Even if your required reading days are long over -- a sprawling period of book reports and forced enthusiasm for anachronistic classics condensed into a glinting blip in your memory -- theres something about summertime that recalls freedom.

You can wear shorts! You can sit outside with few repercussions! Perhaps most importantly, you can read whatever the heck you want! There is no need to hide an anticipated comic issue inside your work of Important Realism. Tou can savor it in broad daylight.

To celebrate these solstice-brought freedoms, weve wrangled up a few wild new books, books that are unlikely to be assigned on a high school syllabus, but are whip-smart and wonderfully weird.

Enjoy. Or dont! The choice is yours.