Actress Vella Lovell (Crazy Ex- Girlfriend, The Big Sick) joins us this week to nerd out on books. Vella talks about reading as an actor, examining scripts for clues to her character’s inner workings, and being a good scene partner. Vella also talks about trusting Oprah’s Book Club recommendations and her love of self help books, especially as a spiritual guide for working actors. We also talk about why it doesn’t matter how you read, it just matters that you pick up a book and get started.

Check out all the books, plays, and movies Traci and Vella discuss right here in the show notes.

BOOKS

• New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
• Alls Well The Ends Well by William Shakespeare
• Othello by William Shakespeare
• MacBeth by William Shakespeare
• As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Richard III by William Shakespeare
• The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
• New People by Danzy Senna
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
• The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
• The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
• Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Hunger by Roxane Gay
• A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

• Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo

• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
• Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
• A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres
• Into Thin Air by John Krakauer
• Into the Wild by John Krakauer
• Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer
• Missoula by John Krakauer
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
• The Far Away Brothers by Lauren Markham
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
• The Soulmate Secret  by Arielle Ford
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitz
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Caucasia by Danzy Senna
• When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
• You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• In The Woods by Tana French
• Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama

EVERYTHING ELSE

• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW)
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Soundtrack
• The Big Sick (Amazon Studios)
• Felicity (WB)
• A Chorus Line (Columbia Pictures)
• Save the Last Dance (Paramount Pictures)
• Rent (The Nederlander Organization)
• Jesse L. Martin
• Brandon Uranowitz
• Neighbors (The Public Theatre)
• Oprah’s Book Club
• Eso Won Books (Los Angeles, CA)
• Book Soup (Los Angeles, CA)
• Chevalier’s Books (Los Angeles, CA)
• Bart’s Books of Ojai (Ojai, CA)
• Strand Bookstore (New York, NY)
• Powell’s Books (Portland, OR)
• Jonathan Groff
• The Bacchae (The Public Theater)
• Anne with an E (Netflix)
• Brene Brown
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Rami Malek
• Daniel Kaluuya

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