Adam Gopnik’s newest book was released in April 2024 called All That Happiness Is: Some words on what Matters and takes a look at our society’s endless obsession with Striving. Gopnik says society is obsessed with achievement. Young people are pushed toward the “best” school they can get into. Adults push themselves toward the highest-paying, most prestigious jobs, seeking promotions and public recognition. The result is not so much a rat race as a rat maze, with no way out. Except one: to choose accomplishment over achievement.

A staff writer for the New Yorker since 1986, Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal. His first essay in The New Yorker, "Quattrocento Baseball" appeared in May of 1986 and he served as the magazine’s art critic from 1987 to 1995. That year, he left New York to live and write in Paris, where he wrote the magazine’s “Paris Journal” for the next five years.  He has written 14 books.

In the past five years, Gopnik has engaged in many musical projects, working both as a lyricist and libretto writer. Future projects include a new musical with Scott Frankel.

Heather and Adam talk about true happiness, and feeling a true sense of accomplishment vs constantly striving to achieve, the society we live in and much more, including the origins of Central Park in NYC.

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