You might not realize it when you’re sitting in the middle of Central Park, but New York City is a water city. More than 500 miles of coastline line the city’s shores, and when the temperatures creep up, many city dwellers head to the public beaches that line the coast. “I often think about the phrase ‘Nobody owns the beach’ when I’m there,” says photographer Matin Zad of his trips to the Rockaways, where these photos were taken. The phrase can be a “reminder of how [the beach] attracts every type of person who just wants a little escape from city life.”
And no escape is complete without a good book. We don’t begrudge the Kindle users—but there’s nothing quite like cracking the spine of a new novel, the lapping waves offering the purest white-noise soundtrack there is. But how to get your beach read to your destination? We have some suggestions—classy bags for classy books, some of the summer’s best.
