Summer reading is where I am going with the column this outstanding Monday morning. The books scattered around my house, in my car and on the deck, with only one exception, are fiction and not the least bit difficult. There are a couple of mysteries along with two young adult books and a few just great stories. I figure life is pretty well non-fiction enough, so my forays into that genre are usually for an interest I have at the time, which explains the one and only piece of non-fiction among my summer reading. It is called Be Different or Be Dead: Your Business Survival Guide. I am attempting to see if there is anything in it to learn for a library. I will let you know how valuable the book is when and if I find something I might be able to use.

Two exceptional choices among those books I am reading are The Lonely Polygamist by Barry Udall and Daniel O’Thunder by Ian Weir. Bountiful aside, the reason we have the first book is because of one of my favourite book sources. The National Public Radio website has listed it as a favourite on more than one reviewer’s list in the past month and they have not failed me yet. Like Daniel O’Thunder, the writing is clever, the story unique and the author is not without wit.

Ian Weir, author of Daniel O’Thunder, was raised in Kamloops and has written more plays than books. I have only begun the book but am very willing to say it is exceptional and as one review puts it, “rollicking fun”. I think we are going to hear a lot more from Weir.

By complete coincidence, a staff member had interlibrary loaned a mystery by a Swedish writer and recommended we purchase it for the library. The same title had been donated to the library and as a fan of Scandinavian mystery writers, I was reading it to review for the library. The book is called Hidden by Karin Alvtegen and the translation appears to be done by someone trained in Old English usage so a bit off putting, at least to me, but the book will be added to the collection when I am done the last page.

I do recommend anyone who likes to read to take a trip to both the young adult section and to the junior section occasionally. Having just read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I can understand why several of the pages chose the book to read and why there is a waiting list for it among young readers. Be prepared for dark reading, the writer is imagining the future of the world.

Tomorrow, When the War Began by Australian John Marsden and Enter Three Witches by Caroline B. Cooney are the young adult titles I am enjoying. The Marsden book was published in 1993 and is still very readable. The book is the first in a sequence of books dealing with the takeover of Australia by a foreign power. The story focuses on the characters rather than the war and I have only recently found out is listed as one of the 100 best books for teenage readers by the America Library Association. The other book, Enter Three Witches is a version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that is wonderfully readable and makes me hopeful Cooney might try the same thing with more of Shakespeare’s work.

Sarah Hall is a British writer living in the U.S. who appears to have a bright future as a writer if How to Paint a Dead Man and Electric Michelangelo are any indication. I read How to Paint a Dead Man several months ago when it came into the library and could not put it down. The book is about art and artists and the second book goes down a much different path but still within the art world, the world of a tattoo artist. Again, both books are highly recommended. You might have to wait to find them in the library, though — it is summer and finding time to read is not as easy with a garden and so much light.

Ann Day is the chief librarian at the Creston and District Public Library.