Summer is a good time to suspend some disbelief. As thunderheads build over the city, our heat-crazed brains give themselves over to all kinds of unlikely scenarios and extreme possibilities. In other words, it's a good time for fiction. Here, in three excerpts from forthcoming works by local authors — the last of which has just been optioned for film by Harry Potter producer David Heyman — you'll find tattooed Lotharios, telekinetic pre-schoolers, and a Rome that never was. Or was it? The air shimmers and cicadas drone, and the strangest things seem possible.
THE ORACLE ENGINE, excerpted from the short story by M. T. Anderson
BUSY MONSTERS, excerpted from the book by William Giraldi
THE NIGHT CIRCUS, excerpted from the novel by Erin Morgenstern
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Beach reads that don't suck, DIY Education, Photos: Michele McPhee hosts book signing party for A Date With Death, More 
- Beach reads that don't suck
Lists of beach reads — though as reliable as summer itself — are, generally speaking, a sham.
- DIY Education
In light of recent budget cuts in average Americans' bank accounts, and the increasingly skyrocketing cost of higher education, Phoenix University (we regret the acronym, but University of Phoenix was taken) has opened its (paper) doors.
- Photos: Michele McPhee hosts book signing party for A Date With Death
Michele McPhee meets fans and signs copies of her book about the Craigslist killer, A Date With Death , at Jerry Remy's Sports Bar & Grill on January 3, 2011.
- So you thought you were special
Reading Hannah Holmes's work is enlightening and entertaining — even when it's at its most depressing.
- Reaching a new frontier
Shetterly's new memoir, Made for You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, Finding Home is the story of hardships — financial, familial, emotional — not usually the stuff that inspires switching places.
- State struggles, Gina good!
I don't know the solution to our state's fiscal and political problems. If I did, I'd probably run for public office.
- Review: My Afternoons with Margueritte
European cinema doesn't have as many sure-fire formulas as Hollywood, but the one described, I think, by Pauline Kael as the "lonely child, clean old man" scenario has long endured.
- Photos: LeVar Burton at Tufts University
LeVar Burton accepts the Eliot-Pearson Award for Excellence in Children's Media at Tufts University on February 3, 2012.
- This winter, discover sex and revolution at Rhode Island's libraries
There is plenty to do outdoors during a New England winter: skiing, skating, snowboarding, ice-yachting. I just don't do any of it.
- Raven Used Books to nest on Newbury
When some years ago John Petrovato decided to make a career change, he swapped the insecurity of playing bass in a New Jersey–based indie-rock band for the uncertainty of selling used books in Montague, Massachusetts, a mill town on the banks of the Connecticut River not far from Springfield.
- Strange trips
If you want this summer’s eerie subject matter to hit a bit closer to home, or a bit closer to reality, check out Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State , by Michelle Souliere (The History Press; $17.99).
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