Left: Cover of the first book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.

Summer reading—I read all year long, but I still notice a difference in what I read during the summer. I think this is a hold over from grade school when suddenly there was no more homework and the only limit on my reading was how many books I could carry home on my bicycle.

Several years ago I fell in love with Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy. I'd like to recommend it to you for summer reading if you haven't made selections yet. I found the series to be much better written than the Harry Potter series (which I enjoyed, but I found the writing clunky).