Okay, sirs and ma'ams and other stuffy honorifics, this week we're covering Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. In addition to being aptly named for writing a book about sea creatures, Shelbys are apparently also really good at making chili (and cars), and we'll tell you all about it - and talk about the book, too.

Doot doot doot doot doot doot, breaking news! We've finished up The Women by Kristin Hannah. We laughed, we cried, we badmouthed adulterous liars, and we talked about Halloween costumes. Find us on our socials and let us know what you think of this bestseller!

Get your high heels and garters, because this week, we're off to Vietnam. We're reading the first half of Kristin Hannah's The Women, about nurses serving in the Vietnam War. If that doesn't sound cheerful enough, we also manage to talk about classic movies, some leading male actors, and shopping carts.

This week's read, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, by Claire Vaye Watkins, takes us out into the desert. We aren't totally sure what else to say about it, but we're pretty sure she'd want us to mention teeth, and we're pretty sure we don't want to talk about them. Listen in as we talk the Manson Family and somehow unrelatedly, about body farms.

Jesse Q. Sutanto's Dial A For Aunties has us discussing family dynamics, lamenting that we don't have lavish tea ceremonies in our futures, and thinking about how long one should check someone for a pulse before calling it. This fun little cozy mystery meets romcom met our needs for a light read despite some death, stress, and chaos, and we're ready to fall right in (dressed in our formal attire, of course).

Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart has lots of feels and lots of food. So, head to the nearest asian market, get a bunch of kimchi, grab some tissues, and listen in as we talk about food culture and how we want our dead bodies to be treated.

We're finishing up Mark Sullivan's Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and oh, look, a castle! We aren't really sure what's real and what's not, but we're pretty sure Mussolini's a weirdo and the cover is red and orange. From questionable Nazi morals to the best herbs and spices, we're covering quite the range of topics this week.

It's our half-year anniversary extravaganza! We hope you don't have misophonia, because we have a celebratory charcuterie board and we're not afraid to eat it. We're rebranding as a cheese review podcast, but we're still managing to talk about the first half of Mark Sullivan's Beneath A Scarlet Sky, a harrowing, stressful, but still romantic story of a young man in Italy during WWII. Celebrate our 26th episode with us while we talk about nazis, Mussolini, gazpacho, and cheese.

Instead of reading Yellowface by R.F. Kuang this week, we just found someone else's podcast and edited it a bit. So if you hear something you don't like, it probably came from that podcast. All the good stuff is definitely from us. Find us on social media @literalneighbors but please don't out us as frauds.

We read Short 1970s Book this week, and Blonde Neighbor and Brunette Neighbor are not terribly far apart in their reviews this week! We learn a little bit about reeducation of Chinese youth in the '70s and learn that given names don't matter, only descriptors.