Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
When she’s on the East Coast, Jenny Slate lives in a house that was a former dance hall. She’s made a lot of moves in recent years—marriage, motherhood, and a new Prime Video stand-up comedy special, “Seasoned Professional” (the title of which was suggested by her hypnotist; her first stand-up special was 2019’s “Stage Fright” on Netflix). Now comes her latest: Lifeform (Little, Brown), her second book of essays after Little Weirds. The comedian and actress (Parks and Recreation, Girls, Kroll Show, Obvious Child, I Want You Back, Everything Everywhere All At Once, It Ends With Us) also wrote two children’s books based on Marcel the Shell, which was an Oscar-nominated animated movie she cowrote and coproduced, adapted from web shorts she co-created. She came up with Marcel’s voice staying with five friends at a hotel to save money, and her toddler daughter might answer his questions v. hers.
The MA-born and -raised, L.A./MA-based NYT bestselling author began improv while at Columbia where she started a sketch group called Fruit Paunch with friends (later they started Wiener Philharmonic); grew up in a house the family (dad: a poet; mom: a potter) believed was haunted (it definitely had bats); worked at a bakery on Court Street when she lived in Brooklyn; was valedictorian of her high school, where she was on speech team; was on SNL for one season; went to New Yorker softball games when she dated a fact checker (her college boyfriend) there in the early aughts; watched Easter Parade a lot as a kid; considers Largo her home base when performing in L.A.; met her husband in Norway and got married on New Year’s Eve in her living room during peak Omicron, and asked the florist to make it look like Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.
Likes: Sharing memories, being soothed, and napping during parties; ranch dressing; dirty vodka martinis.
Not so much: The description “multihyphenate.”
Fan of: Amy Sedaris, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Cause: Planned Parenthood.
Fashion cred: Wore a Thom Browne tuxedo short set for her special.
Good at: Performing and being in love.
Needs work: Being chill, privacy.
100 percent yes: Watching rom-coms, contributing to people taking risks for a positive emotional life.
Zero interest: Being contrarian or an instigator; riding a bicycle. Let her book recs below steer you to your next read.
The book that:
…helped me through a breakup:
Anita Brookner’s Hotel Du Lac really helped me through a breakup, not just because there is a real sense of relief over what the protagonist was freed from, but a deep sense of worth surrounding her own gut-feelings, decisions, and real, self-created daily life.
…kept me up way too late:
I was basically underslept and continually late during the week last fall that I consumed Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake.
…made me weep uncontrollably:
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt. So so so so so so worth it. So worth the heartbreak because also there is so much love and care and incredible experience here. I can’t stop thinking about it.
…I recommend over and over again:
The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis, my goodness. The trickle of magic, the webwork of spiritual and physical words. This book is one of my all time favorites.
...shaped my worldview:
I don’t think one book or one person could be solely responsible, but Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius certainly did a lot for me, from a young age.
…currently sits on my nightstand:
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.
…I’d pass on to my kid:
Night Lunch By Eric Fan, this book is so soothing, rich in feeling, and downright gorgeous not just in text but in Dena Seiferling’s gorgeous artwork.
…made me laugh out loud:
The Idiot by Elif Batuman. It made me laugh in a weird loud deep way, and I loved every single moment of it.
...I last bought:
The Sellout by Paul Beatty.
…helped me become a better writer:
George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo is a masterwork for many reasons, but its dedication to the specificity of its own voice and vocabulary was deeply moving and encouraging to me, let alone all of the laughs and all of the ghosts!
…should be on every college syllabus:
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown.
...I’ve re-read the most:
I bought Little Shrew by Akiko Miyakoshi for my daughter, and honestly? I think that I’ve read it to myself at least 5 mornings a week for a month, so it certainly beats anything else I can think of, in terms of something that I am reading for my own well being?
...I consider literary comfort food:
The Wild Braid by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine.
…I would have blurbed if asked:
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, although how could I blurb it when there is genuinely so much to say about how much I loved it?
...makes me feel seen:
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti. I needed exactly what she gave us with that work, and I continue to think about it and feel glad that she exists!
...fills me with hope:
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. Yep, this novel is about a toothless 92-year old woman who has a beard and can’t hear anything, but that is who the hero is in this story, and it is incredible and life-affirming and energizing.
...I’d want signed by the author:
Any Maira Kalman book. Any. Just the energy of her pen on the page would turn the book from “treasure” to “amulet.”
Read Slate’s Picks:
Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
