Just as it is customary for newspapers and magazines to provide a roundup of the year’s best books at the end of December, it is de rigeur to publish a list of recommended summer reading as the calendar marks June 21.

I guess I’ll do the same, though I’m not exactly sure what the difference is between good summer reading and good, say, autumn reading. If I were a betting man, I’d guess that a beach book (implicit in summer reading is that everyone will head off to a sandy shoreline, spread something oily over a landscape of flesh that has been covered and whitening for three seasons, and whip out a book) is either lighter, less demanding, and more superficial than a winter book, or is a big fat saga that can last for the best part of a long weekend.

So how does one recommend light, undemanding, superficial books with a straight face? It seems that this can be done if the book is humorous, not overly violent, and avoids a lot of scenes in dimly lighted alleys or bars. With that as a criterion, let me strongly recommend any and every book by Alexander McCall Smith, who has now produced a delightful series of five books about Precious Ramotswe, founder of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana.

The most recent, and up to the high standard established with the first book and each succeeding one, is “The Full Cupboard of Life”(Pantheon, $19.95, 198 pages), in which Precious Mama Ramotswe must solve several problems, including when she will finally be married to her foot-dragging fiance. When he puts her off yet again, saying next year, or maybe the year after that, she decides to make the best of things, as is her custom. After all, she decides, there may be some advan tages to being engaged rather than being married.

You often heard of difficult husbands, she muses, but how often did you hear of difficult fiances? As the head of the first detective agency in her village, Ramotswe must also solve a case of employee theft, which troubles her because she must embarrass the culprit, and has other adventures that are so mild and gentle that they would make life inside a monastery seem like a confrontation between the Bloods and the Crips.

Clearly, these episodic novels are not traditional detective stories. In this one, Ramotswe acts as a private eye to determine if a wealthy lady is being courted by the men of her village for love or the money she earns from her chain of beauty parlors. But the relentless warmth, generosity, cheerfulness, and simple wisdom of the heroine are guaranteed to charm you.

Also charming, but in a more con temporary fashion, is Lisa Scottoline, the bestselling author of numerous legal thrillers, including the just-published “Killer Smile” (HarperCollins, $25.95, 356 pages). Ms. Scottoline was a lawyer (graduating an impressive cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania) before deciding to stay home to raise her child.A fan of Scott Turow and John Grisham, she detected a dearth of books about female lawyers and so started writing her own (“Killer Smile” is the 11th).

Ms. Scottoline has been a fixture on the bestseller list with the past half-dozen titles. Most have featured the all-female Philadelphia law office of Rosato & Associates, with various members of the firm taking the lead role in various books. They have, without exception, been great fun, with more good one-liners than anyone would have a right to expect from a lawyer.

In the latest, Mary DiNunzio, a young associate, receives a terrifyingly threatening phone call while working late. The nut case who calls is labeled Premenstrual Tom for his loud rantings and is laughed off by Mary’s boss, Bennie Rosato. But more calls, suspicious shadows, and a car that appears to relentlessly fol low her makes her a nervous wreck.

So does the fact that all her friends and colleagues seem to hate the fact that she’s an unattached attractive young widow, and so set her up with one blind date from hell after another. When she actually likes one of her dates, she thinks about her late husband and forbids herself from feeling too warmly about him. “Paul didn’t seem to want anything from her,” she realizes, “nor could he. It would take 38,270 more dates before she slept with him, and even then she wouldn’t enjoy it.”

Here are a few more good recent books for the beach (okay, for pretty much anywhere), in no particular order: Sue Grafton’s new Kinsey Millhone book “R Is for Ricochet” (Putnam, 400 pages, $26.95); Lawrence Block’s latest Bernie Rhodenbarr book, “The Burglar on the Prowl” (William Morrow, 304 pages, $24.95); Lee Child’s just-released Jack Reacher tale, “The Enemy” (Delacorte, 400 pages, $25); Michael Connelly’s terrific sequel to “The Poet,” “The Narrows” (Little, Brown, 416 pages, $25.95); Robert B. Parker’s satisfying new Spenser, “Bad Business” (Putnam, 320 pages, $24.95); Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason’s sudden bestseller, “The Rule of Four” (Dial, 364 pages, $24); John Shannon’s latest underrated Jack Liffey title, “Terminal Island” (Carroll & Graf, 256 pages, $25); Harlan Coben’s hot bestseller, “Just One Look” (Dutton, 352 pages, $25.95); Randy Wayne White’s firstrate Doc Ford adventure, “Tampa Burn” (Putnam, 352 pages, $24.95); and Charles McCarry’s brilliant “Old Boys” (Overlook, 476 pages, $25.95).

If you don’t have time to read them all, take another week’s vacation. It will be worth it.