Fairfax, VA, USA. Summers come, summers go, but the summer reading list is forever and I recline on the edge of somnolence, roused by our books waiting to be shelved or boxed away.

This is a partial list of my summer reading. It doesn’t include a dozen or more e-books I have read or any book I may have re-read. It doesn’t even include every non-e-book I have started and finished.

Palenville, NY, USA. In his decision that went against the Maetreum of Cybele, Judge Platkin of the Albany Supreme Court of New York used some absolutely astounding logic.

Apparently, and actually against established caselaw, providing “affordable housing” for women who otherwise would probably be homeless or escaping abusive living situations is not charitable.

Sacramento, CA, USA. A ballot measure to require labeling of genetically modified foods brought big money and prominent players to the table in California and other states.

California’s Proposition 37 started out as one ex-farmer’s low-budget quest to get genetically modified foods labeled at the grocery store.

Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK. Lady Anne Clifford, a 17th century aristocrat, left manuscript evidence of how women challenged male authority in the Britain of her time.

Clifford’s 600,000-word Great Books of Record documents the trials and triumphs of her family dynasty over six centuries and her bitter battle to inherit castles and villages across northern England.