The Morning: Summer reading

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May 28, 2022

By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. Today we look at this summer's crop of new books.

Allie Sullberg

Page turners

It's Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start to summer, and the official start to summer reading. I'm smitten with the promise of a season spent buried in books, with "the possibility of long sunlit days spent unmoored from everyday restraints and immersed in a literary world," as Jennifer Harlan wrote in The Times last year.

I'm giving myself permission to cast aside the dry novel I've been halfheartedly reading for weeks in favor of the far more exciting summer books recommended by my colleagues on the Books desk.

What better to enliven a stretch of stale reading than some juicy Hollywood history? "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy," a book about Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward's marriage set against a backdrop of the 1960s L.A. art scene, sounds dreamy (or, as Helen Shaw describes it, "weird, smoggy, heated"). Harvey Fierstein's memoir promises "boatloads of charm and gossip" — sold.

I'm trying to resuscitate my trailing jade, so Christopher Griffin's "You Grow, Gurl!: Plant Kween's Lush Guide to Growing Your Garden" looks right up my street. I'll check out "Be My Baby," the reissue of Ronnie Spector's 1990 memoir. And any book that "covers the Knicks the way Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein covered the Nixon White House in 'The Final Days,'" as John Swansburg writes of "Blood in the Garden," seems tough to resist.

I've been excited to try my colleague Eric Kim's cookbook, "Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home." It's described as "exuberant and erudite," so I'm hoping it'll be as fun to read as to cook from. Keith Thomson's maritime history "Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune" sounds transporting. I want to read pretty much every thriller in Sarah Lyall's roundup, especially Dervla McTiernan's "The Murder Rule": "part legal thriller, part detective story, part analysis of a small-town reign of terror and part excavation of the secrets and lies of the past."

A bunch of intriguing literary fiction is coming this summer, too. Joseph Han's "Nuclear Family," about a Korean American family living in Hawaii around the time of 2018's false missile alert, looks promising. Sloane Crosley and Ottessa Moshfegh have new novels coming, and 24 years after "Election," Tom Perrotta is bringing back his ambitious high-school protagonist in "Tracy Flick Can't Win." (She's an assistant principal now.) Oh, and Mohsin Hamid, Maggie O'Farrell and Jean Hanff Korelitz all have new novels as well. It's going to be a busy summer.

What are you looking forward to reading? Tell me.

For More

Taking a vacation? Here are the books to pack.
Did the pandemic change summer reading for good? Elisabeth Egan hopes so.
Our critic Molly Young offers recommendations of books old and new in her newsletter, Read Like the Wind.

WEEKENDS ARE FOR …

🎧 Podcasts: Six explore the dark side of the internet.

📺 TV: Ten "Bob's Burgers" episodes to watch before seeing the movie.

🏊‍♀️ Swimming: Make it your summer workout.

🎼 Classical music: Five new albums.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Monica Barbaro in "Top Gun: Maverick"Paramount Pictures

How similar is the new "Top Gun" to the first movie? We answered your questions and got to know the new cast. The stunts were difficult.
The defamation case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard went to a jury.
These Cannes films have the best Oscar odds. Vanessa Friedman picked the festival's fashion winners.
Collectors have replaced museums or scholars in who determines art's skyrocketing value, Jason Farago argues.
In "Goodfellas," Ray Liotta was the right actor to turn the right part into a classic, Glenn Kenny writes. Liotta died this week at 67.
"Stranger Things" is back. Here's a refresher.
The Washington Post explained where every "This Is Us" character ended up.

THE LATEST NEWS

The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, right, at a news conference yesterday.Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Children in the classrooms with the Texas gunman called 911 repeatedly while the police waited in the hall for more than an hour.
Police in the U.S. responding to mass shootings are trained above all to confront the gunman.
The gunman left multiple hints of his plans in the weeks before the massacre.
Human rights experts accused President Vladimir Putin of Russia of waging a genocidal campaign to wipe out part of the Ukrainian population.
Southern Baptist Convention leaders published a list this week of hundreds of church workers "credibly accused" of sexual abuse.
Millions of Americans are expected to travel this Memorial Day weekend.

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RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Brian Preston-Campbell. Prop stylist: PJ Mehaffey.

By Melissa Clark

Momofuku's Bo Ssam

You don't have to grill on Memorial Day if you are having a party. Other festive dishes feed a crowd, and some, like David Chang's bo ssam, can be made almost entirely in advance. That means that, instead of standing in front of your Weber for the whole evening, you can be relaxing and chatting with your friends, holding a delightful beverage. I've made bo ssam often since the recipe was published in The New York Times Magazine a decade ago, and it never fails to delight all who dig in. You'll have to start marinating the pork the night before, and it then needs about six hours in a low oven. But considering the payoff, it's worth every minute — most of which, happily, are hands off.

A selection of New York Times recipes is available to all readers. Please consider a Cooking subscription for full access.

REAL ESTATE

Clockwise from left: Steve Buchanan Photography; Dynamic Motion LLC; Nauset Media for Sotheby's International Realty

What you get for $700,000: A Colonial in Chestertown, Md.; a midcentury-modern showplace in West Des Moines, Iowa; or a cottage in East Sandwich, Mass.

The hunt: They wanted outdoor space to support their "plant habit." Which home did they choose? Play our game.

Rental secrets: How do you find a New York apartment now? Readers explain.

Behind the scenes: The dream home promised by makeover shows is sometimes elusive.

Staying put: The best available home may be the one you're in.

LIVING

The drag queen Kay Sedia at a Taco Bell Cantina in Chicago.Anjali Pinto for The New York Times

Going mainstream: Drag brunch has come to Taco Bell.

Tick season: Do you know how to stay safe? Take our quiz.

Wedding etiquette: Disinviting guests can be a minefield.

Maintaining: Protein powders can help stave off muscle loss.

SUMMER OF CYCLING

Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy

"Of all the ways to travel, is anything better than a bicycle?," asks Amy Virshup, our Travel editor, introducing a series about biking:

In the U.S., abandoned railroad tracks have new lives as trails. Bike trails in Vermont helped the economy but have locals concerned about traffic and price increases. And e-bikes make rides around Hawaiian islands a breeze.
Check out seven great biking cities around the world, bike along the sea wall in Vancouver or see southern Europe on two wheels.
New to biking? Here's an equipment guide.

GAME OF THE WEEKEND

Liverpool vs. Real Madrid, UEFA Champions League final: Real Madrid has won this tournament of Europe's top soccer clubs 13 times, far more than any other team. "The club considers it something of a birthright," Tariq Panja, who covers soccer for The Times, told us. The last time Madrid won, in 2018, it beat Liverpool, and Liverpool hasn't forgotten: The star forward Mohamed Salah tweeted, "We have a score to settle." 3 p.m. Eastern today on CBS and Paramount+

For more:

The game had been set for St. Petersburg, but soccer officials moved it after Russia invaded Ukraine. It will take place in Paris instead.
The Athletic wrote about Salah's determination to get even.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was warming. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines.

Here's today's Wordle. If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here.

Before You Go …

Florence and the Machine have a new album. Have a listen.
Peruse the V&A Museum's Beatrix Potter collection.
Here's a gallery of rotating food.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.