AWESOME MEMOIR ALERT! So, you already know that we're closet memoir whores. Something about the way people let us into their lives and write about it so beautifully(or in the case, so funny!) makes us want to read more.
Today we're featuring a fabulous author and her fantastic memoir, Falling for Me. Anna David is the author of the novels Party Girl and Bought. She's also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Redbook, Details and many other publications. She's also appeared on national television programs including Today, and CNN's Showbiz Tonight. In short, she's a freakin' STUD! And we really loved her 5 Loves-especially #4!
Here's the scoop on Falling for me: Like most women, whether they’ve chosen the Fortune 500 career path or have had five kids by 35, Anna David wondered if she’d made the right choices. Then she came upon the book Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmopolitan’s fearless leader from the mid-sixties to the late nineties. Immediately connecting with Gurley Brown’s unique message of self-empowerment combined with femininity, Anna vowed to use Sex as a lesson plan, venturing out of her comfort zone in the hope of overcoming the fears and insecurities that had haunted her for years. Embarking on a journey both intensely personal and undeniably universal, she becomes adventurous and spontaneous—reviving her wardrobe and apartment, taking French lessons, dashing off to Seville, and whiling nights away with men she never would have considered before. In the process, she ends up meeting the person really worth changing for: herself.
Sound great? It is! Leave a comment and you'll be entered to win one of FIVE copies. We'll choose the winners on Sunday November 20th after 6pm PST.
CHICK LIT IS NOT DEAD PRESENTS...ANNA DAVID'S 5 LOVES AND A DUD
1. Going to the Farmer’s Market on Sundays. I prefer going to a smaller one in Larchmont rather than the massive Hollywood one because part of what I love about this ritual is that it feels sort of homey and quaint and hundreds of stalls isn’t my idea of homey and quaint. I usually labor over whether or not to get strawberries since they tend to get soft quickly before snagging heirloom tomatoes and avocados (to later chop up the tomato, mix with onion, and scoop into the avocados). Sometimes I stop at this roasted chicken stall (their garlic topping, which lasts for months, is ridiculous) or get these cheesy crackers that I crumble and use in place of croutons in salads. My last stop is always the flower stall, where I get lilies because I’m addicted to the way they smell. At home, I put them in water mixed with a dash of lemon, bleach and sugar, which helps them to last all week—as in just long enough for me to go get some more the following Sunday.
2. Hiking up Runyon Canyon. Some of my friends hate it because they think it’s too crowded or too Hollywood (it’s impossible to go without seeing someone famous—usually Kathy Griffin in full makeup) but I love it. Right at one of the entrances, there’s a booth set up that contains bottled water and granola bars that works on the honor system. In a big city like Los Angeles! Whoever set it up trusts people to leave a dollar if they take something. I never actually have because I usually walk around the world with a bottle of water all but surgically attached to me but it always makes me feel like I live in a small town or something when I see it.
3. The Bar Method, which is basically, from what I can determine through my very unscientific survey, the hardest workout known to man: you essentially line up at a ballet barre and work your muscles like you never knew they could work. Any class where the teacher trills about how great it is to see legs and arms shaking because that means you’re really working isn’t for the faint of heart or body. The experience is actually somewhat miserable and I think one of the reasons I may love it so much is the sheer relief I feel when it’s over: it’s like the glory of removing the pebble from your shoe that was making your foot hurt but times about a million. Plus, the Bar Method I go to is on Third Street in West Hollywood, one block away from Joan’s On Third—the perfect place to reward yourself for your nearly impossible workout with some of their fried cinnamon sugar sprinkled pita crisps.
4. Discovering new writers I love, or new books by writers I’ve long loved. Right now, it’s all about Jennifer Egan and A Visit From The Goon Squad but before that it was this woman Sacha Scoblic who wrote a memoir about sobriety called Unwasted. The sign of a great book, to me, is that I get excited when I’m brushing my teeth at night because I always read before I fall asleep. The problem is that I’m a pretty all-or-nothing person so if I don’t feel that way, I usually don’t end up finishing the book. I also love taking an entire week to read the Sunday New York Times. I’m someone who has to force herself a little to care about current events; it’s a horrible quality I’m deeply ashamed of but somehow the Sunday New York Times manages to make everything interesting and also allow me numerous opportunities to slip, “As I was reading the other day in the Times” into conversations whenever I can and imagine it makes me sound incredibly sophisticated. While I savor the Book Review and Sunday Styles, I’m often also surprised by the gems I discover in the magazine or the business section—or even, who knows—on the front page!
5. The near seasonlessness of Los Angeles weather. I never knew what a weather person I was until I moved to New York a few years ago on a whim and stayed for over three years. I came back to LA last February and the day I landed, it was 80 degrees. I had just endured, essentially, three months of blizzards. And now that it’s fall, in New York I would be starting to panic, thinking I’d better get out there immediately and enjoy the pretty weather because before I knew it, it was all going to be snatched from me and I’d be forced back into my two coat-mitten-hat-scarf uniform. But in LA, the end of summer doesn’t feel like a great tragedy because it essentially feels like summer all year long.
DUD
I hate to say it but e-readers. I have a Kindle—my second one—and though I’d love to love it, I simply can’t let go of my desire to hold a physical book. I like to know what page I’m on, not the percentage of the book that I’ve read, and if I’m slightly bored, I like to skip ahead, read a couple of paragraphs or pages and see if I’m more intrigued by what’s coming next—usually I am. I abandon a lot of books that I know I’d finish and probably like if I had the actual physical books. I was listening to Mark Maron’s podcast (another love!) and he was reading pages of Keith Richards’ Life and I thought it sounded amazing. But on the Kindle, I’d stopped reading almost immediately.
Thanks so much Anna! xo, L&L
To read more about Anna, head on over to her website or find her on Twitter and Facebook.