Reading is delightful year round, but the phrase “summer beach read” always fills me with a giddy anticipatory pleasure. I’m not sure why. During a two-week New England vacation that landed me on more beaches than I’ve seen in five years, I read approximately 1/3 of one book and 1/2 of another. That’s it. And yet I cling to the idea that summer will bring me long, uninterrupted stretches for reading, and that I’m entitled during summer to read things that are as indulgent and lazy as the sea...