I'd Rather Be Reading

Surprise! Today is a special fiction pick day, and I have one of the most popular writers of fiction on the market today: New York Times bestselling author Katharine McGee, author of the wildly beloved American Royals series. The four-part series debuted in 2019 and wrapped in 2023, and asks the compelling question “What if America had a royal family? What if, instead of becoming president, George Washington became king instead?” As a royals editor, royal podcast co-host, and general royal obsessive, I couldn’t get enough of this series. (Katharine is also the author of the popular Thousandth Floor trilogy, but today we’re talking about American Royals.) In addition to talking about the royals (come on, we had to!), we also talk about Katharine’s process in writing fiction and what we can expect from her in 2024.   All by Katharine McGee: American Royals Majesty Rivals Reign   Katherine’s fiction picks to keep you satisfied until our next fiction episode: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman The Buccaneers, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

Life is full of pinch me moments, and this certainly is one: talking to the Savannah Guthrie about our shared faith in God. All glory to God for this conversation! The public facing Savannah is the co-anchor of Today on NBC, a position she’s held for nearly 12 years, since July 2012. She’s a former attorney turned NBC News professional who, in addition to her Today responsibilities, is an NBC News anchor, a substitute anchor on NBC Nightly News, and, since 2012, she’s hosted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting. In her personal life, she’s married to Michael Feldman, and they have two children. But here’s the more private side of Savannah that you might not be as familiar with: a woman of deep, deep faith whose faith is imperfect (just like the rest of us) but whose faith is firmly rooted in the belief that mostly what God does is love us. In her new book, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, Savannah is extraordinarily candid about her faith, sharing how it has impacted her and how it can impact us all, if we’d be open to receiving it. It is a beautiful book written by a beautiful soul, one who I can’t wait for you to get to know a little more through this conversation.   Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere by Savannah Guthrie

Today’s episode is a tough one—but it is also such a beautiful one. I want to insert a trigger warning here: my guest and I will be discussing the loss of a child to stillbirth today, so if you are grieving any type of pregnancy loss (or any type of loss, period) this conversation may be upsetting to you. Please take care of yourself and return to the conversation when you can. This is an absolutely beautiful, powerful conversation with a dear friend of mine, Vera Chapman, who is also the first children’s book author we’ve ever had on the show. Vera’s book, Our Baby In Our Hearts, focuses on the real life experience that her two living children, Grayson and Ivey, faced when confronted with the loss of their baby brother, Hayes, on February 15, 2021. (Yes, this episode is being released on Hayes’ third birthday.) Our Baby In Our Hearts offers practical mindfulness exercises to help young hearts cope with big feelings. It is also stunningly illustrated and will truly be so moving to anyone, but especially anyone who has experienced pregnancy loss. After losing Hayes in 2021, Vera has turned her pain into purpose, not only writing this book but also creating the “Light in Loss” daily healing affirmation cards series for women. She is the founder of the wellness coaching practice Resonating Soul Wellness and has over a decade of experience supporting women through coaching and counseling. I am so proud to call her my friend, and today’s esteemed guest.   Our Baby In Our Hearts: A Mindful Story of Grief and Healing by Vera V. Chapman   Daily affirmation cards for grieving mothers and women   More affirmations for both women and children Follow Vera on Instagram @veravchapman!

I first became familiar with the dynamic Jennie Allen in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when my Bible study group did a study on Jennie’s book Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts, which is a book worth reading anytime, but especially in the summer of 2020. Now she’s back with a new book called Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It, which is out February 13. As you’ll hear Jennie and I discuss, Untangle Your Emotions is a perfect companion piece to Get Out of Your Head which, by the way, was a New York Times bestseller. Untangle Your Emotions dives deep into understanding where our emotions come from, what to do with them, and how to honor God in processing all that we feel. Jennie admits that this is the most difficult book she’s ever written, and the subject matter is tough—but through this book and this conversation, if we take it all to heart, we can walk away so much the better for it. Jennie—thank you for writing a difficult book. It will touch so many lives, and it has already touched mine.   Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It by Jennie Allen

Today on the show we have the remarkable Patti Davis, daughter of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan. Patti’s new book, Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew is a book, in Patti’s own words, about acceptance, forgiveness, and moving on from the past, a book that—though Patti’s parents were much more famous than most, even before her father entered politics—anyone can relate to. There’s not a person among us who hasn’t at one point or another struggled with their parents, as the parent-child relationship is so complicated; this is Patti’s story, and it’s a powerful one. When her father became president, Patti became Ribbon, her Secret Service code name. The complexities that go along with being the child of a president are daunting, and we talk about that in today’s episode, as well as family secrets, living life as the world watched, and what she’d like to say to her father and mother after their deaths in 2004 and 2016, respectively.   Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew by Patti Davis The Long Goodbye: Memories of My Father by Patti Davis

I am so pleased to have Dr. Caroline Leaf on the show today to impart knowledge from her 30-year career as an applied neuroscientist. I originally intended to do a career retrospective on Dr. Leaf’s many books, but quickly realized that if I did that, this would become an hours and hours long episode. So I decided to choose one of her books, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple, Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Toxic Thinking, to zoom in on for our conversation today—but I highly recommend all of her books. In this book (and in this conversation), she teaches us what mental mess is, how to practice mind management, what neuroplasticity is, and about the neurocycle, which she formulated. The neurocycle has, amazingly, statistically reduced depression and anxiety by a staggering 81 percent! I guarantee you’ll learn something in this episode, and for this episode in particular, I’d recommend listening when you can really absorb what Dr. Leaf is saying. Some episodes on the show are light and frothy and can be listened to while multitasking; I’d say this episode is not one of those. To get maximum impact from what Dr. Leaf is teaching us, set aside some time for yourself to truly take all of this in, because you know what? You deserve it. Dr. Leaf is also a podcaster, and in addition to her own show, “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess,” she is an extremely frequent guest on other podcasts. That’s actually how I found Dr. Leaf—from hearing her on other podcasts and then discovering her work. She has spent three decades researching the mind-brain connection, the nature of mental health, and the formation of memory, and her work centers around helping people learn how to use their mind to detox and grow their brain to succeed in every area of their lives—talk about work that truly matters!   Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple, Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Toxic Thinking by Dr. Caroline Leaf A link to all of Dr. Leaf’s books

Welcome one, welcome all to season 10 of I’d Rather Be Reading! As ever, I’m so happy to have you here and a part of this community—don’t forget to reach out if you ever want to chat books at helloidratherbereading@gmail.com. For our season opener today, we have the fantastic Julie Menanno, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, an expert couple’s therapist, and the person behind the popular Instagram account @TheSecureRelationship, which has over 1 million followers. I have long been interested in attachment theory and attachment styles, and there is secure attachment (the ideal which we should all strive for) and three different insecure attachments—anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Julie will explain what all of that means in the episode, and how we can work towards bringing a secure attachment to our relationships. Beyond just attachment styles, Julie brings so much wisdom and insight into how we navigate romantic relationships, and how we can create a healthy relationship that will, as the subtitle suggests, last a lifetime.   Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime by Julie Menanno

For our season nine finale I have a legendary journalist, Laurence Leamer, here to talk about his book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, which is the basis for the new Ryan Murphy show on FX, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. (I loved the first iteration of Feud—about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford—and I love everything Ryan Murphy does.) The show has a cast as deep as any ocean: Naomi Watts. Diane Lane. Demi Moore. Calista Flockhart. Chloe Sevigny. Molly Ringwald. And Tom Hollander as Truman Capote. It premieres on FX on January 31 (and the next day on Hulu) and it will be appointment television for me. Through this book, this series, and this conversation, we dip our toe into New York City high society, into the world of Truman Capote and his “Swans”—glamorous women who were Capote’s closest confidantes. Babe Paley, Slim Keith, CZ Guest, Gloria Guinness, Pamela Harriman, Lee Radziwell, and Marella Agnelli were not just beautiful and wealthy, but intelligent and interesting. Then, enter the “feud” portion of the program: Capote wrote a piece for Esquire called “La Cote Basque 1965,” in which he puts the Swans’ dirty secrets in black and white, and in print for the entire world to read. The women cut Capote off totally; it was social suicide, and it led to Capote’s downfall that ultimately resulted in his death. Why did he do this? He thought they’d be too dumb to know the piece was about them. It was one of the worst decisions he could have ever made. Here to tell us all about it is the legendary Laurence Leamer, who is regarded as an expert on the Kennedy family and who has written biographies of not just the Kennedys but also the Reagans, Johnny Carson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ingrid Bergman, and Donald Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago. By the way, I have to throw this detail in here—his book about Mar-a-Lago was controversial and banned him from the resort for life. Not unlike that detail, this book and this conversation are as compelling as it comes. Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer “La Cote Basque” by Truman Capote for Esquire

No matter if you are a parent or not, this conversation is for you—after all, we all have parents, right? Today’s guest is Dr. Aliza Pressman, a Dartmouth and Columbia-educated developmental psychologist whose new book The 5 Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans is out January 23. In today’s conversation we discuss her five principles, all of which begin with R: relationships, reflection, regulation, rules, and repair, all leading to the sixth R, which is resilience. We talk today about the science and art of parenting—how there is no right way to parent, reparenting ourselves, how it feels harder than ever to be a parent. Parenting is, simply put, the hardest work anyone will ever do—I can’t wait for all of you parents to hear what Dr. Pressman has to say in this episode, and I hope that it absolves you of your mom guilt or dad guilt. I hope her words will give you the permission you need to let that guilt go, once and for all. It is such an enriching conversation. Dr. Pressman has an extremely popular podcast of her own, “Raising Good Humans," and she herself is the mother of two teenagers and has a lot of wisdom to impart to us.   The 5 Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans by Dr. Aliza Pressman

Hi friends! If you didn’t know, I am the Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor at Marie Claire magazine, and as of this month I am in charge of our monthly virtual book club, #ReadwithMC. Seeing as though we already read together here on I’d Rather Be Reading, why not read on #ReadwithMC, too? It is my hope to grow this book club on par with some of my favorite book clubs, like those from Jenna Bush Hager, Reese Witherspoon, Queen Camilla, and Oprah Winfrey. (Now, look. I’m never going to be Oprah. But a girl can try.) If you’re listening to this show I hope you like my taste in books, and you know that just how I only bring you the best of the best on I’d Rather Be Reading, I plan to do the same with #ReadwithMC.  I am so excited to tell you about my very first #ReadwithMC book pick, and that is One in a Millennial: On Friendships, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In by Kate Kennedy, which is out January 23, this Tuesday. Kate is a podcaster so many know and love; she hosts “Be There in Five” and is a dynamic pop culture commentator. When I read One in a Millennial, I felt so seen. Kate is a year younger than me. I was born in 1986 and I believe Kate was born in 1987. In this book, Kate wrote everything I wish I could have written about being a millennial but I probably wouldn’t be able to articulate as concisely and perfectly as she did. I laughed, I cried, I found in Kate the voice of a generation. This book essentially nails down the millennial experience into a 336-page book. I could wax on and on, but this book encapsulates the experience of being a millennial largely through the lens of pop culture—an exploration of the millennial zeitgeist and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from being a member of this generation. Below you’ll find some useful links: Read chapter one of One in a Millennial and buy the book with the link in the post (again, it comes out January 23) Learn more about #ReadwithMC on the whole Join us for Kate’s Instagram takeover on Marie Claire’s page on January 25 Leave a review of the book on Instagram or Twitter (or X, whatever) by January 28 using the hashtag #Readwith MC (keep in mind your profile needs to be set to public for me to see it) Then join us in the first week of February for our next pick! I can’t wait to be in a book club with you!