Happy Memorial Day! It’s the unofficial beginning of summer. Kids are wrapping up the end of their school years, summer vacation plans are starting to take shape, and the world of publishing is talking about “beach reads.”

I love summertime for audiobook listening opportunities. We often think about car rides for listening to audiobooks, and if you’re driving to your vacation destination, you’ll definitely need some great stories for that. But I find a lot of other great opportunities for listening as well: doing yard work, walking in the park with my dog, sitting on the front porch on a warm evening; there is just so much prime time for audiobooks in the summer. And these days with iPods, smart phones, tablets, and other MP3-playing devices, we can pack plenty of listening goodness for whatever the occasion. What kinds of summer activities do you enjoy doing while listening to an audio?

Do you find yourself choosing certain kinds of books for your summer listening? Maybe a little lighter fare than usual? Save the WAR AND PEACE for those cold winter stretches—let’s move (especially if you’re out running in the sunshine)! Thrillers and fast-moving mysteries are great for just this occasion. They’re also very healthy—they’ll keep you from falling asleep in the sun and acquiring a sunburn.

I have a few suggestions for you to consider for your summer listening playlist. And I’d love it if you’d offer up some of your own suggestions in the comments this week. So here we go.

For those who favor thrillers, you can check out Brad Parks’s first non-series book, SAY NOTHING, read by the versatile George Newbern.

Looking down the calendar, you can mark Meg Gardiner’s new thriller UNSUB down for the end of June. This one will have your heart pumping!

If summer makes you yearn for something on the humorous side, how about a crew of pensioners who rob the National Museum in an effort to be arrested because they’re sure they’ll receive better treatment in jail than their retirement home? Check out Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg’s THE LITTLE OLD LADY WHO BROKE ALL THE RULES, delightfully performed by Patience Tomlinson.

More funny mystery goodness to anticipate this summer includes David Rosenfelt’s sixteenth Andy Carpenter installment, COLLARED, out this July.

But if you’re not a fan of funny (is there such a creature?), how about a dark police procedural like Trudy Nan Boyce’s OLD BONES? This is her second Detective Sarah Alt novel. If you haven’t listened to the first, you can easily pick this one up alone, but heck, it’s summer, grab OUT OF THE BLUES as well. Rebecca Lowman narrates them both.

And the summer of 2017 has many more hard boiled novels coming our way, like a new stand alone from Spencer Quinn about a female Afghanistan war vet. THE RIGHT SIDE is one I’m anticipating.

 How about you? What’s on your listening list for the summer of 2017? Share with us in the comments!