The bestselling author of American Housewife is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady.
Helen Ellis has a mantra: “If you don’t have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way.” Say “weathered” instead of “she looks like a cake left out in the rain.” Say “early-developed” instead of “brace face and B cups.” And for the love of Coke Salad, always say “Sorry you saw something that offended you” instead of “Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants.” In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.
I moved to Tennessee a few months ago, so I figured I should learn how to be a proper Southern Lady. What better than this collection of essays to teach me?
First of all, this book was hilarious. Second of all, it made me question every person that’s ever been nice to me since I moved down here. And third of all, it made me want to read more from Ellis.
Ellis is really legitimately funny, and she’s had such great experiences to write about. I feel like she’s the kind of person that it would be really fun to sit down for a meal with.
n all-star collection of essays about activism and hope, edited by bestselling YA author Maureen Johnson.
Now, more than ever, young people are motivated to make a difference in a world they’re bound to inherit. They’re ready to stand up and be heard – but with much to shout about, where they do they begin? What can I do? How can I help?
How I Resist is the response, and a way to start the conversation. To show readers that they are not helpless, and that anyone can be the change. A collection of essays, songs, illustrations, and interviews about activism and hope, How I Resist features an all-star group of contributors, including John Paul Brammer, Libba Bray, Lauren Duca, Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his husband Justin Mikita, Alex Gino, Hebh Jamal, Malinda Lo, Dylan Marron, Hamilton star Javier Muñoz, Rosie O’Donnell, Junauda Petrus, Jodi Picoult, Jason Reynolds, Karuna Riazi, Maya Rupert, Dana Schwartz, Dan Sinker, Ali Stroker, Jonny Sun (aka @jonnysun), Sabaa Tahir, Shaina Taub, Daniel Watts, Jennifer Weiner, Jacqueline Woodson, and more, all edited and compiled by New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson.
In How I Resist, readers will find hope and support through voices that are at turns personal, funny, irreverent, and instructive. Not just for a young adult audience, this incredibly impactful collection will appeal to readers of all ages who are feeling adrift and looking for guidance.
How I Resist is the kind of book people will be discussing for years to come and a staple on bookshelves for generations.
As with most anthologies, How I Resist varies a lot in both content and quality. Some of the contributions were great — I particularly loved Libba Bray’s — but others were… not. I appreciate the point of this book and I think a lot of the contributions will do a great job of encouraging teens to stand up for what they believe in. There are just some less-great essays to get through along the way.
With that said, though, I am far past the target demographic of this book, so it’s entirely possible that any problems I had might not be problems that actual teens have.
An exhilarating journey through the most creative and catastrophic f*ck ups in human history, from our very first ancestor falling out of that tree, to the most spectacular fails of the present day.
In the seventy thousand years that modern human beings have walked this earth, we’ve come a long way. Art, science, culture, trade – on the evolutionary food chain, we’re real winners. But, frankly, it’s not exactly been plain sailing, and sometimes – just occasionally – we’ve managed to really, truly, quite unbelievably f*ck things up.
From Chairman Mao’s Four Pests Campaign, to the American Dustbowl; from the Austrian army attacking itself one drunken night, to the world’s leading superpower electing a reality TV mogul as President… it’s pretty safe to say that, as a species, we haven’t exactly grown wiser with age.
So, next time you think you’ve really f*cked up, this book will remind you: it could be so much worse.
At the beginning of 2020, I was scrolling through Goodreads and came across a list of nonfiction books that looked really interesting. Of course, I have no idea where that list has gone, but it added a bunch of books to my TBR. The one I decided to go for first was Humans, which describes itself as “a brief history of how we fucked it all up.”
Unlike a lot of brief histories, this one actually is brief. There’s no more than a few pages on each topic, and it’s just enough information that you’d be able to pull out some fun facts during trivia night, but not so much that you’ll get bored. These really are interesting bits of information, all about people screwing everything up and living (or not) to tell the tale.
This is a really well-written, funny history book. The only reason I didn’t rate it higher is that reading it all in a couple sittings kind of burned me out. (Ideally I would not have done this, but I had to worry about library due dates.) That’s on me, not on the book, but I think it would be better enjoyed a few pages at a time. It’s probably a better coffee table book than anything else.
Have you read any of these books? Have you read any good nonfiction recently?
Let’s talk in the comments!
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The Bibliophagist 
An interesting collection of books. Love your mini reviews. Thank you.
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Thank you!
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These all sound good, but I know I have to get my hands on Southern Lady Code. A perfect kind of book for these strange times we are living through. Thanks for the post.
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Enjoy!
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