Is "summer reading" still a thing? Do people still enthuse over "beach books"? Sure, the idea appeals to overworked periodical arts section editors desperate to stuff their shrinking pages with some easy content, but the idea of beach reading seems quaint somehow. Readers should feel comfortable in the knowledge that any kind of book—including the trashy, the dumb, the deeply strangulated by constricting conventions of genre—can be enjoyed at any time of the year, with no seasonal apologies necessary, but you should also feel welcome to read Dostoevsky by the shore.

On a recent vacation, I took along some serious books: Christa Parravani's Her, a maddening, mournful eulogy for the author's twin sister; Give Me Everything You Have, James Lasdun's egotistical account of being stalked. I took some fluff: Matthew Hughes's funny, Satan-meets-superheroes comedy The Damned Busters; Robert Harris's excellent, wildly off-the-rails thriller Archangel. But only one book left me feeling satisfied and different, in the way that a great reading experience should. It was a novel called Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and I can't say enough good things about it...

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