies comparisons. Ralph, Piggy and all had NO choice but survival. But I digress. This is good! ⬇️

#BookReport 08/21

I‘ve read these three this week. All set in Asia and I enjoyed all of them. Not in the picture is We Ride Upon Sticks which I started but put aside for now.

Searching for adventure and for a place not yet spoilt by tourists, narrator Richard and some other backpackers strand on an unknown island off the coast from #Thailand. Other people are already living there, all in search of their own Utopia. Things go smoothly for a while but then Lord of the Flies meets Lost and things start falling apart. Fun read, nothing special.

#ReadingAsia2021 🇹🇭#Pop21 #BestsellerOfThe1990s

I completed every prompt in #booked2020 woohoo!! All of my 2020 challenges are complete! #crushtherush @Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick #impulseread #wintergames2020 #teamreadnosedreindeer @StayCurious

#nextup my final book for #booked2020 woohoo!

1. Only one I could think of
2. Usually bare feet except in the winter
3. Think it might be Mout Haleakala in Maui
4. Liver
5. Will wear my old navy pumpkin t shirt
#friyayintro @howjessreads

This book is really of its time, but heh! The main guy is a Brit.... what‘s an American dude like Leo doing in the lead role of the equally generation defining movie? Guess it‘s got something to do with Dollars. Love the book and the film has all the ‘moments‘ it can take from the story. Alex Garland a bit cool writing and directing Ex Machina

A group of young travellers searched for a beautiful, pristine beach on an uncharted island in Thailand, after one of them inherited a map to this ‘Eden‘...but #paradise comes at a price.

Background photo of Maya Bay, where the book was transformed into film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

#JulyColdPlay

"There's this saying: in an all-blue world, colour doesn't exist... If something seems strange, you question it; but if the outside world is too distant to use as a comparison then nothing seems strange." #AlexGarland #TheBeach

This is book #1 for my summer reading. It was a good book to kick off my summer. Mr. Garland has successfully created an atmosphere of the secret beach and the hippie community. I felt the heat and the saltiness of the air. The ending also has a good twist, totally unexpected (I haven't watched the film!).

Reading in front of the fire tonight!

I read and re-read it as a traveler in the late 1990s. Now 20 years later it‘s still a good story but I don‘t live it as I read anymore and couldn‘t stop picturing Tilda as Sal.

TFW your summer book overstays its welcome a smidge

Over the last 20 years I‘ve seen the movie much more often than I‘ve read the book. I‘ve been stuck on the rice run section all week because it‘s so different from the film and yet it was the book I initially preferred.

I quite enjoyed the book. A more adult version of Lord of the Flies. Very good book. #bookclub ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Starting this tonight #bookclub #eveningreads

Reading The Beach at the beach! Definitely a must read for adventurers and adrenaline junkies. It‘s a book that will never lose its relevance. Today‘s millennials are as free spirited and full of angst as the backpackers in the book. In reading their story, I find resolution to some of my own angst about coming to be.

#ReadingResolutions #TravelTuesday @Jess7

I love this place! Finally in the ocean...but safely away from sharks! Yasssssss!!💗😀✌

Unfortunately we couldn't go 🏊 because there was a shark spotted. Fortunately we didn't get eaten by sharks! #silverlining

Photo Credit: Pottery Barn
For me any #bookandbeachtowel combo would have to be a mass market paperback! So if it gets wet, dirty, blobbed with suntan lotion I don‘t feel bad. Read a hardcover pool or beach side🏖 ? NEVER! 😱
#ReadingResolutions

1. From my summer TBR - the tagged book and some others about amazing vacation spots: Next Year in Havana, The Vacationers, Love and Ruin...
2. Seahorse - they‘re so cool looking!
3. Gulf Shores, Alabama/Perdido Key, Florida
#manicmonday

One more for you, @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks hard to capture the charm with my limited skills and phone camera.

1. ALL OF THEM, but especially figure skating
2. Alex Garland
3. December
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. HBD, February babies! 🎁🥂🎈

#friyayintro @jesshowbooks

I really like the premise of this book and find a lot of it disturbing and scary in a lot of ways. But I just really hated the main character and I felt like unfortunately it was dated in ways that caused a disconnect. It was an interesting book, just not a favorite for me.

Had to buy this book as it looked so pretty and it‘s an anniversary edition 😍 and now it‘s time to read it 🤓

#RandomQuestion

I feel like this book was a victim of the times. Disappearing for months on end in a foreign country just doesn‘t seem possible these days. I kept thinking ‘when are these people going to call their parents?!‘ Or ‘why does no one care that they are missing?‘ That aside there is a lot of adult Lord of the Flies action and some really great descriptions of Thailand.

My husband proposed to me with an inscription from one of my favorite authors. When I looked up from the book, he was down on one knee. #sentimental #fallintobooks @RealLifeReading

Because I wish I was at the Beach! Have you read it? Freaking and great! #book #bibliophile #read #booklover

This is my go to book that I can reread over again. The characters are amazing, the writing draws you in and I read it in 2 days before I went to watch the film. The film misses out one of my favourite characters. Would recommend this book to anybody.

'Escape through travel works. Almost from the moment I boarded my flight, life in England became meaningless. Seat-belt signs lit up, problems switched off. Broken armrests took precedence over broken hearts. By the time the plane was airborne I'd forgotten England even existed.' - Richard

#alexgarland #thebeach #bookworm #bibliophile #booknerd #bookish #booklover

Still reading The Beach and Alex Garland has committed the author crime of revealing appearance details half way through that completely reconstruct 170 pages of mental image 😒 Still a great and gripping book though!

If the movie is any indication, this probably wouldn't be the most relaxing #BeachRead. #SplashIntoSummerReads

#day20 #junetunz #cruelsummer I love this book, and it's so much better than the movie... of course! This is the story of a paradise that is truly lost, with a Utopian society of Western travelers on a secret beach, that unravels to reveal a cruel and sinister reality.... also works for #beachread #splashintosummerreading 😊👍

Opening line: "They first I heard of the beach was in Bangkok, on the Khoi San Road." #thebeach #alexgarland #penguinbooks #book #bookish #bookgnome #firstline #bookcover

The book was so much darker (and thus, better to my morbid mind) than the movie. Truly a Generation X masterpiece. #aprilbookshowers #setinsoutheastasia

I have a shocking lack of books #setinsoutheastasia but I do have a copy of The Beach, but I think it's at my mum's house. I was lucky to meet Alex Garland at a screening of 28 Days Later in the tiny Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast. He was lovely and signed my paperback, which I just 'happened' to have in my bag. #booknerd #aprilbookshowers @RealLifeReading

#Setinsoutheastasia is an oddly specific prompt for today's #AprilBookShowers....ooooor perhaps, I really need to broaden the variety of books that I'm choosing to read! Lol

I would love to read 'The Beach' by Alex Garland, and its set in Thailand. I love the cover, I love the book's summary, and I love what people have said about it. It's got a 3.91 rating on Goodreads and 80% on Litsy. 🏀

Though there are books I've wanted to read #setinSoutheastAsia this is oddly the only one I think I ever have read. I'll take recommendations though! #AprilBookShowers @RealLifeReading

#day3 #lyricalapril #paradise I read this when it first came out and loved it! It's so much better than the movie... of course! This is the story of a #paradise that is truly lost, when a so-called Utopian society of Western travelers begins to unravel to reveal a sinister underbelly....