The Bennifer News Gave You 2000s Nostalgia
It’s What To Read If … Decades Edition
Hi friends,
I’m writing this while sitting outside my favorite coffee shop, soaking up the sun and listening to a very talented neighbor perform an impromptu opera concert. It feels like life did pre-pandemic — and I’m loving it. (Lurking beneath the surface — literally – are the cicadas set to emerge any day now. I’m pointedly ignoring that.)
I’m doing something a bit different this week: featuring three book that capture the feel of three different decades, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s. I would love to say that this idea came from some sort of erudite study or analysis. It did not. Instead, it came to me after I went deep on Bennifer (celebrity couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, apparently back together again) and the last time they dated in the early 2000s.
So, what to read if…
You Spent a Lot of Time Watching “TRL”
Open Book by Jessica Simpson
If you had told me a few years ago that Jessica Simpson would write a moving, compelling memoir about overcoming addiction and sexual abuse, I would have been skeptical. And I would have been wrong. Her book proves the old adage that you have to be pretty smart to play dumb.
Simpson’s memoir is an honest and unflinching look at her rise to fame, marriage and divorce to 98 Degrees’ Nick Lachey (including taking us behind the scenes of their MTV reality show “Newlyweds”) and struggles with alcoholism, addiction to sleeping pills and disordered eating. It opens with Simpson’s friends staging an intervention. From there, Simpson recounts her life, reflecting on the events, including sexual abuse by a family friend and the sudden death of her cousin, that caused her to develop unhealthy relationships and chemical dependencies.
For those of you with nostalgia for the decade, it includes some fun details about Simpson’s relationship with Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera and a devastating depiction of the time she spent dating John Mayer (who comes across worse than he did in the infamous Playboy interview — on principal I won’t link to it, but here’s a summary).
As someone who spent a lot of time making fun of Simpson’s airhead demeanor, this book served as a reminder that you never really know what’s going on in someone’s life. Simpson, now the owner of a billion dollar fashion line, is far smarter, savvier and stronger than I recognized.
You Have Some Instant Nostalgia
Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky
In 2014, VH1 premiered “I Love the 2000s,” a look at the decade that was barely over. If you have a similar yearning to return to the late 2010s, Marcy Dermansky’s Very Nice is the book for you.
Set over the summer in a tony Connecticut suburb, during the Trump Administration, Very Nice includes:
A mother-daughter love triangle that somehow isn’t creepy.
Alternating perspectives from a diverse set of characters who don’t understand how interconnected they are.
An adorable, spoiled, apricot poodle.
A backyard pool that plays such a critical role it is almost a character.
Like last week’s recommendation, Self Care, Very Nice is frothy and fun, reading at times like a classic farce, while simultaneously offering wry commentary on art and writing, politics and violence. It could be enjoyed at, yes, a pool with a cocktail in hand, or in a more studious environment. (I read it poolside, but have reflected on it quite a bit since reading it a year ago.) If you’re looking for a summer book club pick — light, but still discussion-provoking — Very Nice is your book.
You’re Still Processing the Past Year
Intimations by Zadie Smith
Last spring, while I was baking banana bread and re-watching the first season of “Grey’s Anatomy,” Zadie Smith wrote a brilliant essay collection reflecting on the moment. (Ironically, one of the essays was about our obsession with productivity and attempting to find things to do in quarantine.)
Clocking in at roughly 100 pages, Intimations consists of just a handful of essays that, in the words of TIME Magazine, “captures this peculiar moment with startling clarity.” They cover the struggles of quarantine loneliness, the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on the poor and people of color and George Floyd’s death.
If reading on those topics sounds stressful right now, maybe save Intimations for later, but I found the essays clarifying. They gave me words for things I was feeling but haven’t quite figured out how to describe. Smith’s gift for language and strong observational skills somehow make this collection feel eye-opening, even as it’s reflecting on a moment we’re still living in.
What books do you think embody the time they’re set in?
A couple of quick programming notes:
Thanks to the team at Strong Sense of Place for highlighting What to Read If in their Friday endnotes column. I love the work of Strong Sense of Place and have found some great books through them that I would have missed otherwise.
On Thursday, I’m sharing a Q&A featuring Kenneth Rosen, author of Troubled: The Failed Promise of America’s Behavioral Treatment Programs.
My interview with Talia Hibbert is tomorrow (!). If you have questions for her, please send them my way!
If you missed last week’s recs, you can read them here.
What to Read If is a free weekly book recommendation newsletter. Need a rec? Want to gush about a book? Reply to this email, leave a comment or find me on Twitter @elizabethheld.
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