Casey Wilson's Bookshelf Tour: Nicole Byer, David Sedaris & More | Shelf Portrait | Marie Claire
Actress, comedian and author Casey Wilson takes us on a tour of her favorite reads! She shares recommendations from her own bookshelf, spanning everything from essays, novels, poetry and great reads for moms.
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00:00What have we here? It's right here. It just happened to be here. That's so crazy.
00:04Hi, this is Casey Wilson. I am here to give Marie Claire a kind of sneak peek
00:09into my personal library shelf portrait.
00:14Behind me is one of my bookshelves. We are here in a room. I've sort of made my dining room,
00:20frankly, into also a library. We have to multitask right now with our spaces.
00:26I'm an avid reader. I've also recently written a book, The Wreckage of My Presence,
00:31has just come out on May 4th. And I've written a collection of comedic essays, honestly inspired
00:37by some of my favorite writers who are on the shelf. One is called The Most of Nora Ephron.
00:43It's her huge essay collection, basically all the best of her work, which I absolutely love.
00:47It's so funny. Also, I have a ton of David Sedaris books here. This is his latest book,
00:54Theft by Finding. He makes me laugh constantly. So I feel like David Sedaris and Nora Ephron are
01:00the gold standard of essay collections. I like poetry. This is Maya Angelou's book of poems.
01:06It's called Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water Before I Die. It's wonderful. This has been a
01:11well-worn copy that my mom gave me that is very close to my heart. Love this one. Here is my
01:18favorite book of fiction. It's by Ann Tyler, who's one of my all-time favorite fiction writers.
01:25She tends to write, honestly, about just very ordinary women, typically living in Baltimore,
01:30which sounds very specific. But she really just writes about the life of an ordinary woman,
01:35which I actually find fascinating. And this particular book is called The Amateur Marriage.
01:40And it's basically about the span of a couple from growing up together all the way through,
01:46spoiler alert, their death, but it's not a spoiler, and just kind of all the kids they have,
01:50every single thing, the life that a couple goes through. It's wonderful. A book that is so deeply
01:56funny, but also amazingly poignant and incredibly powerful. This book by a woman I'm going to call
02:02friend, and I hope she would feel the same, Nicole Byer. It's called Hashtag Very Fat, Hashtag Very
02:07Brave. And it is so good. Kind of Nicole taking photos all around Los Angeles. She's wearing
02:14different glorious bathing suits and doing hilarious things, and kind of has a meaningful
02:19message about how people have said to her, like, you're so brave for basically existing in the skin
02:25that you do. And I've felt that before too. And it's about kind of body positivity. But Nicole
02:30has such an amazing sense of humor that also has kind of a f***ing component to it, which I absolutely
02:35love. Every picture is just better than the last. And the subtitle is The Fat Girl's Guide to Being
02:42Hashtag Brave and Not a Dejected Melancholy Down in the Dumps Weeping Fat Girl in a Bikini.
02:49Amazing. This is my favorite kid's book that I read when I was little. It's called The Hundred
02:53Dresses that my kids are about to get old enough to read. It's kind of young adult-ish, maybe like
03:0011 years old. Great book about empathy, about a little girl who tells her classmates that she has
03:07100 beautiful dresses, and the girl doesn't have a ton of money, and everyone makes fun of her and
03:10says that she's lying. But when they go over to her house, they find out that she has 100
03:16beautiful watercolors that she's done of 100 different dresses. And it really affected me. I'm
03:21like about to cry thinking about it when I was younger about keeping, kind of including people
03:26and not, I guess, not really bullying anyone and just being inclusive. So it's a great book.
03:32Last book is a parenting book. It's called The Early Riser Companion. But it says rhythms and
03:38rituals, traditions, and transitions for the first seven years of a child's life. So beautiful.
03:45And basically includes all these ideas for very small, inexpensive, beautiful rituals you can
03:52build into your family's life. And kind of building on this idea that we've lost a lot
03:57of ritual in our lives. But I have no time, no patience, no energy for anything. But this book
04:03just gives you great ideas as a mom that are free and easy. So I love The Early Riser Companion.
04:09And I'm going to shout out one last book, which is an incredible book. And it's called Girl
04:15Underwater. It is a novel. It's young adult by Claire Kells, who also happens to be my incredibly
04:22talented sister-in-law. And it's a young adult novel. It has intrigue. It has mystery picture,
04:27kind of a sexy lost for young adults. Truly such an amazing book. And Oprah's O Magazine online
04:35rated it and said it was one of their best books. That's it. And what's this? I'm grabbing my own
04:42book again? Who put this here? This is crazy, guys. The Wreckage of My Presence is my book.
04:49I hope you enjoy it. And thank you so much for joining me in my home in front of my gorgeous
04:56bookcase. Thanks, Marie Claire.