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Based on "This is what you want to read this summer | It's Been A Minute" from NPR Podcasts Watch the original video

Your Ultimate Summer Reading List: From Slow Burns to Sizzling Escapes

Episode summary

NPR's "It's Been a Minute" dedicates an episode to "sizzling summer book recommendations," with host Britney Loose joined by authors Sasha Bonet and Cindy Fam. They kick off by discussing what makes a good summer read, with Sasha favoring books set in travel destinations or flirty romance novels, while Cindy gravitates towards stories set in summer with bright covers, or those whose themes resonate with her current feelings.

The trio then shares their personal picks: Sasha recommends Jira Aim's non-fiction dating exploration 99 Problems: Finding the One and Claude McCay's rediscovered 1930s novel Romance in Marseilles. Cindy suggests Chloe Michelle Howard's queer coming-of-age story Sunburn, set in 1990s rural Ireland, and Vanessa Vita Kelly's historical fantasy When the Tides Held the Moon, featuring a Puerto Rican blacksmith and a merman in 1910s Coney Island. Britney's recommendation is Juan Villoro's Horizontal Vertical: A City Called Mexico, a journalist's deep dive into Mexico City's history and culture.

Summer is synonymous with sun-kissed skin, long days, and the perfect opportunity to lose yourself in a captivating book. Whether you're lounging by the pool, soaring through the skies, or simply enjoying a quiet afternoon, a good read can transport you to new worlds and deepen your understanding of our own. Each year, NPR's "It's Been a Minute" dedicates an episode to curating the season's most compelling page-turners. This year, host Britney Luse was joined by two accomplished authors, Sasha Bonet (The Waterbearers) and Cindy Fam (The Secret World of Brier Rose), who brought a treasure trove of "juicy recommendations" designed to ignite your imagination.

The conversation quickly turned to the very essence of a great summer read. For many, it's about the slow burn, the delicious build-up of tension that makes a simple brush of hands feel like a seismic event. As one guest enthusiastically put it, "I like to be edged while reading," highlighting the power of anticipation in storytelling.

What Makes a Perfect Summer Read?

The experts offered diverse perspectives on what elevates a book to summer-read status:

Sasha Bonet shared her love for immersive travel reading. "What I like to do actually is to when I'm traveling in the summer read a book that's based in that place and it kind of opens up the experience of where you are and you feel much more immersed in it." Beyond geographical immersion, she also gravitates towards stories of love and flirtation during the warmer months. "I love to also read about love in the summer, which feels like a way to make me feel more free to talk to people, to talk to cuties, you know."

Cindy Fam agreed, often choosing books with "bright and cheery" covers that reflect a summer palette. But she also looks for something deeper. "Sometimes I gravitate towards stories that have themes that are applicable to like what I'm feeling right now." This blend of escapism and introspection forms the bedrock of a truly satisfying summer read.

From the Authors' Pens: New Releases to Dive Into

Before diving into their recommendations, the authors shared insights into their own recently published works, offering a glimpse into their creative worlds.

Sasha Bonet's The Waterbearers

Britney Luse enthusiastically held up The Waterbearers, calling it one of her favorite books of 2025. Sasha Bonet explained that her novel is "essentially a book about family," a deeply personal exploration of the experiences of Black women in America. She wove the narrative through the lives of her grandmother, mother, and herself, seeking to "understand how to disentangle all this beauty from all this harm that's cultural... as I'm raising my own daughter." The book delves into the historical and ongoing role of Black women as nurturers and mothers, a theme Sasha discovered through extensive archival research. Britney praised the book's ability to make readers reflect on their own matriarchal lineage, calling it an "astonishing read" for anyone with a relationship to a mother figure.

Cindy Fam's The Secret World of Brier Rose

Cindy Fam's young adult fantasy novel, The Secret World of Brier Rose, hit shelves just as the episode aired. The book follows a thief searching for her missing sister, who vanished after seeking out a sleeping princess in hopes of a better life. Together, they uncover a hidden portal within Sleeping Beauty's dreams. Cindy revealed the poignant inspiration behind the story: a childhood wish to "fall asleep forever and never wake up," which she later recognized as a form of depression and passive suicidal ideation. She wondered, "What if Sleeping Beauty had wanted to sleep forever as well and what if the curse... wasn't a curse but some respite from depression and grief?" The novel, she hopes, will help "especially young girls, feel less alone" in their mental health journeys, honoring her "depressed, angsty teenage self."

Sizzling Summer Selections: Diverse Recommendations

With their own compelling stories shared, Sasha, Cindy, and Britney then unveiled their handpicked summer recommendations, promising something for every reader.

Sasha's Picks

Cindy's Choices

Britney's Must-Reads

This curated list from "It's Been a Minute" offers a diverse array of books, from deeply personal narratives and historical sagas to queer romances and thrilling memoirs. Whether you crave a slow-burn love story, a journey through a vibrant city, or a dive into complex human experiences, these recommendations promise to make your summer reading truly unforgettable. So grab a copy, find your favorite spot, and let the stories begin.

Based on "How Elon Musk Engineered the World’s Biggest I.P.O." from New York Times Podcasts Watch the original video

Elon Musk's Trillion-Dollar Gamble: How SpaceX is Rewriting the Rules of Investing

Episode summary

Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised for an unprecedented IPO, aiming to raise $50-75 billion and achieve a $1.25 trillion valuation, potentially making Musk the world's first trillionaire. This monumental offering, driven by ambitious goals like Martian colonization and space-based AI data centers, is uniquely structured to attract "mom and pop" retail investors, with discussions of allocating 30% of shares to them, three times the typical amount.

However, despite the hype and SpaceX's profitable Starlink internet service ($4.4 billion profit last year), the company reported a $4.3 billion loss in 2025, largely due to massive AI investments. This raises questions about its $1.25 trillion valuation, which relies heavily on future projections like a "total addressable market" of $28.5 trillion. Investors should also be aware of Musk's super-voting shares, giving him nearly 85% control, effectively removing traditional accountability mechanisms.

The financial world is bracing for an event of unprecedented scale: the initial public offering (IPO) of Elon Musk's SpaceX. Set to begin selling shares as early as next week, this isn't just another company going public; it's a monumental moment poised to reshape American capitalism, potentially minting the world's first trillionaire, and drawing in an unusually broad spectrum of investors, whether they intend to participate or not.

With projections valuing SpaceX at over $1.25 trillion and aiming to raise between $50 to $75 billion, this IPO is singular in its ambition and scope. At its heart is Elon Musk, the visionary founder and CEO, whose every endeavor seems to defy conventional wisdom. For many, investing in SpaceX isn't just about the company's current financials; it's a bet on Musk himself, a generational entrepreneur with a track record of turning audacious visions into reality.

The Audacious Vision: Why SpaceX Needs Trillions

SpaceX, founded in 2002, has been a private entity for over two decades, raising substantial capital from venture capitalists and private equity funds. However, the scale of Musk's ambitions for SpaceX demands an entirely new level of funding—sums that only the public markets can provide.

Musk's long-term goals for SpaceX are nothing short of multilanetary. He envisions not just launching satellites and ferrying astronauts, but establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. This includes building factories on the moon to mine silicon for solar panels, launching AI data centers into deep space to capitalize on easier access to energy, and ultimately, making humanity a multi-planet species. These "very modest goals," as one observer wryly noted, require "huge vast sums of money that don't come around very often."

This IPO also comes at a competitive moment. Other AI giants like Anthropic and OpenAI are also looking to go public and raise billions, creating a race to secure investor capital. Musk aims to be first, convincing investors that SpaceX, with its growing AI component, is the superior long-term bet.

Rewriting the Investment Playbook: A New Era for Public Offerings

What makes the SpaceX IPO truly groundbreaking is not just its size, but how it's fundamentally altering the traditional rules of investing.

The Retail Revolution: Inviting "Mom and Pop" Investors

Typically, initial public offerings are dominated by institutional investors, with only a small fraction (5-10%) of shares reserved for individual "retail" investors. SpaceX, however, is reportedly setting aside an unprecedented 30% of its shares for these everyday investors, accessible through brokerage accounts like Charles Schwab or Robinhood.

This move is a deliberate strategy by Musk. The sheer volume of capital needed for SpaceX's futuristic endeavors requires a broader base of investors than traditional banks and funds alone can provide. Furthermore, Musk has cultivated a fervent community of fans and followers through platforms like X (formerly Twitter). By offering them a direct stake, he aims to harness their enthusiasm, creating a loyal shareholder base committed to sustaining the company and its ambitious trajectory.

The Index Fund Bypass: Forcing Widespread Ownership

Perhaps even more astonishing is how major market indexes are bending their rules to accommodate SpaceX. The NASDAQ 100, for instance, is relaxing its standard waiting period for new public companies. Normally, a stock needs about three months on the public market to stabilize before being considered for inclusion in an index. This "cooling off period" accounts for initial price fluctuations and allows investors to settle.

For SpaceX, this period will be slashed to just 15 days post-IPO. This accelerated inclusion means that funds tracking the NASDAQ 100 will be forced to buy SpaceX shares to mirror the index's composition. For SpaceX, this translates into immediate access to billions of dollars and a guaranteed pool of shareholders, regardless of individual investor sentiment.

This unprecedented flexibility by the indexes stems from a fear of missing out (FOMO) on potential gains from a "once-in-a-lifetime" IPO. However, experts warn that such rule changes, akin to "creating rules for football and right before you get to the Super Bowl, you throw some of those rules out the window," introduce significant risks. While a successful IPO could mean widespread, rapid benefits for countless retirement funds and individual investors, a downturn could inflict equally widespread pain.

Peering Behind the Curtain: SpaceX's Financial Health

To understand the true nature of this investment, one must look beyond the hype and into SpaceX's financial disclosures, particularly its 277-page S1 document. What emerges is a complicated picture of immense strengths intertwined with significant risks.

The Crown Jewel: Starlink and Launch Dominance

The undisputed star of SpaceX's current business is Starlink, its satellite internet service. With approximately 10 million users, Starlink generated an impressive $4.4 billion in profit last year. This success is built upon SpaceX's dominance in the space launch market. The company pioneered the privatization of rocket launches, a domain once exclusively held by government agencies like NASA. Today, SpaceX rockets are estimated to be responsible for over 85% of all mass launched into orbit from Earth, providing a robust and profitable foundation.

The AI Millstone: A Trillion-Dollar Question Mark

The primary source of financial strain comes from SpaceX's aggressive expansion into artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Elon Musk merged SpaceX with his AI company, XAI, justifying it as a "convergence of synergies." His vision involves placing AI data centers in orbit, closer to the sun for energy, and freeing up land resources on Earth.

However, this ambitious AI venture has proven incredibly expensive. SpaceX's capital expenditures doubled to $20.7 billion in 2024, leading to a staggering $4.3 billion loss across its entire business in 2025. While building rockets, including the Mars-bound Starship, is inherently costly, AI is currently the "millstone around the company's neck."

This raises a critical question: how can a 20-year-old company reporting a significant loss justify a $1.25 trillion valuation? The answer lies in Musk's ability to sell a future vision rather than current fundamentals. Investors are betting on the extraordinary future he promises: space-based data centers, lunar factories, and Mars colonization. SpaceX's own financial documents project a "total addressable market" (TAM) of $28.5 trillion – a number nearly equivalent to the entire US GDP – which it claims is the largest in human history. This projection is the ultimate embodiment of the hype Musk is selling.

The Musk Factor: Genius, Recklessness, and Unchallenged Power

Investing in SpaceX is, for many, an investment in Elon Musk himself. His track record is a study in contrasts. Tesla, his electric vehicle company, has been a phenomenal success, mainstreaming EVs and delivering astronomical returns for early investors (a $1,000 investment at IPO would be worth millions today).

Conversely, his acquisition of Twitter (now X) for $44 billion was initially fraught with financial difficulties, with its valuation plummeting to $10 billion at one point. Yet, Musk managed to "rescue" it by merging it with XAI, effectively burying the financial struggles within the more promising AI venture. This demonstrates his unique ability to leverage one arm of his business to support another, blurring traditional risk assessments.

However, this singular power comes with significant accountability concerns. Unlike most public company CEOs, who are answerable to shareholders and boards, Musk has structured SpaceX to grant himself virtually unchallenged control. He holds "super-voting shares" with a 10-to-1 vote ratio compared to average shares, giving him nearly 85% of the company's voting power. He has also appointed friends and associates to the board, effectively neutralizing any traditional mechanisms for shareholder revolt or intervention, even if the company's performance falters.

This lack of accountability, combined with recent questions about Musk's conduct—including past distractions, public feuds, and allegations of drug use—presents a top-line risk for investors. If Musk "goes off the rails," there are no normal checks and balances in place.

The Inescapable Ride: We Are All Tied to Musk

Ultimately, the SpaceX IPO means that, one way or another, we are all becoming inextricably linked to Elon Musk's success or failure. Whether through direct investment, or indirectly through our retirement funds invested in index funds, there's "no way off the rocket ship."

In the short term, the IPO could indeed soar on hype, delivering significant returns. But as a public company, SpaceX will eventually need to show tangible progress towards its lofty, trillion-dollar goals during quarterly earnings calls. If Musk and the company fail to deliver on promises like space data centers or Mars colonization, investors may grow "antsy." While traditional accountability levers are limited, investors do retain one powerful tool: selling their stock.

Should that happen, the rocket ship that SpaceX has launched, carrying us all aboard, could come crashing back down to Earth, leading to a reckoning for both the company and its visionary, yet unconventional, leader.

Based on "Iran's Economy Was Collapsing … And Then The War Started" from Economics Explained Watch the original video

Iran's Economic Abyss: The Hidden Timer on a Nation at War

Episode summary

Iran's economy, even before the current conflict, was a collapsing house of cards, plagued by rampant inflation, over 20% youth unemployment, and half its population malnourished, according to its own Ministry of Social Welfare. While the regime can seemingly hold the global economy hostage with cheap drones, its civilian sector is on a rapidly accelerating timer, unable to provide basic necessities like reliable electricity, despite sitting on the world's second-largest natural gas reserves.

The practical takeaway is that Iran's military and civilian economies are fundamentally separate, meaning the regime can continue its asymmetric warfare long after its populace is starving and without power. This unsustainable imbalance, however, ensures the conflict is on a timer, not for the military's capacity to fight, but for the civilian population's ability to endure, ultimately dooming the Islamic Republic.

As headlines fixate on the global repercussions of the escalating conflict involving Iran – from volatile oil prices and disrupted supply chains to Europe's energy security and the future of the petrodollar – a critical, often overlooked dimension demands scrutiny: Iran's own economic resilience. The narrative of a nation holding the global economy hostage with cheap drones, seemingly gaining an advantage by forcing adversaries to deploy half-million-dollar interceptors, paints a deceptive picture. While this asymmetric trade-off appears favorable on paper, it masks a deeper truth: Iran's economy was, and remains, profoundly unhealthy, plagued by systemic weaknesses that cast a long shadow over its ability to sustain prolonged warfare.

This conflict, extending into its third month despite initial projections of a swift resolution, has starkly exposed the profound fragility of Iran's economic foundations. Before a single bomb dropped, the nation was already teetering on the brink, an anemic and malnourished combatant, struggling under the weight of hyperinflation, widespread poverty, rampant corruption, and crumbling infrastructure. The war, far from being a strategic pivot, has merely accelerated an already imminent internal collapse, placing a definitive "timer" on the Islamic Republic's capacity to wage war while simultaneously providing for its people.

The Pre-War Malaise: A Nation Undermined from Within

Iran's economic woes are not new. For decades, it has endured the unenviable distinction of being one of the world's most heavily sanctioned nations, trading places with Russia and North Korea. These international restrictions have crippled its ability to monetize its vast hydrocarbon wealth. Despite being an OPEC member and possessing some of the largest oil and gas reserves globally, sanctions severely limit its international crude sales. This has created a bleak loop: sanctions restrict imports of industrial components, making it difficult to maintain the very machinery needed to extract oil, thereby further diminishing revenue for a government heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

China has emerged as a crucial, albeit constrained, lifeline. While Beijing officially rejects Western sanctions and is a major buyer of Iranian oil, Chinese companies still face a dilemma: openly dealing with Iran risks being shut out of the far more lucrative US market. Consequently, even with Chinese support, the sanctions have proven devastating to Iran's long-term development, fostering an environment where a third of the population lives on less than $9 a day, even after adjusting for purchasing power parity.

Beyond external pressures, Iran's internal economic mismanagement is rampant. The state operates as a highly extractive entity, stifling genuine business growth to fund questionable objectives. A unique feature of the Iranian economy is the dominance of "bonyads" – strange hybrid organizations that blur the lines between private businesses, religious foundations, state companies, and government departments. These bonyads enjoy immense advantages, including tax exemptions, relaxed regulations, and preferential funding, effectively pushing out legitimate competitors. The result is an anti-competitive, inefficient market that funnels profits directly into the hands of the political elite.

This extractive corruption extends to basic infrastructure. Iran, paradoxically, is an energy-rich nation suffering from a chronic energy crisis. Its power grid is antiquated, underinvested, and patched together with whatever components can bypass sanctions. Power stations, often fueled by natural gas that Iran also seeks to export, struggle to meet domestic demand. In winter, when heating needs spike, exports are cut, and rolling blackouts become commonplace, even in the capital. This energy paradox is mirrored in its water crisis. Despite not being a particularly dry country by Middle Eastern standards, decades of poor agricultural policy, inefficient irrigation, and over-extraction have visibly dried up major rivers and lakes, leading to farmland abandonment and severe water shortages in major cities.

The scale of this extractive corruption is staggering. A six-month Reuters investigation revealed that the former Supreme Leader, for instance, oversaw an organization called Satard, which controlled assets worth approximately $95 billion. This fortune, amassed largely through seizing properties from ordinary Iranians, religious minorities, immigrants, and political opponents, rivals the value of high-priced real estate in developed nations. These vast resources were not merely for lavish lifestyles; a significant portion was redirected to shadow-fund Iran's massive military apparatus and its controversial nuclear program.

Officially, military spending accounts for only around 2% of GDP. However, opaque economic metrics obscure the true figure, with some estimates suggesting it could be as high as 10%. This money flows through both the regular military and the much better-funded Revolutionary Guard, not to mention the substantial sums used to bankroll foreign proxies across the region. Iran's financial support for groups like Hezbollah, where an average soldier reportedly earns more than ten times that of a regular Lebanese army soldier, has further isolated the country on the world stage and diverted critical funds from a population desperately in need of basic services. Food and water security, already precarious, have deteriorated for years as the state prioritized weapons and proxies over the well-being of its citizens.

This was Iran on the eve of war: sanctioned, mismanaged, paradoxically rich in resources yet starved of basic necessities, with a population already stretched to its breaking point.

The War's Devastating Blow: A Spiral into Collapse

The current conflict ignited in late February after months of escalating tensions and the breakdown of nuclear inspections. Targeted strikes by the USA and Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities triggered a series of retaliatory actions, with infrastructure on both sides taking hits, though Iran's refineries, power stations, and government buildings absorbed the brunt of the damage.

The financial fallout was immediate and catastrophic. The Iranian rial, which had been in a steady decline for years, collapsed almost completely. By late April, it was trading at approximately 1.6 million rials to the US dollar on the free market, making it, by most measures, the single least valuable currency on the planet. To put this into perspective, when the current central bank governor took office in late 2022, the rial stood at around 430,000 to the dollar – meaning it has lost roughly three-quarters of its value in just over three years.

A currency collapse of this magnitude doesn't just look bad on a chart; it unleashes extreme inflation on the ground. Official annual inflation was already running at around 44% earlier in the year, but point-to-point inflation through the initial weeks of the conflict soared above 60%. This means the prices of imported goods, fuel, and basic staples have been rising not by the year, but by the week. Economists call this "inflation expectations becoming unanchored," a polite way of saying that nobody trusts the currency to hold its value long enough to even bother saving in it.

This economic devastation quickly ignited a second round of mass protests. Initially fueled by the same deteriorating living conditions that had plagued the nation for years, these demonstrations became suddenly intolerable as the state visibly spent its dwindling hard currency on domestic and foreign military operations rather than on food, water, or fuel for its suffering populace. These demonstrations, suppressed to a horrifying degree, became a major justification for subsequent international strikes.

As the conflict grinds on, more infrastructure is destroyed, further sanctions are layered on, and Iran's neighbors are growing increasingly exasperated. The disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global choke point, is undermining the livelihoods of several much larger regional players and jeopardizing their long-term diversification strategies focused on tourism and international business. This frustration is a significant, though not exclusive, factor behind the United Arab Emirates' announcement of its departure from OPEC, effective May 1st. While officially citing a desire for greater production freedom, the timing, following weeks of Iranian missile and drone attacks on UAE territory and months of OPEC members watching their tanker traffic stall, is far from subtle.

For Iran, this fragmentation of OPEC is particularly damaging. The cartel was one of the few remaining international organizations where Iran held any meaningful sway, albeit as an "awkward sanctioned cousin." Watching it unravel removes one of the last mechanisms that gave Iran any leverage over global energy markets.

The Unraveling Strategy: A Military Immune to Civilian Suffering?

Iran's military doctrine is built around asymmetric conflict: cheap drones, inexpensive missiles, mining vessels, and the implicit threat of further disruption. The income from acting as a "toll collector" through the Strait of Hormuz, which it has now largely closed to commercial traffic, theoretically funds this strategy. On a pure balance sheet, this fight should favor Iran over nations trying to keep shipping lanes open. Furthermore, Iran possesses large stockpiles of military equipment.

However, stockpiles are finite. The capacity to replace them resides in the same heavily sanctioned, sporadically electrified industrial base that has struggled for years. This highlights the fundamental flaw in Iran's strategy: the economic systems that support the Iranian people and those that support the Iranian military are not the same.

Even if the military can find the resources to keep launching drones for another year or two, the civilian economy is poised to run out of food, water, fuel, and, crucially, patience, long before that point. This is the tragic consequence of an economy that disproportionately funnels its limited resources into its military. It is far more likely to exhaust the basic necessities for its ordinary citizens before it runs out of drones to lob at ships.

From a coldly economic perspective, even if Iran could technically "cost the world more than the world is costing it," it would be a profound stretch to call this any kind of victory. The currency is the weakest globally, inflation wipes out savings within a year, the power grid is unreliable, the water table is dropping, and by its own government's measure, half the population is malnourished. The regional cartel that provided its last shred of global economic relevance is actively breaking apart.

In such a state, a regime might indeed continue launching drones for a while longer. The far harder, and ultimately insurmountable, problem is simultaneously feeding, watering, and supplying electricity to the very population doing the launching. The room to do both is shrinking by the month. This, more than any military calculus, is the real reason this conflict is on a timer, and that timer is not running in favor of the Islamic Republic.