They say that summer is the time for light reading. If light means mindless or predictable, no thanks. But if light means comic, then I’m in. Here are two comic novels I thoroughly enjoyed this summer.

Each of the first four chapters of Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other tells the stories of three black British women whose lives are connected in different ways.

A lot of fine readers I know really liked Vanessa and Her Sister, a fictional recreation of the lives of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. But I resisted it, for some reason. I often dislike fictionalized biographies of my literary heroes – though David Lodge’s efforts in that genre are exceptional. However, when tidying shelves in the store during the Christmas rush, I stumbled upon a new title by an author I love, Sigrid Nunez.