Whoa! If anyone happens to stumble across this archive book review, skip the slow, ponderous "Book of air and shadows." I should have realized I was getting in trouble when the reviewer states that the "DaVinci code" was not a very good book. I loved the DeVinci code, so I can only say if you liked the DaVinci code, beware the Book of air and shadows- not a terrible book, but far more lacking than the DaVinci.

I loved NERVE DAMAGE!!!! I have to say I was shocked "A Liar's Tale" was not on the list. That one kept me on my seat just as much as Nerve Damage.

I borrowed Nerve Damage, What the Dead Know, and The Book of Air and Shadows from my library, and they are all extremely good! I will be taking them to my book club discussion tonight to see if we can pick one for our next book. Thanks so much for the tips.

Beach reads, I wish! For those of us stuck in urban areas with little vacation time or the air fare I suggest travelling through a book. For me I go someplace else when I'm riding the subway to work and read mysteries set in foreign climes. Recommendations for a 'trip' to Paris without a passport or the terrible Euro exchange rate - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis - visit Paris with Aimee Leduc a half American half French computer security expert who wears vintage Chanel and solves a murder on the Seine...evocative, chilling and shows another slice of Parisian life that breathes the sounds, sights and smells of the darker side of the City of Light...best read so far. I loved the first in the series too, Murder in the Marais. And if you want to 'visit' Florence, go with Magdalen Nabb...her detective series featuring an Italian policeman took me to Italy.

I just got an email here at work about a book (I'm in the book business) called "Beach Reads" and the cover shows a woman reading a book - next to a pool! Maybe that's where all the beach reading is happening!

Dear Laura, or Whomever,

It’s hard to communicate the level of desperation one - okay I - have reached in the struggle to have one’s - okay my - book read! Coyote Dream, Chick Lit Extraordinaire, truly!!! Just order from Amazon.com (or ask, I’ll send you a remaindered copy free!) read the first chapter and if you don’t think it’s compelling, I'll send you the postage to send it back! I HATE MY PUBLISHER!!!

Jessica Davis Stein

And every beach I've gone to, people are reading books. Though I do think "vacation reading" is a more accurate term.

I'll second the recommend on the Laura Lippman, but I can't speak with equal enthusiasm about the Peter Abrahams - I just finished it last night and though the main character and his dilemma were interesting, I thought the book was clumsily plotted and hastily written in places. This is the third Abrahams book I've read, and for me it's been a case of diminishing returns - "Oblivion" I enjoyed quite a bit; "The Rest of the Story" not so much.

Going to the bookstore to buy books to read in the car/on vacation was a ritual with my family. The question was always, would I have enough to keep me entertained?

And re Emma Donoghue (I hate that I can't scroll back and look at your user ID once I get to the point of composing a letter!), no I've not read Life Mask. Slammerkin kind of scared me away. Now I'm digging into Diana Gabaldon's tetralogy, the Outlander novels. Just started, and so far am loving the first one.

An addition for your summer reading list: The Top Ten stories published online in 2006, plus links to several hundred deemed Notable and/or worthy of nomination.

To read and vote for your favorite, go to http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters.html.

This is the fourth year for the Million Writers Award, founded by Jason Sanford, editor of the online literary magazine storySouth. This year's award is sponsored by the Edit Red Writing Community (formerly known as Spoiled Ink).

just published; I was able to get on my library's waiting list before it got too long ... so just finished this new winner from Elmore Leonard ...

Continues Carl Webster's ("The Hot Kid") adventures fighting the bad guys, this time up from OK to Detroit very near the end of WWII where he's after escaped German POWs and spies.

As usual, great dialogue play and vivid, more or less sympathetic and/or deranged characters playing with one another through words and all sorts of games from delicate to dangerous.

Suspense builds to a nicely shocking surprise ending (at least for me!)

Captcrisis, perhaps "beach reading" is a misnomer, it's really more "vacation reading". I work in a bookstore and I can tell you most assuredly that people buy more books when they are on vacation or are going on vacation. And it's not just upscale customers. Many people save their reading for their vacation because that's when they have time to read. Some don't read all year long until their summer vacation. This has nothing to do with socio-economic status (although maybe what they choose to read does), it's across the board.

I'm hardly "upscale" (though I'm flattered you think so!) The details of the 2 examples I showed are lengthy, but would prove I'm very middle-class. I chose them because they were the northern-most and southern-most beaches I've been to.

Most of my beaching has been at the public, decidedly non-tony, popular to "regular people" beaches in New England. Ocean, lake, pond, and public swimming pool (nt technically a beach, but my towel was near water). Also my decidedly not "upscale" parents' yar and driveway ( too buggy to really stay out long there. Plus, no water unless I turned on te sprinkler).

I read by all of them. Books. Not magazines. (How else was I supposed to lay still long enough to get that ever-elusive tan without losing my mind?) My mom, my husband (once upon a time my boyfriend), my friends, my cousing, even my in-laws, none of us "upscale" people all read. (One loooong family vacation in Maine resulted in a huge book swap as the days stretched on. In a week I'd read a novel about Shakespeare, some sci-fi future space opera, a John Grisham book and a Danielle Steele novel.)

I'd say reading books at the beach isactually more the norm than not.