A little light reading? Forget that

It’s a summer when, between the massive new Harry Potter and John Irving’s 800-plus-page opus, a trip to the beach with novel in tow might require some heavy lifting. The big books of summer are upon us. Big as in weighty -- we’re talking poundage, not the latest pretender to the James Joyce crown.

Scale in hand, we dropped into the Borders in Canoga Park to size up the season’s fiction heavyweights. A cursory sample turned up these stats:

John Irving, “Until I Find You” (Random House). 848 pp. 2.9 lbs.

William T. Vollmann, “Europe Central” (Viking). 832 pp. 2.74 lbs.

Charles Chadwick, “It’s All Right Now” (HarperCollins). 688 pp. 2.73 lbs.

J.K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Arthur A. Levine Books). 652 pp. 2.4 lbs.

Elizabeth Kostova, “The Historian” (Little, Brown). 656 pp. 2.1 lbs.

Mark Helperin, “Freddy and Fredericka” (The Penguin Press HC). 576 pp. 1.14 lbs.

Wesley Stace, “Misfortune” (Little, Brown). 544 pp. 1.12 lbs.

Of course, nothing new compares with Neal Stephenson’s 2003 963-page novel, “Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)” (William Morrow), which clocked in at a mighty 3.4 lbs.

Don’t expect relief if your tastes run to nonfiction. Several new American history releases tip the scale in the 2-pound range.

Is more more? Readers seem to think so. Irving, Kostova and Rowling, at least, are matching mega-size with mega-sales.

-- Casey Dolan