Never again will I have such a perfect setup for summer reading as my grade-school and early-teen years in Phoenix. Most days would start with mowing a lawn or two before the temperature reached a full sizzle. The day’s enterprise done, I would retire to my room, where, as in the whole house, the shades were drawn to keep out the noontime glare. My room benefited from being on the same end of the house with the evaporative “swamp cooler,” which blew icy, damp air. There in the dim chill, defying the blistering heat outside, I would settle into a big orange Naugahyde beanbag chair (the comfort of which has never been equaled) and read the day away.

Perhaps my happiest memories are of the books that were age-appropriate. I was 13 when I consumed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, an ideal age for gobbling up Tolkien and all his goblins. When my kids were young I bought a copy of Rifles for Watie in the hope they would, around 9 years old, enjoy it as much as I had. (They read Harry Potter instead.)