Summer is here, so we all ought to be getting into our summer reading lists. ‘Tis the season for enjoying the books you have either intended to read for the longest time (think Faulkner or Melville, for instance) or have set aside especially for this more relaxed time of the year (think notable “beach book” authors like Stephen King, John Grisham or Janet Evanovich).

Certainly the one book that many readers are eagerly awaiting will hit the stores on July 14. That is, of course, Harper Lee’s greatly anticipated second book “Go Set a Watchman,” the follow-up to her now-classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The new novel has stirred so much attention not merely for the worldwide affection lavished on “Mockingbird” — now 55 years old –but also because it represents the only other book we know she has written.

Everyone wants to know — will it as good as “Mockingbird?” The answer is almost certainly no, nor should anyone reasonably expect it to be at that exalted level. It was, after all, a book the author actually wrote before “Mockingbird” and which she laid aside for extensive revisions that became “Mockingbird.” She did not permit its publication for over half a century, and that has has raised the question in a few quarters that at her advanced age she only reluctantly agreed to release it now. We may never know for sure, but there seems little point in arguing it any further. “Watchman” will be here in several weeks and we will all have a few more answers about it. Reserve your copy now!

And no matter what readers think of it, “Watchman” is certainly revving up business for bookstores around the country. A huge potential bestseller brings lots of readers into stores, and those readers just as often hang around to buy a few more titles while they’re at it. That’s good news for the stores, for the authors and for readers as well.

As for me — well, my summer “to do” list is topped by George Eliot’s “Middlemarch,” a classic I’ve been meaning to read for decades now. The list also includes some strong nonfiction: A.N. Wilson’s new biography of Queen Victoria (turns out she wasn’t always 80 years old and a dour, stodgy monarch); historian Richard Beeman’s “Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution ” (turns out most politicians have no clue as to how our Founding Fathers actually created that document); and “American Warlords: How Roosevelt’s High Command Led America to Victory in World War II” (turns out FDR was not merely clever but smart and lucky, too).

Hope your summer reading proves as interesting and as challenging.