You Know It's Gonna Be May

It's made-up holiday week

Hi friends,

Happy belated Independent Bookstore Day! I love how readers across the country have turned a made-up holiday into a real celebration. I visited my home-away-from-home, East City Bookshop, with some book club friends for about an hour until we all looked at each other and agreed it was time to go before we ran out of money.

I grabbed a signed Diana Quincy, cookbook Snacking Bakes — the follow-up to Snacking Cakes, Jenny Holiday’s first historical romance Earls Trip (that title!) and Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash.

Did you visit a bookstore over the weekend? Let me know!

This week’s recommendations feature three more made-up holidays, because we all need extra reasons to celebrate.

And, now, what to read if …

You Know it’s Gonna Be May

Larger Than Life by Maria Sherman

Every year in late April, the internet is filled with memes featuring a picture of  Justin Timberlake and the words “It’s gonna be May,” a gentle mockery of the way *NSYNC pronounced “me” in their hit “It’s Gonna Be Me.” If none of this made sense to you, read the Vox explainer (there’s always a Vox explainer), but if you’re nodding along knowingly, grab a copy of Maria Sherman’s Larger Than Life, a celebration of the boy bands of the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s.

As Sherman, the Associated Press’s music writer, told NPR, “If history is written by winners, music history is written by rock critics, and they don't typically get along with boy bands.” Her book quite literally rewrites that history by (gasp!) taking boy bands and the effect they’ve had on our culture seriously. While Larger Than Life briefly touches on Beatlemania, the bulk of the book focuses on the era that ran from New Kids on the Block through BTS, exploring the ways they’ve shaped the broader culture. Along the way, she investigates the history of one-hit wonders, conspiracy theories surrounding the bands and the fashion band members wear (Justin and Britney’s famous denim outfits).

Complete with “Tiger Beat” style illustrations, Larger Than Life is a joy for any boy band fan. Sherman strikes a perfect tone, walking the line between objective analyst and unabashed fan. It’s got the right stuff.

Reminder rec: Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany is a fun and fascinating examination of the One Direction fandom.

Bonus rec: For more boy band goodness, Chris Molanphy, author Old Town Road, did a whole episode — and playlist — on the phenoms.

You’re Prepping Your “Star Wars” Marathon

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Saturday, May 4^th is Star Wars Day because …. May the Fourth be With You. If you’re planning your themed snacks for a binge session of the classic movies, put Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking at the top of your TBR list.

Fisher, most known for playing Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” movies, honestly and hilariously recounted her life as a product of “Hollywood in-breeding” in Wishful Drinking, an adaptation of her one-woman show. The daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher (whose marriage ended after he had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor), Carrie Fisher never had a “normal” life, and she knew it. Anecdotes include:

• Cary Grant calling her (twice!) to tell her to stop taking LSD, at the behest of her parents.
  

• George Lucas’s refusal to let her wear a bra as Princess Leia because the lack of gravity in space meant it would strangle her.
  

• Finding a friend dead beside her in bed.

I debated between highlighting Wishful Drinking or The Princess Diarist, her memoir of filming the “A New Hope” at age 19, which draws extensively on the diaries she kept at the time and depicts her affair with Harrison Ford, who was 35 years her senior. I ultimately landed on Wishful Drinking because it’s Fisher as I’d like to remember her, flawed, yes, but confident and comfortable in her own skin.

You’re Celebrating National Cartoonist Day

Huda F Are You by Huda Fahmy

I will admit that I knew about the previous two “holidays,” but I found this one on Holiday Insights and was delighted because it gave me the perfect reason to recommend Huda F Are You? It’s a YA graphic novel offering fictionalized take on Huma Fahmy’s teen years.

For years, Huda had been “the Muslim girl” or “the girl wearing a headscarf” at school. But, when her family moves to Dearborn, Michigan, a small city outside Detroit with a sizable Muslim population, she’s suddenly not sure who exactly she is. Experimenting with different cliques doesn’t help point her in the right direction, until she realizes she doesn’t have to fake interests to make friends.

With a title like Huda F Are You, you can expect some laughs and Fahmy delivers. It’s a short book — I read it in about an hour — but punches above its page count. As Uzma Jalaluddin, co-author of Three Holidays and a Wedding, said, “An honest, heartfelt exploration of identity and self-awareness, Huda F Are You? is a relatable, poignant tale of growing up Muslim in the United States. Readers will cheer Huda on, and each picture brings hilarious teenage antics to life in this wonderful graphic novel!”

Thanks for reading! Have a favorite made-up holiday? Let me know!

Bye. Bye. Bye.

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