Recently, Katherine interviewed Sarah Moss about her incredible new memoir, My Good Bright Wolf , an account of growing up as a difficult girl in a difficult family, and how this ultimately led to her eating disorder. Throughout the book, she repeatedly argues against herself. A voice rises up in the text and says, What are you trying to claim here? That’s not how it happened! Why can’t you tell the truth? The point she makes is that we are unsteady in our remembering. We’re often incredibly unc...
Nov 16, 2024•47 min•Season 6Ep. 12
What’s to be done with the lost, the dead, but write them into being?’ So writes Hilary Mantel in her extraordinary memoir, Giving Up the Ghost . First published in 2003, it offers a snapshot of the great writer before the Wolf Hall era: a literary, if not commercial, success, and a fragile soul with a dark, scuttling imagination. Katherine was joined by Jillian Hess of the brilliant Noted Substack to explore this wonderful book. They discussed the way that Mantel captures her childhood and fami...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 6Ep. 11
It was National Poetry Day in the UK earlier this month and Katherine talked to Kate Fox about her new book, On Sycamore Gap , in an extra Book Club event. Kate’s book is about a very special tree in the north of England that was chopped down by vandals, but that has brought people together in the aftermath of its felling. Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK Links from the episode: Kate on Instagram Kate's website Kate’s book, On Sycamore Gap : UK Join Katherine's Subs...
Oct 16, 2024•59 min•Season 6Ep. 10
September - when we’re almost as likely to be trying to reform ourselves as in January - is the perfect moment for Oliver Burkeman’s new book, Meditations for Mortals . Katherine sat down to talk to Oliver for her Book Club, and there was one question she was burning to ask: do you confuse lots of readers too? Oliver, you see, has mastered the art of subverting the self-help genre. It’s not that he doesn’t want to offer succour to people who are struggling, nor that he denies we can change. It’s...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 9
This month, Katherine spoke to Lucy Jones about Matrescence , her book about the profound changes wrought by pregnancy and birth. Combining the biological, the social and the political with exquisite writing, this is a radical revision of a subject veiled in forced cosiness and obfuscation. Lucy's frankness and curiosity - her utter realness - are an absolute balm for anyone who’s navigated the very particular environment of contemporary western maternity, whether that contact has been personal ...
Aug 29, 2024•54 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Katherine was excited to speak to Daniel Tammet about his latest book, Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum . Katherine has been reading Daniel’s writing for a long time - his first book, Born on a Blue Day , came out in 2006. At the time, he was writing about his experience as a savant (his synaesthesia means that he conceptualises numbers and dates in a completely different way to most of us), and in this conversation Katherine and Daniel talk about the way that he was treated during those ...
Jul 25, 2024•55 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Join Katherine as she talks with Tom Newlands about his debut novel, Only Here, Only Now . Katherine talks with Tom about his female main protagonist, the unforgettable Cora, setting the book in 1990s Scotland and how it offers a new way of writing about neurodivergence. She also explains the thinking behind choosing Only Here, Only Now for a non-fiction book club, and why it captivated her enough to break her own rules. Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK Links from t...
Jul 04, 2024•47 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Join me for a recent conversation with comedian, essayist, blogger, and television writer Samantha Irby. Recorded as part of my True Stories Book Club hosted on Substack, we talked about realising you have a body again after lockdown, dogs that don’t love us enough/love us too much, writing about the darkest parts of our life, and terrorising Sex and the City fans by writing on And Just Like That… If you haven’t read it already, do check out her latest essay collection, Quietly Hostile . Katheri...
Jun 20, 2024•57 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Join my conversation with Catherine Coldstream as we relax into a questing, rambling chat about the deep pull that many of us feel towards the quiet and gentle rhythms of the monastic life, and the risks of submitting so completely. Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK Links from the episode: Catherine’s website Catherine’s book, Cloistered Join Katherine's Substack Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website . Follow Katherine ...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 6Ep. 4
At a superficial level, Soil is a gardening memoir, full of gorgeous descriptions of plants and getting your hands in the soil. But the garden in question is a political gesture, an act of resistance and an assertion of belonging. Camille T. Dungy uproots the staid monoculture of the suburban garden, and takes a fierce, critical look at its assumptions. In this conversation, we talk about the way that gardens can become a means of social control and conformity, but also an expression of freedom ...
Dec 15, 2023•50 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In the past few years, resistance has been a live issue for many of us, whether we’re wondering for the first time how to bring about social change, or realising that we need to find new ways to be activists. For Kaitlin Curtice, this resistance is an ongoing practice, informed by her perspective as an Indigenous American, and imbued with gentleness, integrity and personal sustainability. In this episode, we talk about her book, Living Resistance, how her own perspective developed over time, and...
Nov 17, 2023•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 2
The wolf carries an almost unbearable amount of symbolism in western culture, encapsulating the predatory, the carnal, the supernatural and the ravenous. But in her book Wolfish , Erica Berry suggests that it’s time to understand wolves differently: as tender, as hunted, as guardians of the landscape. What’s more, those evil qualities may be better attributed to ourselves than to wolves. Berry weaves memoir with natural history, cultural critique, folklore and conservation to show that wolves ha...
Oct 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 1
I stumbled across Dacher Keltner’s work when I was first researching Enchantment , and now - for the final episode in this season - I’m honoured to speak to him about Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life . Dacher’s research attempts to understand this very fleeting, ineffable emotion. He and his colleagues have shown that awe induces a feeling of being small within a vast universe - a radical shift into context. What’s more, by absorbing ourselves in awe, we...
Aug 03, 2023•50 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Marjolijn van Heemstra believes that we can change the world by gazing into the night sky. Her book, In Light Years There’s No Hurry , explores the ‘overview effect’, a personal transformation reported by astronauts who have seen the earth from space. People who’ve experienced this rare view often report an ethical shift taking place, a new sense of mission in their lives. They come to see themselves as guardians of their planet, rather than its passive citizens. Clearly not all of us can - or w...
Jul 20, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 6
How can we return to a richer, more complex understanding of national identity and personal ethics - one that can only come from folklore? Amy Jeffs is the perfect person to ask. An art historian and printmaker, she creates immersive retellings of ancient stories, beautifully illustrated with her own woodcuts and etchings. In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, we discuss the function and appeal of folklore, and roam around the wind-blasted landscapes of Medieval Britain. We get a glimpse of...
Jul 06, 2023•56 min•Season 5Ep. 5
In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, Katherine speaks to author and public intellectual Báyò Akómoláfé. We consider how we can step out of the belief that humanity is in control of a passive planet, and instead wonder how we can learn to read the intelligence of the systems and landscapes that we inhabit. We meander our way to autism, and begin to think about how we can create a new language of neurodivergent experience that resists the labels applied from disinterested - or disgusted - ou...
Jun 30, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s writing rings with a sense of connection between this world and the otherworld, and nowhere is it expressed more clearly than in her latest book, Cacophony of Bone. Here are pages full of subtle signs that are legible only to those who are in the practice of seeking them. It’s a work of plain mysticism, a very personal representation of direct contact with the sacred. At its roots, it’s about perception: how we allow it, honour it, foster it. How we can allow ourselves to ...
Jun 08, 2023•52 min•Season 5Ep. 3
When I spoke to Morgan Harper Nichols, she was taking a break from assignment-writing for the MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts she’s studying. That’s a telling detail for this exuberant soul: she has ideas and energy to spare, and she’s always learning, always reaching towards new forms. A visual artist, writer, musician, speaker and podcaster, I always see her as a communicator first and foremost. She draws on all these different modes of expression to facilitate the sheer urgency of what sh...
May 25, 2023•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 2
Pico Iyer’s latest book, The Half Known Life, looks at the ways in which we seek paradise on earth, sometimes in places that are fraught with risk. In this episode, he and Katherine talk about the similarities in their work, particularly the ways in which they explore secular understandings of big spiritual questions, and they touch on the differences, too. Where Katherine is drawn to the local and the known, Pico quests after the insights that come to travellers and strangers. They are two diff...
May 11, 2023•57 min•Season 5Ep. 1
We're in between seasons of How We Live Now and Katherine is in the midst of talking about her new book Enchantment in radio and podcast interviews. We wanted to share one of these conversations with you in the How We Live Now podcast feed. In this episode of The Shift with Sam Baker, Sam and Katherine talk about Katherine’s midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. Buy Katherine's new book Enchant...
Mar 15, 2023•46 min
Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran understands the problems of rightwing populism better than most: she lives as an exile, after her criticism of the Erdogan regime threatened her liberty. But despite the very personal toll that our current politics has taken, Ece remains optimistic. The seeds of a new society, she says, lie in communities, and the ways they find to come together. In this episode, Katherine and Ece discuss courage, truth and learning to befriend our fear. We also touch on the pow...
Jan 06, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Emma Gannon is a true digital native, a storyteller who finds creative inspiration in online communities, and who has sought a more thoughtful way to be in the digital spaces that so dominate our lives. In this episode, Katherine and Emma discuss what it means to be a digital citizen - the pleasures and the agonies of coming together in the ether, and the ways it can both warp and welcome connection. Emma’s is a nuanced take, emphasising our own agency within social media spaces, and inviting us...
Jan 06, 2023•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 4
Jay Griffiths’ writing has long explored the link between land, culture and our potential for connection, but her father’s death during lockdown made this more vital than ever. Denied the comfort or closure of a funeral, Jay had to find other ways to connect, mourn and memorialise, and in this gentle, wide-ranging conversation she and Katherine talk about imaginary journeys, ritual and delving into a sense of place. Behind all of Jay’s work is an ecological urgency, and a sense of grief for the ...
Jan 06, 2023•57 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Many of us are enduring a painful new awareness of the conflicts that underpin our social relationships. For Buddhist teacher Lama Rod Owens, this is the beginning of a revolutionary path to our liberation - a necessary upheaval that will rebalance us forever. In this profound, perspective-shifting conversation, we are urged to stop looking for short-cuts and panaceas for our suffering, and instead to engage with the deep, transformative work of change. Join the conversation! We’re also inviting...
Jan 06, 2023•49 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Being a Sikh in America gives Simran Jeet Singh a very particular insight into the divisions that run between us: on one hand, his visible differences have made him a target for racism; on the other, his religion emphasises the connectedness of all humans, and urges him towards compassion, forgiveness and love. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation, Katherine and Simran explore building empathy, seeing the divine in everyone, and how being forced to confront white supremacy has helped...
Jan 06, 2023•56 min•Season 4Ep. 2
When it comes to getting together, Priya Parker turns our assumptions on their heads: gatherings, she says, benefit from firm rules and careful management, which allow us to relax more, communicate better, and come away feeling positive. It’s all about clarity of purpose. A lack of structure leads to chaotic and draining events, and may even put us in conflict. In this episode, Katherine asks Priya how we can learn to be in the same room again - whether it’s with colleagues, family or even compl...
Jan 06, 2023•57 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Susan Cain’s groundbreaking book, Quiet , taught a generation of readers to perceive and value their introvert qualities. Her latest book, Bittersweet is a song to the complex space between happiness and sadness. In this episode, Katherine talks to Susan about how she came to move so comfortably in the understated parts of life, and why the minor key is so beautiful. While we’ve been away, The Wintering Sessions have been undergoing a metamorphosis. Katherine talks us through the process of beco...
Dec 19, 2022•30 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. Author Raynor Winn talks to Katherine May about the losing her home when her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and finding new life from having nothing. Raynor Winn has captured a multitude of hearts with her book, The Salt Path , which recounts the time she lost her home just as her husband received a terminal diagnosis. With nothing to lose, they set off to walk the South West Coast Path carrying nothing but a tent. Here Raynor...
Sep 15, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 18
While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners. This week, I talk to Leah Hazard, NHS midwife extraordinaire and author of Hard Pushed, part memoir of Leah’s life on the labour ward, and part exploration of the current state of the profession. Leah is as funny, wise and warm in person as she is in print, and she talks about the life-changing decision to leave her TV career and train to be a midwife, and the moment when the stress...
Aug 18, 2022•52 min•Season 3Ep. 17
Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May. While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners. In this episode, I speak to journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly about her life-changing decision to call off an engagement, and how it echoed through the years to teach her about forgiveness, faith and empathy. This is such a special one for me - I went to school with Remona, and I think you can hear our joy at reconnecting aft...
Jul 21, 2022•52 min•Season 3Ep. 16
