When the days grow longer and the sun burns hotter, our reading habits change. We look around for a book we can doze over, one we can drop without regret into the sand or the lake, one whose plot we can still follow if we have, perhaps, been sipping a gin and tonic or walking away frequently to flip burgers.

Mysteries, novels and all kinds of paperbacks are ripe for summer reading: This year offers, among others, a fat biography of the Kennedy women, a new Tana French police procedural and a fictionalized account of the scandalous life of Louise Brooks.

Star Tribune readers have recommendations, too, primarily of old reliables; they'll be spending the summer with Anthony Trollope, Nancy Drew and Charles Dickens. Turn inside for three full pages of reviews and suggestions, as well as profiles of two Minnesota fiction writers -- mystery writer Brian Freeman and chick-lit-vampire-humorist (no, really!) MaryJanice Davidson. And hey -- don't let those burgers overcook.