Summer vacation is coming! Yowza! Time to find yourself someplace scenic, seaside, or overseas. If actual travels are not in your plans, these easy-to-read armchair adventures will aid and soothe the stir-crazy, or just plain crazy, among you. As alternatives to marshmallow chick-lit or your standard airplane thrillers, they are guaranteed to leave you satisfied and amused by the time you finish your fun in or out of the sun.

Trying out a variety of memoirs is a great way to relax, particularly since they come in more diverse shapes and sizes than the average Band-Aids passing for bathing suits. For Baby Boomers and fans of the classic film A Christmas Story, Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid serves as a continually hilarious take on a childhood in which the thrill of sci-fi films, super hero fantasies, and futuristic Main Street optimism coexisted with fears provoked by Commie-baiting and Cold War one-upmanship. Bryson’s provocative look back mixes clear-eyed history with endearingly naughty anecdotes of a beloved Iowan adolescence. For something surreal and equally Midwestern, rubberneck your way around Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Cody’s neon-lit tale recounts her move from Iowa to live with her boyfriend in Minnesota, during which time she spent a year doubling as white-collar worker by day and wigged-out pole dancer by night. The acerbic hipster humor that won her an Original Screenplay Oscar for the 2007 indie film Juno sparkles in this true tale of Geek Girl Gone Wild.

While skimming anything golf-related generally appeals to me less than the idea of landing feet-first in a sand trap full of fire ants, I would bet many a Big Bertha that Carl Hiassen’s mid-life golf crisis memoir, The Downhill Lie, will delight his readership while winning the hearts and fractured psyches of amateurs and pros alike. Admittedly, I understood only certain parts of his diary about picking up golf after a thirty-year hiatus. That being said, those sections were way too loony, hilarious, and filled with despair to keep me from laughing loudly and often. What can I say? I have a thing for schadenfreude, perfectionism, and seemingly hopeless quests.

Speaking of frustration, cube dwellers who find relief through the comic strip Dilbert, the television show The Office, or the classic film Office Space, should read Joshua Ferris’s highly acclaimed novel Then We Came to the End. Ferris’s quizzically understated account of a Chicago ad agency facing a spate of lay-offs depicts a dysfunctional “family” forged by mutually shared deadlines, turgid office politics, and well-placed fears. His narrators embody the sometimes farcical and ultimately poignant comedies and camaraderies of our often bizarre and warped workplaces.

If you feel like visiting a warm, understanding, and much less neurotic officescape, get to know the “traditionally built” Miss Marple of Africa through reading Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. The first novel will introduce you to Precious Ramotswe, the wise and mild-mannered lady who prides herself on her knowledge of Botswana and her networks of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. After setting herself up as the proto-feminist “first lady detective” of Botswana, she hires up-and-comer Grace Makutsi, who has graduated with a much-touted 97% from the Botswana Secretarial College, along with a weakness for beautiful shoes. While discussing cases over endless cups of bush tea with Mma (Ms.) Makutsi, clients, and her supportive mechanic fiance, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe solves mysteries with tenacity, wisdom, and a deep-seated knowledge of human nature. This series’ charm appears in the quiet simplicity of Smith’s writing, which shines with his understanding of human foibles and his love for Botswana, Africa in general, and the traditional values espoused by his heroines and heroes.

Dan Ariely’s new book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, rounds out my summer selection of fascinating page-turners. “Behavioral economics” as a concept may sound like your own personal substitute for Ambien or Lunesta, but it is endlessly absorbing here. MIT professor Ariely is the rare academic who can write simply and well for a lay audience, and he proves his prowess in this well-documented and beguiling discussion of the way we make daily decisions. In discussing the difficulties humans have in seeing too many options, the reasons why we willingly pay so much for a “gourmet” cup of coffee, and the probability that even the most scrupulous are more likely to be honest when dealing with cash, he reveals how much more irrational, and yet predictable, our decision-making is than we would like to believe. In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell’s observations in The Tipping Point and Blink, Ariely’s revelations will surprise you into examining and even better controlling the way you live your life on an instinctive level.

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