Best Lakeside Reads for 2021

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Of course, we all love an exciting day at the lake full of hiking, boating, and swimming. But sometimes, you want to sit still and marinate in the scenery. When relaxing at the lake, there’s nothing better than curling up with a good book. Whether you’re propping your feet up on the boat dock or back porch, it’s an amazing way to unplug and unwind. If you’re in need of some recommendations (especially those with waterside settings), we at Lake Homes have got you covered. So, find a comfy chair, turn off your phone, and pick up one of these books to enjoy at the lake!

House in the Cerulean Sea

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If you like magical realism and the trope of “found family,” you’ll love House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. The protagonist is 40-year-old Linus Baker, a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. His solidarity life is interrupted when he is tasked with a highly-classified mission — inspecting a remote, abandoned island, home to an orphanage for the strangest — and perhaps the most dangerous — magical children. As he grows more fond of the children and their caretaker Arthur Parnassus, his conventional understandings of the world are questioned. Overall, this book is a charming, delightful read for adults and young adults alike.

Where the Crawdads Sing

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Having gained popularity from Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdad’s Sing is a bestseller for a reason. This narrative follows Kya Clark, the “marsh girl” who remains an enigma to her small, coastal North Carolina town. Always barefoot and always on her own, few people know the details of this girl’s life since she dropped out of school as a child. When a popular boy, Chase Andrews, is found dead, local police suspect Kya as the culprit. But there’s more to her than meets the eye. Throughout the book’s superb writing, readers get to see the world through Kya’s eyes while following the book’s central mystery of who killed Chase Andrews.

Beach Read

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For the romance novel enthusiasts among us, Beach Read by Emily Henry is a wonderful choice. The central characters, Augustus Everett and January Andrews, are total opposites. She writes romance novels with happy endings, and he writes literary fiction novels with darker themes. The one thing they have in common? Being bogged down with writer’s block and stuck at neighboring beach houses. A charming romance read, you won’t want to put this book down.

Once Upon a River

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Diane Setterfield’s Once Upon a River combines themes of grief, mystery, and a little bit of magic. The three central families — the Vaughns, the Armstrongs, and the Whites, have each lost a young girl. When an injured man enters the Swann Inn, a tavern alongside the Thames River, carrying the body of a deceased girl who miraculously comes back to life, each family hopes this child is their own. The book explores each family’s history and motivation behind their hope, with each chapter unfolding more of the mystery behind the girl’s miraculous revival. Set in a nondescript folklor-ish time period, this book is perfect for those who love an old time-y mystery with family drama.

One Summer

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If you’re interested in a wholesome family drama, One Summer is an excellent lakeside read. This book by David Baldacci follows the story of Jack, a father who is terminally ill. In a tragic turn of events, his wife Lizzie dies in a car accident while Jack miraculously recovers from his illness. In an attempt to reunite his fragmented family, he brings his teenage kids to Lizzie’s family’s beach house in South Carolina for the summer months. Throughout the story, readers follow as Jack stumbles his way through finding love again, repairing his family, and rediscovering himself during the course of one summer. 

Have you read anything good lately? Let us know what lakeside reads you’ve enjoyed this year!

Waterproofing Your Books at the Lake

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On a laid-back summer day, we can all enjoy reading a book on our front porch or boat dock. But depending on your proximity to water, it can be challenging to determine the best way to protect your book from water damage. As we book lovers know, a drive-by jet ski that makes a splash or a few kids playing with water toys on the boat dock can do some accidental damage to a paperback. At Lake Homes, we’re here to help you live your best lake life. And if you’re a big reader (especially one who can’t seem to switch to audiobooks), this means waterproofing your novels. So check out these simple ways to keep your books safe from the water this summer!

Floating Book Table

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You’ve heard of floating drink holders, so why can’t there be an inflatable to hold your books? This floating book or tablet caddy is perfect for the pool, hot tub, or lake. Its lightweight frame makes it easy to transport, while the book stand comes with straps that keep your book securely in place. Keep in mind that when using this in the lake, it’s best to use it in shallow waters where you can stand. The last thing you want is for your book to float away with the fish!

Book Bag

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If you’re looking for ultimate waterproofing for your books, look no further than this inflatable book bag from You Bumi. It works by retaining air inside along with the book so that you can create a stress-free reading experience. As for turning the pages, it comes with two small thumb holes so you can continue flipping like normal. This product is especially great if you’re planning on reading in a particularly water-prone area such as on a boat or even on an inflatable.

Waterproof Book Sleeve

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Besides the fun watermelon pattern, this waterproof book sleeve effectively protects your latest summer read from the elements. Made from foam and soft fleece, this product will fit easily in a tote bag or large purse, perfect for carrying from the dock to the house and back. In addition, with this sleeve, you can know when you’ve put your book down that you’ll pick it up again — free from water stains.

Pick a Waterproof Read

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In recent years, Kickstarter has made an effort to create a line of waterproof books made explicitly for beaches, lakes, and pools. From this group, only a certain number of books are available: short stories from Mark Twain, W.B. Yeates, The Art of War by Sun Zi, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In addition to their waterproof features, these books are also tear-resistant and easy to clean. What could be better for a lake and book lover?

DIY Book Cover

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Looking for the perfect summer DIY project? Creating your own waterproof book cover is simple and effective for protecting your latest novel from lake water. For this project, you only need two things — clear plastic vinyl and a pair of scissors. From there, you can show off the original book jacket while also keeping it safe. 

When it comes to waterproofing your books, the key is creating a resistant barrier between your book and the water. These are only a few ideas of how to do that. Regardless of what works for you, we hope you enjoy a summer of good books at the lake!

Top Six Baking Cookbooks to Buy This Summer

Due to the pandemic, we’ve been spending more time indoors, looking for ways to occupy our time. For comfort, many of us have turned to baking. In fact, creating homemade bread is such a popular activity that yeast is now hard to find. It’s no wonder — there’s a delightful satisfaction that comes with creating your own baked goods. Just imagine the smell of fresh bread, taking that first bite on your lakefront patio. Simply mouth-watering. If you’re hoping to start a baking project during quarantine at your lake house, check out these six baking cookbooks. From baking bread to hosting guests, we’ve got you covered. 

The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Photo courtesy of Cindy’s Recipes and Writings.

This cookbook lives up to its bold title. In 1998, The Washington Post admiringly referred to author Rose Levy Beranbaum as the “Diva of Dough.” She’s continued this legacy since. The award-winning author of The Pie and Pastry Bible (the fruit of 10 years of labor) released The Baking Bible in 2014. This general cookbook covers a wide range of meticulously crafted baking recipes from ice cream cookies to sweetbreads. If you’re a detail-oriented baker and believe that every teaspoon counts, this cookbook is for you.

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart

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If you’re specifically interested in bread, this is one of the top baking cookbooks. A key figure in artisan bread making, Peter Reinhart’s passion for bread led him to a two-year journey in search of the perfect pizza. He originally released The Bread Baker’s Apprentice in 2001, and it won a James Beard Award in 2002. In 2016, he released a 15th-anniversary edition with updated methods. It includes tried-and-true recipes from across the world, such as artos (Greek Celebration Bread), French Bread, and New York bagels. It also features a crash course in bread classifications and categories. If one book isn’t enough for your (br)education, check out Peter Reinhart’s regularly-updated blog and learn his philosophy about why bread is special in his Ted Talk

Little Flower Baking by Christine Moore

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As she describes in her cookbook, Christine Moore used to create homemade meals for her parents as a child. This lifelong passion for baking turned into a successful career. With head baker Cecilia Leung, Christine Moore founded the local cafe Little Flower Candy Co. in Pasadena, CA. Her cookbook, Little Flower Baking, includes homemade recipes like cream biscuits, layered cakes, and buttercream frosting. Staci Valentine’s photography decorates the pages and captures each dessert in detail. She’s carefully tested every recipe to ensure that it’s doable for home cooks. When it comes to top baking cookbooks, this one’s a great choice that will satisfy your sweet tooth. 

The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer & Martha Rose Shulman

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Just because we can’t travel to France right now doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the country’s delicacies from our lake homes. Brought to you by French master pastry chef and teacher Jacquy Pfeiffer and New York Times Cooking columnist Martha Rose Shulman, this book is extensive. It’s not your standard cookbook, which is often full of recipes but disengaged with the overall craft of cooking. In The Art of French Pastry, each recipe is deeply connected to the artistry behind the desserts. If you’ve ever wanted to learn to pipe an eclair or if you’ve wondered what a paring knife is used for, this high-class pick of the top baking cookbooks is for you.

Fancy Desserts by Brooks Headley

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Brooks Headley is not your average chef. He’s a punk rock drummer who found his passion for pastries in his late 20s. After serving as the executive pastry chef at the luxury restaurant in New York City, Del Posto, he opened Superiority Burger. His experimental style and creativity are evident in his book, Fancy Desserts. The term “fancy” is even paradoxical, as the book is filled with down-to-earth authenticity. The first page features a wine glass filled with gummy bears, and he lists “human hands” as its own section among necessary baking tools. He’s known for including vegetables in his recipes, such as Sweet Pea Cake. This book is perfect for those with a fun spirit who want to make creative yet high-quality desserts. 

What’s a Hostess to Do? – Susan Spungen

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Once quarantine lifts, you’ll want your lake house guests to witness your new cooking skills. What’s a Hostess to Do? is your perfect guide to this future event. Recently lauded for her innovative Peppermint Stripe Cookies, cook and food stylist Susan Spungen is an expert on creating food and entertaining. Although not a traditional cookbook, this book earns its place among the top baking cookbooks. It covers everything from casual dinners to brunch buffets. She also includes tips about hot topics like mailing invitations, facilitating mingling, and hundreds of party dish recipes. In her newly-released book Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for Casual Gatherings

We hope these books inspire your quarantine cooking at your lake house. In the words of Peter Rinehart, “May your crust be crisp, and your bread always rise!” 

The 6 Best Books to Get Lost in This Summer

girl reading at lake

School’s out, the lake is buzzing with activity, and the smell of barbecue is in the air–it’s summertime.

There are things to do and people to see. However, every once in a while, you’ll find real value in what the Italians call “la dolce far niente,” or the sweetness of doing nothing.

Grab a cold drink and put your phone on “Do Not Disturb.”

We’ve found six of the best books for you to get lost in this summer.

Laura and Emma by Kate Greathead

This warmhearted, witty novel tells the story of an eccentric single mom raising her daughter in the lap of privilege in the New York City of the 1980s and 90s.

Native to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Laura was born into all the benefits and comfort that old money could afford. After a reckless weekend with a relative stranger, Laura finds out she’s pregnant. This is when we’re introduced to Emma.

Laura’s easy-going, liberal nature doesn’t stop her from raising Emma in the same gold-plated, blue-blooded world she came to know as a child. Unlike her mother, however, Emma begins to question it all–the costly private schools, designer clothes and homes in the Hamptons.

In a flurry of society friends, quirky characters and mini-adventures, Laura and Emma tells the story of a woman on a mission to find herself, her daughter’s place in it all, and the ever shifting environment of the Upper East Side.

Vivacious and entertaining, this book matches perfectly with warm weather and sunscreen.

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

This poetic journey of self-discovery will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

The protagonist, Astrid, narrates every dark, tantalizing detail of her early life with a rare beauty and strength not often seen in characters so young.

Harrowing circumstances thrust 12-year-old Astrid into the foster care system after her mother—the cold-hearted, distant and fascinating Ingrid—goes to prison for murder.

For the next eight years, Astrid will endure manic, riveting and life-changing episodes in each home she visits. Fitch expertly draws readers in as they witness Astrid’s rocky growth from an innocent, observant little girl to an artistic, brazen young woman.

This book paints a captivating picture: the dynamics of the ever-complicated mother-daughter relationship; the pitfalls of the foster care system; and the ways in which loneliness can sometimes lead us down the road less traveled.

Elegant and bold, White Oleander is an unforgettable rabbit hole of an adventure that’s sure to make the hours fly by all summer long.

To the New Owners by Madeleine Blais

Journalist Madeleine Blais uses her award-winning storytelling skills in this wistful, decades-long nonfiction.

To the New Owners chronicles the time her family spent at their humble vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard from the 1970s to 2014, when they chose to sell the house.

Years of summers with no air conditioning, endless hours at the beach and priceless moments with dear friends — all of these experiences grew to be associated with the quirky cottage.

The author’s loving account of her time spent on the island creates vivid imagery that almost feels like the reader’s own memory:

“The world was in layers—the blue gray of the pond, the beige lip of sand in the distance, the different blue of the ocean, and yet another blue for the sky—an orgy of horizons, interrupted now and then by white birds, white foam, and white clouds.”

With a good mix of reminiscence and admiration, Blais gently educates the new owners of this special place on the value of the well-loved “shack.”

To the New Owners is a memoir about that symbolic home on Tisbury Great Pond, to the Vineyard itself and to the memories made there over time.

This one-of-a-kind novel has all the charming nostalgia necessary for a light-hearted summer read.

The Distance Home by Paula Saunders

The Distance Home takes place in the desolate, rolling plains of South Dakota in the years following World War II. It’s a story that embodies all the harsh paradoxes of life: acceptance and rejection, success and failure, family and separation.

Two siblings, René and Leon, share the same home and the same passion, but meet strikingly different fates in life.

René is naturally bold, effortlessly successful and basks in the adoration of her father. She exists in stark contrast to Leon, a tender soul who can never seem to gain his father’s approval.

Consequently, the two siblings, once close in childhood, grow apart as they grow older. Over the years, they embark on lifelong quests for love, self-discovery and understanding.

Saunders tells the story of a broken family who struggles to connect the dots throughout life. She somehow invokes enough empathy for the reader to feel compassion toward every character involved.

After a long day on the move, a peaceful summer night isn’t complete without an enchanting coming-of-age novel to keep you captivated. The Distance Home is a wonderful tale of the complexities of losing, and then finding, yourself over and over again.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

An imaginative romantic comedy is just what the doctor ordered for a perfect lakeside read.

Haig tells the story of a seemingly middle-aged man who holds a dangerous secret. Due to a rare condition, Tom Hazard has been alive for centuries.

After living hundreds of extraordinary years through some of history’s most famous corridors, Hazard craves nothing more than a normal existence.

However, while living yet another life in his former home of London, he makes a dire mistake. Tom falls in love.

As a result, he attracts the attention of the Albatross Society.

This secretive group protects people like Tom and specifically prohibits love under all circumstances. Painful memories of past lives and the unpredictable behavior of the Society throw the protagonist into a series of misadventures.

How to Stop Time shows how, sometimes, it can take a few lifetimes to really learn how to live.

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

A supermodel’s suicide, a downtrodden private investigator and a cohort of sparkling multimillionaires.

The Cuckoo’s Calling, written by J.K. Rowling under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, has all the fixings of a juicy summertime mystery novel.

Detective Cormoran Strike is going through a bit of a rough patch in life.

The bills are past due and his clientele is dwindling. He’s recently ended things with his long-time girlfriend and is now forced to live out of his office. By a sudden stroke of fate, a case for the ages lands in his lap, spurring his life into action.

After a swift investigation, authorities rule legendary supermodel Cuckoo’s death a suicide after she takes a fatal plunge from a high-rise building.

Through desperation and determination, Detective Strike sets out to prove that the lethal fall was anything but self-inflicted.

 

These are the best books to curl up with on those lazy summer days. This list features a variety of page-turners that’ll linger in your memory long after you’re done reading.