"Film for Her" author Orion Carloto takes us on a tour of her beautiful bookshelves and shares some of her favorite reads, including cherished poetry collections and a novel so good she read the entire thing in one day.
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00:00Do people assume maybe that I'm a little crazy? Maybe, who knows? It is interesting and that's
00:06all I'll say. Hello everyone, my name is Orion Carlotto and today I'm going to be giving Marie
00:11Claire a look into my now extensive home library. This is Shelf Portrait and this is my cat,
00:20Lolita, who loves attention. Now my bookshelf is kind of split up in strange ways. It's my own
00:31kind of Dewey Decimal System in a way. Right over here in this section I have, obviously I have some
00:37art books, but I have a little section of some children's books, you know, along with all fiction
00:43and here we have my art books as in magazines. I love Kim Folk, I love Vogue and, you know, here are
00:53more the poetic and prose stories that really reminisce in my life, you know, not only as an
01:00adult but as a young adult growing up and reading as well. So as a disclaimer I must admit that I am
01:10one of those people that frequently gives away their books to their friends. That being said,
01:15a lot of my favorites are not on my shelf right now because they're in the hands of those who I
01:20love. One of my favorite books that is not on my shelf at the moment is one by Alan Watts called
01:26The Wisdom of Insecurity. That is one book that I frequently find myself coming back to to read.
01:32It is just kind of a gentle reminder in life of, you know, all of your insecurities and the things
01:37that you kind of deep down already know but kind of gives you some sort of reassurance like a hug
01:43you're reading from an old friend or a mentor of sorts to kind of get you through life.
01:51If you didn't already know I'm also a writer and poet myself and actually one of my favorite books
01:56right now, No Shame is my book, Film for Her, which is, you know, a collection of my life over the past
02:03three years, instances and moments that were put together through poetry, prose, short story,
02:10and film photography. And it really is about the mundane in life and all the in-betweens because I
02:16think a lot of us tend to focus on our highs and our lows that we seldom reminisce on the moments that
02:24we didn't think to be as special in our lives. But this is a book that is a collection of that.
02:37One of my other favorite books that I actually started reading during quarantine is one called
02:41My Year of Rest and Relaxation. And that, I must admit, was probably one of my most interesting reads
02:49during quarantine simply because it kind of coincides with being in quarantine. It is about
02:55a woman who is, you know, dealing with her own set of mental health issues and problems and ties hand
03:03in hand with a not so good psychiatrist. And she takes it upon herself to sleep for an entire year.
03:09It was one of those books where I could not put down. I was certainly like stuck to it for an entire
03:15day and I finished it an entire day. It was very, very, very good. So my favorite childhood book,
03:21I think, comes as no surprise to anyone. It was pretty much anything by Shel Silverstein,
03:26but I had a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends. This was, you know, obviously your first introduction
03:32to poetry as a kid and it's very imaginative and that's what I loved so much about Shel Silverstein
03:37is it was fun and funny and just all sorts of madness that was going on. Always have a soft spot in my
03:44heart for Shel Silverstein through and through.
03:50Another book I read during quarantine is this one by Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
03:56One thing I love about this book is how I can relate to it in some way or another. Ocean Vuong
04:02wrote this about his own life. He is a writer, a child of immigrants, and he is also queer and this is
04:08kind of a letter to his mother who cannot read or really understand English so it's almost unsure
04:16if she'll ever read it but it's kind of like this personal memoir into his life growing up and these
04:23instances that kind of made him into the person he is today and it was not only well written and just
04:29extremely put together but you can find parts of yourself in this story that I did not expect to
04:37find myself in. My favorite genre of book, which is surprising that I didn't mention any of them,
04:43is books by French poets. I think it is very important as a writer to obviously read up on the
04:51subject of what I do but really try to understand as to why poetry is so important to people and I
04:57find that that beauty comes a lot from French poets and you know I can only hope and wish one day that
05:05I could amount to that greatness but until then I will just read them to life on my bookshelf and hope
05:11for the best. Now the next book is something that I read when I was in high school and it kind of
05:17reintroduced me to my love for poetry and it is Bluettes by Maggie Nelson. Here she is.
05:24Maggie Nelson is one of my favorite writers and she is just this profound poet and Bluettes was my
05:30first book that I've ever read by her. So there are 240 reasons in this book why the color blue is so
05:35significant in her life and it is just poetic profoundness and something that I also like to
05:42reintroduce into my life every once in a while. A good friend of mine introduced her to me and I
05:47haven't looked back since. Now who am I to say that I'm a poet if I did not introduce obviously the love
05:56that I have for Patti Smith. As we all know Patti Smith is someone who is just so in touch with her
06:04own life and her own experiences and she has you know the most interesting life story growing up in New
06:09York City and we're all familiar with Just Kids and The M Train but one book that stood out to me
06:14the most was The Coral Sea. I read this actually when I was on a trip to Portugal with my father
06:20and it is filled with you know excerpts poetry and prose you know her life and it kind of also goes
06:28hand-in-hand with Just Kids talking about Robert Maplevork who was her then boyfriend and also this
06:34iconic photographer who we all know and love. Thank you guys so much for watching my shelf portrait
06:43and if you are interested make sure to check out my new book Film for Her. This is my second book of
06:49poetry that I've ever written. My first one was one titled Flux and this is very very special and
06:54important to me and I hope maybe one day it'll find a spot on your library at home and don't forget
07:00to subscribe to Marie Claire down below. Bye!