Hello and welcome to Happy to Be Here, the show for Recovering Perfectionists and the

perpetually curious about what to read, eat, watch, think about, and delight in wherever you

may happen to be. I'm your host, Greta Johnson, and I am so glad you're listening today.

Summer is right around the corner, which means summer book season is almost upon us. So today's

episode is all about what to read, whether you're at the beach or in the woods or just sitting

on the couch. With me today are two of my favorite readers. M.J. Franklin is an editor at the

New York Times Book Review and hosts the Book Review Book Club podcast. M.J. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be back. You are also one of my favorite readers and one of my favorite people in general. Oh, what a joy. What a joy. We also have Tracy Thomas, who hosts the Stacks podcast. Hello, Tracy. Hi, I can't be outdone by MJ, but I'm not even going to try. I love you and you know it.

Yeah.

When you told me you loved us more than Orange Theory, I'm like, too. Yeah, I'm missing my Orange Theory class right now. That's love. That's dedication. That's devotion. Yes. Don't ever say I don't love you guys. Okay, so I ask you each to bring three titles that you are excited to read between June, July, and August.

Well, brief spoiler of my recs for today, but all of mine are July books incidentally.

Well, Tracy, do you have a June book? You do, right?

I do. So I was a bad student today and I was supposed to send Greta

my list of books and I didn't. And that's actually like a good thing for me because this is a show

for recovering perfectionist. So you're welcome. I'm living the brand. It's method podcasting.

This is my 87%. Congratulations. Glad to have you. You're testing mine too, but that's fine. I am. I am. I'll get over.

This is called teamwork. I keep going back and forth, but I am going to pick a book that is truly

the June book I am most excited about. It is personal to me, but I couldn't be more excited,

and I bet no one else is going to mention this. The book is

called Crossroads. It is Dusty Baker's memoir. Dusty Baker is a very famous Major League Baseball

player and manager. He also is my godfather. And as a lover of baseball, as a fan of baseball,

my whole life, partially because of my ties to baseball, but also because

I just love the sport, could do hours on it. I couldn't be more excited. Dusty went into the majors,

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