Summer Books: Brains On Vacation Too

The summer is rarely the time for smart, intelligent books -- at least in the fiction section. The one breakout literary book -- "Suite Francaise" -- is out of the Top 15. The main list is crowded with "trash" or -- as my Yankee friend Rentboy (named so because his apartment is a bargain, not because he's for sale) calls them -- literary fibre that cleans out your brain when you've been dipping into Proust once too often. My favorite example is "Cover of Night" by Linda Howard, which is described thusly: "A young widow fights back when armed intruders storm her bed-and-breakfast in rural Idaho." Awesome! Can't wait for the movie.