I’ve loved reading forever. I was the kid whose mother had to come in to her room late at night to tell her put down the book and go to sleep, the one chain-reading Babysitter’s Club books at recess when it was too hot to jump rope, the one who picked my high school beach reads from the “classics” section of the library. I finished “Gone With the Wind” in fourth grade and took nearly enough comparative literature and English classes in college for a minor, just for fun.

I don’t read as many books now, partly because I read so much at work. But I love diving into a good book at the beach or while I’m traveling. Today, I wanted to share some of my favorite books that are great for summer — or any time.

Catch-22 (by Joseph Heller): This is one of my favorite books ever, and the first time I read it was on the beach — the Outer Banks of North Carolina, when I was maybe 17. It’s a military book, set in World War II, but you don’t have to know anything about the military or much about World War II to understand or like it. It’s both hilarious and tragic, absurd and realistic. It’s not super easy to read, though, because it’s not told in chronological order (think of Pulp Fiction). So, not the best thing to read while multi-tasking.

State of Wonder (by Ann Patchett): A new favorite. This book is about relationships and loss and passion and change and pharmaceutical companies and the Amazon and it sounds weird but it’s amazing.

Love in the Time of Cholera (by Gabriel Garcia Marquez): The writing, the story, the love. You don’t have to read it this summer, but you have to read it at some point. Seriously.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers (by Katherine Boo): An amazingly reported and beautifully written nonfiction book about a slum in India that will make you forget it’s real. When you remember, you’ll get really upset that all of these awful things really happen in the world, but you should still read it.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove (by Karen Russell): A collection of short stories — good for short stints of reading — full of gorgeous sentences and bizarre and magical situations. There’s a story about dead presidents reincarnated as horses, and one about young women turned into silkworms and one about (non-sparkly) vampires. You probably won’t love every single story, but if you enjoy the Southern Gothic style and/or magic realism, you should definitely read this book. (I also really liked Russell’s “Swamplandia!” … until the end, which didn’t fit the rest of the book. This story collection is a little easier to read, though).

Everything is Illuminated (by Jonathan Safran Foer): This is a bit hard to read at first, because one of the narrators is a non-native English speaker with a very odd (and frequently hilarious) vocabulary. But I loved all the different stories and how they all tied together, and the writing itself.

Matterhorn (by Karl Marlantes): And now for something entirely different… an epic war novel about Vietnam, with no magical realism or lifelong love but plenty of plenty of real-life (albeit fictional) emotion and violence. But unlike many war movies, which tend to be about heroes and explosions, this has complex characters and tedium and jungle rot and real brotherhood. It’s brilliant.

Some others you should check out, if you haven’t already: Like Water for Chocolate, This is How You Lose Her, Beautiful Ruins, The Palace of Illusions, The Secret Life of Bees, Lean In, Half the Sky, Gone Girl and World War Z (we listened to the audiobook version, which I recommend).

What are your favorite books? Anything you’ve loved recently? My husband said I should recommend the Game of Thrones books, but I can’t get through that kind of book. I do love the show, though.