does anyone else miss participating in library summer reading programs, especially the ones with prizes

As far as a good summer read goes, we love a beachy, boisterously fun novel as much as the next shoebie, but we also love moody, meaningful memoirs that make you stare off into the shimmering asphalt for hours.

If the latter is what you seek, you simply must devour The Rules Do Not Apply, published last year by New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy. It’s about modern womanhood & life & loss & partying with Gay Talese, but it’s thematically built around Levy’s heartrending 2013 essay Thanksgiving in Mongolia (as in, if the essay alone guts you, the book will go on to finish the job).

What else are you guys reading this summer? We got really into All The Light We Cannot See (Nazis vs. heroics in occupied France), Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential (worth the risk of appearing as a total bandwagoner), and are currently previewing one of the new up & coming feminist dystopian novels officially debuting later this summer. will keep you posted!

Like Deez Links? Forward to someone and remind them to stay hydrated.