Pop Fic on Your Summer Reading Lists

You’d never leave your summer reading to the last few weeks of summer vacation, right? It’s tempting, but we’re sure you've already recovered from your final exams and are pumped and ready to get knee-deep in literature - right?
If you're like me, you associate summer reading with fairly dense, and usually very old books - from your 19th century favorites by Dickens or Twain to the utopian or post-apocalyptic variety (think Brave New World and 1984). In fact, I have a distinct memory of dragging a hefty copy of Pride and Prejudice to the beach, tossed in there with my 30 SPF sunscreen and a Nutrigrain bar.
But if you think those are your only choices, think again. In fact, there are some pretty fascinating book choices on your summer reading lists this year. Several schools in the SMUHSD have added Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner to the list this year, a book that spent 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold over 4 million copies (it’s actually that good!). Woodside High School has assigned seniors to read Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father - yes, the president's first memoir. Students at Aragon and Menlo Atherton are reading the sensational Fast Food Nation, the bestselling phenomenon about a guy whose commitment to eat McDonald’s reveals frightening fast-food consequences. And sophomores at Mills (get ready....drum roll, please) are reading Stephanie Meyer's Eclipse. Yes, the third book in the Twilight series, the teen phenomenon that brought us a messy haired Robert Pattinson playing a vampire in the films.
My question is this: where do you draw the line? When does a New York Times bestseller cross over and become a CLASSIC? While you might enjoy the fact that your school is assigning a book or two that you wanted to read anyway (or already have), does this mean that there is no difference in literary legitimacy between A Tale of Two Cities and Twilight?
I'll save my answer, for now. Looking forward to some dialogue in the comments section; and whatever you're reading this summer (what are you reading this summer?) I hope it's leading to some enthralled page-turning!