Five of the best brainy beach reads

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the bestselling novels American Wife, Prep, and The Man of My Dreams. Her new novel is Sisterland.

For the Wall Street Journal, Sittenfeld named "five beach reads that are devour-able without being dismissible," including:The Yacoubian Building
Alaa Al Aswany (2006)

More than a dozen characters living in the same Cairo building fight, fall in love, sleep