Read Receipts Issue 84: May 02, 2025
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We can feel it — summer is at our fingertips. Madeline has already been to two destination weddings, Kelsey’s rounding out her latest training block for a half marathon, and seasonal allergies are getting Barb back for all the times she said she “didn’t really get sick” this winter.
Our summer reading lists are defrosting too. While we aren’t quite ready to unveil our line-ups (but keep your eyes peeled for updates via IG and Substack this month!) perhaps these three new book recs will spark something in you.
Time to put away those coats,
Barb, Kelsey, and Madeline
Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram for more content between sends, including our author interview series, Suggested Texts. Recent features: Courtney Wren, Katie Kitamura, and Leah Abrams.
Barb
My internet-turned-real-life friend Amanda Eisenberg hand-delivered an advanced copy of her debut novel, People Are Talking, to my East Village doorstep back in the fall. And although it looked great in my TBR pile (cough: my fireplace) I waited patiently to read it until its publication month because I was hoping I’d love it enough to share it with you all in this issue. Voilà!
People Are Talking is narrated through two timelines: “Before” in 2014, during a friend group’s freshman year of college at a liberal arts school in upstate New York and “After” in 2024, when the same college friends reunite for one of their weddings in Austin, Texas. At the heart of both storylines are best friends/frenemies Mal and Dani, who met in a secret society that takes on a life of its own in the pre-Me Too anti-sexual violence movement. When this secret society, called the Newts, reaches one of their own, the friend group crumbles. Ten years later, lies, secret hook-ups, and more sinister affairs come to light during the wedding weekend. After all, people talk. I loved how People Are Talking captured the social dynamics of a college organization, how those organizations orbit within broader campus culture, and the fierce loyalty that college friendships instill for decades. The plot was sharp and fresh too; I was gasping throughout the last 20 pages.
Read while RSVP-ing to your college reunion
Best if you liked: Gilmore Girls (shout-out to the Life & Death Brigade), I Have Some Questions for You, campus novels
Kelsey
Does the name Keith McNally mean anything to you? Balthazar? The Odeon? Pastis? Minetta Tavern? If not, I would say you can skip my recommendation and read on to Madeline’s. McNally is a restaurateur, even though he denounces the term in his memoir, I Regret Almost Everything. He is irreverent, a little problematic (in the way you might look the other way when a relative says something off-color), and runs his personal Instagram with a touch of chaos. He might be the only one in on the joke. We have 73 mutual followers.
His memoir fills in the gaps of his life: McNally moved here from London, worked illegally at the A-list spot One Fifth, failed as a playwright, divorced, and survived an awful stroke. Honestly, I was not expecting to learn so much about stroke patient rehabilitation in this book. He does not sound like he has always been the best dad and it is difficult to tell what it’s like to work for the man, but not all memoirs are about people you want to emulate. Sometimes you are just there for the gossip! I have found that the food at his restaurants is good and dependable—not something that will ever blow you away in a city that has a really high bar for greatness—but the real reason you go is for the vibe he creates in his spaces. I particularly appreciated the bits of the memoir where he talked about the efforts and inspiration that went into places like Balthazar. On cold quiet early winter mornings in Soho, I can get emotional just looking in the window at those sipping their cappuccinos inside. I love that something so perfect can exist.
Read after ordering some steak frites
Best if you liked: Save Me The Plums, Chef’s Table, Your Table Is Ready
Madeline
To know me as a reader is to know that I am obsessed with the novel Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. I read the atmospheric, slow burn of a novel in 2022, and since then it has played a crucial role in defining my reading taste. With that in mind, you can imagine how excited I was to read her latest novel, Audition.
While Intimacies may still be my favorite, Audition was a completely thrilling reading experience. It was simultaneously anxiety-provoking, frustrating, and disorienting, but not in a bad way. The novel is split into two parts, and I read them in two very different settings (part one by the pool in Arizona where I was traveling for a wedding; part two on the couch at home in Brooklyn). I didn’t intend to compartmentalize my reading in this way, but I’m glad I did because it really heightened the tension of the conflicting narratives.
I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but all you need to know is that the novel follows an unnamed narrator—a successful, middle-aged actress—while she’s rehearsing for and performing in a play, as she (and the reader) try to figure out the role a mysterious, much younger man plays in her life. This isn’t a book about getting answers, but that is, perhaps to the reader’s chagrin, the point.
Read after entering the Broadway lottery
Best if you liked: All Fours, Trust Exercise
All books can be found at Books Are Magic, McNally Jackson, Greenlight Bookstore, and other independent bookstores, but if you don’t live near one, you can also click the links to support independent bookstores through Bookshop.org.