\t\t\tWelcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com\u2019s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you\u2019re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you\u2019re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too. <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was fourteen, I made a pilgrimage\u2014to see a dress.\u201d So begins the introduction to V\u00e9ronique Hyland\u2019s debut Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink (Harper Collins). The collection of 15 essays examines various fashion motifs\u2014both old and new\u2014and the historical contexts that shape them. Think: the \u201cFrench girl\u201d aesthetic, the omnipresence of \u201cathleisure,\u201d and the rise of \u201cnormcore.\u201dFor several years, Hyland has been writing and thinking about the many ways that our clothes shape us. The Manhattan-based writer and editor is Fashion Features Director at ELLE, where she writes the weekly column Style Points about how fashion intersects with the wider world. She previously held positions as the Fashion News Editor at The Cut, Associate Features Editor at Harper\u2019s Bazaar, and Associate Fashion Editor at WWD. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, W, New York Magazine, and Cond\u00e9 Nast Traveler. In 2016, she coined the term \u201cmillennial pink\u201d (read more about that here). Likes: Strong black loose-leaf tea, anything British, musicals by William Finn and Dave Malloy, short-lived single-topic publications like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, reading about low-stakes disasters (e.g. the making of Brian de Palma\u2019s Bonfire of the Vanities.)The book that:\u2026made me miss a train stop:Well, not a train, but I picked up Lisa Taddeo\u2019s Three Women before flying home from a photo shoot in L.A., and the next thing I knew, a flight attendant was informing me that we\u2019d landed twenty minutes ago. Anyone who\u2019s read it will know exactly what I mean! \u2026made me weep uncontrollably:When I met the designer and artist Osman Yousefzada, we immediately bonded over books\u2013a kinship that\u2019s been forged in several tearooms since. He was kind enough to send me an early copy of his memoir The Go-Between, which comes out in the U.S. in April. It\u2019s a moving and textured account of growing up as part of the Pashtun community in Birmingham, England, where he finds himself becoming an emissary between worlds: both that of men and women, and that of his community and the world outside it. His recall for details and his ability to make so many figures from his past come to vibrant life is truly astounding; I felt like I was living his life along with him. \u2026I recommend over and over again:Insurrecto, a fictional meditation on Filipino history, colonialism and translation by Gina Apostol, who also happens to be my ninth-grade English teacher. Ms. Apostol is not only an experimental novelist who studied with John Barth at Johns Hopkins, her fashion sense is unparalleled \u2013 she wore neon boas to class! That definitely made an impression, the idea that you didn\u2019t have to be some penitent in sackcloth and tweed to be serious about writing. …shaped my worldview:I\u2019ve read a lot of nonfiction about climate change, but Omar El Akkad\u2019s novel American War was the first thing that truly helped me picture what a worst-case scenario of the future could look like. …made me rethink a long-held belief:I\u2019ve always hated winter and still do, but Wintering, by Katherine May, which I read during the harrowing winter of 2020, looks at the power of cold-weather traditions from different cultures and makes an argument for why the season is an opportunity for rest, retreat and communion with nature. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll be going for a sauna followed by a bracing roll in the snow \u00e0 la the Finns anytime soon, but it certainly shifted my thinking a bit. …I read in one sitting, it was that good:I Lost My Girlish Laughter by Jane Allen is a fun \u201930s Old Hollywood satire that recently got a critical re-appraisal and will fly by like the frames of a Preston Sturges classic.\u2026currently sits on my nightstand:Isaac Butler\u2019s The Method. As a failed actor, I\u2019m fascinated by Stanislavski and his hold over everyone from Moscow theater actors in the early 1910\u2019s to modern-day Hollywood stars. I\u2019ve always been kind of suspicious of Method acting (in my experience, people mainly use it as an excuse to be annoying) but I\u2019m excited to learn more about its origins. \u2026made me laugh out loud:Calvin Kasulke\u2019s Several People Are Typing, which is told entirely in Slack chats, so perfectly captured the specific argot of that medium, and went so far with its bizarro premise but managed to deliver. <\/p>\n
\u2026I\u2019d like turned into a Netflix show:Besides my own, you mean? I\u2019m kind of astounded that Ling Ma\u2019s fascinating and ultra-topical Severance (not related to the Apple TV show of the same name) hasn\u2019t gotten the small-screen treatment yet. Between its pandemic setting and its supernatural elements, it would make for unbeatable viewing. …I last bought:Hangsaman, by Shirley Jackson, at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, New York. A delicious, poisonous chocolate cake of a novel that deserves to be as well-known as her other work. …has the best title:I recently spied a book at Tim\u2019s Used Books in Provincetown, MA called Memoirs of a Public Baby. I think that one qualifies (and I\u2019m mad that title is taken!) …has the best opening line:It\u2019s tough to beat the chutzpah of Rousseau\u2019s The Confessions: \u201cI have entered upon a performance which is without example, whose accomplishment will have no imitator.\u201d OK, my guy!!…I\u2019ve re-read the most:I\u2019m not a big re-reader, or re-experiencer of things. I don\u2019t usually watch movies more than once, or even return to the same destinations. I just think life is too short, and you\u2019ve gotta keep it moving. That said, I always go back to a book that didn\u2019t get enough attention, in my view. Hilary Thayer Hamman\u2019s Anthropology of an American Girl, which the author originally self-published, was then picked up by Spiegel & Grau. It\u2019s a coming-of-age novel that does that impossible thing: feels like real life, while simultaneously being as high-stakes as the best fiction. …I consider literary comfort food:Anything by Edmund Crispin, who wrote a series of mysteries about Oxford don Gervase Fen. The Moving Toyshop is a favorite. …makes me feel seen:Marathon city walks complete with lots of people-watching are my favorite (read: only) form of exercise, so Teju Cole\u2019s Open City, which is about a fellow New York fl\u00e2neur, made me feel less like a weirdo for engaging in this hobby….features the most beautiful book jacket:Persephone Books in London re-issues titles by women that have been overlooked, and they have the most beautiful sleek seal-gray jackets with interiors in these stunning patterns. The last time I was there, I bought E.M. Delafield\u2019s Diary of a Provincial Lady….everyone should read, because it will make you appreciate everything you read afterward:I\u2019m not a fan of books that attempt to explain \u201chow fiction works\u201d because I would rather be transported and not analyze it to death. This is also why I didn\u2019t major in English. But I\u2019ll make an exception for George Saunders because A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, which is based on a popular class he teaches at Syracuse University, is a close reading of what Marc Maron would call my \u201cguys\u201d (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev and Gogol) that helps illuminate the craft of telling a story. I\u2019m admittedly a Russian literature freak, but I think anyone who enjoys fiction would get a lot out of it. …I could only have discovered at:Blenheim Hill Books in Hobart, NY (upstate New York\u2019s fabled \u201cbook town\u201d) recently re-opened after suffering a devastating fire, and I can\u2019t wait to go back. Owners Barbara Balliet and Cheryl Clarke have such a carefully curated yet wide-ranging selection, and it\u2019s where I found Elizabeth Gilbert\u2019s The Last American Man, an absorbing unpacking of the \u201cindependent outdoorsman\u201d trope. (Did I make a dedicated trip up there on my birthday and bring a literal fishing net to carry my book-spoils in? Not no.) …fills me with hope:Any of Annie Dillard\u2019s writing. Holy the Firm is one of those books that excels at revelation density: so many epiphanies packed into only about 75 pages.<\/p>\n
…surprised me:Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are two of my favorite writers, and I\u2019ve pretty much burned through their work and all the writing about them, so I was looking for a new stylish literary noir author. I initially dismissed Ross Macdonald because the covers of his books can look kind of pulpy. Do not make this mistake! They are excellent: California-cool wry martinis with lines that make you sit up straighter, like this one from The Barbarous Coast: \u201cA taste of whiskey had changed her mood, as a touch of acid will change the color of blue litmus paper.\u201d A lot of cool people are in my corner here: Eudora Welty was so besotted with Macdonald that they ended up exchanging hundreds of letters, he helped Warren Zevon get clean and Zevon later dedicated an album to him, and supposedly the Coen brothers are adapting The Zebra-Striped Hearse….I\u2019d want signed by the author:Well, if that would entail bringing the author back from the dead, then John Cheever\u2019s The Wapshot Chronicle, because I have a lot to ask him about!…taught me this Jeopardy!-worthy bit of trivia:The last letter in the English alphabet wasn\u2019t always \u201cZ,\u201d it was \u201c&.\u201d From Kathryn Schulz\u2019s Lost & Found.Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be:Oh, I\u2019ve given a lot of thought to this question, well before it was asked here. Bookstore: Blackwell\u2019s in Oxford. I went on a trip there once, after London Fashion Week, where all I did was visit libraries and historic sites on campus. Hot tip: if you sweet-talk the guard at University College, he\u2019ll let you sneak into the Shelley memorial. I\u2019d then finish up my day at this 143-year-old bookstore, parking my carcass in The Norrington Room, the famous basement area with three miles of books. Every day they closed at 6 p.m. (England!) and would have to politely kick me out. (For the record, I did buy many books from them throughout this stint, I didn\u2019t just use it as an Airbnb!)Library: Either the Bodleian at Oxford (those in the know call it \u201cThe Bod\u201d) or the National Library of Victoria in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tRead Hyland\u2019s Picks:<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Go-Between<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tOsman Yousefzada
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$25.00<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tI Lost My Girlish Laughter<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tJane Allen
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$16.00<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tSeveral People Are Typing<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tCalvin Kasulke
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tHangsaman<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tShirley Jackson
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$14.49<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tMemoirs of a Public Baby<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t Philip O’Connor
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$14.95<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Confessions<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tJean-Jacques Rousseau
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$8.99<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tAnthropology of an American Girl<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tHilary Thayer Hamman
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$16.00<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Moving Toyshop<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tEdmund Crispin
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$13.04<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Diary of a Provincial Lady<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tE. M. Delafield
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$27.79<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tA Swim in a Pond in the Rain<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tGeorge Saunders
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Last American Man<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tElizabeth Gilbert
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$16.00<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tHoly the Firm<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tAnnie Dillard
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$14.99<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Barbarous Coast<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRoss Macdonald
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$15.00<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Zebra-Striped Hearse<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRoss Macdonald
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$14.99<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tThe Wapshot Chronicle<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tJohn Cheever
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t$16.29<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tLost & Found<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tKathryn Schulz
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamazon.com<\/p>\n
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