Welcome back to the Book Ride Podcast. It's weekly news and talk show about what's new, cool,

and worth talking about in the world of books and reading. I'm Jeff O'Neill here with Rebecca

Shinsky, recording weirdly on Monday, May 17th, 2021. I got my second vaccine shot last week,

which probably sent me into a two-day odyssey of ache that has through the recording into a tailspin here.

Rebecca was out and then on vacation and then we're gonna have one of our coworkers fill in but I was feeling too bad

So here we're on Monday so a little bit late

But I got my second it's all fine and we're here to talk about books.

Rebecca how you doing?

I'm good my vaccines were fully cooked as of Friday.

Yeah, vaccinated.

Maxinated.

Maxinated. I have not heard that but I like it. Yeah, I have powered up, got to see some family over the weekend, celebrate my oldest nephew's graduation from college, which would have been a milestone in and of itself but we got to see the

extended family all in one place for the first time since I think Christmas of 2019.

How weird was that? Was it weird or did it feel okay?

It felt really good.

And there are, these are Bob's family members, his side of the family.

And so you know, like I've been around for a long time, but I don't have like deep attachments to these folks and I was really

surprised by how emotional it felt to see them and hug them and just catch up with everyone

but the being together felt really beautifully normal.

I ate inside a restaurant for the first time and also had a moment of that where there was a group of women celebrating a bachelorette party and like halfway through the meal

they all started singing going to the chapel and there's like there's a version of me that in a previous part of life

might have been annoyed that like I'm having a really nice meal these women are being

...