Bookmarks from a Bookworm

emilyelizabethfran
Sep 28, 2015
3 min read

Books I've been curling up with, lately

Recently I realized I was in dire need of a bedtime routine, the kind you read about in those "10 Ways to Sleep Better" listicles, the articles that promise you you'll remove those dark circles beneath your eyes if you follow a few simple steps. While I'm someone with deep purple bags under my eyes no matter how rested I feel, I have been finding that a relaxing bedtime routine does in fact, help me sleep better. So I've committed to a few minutes of reading in bed before I go to sleep each night, and it's quickly become one of my most prized rituals. I love that it gives me a chance to detach from my smartphone and laptop, and stick my nose in a book I've been itching to read. Here's what I've been reading:

1. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari - Penned by comedian Aziz Ansari, Modern Romance is one part sociological discovery, one part hilarity. Ansari compares present day romantic norms with those of previous eras, revealing fascinating truths about humans' desires to find mates, and the way societal trends impact our quests for love. With apps like Tinder and the prevalance of online dating sites, the way we meet potential romantic partners has certainly shifted over recent decades, as have our expectations for the matches we expect to find. Ansari has collaborated with a number of notable scholars to explain the reasons behind these shifts, and disentangles the complexities of modern romance with healthy doses of humour, throughout this read.

2. Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht - Aliza Licht is a fashion PR powerhouse, with decades of experience overseeing public relations and social media for Donna Karan, and DKNY. In this book, Licht talks about her path to success as a fashion-loving PR professional, and explains how she took a chance on Twitter before it was mainstream. Licht created a likeable social media persona for DKNY consumers to relate to, and consult for fashion news and advice: DYNY PR Girl. She spearheaded social media branding amongst NYC fashion brands from the mid-2000s on, and remains one of the industry's most successful women today. With an undergraduate degree in neuroscience, Licht had planned on a career in medicine, but her life-long love of fashion proved too hard to ignore, and at 22, she traded her scrubs for stilettos, never looking back. This book is a career mentorship in 300 pages, and no matter what industry you are in, or hope to join, I highly reccommend this read.

3. Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham - I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I really loved this collection of personal essays by Lena Dunham, writer, director and lead actor of HBO's Girls. In all honestly, Dunham's writing style far exceeeded my expectations. She really is, as her character in Girls optimistically states, "the voice of her generation". I think this is because her voice as a writer is raw and candid and self-absorbed in an endearing way; it's very relatable. Her essays very much reflect what it feels like to be a young woman in her 20s, striving to gain her bearings, understand herself, and understand the people around her. If you're a young millenial starting out in the world, I would defintiely reccommend Dunham's book of essays.