Book clubs have poked their heads out the front door and have assured themselves that the weather just might be presentable enough to meet outdoors.  Just don't forget your reading lists as you head to your picnics:

Out this summer in paperback:

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombiesby Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. Don't neglect The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, a title we never stop reminding you about. Consider it a companion piece to the more Zombie mayhem
•  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, a book we love and believe it fully deserves its No. 1 best-selling status though we still hate the title.
•  The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery; and Unaccustomed Earthby Jhumpa Lahiri for some serious literary beach reading. 

For those who can't wait, we are reading in hardcover and downloading The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Shanghai Girls by Lisa See and Sag Harborby Colson Whitehead.  

If you have a Kindle or other e-book reader, you must bring it to your next club.  Not only can you analyze future choices based on the first chapter that you read aloud before anyone remembers to try to stop you, you may also complain that you have last year's model or i-phone app. The important thing is to name-check your reader at every opportunity.  Never forget to remind fellow book club members that you are in the forefront of all things happening.