Kelly shares an excerpt from her friend Alix Strauss’ book, The Joy of Funerals:  A Novel in Stories, which has just been reissued in celebration of its 20th anniversary.

“The Joy of Funerals is a sneak peek at the inner world of those left behind. From the very first page, readers are drawn into the strange, often humorous world where nine women grapple with sex, power, love, and death.  When read as a collection, they are anchored together by the novella, "The Joy of Funerals," which follows the life of Nina, a lonely, single thirty-something woman who attends the funerals of the deceased characters in the previous stories. Thinking her ‘funeraling’ habit is under control, Nina slips seamlessly in and out of these proceedings, and these people's lives, until, of course, she's found out.”

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Thanks For Being Here  The Joy of Funerals

Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders, a place for people who like to laugh while they think and find it useful to look closely at ourselves and our weird ways in the hopes that knowing more and feeling more will help us do more and be better.  Author of 4 New York Times bestsellers about family life, Kelly wonders about loads of stuff: is knowing more always good? Can we trust our gut? How does change actually happen?  We only book nice people who have a sense of humor and know things worth knowing. Each episode ends with Kelly’s shortlist of takeaways, appropriate for refrigerator doors, bulletin boards and notes to your children.

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Kelly shares an excerpt from Jessica Fein's new book Breath Taking: A Memoir of Family, Dreams, and Broken Genes. In Jessica's words, the memoir is "The story of building, loving and losing a family.  How I learned to live in the present and create a world of joy and beauty in the midst of loss and tragedy."  The excerpt shared here is, "A Girl's Best Friend" and is the story of Jessica's daughter Dalia's very special dog, Blackie-O, a loving canine companion who essentially trained himself to be Dalia's service dog.

Thanks For Being Here "A Girl's Best Friend"

Things we know about touch and why it is so important, from my own recent experiences and through this conversation with Gretchen Rubin. (Previously aired)

Go To on Hugging and Holding

Quick afternoon nap?  Gummies before bed?  Hitting snooze?  Here’s a thorough look at how to get our sleep right with one of the world’s most informed sleep experts: Dr. Matthew Walker.  Why?  Sleep is our super power.  Put less positively, poor sleep maps terribly closely to poor mental health.  Joining me for the conversation are previous guests and friends of the show cognitive scientist and podcaster Maya Shankar, and comedian/producer W Kamau Bell.

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Many thanks to COOP for making the best pillows and sheets to help us get a really solid night’s sleep and for sponsoring this episode.  Get 20% off with the code KELLY20.

Going Deep on Sleep and Well Being with Dr. Matt Walker, W. Kamau Bell and Maya Shankar

Today is the last of our special 5-part series about moms in honor of Every Mother Counts.  Christy and I recently spent an unforgettable Saturday afternoon talking to the singular force of nature that is Spike Lee about his mother, Jackie, who died when Spike was a sophomore at Morehouse College.  Spike has 134 directing credits over four+ decades, in each case imploring us to Wake Up.   Here’s a chance to understand something about the development of this legendary voice.  Please share.

This series hopes to raise $100,000 to support safe and respectful pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care in 9 countries through Every Mother Counts, founded in 2010 and led every day since by Christy Turlington Burns.  Please join us with a donation here.  Maternal health is a human right.

Love it?  Don’t like it?  Have an idea?  We love to hear from listeners.  Write us anytime — hello@kellycorrigan.com - or sign up for our weekly list of takeaways here.

Spike Lee and Christy Turlington Burns Talk Moms

Today is #4 in a special 5-part series about moms in honor of Every Mother Counts. Today we talk to the iconic Cindy Crawford, an old friend of Christy’s (you may have seen them together in the Apple TV docu-series The Super Models).  Cindy is a Midwestern girl, a high school valedictorian who started at Northwestern on an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering before her career took her around the world.  She is also the daughter of Jenny, a young bride who had four children and lost one to childhood leukemia.  This is a candid and loving conversation about the realities of family life.  Please share.

This series hopes to raise $100,000 to support safe and respectful pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care in 9 countries through Every Mother Counts, founded in 2010 and led every day since by Christy Turlington Burns.  Please join us with a donation here.  We know that maternal health is a human right; let’s help make it ubiquitous.

Love it?  Don’t like it?  Have an idea?  We love to hear from listeners.  Write us anytime — hello@kellycorrigan.com - or sign up for our weekly list of takeaways here.

Thanks For Being Here The Joy of Funerals

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