Reading is on top of our list of all good things associated with summer. Quiet and lazy, this is the time when we want to hold on to a book. It could have something to do with the collective childhood memory -- the three-month-long vacation that came packed with books. This week, The News on Sunday asks some established writers to recommend a few summers books for our readers. A few fiction writers, like Asad Muhammad Khan and Abdullah Hussain, say they were so busy writing their own books they haven’t read anything they could share. Fair enough.

Some writers disagree that reading can be divided across seasons, holding that it’s a very ‘Western concept’. Others think the harshness of our summers is best beaten by light reading. The rest had no problem recommending books, old and new, serious and light, as long as people remain engaged in reading.

For reading, any excuse would do!

Asif Farrukhi -- short story writer, critic, editor

Well, reading is not a seasonal affliction or activity for me. It is something which goes on throughout the year, no matter what season it is.

I read throughout the year, so nothing glorious about the summer reading list for me. I can only mention the books which I am going through these days.

I have just finished Mirza Athar Baig’s large novel Hassan Ki Soorat-e-Haal -- Khali…Jagain…Pur…Karo. Although I found some parts of the novel heavy, especially the section dealing with film makers and film making, what a novel it is. I think it has extended the frontiers of modern Urdu fiction. It is strongly recommended for those who are not faint-hearted.

I have just finished reading Stefan Zweig’s short stories and have fallen in love with the writer for the second time. Stefan Zweig is one of the great European naturalists. Now I am looking forward to reading the anthropologist Laurent Gayer’s new book Karachi.

 Bilal Tanweer -- novelist, teacher

One of my most memorable reads this year was Omar Shahid Hamid’s novel, The Prisoner. The novel is most valuable because it provides a view of the Karachi of the 1990s where gunfire was the music of the streets.

The remarkable thing about that entire period which lasted for about a decade is that there are virtually no narratives about it: neither testimonials of people who were victims of violence by the state and the political parties, nor any accounts of people who simply suffered through it without being victims or perpetrators.

Omar Shahid Hamid’s book speaks into that resounding silence with a narrative that appears to be a thinly veiled account of this chapter of Karachi’s history. Among its various accomplishments, it provides an account into the functioning of various layers of our security apparatus: how different security agencies are often working with aims that are at odds with each other, how political wrangling, power games -- often petty and personal -- determine their decisions as much as we would expect from politicians. On top of it, it is written like a thriller and three-hundred pages feel like a blip. Highly recommended for everybody interested in Karachi’s past and future.

 Masood Ashar -- short story writer, columnist

Some books that I would recommend for the summer include Abdullah Hussain’s Faraib, a collection of short stories. It is different from his previous books and presents a new idea. It is based in the modern world and is about the 21st century and today’s situation. I have read something like this after a long time.

Another novel is Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s Ay Ghazaal-i-Shab  which is about the breakup of the Soviet Union. It tells you about the Pakistani people who have settled there, their lifestyle and different aspects of their daily lives, and how it was all affected by the breakup.

Dr Younus Javed’s recent novel Satwant Singh Ka Kala Dil is a story of a Sikh who is stuck in Pakistan. He gets caught up in the Pakistani politics and the books talks about all the difficulties he faces during his time in Pakistan.

Asim Butt is a relatively new writer who in his novel Natamaam talks about women rights in a totally new perspective. He refers to Buddha’s treatment of his wife in the books and shows the reader a new perspective on women empowerment.

Doctor Aslam Furrukhi’s personal essays are also very interesting to read. Lal Sabz Kabootron ki Chahtri is one of them. Shahid Hamid’s translation of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice called Takabur-o-Taasub is also a beautiful translation of one of English language classics.

 Amjad Islam Amjad -- poet, playwright, columnist

These days, I am proof-reading my new poetry collection which will soon be launched. I do not believe in the term ‘summer-reading’; it is a western trend. It is up to the taste and choice of the readers what they want to read.

You cannot divide literature into summer or winter.

After I am done with my collection, I have scheduled a number of magazines and periodicals and journals I want to read including Bunyad, a research journal published by Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS); and Collage, a Karachi-based nascent literary journal edited by Iqbal Nazar and Shahida Tabassum, Ijra and some others.

Youngsters and children should read Urdu and regional literature which they cannot read during their school year. Such literature is rich and refreshing.

 Saba Imtiaz -- novelist, journalist

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison should be on everybody’s to-read list this summer. I read her incredibly moving book of essays earlier this year, and lines from it are still rattling around in my head. ("This is how writers fall in love: they feel complicated together and then they talk about it.") Jamison explores the idea of empathy through a series of well-crafted and often heartbreaking essays, drawn from personal experience and reportage.

Eliza Griswold’s I am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan should probably be made mandatory reading for Pakistan’s self-proclaimed Afghanistan experts who haven’t set foot in the country. So many people have talked ‘about’ Afghan women, ‘to’ Afghan women, ‘for’ Afghan women: it’s great to read a book where the voices shine through, not the narrative. It’s a collection of modern versions of landays (couplets) by women; and the poetry -- even in translation -- is irreverent, witty, moving, and the raw emotion tells you more about the impact of war than anything else.

Here’s one: "My darling, you are just like America! You are guilty; I apologise."

Kazi Anis Ahmed’s The World in my Hands -- with its depiction of a military coup and how it upends the lives of the characters -- will have many ‘aha!’ moments for Pakistani readers. It was incredibly refreshing to read a book with a protagonist who wasn’t your usual do-gooder, but someone who tries to benefit from what transpires.

The one book that I’m really looking forward to reading is Laurent Gayer’s Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City. Gayer extensively researched his book and the excerpts alone have me hooked. I also want to read Amy Rowland’s The Transcriptionist, which is set in a newsroom in New York.

 Mirza Ather Baig -- novelist, teacher

It’s summer time and to stay cool I read cool books. Ice Cream: The Delicious History by Marilyn Powell is a remarkable book that traces the history of the culinary delight from the ancient times to the present. Then I will have to while away my time in playing Sudoku. Xaq Pitkow’s Sudoku: Easy to Medium is also valuable reading for me.

There is another book Plastic Injection Molding: Manufacturing Fundamentals by Douglas M. Bryce which I will have to read because I want to write a story in which the manufacturing of plastic toys has a significant role to play.

And for late night reading, there is nothing like detective fiction. I have rediscovered a lost writer Valentine Williams and his enthralling The Return of Clubfoot. I read its Urdu translation by Teerath Ram Ferozpuri under the title Langray Jasoos Ki Wapsi way back in the past. How sad it is that nobody remembers Teerath Ram Ferozpuri these days.

Since it’s summer time, I advise the readers to let only the temperature rise and don’t increase their agony by reading high or great literature. Don’t be shy of reading ‘cheap thrillers’, the cheaper the better in fact, and enjoy the modern versions of Penny Dreadful.

 Farooq Khalid -- novelist, travel writer

I had purchased three novels of Naguib Mahfouz a few years back but could not get the time to read. Now I am planning to read these three novels, Wedding Song, The Thief and the Dogs, and The Beginning and the End.

But the book that I will request the readers to read is a wonderful novel The Death Ship written by B. Traven. I think everyone should read this novel before they die. The novel was written in German in 1926 and its English version was published in 1934. The writer was quite an enigma as no one knew who he was or what his real name was (B. Traven was his pseudonym). He was an extraordinary writer and he really wrote powerful prose. That novel influenced me beyond words. Readers should pick it up and they will find its own worth.

I have also picked up the letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky in St. Petersburg that are edited by Joseph Frank and David L. Goldstein which I will be reading. Little Johannes a Dutch novel written by Frederik Van Eeden, is another lovely book that I recommend the readers to savour this summer.

Ali Akbar Natiq -- poet, short story writer

I think in the summer people should prefer refreshing and light reading. Serious fiction is better enjoyed in winter. In the warm summers, light reading gives you psychological relief as well.

I read sketches, short stories, essays and light fiction these days that can be read quickly.

My own summer choice is reviewing Allama Iqbal’s poetry critically. I am also reading Mir Taqi Mir, Akhtar Sheerani, Naiyer Masud (India). From the classics, I am rereading Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Noon Meem Rashed. In fiction, my choice for the summer is Rafiq Husain, Naiyer Masud, Ghulam Abbas, Khalid Akhtar. I am also reading Dastan-e-Amir Hamza, Alif Laila and a history of Egypt.

My suggestion for summer reading to the public is Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqui, Farhatullah Baig, and Ahmed Bashir for sketches.

For school going children, I would recommend Sufi Tabassum’s poems. We need to create an interest in school-going children for reading and there should be summer book fairs and competitions offering prizes to students.