Summer is a great time to kick back with a good book! Publisher and New York Times bestselling author, Anna David joined us to share her current favorites. For more information about Anna, click here.

Say Everything by Ione Skye

If you’re a Gen X-er, you couldn’t help but be aware of Ione Skye: the ethereal but somehow ever cool lead in Say Anything who always popped up in interesting movies and was the ultimate example of someone who didn’t try too hard. If she was a star today, we’d know everything about her but because she came of age in the 80s and 90s, it was such a refreshing peek into her world. I can say without doubt that this is one of the most honest feeling celebrity memoirs I’ve ever read: she’s just so honest, so unafraid to make herself look insecure or bad in any way and so gracious in terms of her modest explanation of how she launched to stardom. From an unrequited crush on Keanu Reeves to blowing up her marriage to the Beastie Boys’ Adam Horowitz, she shares her secrets in such a way that you feel like you’re there. This really is the quintessential example of what a celebrity memoir should be—the person laid bare and not a shiny, Instagram-friendly attempt at self-promotion.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Somehow I missed this one when it came out in 2018. But someone gave it to me for my birthday in June and I immediately discovered why everyone I knew was talking about it back in the day. On the surface a novel about an upwardly mobile Manhattanite who inherited money when her parents died and decides to take it easy for a year, it’s actually a hilarious, subtly satirical book about someone addicted to drugs and in the midst of a major depressive cycle who self-destructs in ways that are in some ways apparent only to her. Caught up in an obsession with a man unworthy of her, chronically annoyed by her best friend and entangled despite her better judgment with a hipster artist who wants to make her his muse, our protagonist does manage to rest and relax for a year—but whether or not that’s good for her is another matter. It doesn’t sound like a laugh-out-loud riot but I swear it is!

The Untold Story of Books by Michael Castleman

Now, I realize I am unusually interested in the publishing business because I’m IN the publishing business. But I swear that anyone even the slightest bit interested in what goes on behind the scenes of the books they read, or anyone interested in the history of business, would find this compelling. Who knew that there have actually been three phases of book publishing—one where authors like Thoreau paid to publish, a second where book publishers paid authors and now a digital one where both happen? Who knew that “legitimate” book publishing started when the big guns started pirating books and selling them as their own? Or that only one in 13,500 books becomes a New York Times bestseller? I didn’t know any of these things and I’m working in this business every day! This book tells you everything about book publishing, from Gutenberg to Amazon, and in the most entertaining ways imaginable.

Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld

Now, I’ve been a fan of Sittenfeld’s since her first book, the novel Prep, through her cotton candy rom com appropriately called Romantic Comedy (which I recommended here when it came out). This is her fist short story collection I’ve read and, as a woman around Sittenfeld’s age, I am definitely the intended audience. I read this months and months ago and yet certain stories definitely stuck with me—including one where the character is the babysitter for a guy who definitely seems based on Jeff Bezos before he became Jeff Bezos. Another, about a woman who gets cancelled on a local level after doing something perceived as racist, definitely stuck with me as a situation that’s very much a sign of our times. In all, this collection of 12 stories artfully captures what it’s like to grapple with modern life in all its beauty, tragedy and complexity.