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December 13, 2018

From The Hold Shelf (Or What I'm About To Read)

The other day I put a bunch of books on hold for myself and obviously they all came in at the same time... So here is the giant pile of books I have to read before I go on vacation in two weeks...


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"Useless Magic: Lyrics and Poetry" by Florence Welch
Lyrics and never-before-seen poetry and sketches from the iconic musician of Florence and the Machine  Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don't know what I'm trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true and I couldn't do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic.

Website: Florence and The Machine
Instagram: @florence
Twitter: @flo_tweet

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"99 Problems: Superstars Have Bad Days, Too" by Ali Graham
Poor Superstar. All the money and fame in the world won’t prevent him from having a bad hair day. Or stepping in gum. Or not being able to fit into skinny jeans, or watching helplessly as a scoop of ice cream falls from its cone.

Website: Grarg Media
Instagram: @grargmedia
Twitter: @99probs99 & @grargmedia

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If you’ve ever scrolled through your Instagram feed and thought, I wear clothes, eat avocado toast and like sunsets, why can’t someone pay me to live my best life? this book is for you...

Every one of your favorite influencers started with zero followers and had to make a lot of mistakes to get where they are today—earning more money each year than their parents made in the last decade. But to become a top creator, you need to understand the strategies behind the Insta-ready lifestyle...

As nightlife blogger, then social media strategist, and now Senior Director of Influencer Strategy and Talent Partnerships at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, Brittany Hennessy has seen the role of influencers evolve and expand into something that few could have imagined when social media first emerged. She has unrivaled insight into where the branded content industry was, where it is, and where it's going. In this book she'll reveal how to:   

*Build an audience and keep them engaged 
*Package your brand and pitch your favorite companies 
*Monetize your influence and figure out how much to charge   

Plus tips on:   

*Landing an agent 
*Getting on the radar of your favorite sites 
*Praising a brand without alienating their competitors   

Whether you’re just starting out or you're ready for bigger campaigns, Hennessy guides you through core influencer principles. From creating content worth double tapping and using hashtags to get discovered, to understanding FTC rules and delivering metrics, she’ll show you how to elevate your profile, embrace your edge, and make money—all while doing what you love.

Twitter: @2legit2britt

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Do you ever suspect that everyone else has life figured out and you don’t have a clue? If so, Rachel Hollis has something to tell you: that’s a lie.  

As the founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Rachel Hollis developed an immense online community by sharing tips for better living while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own life. Now, in this challenging and inspiring new book, Rachel exposes the twenty lies and misconceptions that too often hold us back from living joyfully and productively, lies we’ve told ourselves so often we don’t even hear them anymore.  

With painful honesty and fearless humor, Rachel unpacks and examines the falsehoods that once left her feeling overwhelmed and unworthy, and reveals the specific practical strategies that helped her move past them. In the process, she encourages, entertains, and even kicks a little butt, all to convince you to do whatever it takes to get real and become the joyous, confident woman you were meant to be.  

With unflinching faith and rock-hard tenacity, Girl, Wash Your Face shows you how to live with passion and hustle--and how to give yourself grace without giving up.

Website: The Chic Site
Instagram: @msrachelhollis
Twitter: @msrachelhollis

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By the author of Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls and a heroine of the body image movement, an intimate, gutsy memoir about being a fat woman  

Jes Baker burst onto the body positivity scene when she created her own ads mocking Abercrombie & Fitch for discriminating against all body types--a move that landed her on the Today Show and garnered a loyal following for her raw, honest, and attitude-filled blog missives.  

Building on the manifesta power of Things, this memoir goes deeply into Jes's inner life, from growing up a fat girl to dating while fat. With material that will have readers laughing and crying along with Jes's experience, this new book is a natural fit with her irreverent, open-book style.  

A deeply personal take, Landwhale is a glimpse at life as a fat woman today, but it's also a reflection of the unforgiving ways our culture still treats fatness, all with Jes's biting voice as the guide.

Instagram: @themilitantbaker
Twitter: @militant_baker

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A timeless collection of philosophies from renaissance performer and the world’s most famous shape-shifter RuPaul, whose sage outlook has created an unprecedented career for more than thirty-five years. GuRu is packed with more than 80 beautiful photographs that illustrate the concept of building the life you want from the outside in and the inside out.  

"You’re born naked and the rest is drag."  

As someone who has deconstructed life’s hilarious facade, RuPaul has broken "the fourth wall" to expand on the concept of mind, body, and spirit. This unique perspective has allowed RuPaul to break the shackles of self-imposed limitations, but reader beware, this is a daily practice that requires diligence and touchstones to keep you walking in the sunshine of the spirit. Once you’re willing to look beyond the identity that was given to you, a hidden world of possibilities will open its doors.  

Throughout the history of humans on this planet, there’ve always been shaman, seers, and mediums who are able to interpret both high and low frequencies and remind humans to look beyond the surface for the truth of who we really are. And who we really are is an extension of the power that created the universe (aka: God in drag). FYI: most people are not willing to hear or accept that.  

That is RuPaul’s secret for success, not only in show business, but in all aspects of life, especially in navigating the emotional landmines that inhibit most sweet, sensitive souls.  

If you think this book is just about "doing drag," you are sorely mistaken because for RuPaul, drag is merely a device to deactivate the identity-based ego and allow space for the unlimited.

Website: RuPaul
Instagram: @rupaulofficial
Twitter: @rupaul

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A complete introduction to modern magic and witchcraft with spells and incantations for love, happiness, and success.  

The Practical Witch's Spell Book is an enchanting handbook for anyone with a penchant for the magical and who wants to add joy to their daily life. To practice witchcraft is to be purposeful whether it's to help heal, bring about prosperity, imbue your home with positivity, or even to fall in love. To be a practical witch is to tap into an inner place of intention, energy, and magic to bring about positive change in your life and those of your loved ones. With life's increasingly frenetic pace, a magical approach to living is more important now than ever.   

In this must-have guide for spell-casters of all levels you will find hundreds of spells, blessings, and incantations for love and romance, contentment and happiness, success and prosperity, health and healing, work and vocation, and money and wealth, all to enrich your mind and spirit, and to improve your life and the world around you. Also included are ritual resources, magical correspondences, lucky colors and numbers, moon spells, and all the essential tools you need for making magic.


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Not since Edwin Land invented the Polaroid camera has image making become so revolutionized. Instagram has taken today’s phenomenon of instant photography and social media to a new zenith, enabling amateurs and auteurs alike to share their images with a global audience. From the ubiquitous selfie to urban life and the beauty of nature, Instagram has provided a forum for posting and viewing a seemingly endless archive of images from our time. From tweens to retirees, would-be and actual photographers are creating their own images and following countless others, creating an online community that is visually inspired.  

Since the origin of modern photography, artists of all kinds have sought to share their images within their personal networks of friends and family. Today, with the advent of the Internet and subsequent explosion of online photo sharing, photographers have an audience which is exponentially larger than that of just a few years ago. Photography as a medium has been revolutionized, with high-quality cameras built into smartphones, advanced editing software readily accessible, and online social media sites providing a platform for sharing and delivery.  

THE INSTAGRAM BOOK explores this rapidly expanding movement of social media photography in a stunning collection of images from photographers around the world who post their pictures on the popular app, Instagram. Curated from the software’s millions of users, THE INSTAGRAM BOOK explores a small spectrum of photographers—both professional and amateur alike—who contribute to this groundbreaking online community.

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In the vein of New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, a collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show.  

From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in.  

Self-taught, introspective, and from a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope.  

In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,” and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and how, though it’s taken him a while to accept who he is, he has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible.  

Written with Guy’s characteristic blend of wit, guile, and rumination, My Life as a Goddess is an unforgettable and deeply moving book by one of today’s most endearing and galvanizing voices in comedy.

Website: Guy Branum
Instagram: @guybranum
Twitter: @guybranum

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Unicorn Food is the food trend redefining clean eating, with plant-based dishes that are as bewitchingly beautiful and Instagrammable as they are nourishing and delicious. Now, in a kaleidoscope of 75 innovative, naturally colorful recipes, food journalist Kat Odell—author of Day Drinking and entrepreneur behind the alt-milk brand Unicorn Foods—introduces healthy, vibrant dishes that are as fun to eat as they are good for you.    

The ingredients are all natural and nutrient packed, ranging from fresh fruits and vegetables to superfoods like flax seeds, coconut oil, spirulina, chia, and bee pollen. And the hyper-colorful, creative recipes are perfect for healthy-forward eaters, including gently flavored nut milks, grain bowls loaded with fresh vegetables, probiotic breakfast custards, toasts with slathers and spreads. This is health food filled with joy, and in all the colors of the rainbow: the deep glowing yellow of a Frozen Turmeric Lassi, the greens of Bean Thread Noodle Salad with Miso-Arugula Pesto, the intense oranges and purples of Sweet + Sour Rainbow Radish Tacos, the tie-dye rainbow effect of Pineapple Kimchi Summer Sunset Rolls, and the pastels of Strawberry-Pink Peppercorn "Ice Cream" Sticks.  

Filled with dazzling full-color photographs, and published in a package as special  as the dishes themselves, Unicorn Food is a cookbook of real beauty, in the look, in the recipes, in the spirit of the food itself.

Instagram: @kat_odell
Twitter: @kat_odell

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A witty and profound portrait of the most talked-about English royal.

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando tongue-tied. She iced out Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was madly in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.  

Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.  

Such an enigmatic and divisive figure demands a reckoning that is far from the usual fare. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues, and essays, Craig Brown’s Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.

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A beautiful and practical book on choosing and caring for over 100 easy-to-find houseplants, as well as inspiring plant styling advice and much more.  

Fresh flowers are great—everyone loves receiving them. But inevitably they’re already on the way out the door (and into the trash) by the time they arrive. Plants—living, breathing, life-sustaining plants—are where it’s at! Authors Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan really want you to love indoor gardening and growing as much as they do. Leaf Supply profiles and provides comprehensive (but easy to follow) care instructions for 100 houseplants—including tropical plants, palms, hanging plants, succulents, cacti, and more unusual varieties such as air plants and carnivorous plants—ensuring you learn and grow as your plant grows.  

But much more than a plant guide, Leaf Supply also gives interior styling advice on choosing the right pots for your plants—both aesthetically and practically—as well as best utilizing your space, making the most of your indoor greenery, plus advice on pet-friendly (as well as harmful) plants for your home. This is a comprehensive guide for any budding green thumb interested in greening their apartment or inside their home.

Website: Leaf Supply
Instagram: @leaf_supply

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Dining In made Alison Roman’s SALTED BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHUNK SHORTBREAD Instagram-famous, but in fact all the recipes in this most-talked-about and of-the-moment cookbook are just as much of a source of inspiration. With 125 recipes for effortlessly chic dishes that are full of quick-trick techniques (think slathering roast chicken in anchovy butter, roasting citrus to ramp up the flavor, and keeping boiled potatoes in the fridge for instant crispy smashed potatoes), it’s no wonder Dining In has been dubbed a “treasure map” (Samin Nosrat, James Beard Award-winning author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat). Roman's recipes—vegetable-forward with quality ingredients, punctuated by standout flavors like hot honey browned butter, preserved lemon, za'atar, and garlicky walnuts—have set today's trends and are already establishing themselves as classics thanks to her devoted social media following. Her ingenuity seduces seasoned cooks, while her warm, edgy writing makes these recipes practical and approachable enough for the novice. Cooking through Dining In is the next best thing to having Alison right there with you in the kitchen: brash, funny, and full of opinions.

Website: Alison Roman
Instagram: @alisoneroman
Twitter: @alisoneroman

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