Beach Reading?

I ambitiously packed two weighty tomes for our week long trip to the beach:  The Recognitions by William Gaddis, which-- though I've read five hundred pages-- I barely understand, and Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts, a collection of 110 biographical essays ranging from Terry Gilliam to Tacitus, and though I recommend the latter book, neither of these works are beach reading . . . what was I thinking? . . . and so I eventually borrowed something from Dom that was more fun to read: Crash Course: The American Auto Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster and while I need to finish it before I can offer a comprehensive one sentence review and rating, I will say this:  it makes me want to watch the movie Gung Ho again, because I definitely didn't understand it when I was sixteen.