Snooping On What Authors Buy

I am a human being with varied and excessive interests, so I peruse plenty of sites unrelated to books. One of my interests is window shopping, so I’m a frequent Wirecutter (a lot of us at Book Riot have a deep love for this site) and The Strategist lurker. Just about every newer gadget in my kitchen was recommended by Wirecutter, that’s how much I stan. The Strategist is my more nuanced guide to the best doodads and thingamabobs, and generally has more recommendations by parents for parents. I’m still in the process of replacing cheap (broken but useable with elbow grease) essentials purchased in my 20s and early 30s with quality, professionally tested products. This is important adulting, but I have a favorite feature at The Strategist that’s less for adulting and more for snooping: the celebrity shopping guide.

I am not someone who keeps up with celebrity gossip or news, but there’s something I find fascinating about what people who have it all buy, especially when they’re buying general goods made and priced for the masses. The feature, titled, “What [Insert Celebrity Here] Can’t Live Without,” includes this intro: “If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair but the hair spray and electric toothbrush.” (Celebs do sometimes include outrageously priced luxury items I, a plebeian, can’t make sense of.)

The Strategist has profiled everyone from she of the viral hit, Tinashe, to the delightfully weird comedic duo Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. But, forever and always a book person, I recently went on a dive into authors featured in their celeb shopping guide.

Authors are not who I think of when I think of the Have-It-Alls. While plenty of people continue to believe writers are out here living solely on their book earnings, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of them hardly make part-time wages on writing alone. Still, I’m as curious about what creatives put in their shopping carts as I am about the wealthy.

So I took a look back at some of the authors recently featured in The Strategist‘s celebrity shopping guide and offer some highlights for the similarly curious:

Ottessa Moshfegh

The items people interested in author shopping might latch onto in this list from the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation are the Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pens or the Hightide 2022 Diary – Les Agendas de L’Année, but for me, the highlight of the list and the thing I’d be most interested in buying is the Body Back Buddy Classic Trigger-Point Massage Tool. As someone of a certain age who spends most of the day slumped in an office chair, a tried and true self-massaging tool sings to me. “You can be passive while also putting pressure”—say no more!

Rachel Khong

I remember when Khong’s novel, Goodbye Vitamin, was everywhere. She recently released Real Americans and got a celeb shopping feature that includes some of the writerly doodads you might expect (see National Brand Steno Notebooks and Noodler’s Black Eel Ink), and this might be the most writerly product description I’ve ever read: “I also really like it when there’s a really nuts label like with Dr. Bronner’s, when people are really trying to cram a lot onto a label. It’s how you know someone’s really passionate about this product.” More words, not less! That was for Egyptian Magic All-Purpose Skin Cream, which I absolutely used to use because of the packaging. I get the sense that Khong is very into productivity and organization and I can dig it. In fact, I am very curious about this Brick gadget that blocks apps unrelated to the thing you really should be focusing on. I have absolutely developed a fugue state where I find myself scrolling Instagram instead of doing the thing I set out to do with no memory of how it happened.

Michelle Buteau

Buteau is the creator of one of my new favorite television shows, Survival of the Thickest and author of the memoir upon which the show is based. She and I share a love for York Peppermint Patties (I loathe the mint+chocolate combo in almost every other form) and Stumptown Coffee, and her feature reminded me that Carol’s Daughter is here for my hair. I love that she describes the undecided texture of her curly hair as “poetry” and same girl same. I would honestly buy everything on her list because reading her shopping cart is a pure, relatable, hilarious joy. We both have twins, and I absolutely put those Amazon Basics sheets on my wish list for when my little ones get older.

Sohla El-Waylly

I’m a food nerd about as much as I’m a book nerd and El-Waylly’s kind of food nerdery is my favorite. If you, too, are a food nerd and haven’t listened to Deep Dish With Sohla and Ham, the El-Wayllys’ limited-run podcast deep diving into dishes they love and cooking them, you really should because they share some fascinating food stories and history. I would listen to those two talk about boiling water. The author of Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook and editor of The Best American Food Writing 2022 certainly shares some kitchen essentials like the Lodge 10-Inch Cast-iron Chef Skillet—I absolutely agree that cast iron cookware is not as intimidating as it’s made out to be, by the way—and Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, which I want to like more than I do (I’ll sit in my wrongness but it’s so bland!). But what really got me was the Navage Nasal Irrigation Starter Bundle. Like Sohla, I am chronically congested. I have been since I was 10 and countless appointments with countless doctors and allergy specialists have not helped. I’ve used old-school nasal irrigation, but when you’re living with daily congestion, you want ease and convenience. I cannot wait for friends and family to see this on my birthday wish list and nod knowingly.

R.L. Stine

AMAZING. I never would have guessed I’d find R.L. Stine listed in the celebrity shopping guide. Michelle Buteau and Sohla El-Waylly are better known for what they’ve done on the screen than what they’ve done on the page, so all that stuff about writers needing other jobs to supplement their income doesn’t really apply to them, but I’ll hazard a guess that the Goosebumps author could live quite comfortably off his book sales alone. He’s a household name when it comes to horror for young readers. So what does the writer of teen and tiny-tot terror need? The scariest item on the list is Pineapple Fanta. Sorry, pineapple soda fans, I am that hater. Stine keeps it concise and quaint—he likes what he likes, from a Laurel & Hardy Blu-ray (I cannot remember the last time I thought about Blu-rays) to Strawberry Mentos, and he doesn’t need to convince you to like the same. Nothing from Stine’s list made it into my cart or wish lists, but there’s a grandfatherliness to this list I find endearing, and if I had a dog I’d absolutely pick up those $2 squeaky tennis balls.

Looking for even more author shopping guides? I got you:

• Celeste Ng (Carry-on Essentials)
• Young Kim
• Claire Messud (Carry-on Essentials)
• Lois Lowry
• Brit Bennett
• Jenny Han
• Rumaan Alam
• Raven Leilani
• Rick Steves

What would you add to your list?