Beach Read

He wins lots of book awards and receives ecstatic press notices, but I have yet to find a person who considers himself a fan of Ian McEwen. Yes, people devour every book he issues out and praise his writing, but there's always some plot point or story twist that really irks them. Perhaps they feel he could be a "great" writer if he didn't resort to extreme moments to tell his story. I don't have this problem with this British writer. Yes, a few storylines may raise questioning eyebrows, but I'm so taken McEwen's masterly writing that I sail on. That's why I recommend McEwen's recent "On Chesil Beach." It's a slim volume (I finished it in two days, and I'm a slow reader) that illustrates McEwen's economy in distilling a whole personality or situation with one or two sentences. (Image via Theage.com)