People often lament that they don't have time to read fiction. In our social media age, the pressure to stay constantly up to date about current affairs is so demanding that it's no wonder fiction can become a low priority. But it is always seemed to me that top-line fiction and non-fiction have similar value: inviting readers to consider the world from different perspectives, explore complex human and moral quandaries, experience the gamut of emotions and lose themselves in an entertaining yarn.

The five stories in this year's annual Summer Reading Special have these qualities in spades. Stretching from comic to tragic, realist to fantastic, spare to poetic, leading Australian writers Cate Kennedy, Steven Amsterdam, Sonya Hartnett, Janette Turner Hospital and Nicholas Shakespeare demonstrate the range and power of great fiction.

There's also an abundance of political and social fare for you to enjoy at leisure over the holidays, before the Monthly returns in February and we unveil our exciting plans for 2012. On behalf of the Monthly team, I wish you a festive summer break and a prosperous new year.

Ben Naparstek
Editor