We’ve been feeling distinctly jaded at t&p of late, having wallowed knee-deep in a wide variety of Deadly Sins since April. Our Grand Tour of debauchery began in a bender of envious lusting, and just as our hormones began to overheat we proudly executed a neat capitalist sidestep into greed. Exhausted from our revels we have been malingering slothfully ever since, and wake up now with quite an appetite.

We have been told that gluttony is “an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.” This suggests a subtle distinction between Gluttony and Greed: Greed concerning itself with excessive acquisition, while Gluttony is all about consumption; Greed is the laying in of stores in anticipation of an extended drought; Gluttony the eagerly-awaited (over)indulgence during times of plenty.

Gluttony, then, seems to be a sin of summer, for summer is the season that we book-consumers have become accustomed to thinking of as the one time of year when we can freely read whatever we damn well please. It is our season of self-indulgence, a sun-soaked period of why-should-we-be-guilty pleasures.¹

One thing the editorial collective has never grown accustomed to is the imposing size of many summer reading favorites: Stephen King’s terrifying doorstoppers, Diana Gabaldon’s monolithic menhirs², and more topically: J. K. Rowling’s series of increasingly-thicker Potters. These are books which have supposedly had the benefit of a trained pair of editorial eyes; often, though, their bulk is merely proof that these authors have achieved such success that their publisher is terrified of losing them (and their revenue), editors handling the manuscripts with kid gloves, and wielding blunted scissors.

In acknowledgement of this fact, and in recognition that ours is a physique most accurately described as “elfin”,³ we at t&p choose to arrange our summer reading fare by weight, beginning our training with a smorgasbord of ephemera in early June, and gradually working up to the truly monumental main courses by Labour Day.

Which is why upcoming postings will feature reviews of some selections from the stack that will accompany us this summer, books on which we plan to gorge gluttonously (between generous applications of SPF 45…)

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¹ We may have stumbled on the etymological origins of the phrase “guilty pleasure” as it applies to reading, the guilt in question stemming from the fact that gluttonous summer readers know they are indulging in a Deadly Sin

² Those on a tight schedule who still want to experience Gabaldon’s work might want to explore The Reduced Gabaldon

³ Nicely accentuated by a complexion some see as “waxen”