Writer Cleo Wade brought Marie Claire inside her home to show off her poetry-and-pottery-filled bedroom library. Hear about the last book that kept her up all night and why Reese Witherspoon is one of her book gurus.
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00:00 Hi, this is Cleo Wade and welcome, Mary Claire, to the bookshelf in my bedroom for Shelf Portrait.
00:14 I'm actually a non-professional but I feel professional bookshelf accessorizer.
00:21 I have a lot of bookshelves in our house because I'm a writer, my partner Simon's a writer,
00:26 so we have a zillion books and I do all of our bookshelves at our house.
00:32 So I did this one.
00:33 This is one of the only ones I did that was kind of color coordinated.
00:36 The rest of ours are kind of just free and loose, but we have a lot of the kind of black
00:41 books and tan books and red books and white books together.
00:45 I really like to mix in pottery.
00:47 My friend Lisa makes these beautiful pottery pieces.
00:50 They're in here.
00:51 Some I got from Casa Edo.
00:54 This is from a shop in New Orleans called Sunday Shop.
00:57 I also think when you have bookshelves, it's really important to try to mix in art, whether
01:01 it's art from your friends.
01:03 My brother-in-law gave us this photo.
01:05 It's a photo of the Simon and him at the beach when they were babies to something very fancy.
01:12 I feel very lucky to have this beautiful Lorna Simpson in our lives and in our bedroom.
01:17 And then even just your family photos.
01:19 It's a photo of Simon and I hugging on a hike.
01:23 Obviously the first book I want to share from my bookshelf is Remember Love.
01:29 My new book, it's Words for Tender Times.
01:31 I spent a few years writing this book and I love it so much.
01:34 It's kind of about how to find steadiness when the world around you is just spinning
01:41 with change and you're just trying to find your way and get back to yourself.
01:47 A lot of this book also has to do with heartbreak.
01:50 And I said to my friends, it's kind of like every aspect of your life.
01:54 If you're trying to rebuild, this is the book for you.
01:56 So whether you're rebuilding in your career or in your personal life or in your family
02:01 relationships or in your relationship with yourself, that's why I wrote Remember Love.
02:06 Black Women Writers at Work, one of my very favorite books.
02:10 My friend Stevie recommended this book to me when I was writing Heart Talk, my first
02:14 book, and it's the best book on writing you'll ever read.
02:17 I recommend it to everyone if you are thinking of writing or you feel like you have a book
02:22 in your heart.
02:24 This book is incredible.
02:26 My friend Jenna's Human Design book, which is also amazing.
02:30 I am obsessed with human design.
02:32 It's something I've personally followed for a long time.
02:35 So I love having her book on here.
02:37 This is really special to me.
02:38 This is a first edition of Beloved.
02:42 My friend Kate gave me for my birthday this year and I love it so much.
02:46 It's one of my favorite books from Toni Morrison.
02:48 I also have a first edition of The Bluest Eye, which I think Simon gave me when we first
02:52 started dating.
02:53 I have my friend Doreen McCaslin's book On the Other Side of Freedom.
02:57 If you are an activist or you have a young activist in your family, I really, really
03:02 couldn't recommend that book more.
03:04 We have the Complete Collective Poems of Maya Angelou and oh my God, of course, Derek Wolcott.
03:10 Lots and lots and lots of poetry.
03:12 We have the Mindset book by Carol DeWitt, which is incredible.
03:16 I always recommend that book.
03:18 My book, where to begin?
03:21 I think we're mostly politics, self-help, spiritual, poetry in our bedroom, and pottery.
03:28 Yes, this is the shelf, my shelf portrait.
03:36 I think my favorite genres has to be poetry.
03:40 Poetry is really the genre that made me love, love and fall in love with reading.
03:46 That's really hard.
03:47 I guess I could say it's a tie between Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, but it's hard because
03:53 Generations, Lucille Clifton's memoir is one of my favorite books of all time.
03:58 Toni Cade Bambara, I don't know.
03:59 I really couldn't pick.
04:00 James Baldwin, it's really, it's very hard.
04:03 I actually just reread Nora Ephron's Heartburn and I hadn't read that book in like 10 years.
04:10 And I laughed and laughed and laughed.
04:11 And I think I was traveling with it.
04:12 It was the first time I'd even like kind of like walked with the book.
04:13 I was going through the airport walking with it when I got to the hotel.
04:14 I stayed up reading it.
04:15 You know, the reason I love Nora Ephron's book so much because you really feel like you're
04:26 visiting with a friend.
04:28 And I feel like when I write in a much different way than Nora Ephron, but I do try to make
04:32 it feel like you're visiting with a friend or your friend has come to see you and ask
04:38 you how you're doing and give you a hug.
04:41 Is there a book I've never been able to finish?
04:43 I do not finish any books I don't like.
04:45 I do not have the urge to complete just because I started something.
04:51 If I feel like what's that famous Kim Cattrall line where she's like, if I'm not enjoying
04:56 something for even a minute, I'm not going to do it.
04:59 Like I, I actually am that way.
05:02 I'm like, if I am not enjoying it, close the book.
05:05 Goodbye.
05:06 The vision of the bluest eye.
05:08 I mean, it's just, it's so haunting.
05:11 It's so beautiful.
05:14 And somehow, you know, I don't know if this is my favorite or not, but I, it always kind
05:18 of struck me because this is a book cover that really captured the haunting energy of
05:24 a book.
05:25 I really loved Tana Hesse Coates' Water Dancer cover.
05:30 I remember when it came out and I was like, gosh, that's so beautiful.
05:34 Who gives me the best book recommendations?
05:36 I'd have to say there's two people and they are polar opposite recommendations.
05:43 And I love that.
05:44 I think Reese Witherspoon gives the best book recommendations.
05:47 Of course she has a book club and my friend Stevonna Ellen Rogers gives the best book
05:52 recommendations.
05:53 Reese's are more for fiction.
05:55 I always read her book club recommendations.
05:57 I love her fiction, uh, Rex and Stevie mostly reads nonfiction.
06:02 So she's actually who shared with me black women writers at work.
06:06 I'd say probably those same two people.
06:08 I feel like Stevie is someone where you can really kind of like soak in every word of
06:16 how someone wrote something from their heart.
06:19 And I love that she really holds words to be this really divine, ritualistic, beautiful,
06:25 ancient spiritual practice and process.
06:28 So I love her feedback on words.
06:30 She's one of the first people I asked to read my own work.
06:33 She has like a witchy thing about reading and words.
06:35 And so discussing any book with her is amazing.
06:39 And then Reese is also one of the best people to discuss a book with because she loves stories
06:46 and she loves women's stories.
06:47 And you're just reminded of the life and liveliness and excitement and mystery and passion and
06:54 all of like the juicy stuff of life.
06:57 She really soaks in and so, and she gets genuinely excited about it.
07:01 And so to be able to listen to her talk about any book is always just, I don't know, it
07:07 makes you feel like alive and juicy.
07:08 Well, I collect a lot of vintage books and I'll find those anywhere online.
07:12 I'll buy them on old bookseller sites.
07:16 Most of your local bookstores, which is why it's so important to shop local, do have a
07:20 kind of vintage section for their books.
07:22 And I love that.
07:24 So when I'm in DC, I love mahogany books and politics and prose.
07:29 If I'm in New York, I love, uh, obviously the strand and McNally Jackson, Los Libros.
07:35 I love Baldwin and company in New Orleans.
07:39 The kind of local independent bookstores sellers are almost like parks where a park really
07:43 tells a lot about the community.
07:45 And I feel like whenever you're visiting somewhere, one of the best things you can do is go find
07:50 your local bookseller there and explore because I feel like you learn so much about the vibe.
07:56 It's like finding the best local restaurant, finding the best local bookstore.
08:01 I feel like that's the real experience of traveling.
08:04 So I think I have a different one, different favorite bookstore in every city I go to.
08:08 What book have I read the most in my life?
08:10 I probably returned to the fire next time more times than any other book in my life.
08:15 It's a, it's really, as a book that you can reread.
08:17 I've actually reread the little prints probably the most in my life.
08:22 And, um, I think probably my interest complete work of poetry.
08:27 Well seeing as how I have two very small loud children, um, wherever I can read a book,
08:34 um, is where I will read a book.
08:36 So sometimes I lock myself in my closet and read a book.
08:41 Sometimes I get to read in bed after everyone's gone to sleep, but I think probably the best
08:45 place to read a book might be an airplane for me anyway.
08:48 Thank you so much for watching my shelf portrait.
08:53 And if you will, please subscribe to Mary Claire.
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