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Liz Phair
Anointed as “Rock’s voice of third-wave feminism,” by The Guardian, American singer and songwriter Liz Phair was adopted and raised outside of Chicago. Her 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville , an 18-song double album of jangling indie-rock, is widely considered a seminal record of the era, and an answering call to decades of cock rock and macho swagger. Her work has always been a reflection of her time; as she told The New York Times, “I want, 500 years from now, people to be able to look back and learn what women were thinking, what they were feeling, what they wanted, what their lives were like. I want them to be historically there, present, remembered. And I want to be a part of that.”
Below are Liz Phair's favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set. See the full list...
10
The Emperor of Scent
Chandler Burr
I loved the drama of this exploration into the mechanism of smell, itself wrapped inside the romantic tale of a curmudgeonly scientist obsessed with his own exquisitely refined appreciation of perfume. This book gives a behind-the-scenes look into the world of manufactured scent: the history, the most prized essences, the sterile labs, the villainy, the exotic extracts, the big retail business—and the pure joy of olfactory response in customers who can recall major events in their life by inhaling a whiff of the cologne they wore at the time.
9
The Mists of Avalon
Marion Zimmer Bradley
My mother gave me this book to read in high school when I was sick with malingering cold and missing out on social events. But it was absorbing, unlike any other historical fantasy I’d read. Viewing Arthurian legend through the eyes of the female characters upended my sense of history altogether, showing me that even real world events can be viewed through many lenses. I loved identifying with the enchantress turned crusader. So dramatic! The heart strings it plucked—sexual frisson, jealousy, courage, betrayal, magic power—perfectly aligned with my turbulent emotional state as a restless young woman.
8
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Probably my favorite book of all time because of the truthful, raw language—it sounds so modern. To think that it was written almost seventy-five years ago at the end of World War II seems both astounding and inevitable. Plain, honest communication and wild, spontaneous beauty were all that was left after they’d cleared away the rubble. Enter Holden Caulfield, an off-kilter personality balancing an unlikely mix of cruelty, kindness, truth, acceptance and rebellion in one rather average noggin. Holden represents a new type of heartthrob, presaging the bored, hyper-vigilant James Dean types of later cinema—the romantic nihilists, capable of loving fiercely in the moment but standing equally aloof from and critiquing their own emotions. The dawning of the age of emo.
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Maria Cornejo
From: $ 160.67
Not in Fashion
Mark Borthwick
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Rachel Kushner
$ 165.70
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Sharon Horgan
From: $ 144.80
The Girl Who Ran
Christina Yee and Frances Poletti
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Jemima Kirke
$ 163.89
Therese Raquin
Emile Zola
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Nicole Holofcener
$ 165.87
The Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus
Henry Miller
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Curtis Sittenfeld
$ 170.93
The Progress of Love
Alice Munro
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Jesse Peretz
From: $ 149.80
Metropolitan Life
Fran Lebowitz
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Questlove
From: $ 188.94
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Mary Gordon
From: $ 141.90
Diary of a Country Priest
Georges Bernanos
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