We know reading isn’t cool, yet we still insist on doing it from time to time — it remains an immensely enjoyable form of mass entertainment. A good story in book form lasts much longer than in film or television. As well, the characters tend to be more richly drawn and the stories more complicated. How many times has a book been edited down and simplified when turned into a film? For those still daring enough to risk peer humiliation and open up a book every now and again, here are a couple of things we read while on vacation.

Harty’s debut short story collection won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, and the eight stories collected here are achingly sad, yet intensely beautiful. Most explore the delicate balance between desire and obligation. Upon finishing this fantastic collection, we were left with an emotional ache similar to the one conjured by “Lost in Translation’s” conclusion — not exactly pleasurable, but greatly affecting.

Neil Strauss is the definition of a middlebrow writer. He is best known for his best-selling biographies of Motley Crue, Marilyn Manson and porn star Jenna Jameson, but his latest tome isn’t about anyone else — it’s about him. More specifically, the two years he spent submersed in the underground world of the pick-up artist. A lifelong loser with the ladies, Strauss set out to turn his lady luck around, and in the process became one of the scene’s biggest stars. He did so by being mentored by some of the world’s most famous pick-up artists, many of whom are misogynistic power mongers who fight over Strauss’ allegiance (the Tom Cruise character in “Magnolia” is based on one of these mentors). But Strauss is smarter than the men that teach him. He cobbles together pieces from each of the pick-up methods and arrives at his own conclusions while other students slowly become automatons. Warts and all, the book is a fascinating glimpse into a subculture that you likely never knew existed.

Stand-up comic and occasional TV personality Chelsea Handler has had a lot of one night stands, and this memoir chronicles them all. From well-hung midgets to hunky strippers named Thunder, Handler’s collection of her life in the bedroom is laugh out loud funny. The book would have been more interesting were Handler’s emotional life explored as deeply as her sexual life, but alas, that’s not the point, and perhaps it’s unfair to bash a book about one night stands as being emotionally vacant.

Other books we dipped into but didn’t finish (but we hope to soon):
: A must-read for anyone interested in mass consumerism and popular culture.
: The creator of “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared” takes us into the center of his frustrated adolescence.
: A hilarious collection of essays from the outrageously opinionated NPR contributor.