Marie Claire took a tour inside Madison Beer’s meaningful personal library. The singer’s book collection is filled with vintage classics, mental health reads, and now her own book: The Half of It.
Hear about all her favorite books and which popular series she's never read!
Hear about all her favorite books and which popular series she's never read!
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Madison Beer, and today I'm going to be taking Marie Claire into my library for Shelf Portrait.
00:09So the first book that I want to showcase is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
00:15I was very, very excited when I found this. I go to a lot of vintage shops and markets specifically looking for books,
00:20and collecting vintage books is only something that I've been doing for probably two years now, but it's become my favorite hobby.
00:27I walked over to this girl, Stan, who had so, so many, and I was like, do you have any really rare ones or anything that's really special?
00:32And she was like, oh, I mean, yeah, I have the rarest and one of the most special books.
00:36And when she pulls it out and showed me that it was Alice in Wonderland, I freaked out because I'm a huge Alice in Wonderland fan.
00:41I have a song called Fall the White Rabbit that is regarding Alice in Wonderland.
00:45One of my favorite things about this book is obviously the book itself, but I love when in vintage old books,
00:52someone personalized this to someone. It says, To Jack from Charles Dunn, and I think that's so cool that I now somehow have this book in my hands,
01:00and Charles Dunn, if you're watching this, I'm sorry, I have your book.
01:04I feel like I have a piece of history in my hand, and the spine of the book is completely exposed, and I don't know,
01:10just everything about it is really cool, and I feel really honored when I hold something like this in my hands.
01:14So, yeah, this is one of my favorite and most prized possession books.
01:18The second book that I want to show is The Body Keeps the Score.
01:21This is one of my all-time favorite books.
01:23Specifically, I love reading mental health books, and this book really was the catalyst for, like,
01:30getting me into this mental health journey of healing and understanding my trauma and, like, working through it in a proper way.
01:35And I actually discovered and started reading this book when I was on a bit of a mental health retreat.
01:40It made me feel really seen.
01:41So, yeah, I really, really love this one, and it impacted me a lot.
01:45So, to sort of say on the same vein of mental health books, this is another one that I really, really love and swear by.
01:51It's called Love Me, Don't Leave Me, and it's about overcoming fear of abandonment and building loving, lasting relationships.
01:56I was reading this at a time where I was really just trying to figure out how I can heal myself and better my life in ways that I felt like I was lacking,
02:05and this was something that I didn't even know that I needed, but I really, really needed.
02:09And it just made me, again, feel really seen, understood.
02:12It made me understand how to navigate life and relationships, friendships, romantic ones, whatever it is, better.
02:18And, yeah, how I can cope with my issues.
02:22The next book that I would like to talk about is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.
02:27I think this was probably, arguably, the first ever book that impacted me in my life.
02:33I was just touched by the whole story, and I felt like it was really important to learn about giving and what that means in return.
02:39And just, there were so many aspects and lessons that I feel like this book taught me super young, and I actually have a tattoo, which is the little boy on my foot.
02:46So, I think it teaches us important lessons that we should carry out through adulthood.
02:50So, the next book I want to talk about that really touched me was Conflicts PTSD from Surviving to Thriving.
02:56This is something that definitely changed my life because I think that as someone who struggled with mental health issues,
03:02I've never been someone who's wanted to say that I have PTSD because, to me, that was always a term that was very serious.
03:08And I guess I guilt-shamed and victim-shamed myself into thinking that what I had gone through wasn't serious enough to be called PTSD.
03:15But this book is so affirming in the sense that, like, even if you grew up in a household that you didn't feel seen as a child in, like, that is traumatic.
03:23And you can have PTSD from that that lingers throughout your adult life.
03:27And this is just about, like, recovering those things, work with your inner child.
03:30I, like, remember picking up this book and I loved reading that because I was, like, I definitely felt really hated for a lot of my childhoods, specifically on the internet.
03:38And I feel like, again, I was sort of in this, like, victim-shaming, like, oh, you aren't worthy of reading this book mentality.
03:44And then I was, like, no, this is serious.
03:46And I think I do struggle with PTSD in a lot of ways.
03:48So, this book changed my life.
03:49And if any of those things relate to you, you should read it.
03:52It's really helpful.
03:53So, the final book I want to talk about is my book, The Half of It.
03:56This comes out on April 25th.
03:58And I'm really, really excited about it.
03:59I'm really proud of it.
04:00I feel like all the books I had mentioned previously were actually the reason that I felt confident or capable enough to even write this in the first place because I'm unsure of the place that I would be in without those.
04:09So, I felt like writing something that hopefully could make other people feel that same way that I felt reading those books.
04:14And I feel like, as human beings, it's only our job to learn from each other's experiences and hear each other out and have empathy for one another or lend out a hand of kindness.
04:23And that's really what I want with this book, is for everyone to just realize that everyone has a story you just haven't read yet.
04:29It's really important to me.
04:30It's very special.
04:31I talk about a lot in this book that I've never talked about before.
04:34So, if you want to get your hands on it, April 25th, and I hope you guys love it.
04:37My favorite genre of books would have to either be poetry books or mental health books.
04:42The last time I stayed up all night to finish a book would have to have been mine because I remember we were trying to reach a deadline and it wasn't finished yet.
04:49So, I had to literally stay up all night and make sure it got done.
04:51I think that my fans would have to be the people who would give me the best book recommendations.
04:55I feel like I can go online and I'll have a bunch of mentions just saying, like, hey, you should read this book.
04:59And they're always so spot on.
05:01Also, at my concerts, a lot of my fans will bring me books in person for me to read.
05:04And it's so sweet.
05:06And I always read them.
05:07I think I like discussing books the most with my best friend, Lena.
05:10She has read most books.
05:14And so, I like to talk to her in depth about the books that we've read together.
05:18I usually like to buy my books at vintage shops.
05:20There's actually one bookstore that if I can shout them out, David Kaye's books in, like, Woodland Hills, if you live in the L.A. area and you want to go to the Valley to an amazing bookstore, I would say 85% of these books are from him.
05:32He just has an incredible collection that I love shopping from, but mainly vintage stores.
05:36The process of writing my book was really therapeutic for me.
05:39It was very telling.
05:41I feel like I learned a lot about myself that I didn't even know.
05:43And it was really fun.
05:44I have journal prompts in the book because in a lot of the mental health books that I like to read,
05:49it would have sort of this call and response thing in it.
05:52And I felt like that was really helpful for me as a reader to stay immersed in the book and be attentive with it.
05:59So, I wanted to do that.
06:00It was really fun to sort of figure out what prompt I wanted to write after every story that I told.
06:05So, that was a really fun part of it.
06:07A book that I've never read is Harry Potter.
06:10And I think people find that to be sinful.
06:13So, yeah.
06:14Sorry.
06:14My favorite place to read a book would definitely be in bed.
06:17I think it puts me to sleep nicely.
06:19I do sleep with the TV on.
06:20So, if I'm trying to be good and not sleep with the TV on, I'll read a book.
06:23Okay, guys.
06:24Thank you so much for watching.
06:25I hope you enjoyed my video of Shelf Portrait.
06:27My book, The Half of It, is out everywhere on April 25th.
06:30And don't forget to subscribe to Marie Claire.