Happy To Be Here

The October GRETAGRAM book club selection is Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party, a novel about entanglement, reinvention, and life after collapse. 

Host Greta Johnsen discusses the novel with Book Riot’s Liberty Hardy. They talk about destiny and coincidence, the difference between being haunted and feeling nostalgic, and whether this book feels as hopeful as Station Eleven.

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Host Greta Johnsen talks with journalist and documentary producer Lindsay Holmes. Her new book is called The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out. 

It’s an exploration of quitting in many different forms. Whether it’s a job, a relationship, or something else in your life that isn’t serving you, Lindsay builds a strong case for why life is too short to keep doing stuff we don’t love. 

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Host Greta Johnsen talks with Anna Holmes, a writer and editor who founded the feminist website Jezebel. She’s also a former advice columnist for the New York Times series “Work Friend.”

In 2015, Anna was asked to give a commencement speech for an all-girls boarding high school in New York. As she thought about what to tell them, she considered the idea that young people are so often told they can do ANYTHING. And while that can feel encouraging, she worried that it might reinforce the fact that girls are socialized to be nice and accommodating. Yes, you can do anything, but also, you don’t HAVE to do EVERYTHING. 

That speech was the seed for her book. In the years since then, Anna interviewed many academics and researchers in all sorts of fields --child development, linguistics, neuroscience, you name it. 

And the result is The Power of No: A Celebration (print | audio), a wonderful distillation of research and wisdom. Anna is careful to say it’s not a how-to guide. She doesn’t claim to be an expert in saying no. Instead, she’s offering up ideas for how to encourage people -- especially women -- to listen more to their intuition, reflect more on what they actually want, and then confidently say no to what they don’t want. 

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At first glance, the question about whether you’d ever call a friend out of the blue is pretty low-stakes. But as it turns out, this is a topic that’s extremely divisive. Host Greta Johnsen talks to New York Magazine’s Kathleen Walsh, who recently wrote an essay for The Cut called “I Should Be Allowed to Cold-Call My Friends.” The episode also includes virulent opinions from a handful of Happy To Be Here listeners! This is a conversation about phone etiquette and generational differences, yes. But it’s also about connection, friendship, and how we show up for others.

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This month's GRETAGRAM book club selection is Exit Party, the new novel from Station Eleven author Emily St. John Mandel.

Like her other novels, this is a story that spans genre and time. It opens with Ari Waker, the villain from Emily's novel The Singer's Gun, as she goes to a party at the end of the world. Some very strange things happen at that party, and Ari is haunted by them for decades to come.

In this spoiler-free interview, host Greta Johnsen talks with Emily about her inspiration for the novel, her writing process, and how she keeps track of all the interconnected characters from her books.

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The September GRETAGRAM book club selection is Mary H.K. Choi’s Pool House, an exquisitely claustrophobic novel about a TV family and the mess that lies just under the surface.

Host Greta Johnsen unpacks the novel with Inkoo Kang, a TV critic for The New Yorker. She brought many wonderful insights to the book, including this one: 

“We’re coming out of this era of increased representation of diversity in Hollywood, and that has been really nice,” Inkoo said. “But a lot of it has been really sanitized. So reading something where the motivations seem really human and the author seems so wonderfully unconcerned with how likeable the characters are was incredibly refreshing to me.”

Greta and Inkoo talk about the book as a coming of age story, the themes of surveillance and identity, and, yes, that ending.

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This month's GRETAGRAM book club selection is Mary H.K. Choi's Pool House, a novel about mothers and daughters, about seeing and being seen, and about desiring and being desired. This novel isn’t necessarily soapy, but it’s definitely MESSY, and it's quite a ride. Mary has written several YA novels, but Pool House is her first book for adults.

It's about Stevie, a young woman who lives in the llong shadow of her mom Moon, an aging former TV star. Their lives are deeply intertwined with Adam, who played Moon’s stepson in the TV show they were both in. When we meet this trio, they've just learned that Mac, who plated the TV dad, has died by suicide, and each of them reckons with his death in very different ways.

In this spoiler-free interview, host Greta Johnsen talks with Mary about the origins of the novel, the obvious metaphor of living in a glass house, and what it's like to write a novel for "grown ups."

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The 87% Club is a series of episodes that explore the case for giving less energy to things that don't matter, so we have more time to spend on things that do.

This week, host Greta Johnsen talks to writer Priyanka Mattoo, the author of the wonderful essay collection How To Be Less Useful: The Joy of Inefficiency.

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This week, host Greta Johnsen talks with Ayurvedic doctor, coach, and podcast host Sweta Vikram, who "helps high achievers move through burnout, grief, and overwhelm."

Today’s episode is largely about perfectionism when it comes to rest. So many of us think that time off is an all-or-nothing deal -- take a long vacation, or be strung out and constantly in your email inbox. But Sweta encourages a gentle, incremental approach. Even 15 minutes of down time once or twice a day can make a big difference for your brain and body. 

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As part of a monthlong series about doing less, host Greta Johnsen talks to a theater director and an author about attention, achievement, effort, and ease.

First, Greta speaks with Michaela Goldhaber, a Bay-Area playwright, director, and dramaturg who is also involved in disability justice work through her theater company Wry Crips Disabled Women’s Theater Group. 

Then, she talks to Cathy Haynes, the author of The Fullness of Time: Marking the Day by Birdsong, Blooms, Shadows, and Stars.

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