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Actress, comedian, and author Casey Wilson gives us an exclusive tour of her bookshelf. From the comedic essays that inspired her own writing to the novels and poetry collections she holds dear, discover Casey's most cherished reads in this episode of Shelf Portrait.
Transcript
00:00What have we here? It's right here. It just happened to be here. That's so crazy.
00:04Hi, this is Casey Wilson. I am here to give Marie Claire a kind of sneak peek
00:08into my personal library shelf portrait.
00:14Behind me is one of my bookshelves. We are here in a room. I've sort of made my dining room,
00:20frankly, into also a library. We have to multitask right now with our spaces.
00:25I'm an avid reader. I've also recently written a book. The Wreckage of My Presence has just come
00:31out on May 4th, and I've written a collection of comedic essays honestly inspired by some of my
00:38favorite writers who are on the shelf. One is called The Most of Nora Ephron. It's her huge essay
00:44collection, basically all the best of her work, which I absolutely love. It's so funny. Also,
00:49I have a ton of David Sedaris books here. This is his latest book, Theft by Finding. He makes me
00:57laugh constantly, so I feel like David Sedaris and Nora Ephron are the gold standard of essay
01:02collections. I like poetry. This is Maya Angelou's book of poems. It's called Just Give Me a Cool
01:07Drink of Water Before I Die. It's wonderful. This has been a well-worn copy that my mom gave me
01:13that
01:13is very close to my heart. Love this one. Here is my favorite book of fiction. It's by Ann Tyler,
01:21who's one of my all-time, all-time favorite fiction writers. She tends to write honestly about just
01:27very ordinary women, typically living in Baltimore, which sounds very specific, but she really just
01:33writes about the life of an ordinary woman, which I actually find fascinating. And this particular book
01:38is called The Amateur Marriage, and it's basically about the span of a couple from growing up together
01:44all the way through, spoiler alert, their death, but it's not a spoiler, and just kind of all the kids
01:50they have, every single thing, the life that a couple goes through. It's wonderful. A book that is so
01:55deeply funny, but also amazingly poignant and incredibly powerful, this book by a woman I'm going to call
02:02friend, and I hope she would feel the same, Nicole Byer. It's called Hashtag Very Fat, Hashtag Very Brave,
02:08and it is so good, kind of Nicole taking photos all around Los Angeles. She's wearing different
02:14glorious bathing suits and doing hilarious things, and kind of has a meaningful message about how
02:20people have said to her, like, you're so brave for basically existing in the skin that you do,
02:26and I've felt that before too, and it's about kind of body positivity, but Nicole has such an amazing
02:31sense of humor that also has kind of a component to it, which I absolutely love. Every picture is just
02:37better than the last, and the subtitle is The Fat Girl's Guide to Being Hashtag Brave and Not a
02:44Dejected Melancholy Down in the Dumps Weeping Fat Girl in a Bikini. Amazing. This is my favorite kids
02:50book that I read when I was little. It's called The Hundred Dresses that my kids are about to get
02:56old
02:56enough to read. It's kind of young adult-ish, maybe like 11 years old. Great book about empathy,
03:03about a little girl who tells her classmates that she has 100 beautiful dresses, and the girl doesn't
03:09have a ton of money, and everyone makes fun of her and says that she's lying, but when they go
03:12over to her
03:13house, they find out that she has 100 beautiful watercolors that she's done of 100 different dresses,
03:19and it really affected me. I'm about to cry thinking about it when I was younger about keeping, kind of
03:25including
03:26people and not, I guess, not really bullying anyone and just being inclusive, so it's a great book.
03:32Last book is a parenting book. It's called The Early Riser Companion, but it says rhythms and rituals,
03:39traditions, and transitions for the first seven years of a child's life. So beautiful, and basically
03:46includes all these ideas for very small, inexpensive, beautiful rituals you can build into your family's
03:53life, and kind of building on this idea that we've lost a lot of ritual in our lives. I have
03:59no time,
03:59no patience, no energy for anything, but this book just gives you great ideas as a mom that are free
04:05and easy, so I love The Early Riser Companion. And I'm going to shout out one last book,
04:12which is an incredible book, and it's called Girl Underwater. It is a novel, it's Young Adult by Claire
04:18Kells, who also happens to be my incredibly talented sister-in-law, and it's a young adult novel.
04:25It has intrigue, it has mystery picture, kind of a sexy lost for young adults. Truly such an amazing
04:32book, and Oprah's O Magazine online rated it and said it was one of their best books. That's it.
04:39And what's this? I'm grabbing my own book again? Who put this here? This is crazy, guys.
04:47The Wreckage of My Presence is my book. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you so much for joining
04:53me in my
04:53home in front of my gorgeous bookcase. Thanks, Marie Claire.
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