Have you read any good books lately? By yourself…or to others? Today we offer summer reading suggestions. On Monday, we will offer a suggestion on how you can change a life by becoming involved in teaching literacy.

We asked a few readers we know to recommend books we all might enjoy this summer. Please add to that list by posting your own suggestions via our Comment option at the bottom of this entry. You can order these books online via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but we hope you will also consider supporting your local independent bookseller.

Erika: I recommend WATER, ICE & STONE: Science and Memory on the Antarctic Lakes by Bill Green. A classic of contemporary nature writing, this book is about seven field seasons spent in Antarctica—a key continent for charting the effects of climate change—by a geochemist who writes like a poet. What better way to keep cool in the summer than to take an imaginative voyage to this starkly beautiful icy wilderness?

George: Ian McEwan’s ON CHESIL BEACH will be released in paperback June 10, eponymously timely for beach season. As readers of ATONEMENT and his other novels know, Ian McEwan is a fine storyteller, an acute observer of character and an exquisite writer. He is the master of the defining moment. On Chesil Beach, a short novel, tells the story of a sweet, promising young English couple, virgins in the quaint summer of 1962: their courtship, disastrous wedding night and its brutal aftermath. The ingredient which makes the most compelling love stories so achingly tragic is inevitablity: Couldn’t Aeneas have stayed with Dido, what if the messenger had reached Romeo in time, and, in On Chesil Beach, why did Edward and Florence find it so impossible to talk about it?

David: Jeffrey Toobin’s superb book about the Supreme Court, THE NINE. Just in case we are all lulled into a stupor in the dog days of the presidential campaign, this colorful examination inside the secret world of the Court reminds voters why their vote this November matters, not just for the next four years, but for the next generation.

Ruth: WHEN A CROCODILE ATE THE SUN: A Memoir of Africa, by Peter Godwin. The New Yorker wrote: “Godwin, the author of a previous memoir about growing up during Zimbabwe’s war of independence, has written a sequel of sorts, tracing the collapse of his country in the course of the past decade.. in tandem with the decline of his father.” I found this book fascinating–with a surprising twist near the end. With the Mugabe saga unfolding there now, it’s even more interesting. Godwin’s writing makes the story come alive. One definitely feels they’re part of the happenings.

Larry: TIME AND AGAIN by Jack Finney. A blend of mystery and science fiction in which a man who can travel back and forth in time discovers even the slightest contact can have profound changes. I recommend this over the bestselling Time Traveller’s Wife. Other favorite mystery writers: Clive Cussler (start with Raise the Titanic); Robert Tannenbaum books with Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi; Dennis Lehane; John Sandford with Lucas Davenport; and Michael Deaver with Lincoln Rhyme.

In the Ampolo household Steve’s recent favorite is THE BLUE STAR, Tony Earley’s simple, lyrical tale about a teenager in rural North Carolina in 1941. This is a sequel to the equally wonderful JIM, THE BOY. Critics who have raved about these books describe them as “children’s stories for adults.” Also for fans of political writing, check out Matt Bai’s, insightful and witty, THE ARGUMENT. What’s it about? The subtitle says it all: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.

Sharon says, “Amy Bloom is a wonderful writer whose short stories take readers to unexpected places. But none of her stories prepared me for the ‘unexpectedness’ of her most recent novel, AWAY. I can’t think of a more compelling summer read–or listen–since it’s read on CD by Barbara Rosenblatt, a champion reader/narrator/actress, in my opinion. I began listening to the novel in the car and when my trip ended, I had to pull out the hardcover book and read it myself until I was finished, so I can vouch for both methods. I loved this book.

“And for an intellectual, yet mystical, magical, and often hilarious summer book? Anything by Stephen Millhauser. MARTIN DRESSLER is probably his most well-known, but for sheer brilliance, his first novel, EDWIN MULLHOUSE: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF AN AMERICAN WRITER, is a gem. And if your summer vacation isn’t as long as you’d like? Pick up LITTLE KINGDOMS, a volume containing three of his novellas–each of which are mini-vacations in themselves.”

Now it’s your turn. What ya’ recommend?

Welcome to Ampolo from Ampolo Team on Vimeo.

Usually this space is reserved for us to ask you questions, but this week we wanted to do something a bit different and answer the questions that many Ampolo viewers have been asking us: Where did the idea for a site about ideas come from? What are you trying to accomplish? What does Ampolo mean?

To address these and other questions, we are reprising our introductory episode. But make no mistake, we are not in fall re-runs. We just finished shooting several more episodes that will feature new product ideas, new book and movie ideas, new fundraising ideas, and interviews with heads of not for profit organizations and ordinary citizens who have ideas for making the community a better place.

We’re happy to say that many of the episodes you’ll see in the weeks to come were generated by viewers, who sent their ideas in the form of videos, drawings, or simple text. That, friends, is what Ampolo is all about: encouraging people to be creative and to share their ideas, large and small, with others who believe in the power of ideas to make life better or just plain more interesting.

We hope that to date our episodes have got you thinking, talking round the kitchen table, looking in the attic for that old story outline or product design you thought of years ago. We hope that some of you may even have seen an episode that you are currently taking and running with. And we hope that you will consider sending us ideas you may have.