Beach Reads for Architects

Looking for some summer reading while you sit out on your deck or enjoy a peaceful day at the beach? Want to learn more about how architects and/or architecture have been portrayed in literature?  Here are some suggestions—titles you might wish to reread or sadly never finished reading. But hopefully, the list also includes titles new to you:

Must-Reads— and worth a reread if for no other reason than the vivid descriptions of the times and settings……

Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence $7.00

Hardy, Thomas. A Laodicean. $20.00

Greenaway, Peter. The Belly of an Architect. $20.00

Evelyn, Waugh. Brideshead Revisited. $15.00

Kafka, Franz. The Castle. $10.00

Larson, Erik. Devil in the White City. $20.00

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. $40.00

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. $15.00

Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. $22.00

Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. $16.00

Ibsen, Hendrick. The Master Builder (Plays for Performance Series). $20.00

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. $20.00

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. $20.00

Lesser-Known Suggestions- – many classic authors, but some you may not readily associate with architecture…….

Huysmans, Joris-Karl. Against Nature. $6.00

Shafak, Elif. The Architect’s Apprentice. $15.00

De Botton, Alain. The Architecture of Happiness. $20.00

Greene, Graham. A Burnt-Out Case. $182.00

Rayner, Richard. The Cloud Sketcher: A Novel. $15.00

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. $15.00

Scheerbart, Paul and Stuart, John A. The Gray Cloth: A Novel on Glass Architecture. $20.00

Follett, Ken. The Pillars of Earth. $22.00

Kopf, Gerhard and Willson, Leslie A. Piranesi’s Dream: A Novel. $17.00

Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day. $16.00

LeClezio, Jean-Marie G. Villa Aurore. $78.00

Light Reading—we all need a break sometimes……

Christie, Agatha. Endless Night. $16.00

Morton, Kate. The Lake House. $17.00

Berendt, John. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story. $17.00

Sparks, Nicholas. The Notebook. $15.00

Maurier, Daphne Du. Rebecca. $8.00

Follett, Ken. World Without End. $22.00

Further recommendations taken from notable sources

Goodreads: Architecture in Fiction

Architizer: 10 Novels & 10 Architects

Bookriot: Books About Architecture for Non-Architects