He only has a towel and a book with him, he has not finished drying himself after the last bath and his eyes are already set on La malnacida, the first novel by Beatrice Salvioni. José reads between thirty and forty books a year. “I am a great reader. I take advantage of any gap and place to take the bookmark out of my book”. During the summer months, the beach becomes one more corner to enjoy his passion: "I take the bus whenever I have a free morning or afternoon and in four stops I am at Barceloneta beach."
On the same stretch of Sant Sebastià beach in Barcelona, a few meters from José, is Kate with Tolstoy's classic Anna Karénina, in its less classic version, an e-book, which belongs to her mother. He came three days ago from Prague and is on vacation in Barcelona with her family. But with the heat these days, she doesn't feel like kicking around the city and takes the opportunity to come to the beach alone. "This way I also get rid of my family for a while." She's not a big reader and she's never been interested in the classics, but she came to Tolstoy because she liked Joe Wright's film adaptation. "Maybe when I finish it I'll look for another Russian classic."
José and Kate are two surviving readers who have different habits, but who are united by the same space: the beach. It is not an entirely comfortable setting to read. The tourist mass and the noise (the loudspeakers are becoming more powerful and the music can be heard all along the shore) do not help. However, solitary and discreet, they are fully concentrated on their reading, oblivious to everything that happens around them. They are not the only ones, but at first glance it is hard to find someone, either sitting or lying down, holding a book on the beaches of the Barcelona coast these days.
The few covers of the books that rest on the towels or resist the different bending at the hands of bathers are easy to recognize because they have been monopolizing the windows of large bookstores for months. One of the most repeated authors on the Mataró beach is Elísabet Benavent.
Arlet, 17, is one of the Valencian author's fans. This morning she came alone with her dark gray Eastpack, now lying on the sand. Face down on the towel, her hair still wet from the bath, she reads All Those Things I'll Tell You Tomorrow (Sum of Letters). "In summer I like to read romantic novels." The sound of the sea relaxes her, and the beach is her favorite place to read, but "you have to come early because otherwise it's difficult to concentrate when it gets crowded." She usually comes with a friend, who is on vacation now, and that's why she came alone today.
What is better to go to the beach, a novelty or a best seller? "A first very simple classification of two types of readers could be made," explains Neus, a bookseller at La Central on Calle Mallorca. “On the one hand, those who take advantage of the time, which they do not have during the year, to fully immerse themselves in a great classic or catch up with the latest news, and a second group that comes in search of fresher, more entertaining and fun to escape and rest your mind these months”.
For this second group of readers, crime novels or thrillers are the most effective and demanded genre. They easily hook whoever reads them and take them away from everyday problems for a while. On the Mataró beach, Cristina is also alone, reading The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo. She takes advantage of the summer to disconnect with a novel, because during the year she practically only reads books on education. “It's what she has to be a teacher,” she jokes. She still has the entire month of August ahead of her and she is already finishing Redondo's novel: "When I finish it, I'll go back to the bookstore for another book of his for the rest of the vacation."
"Summer Readers". It is the name that some publishers give to this type of reader, and this is confirmed by Eva Romero, director of the Pocket Books area of Grupo Planeta. Aware of this, publishers, magazines, newspapers and bookstores publish book lists on their networks, the so-called seasonal marketing. The famous website Goodreads, a platform that allows you to leave reviews about readings, offers an annual guide of recommendations for this station. We find, for example, categories according to mood, such as Sad girl summer, for the most melancholic.
Silvia Sesé, director of the Anagrama publishing house, adds that "these are really propitious months for pending readings, for recommendations, and also for chance encounters." Viena Edicions has been facilitating these discoveries for some time now with its famous Petits Plaers collection, defined by them as “a selection of short novels by the great authors of universal literature for readers with little time”.
Is it then the lack of free time that hinders reading today? Without a doubt, this is the answer given by the vast majority of beach readers interviewed. The figures collected in the Barometer of Reading Habits and Book Purchases in Spain in 2022 indicate the lack of time as the main reason why the population does not read more. Surely, in the case of the beach, the noisy environment does not help either. Those who read have the willpower of survivors.
