Make it a hot literary summer with our guide

Get your to-do and to-be-read lists to align with 13 events across the area.

- By MADDIE CONNORS

MADDIE CONNORS

AUTHOR Mary H.K. Choi, left, and "Bandsplain's" Yasi Salek at Skylight Books.

At the beginning of Mary H.K. Choi's wildly entertaining presentation for her new novel “Pool House” at Skylight Books, she reveals she won't be reading.

“Readings are boring,” she says, tapping her Prada loafers. “It’s like you're watching someone else play video games.”

Instead, she and Yasi Salek, host of the hit podcast “Bandsplain,” spend the evening riffing on literature, coolness, autism diagnoses and a literary perennial: unrelenting pain.

“How is your mother wound?” Salek asks in her signature vocal fry most often heard ad-libbing about the band Weezer. Salek reveals she is in Jungian therapy, adding, “What Carl says, goes.”

Throughout the discussion, Choi describes her novel as a challenging read — calling it a “gross, decaying meat soup.” She jokes that her career as an author feels like a “Make-A-Wish Foundation wish,” bewildered by any attention her work has garnered. Yet dozens of eager readers have packed into the independent bookstore, spilling into the aisles with copies of the novel balanced on their laps.

“Publishing is so slow, it’s like giving birth to a lawn chair,” Choi remarks. Later, she professes tedium with the resurgence of an alt-lit scene.

“Don't you find that everyone has to be cool right now? Why is everyone so cool?” Choi asks Salek.

Let’s be clear: Salek and Choi are very cool. Salek sits cross-legged, dressed in all black, with a heart tattoo on her forearm that reads “books.” Before “Pool House,” Choi authored three New York Times best-selling novels. Salek recounts dropping out of her MFA program at Bennington College in 2020 to start what would become a cult-classic podcast.

“I love that you started a podcast instead of getting an MFA,” Choi replies.