What if I told you that, when it comes to managing your time and your life, you were never going to get it together — and that was okay? Continuing the thread from our last conversation with Kendra Adachi, today on the show we have the incomparable Oliver Burkeman, who wrote the book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, which came out October 8. Literally from the opening page of the book — page one of the introduction, which is called...

I said I was going to take this month off from the show, but then, Kendra Adachi’s brilliant book The PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius found me, and I couldn’t be selfish to you lovely listeners and keep it to myself. I really do believe books meet you where you are, and The PLAN certainly met me where I was (and still am). I am obsessed with time management, productivity, life hacks, life optimization — but I was shocked to learn in Kendra’s book, which came out October 8, that a...

Election Day is on Tuesday, November 5, and I could think of no better book to tee that up than Bill Haldeman’s new book Meeting the Moment: Inspiring Presidential Leadership That Transformed America, which is out November 1. This book about presidential leadership takes a specific leadership quality of a certain president and shows readers how the combination of that quality and that president transformed America. Case in point? Bill writes that for Thomas Jefferson, his transformative...

Today on the show we have Wright Thompson here to talk about his latest book, one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read — The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, which came out September 24. Though it’s not mentioned in the title or the subtitle, the book is about the brutal, absolutely depraved murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955 in Mississippi. I have a deep connection with Mississippi, as does Wright, who was born and raised there, and who grew up just...

Today on the show we’re talking about a woman you all have long known I admire — Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. I have read every book I can get my hands on about this former First Lady, American (and, really, global) icon, and one of the most famous women to ever live. We have even had many episodes of the show about her in the past. But today we’re talking about the new book Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life by Dr. Karen M. Dunak, which is out November 12, and instead of just...

What an episode we have for you today, listeners. Today on the show we have the phenomenal Terri Cole, whose work about boundaries I have so resonated with in the past. She has a new book out on October 15 called Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency, and it examines what we thought we knew about codependency. We have had the godmother of codependency, Melody Beattie, on the show, and Melody introduced the concept to the world. Now, in Too Much, Terri is...

Today on the show we are talking about Victoria’s Secret, the retail giant that, as my guests Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez write in their new book Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon, “defined a generation’s idea of sexy.” Selling Sexy is out October 8 and tells the story of a company that, at its peak, pulled in $8 billion in annual sales. We talk in today’s episode about Les Wexner, what Victoria’s Secret was like at its apex, its ubiquitous...

We have a legend on I’d Rather Be Reading today, friends. None other than Malcolm Gladwell is here to talk about his latest book, Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, which is out October 1. Revenge of the Tipping Point comes nearly 25 years after Malcolm’s 2000 book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, a bestseller that took his career to the next level and ushered in a new genre of books. Today on the show...

We are back today with another fantastic episode, and for my 38th birthday today, I’d like to give you a gift — a conversation about a book that really touched me. We’re chatting today about Dr. Mary E. Anderson’s book The Happy High Achiever: 8 Essentials to Overcome Anxiety, Manage Stress, and Energize Yourself for Success—Without Losing Your Edge, which came out September 24. She writes that we are experiencing an epidemic of high achievers anxiety, which Mary explains in today’s episode....

I’m so pleased to have on the show today Megan Gorman, who wrote a very compelling book called All the Presidents’ Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money, which is out September 24. Before we get into the book — which isn’t that such a great idea and such a great title? — let me tell you a little more about Megan: she is the founder and managing partner of Chequers Financial Management, a female-owned high-net-worth tax and financial planning firm. Her clientele ranges...

Celebrating the giants of American history — the George Washingtons, the Abraham Lincolns, the Martin Luther King Jrs — is important, but behind every larger-than-life American icon is, as Sharon McMahon calls her new book, The Small and the Mighty. The full title of Sharon’s book, which is out September 24, is The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement, and all of these 12 unsung American heroes are...

I am a huge sports fan, and both the college football season and the NFL season are in full swing. Sports-wise, this is one of my favorite times of the year, and our guest today Joe Posnanski has written a book for all lovers of the game called Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments that you definitely won’t want to miss. Joe chose 100 moments because of the 100 yards in a football field, and talks to us today about how on earth he chose just 100 moments out of the hundreds and even...

My guest today truly needs no introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, we are fortunate enough today to have the one, the only Connie Chung here with us to chat about her memoir, Connie, out September 17. Definitely stick around for the surprise Maury Povich pop in midway through the conversation—Maury, of course, is Connie’s husband of 40 years. Where to even start with Connie Chung and what an inspiration she is to female journalists like me? Connie is the youngest of five sisters, and she...

If you are as big of a Selling Sunset fan as I am, then you are going to love today’s episode. Season eight of Netflix’s massive hit reality series just dropped September 6, and here today to chat about her new book Selling Sunshine: Surviving Teenage Motherhood, Thriving in Luxury Real Estate, and Embracing My Voice is one of the show’s stars, Mary Bonnet. Mary has written an incredibly vulnerable book that takes us inside her struggles, her pain, her heartache, but also her joy, her...

Today on the show to kick off season 14 is a second-time guest: Kathy Iandoli, who we spoke to back in 2021 about her book on the legendary Aaliyah. And Kathy is back with a book she co-wrote with another legendary musician—Eve, who in a word, is just fabulous. In the book, we learn so much about this rapper, actress, talk show host, and multihyphenate, including that she felt cursed by being born with the name Eve—as in the first woman, Eve, according to the Bible. We talk today with Kathy...

Unbelievably, we’ve reached the season finale of season 13! What a season, huh? Don’t you worry, because we’ve got more conversations to come in season 14. But today we’ve got a great one for you—Julia Boorstin of CNBC is here to chat about her buzzy, powerful book When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them, which came out in 2022 but is still making waves today. The book is, in my opinion, a masterpiece about women, leadership, and business. And...

Today on the show, we’re talking about the history and power of hairdressing and how, as our guest Dr. Elizabeth Block puts it in her new book, how hair “contributed to the lived experiences of women.” Her new book Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing is out September 10 and looks at hair through an academic lens—and it’s totally compelling. We get into the cultural impact of hair; why hair is, as the title suggests, something that is beyond vanity; how choosing a hairstyle or...

The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, is once again our topic du jour today, as we’re talking about Max Boot’s new book Reagan: His Life and Legend, which comes out on September 10. In the fantastic 880-page book, Max quotes someone as having said of Reagan that “there was almost no one who did not succumb to his magic.” Today on the show we talk about what that magic was; about his love story with his wife, Nancy Reagan, who Max writes in the book without her Reagan “would...

Let me ask you a question—how much time have you spent really, truly thinking about the United States’ second president, John Adams? Probably not a ton—but today’s conversation will certainly make you think about him, and probably think a bit differently about him, at that. John Adams came into the presidency on the heels of an impossible act to follow—President George Washington, who today’s guest Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky writes in her new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the...

We talk about power frequently in society, but do we ever really put much thought into status? And what even is status, exactly? On the show today, we talk about how much status matters, and our guest, Dr. Alison Fragale, writes in her new book Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve that resources follow respect, and very little advancement is going to happen unless someone has respect—also known as status. Alison writes that women are largely disadvantaged when it comes to...

Today on the show we’re talking about a bona fide beauty icon—Elizabeth Arden, who built the cosmetics empire of the same name beginning in 1910. Now, if you think about that time period, not many women were running a beauty empire, but she was. At the height of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world, but what do we really know about Elizabeth Arden, the woman? Well, first of all, Elizabeth Arden is not her birth name—that would be Florence Nightengale Graham. Elizabeth...

Tomorrow, August 30, the biopic Reagan hits theaters, with Dennis Quaid playing President Ronald Reagan. We’re so fortunate on the show today to have a man who knew Reagan well—Ken Khachigian, whose new book Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon, focuses on his relationship with not just Reagan but also President Richard Nixon, as well. Right smack dab on the front cover of the book, which just came out on July 23, Ken is described as a speechwriter, confidant, and strategist...

When it comes to books that have impacted my life for the better, Kara Loewentheil’s Take Back Your Brain: How a Sexist Society Gets in Your Head—and How to Get It Out tops the list. It came out May 21, and in it she writes that our thoughts “are like GPS—they tell your brain what to focus on, how to feel, and what to do. You have to set that GPS on purpose to create the life you want.” To do so, Kara walks us through three steps: 1. How to identify what thoughts are really driving you. 2....

Today on the show we are talking about American fashion, specifically Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion, the brand-new book from Nancy MacDonell, out August 27. Prior to World War II, American designers were nothing short of second-class citizens to the French. But, after the Nazis invaded Paris during the war, everything changed for French fashion, and by the time the war ended in 1945, the American look was in fashion. What is the...