Oprah's Book Club is back and her choice for the summer is a box set of William Faulkner works including, "As I Lay Dying," "The Sound and the Fury" and "Light in August."

After the announcement, readers flocked to bookstores and Amazon.com and now the Faulkner collection is directly behind the new Harry Potter book at the top of the bestseller list.

Behold, the power of Oprah!

I can't really comment on these works by Faulkner. I tried reading "The Sound and the Fury" once and could not get very far in it. Some day, I'll be brave enough to try again, though not this summer.

I'll be interested to see what Oprah's minions think about Faulkner and his work, though. Faulkner is no Dean Koontz.

Seeing Oprah's announcement reminded me that this would be a good time for me to release my picks for excellent summer reading.

I am a voracious reader, one who always has a book going, and on average reads over 50 books a year. These are some of my recent favorites that would make nice companions for interested readers at the beach or in a hammock this summer.

For the little kids:

Now that I have a baby, my wife and I are trying to instill a love of reading in our son at a very early age. This allowed me to go book shopping to start building his library and all of the books that I've purchased so far were favorites of mine growing up.

The books I can recommend are "Frog and Toad Together" and "Frog and Toad are Friends," by Arnold Lobel; "Green Eggs and Ham," by Dr. Seuss; and "A Monster at the End of This Book," by Grover from Sesame Street.

For older kids:

Even though Colin is nine years away from entering the fourth grade, I bought "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" for a quarter at the last Friends of the Fayette County Library Book Sale.

I loved the Judy Blume books when I was growing up and this was the first in the "Fudge" series.

Fans of Judy Blume would probably also like the books of Beverly Cleary, which include the "Ramona" books, "Ribsy" and "Dear Mr. Henshaw."

For adults:

The best book I read this year was also the most challenging, "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell." The story is about two magicians in England during the Napoleonic wars and beyond.

This book was fantastic but it will likely take one all summer to read the whole thing as each chapter also has extensive footnotes. It is imperative to read the footnotes as they are hilarious and completely enrich the story.

I also recently read the entire "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" set and enjoyed each installment as well.

There is a book out there with all of the novels in one hard-cover edition and being able to read one Arthur Dent adventure right after the other is a lot of fun.

After reading hilarious sci-fi, I moved on to Richard Adams' "Watership Down," which is a beautiful novel about courageous rabbits surviving an amazing adventure as they leave the safety of their warren to set out their own. This would be a great book for a family to read chapter by chapter.

Unfortunately, I moved on from "Watership Down" to Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons," which was pretty terrible. I know I have been out of college for eight years now but if college life is like that, all I can say is, "Eww, gross."

My pick for chicks, er, I mean, women, is "The Secret Life of Bees," by Sue Monk Kidd. This was a lovely book that I'm not ashamed to admit I devoured and really enjoyed.

The story is about a girl who lives with a group of eccentric women in South Carolina, while solving a mystery about her late mother.

For those who haven't read them yet I also recommend "The Lovely Bones," by Alice Sebold, "The Nanny Diaries" by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus and "Little Children" by Tom Perrotta.

Looking for a really quick, action- packed summer read, then pick up either of Dan Brown's hot novels, "The Da Vinci Code" or "Angels and Demons." I liked both books immensely but give the edge to "Angels and Demons," because it dealt with the Illuminati and took the hero through the streets of Rome and into the hallowed halls of the Vatican.

I can also highly recommend Michael Crichton's "Prey," which reads like a thrilling movie about a swarm of nanobots attacking scientists.

The obligatory recommended books:

Since I have written columns about great books to read I have always nominated Stephen King books, particularly installments of "The Dark Tower" series.

King has released the final installment and it is a masterpiece, tying together all of the novels into a winning, heart-breaking opus.

If you have ever read any Stephen King and enjoyed them, slog your way through "The Gunslinger," which is the hardest to get into, and then hold on tight as the master of horror takes you on a fantastic ride that goes light on the gore (I promise).

I also would like to recommend the books of Christopher Moore. Among my favorite comedic novels from Moore are "Practical Demonkeeping" and "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal," which is among my favorite books of all time and blends comedy with thought-provoking fiction.

There are so many more books out there that can be enjoyed and the local librarians and book store employees can guide you to some of them.

Happy reading!