Books, Music, and More to Brighten Your Day
That’s right, it’s a Skip the Small Talk recommendation masterlist! Over the past few years, our team has put together more lists of books, movies, and podcasts for your reading/viewing pleasure than we can count. Here are some oldies but goodies, just in case you missed them the first time.
1. What to Read (Or Listen To) To Feel More Alive: Part 1 & What to Read (Or Listen To) To Feel More Alive: Part 2
Here at Skip the Small Talk, we love to hear stories, learn, and help each other find the answers to our questions as humans. I asked our team of community leads around the country for their favorite books, podcasts, and other sources about what drives and interests us here at STST: connection, vulnerability, relationships, mental health, and storytelling. We’ve put together two lists of amazing resources that we have really enjoyed consuming, and have helped or guided us in some way. Give them a read or listen when you have the chance!
2. 5 Books to Read With Your Best Friend
Who doesn’t love a book club? Who doesn’t love a book club with their best friend? So many books focus on family life, historical events, romance, and *cough* men. But the coming-of-age memoir is getting a makeover. Each of the following books centers a long-term, life-defining friendship. Spanning the 1950s to the ‘70s to the 21st century, these books are chaotic, inspiring, and heart-wrenching meditations on platonic love and intimacy, in particular platonic love and intimacy between women. These books are bound — no pun intended — to inspire conversation and appreciation between you and your forever friends for hours on end.
3. Soak Up the Sun: A Summer Playlist
It’s summer and you’re beaching. Picnicking. Roller blading. Dancing. Lounging for hours in that sweet, sweet sun. Need a soundtrack for your summer-y coming-of-age film? Here’s an upbeat playlist to get you in the mood.
Fellas, is it gay to read? It is if you’re reading these books! Perfect for the beach, the park, the coffee shop, the subway, your bedroom, pretty much any place you’re going during pride month or any month of the year. Sit back, relax, and crack the spine of one of these great, gay reads.
5. 7 Books for Children of Complicated Parents
Few relationships are more formative than the relationship between a parent and their child, a relationship that, when strained, can have a lasting impact on both your life and theirs. If you have a complicated or a less-than-ideal relationship with a parent, you are not alone. Each of the books below offers an example of a different shape that the parent-child relationship can take and the myriad of ways in which we understand and relate to our parents over time.
6. 8 Memoirs and Other Reads for Understanding Your Mental Health Challenges
There’s no more powerful way to develop understanding and belonging than hearing stories of shared experiences. Exploring stories is an alternative type of research that can be incredibly formative in how you move forward in managing and/or treating your mental health. Here is a list of memoirs and other types of narrative reads that share intimate stories of experiencing, managing, and overcoming mental health challenges. Give them a read to find camaraderie in your experience, and learn new strategies and insights about your condition or the aspects of life you struggle with that are impacted by your mental health.
7. Cozy Movies for Cold Winter Days
There’s nothing quite like the slow trudge of a cold winter to make you want to turn off the lights, draw the curtains, and curl up under the biggest, warmest blanket you can find. As the days get shorter and the temperature plummets, pour yourself a mug of hot chocolate or tea, collapse on your couch, and enjoy some seasonally appropriate cinema.
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Self Help”? Is it untrustworthy life coaches, faux spirituality, or the infamous “Self-Help Book”? Before you judge, consider this: Might seeking guidance for self help, from trusted sources, be a form of self care? These books are not self-help books, explicitly, but they’ll encourage you to tune into yourself and the world around you. And they’re really, really good.
9. Five LGBTQ+ Summer Book Recs
I am once again asking: Fellas, is it gay to read? Studies say it is! Pride month is on its way, but we can and should read LGBTQ+ authors year round. If you’re in need of a good gay read for the beach, the park, or your sweaty subway commute, look no further than these five books, guaranteed to shock and entertain you all summer long.