Summer Stacks!
Here’s our summer stack—five picks we’re marking up and passing along, each worthy of your tote or your earbuds!
Empire Of The Elite, Michael M. Grynbaum
We’re the crowd with ten active magazine subscriptions, glossies fanned across the coffee table, margins scribbled in pen, so Empire of the Elite reads like origin lore. Hard to believe that pulp and ink once steered everything from politics to palette choices, yet Greinebaum shows exactly how: Si Newhouse, Brooklyn-born son of Jewish immigrants, buys a sleepy print stable and turns it into a cultural command center. By elevating fellow outsiders—Tina, Graydon, Paige—he rewrites the American Dream, proving that a marked-up page can outmuscle a boardroom.
Why It Matters: For anyone charting fashion or media history—and for content creators taking notes—this book shows how a single glossy empire once set the cultural agenda, proving that keen curation can still move markets and spark the next wave of creative ambition.
Sunny Side Up, Katie Sturino
Need a sun-lounger soundtrack? Cue Sunny Side Up, Katie Sturino’s unapologetic beach read. The Megababe founder folds echoes of her own life into Sunny Greene—a plus-size PR whiz cannonballing back into the dating pool at 35. Expect Bergdorf swimsuit mishaps, a mailman crush, a VC tycoon courting her size-inclusive dream, and Sturino’s trademark body-confidence candor. Designer name-drops, best-friend banter, and Megababe wit make it the fashionista’s perfect poolside listen—grab it on Libby here.
Why It Matters: Sturino coins divorcation as a fresh-vocabulary reminder that break-ups can spark celebrations, not shame. Her poolside rom-com normalizes plus-size joy, reframes divorce as a launchpad, and hands listeners meme-ready mantras for confidence on and off the beach.
Make It Ours, Robin Givhan
Pulitzer winner Robin Givhan charts Virgil Abloh’s sprint from Chicago DJ booths to the Louis Vuitton menswear throne. She unpacks how he spliced streetwear grit into couture, branded basics with ironic quotation marks, and mined Instagram comments as focus-group gold. Expect an insider tour of how one outsider rewired luxury while keeping his DIY signature intact—we’ll report back once we’ve dog-eared every page!
Why It Matters: Trained in civil engineering and architecture, Abloh approached luxury like a builder, sampling streetwear, art history, and meme culture—his own Lagerfeld for the remix era. Using Instagram as an R&D lab, he showed how an outsider’s toolkit can redraw the power map of heritage fashion.
The Wedding People, Alison Espach
A novel about one unexpected wedding guest (Phoebe Stone) and the surprising people whom she impacts and who help her start anew. Set in Newport, Rhode Island, this is the perfect summer page turner, filled with vivid characterizations, humor, and relatable wedding scenarios.
Why It Matters: It reminds us of the power of chance encounters, winding paths, and embracing opportunities that can reroute us in ways we could never have imagined. A “Sliding Doors” of sorts, going with the flow, and saying “yes” to invitations and events that hold the possibility of changing the course of one’s life.
Gwyneth, Amy Odell
Amy Odell—one of our go-to Substack voices—drops Gwyneth on July 29. The 220-source book shows how Paltrow turned jade eggs, detox dust, and “conscious uncoupling” into a $250 million Goop empire. People’s excerpt hints at Brad-era gossip, a Madonna rift, and the 2011 health scare that flung Paltrow down the wellness-guru rabbit hole. We’ll be front-row, highlighter ready.
Why It Matters: Love her or eye-roll her, Paltrow remains the chief provocateur of wellness culture—turning head-scratchy products into mainstream headlines and a $250 million business. Odell’s deep sourcing promises the blueprint behind that influence, a must-read for anyone tracking how pop-culture quirks become a cash cow in the health industry.
