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5 good reads for June

OtherJun 21, 2015

5 good reads for June

It’s summertime, and the latest list of new releases from GoodReads indicates that the reading’s easy. 

062215_GoodReads-article.jpg

New York--It’s summertime, and the latest list of new releases from GoodReads indicates that the reading’s easy.

The book discussion website’s book list for June includes Aziz Ansari’s new book about love in modern times, which shouldn’t necessarily be overlooked by retailers who are looking to sell to millennials. Though Ansari is best known as a stand-up comedian, he teamed up with a sociologist to write this book, which is part humor and part social science. 

There’s also Model Woman, detailing how Ford Modeling Agency founder Eileen Ford built her business into an industry powerhouse and made supermodels into celebrities along the way. 

National Jeweler picked four books from GoodReads’ June list of new releases that could be beneficial to business owners, and tacked on a selection from one of its editors.

Here they are. 

1. Modern Romance
Aziz Ansari

Aziz Ansari is a stand-up comedian but his new book is not all about being funny. The 32-year-old teamed up with an NYC sociologist to conduct interviews and start a research form on Reddit to learn more about what drives dating, love and ultimately marriage today. This book is 288 pages.

2. Model Woman: Eileen Ford and the Business of Beauty
Robert Lacey

Eileen Ford was a “shrewd businesswoman with a keen eye for talent and a passion for serving her clients.” This new book takes a look at how she built the Ford Modeling Agency and changed the public’s perceptions of the business of modeling along the way. This book is 368 pages.

3. How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy
Stephen Witt

This book details another industry forever changed by the Internet--the music business. Author Stephen Witt details the secret history of digital music piracy and, in doing so, gives a history lesson on the Internet itself. This book is 304 pages. 

4. A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
Alexandra Petri

Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri’s memoir of putting herself into awkward situations is meant to convey to the reader a message: interesting things start to happen when people stop caring what others think. This book is 320 pages. 

5. Editor’s Pick: American Wife
Curtis Sittenfeld
Selected by: Editor-in-Chief Michelle Graff

I just finished Toni Morrison’s latest novel, God Help the Child, and also recently got through Jon Kraukauer’s book delving

into the scandal surrounding Pat Tillman’s death, Where Men Win Glory. But I wouldn’t recommend either of these heavy reads for the month of June, when many will be packing up their families and heading to the beach. Try instead American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, a fun, fictional account of the life of a politician’s wife that reads a lot like an unauthorized biography of Laura Bush. (Sittenfeld is the same woman who wrote Prep.) This book is 555 pages. 
Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.

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