Hi friends,

Hope you had a great weekend! I spent Saturday at the National Book Festival. Highlights included:

• Gushing to Liz Moore about God of the Woods’ upstate New York setting.

• Telling Caroline O’Donoghue how much I love her podcast.

• Seeing my pal Destinee in conversation with Stephen Graham Jones.

This week, I’m spotlighting three books from my Bingo card. (You’ve seen some of these before and you’ll see more in the future.)

And, now, what to read if…

You’re Experimenting with ChatGPT

Searches by Vauhini Vara

In 2021, award-winning tech journalist Vauhini Vara asked a precursor of ChatGPT to help her write about her sister’s death. Working with the tec

hnology, she developed a surprisingly moving — but also distressing — piece that quickly went viral after it was published

.In Searches, Vara continues to reflect on her grief, her sister and her relationship with technology, with essays on her first experiences with internet chat rooms as a preteen and her time as the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook reporter. Interspersed are lists of the author’s Google searches over the years, as well as her Amazon reviews. Vara shares each installment with ChatGPT and includes its commentary and suggested recommendations. One of the strongest essays is a “conversation” between Vara and ChatGPT about a profile she’s writing of Sam Altman, the technology’s creator. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the AI encourages her to take a softer approach in her writing.

Searches is a weird book — and I mean that as a compliment. (My love of a weird book is well established.) It’s equal parts grief memoir, tech criticism and experimental nonfiction. It’s also just exceptionally written (I was not surprised to learn Vara’s previous novel The Immortal King Rao was a finalist for the Pulitzer). A great choice for anyone considering their own relationship with technology.

You’re Trying to Make Summer Last

These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

My office has been having the same debate since it cooled off in D.C. last week — absurdly early for us — if fall is here or if we’re experiencing false fall. (I’m on team #FalseFall but am hoping to be wrong.) If you’re hoping to extend the warm weather vibes into mid-September, grab Sarah MacLean’s These Summer Storms.

Alice Storm, the estranged daughter of tech titan Franklin Storm, hasn’t been home to her family’s private island (!) in years, when she receives