The new books on the books this summer

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The new books on the books this summer

Today we look at the summer's crop of new books.

It's Memorial Day weekend, the official start to summer reading, and the unofficial start to summer reading. I am smitten with the promise of a season spent buried in books, with the possibility of long sunlit days spent unmoored from everyday restraints and immersed in a literary world, as Jennifer Harlan wrote in The Times last year. I'm giving myself permission to cast aside the dry novel I've been halfheartedly reading for weeks in favor of the more exciting summer books recommended by my colleagues on the Books desk. What is a better way to improve a stretch of stale reading than a juicy Hollywood history? Everybody Thought We Were Crazy, a book about Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward's marriage set against the 1960s L.A. art scene, sounds dreamy or, as Helen Shaw describes it, weird, smoggy, heated Harvey Fierstein's memoir promises boatloads of charm and gossip sold. I'm trying to resuscitate my trailing jade, so Christopher Griffin's You Grow, Gurl! Plant Kween's Lush Guide to Growing Your Garden looks right up my street. I will check out Be My Baby, the reissue of Ronnie Spector's memoir from 1990. Any book that covers the Knicks the way that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein covered the Nixon White House in The Final Days, as John Swansburg writes of Blood in the Garden, seems hard to resist.

If you are having a party, you don't have to grill on Memorial Day. Other festive dishes feed a crowd, and some, like David Chang's bo ssam, can be made almost entirely in advance. That means that instead of standing in front of your Weber for the whole evening, you can relax and chat with your friends, holding a delicious beverage. Since the recipe was published in The New York Times MagazineNew York Times Magazine a decade ago, I have made bo ssam often, and it always delights all who dig in. You ll have to start marinating the pork the night before, and it needs about six hours in a low oven. It is worth every minute, considering the payoff. Most of the hands are off, it's worth it. What you get for $700,000: a Colonial in Chestertown, Md. A midcentury-modern showplace in West Des Moines, Iowa, or a cottage in East Sandwich, Mass. They wanted outdoor space to support their plant habit. Sometimes the dream home promised by makeover shows is elusive.