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Here's Part 2 of our annual beach books list. Let us know if we missed anything!

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeanette Walls
The author of the stunning Glass Castles is back, this time telling her grandmother's story. It involves such feats as marrying and leaving a bigamist, selling hooch during prohibition, becoming a rodeo rider and other tales that will nearly make you fall off your lounge chair.

The Social Climber's Handbook: A Novel Molly Jong-Fast
If you're a Jackie Collins or Plum Sykes fan, then this is the book for you. The book about an upper eastside housewife who becomes unhinged after the financial meltdown of 2008 is the must-read of the glamaratti.


Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell
For all the die hard Sex and the City fans comes the lastest installment of the prequel to SATC when Carrie spends a summer in the city with Samantha. Carries first date is at La Grenouille, a fancy French place which makes us guess her date is a bit older. Guess she started that pattern early!




Bossypants by Tina Fey
While we don't have a new Chelsea Handler book to look forward to this summer, we do have this tome from Tina Fey. We're guessing it features less sex and more food, but is just as funny.

Missed yesterday's? Read Part 1 of Beach Books 2011.

No trip to the beach or pool is complete without a juicy read. Here are our selects for best beach books 2011:

If You Were Here: A Novel by Jen Lancaster. The author of the hilarious Bitter is the New Black and My Fair Lazy tries her hand at fiction in a story that will delight any Gen Xers' heart. The narrator, Mia and her husband, Mac, move from downtown Chicago to suburb Abington Cambs, the setting of many John Hughes' films. The couple settles in Jake Ryan's house from Sixteen Candles, with hilarious results. 


If You Were Here: A Novel by Abraham Verghese
At 688 pages, this sweeping novel centers around a nun and a British doctor she saves and transverses the globe from India, Ethiopia and New York City. It would be perfect for a long plane ride or when you want to feel smart.


The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
If you haven't read this triology, do yourself a favor and buy all of them now. Yes, the book is for young adults, but we don't know anyone who after reading The Hunger Games hasn't devoured Catching Fire and Mocking Jay within two weeks. They're more addictive than crack.



A Paris Wife by Paula McLain, the best historical fiction we've read in ages, which describes Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their years in Paris.

Check back tomorrow for Part Two of our Best Beach Books 2011.