I'd Rather Be Reading

As our January Wellness Series rolls on, today we switch from mental and emotional wellness to physical wellness. Aging is a good thing—hey, it certainly beats the alternative, right?—but I’d venture to guess that all of us want to continue to grow older without looking or feeling older. Today’s guest, Dr. Anthony Youn, teaches us how to do just that, looking at environmental and lifestyle factors to turn back and freeze the clock. What we eat, how much we sleep, and our skincare routines allow us to have an ample amount of control on aging, and we cover the gamut in today’s episode—this might be one of the most jam-packed informational episodes we’ve ever done on the show and I know you’ll walk away having learned so much about how to look and feel younger as we enter 2024 and, interestingly, though Dr. Youn is one of the most well-known plastic surgeons in the country (his social media following tops 14 million!), we don’t mention plastic surgery at all in this episode—it’s all natural methods to staying, as he puts it, “younger for life.”   Younger for Life: Feel Great and Look Your Best with the New Science of Autojuvenation by Dr. Anthony Youn

Welcome to 2024, and welcome to our January Wellness Series! We are alternating episodes about mental and emotional wellness (like this one) and physical wellness, and I am thrilled to kickstart this series with perhaps my favorite book of 2023: How to Be the Love You Seek: Break Cycles, Find Peace, and Heal Your Relationships by Dr. Nicole LePera. In the book, Dr. LePera gives the simple but profound advice “You already are the love you seek.” Before we go seeking love (many of us in all the wrong places), let’s begin this year by realizing we already have an abundance of love within us, and, once we harness our self-love and self-worth, we will truly be able to attract what we have deserved all along. This is truly one of the most revelatory, powerful books I have ever read.   How to Be the Love You Seek: Break Cycles, Find Peace, and Heal Your Relationships by Dr. Nicole LePera

My annual best books episode with the dynamic Carla Jean Whitley never disappoints! Below are her picks, in order. Happy reading! The Best Books She’s Read This Year: I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (Fiction)  Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone by Amy Key (Nonfiction)  Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (Fiction) The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush (Nonfiction, and her No. 1 pick of 2023!) Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Fiction) Happily: A Personal History—With Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark (Nonfiction)  Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Fiction)  You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (Nonfiction)  The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl (Nonfiction)  The Best Books She’s Reread This Year: Frindle by Andrew Clements (Fiction) The Giver by Lois Lowry (Fiction) Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Nonfiction) This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (Nonfiction)  This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub (Fiction) Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (Fiction) The Books She Is Anticipating for 2024: Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Fiction) After Annie by Anna Quindlen (Fiction) Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley (Nonfiction) The Last Fire Season by Manjula Martin (Nonfiction) Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison (Nonfiction) If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury by Geraldine DeRuiter (Nonfiction) Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis (Nonfiction) Anita De Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (Fiction)   The Books I Am Anticipating for 2024: The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin (Fiction) Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other by Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (Nonfiction)

Today on the show we have a career retrospective episode with journalist Nancy Jo Sales, who walks us through her career writing for the likes of Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. Nancy Jo is a New York Times bestselling author, and we also discuss her three books: The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World (which was made into a movie directed by Sofia Coppola), American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, and Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno; she is also behind a documentary film called Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age, which aired on HBO. I know you’ll find Nancy Jo real and raw and transparent, and her career as a journalist has long inspired my own. Books by Nancy Jo Sales: The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno   Her HBO Documentary: Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age   Other Works Mentioned: “The Suspects Wore Louboutins” by Nancy Jo Sales for Vanity Fair Picture by Lillian Ross Air Mail

Simply put? Today’s guest, Aurora James, is a force. I have no idea what hidden stash of hours she has to do all that she does in a day, a week, a month, a year—but she is changing the world. One of my favorite books of 2023 was her memoir, Wildflower, and I’m not alone—it was praised globally for its vulnerability and candidness. Aurora contains multitudes: in addition to being an author, she is the founder and designer behind Brother Vellies, a Black-owned and female-led lifestyle and accessories brand that is, in its own words, redefining luxury. Beyoncé, Solange Knowles, Elaine Welteroth, and Nicki Minaj have worn her items, and in 2015 Aurora made history as the first Black designer to win the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prize; in 2020, she was on the cover of the September issue of Vogue. Also in 2020, after the senseless murder of George Floyd, Aurora founded the 15 Percent Pledge, a nonprofit that urges major retailers to commit 15 percent of shelf space to Black-owned businesses. Within two weeks of Aurora announcing the pledge on May 29, 2020, Sephora signed the pledge; companies like Macy’s, Rent the Runway, Yelp, and West Elm have followed. This is an impressive person who has left her mark in so many spaces, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation.   Wildflower by Aurora James

The one, the only Candace Bushnell is on the show today! *insert fangirl screaming here* As Sex and the City is my favorite show of all time—and Candace, you know, created the whole franchise back in 1994—this is a dream come true. I actually met Candace in person in 2019, when she was on her book tour for Is There Still Sex and the City?, and I found her to be as lovely as I hoped she would be. Most people probably know Candace best from penning The New York Observer column “Sex and the City” from 1994 to 1996, which later became an anthology of the same name in 1996 and, of course, an HBO show of the same name in 1998. But actually, Candace is one of those unicorn writers that can tackle both fiction and nonfiction writing and do both well. My favorite works from Candace are actually her novels, of which there are many: 4 Blondes, Trading Up, Lipstick Jungle (also made into a television show), One Fifth Avenue, and Killing Monica. She’s also written young adult fiction like The Carrie Diaries (also made into a television show), Summer and the City, and Rules for Being a Girl. Candace continues to evolve and pivot, and is now on tour with her one-woman show, “True Tales of Sex, Success, and Sex and the City” (go to candacebushnell.com for more information!) and is also helming a reality dating show for women over 50 that is generating tons of buzz. It was an honor to do this career retrospective with not just a talented writer, but a really cool person.   Sex and the City (1996) 4 Blondes (2000) Trading Up (2003) Lipstick Jungle (2005) One Fifth Avenue (2008) The Carrie Diaries (2010) Summer and the City (2011) Killing Monica (2015) Is There Still Sex and the City? (2019) Rules for Being a Girl (2020)

For Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino—star of MTV’s Jersey Shore and a career reality show talent with other appearances on shows like Dancing with the Stars and Celebrity Big Brother—the highs have been very high, and the lows have been very low. At his highest point (or at least what he thought was his highest point at the time), Mike was a multimillionaire, the second highest-paid reality star of 2010—second only to Kim Kardashian. Drugs, partying, and women came easily, and he was living seemingly every twentysomething man’s dream. But the lows were so low: a crippling drug addiction that could have taken his life, prison time for tax evasion, and nearly losing a child. In today’s conversation, we talk about it all, and Mike is candid, vulnerable, and real about every part of it. Today, Mike is a husband and a father to soon-to be three children (what he now realizes is truly what the dream life consists of), and truly believes this book will save lives—and I agree. A conversation my 25-year-old self could never dreamed of having, but one I am so glad I got to take part in.   Reality Check: Making the Best of the Situation by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino

There will literally never be another "I'd Rather Be Reading" episode this short again. Enjoy it, and support your local booksellers this holiday season. That's all!

Today on the show we have one-half of one of my favorite writing duos: BBC’s Katty Kay who, along with fellow journalist Claire Shipman, has authored five books that are all about advancing womanhood. The bulk of our conversation today centers around The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance— What Women Should Know, addressing specifically the confidence gap between men and women, which is keeping women from achieving their full potential. Confidence is something that matters so much but is so rarely spoken about like this—and conversations like this will hopefully move the needle forward. We also talk about the duo’s books Womenomics: Work Less, Achieve More, Live Better and their latest, The Power Code: More Joy, Less Ego, Maximum Impact for Women (and Everyone), which came out this summer. (They’ve also written two books geared towards a younger audience, The Confidence Code for Girls and Living the Confidence Code.) It’ll be impossible for you to not leave feeling empowered.   All by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman: Womenomics: Work Less, Achieve More, Live Better The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know The Power Code: More Joy, Less Ego, Maximum Impact for Women (and Everyone) The Confidence Code for Girls Living the Confidence Code

There are so many details when it comes to planning a wedding: what dress code will your guests wear? How about the flowers? Should you get a photographer, a videographer, or both? What do you want your wedding theme to be? (I honestly didn’t even know there was such a thing.) There are so many details to planning a wedding that it can be enormously overwhelming, but it will be decidedly less so with my guest today’s new book. Terri Pous had only been on one date with her now fiancé when she started writing How to Plan a Wedding: A Month-by-Month Guide for Modern Weddings, and now, of course, they’re deep in planning a wedding of their own—and through this book, Terri wrote her own guide to making wedding planning easier, she just didn’t know it at the time. Isn’t life beautiful? Terri’s book covers everything you can think of about wedding planning and some aspects of it that you wouldn’t even know to think of, and our conversation covers a pretty wide swath as well. Some of you know you will be planning a 2024 wedding; some of you are about to get engaged over the holidays and start wedding planning yourself, you just don’t know it yet! I know you will really enjoy this conversation, and I promise you will learn something.   How to Plan a Wedding: A Month-by-Month Guide for Modern Weddings by Terri Pous