All the sweet books I read on vacation

Returning from vacation tends to engender three questions: How was it? Where did you go? What did you do? For me—freshly returned this week from a five-day sojourn to Vermont—the answer to No. 3 is almost always “I read all of the books.”

My vacay book binges aren’t just the byproduct of fast reading. They’re a result of devoting entire glorious days to the task—turning off the TV, hiding my phone, putting on my comfy pants, and settling into a cushy armchair, preferably one facing some sort of relaxing outdoor vista. In Vermont, it was the pillow-padded wicker deck chair of a cabin on Lake Champlain (at right). Here’s what I got done:

The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The sympathizer (small s) is the novel’s narrator, a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist double agent stationed in the US after the Fall of Saigon. He’s astute, insightful, and wry, and this book isn’t just good; it’s important. [ 🏆🏆🏆🏆]

Funny Girl, by Nick Hornby
In 1960s London, an upstart actress named Barbara just wants to be the next Lucille Ball. She stumbles into an audition that changes her life, and is soon thrown into the spotlight as TV star Sophie Straw, alongside an extremely British quartet of male colleagues (the costar, the writers, and the producer). As with all Hornby novels, I can already picture the movie. [🏆🏆🏆]

Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
A biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor walk into Area X—the jokes write themselves. They are the 12th in a series of expeditions to the quarantined region; past participants have died, disappeared, or never been the same. This book is like Michael Crichton’s Sphere on mushrooms. (Alex Garland’s film adaptation comes out in February.) [🏆🏆🏆]

Modern Lovers & The Vacationers, by Emma Straub
Two enjoyable family dramas that, fun fact, both have a character who hates bacon. [🏆🏆🏆]

The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
I ran out of books on my last day in VT, and had promised myself I wouldn’t read anything on a screen. The cabin had a copy of this one (naturally), so I read it (naturally) and sobbed uncontrollably while looking out at the lake (naturally). The title is kind of self-explanatory—he time travels, they’re in love… you get it—but as books forced upon you by circumstance go, one could do far worse. [🏆🏆🏆]

The perfect book for my first day back in New York (but not yet back at work). Danler’s debut is a coming-of-age story about a 22-year-old waitress at a fictional version of Union Square Cafe (the OG fancy restaurant of a major New York restaurateur; Danler once worked there). The novel’s descriptions of food and sex and NYC are wonderful, but every character is a terrible person and I would not like to be friends with any of them. [🏆🏆🏆]