The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.

—Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

We're continuing our summer reading series with a look at modern parenthood and childcare. Mona Simpson's new book, "My Hollywood," looks at the relationship between modern parents and the nannies they hire to take care of their kids. 

Best selling author Carl Hiaasen has made a living shamelessly stealing outrageous stories from the headlines of Florida's newspapers. He rips them from the headlines because their real flavor lends a sense of realism to his satire. Hiaasen's latest novel, "Star Island," is no exception.

To the rocket scientist, you are a problem. You are the most irritating piece of machinery he or she will ever have to deal with. You and your fluctuating metabolism, your puny memory, your frame that comes in a million different configurations. You are unpredictable. You’re inconstant. You take weeks to fix. The engineer must worry about the water and oxygen and food you’ll need in space, about how much extra fuel it will take to launch your shrimp cocktail and irradiated beef tacos. A solar cell or a thruster nozzle is stable and undemanding. It does not excrete or panic or fall in love with the mission commander. It has no ego. Its structural elements don’t start to break down without gravity, and it works just fine without sleep.

If you’ve read any of Jennifer Egan’s previous work, you know that her writing style is rarely predictable. In her new book, “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” she takes that unpredictability to a whole new level.

Gary Shteyngart has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, is one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and was just recently selected for the New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list. We talk with him about his new book, “Super Sad True Love Story.”

This summer we’ve been making a list of great beach reads or books to crack open poolside.  We’ve talked to Justin Cronin, author of 'The Passage' and Hilary Thayer Hamman about her novel ‘Anthropology of an American Girl.’ This week, Laurence Gonzales' 'Lucy' is at the top of our list.

No one ever expected best selling author Scott Turow to publish a sequel to his very first novel, the 1987 legal thriller “Presumed Innocent,” mostly because he said he’d never publish one.

For better or worse, the beach book is the Rodney Dangerfield of publishing. It gets no respect.

But Patrik Henry Bass says that, despite their bad rap, we shouldn’t be ashamed of diving into and savoring the fluffiest of literary concoctions. The senior editor for Essence magazine, and a lover of a wide variety of genres, Patrik says there are loads of delicious beach books hitting shelves right now – and that we don’t necessarily have to respect them to enjoy them.

Patrik's top five picks for the season (as well as two bonus suggesions) are after the jump.