It’s that time of year when people start asking me about good “beach reads.” I’ve never been sure what makes a beach read. Is it a book you don’t mind getting slick with sweat and suntan oil (and perhaps an errant drop of beer)? Does that mean it’s a broken-spined, raggedy-ass old paperback?

I don’t know. But I thought I’d spend these summer-month blogs telling you about a bunch of worthwhile books to spend some time with during vacation season. Because that’s a “beach read” to me. It means that finally the assholery of work is left behind at the office and you have time to relax with a few good books.

Alas, Stieg Larsson is still dead, so there’s no new volume in the Lisbeth Salander series, but here are some things you might like (below). These are mostly hardcovers, so if you take them to the beach, use rubber gloves when turning the pages.

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History (WW Norton, $25.95) is a funny-but-serious survey of those things so often exposed on beaches. Reminds me of the great science writing of Mary Roach, who wrote Stiffs, about what happens to bodies after they are dead, and Bonk, about what it’s like to be in a sex study. This book by Florence Williams deals both with the science and the obsession and we learn a lot about humans and human nature. (Alert to dude readers: No, it’s not illustrated with those kinds of pictures. This picture with Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield is the best image in the book.)

Live Fast, Die Young (Summersdale, $13.95) gives the impression that it will catalog all of the great American burned-out rock stars during a cross-country road trip. Not quite. Authors Chris Price and Joe Harland are mostly concerned with one rock star, the late Gram Parsons. He came from Winter Haven, Fla., and ascended the rock’n’roll throne with the Byrds and then the Flying Burrito Brothers. He was a musical pioneer and genre bender, but seems most remembered for dying young and having his body stolen and burned in a dessert ceremony by friends. Key scenes take place at Gram’s Place in Tampa. It’s a fun book, but if you have a Gram fixation, stay tuned for Calling Me Home, a serious look at Parsons’ life and influence by Orlando-based writer Bob Kealing.

We may look back on this era someday and realize that this was the golden age of rock’n’roll autobiographies.
Or not.
But you have to agree that we are on a roll.
First we had Eric Clapton’s wonderful, soul-searching Autobiography. You could imagine Slowhand sitting at his laptop, twisting the chin hairs of his neatly trimmed beard as he struggled over telling the story of his son’s tragic death, his heart-ripping love for his best friend’s wife, and his imprisoning addictions. Few autobiographies of any kind have been as searingly honest.
Then came Life by Keith Richards, a work of masterful storytelling. We could say it was remarkably lucid, but one of the things we find out in Life is that a good part of the Keith-Richards-is-burned-out act is just that – an act. Offstage, he is a master of lucidity. He is an extremely intelligent and literate man who plays bad-ass guitar and has substance-abuse issues.
And now we have the Gregg Allman autobiography, My Cross to Bear (William Morrow, $27.99). Allman has been such a strong presence in the fabric of American music for more than 40 years – so much so — that we’ve probably taken him for granted.
All I can tell you is that after a drought of non-Allman music, when he pops up on my office iTunes or on the radio, I never fail to turn up the volume. He may be the most under-rated singer in the history of rock.
All of these books – Clapton’s, Richards’ and Allman’s – were done with collaborators. With the Clapton and Richards volumes, the ghost writers had some sort of literary purpose. They wanted to elevate their subject’s stories, and in those cases they worked spectacularly well. Allman’s collaborator, a much-honored music journalist named Alan Light, has tried to present his book as an intimate monologue. Imagine you’re sitting in a room with Allman, you’ve got your glass of ginger ale (he's booze-free now, of course), and perhaps a surgical mask in an effort to combat second-hand smoke. Gregg’s got some stories to tell.
It’s written in the honest, direct style of a conversation with a good old boy. Allman holds back nothing.
We learn mostly about his brother Duane and how that guitar genius and his early death haunted Gregg his whole life. Gregg Allman’s greatest regret appears to be that in this last conversation with his older brother, he lied – for the first and only time in his life, he lied to his beloved big brother. A few hours later, Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident.

These are tough days for philosophers. When any hodad with a wireless connection can present himself / herself to the world as a pundit, who has times for well-educated deep thinkers who routinely spelunk to the depths of metaphysics?

So it’s nice to encounter a series of books in a series called Philosophy for Everyone. So far, there are two dozen entries in this series, including the two latest, devoted to the Blues and to Fashion.

Blues — Philosophy for Everyone (Wiley-Blackwell, $19.95) is a collection of fairly serious writings by philosophy professors who realize their job here isn’t to impress other scholars as much as it is to provide an open door to the dedicated idea grazers among us.

The blues are a perfect vehicle to connect academia with the blues enthusiasts who show up at concerts today — usually, pony-tailed tax attorneys. The book addresses a lot of the usual questions of the day in a tone that is inclusive and not condescending — a tough tightrope for a lot of academics to walk: Do white people have the right to sing the blues? What cathartic role does the blues play in our lives? Is rock’n’roll just the diluted and ripped-off blues?

We encounter some of the usual suspects — B.B. King among them — and reading about these great artists will make you appreciate them more, and probably want to blast their music through the neighborhood.

Not being as interested in fashion (Exhibit A, today’s attire — a Red Sox hoodie, a ball cap and paint-stained jeans), I didn’t expect as much from Fashion — Philosophy for Everyone (Wiley-Blackwell, $19.95), but was pleasantly surprised by all that I learned.

As always, there are elements of history in works of philosophy, so just digesting the role fashion has played in the human parade makes for fine reading.

No new releases here . . . let's consider someone from the backlist . . . .

I’ve always enjoyed reading biographies of writers, which is probably why I’ve ended up writing them.

Back in my Indiana hometown recently, I made a trip to my favorite used bookstore, Caveat Emptor, in Bloomington. I didn’t know I was looking for a biography of William Saroyan, but I found it — thanks to the miracle of serendipity. God bless browsing.

A Daring Young Man is a decade old and is the work of John Leggett. He might be the guy who hooked me on literary biographies in the first place.

Years ago, he wrote Ross and Tom, a dual biography of two young writers killed by success. Ross Lockridge wrote Raintree County, then took himself out in the garage. Tom Heggen, who gave the world Mister Roberts, died of the deadly combination of too-many sleeping pills and a full bathtub.

A recent piece in the Boston Globe lamented the closing of the huge Borders Books in that city's downtown. The point of the article was that losing the store was more than just the decline of one of those big-box booksellers, but it was an end of book culture.

A lot of shoppers would go to Borders on reconnaissance missions. They'd browse, see what they liked, then order the book online or download it to an electronic reader.

The bookstore felt so used.

The response to the article was remarkable. Poet X.J. Kennedy sent in a letter to the editor and suggested that bookstores charge people for browsing.

Interesting concept. Even though Borders is a big-box joint, I have known some intelligent employees there who knew their stuff, even if many of their colleagues looked at their job as if they were slinging hash brown ovals at McDonald's.

Which brings us to Inkwood Books in Tampa and Haslam's Book Store in St. Petersburg. The Bay Area is fortunate to have these independent bookstores that do much to define "book culture" in their cities.

For all of the braying and lamenting about Borders, it seems to me the greater matter of concern ought to be the future of Inkwood and Haslam's, not just as businesses, but as centers for the community's intellectual life.

We often opt for convenience over something that — though perhaps requiring effort — is in the end much more rewarding. I've written about this at length before.

We miss a lot by crawling off to our hives to order books and not browse bookstores or visit those other magnificent institutions, our public libraries.

So get off your ass and get to a bookstore or library today.

And if you need more motivation, here is an appeal from Inkwood Books:

"As we approach Inkwood’s 20th anniversary, we have much to be grateful for and many reasons to celebrate: a perfect combination of wonderful books and extraordinary customers, and the opportunity to know and to serve, and in some small ways, to shape our community. But survival doesn't mean we are healthy or thriving.

"We knew the big box model was not sustainable, but many great locally owned independents were sacrificed on the way to the current circumstance leaving many communities without a bookstore. Those that have survived - including Inkwood - are faced with a perfect storm of challenges: the proliferation of other outlets, lack of sales tax fairness, ebook revolution, and competing distractions for shrinking leisure time contribute to a diminishing number of bookstore customers.

"We love our work - talking with readers about books; serving schools and libraries and nonprofits; helping individuals choose for themselves, for their book group, for their children and grandchildren, for other family and friends; and bringing memorable author events to the community. While we hear from customers, new and old, how much they love our bookstore, our selection, and our recommendations, we have lost many customers to the unsustainable price cutting and overbuilding, as well as to the recession. Fifteen years ago, as we watched the closing of many valued and irreplaceable local businesses, we wrote to our customers: "If you're not here this year, we won't be here next year." While we are proud of our accomplishments and believe we have enriched our community, that statement is just as true today."

Inkwood suggested that we pass along their message, so cut and paste it in emails to friends, post it on your Facebook wall, print it out and put it in bathroom stalls. And take pleasure in having something to read wherever you go.