Jeff’s “I Wish I Could Read All Day” Books of June 2025
38:11 Share

At Sierra, discover top workout gear at incredible prices, which might lead to another discovery. Your headphones haven't been connected this whole time. Awkward.

Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. With a Venmo debit card, you can Venmo more than just your friends. You can use your balance in so many ways. You can Venmo everything. Need gas? You can Venmo this. How about snacks? You can Venmo that. Your favorite band's merch? You can Venmo this. Or their next show? You can Venmo that. Visit venmo.me slash debit to learn more. You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that. You can Venmo this, or you can Venmo that.

The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank, and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International Incorporated. Card may be used everywhere MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply. Hey everybody, Jeff here, dropping in a first edition episode that just went live into the main Book Riot podcast feed. This is the, I'm trying to think of a permanent name for this, the Hey I Just Might, the Jeff Corr books, the I Wish I Could Read All Day list of books that I myself, Jeff O'Neill, have my eye on for June 1st.

2025. I thought you might like to have it in this feed as well. So if you do, great. If you don't, download the delete and we'll talk to you soon. All right, here we go. This is first edition and it's June and there are so many fascinating books coming out that I'm running back. The Jeff Kor books of the month, the Hey, I Just Might books of the month, Don't Tempt Me With a Good Time books of the month,

to tell listeners about the books that I'm interested in. And maybe that's entertaining by itself. Maybe you're going to find some things you're interested in for you or someone in your life. I'm not going to be repeating anything we did on the It Books of the Month episode over on the Book Riot podcast. So,

If you're wondering, hey, Jeff, what about Flashlight by Susan Choi? Or what about Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid? Or, you know, one of those books, Barrier Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. I'm interested in all those. I've read some of those already. We're going to talk about those in various places. But this is stuff that I haven't talked about.

in other places, maybe a Patreon mention here or there. But anyway, I'm going to do a minute or so on each. In most case, I haven't read it. I'm going to say what it is, maybe why I'm interested in it. Don't have to justify myself putting it out there. So let's get into it.

All right. I'm on the blurbs matter sometimes camp. Every now and again, like cicadas, the do book blurbs matter conversation comes back around. And I think the answer is sometimes. And that's a frustrating answer. And I get that from a publicist's point of view, certainly from a blurber's point of view, and maybe most critically from an author who has to go sheepishly ask for blurbs point of view. But if you get this blurb,

This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am. And this is one. That's a good blurb. But if you get that blurb from Percival Everett, which this book does, and the book is called Endling by Mario Reva, on sale June 3rd. So out now from Doubleday. I pay attention. I just do. I don't.

I don't know. I don't know what to do with something like that, but it catches my eye and I am who I am. So what's this book about? It's a novel, darkly comic. The comps are martyr Lincoln and the Bardo. I'm interested. I just am. And the synopsis here is pretty wild. It's set in Ukraine.

In the lead up to the current war, and it looks like a little bit during, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and the last of its kind snail. A Double Day, which is a literary commercial imprint, was something like that with an Everett quote. I want to see what it's about. 352 pages, June 3rd. That's out now.

I guess these might be kind of arranged by publishers. We're going to see how we do. This is Crown. So not Knopf Doubleday, but still a PRH imprint. So maybe you can see what my Edelweiss journey was looking at. This is The Great Man by Kyra Davis Lurie. It is June 10th from Crown, so it's going to be out pretty quick here. And this is, I feel like I maybe talked about this somewhere. Maybe it was an honorable mention on the summer draft, or maybe I just meant to tell Rebecca about it and I don't remember.

But as The Great Gatsby has become in the public domain, we've gotten a lot of Great Gatsby retellings. I don't think this one needed The Great Gatsby in the public domain. I think you can retell the same story and lightly alter it. I don't know. It feels like Transformers worked for me. But anyway, I haven't been interested in many of them, to be perfectly honest with you. But this one is a version of The Great Gatsby set among the black elite of post-war Los Angeles inspired by real-life events.

I think that's enough to me. 1945 LA black, upwardly mobile socialites. That's not a world I know a lot about. I know some Chicago, I knew some New York, but I really don't know this particular scene. So I'm very interested to see what this is. I think this is going to be 320 pages so we can get through it. It's very easy to try. That's a very, very easy one for me to give a shot. All right. This book, okay, this is a little bit of insider baseball, but when you're in Edelweiss, you're

Some of the books have their own listing, and then sometimes you get secondary listings for the same title that, you know, maybe it's an audiobook. Okay, most of them have audiobooks. Some of them don't have a separate audio listing. I don't understand that. But there's a couple things I look for that suggest that the publisher thinks that

this book is going to do more than average book because not all books get them. And there's two of them. One is, is it going to get a large format, large type, right? Makes sense. You know, they think it's going to be big enough, at least maybe for the kinds of folks that like larger type. And I'm increasingly one of those to be perfectly honest with you. So that's one. The other one is you can get like a carton, like a signed carton or an end cap or some other special box or something that puts a bunch of these together. Um,

And I would not have guessed that the Mobius book by Catherine Lacey, which is out June 17th, would get one of those. I guess the biography of X, which came out in 2023, which I liked quite well, to be honest, did well enough that they think there's going to be demand for this. And this is genre bending memoir, novel, auto fiction stuff. I got to be honest, I don't care.

I either want the truth, the whole truth, or at least present it as the truth. You know, lie to me that you're not lying to me. Or fiction. I don't quite understand the virtue of some of it's true and some of it's not. But I'm willing for Catherine Lacey to give it a shot. And here's the other thing, and this is crucial for me, for listeners of the show. 240 pages. So I can try it. I can dip in and dip out from there. Where do we want to go next? I'm just going to skip farther down the list to see what comes up. Okay.

Norton, love of my life. Let's do two nonfiction titles. You know, let's start with one that's maybe a little more generally interesting. So the first one is called The Big Hop, the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and into the future by David Rooney. That's out now, June 3rd, 336 pages.

When I saw this, it's got wonderful cover design, kind of this Art Deco font over a yellow biplane. And I like aviation and aviation history. My first thought, is this Charles Lindbergh? Because I don't want to spend time with Charles Lindbergh. I just, you know, just not what I'm interested in doing right now. But apparently this is not that. This was a group of aviators that came from Britain to compete in a competition that was called the Big Hop, a race to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean.

And what happens? So I think this is really interesting. I don't know much about this particular time. I love hearing about these mechanical innovations and the kinds of engineer daredevils, pioneers that go into this. So I'm really looking forward to listening to this on audiobook, which I haven't checked to see if there's an audiobook, but I hope there will be. And at 336 pages long.

This kind of history does the thing which so temptates if you're historian and you're writing a story like this You want to put it all in there? But as a reader and a listener I need it to be a little bit less of an ask maybe a good Father's Day gift for those of you who like who have fathers or father like figures or fathers at heart that like reading about histories of this kind I don't know how many people are gonna read this book. It's called the spinach King by John Seabrook This is out now also from Norton 368 pages and

And it is a true story of the Seabrooks of New Jersey. And they are a farming family from New Jersey that became aristocrats. And C.F. Seabrook, the patriarch, was called the Henry Ford of agriculture. And there's an intra-family dynasty thing going on here. It sounds like it doesn't go very well. And the coup de grace for my interest is John Seabrook, the author, is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

and I will, attention must be paid for me. Those people know how to tell a story, they know how to do their research, and they know how to marry research and sentence and story in a way that is kind of all that I want from my audiobook listening especially, which is how I'll do this as well. We're going to stay in a Norton triptych here. I think I talked about this somewhere else, but I'm going to mention it again here. Grand finale is The Creative Longevity of Women Artists by Susan Gubar. On sale June 10th. 384 pages.

So, this is interesting. It sounds like in her personal life, Susan Gubar was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And she was, as many people are, I don't know, shocked into thinking about what her life meant and how she wanted to spend the last years of her life. And she wanted to study medicine.

women later in life doing creative things. So the characters here, the people, George Eliot, Colette, George O'Keefe, Isaac Dennison, Marianne Moore, Mary Lou Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Catherine Dunham, all kinds of fascinating creative pioneers, rebels and rogues of their own kind. Pizazz Bravado and Geezer Machismo. Kudos to the publicity writer. Whoever wrote that copy, A+.

If like me, you love travel as much as you love books, you're into stories that sweep you away and stay with you like a favorite souvenir, check out Strong Sense of Place.

It's a podcast that explores the world one destination at a time. Think Morocco, Iceland, or New Orleans through five handpicked books that bring each setting vividly to life. You get culture, food, history, and the kind of texture that makes you want to buy a plane ticket on impulse and pack a bag. It's not just about geography, though. It's also about the atmosphere, the kind of storytelling that lets you hear the music from a street corner in Havana or smell the spices in a Thai market without ever having to leave the comfort of your couch.

The hosts, Mel and Dave, are a writer-photographer duo with great chemistry and a real curiosity about the world. They're in their seventh season now with more than 60 episodes to dig into. So if your idea of a perfect escape is a great story in an unforgettable place, Strong Sense of Place might just be your new favorite listen. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or head to strongsenseofplace.com.

Today's episode is brought to you by Kanopy. Stream smarter, use your library card. So if you're not familiar, you need to go ahead and get to the Kanopy app. Streaming services are getting buck wild with their prices, okay? But Kanopy, Kanopy is here for us. So on the Kanopy app, you can stream thousands of movies or TV shows for free 99, okay? F-R-E-E.

And that's thanks to the generous support of your public library. So all you need is a library card to access popular movies and TV shows, read alongs and kids programming on your smart TV, tablet, phone or browser. Visit Kanopy.com, that's K-A-N-O-P-Y.com to find a library near you and stream Smarter for free today. And just in case you're curious, they have movies like Moonlight, I Am Not Your Negro, which is a James Baldwin documentary,

Lady Bird. They've got some hit little joints on here. I'm not mad at it at all. Check out Canopy and thanks again to Canopy for sponsoring this episode.

Today's episode is brought to you by RP Teens, publisher of 13 Days of Summer by Stephanie Kate Strom. Calling all Swifties, calling all Swifties, Swifty Alert, Swifty Alert. This swoony blend of romance, friendship, and fandom follows three best friends on a cross-country road trip to see Taylor Swift in concert.

Along the way, the friends pick up a mysterious and charming guy who is stranded in a restaurant. And is that a James Dean daydream? Look in his eyes. Questions that need answers. When him and Carson hit it off, Carson gets a crash course in love at first sight. But as attractions grow, so too do tensions among the friends. Will the group make it to the concert with their friendship intact? Or is there too much?

Bad blood. Now this is the perfect summer read. A can't miss for Taylor Swift fans, but perfect for anyone who feels an emotional connection to music. This coming of age novel is really about the power and possibility of friendships. It will invoke a feeling of summery, salty air and freedom. We love a good road trip story in the summer. Make sure to pick up 13 Days of Summer by Stephanie Kate Strom. And thanks again to RP Teens for sponsoring this episode.

You may know Susan Gubar if you're a lit crit head. She and Sandra Gilburt wrote, I think, was it a book or an article? Maybe an article that came about called The Madwoman in the Attic. So if that name sounds familiar to you, congratulations on having a master's in English. But getting that reference there. Should we go to fiction? Something a little bit different?

Oh no, I'm me, so we're going to stay in nonfiction. Gallery Books, June 24th. Author is David Litt. It's called It's Only Drowning, A True Story of Learning to Surf in the Search for Common Ground. Here's another thing about me. If you put a...

interested, curious person into a new world, a fish out of water with a pen in their hand, I'm going to read that. And this is a former Obama speech writer who moved to Jersey and kind of, you know, goes into the process of learning to surf from the help of his brother-in-law, who is a, let's say, differently politically oriented person. His book thanks Obama for

was one of those post-Obama era hits and has gone on to have a career of his own. 304 pages. Really, this is my summertime Holy Grail kind of a book. It's about something, but not too much of something set on the shore. I don't know if they put this one in the lab for me.

Maybe they did. Maybe this is AI. And if it is, I've really got to evaluate how much AI I want in my life. Maybe for good, maybe for ill, I don't know. It's called How I Found Myself in the Midwest, a memoir of reinvention by Steve Grove. So Steve Grove was a Google executive and left that to move back to his home state of Minnesota. And this is that story.

Now currently the CEO and publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune, but was at YouTube as their first head of news and politics. I don't really know what I'm going to get with this. It could be overly sentimental and mawkish. I'm careful about that. My last experience with a Simon memoir ingrained was terrific, so I'm feeling myself in good hands with the folks at Simon acquiring these kinds of memoirs. But I'm going to give it a crack, 304 pages.

I'm saying I'm going to give a crack to all of these, but the truth is maybe half of them I'll at least try. There's just too many. There's just too many. Let's see. Where do we want to go next? I'm not sure. Oh, this is a good one. Essay Collection. Honoré Fanon Jeffers. Her debut novel, The Love Songs of W.B. Du Bois, was a huge hit, and I thought it was really terrific.

I even got over the length to enjoy that one. This is her nonfiction debut that is essays. Explores the journeys and possibilities of black women throughout history and in contemporary times. So I don't really know if there's going to be

A through line here, it's hard to say. It sounds like it's about all kinds of issues related to black femininity and black womanhood. But she's a poet and a writer and a thinker. And I'm on board to give this a crack. So that is out June 24th from Harper. Just, you know, pander to me. I'm not much of a buy books just to have the book situation. But from Pavilion, June 10th.

Literary Landscapes New York, a book lover's tour of the city that never sleeps. It's a coffee table book of literary landmarks in New York. Restaurants, bookshops.

author houses and neighborhoods, you know, Algonquin Hotel, Three Lives, The Strand, Greenlight. You know, it's a who's who. The Art Deco Public Library, houses where people appear, go to the plaza and see where the Gatsby folks, Daisy and Nick and Jay, were tipping tipples with each other. This is also a really great gift book. As someone who is

Fanning the flames in my household of a love of New York and literary stuff. It's going to be hard for me not to pick this one up at some point in the future. A couple that I have read. You're going to hear from Peter Mendelsohn, who's coming on first edition. I already recorded the interview, but that'll be publishing next week. He's got two books out. One's a novel and one is, well, not a novel. I'll talk about that in a second. The first one I'm going to talk about is The Weepers here. And it's a novel. And it is about a...

local union of professional mourners. This doesn't exist in the U.S., I should say. Set somewhere in the American Southwest in the current time or maybe near future. And they have been hired. They hire to go to funerals and mourn and grieve and provide some of the, I don't know, permission, but also volume to get what people want out of a funeral. And into their midst comes someone who

has an unusual ability to perform this and channel it and intensify this. And then what happens? Really interesting conversation with him about what he was trying to do with this book. I really liked it. I ripped through it. He makes up some of the jargon, which I think is pretty fun. 320 pages. I read it in a day and a half. So check that out if that sounds interesting to you. June 17th. The other is The Exhibitionist, also from Peter Mendelsohn. So...

He has throughout his life struggled with bouts of deep depression. And during COVID, he had an especially bad downturn. And in his absolute abject inability to find something to care about,

And he says this interview I did with him, his hands and his mind turned to making stuff as they have throughout his life. And in this case, he started to paint. And he's a wonderful cover designer and a wonderful artist of all kinds. So he's not just coming from it as a complete neophyte, but he hasn't studied canvas painting in a real way. And the exhibitionist is his diary of those days presented alongside some of the art that he made.

And so it is a chronicle of his depression and his art making. But it is not a art saved my life story. It turns out to be a diagnosis and medication saved my life story. But art happens alongside of it. And I found it really fascinating. I thought the art was very cool. I'm an art

I'm an amateur art lover, and I thought the art was really great. Mendelssohn is just a fascinating, fascinating kind of person. Frankly, the kind of, again, the struggles of depression I would not want at all, but his own thinking, his own making, his own sense of beauty and grandeur and wanting to make things, I find really inspiring. So that's coming out. I think that one, yes, that one is out now, June 3rd already you can find.

I read about this early, this next one. It's called The Nimbus by Robert P. Baird. 352 pages, June 10th from Holt. And I guess I'm also in the spec fic adjacent category. The Weepers a little bit this too, not to give too much away. But this one is a debut novel about a kid who glows. And they call it The Nimbus. And it...

upends this town and the people in it and the professor who's studying this kid and some graduate students. I'm not sure what this is exactly, but there's something about this pitch that I find very interesting. Baird has a PhD from University of Chicago's Divinity School. So clearly some theology at play here. He's been an editor at the New Yorker and Harper's Paris Review. So pretty impressive literary bona fides coming into a debut novel and

So I'm certainly going to give this the old 50 page go. 350 pages from Holt comes out next week. All right. You know, I love an X and X things. This one is bittersweet from Picador. Lost Wonders, 10 Tales of Extinction from the 21st Century by Tom Latham and illustrated by Clara Coda. So did I say, yeah, June 10th, 448 pages. It looks like black and white, but we're getting stories about

that have gone extinct starting since the 21st century. So this is not the dodo and the auk, the stories you've heard a million times, but giant tortoises and snails and trees and fish and things that we've, you know, done dirty to, to be perfectly honest. I've read books not unlike this, but I do find I want to... Attention must be paid, to quote Willie Loman, to...

What we've lost, that doesn't quite capture it, to what we've destroyed, and to mark the grace, beauty, and unicity of the natural world that no longer exists because of what we have done, and hold some space for the possibility of doing better into the future. So that's Lost Wonders, Ten Tales of Extinction from the 21st Century, out June 10th.

St. Martin's Press, June 3rd, out now. Cloud Warriors, Deadly Storms, Climate Chaos, and the Pioneers Creating a Revolution in Weather Forecasting by Thomas Weber. 288 pages. So not too long, but it's the unprecedented inside story of the people pushing boundaries of science and technology to build better weather forecasts. I'm into this. Creativity, technology,

nature, science, personality, especially in this political moment where I think a lot of these institutions, frankly, are getting, I don't know, assaulted by the Trump administration. These are people doing real work to make our lives better. And I don't know what else to say besides that. So that is Cloud Warriors by Thomas Weber out June 3rd. So that's out already. Okay, let's see. What else do we have here? Ooh, novels.

So I don't like myself. No, I do like myself. What I don't like are these, I find myself a little uneasy about lightish commercial into literary fiction about really rich people that doesn't have much of an edge. And I've read some of this.

And if it's just family drama, I mean, everyone has family drama. I get this. This one is the pitch is crazy rich Asians meet succession. And I think the Kevin Kwan thing,

vibe for me is a little too fluffy. Kwan does turn a jaundiced eye on what he looks and what he's writing about, but it's still there. I mean, kind of the experience you're there for is to be in the champagne room with these people, even as they're terrible and messy. The succession element, I'm more into.

the let's Glen Gary, Glen Ross, some of these spaces I'm here for. So this book is called park Avenue by Renee idea. It is out June 3rd from flat iron. So we have a, she has been a YA author and this is her adult debut. A lawyer gets pulled into manage a crisis with their firm's biggest clients. A family who's Korean beauty brand is worth a billion dollars pitches. Okay. I said that already. So it's messy world of high finance and,

backstabbing. So I'm in for a little bit of a mess, but I really do need it to be, I don't know, about something other than look how beautiful these homes these terrible people are in. And that's what I'm looking for here. This is a summertime kind of read for me. So I'm going to check that one out as well. Park Row.

is the publisher of the next one. Madam Queen, The Life and Crimes of Harlem's Underground Racketeer, Stephanie St. Clair by Mary Kay McBrayer. This is already out June 3rd, 272 pages. The Little Known History of a Larger-than-Life Harlem Racketeer, Madam Stephanie St. Clair. This is pitched as Hidden Figures Meets Peaky Blinders. I don't need any more. She, during the Harlem Renaissance, ran the numbers game in Harlem.

Sold. Don't need to do anything else. I am in to this. A brisk 272 pages. I'm very excited. How have I not read this already is really the question here. This is my most anticipated audiobook of the month coming up here.

Actress of a Certain Age, My 20-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller. I guess Rebecca and I maybe talked about this in some, maybe we drafted it with Laura and Sharif. I don't remember. I don't know. I don't mind mentioning again here. Jeff Hiller, of course, for me, is the iconic and maybe the best character in Somebody Somewhere for me. And his voice and his laugh and his sensibility is extremely funny. And this is his memoir of growing up

profoundly gay and everything he's gone through from a very Lutheran in Texas to being bullied as a kid and then being a social worker and then trying to be an actor and then suddenly at this age in life getting a role that well I mean honestly the kind of role that gets you a memoir and there's only one way to do this for me and it's going to be on audio so that's Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller

Today's episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics presenting Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. From the title, you can tell that, yes, it is about Jane Austen, or I should say a Jane Austen lover, but it's also like grown. It's a romantic comedy. It's like the perfect little rom-com that is bookish when you want to watch a movie when it's rainy. You know what I mean? All right, follow me.

So it is a new romantic comedy about a Parisian woman played by Camille Rutherford, who dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while attending a Jane Austen writer's residency in England. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life opens only in select theaters in select cities, May 23rd and nationwide May 30th. For more information and tickets, visit janeaustenwreckedmylife.com and

It looks fun. I'm going to go see it. I don't know about you. I think you should. I think you should. Again, check out janeaustinwreckedmylife.com. And thanks again to Sony Pictures Classics for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Eighth Note Press, publishers of Learning to Fall by Peach Morris.

18 year old Casey feels stuck. Her friends are off to school. She's stuck at home caring for her mother and her trifling raggedy boyfriend cheats on her. But then the unknowing other girl Imogen offers an apology, friendship and introduction to the world of roller derby and Casey's world finally starts to look a little brighter. Casey soon joins a group of fearless teammates who aren't afraid to speak their minds and body slam each other, which I guess is a good quality to have in friends and

Plus she's nursing a serious crush on her magnetic new friend. The question is, will Roller Derby be a brand new start or a place to break her heart and her bones in one go? We're going to find out. We're going to read it. Debut author Peach Morris is a queer non-binary disabled author who, like their main character Casey, found solace in the Roller Derby community. I'm excited for this one, y'all. Make sure to pick up Learning to Fall by Peach Morris. And thanks again to 8th Note Press for sponsoring this episode.

Today's episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics presenting Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. So Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is starring Camille Rutherford. It's a new romantic comedy about a Parisian woman who dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while attending a Jane Austen writer's residency in England. And it's a new romantic comedy about a Parisian woman who dreams of becoming a successful writer and experiencing true love while attending a Jane Austen writer's residency in England.

It is all types of like cozy, bookish, rom-commy goodness. And I think I feel like we need that right now.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is now playing in select cities and opens nationwide May 30th. For more information and tickets, visit janeaustenwreckedmylife.com. Again, that's janeaustenwreckedmylife.com. Thanks again to Sony Pictures Classics for sponsoring this episode. Okay. You know what? I don't know if I've mentioned it yet, but right through it by Kate McKean, which is a

Insider's Guide to Publishing the Creative Life. She's going to be on the show next week. I don't think I've talked about it here. That's one I want to mention real quick. You're going to hear more from her. But that's the first book I think I've read because of their sub stack. She's a literary agent and has a great sub stack. This is going to be my second one, this next book I'm about to talk about. The Great American Road Trip by Rolando Pujol is out June 24th from Artisan. And he documents sort of these...

I don't know, vestiges of the great American road trip route 66, sort of 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s design and iconic billboards and diners and all these pre-jack-in-the-box strip mall architecture we get along the highway. And I first ran across his sub stack because someone sent or I found a list of pizza huts where you could still dine in.

This is important to me for reasons that are not important, except that I have fond memories of dining in a pizza hut. And there were still so many documented them. And one of the subscriber-only things was a list of them. And so I actually paid for a while. I might still subscribe. I'm bad about remembering. I still read his newsletter when I get in my inbox. That's all I know at this point. And it's really fascinating to see. And this is also a coffee table-shaped book. But...

Really glad to see this. And I actually didn't know this was happening until I was prepping for this episode. So even I can discover something in the bowels of Edelweiss. June 17th, The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery by Clarence A. Haynes, 240 pages. So this is a ghost story about a publicist, New York's most powerful publicist,

And I don't think I've quite seen a, I don't know, a ghost story set in the world of Devil Wears Prada. Again, it's not fashion, but this high-end creative superpower, really dynamic people, especially women. And this one has a ghost story at the heart of it? I don't know. That was enough for me. A mysterious, bizarre incident at the Brooklyn Museum. The main character, Gwendolyn, begins to realize that something nefarious is happening tied directly to her past.

I don't know. You can see, you hear me flabbergasted and fascinated. So there we go. The Ghost of Gwendolyn Montgomery by Clarence A. Haynes. This one is for my kids. We may read this together. From Basic Books, out June 17th.

The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog and Other Series Discoveries of Silly Science. 288 pages. Each chapter about something weird that happens in nature. Blurbed by Mary Roach. That's who you got to get to blurb this if you're going to blurb. Get blurbs for a book like this. Let's do a couple more. Jeff Korr. This is exactly what I want.

The Invention of Design, a 20th Century History by Maggie Graham, out June 3rd, 336 pages. A cultural history of design and its utopian promises. Maggie Graham is a designer and historian and writes about the, quote, "...hopes, fears, and fantasies shaped by the idea of design."

Wow, that's a really cool idea. She leads the experience design team at Google and she's written for the Times and N plus one. This is 336 pages. I might even deign to get this in hardcover because I feel like I'm going to want to know these stories. Really looking forward to that one. One of my other favorite genres is go live somewhere remote. You don't need to learn how to surf. Just go live somewhere. And if it has a kind of funky, quirky name and it's at the edge of, you know, where people usually live, I'm in.

And so Summers in Squid Tickle, colon, A Newfoundland Odyssey, pardon me, by Robert Finch on sale June 17th, 320 pages from Norton, is just kind of my thing. So this is a nature writer who he is writing about his two decades as a summer resident of a Newfoundland fishing villages, originally known as Squid Tickle. That's it. That's all you need to know.

Talk about the inhabitants and their strange custom. Talk about how it's better to live in a place like this where you can get up at the sunrise, you don't have internet, and, you know, there's not a Starbucks to be seen. I am not going to live this life, but I don't mind taking a little hit every now and again, what that life might be like. One more? I'm going to run out. Whoa. All right. We're going to end here from Crown.

another nonfiction title, Lone Wolf, Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness by Adam Weymouth. 288 pages out June 3rd. It's an account of one wolf's journey from the Alps into Italy and using that story about the resurgence of wolves and

in our efforts to conserve, but also the arbitrariness of our own political boundaries and what that means for how we deal with climate and conservation. But this sounds like just the kind of using a smaller moment, an individual animal, to talk about a larger phenomenon that I'm going to be really into. I have a couple of budding naturalists in my house as well. And if this is good, and I think they might like it, I'll pass it on to them. So those are my picks. Are these picks? These are my bookmarks.

for books coming out June 2025. Shoot me an email. Firstedition at bookriot.com. Until next time, read something great. ♪

What do you do when your toddler melts down or your teen shuts down? I want to introduce you to the Mindful Mama podcast. I'm Hunter Clark Fields, author of Raising Good Humans and your host for the past 10 years. I used to be a yelling, overwhelmed mom until I found mindfulness and practical parenting tools that changed everything. Each week, I bring you honest conversations and expert advice to help you regulate your emotions, manage your kid's behavior with compassion, and break the cycle of reactive parenting.

Whether you're raising toddlers or teens, you'll find real strategies for conscious parenting, screen time, ADHD, and more. Listen to the Mindful Mama podcast wherever you get your podcasts because you can raise kind, confident kids without losing your cool.