If you really must put each book review on a separate page, could you not at least put a list of the books on the first page, so that we could click straight through to the ones that interest us?

For you to review a book that wasn't getting giant buckets of publisher co-op. There are some really great books coming out all the time with little or no support. More than a few are as good or better than every one you list here. But they come from either small publishers or big publisher "skipper" releases. You know, the ones where the publisher sales rep says, "It's okay to skip this one, so long as you order five crates of Harlen Coben." Nothing against, Coben -- he's fun -- but he gets plenty of attention.

What about Tasha Alexander? Her third novel is just out, A Fatal Waltz. Engaging, charming, clever, with depth and range.

How about Brett Battles? His new international thriller is out in a week. The Deceived.

Charlie Newton's debut, Calumet City. The new John Straley, a man who deserves far more attention than he receives. His The Big Both Ways really delivers.

Tip of the iceberg, with much more out there -- if you'd only be willing to look past the first four pages of the publishers' catalogs.

It is usual, in anthologies and collections, for female authors to represent about 15-20% of the selections. Female bylines at top publications represent 20% of the total. Female screenwriters vary between 15-19% in any given year. Why have your reviewers aimed for that offensive fraction with this list? Even assuming men are published more often than women, are they published 4 times as often? Are the reviewers misogynists who will say that women don't write "good summer reads," or are they too remiss to search out unpromoted volumes?

I have no quarrel with any of the choices in particular, but sincerely doubt they represent the spectrum available. If Salon won't review female authors, who the hell will? And if female authors don't get reviewed, how do we discover their books, and how is this pernicious percentage ever changed?

With everyone else bitching about your "usual suspects" list, not that there's anything wrong with any of them, I'd like to suggest the three terrific novels that won this year's MWA Edgar awards: John Hart's "Down River" (Best Novel),Tana French's "In the Woods" (Best First Novel), and Megan Abbott's "Queenpin" (Best Paperback Original). None of these writers are exactly household names, all are relatively new and will no doubt entertain us greatly in years to come. All three of these novels are better than the three of your selections I've already read. If you want something more recently published, the reliable old pro Thomas Perry has come through again with his latest, "Fidelity".

For those of us concerned about weight restrictions of our luggage, how about a list of paperback summer reads? No room this summer to cram hardbacks into that suitcase.

Chick Lit. So you're going to be recommending books that are -- by definition-- mediocre?

There really is a sea change happening at Salon, and what's left high and dry on the beach is integrity. (Sorry, that metaphor didn't really work. But you catch my drift.....wood.)

Why no love for the best Scottish crime writer working today? I can wholeheartedly recommend any of the Paddy Meehan books, but it's best to read in chronological order. Meehan starts off in the first book as a 19 year old copy boy at the Scottish Daily News in Field of Blood, and in the latest, The Dead Hour, she's a single mom in her late 20s. The earlier Garnet Hill trilogy is also great. Her heroines struggle with poverty, alcoholism, sexism, and, in Meehan's case, an oppressively judgmental staunchly catholic family, yet the books never lose their sense of fun and adventure.

Crime, sex, politics, what more could a person ask for in a summer read?

Once again female writers are ignored. This list includes only a shared title by a woman author, which means this list constitutes less than the 20% female representation IMHO had noted above. Yet, women readers are the majority of book buyers and the majority of MFA candidates in creative writing programs across the country, but female novelists rarely make it to these sorts of "best of" lists that can mean so much to book sales. I am also thinking of the New York Times best of the last 25 years list in 2005 that had only 2 female authors out of 22 books. What exactly are you telling young female writers?

I really liked this book because it deals with what Kunstler ("The Long Emergency" and "An Embarrassment of Riches"), sees as a very possible scenario for this country (and the world) in the next 20 years or so. It's "The Long Emergency", with no gasoline or electricity, set in upstate New York.

Another very interesting novel I read recently that I highly recommend is in the same vein, "See You In A Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America" by Logan Ward. It's about a writer in Manhattan who decides to take his executive wife and young toddler to a farm in Virginia for a year and live as if it's 1900. Their marriage is falling apart and it is very interesting to see what they need to do to survive without electricity or gasoline for a year in the seasons and what this does to their relationship.

BTW, check out Kunstler.com Jim Kunstler's weekly comment, "The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle". It's up right now.

This is Salon. What is the carbon footprint of each book. And isn't going to the beach in the first place nothing but nuking the Tofu Whales and killing mother earf?

If Salon were a dour crunchy-granola site dedicated to escatological predictions about global catastrophe brought on by meat-eaters and t.v. watchers, then your jibes might hit home. But Salon, for all its political liberal bent, has always included big doses of standard (and sometimes above-average) entertainment news, literature and film comment, as well as consumer news. I've had my problems with Salon at times, but if you think you've somehow hit a blow to another humourless PC pablum, then you obviously have not really looked at this site. There's an advice columnist! The regular indie-film critic is in Cannes! There's a t.v. column! Hardly a lentil soup party. More of a mixed buffet with plenty of desert options.