I'd Rather Be Reading

When it comes to women I find totally compelling, Elizabeth Taylor tops the list for me. Why, you may ask? Well, her Academy Award-winning career and her talent onscreen, for starters. Her beauty, specifically her violet eyes. Her work with AIDS, and her White Diamonds perfume. And, yes, her lifestyle, specifically her eight marriages. But there’s only one man she married twice, and that love stor...

I have two surprise, special episodes for you this week, including today’s chat with none other than Jen Psaki ! Yes, that’s right, the Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary and current TV host extraordinaire. Jen has a new book out today, May 7, called Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World , and I loved it. It’s a memoir of her time as White House press secretary...

We’re continuing to add to your beach read pile today with another fiction pick I couldn’t get enough of: Summers at the Saint by Mary Kay Andrews, which is out May 7. Mary Kay is so talented at making the setting or the place of her books as a character in the novel, and she certainly does that in this latest book with “the Saint,” a landmark hotel on the coast of Georgia. Traditions run deep her...

Hi listeners! I have a very exciting announcement today—our episode today marks our 200th episode! Most podcasts don’t make it to 100 episodes, and to make it to 200 is a milestone I am so, so proud of and thrilled to achieve. All of you know that I’d Rather Be Reading is my absolute passion project and to have spent 200 episodes with you is an honor I don’t take lightly. I am raising a glass to a...

In his latest book The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War , Erik Larson—who I think is one of the best if not the best historical nonfiction writers there is—takes us back to the beginnings of the Civil War. In 1860, we see Abraham Lincoln elected president that November 6; Lincoln’s own reaction to his election is “God help me. God help me.” Ju...

Hi listeners—in our conversation today, we will be discussing suicide. If you or someone you know needs mental health help, please text STRENGTH to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or visit crisistextline.org to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. You are not alone. On the morning of Sunday, January 30, 2022, April Simpkins woke to a text from her daughter Cheslie Kryst that read “First, I...

In her book The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age , clinical psychologist Dr. Meg Jay writes of the 75 million adults between the ages of 18 and 35 that most of them “are living through the most uncertain years they will ever know.” She continues, perhaps contrary to popular belief, that young adults are far from problem free; she writes in the book, which came...

One of the buzziest films of the month is Netflix’s new movie Scoop starring Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell—it came out April 5 and is about the BBC’s process of securing Prince Andrew to appear on its program Newsnight , which he ultimately did in November 2019. This interview, which largely touched on his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ended Andrew’s career as a work...

Last week, on April 18 and 19, the woman formerly known as Grace Kelly and, after marriage, Princess Grace of Monaco, would have marked 68 years of marriage to Prince Rainier III, had either lived to see it. Grace died at just 52 years old from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1982; Rainier died in 2005, 23 years later. Born in Philadelphia, Grace had just won the Academy Award for Best Act...

There are no two ways around this fact: today’s conversation is tough. It’s really, really tough. Today, April 20, 2024, marks 25 years since the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado. I woke up this morning and read an article in People magazine about Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal at Columbine at the time of the shooting. In the article, DeAngelis said that every single m...

On April 19, 1995—29 years ago tomorrow—at 9:02 a.m., a fertilizer truck bomb exploded outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Fueled by anti-government sentiment—and specifically angered by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, Ruby Ridge in 1992, and the Waco siege exactly two years to...

On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic—a British ocean liner operated by the White Star Line—sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The loss of life was devastating—of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, about 1,500 died, making the Titanic the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time, 112 years ago....

Welcome to this special fiction episode of I’d Rather Be Reading—specifically part two in my latest fiction subgenre obsession: royal family fiction. We’ve already had Katharine McGee on the show of the four-part American Royals series, and we will later have the writing duo behind The Royal We and The Heir Affair ; today we have the writing duo behind The Royal Game , my latest royal family ficti...

When it comes to fashion journalists, the crème de la crème is my guest today, Teri Agins. Today’s episode is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Teri’s book Hijacking the Runway: How Celebrities Are Stealing the Spotlight from Fashion Designers , which speaks to how celebrity interfaces with fashion and how fashion interfaces with celebrity. There used to be a delineation between fashion desig...

Welcome to season 11 of I’d Rather Be Reading! This season we will, of course, continue to cover the latest and greatest nonfiction books, but we’re also going to focus on many events that gripped the nation past and present—like the O.J. Simpson murders (which happened 30 years ago this June), the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine (which happened 25 years ago this month), and JFK Jr.’s plane crash...

Welcome to the season 10 finale, friends! What a great season it has been, with so much more in store in the forthcoming season 11. Today on the show we’re talking about a topic close to my heart as I look to undertake this project this year: getting signed to a literary agent and getting signed to a book deal. I realize this is a podcast for readers, but I also realize that many of you are writer...

There is no better person to close out March and Women’s History Month on I’d Rather Be Reading than Sarah Ditum, author of the new book Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s , which came out on January 23. Through the lens of nine of the biggest female celebrities of the 2000s—Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Chyna (the profes...

Well, we started our Women in Power series for Women’s History Month with a legendary editor-in-chief and we’re going to end the series with one, too. Today on the show I have Kate Betts, former editor-in-chief at Harper’s Bazaar , a longtime colleague of Anna Wintour’s at Vogue , and the author of one of my all-time favorite memoirs, My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in...

I have with me the remarkable Kaitlin Menza, another contemporary of mine who has just done so much, it’s baffling. Kaitlin is another journalist whose byline has literally been everywhere you can think of: The Cut. InStyle. Conde Nast Traveler. Elle. Town & Country. Vogue. Marie Claire. Esquire. Business of Home. Rolling Stone. The Hollywood Reporter. Architectural Digest. Cosmopolitan. The N...

How often is it that you write an essay so oft-quoted and ubiquitous that you define an entire generation by a single color? Today’s guest, Veronique Hyland, did just that, but what could perhaps be called her signature piece isn’t all that she has to offer—and not even close. She is fashion features director at Elle and is also the author of the fantastic 2022 book Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion f...

My two main niches in both my life and my work are books (but you already knew that) and the royal family. You may not know this about me—or maybe you do—but my main specialty coverage area in my work is the royals, and boy, has it been one hell of a ride in the British royal family this year, especially with one Kate Middleton as of late. One of the best royal correspondents in the game is our gu...

I know we are still in the thick of March and Women’s History Month and that our Women in Power series has introduced (or reintroduced) you to some phenomenal female writers, but I wanted to take a moment and pay homage to some of my favorite male writers too, because I have many. You can’t go wrong with any of these picks, and I’ll link them all below. Women are worthy of being celebrated, but so...

When InStyle’s cover for “The Confidence Issue” came out, I tore through Mattie Kahn’s cover profile on Sharon Stone. Listeners, this is a fantastic article, but when it comes to Mattie Kahn’s writing, that’s just what one comes to expect when it comes to her. Mattie is one of the most published writers today, and after working full-time at outlets like Elle and Glamour, she’s now a full-time free...

Our Women in Power series for Women’s History Month rolls on—today’s guest is Lesley Jane Seymour, who has been editor-in-chief of four different magazines, something that is just not done. That is legends only stuff right there. I feel extra connected to her because she was editor-in-chief of Marie Claire , the magazine where I now work, from 2001 to 2006. She was also editor-in-chief of Redbook,...

We are going to close this week with such a fun conversation with one of my favorite writers and editors, the spectacular Andrea Lavinthal! Andrea is People magazine’s style and beauty director, which is just as wide of a swath as you think it would be. Andrea has 20 years’ experience as a writer, editor, and content creator, and she has been with People specifically since 2012. In her role, she r...