Recently Lauren Piester has gone on a reading spree. "Every free moment I've had in the past week (when I wasn't catching up on a little bit of extremely important television) I have spent reading," she writes. "With the summer and its ample reading time coming up, I thought I would take a moment to recommend some of my favorite books/series to you."

In the summer of 2002, something referred to as the "plague" destroys every sperm, fetus, and mammal with a Y chromosome, with the apparent exception of struggling magician Yorick and his male capuchin monkey, Ampersand. So begins "Y: The Last Man," a series of graphic novels that Katherine Allen calls riveting and provocative.