Artist, photographer and creative director Sarah Bahbah is giving Marie Claire an exclusive look at her inspiring book collection! Sarah opens up about her journey as a creative, the books that changed her life, and an in-depth look at her photo book "Dear Love."
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00:00Hello, welcome to my office. My name is Sarah Baffa. I'm a visual artist, a writer, a director,
00:07a photographer. I kind of dabble in all creative fields and I love it. I am so excited to show you
00:13my books. This is Marie Claire's shelf portrait. Okay, so first up we have Happy Hour by Marlo
00:25Granados. This book is about two young girls who moved to New York with pennies and they somehow
00:32manifest their way through some really beautiful situations. I loved reading this book because it
00:38reminds me of my youth and when I first moved to New York and I was trying to make ends meet and
00:46somehow I would end up in the craziest situations as well and I think it's just such a light beautiful
00:51coming-of-age story. If you want a light read and you feel like getting out of your head, this book
00:57is for you. Next up is one of my favorite poetry books ever, Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. He is a
01:05Lebanese poet. He was absolutely brilliant and he left such a mark on the world for the way he spoke
01:13on the human experience and love and pain and friendship and self-knowledge and teaching and
01:20uh, this guy. Are you kidding me? Uh, my heart. This book taught me that pain is something we should
01:30embrace. All the feelings that we experience as humans is something we should embrace and celebrate
01:36and enjoy the burn. Whenever you're feeling bad about yourself, whenever you're in darkness,
01:42pick up this book and you'll feel seen, you'll feel loved. I promise you, read this book.
01:48Next one is a really special one to me. It's A River Dies of Thirst by Mahmur Darwish. He is, or was,
01:59sorry, a Palestinian resistance poet. This book really captures his experience having lived in occupied
02:07Palestine and it's haunting. It's powerful. My dad and my grandparents, they're all from Palestine.
02:15And so when I read this book, I really feel like it gives words to their experiences of having been
02:21displaced from their homes. I really feel like he dreamed for my family and he gave us all the voice.
02:27And so I highly recommend reading this book. This next book,
02:35the way it sent me. Okay. So I read Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller a few years ago. It was at
02:44the top end of 2021 and I was grieving a relationship that I never wanted to end, but I had to for my
02:53sanity. And, uh, when I read Attached, I actually learned for the first time that I have an anxious
03:00attachment style and I've been consistently dating avoidance. And so what this book did to me was
03:07blur my mind and it taught me the tools that I needed to, you know, set healthy boundaries in my
03:15relationship and look out for the smoking guns and the red flags and notice when you are potentially
03:21entering an anxious and avoidant trap. Read this book. I love it. The next book that I recommend for
03:29everyone is the drama of The Gifted Child. This book is by Alice Miller. And when she speaks about the
03:38gifts, she's actually referring to the gift of apathy and numbing. When I read this book, I started
03:46therapy immediately. I'm not even kidding. I got sober. I started making really good, healthy changes
03:53to my life in order to start to feel the world that I live in and, you know, not numb myself. Um,
04:01because I realized I'd been stuck in survival mode for so long. This next one, I actually had to sit
04:06down for because it's really special to me, but it's also really, really heavy. It's my own book
04:13called Dear Love. Um, I actually just finished it and have launched it into the world. It's 10 years of my
04:22art and it's a lifetime of storytelling. It took me one year of intense labor last year to get this done.
04:29It's quite massive. It's 421 pages and it features like all of my art, all of the series that I've
04:37ever done. And for the first time, I kind of dive into each series and what they represent, um, whilst
04:44also sharing experiences about my life and my childhood and the person that I've become today. What
04:52book have I read most in my life? Definitely this one, Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
04:59I've been reading this since I was 19. So for a really lovely time now, it's just such a great
05:06reminder to stay in the present moment and everything that happens in the future happens
05:11right now and everything that happens in the past happens right now. So right now is all that matters.
05:17I buy most of my books from BookSoup in West Hollywood. Yeah, I love that place. I get a copy,
05:25I go, I spend ages in there, I pick up three books, I only ever end up reading one of them, but yeah,
05:30definitely BookSoup. My favorite childhood book is The Missing Piece Meets The Big O. It's by Shel Silverstein
05:39and I actually didn't read it as a child. I read it as an adult. Um, but I just love how it took me back
05:48to that place of being young and I think adults should read children's books more often because
05:56the message is always so pure and there's such great reminders, um, of our core and our essence.
06:03This book is so cute. Please read it. The book I'm excited to read next is The Artist Way by Julia Cameron.
06:13Apparently Julia really teaches you how to get inside your head as an artist and take everything out
06:21and then release it. And so I know she makes you do morning pages. She encourages you to go on artist
06:26dates and, uh, yeah, I'm excited to dive into it. What's my favorite book cover of all time?
06:34Am I allowed to say this one? Cause, uh, I really wanted to make the best, uh, book cover of all time.
06:43But in all honesty, I think publishers need to do a better job of making cuter covers because there's
06:50so many great books that have ugly covers and people will never pick it up because the cover doesn't
06:55allure than in. My favorite place to read a book is definitely on the beach. That's actually where
07:01I read most of my books because the only time I ever have time to read a book is when I take some time
07:06off in summer. A famous person, I would like to do a tell all. Has Brad Pitt done one yet? Cause I will be
07:15reading that book in a second. This book is available at dear-love-book.com and it will look so good on your
07:26coffee table. And I really hope that the stories that I share, um, reach you in some way, teach you
07:32something. And, uh, if not, you can just enjoy the photographs that I have in here. Ah, there's so many,
07:38there's literally so many. That concludes my Marie Claire's shelf portrait. Don't forget to like
07:44and subscribe and I will see you guys soon.