Shaina Reads

It feels like it was just yesterday that I was clamoring for July to get here already, and we're already saying goodbye. Time flies when you're having fun and being a snail of a reader, apparently.

Today, my interns fly the coop (sniff, sniff) and I prepare to enter the calm of August before the storm of the new academic year. My boss took on three new graduate students, and I'm excited to get to know them better and begin helping them coordinate their first projects in the coming months.

But, for now, quiet and books!

I read/reviewed:

I'm not sure what it is about putting the word "girl" in a book title, but it's been all the rage for the last year or so. In June and July, I read no fewer than three that did so.

Of the three books featured here, only one of them was actually about a girl (read: a female child). One of the storylines fluctuated between a woman's pre-adolescent memories and her adult ones, and the third is about several women. When I hear or see the word "girl," I assume we're dealing with a child or young teenager. Regularly referring to women as girls conveys a casual lack of respect—how often do you hear grown men referred to as "boys"?—and it makes me sad when it leaks over into my cozy fiction bubble. I could go on for a bit about the prevalence of language that thoughtlessly infantilizes women, but I'm guessing you're here for the books.

Also, in light of this feminist rant, yes, I do realize that this post's graphic is bright pink and includes lip prints. I couldn't help myself.

Girl at War, by Sara Nović

Sara Nović's debut novel tells the story of Ana Jurić, a young girl caught in the crossfire of the Yugoslav Wars of the late twentieth century. The story jumps back and forth through time, beginning in 1991 at the start of the ethnic conflicts in Ana's hometown of Zagreb and carrying us to her present-day as a refugee attending college in New York City.

Adult Ana allows her Croatian accent to fade, all the better for avoiding awkward questions from curious Americans:

"Their musings about how and why people stayed in a country under such terrible conditions were what I hated most. I knew it was ignorance, not insight that prompted these questions. They asked because they hadn't smelled the air raid smoke or the scent of singed flesh on their own balconies; they couldn't fathom that such a dangerous place could still harbor all the feelings of home." - pg. 100, Girl at War

Nović clearly did her research, piecing together a devastating portrait of life during the Balkan Wars from family and friends' stories, but what stood out most to me were the relationships she sketched: the way Ana and her father "thought in the same circles" (pg. 67) and comforted one another; the tug of war between Ana and her mother, who wished she were less of a tomboy; and Ana's tenderness with her sick, infant sister Rahela. I especially loved reading about Ana's childhood friendship with Luka—their wartime games, their bike rides along streets devastated by shelling, their all-consuming entanglement in each other's lives—and felt adult Ana's ache when she wonders if he survived.

Tough as the subject matter is, this book was a treat to read; Nović's prose flows with the self-assurance of a more seasoned author. It manages to retain its ease even in the story's more graphic moments. I hate to say it, but overall, I just wasn't as wowed as others were. Maybe it's because I've been on a solid streak of 4-star reads, and this one blended right in with the pack. I shot for the moon and landed among the stars instead, which isn't a bad place to be.

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Rachel Watson takes the commuter train to and from London every day. Each morning and evening, she passes by the same house on Blenheim Road and conjures up fantasies about the couple she sees on their rooftop terrace. It's a way to pass the time and fill the gaps in her own life... until Rachel sees something that sends her spiraling down a rabbit hole peppered with suspicious detectives, half-remembered confrontations and more canned gin and tonics than she should really be drinking.

This swiftly-paced whodunit has held fast on the NYT Best Sellers list since its January release, and I finally had to see what all the fuss was about (and land another square for my book bingo, of course). The writing, while page-turning, is nothing to write home about, but Hawkins' willingness to create a cast of utterly unlikeable characters gets her points in my book. Rachel is a not-entirely-repentant alcoholic, and Hawkins does not make much of an effort to redeem her in other aspects. The same goes for the other two main characters, whom we get to know through a shifting first-person voice. In short: everyone in this book sucks, and I loved that about it.

This thriller was a captivating romp, and I see why it has captured so much mainstream attention. It was a perfectly worthwhile way to spend my weekend, but it doesn't make me want to shout from the rooftops. I would be interested to hear what more hardcore fans of the genre think of it.

The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey

Melanie's life is average, if not a bit monotonous. Every weekday morning, guards arrive to strap her—arms, legs and neck—into her chair and wheel her to her classes. Her weekends include a dousing in the communal shower and her weekly meal of grubs. She's only free to move about when she's back in her cell. Melanie wonders why the guards go to all the trouble; after all, it's not like she'll bite...

(Though the blurb only teases at it, I don't think discussing the secret at the heart of The Girl with All the Gifts is a spoiler. However, if you want to go into it blind, skip the rest of this review.)

We learn early on that Melanie and her cohort are infected by Cordyceps fungus. The infection has a real-life basis; the fungus overtakes the bodies of insects, mushrooming out of their heads and torsos to release even more spores. I don't go for many zombie reads, so I'm not sure if the Cordyceps angle is actually unique. Regardless, I loved that Carey incorporated a real-life phenomenon into the usual, undead apocalypse.

In the book's universe, the fungus destroys the human brain and makes its host seek out other humans to eat, but Melanie and her classmates are somehow spared the normal deterioration. This makes it difficult for the uninfected to think of them as the "monsters" that lurk beneath. Carey plays on themes of us versus them and of becoming the evil that one is trying to defeat, all the while spinning a tale of unexpected, perhaps impossible love.

I read this one as a buddy read with Katie of Bookish Tendencies and Emily of Backlist Books (now known as Rain City Reads), and I liked the book the best out of the three of us. This would be a winner for sci-fi, horror and coming-of-age fans alike.

It's been a while since I've shared anything non-bookish with you all. As you've probably gleaned, I'm back safe and sound from (and already nostalgic for) my vacation in Oregon. My boyfriend and I took a lot of photos, and I hope to dedicate a post to our adventures soon. Expect plenty of trees, colorful, festival goodness, and lake-soaked Golden retrievers (this last bit should especially interest Shannon).

I came back from vacation with a determination to make ~big changes~ in my life. I don't think I'm ready to spell them out here—because that would make them too real, y'know?—but let's just say that I hope to be back to hitting the books in fall 2016. Now I just need to persuade myself to take the GRE.

It took a while for me to get back in my reading groove after getting home, but the vacation spell finally wore off and I dove back into my books with gusto. I finished The Library at Mount Char last weekend, with review and brief Q&A with author Scott Hawkins(!!!) to come late this week. Just yesterday, I knocked out both Girl at War by Sara Nović and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Are you noticing a theme in these book titles? I enjoyed both, but neither blew my skirt up (my favorite phrase of Andi's) as much as I would have liked.

This week, I want to get caught up with the fine ladies of the #GhettosideRA and dive deeper into Jill Leovy's examination of black-on-black murder in America. I also received The Dust that Falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernières from a Goodreads giveaway, just when I was convinced that no one ever actually won those. I'm about 100 pages in now; this brand of historical fiction (World War I romance) is not my usual bag, but I'm intrigued enough to soldier (too much?) on.

Nope. Not happening.

My name is Shaina, and I have a confession to make: I've never listened to an audiobook, and a part of me never wants to.

All right, so I'm fudging a bit here. I've definitely heard an audiobook before, but this was back in the day when my grandma used to rent cassettes and CDs from the library to play in the car, and who really pays attention to those old lady books, anyway?*

Despite knowing what they were and how to get them, I never sought out an audiobook for myself as a kid, and I still haven't as a supposed adult. Accessibility isn't the issue; getting my hands on them is easier than ever among Audible, Amazon, Scribd, the library and probably dozens of other perfectly good outlets. Nope. This is audiobook discrimination, plain and simple.

I'm not sure where this staunch opposition comes from. I adore podcasts (that is, when I make the time to listen to them), and my favorite part of my stint as a journalism student was putting together audio packages for a multimedia storytelling class. I also love the idea that I could do some other low-key activity—cooking, crocheting, coloring, cat-petting—while I got my pages in for the day. Bonus: my bag would be so much lighter if I could store my reads of the week on my phone. This even goes for e-books; my phone is a full 50 grams lighter than my Kindle. The benefits are endless, people!

The only legitimate roadblock I can think of is that I tend to space out while listening to things. Things include podcasts, music and people talking to me. It's bad, and I'm working on it. I might be afraid that, if I shifted part of my reading over to the audible variety, I would miss out on a lot of the nuance—and, heck, some of the larger plot points—of whatever book I was listening to. I know this is the type of problem that I could surmount over time, but no amount of rationalizing has lit a fire under me yet.

There's never been a better time for me to face my biases; my Books on the Nightstand summer bingo card includes a conveniently-located square for an audiobook. I keep telling people that I'm excited to try one out, but I'm having the growing realization that that's a teensy bit (or perhaps a substantial bit) of a lie.

And so I arrive at a plea: can anyone persuade me to get over myself and give an audiobook a shot? I know many of you love them and I've seen oodles of recommendations for good stories and readers, but alas. It just seems too great a (first-world-problem) mountain to climb, and there are so many wonderful paperbacks here at the bottom.

*Old lady books rock.

Lately, I've been into some pretty atmospheric reads. Google defines atmospheric as "creating a distinctive mood, typically of romance, mystery, or nostalgia," and these three (one forthcoming, two backlist) fit the bill. The next time you're hankering for a book with a setting that's a character in and of itself, consider giving one of these a shot.

The Beautiful Bureaucrat, by Helen Phillips

Disclaimer: I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. Thanks to Henry Holt & Company for giving me the chance to read it!

"The person who interviewed her had no face." - Loc 26, The Beautiful Bureaucrat

Josephine Newbury just landed a new job. Sure, it's a bit dull—endless data entry from mountains of files with seemingly meaningless strings of dates and numbers—and her boss has terrible breath (and, as already mentioned, lacks a face). The one coworker she's met so far knows enough about her to give her pause. Still, the work pays the bills, and it means she and her husband Joseph have finally begun the new life they so desperately sought when they moved far from home.

It doesn't take long before the endless rows of identical doors, the confines of her cubicle (no decoration allowed, not even to cover those eerie pinkish claw marks), and the growing realization of what her entries in the master spreadsheet mean begin to take their toll:

"Sometimes, in the depths of the afternoon, Josephine would have a thought—an intense, riveting thought, incongruous with her current task and location, something she ought to share with Joseph, a hint of a scene from a dream or a forgotten memory from when she was a kid, a complicated pun or a new conviction about how they ought to live their lives—then the moment would pass and the thought would be lost, trapped forever between the horizontal and vertical lines of the Database." - Loc 326, ibid.

Phillips deftly balances the ever-mounting horror of the surreal with reflections on the nature of work and its sometimes deleterious effects on our most important relationships, including those we have with ourselves. I can't remember my last encounter with a book this readable; I swallowed it whole in under a day, completely consumed by the question of just what was going on in this drab, paper-pushing hell hole. The ending wasn't what I wanted it to be, but I also don't know how it could have been better. I chalk it up to personal preferences.

In case you need any more encouragement to check this one out, Ursula K. Le Guin digs it. I think any sci-fi horror fan out there will, too.

Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

Malorie hasn't looked outside in four years. Her children have never looked at all; they have no idea what things like "trees," "clouds" and "grass" look like. They can't open their eyes out there because they might see something, and, if they see it, they're done for. But Malorie knows that they can't stay in their home, literally stained with grotesque memories, any longer. They need to find help, and that means going outside and getting in a boat.

"As the river comes alive with nature, she imagines the worst. Just like she did those years ago, before the children were born, when the inertia of the front door reminded you that things like insanity were lurking whether or not someone you cared about what out there with it." - pg. 112, Bird Box

For a book in which the characters spend the majority of their time with their eyes closed, Malerman did an amazing job of evoking a world where death and madness could lurk around any corner. This is another that I devoured in days, holding my breath as I both anticipated and dreaded getting a look at whatever mind-bending monsters were causing this mayhem.

Much like The Beautiful Bureaucrat, the ending was missing something for me. I can't get into it without risking spoilers, but it didn't seem to fit with the mood of the rest of the novel. You'll just have to read it to see what I'm talking about. Again, horror fans should find plenty to love here!

The Wives of Los Alamos, by TaraShea Nesbit

I'd never even heard of Nesbit's debut novel before I saw Shannon tweet about it. If memory serves, someone wanted a book written in first person plural, and (of course, because she's a veritable book recommendation machine) Shannon offered this one up.

This is the story of the wives of the scientists employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of the Manhattan Project (a research and development project that constructed the first nuclear weapons used in World War II). These families moved to the laboratory's compound in New Mexico, and the wives found themselves having to build a home in their parched, isolated environment. They were many people, and they were one:

"We arrived newlyweds, or with a seven-year itch, or still great friends, or no longer in love but trying to keep it together for our children, or for ourselves. Some of us always expected disaster and kept the shades drawn low, some of us were quietly skeptical, although no one could tell, and we were nicknamed Polly. Some of us thrived on gatherings, and we created dance nights and afternoon teas and bridge clubs. ... Like many moving toward an unknown future, we clung to the beliefs that had carried us this far—about people, the world, our husbands, the war—until that strategy could no longer assuage our fears." - pg. 17-18, The Wives of Los Alamos

While the narrative voice isn't for everyone, I think it perfectly captures the sense that these women, though different in many ways, were united in their displacement, their uncertainty, and their fear of the secrets their husbands had to keep. The dust and scorching heat of the New Mexican desert quietly heighten the omnipresent tension. This isn't a book bursting with plot, if that's your thing, but it is a heartbreaking portrait of the sacrifices women make during wartime. It also sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole lined with things like tube alloys, uranium-235 and the Trinity test.

History buffs and literary fiction fans alike will find enjoyment here, so long as the first person plural is something you can live with.

Brief, unexpected Weekend Cooking post ahoy! Weekend Cooking is a weekly feature hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

As a Latina (more specifically, a Jewban from South Florida), I've got a long, storied history with beans. Ask me what I miss most about living near Miami, and I will invariably wax poetic about Pollo Tropical's pulled pork (sadly out of reach now, due to newfound vegetarianism), black beans and rice, and plantains. I will probably follow up with an ode to Publix subs and the ability to wear shorts year-round.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. Today, my boyfriend and I were inspired to make a veritable butt-load of beans. We prepared the oft-missed Cuban black beans, and they're still simmering away on the stove. However, the refried beans are ready, and... well. They're freaking delicious.

Homemade refried beans. Looks like poo, tastes like heaven.

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Jul 19, 2015 at 2:29pm PDT

They're also absolutely stuffed to the gills with butter. (Those two things are possibly related.) The recipe calls for a lot of fat—oil, butter or lard—so if that isn't your thing, steer clear. But, if so... who are you?

We doubled the following recipe and will be eating these beans until the end of time.

Refried Beans

Adapted from Serious Eats

1/2 pound dried pinto or black beans (note: we soaked these overnight, so we started off with the soaked and drained beans)

Water

2 sprigs fresh epazote or oregano (note: we used one teaspoon of dried oregano)

1 medium white onion, 1/2 minced and 1/2 whole

2 medium cloves garlic

Kosher salt

6 tablespoons lard, bacon drippings, vegetable oil or butter

In a large pot, cover your beans with water (they should be covered by about two inches). Add your herbs, onion half and garlic cloves and bring to boil. Lower the heat to simmer and cook until the beans are very tender, one to two hours. Season beans with salt. Take off heat and drain beans, reserving the cooking liquid. This should leave you with three cups of cooked beans.

In a large skillet, heat your fat of choice and cook minced onions until tender and translucent, about seven minutes. Stir in drained beans and cook for two minutes. Add one cup of reserved bean cooking liquid. Using a masher (chunky) or immersion blender (smooth), purée your beans. (Note: We used an immersion blender for the consistency above.) Reduce heat to medium and cook until your desired consistency is reached. If the beans are too dry, add more of the cooking liquid, a tablespoon at a time.

Do you love refried beans? Hate 'em? Don't care a whit about 'em but also cooked something delicious this weekend? Talk to me!

Before we begin, I'd like to note that I was wrong about one of those: I definitely remembered a few of the, ah, steamier moments word for word. A gal's gotta be thorough about her literary sex education, y'hear?

Summer Sisters is the saga of Victoria (Vix) Leonard, whose world is turned upside down when the beautiful whirlwind Caitlin Somers asks her to spend the summer with her at her dad's house on Martha's Vineyard. With little parental supervision and no financial limits (at least, not on Caitlin's end), Vix and Caitlin are free to explore the island—and its more attractive male inhabitants—as they please, providing the backdrop for their summers from middle school through college and beyond. This is Blume at her best: strong, complicated female friendships; a healthy dose of puberty and sexual self-discovery; and plentiful family dysfunction.

As hinted at above, issues of class permeate the story. Caitlin fails to understand why Vix wants to get a job on the island in high school. Vix's mother, Tawny, resents the fact that her daughter spends summers on the Vineyard. This anger only grows when Caitlin's parents offer to help her earn a scholarship to a private school:

"Later, while she was finishing her math homework, Lanie said, 'You know why she hates you?' Vix looked up from her notebook. 'It's because you get to escape,' Lanie said, trying to braid Malibu Barbie's hair. 'We all hate you for that.' Lanie spoke without emotion, and suddenly Vix understood everything. She got to escape and they didn't." — pg. 62, Summer Sisters

Have you guys ever regretted one of your book reviews?

I'm not talking about wondering if your gushing, lukewarm or downright bad feelings about a book were wrong because of all the glowing or scathing reviews out there that disagree with you. That's different: it's called impostor syndrome, and it's actually something I've covered before! I'm talking about looking back on old writing and wishing you'd expressed a point differently (or not at all), or learning more about a topic and recognizing the way you thought or felt about a book that dealt with it doesn't jive with how you think or feel now.

An example for me in recent days is my review of Loving Day by Mat Johnson. In a nutshell, Loving Day is the story of a man exploring and coming to terms with his biracial identity through newfound fatherhood and community and old ghosts. Johnson is a skilled and often hilarious writer and I thought his book had some excellent moments, but I found the plot to be, as I wrote, "a little convoluted, at times in ways that took away from the value of [the protagonist] Warren's transformation of identity." I've come to rue those words ever since reading Justina Ireland's Book Riot satirical piece about how to analyze white characters in novels, particularly her sixth point down:

"Were there other issues in the story for the character to deal with besides being white? The book is probably trying to tackle too many issues. Discuss how the character’s white identity was enough issue for the story without the distraction of all of those other annoying subplots." - Justina Ireland, How to Analyze White Characters in Book Reviews (via Book Riot)

While I still do think that there was a lot going on in Loving Day and that one of the story's main themes was how Warren changed over time, I still cringe at how dismissive and shallow that part of my review might sound, especially coming from a white reader.

I've thought about going back to change that sentence, or perhaps even deleting it altogether. I mean, we've all made use of the "delete this Tweet" button, right? With reviews, though, I've always stopped myself. Even if it might save me (real or imagined) embarrassment, it would feel like I was erasing evidence of an instance in which I was less thoughtful with my words or judgment than I should have been. If I were going to change my review of any book, I'd want to go back to the book itself and reread it in its entirety or, at the very least, re-explore some of the passages or plot points that gave me the most pause the first time around.

As voracious readers and prolific writers, I think book bloggers are constantly learning new things and reshaping their viewpoints in wake of them; what we posted a few months (or a few years!) ago might not represent what we think or feel now, but we shouldn't hurry to sweep our old words under the rug. Instead, we should bring them out in the open and explore why they might be inaccurate, troubling, or outdated. After all, the best way to prevent new mistakes is by acknowledging old ones, and that goes for much more than book blogging.

All covers from Goodreads. Clockwise: 1, 2, 3

Diving into Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret for this summer's #BlumeAlong really brought me back to my childhood reading days. I've been devouring books since I was a wee thing, and it was a lot of fun to go back to an old favorite—one I undoubtedly read and re-read until the spine cracked and pages crinkled—and see what I did and didn't remember about it. For one thing, I didn't remember the book being quite so much about religion, despite the whole "God being in the title" thing. It tickled me because, in retrospect, Margaret and I had a lot in common: Jewish father, Catholic mother, parents who were areligious and grandparents trying to convert us one way or the other.

The readalong got me thinking about what other books I loved as a kid and the memories I have of them (and the things I forgot).

The Pendragon Cycle by D.J. McHale

While everyone else was reading Artemis Fowl, I was flying through the Pendragon cycle. I think of this series as little Shaina's introduction to, and reason for loving, science fiction. Bobby Pendragon was a normal kid living in suburban New York before his Uncle Press showed up to tell him he's a Traveler (a cross between a time-traveler and parallel-universe-jumper) and that he's the only one who can save all that's known from the evil Saint Dane.

Of my three selections, I have the most vivid memories of this one: Bobby jetskiing through Cloral, eating French fries in early twentieth-century New York, and exploring Lifelight in Veelox. My memories of the later books are much hazier, and I know for a fact that I never read the final book in the series. After all that investment!

The Gossip Girl Series by Cecily von Ziegesar

Oh, the Gossip Girl series. I know that we shouldn't be ashamed of what we read, and I'm not exactly... but, well, almost. For those who never read the books or watched the TV series, Gossip Girl follows the antics of the (way, way) upper-class students of Constance Billard School for Girls in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, all of it recorded by an anonymous blogger known only as Gossip Girl.

These people were unlike anyone I knew in real life, and I couldn't help but be suckered in by their expensive and ridiculous drama. I'm wondering if Crazy Rich Asians might be a good pick if I ever feel the itch for this type of book again.

Anything by Sarah Dessen

Do you guys know Heather of Bits n Books? She's always reading books that are totally off my radar, and her excitement for the ones she loves shines brilliantly through her reviews and gets my TBR pile growing every time. Plus, she's from Australia, and now I can say that I have a friend in Australia. All this is to say: check her blog out!

Early last month, Heather posted a review of The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures, written by Australian journalist Christine Kenneally. I loved reading about Heather's experience learning about her genetics through The Genographic Project and how Kenneally's book shed light on some of her results. Though Heather says she doesn't "really do science," I definitely do (if you haven't already picked up on that), and this book sounded like just the blend of hard and social science that I've come to love.

Genetics has fascinated me since I took a course on it during my senior year of college, and I was excited by how many of Kenneally's factoids I remembered learning in class. I'll never forget good ol' Gregor and his pea plants. However, I think I learned far more about history than I did about DNA. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth knowing for those who go into it expecting mostly scientific discussion.

In addition to discussing what humans biologically pass down through their genes, Kenneally dives deep into the waters of cultural transmission, zeroing in on how communities form and maintain beliefs and attitudes over time. At one point, she discusses an economics study that examined how shifting agricultural practices (specifically, communities' adoption of the plow) affected beliefs about gender roles. When it was first debuted, the plow required significant upper-body strength to operate and, thus, was mostly used by men; because women weren't needed (or able) to help farm, they increasingly moved into the home. The researchers found that regions that adopted the plow were far more likely to develop more "traditional" ideas of women's roles over time. Not only that, but these kinds of beliefs are still found more strongly in these communities today than in communities that never adopted more mechanized (as opposed to manual) methods of farming.

Kenneally is careful to note that correlation is not causation, but I have no trouble believing that our attitudes about "innate" characteristics of men and women were formed in response to changes in our environment, rather than vice versa. The book is chock full of fascinating citations like this; my only complaint is that the endnotes weren't longer! I wanted to research a few of her points further but found it difficult to work Google magic without some source hints. Thankfully, this didn't happen much.

A few of the chapters were a slog, and I definitely found myself losing steam at the end as I ran up against my library due date. This book requires a lot of focus if you want to retain all the little details, so make sure to read it when you can give it your full attention (i.e., not during lunch break or while your boyfriend plays noisy video games right next to you).

If you're the type to wonder about how we inherit both our eye color and our personal beliefs and you enjoy a well-researched mix of personal and cultural history and scientific goodness, I think The Invisible History of the Human Race will more than fit the bill. (And, if you read it, come back so we can talk about all those awesome economics studies some more!)

Oh, and thank you once again to Heather—I never would have stumbled upon this gem if not for you!

Dang, y'all. Are we really already in July? I can't complain much (it is my birth month, after all), but I can't believe how quickly summer is flying by. Before I know it, I'll be boxing up my sun dresses and breaking out the boots and scarves again. That's right around when I'll ask myself, not for the first time, why I chose to move from the Midwest to New England. Perhaps I'll pick more wisely next time.

Happy Independence Day weekend to my American readers! May your days be filled with barbecue, booze and sunshine.

On to the June lists!

I read/reviewed: