Books that are light, but not lightweight

Paperbacks are the ultimate summer book. You can cram them into your carry-on bag, get sand in the pages, fall asleep with one open over your face without suffocating. (Unless, perhaps, it's the new 1,000-page Deborah Eisenberg collection.)

"Strength in What Remains," by Tracy Kidder (Random House, 277 pages, $16)

Kidder, an incomparable journalist, gives us the story of Deo, a young man from Burundi who flees war and genocide for the United States, where he learns English and gets an education. Eventually, he returns to Burundi to help his people. Kidder's descriptions of the hell that is Deo's homeland are searing. The New York Times called this his finest work. And with Kidder, that's saying an awful lot.

"Fifty Miles From Tomorrow," by William L. Iggiagruk Hensley (Picador, 256 pages, $15)

When Hensley began writing this memoir, he relied on the storytelling tradition that runs deep in his Inuit culture. "I imagined myself in a small sod iglu telling about various episodes in my life as I remembered them." That device served him well. His stories about growing up in Alaska are vivid and delightful -- living in sod huts ("We could have built log homes ... but we loved the smell of the tundra from which they are made"), going to school but not being allowed to bring books home ("The school knew better ... since anything that could be burned was fair game to be used for kindling"), going hunting for ptarmigan and coming home, instead, with a snowy owl, which they made into soup, saving the wings to use as a broom.

"The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg" (Picador, 980 pages, $22)

This robust paperback of Eisenberg's intelligent and crisp stories will keep you going for days, weeks -- all summer. Eisenberg's stories -- stories of heartbreak, romance and complicated relationships -- are quick-paced and studded with dialogue so true it sparkles. She catches both moments and entire lives; her language is conversational but her words are deliberately chosen. ("He rested his hand on my arm, high up, where a slave bracelet goes.")

"Nose Down, Eyes Up," by Merrill Markoe (Villard, 305 pages, $15)

It should be hard to recommend a book about a talking dog, but this book is so hilarious and poignant that I have no choice. Gil is living a lonely loser bachelor life when, one day, he hears voices coming from the garage and finds his dog, Jimmy, instructing the neighborhood dogs in how to get along with (and get stuff from) their humans. ("Memorize this phrase: 'Drop nose, raise eyes,'" Jimmy tells the gang. "It's the cornerstone of my teachings.") There's plot in here, too -- Jimmy wants to be reunited with his birth mother, who happens to belong to Gil's ex-wife, and Gil is trying to figure out how to grow up. It's a quick summery read, and you may well alarm the other folks at the beach with your loud laughter.

"Tinkers," by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press, 19 pages, $14.95)

As George Washington Crosby goes about the business of dying in a hospital bed in his living room, he remembers his childhood, his present, his past, his father, and the stories that made up their lives. This small, quiet book, so beautifully written, weaves memory and impression in poetic passages interspersed with sharp, lovely scenes about fathers and sons. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize.

"The Turtle Catcher," by Nicole Helget (Mariner, 288 pages, $13.95)

Set in southwestern Minnesota during the first World War, Helget's debut novel explores the world of German-American immigrants, their divided loyalties, the hatred they endured, the sacrifices they made. The story focuses on the Richter family -- sensitive, bookish Herman, who returns from war a changed man, and his lonely sister, Liesel, who flirts with a slow-witted neighboring farmer to disastrous end.

"Thief," by Maureen Gibbon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 182 pages, $14)

Gibbon gives us another brutal story set in Minnesota. The narrator, Suzanne, places a personal ad in the Stillwater paper and is intrigued when an inmate at Stillwater State Prison responds. He is in for rape, and she, as it turns out, is a rape survivor. Their delicate and frightening dance, as they slowly move closer and closer, and as she relives the circumstances and aftermath of her rape, make for breathless, chilling reading. Not a pleasant book, but an extraordinarily powerful one.

"Zeitoun," by Dave Eggers (Vintage, 337 pages, $15.95)

Possibly the ultimate Katrina book. Eggers recounts one terrible month in the lives of Kathy and Abdulrahman Zeitoun, small-business owners in New Orleans. Kathy and the children flee in advance of Katrina, but her husband stays behind to watch the house and check on their rental properties and business. He spends the days canoeing through town, rescuing people, feeding trapped dogs -- until he is arrested. The story gets more and more outrageous, more and more bizarre. Eggers' reporting is sound, and this book is nothing short of astounding.

Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune books editor.