Whether lazing about beside a glistening lagoon full of mermaids, or just working the burger joint as always, you'll need reading materials to keep the summer ennui from lulling you into a coma. Fight back with these picks from the bottom of my heart and the middle portion of my backpack. (A caveat to those who read while tanning: The suggested readings are so engrossing, you may lose all sense of time. Just remember that when you hear your internal organs begin to sizzle, you should probably turn over.)

What I'm reading this summer:

1. The wall of graffiti in the coffee shop bathroom
2. The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (a quick read, with lots of high glamor and drama)
3. The back of the new Modest Mouse CD
4. Manuscript on furunculosis
5. Instructions for assembling IKEA-brand luxury house
6. Stupid trivia about film techniques and which stupid actor comes from which stupid country that will play on the theater screen before Spider-Man II starts
7. "Keep off the grass" signs, giggling about possible double entendres
8. Acknowledgments of Prozac Nation, by Elizabeth Wurtzel
9. Charles Manson's letters to John Paul Sartre
10. Pages 567-1,028 of the tax code, especially portions about off-shore accounts and whether I'm going to get screwed on that Cayman Islands deal Bill told me about

Enjoy!