My guest this week is the journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti.

After two decades producing and reporting for the BBC, Reeta became a news presenter at the age of 49. She was the main BBC presenter in Lviv in Western Ukraine and is now one of the chief presenters of BBC news at 6 and BBC news at 10.

Brought up in Birmingham, as a teenager Reeta went to school in Calcutta before returning to the UK to go to university. 

She joined the BBC in 1992 where she started on Radio One Newsbeat and presented news bulletins for the legendary Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright in the Afternoon. (Just talk amongst yourself kids!)

Heading into 50 she took an a whole new role and at 60 she’s done it again, only this time she’s written a book, a novel, Finding Belle, that takes us from Mombassa to Milton Keynes to Calcutta.

Reeta (and the builders next door!) joined me to talk about family, belonging, growing up the only brown girl in the class and being a lifelong good girl. We also discussed the importance of failure, learning to become a yes person, in the best possible way, getting bolder as she gets older and why she has no plans to be in the newsroom at 70.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠, including Finding Belle by Reeta Chakrabarti as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jeanine Cummins.

You might think you haven’t heard of her, but I’ll be pretty surprised if you haven’t heard of the book that catapulted her into the public eye, American Dirt. A story about a Mexican mother and son escaping to America after their entire family is massacred by a drug cartel, which Oprah said, “humanised the migration process in a way nothing else I’d ever felt or seen had,”

Jeanine was in her mid-40s, with two novels and a memoir under her belt, when American Dirt caught light. After a massive bidding war, the book was sold for millions of dollars in 38 countries. But when it was published, Jeanine found herself at the heart of a furore that questioned her right to have written it at all. 

Despite topping the bestseller lists  on both sides of the atlantic and selling almost 4 million copies, for a long time Jeanine questioned whether she’d be able to write another word.

Now she has. 

Speak to Me of Home is the story of three generations of women who are, like jeanine, of Puerto Rican descent. It’s an engrossing cross-generational family saga and a heartfelt look at identity and what it means to belong.

Jeanine joined me from her home on the east coast to talk candidly about living through the eye of the storm, the meaning of home, developing empathy for our grandmothers, the life changing power of female friends, turning 50 and finally learning the holiness of No.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including Speak to me of Home by Jeanine Cummins as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the bestselling American novelist Jennifer Weiner.

I first encountered Jen When her debut novel, Good In Bed, was thrust into my hands by someone I worked with on Company magazine. It was the first time I’d ever read a mainstream novel whose lead character was a fat woman who didn’t need fixing. Good In Bed was a smash hit on both sides of the atlantic but for some reason it has taken until now to make its way to the big screen. It’s being adapted for HBO and starring Mindy Kaling.

Jen followed that up with In Her Shoes which was also made into a movie, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley Maclaine. And since then she’s written 15 more novels, and an essay collection, as a well as writing a column for the New York Times.

Like Jojo Moyes and Marian Keyes Jen has an unerring talent for being able to make you laugh and cry and nod in recognition all on the very same page.

Her latest, The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits, is another surefire hit, tackling sisterhood, our relationships with our bodies, how we’re endlessly judged on our looks and the way the world - and the music industry - treats women.

Jen joined me from home in Philadelphia to talk so much good stuff. We discussed Trump, Nora Ephron, body image, ageing, her mum coming out, wishing she had her daughter’s boundaries, why she loves writing middle aged women and so much more.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠, including The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To launch season 17 (season 17! I know!) I have a very special guest.

Back in 2023, British journalist and BBC breakfast and radio 5 live presenter Naga Munchetty hit the headlines when she spoke out about having been diagnosed with a gynaecological condition called adenomyosis.

When I heard the clip I did a double-take because I too have adenomyosis, and, like Naga, it took me well over two decades to get diagnosed. But also I hadn’t heard of it before I was diagnosed and had never heard of anyone else who had it. (I wrote about it at the time – you can read it here.)

I was far from the only one. Naga was overwhelmed by the avalanche, literally thousands of women sharing their stories of lifelong pain, bleeding and having their concerns dismissed, ignored and belittled. Of being told the way they were having to live their lives was just “normal”.

Naga was shocked. She was furious. She was determined to do something about it. To help women advocate for themselves. And the result is her new book, It’s Probably Nothing - which let’s face it is a phrase most of us have heard over and over again.

Naga and I talked all things gynaecological - from painful periods to bleeding buckets - choosing to be child-free and why women’s sexual wellbeing is so often overlooked. Women’s health still isn’t taken seriously and Naga Munchetty has plans to do something about that! 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠, including It's Probably Nothing by Naga Munchetty as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last of my trips back into The Shift archives is this conversation with Clover Stroud. Since this conversation, Clover has written another memoir, The Giant on the Skyline about our relationship with home (borne in part out of moving her family from her home in Oxfordshire to Washington DC where her partner's job is based). Since then A LOT has changed. She has also launched an excellent substack, On The Way Life Feels.

The original show notes:

It takes courage to lay yourself bare on the page the way today’s guest does. Journalist Clover Stroud has written three memoirs - The Wild Other, My Wild and Sleepless Nights and, now, The Red of My Blood. Each more visceral, more exposing, than the last.

But then Clover has lived no ordinary life (whatever that is). Hers features adventure, divorce, trauma, lots of sex, depression and five kids aged between 21 and 5. But before that, when Clover was 16, her mother suffered a catastrophic fall from a horse which left her permanently brain damaged. A state in which she remained until her death 22 years later. Then, two years ago her sister Nell Gifford, to whom Clover was exceptionally close, died of breast cancer, aged 46. 

The darkness that descended in the wake of Nell’s death informed The Red of My Blood - an emotional read about living with and learning from grief.

Clover joins me from her bedroom in Oxfordshire (excellent wallpaper!) to talk - extremely candidly, so please brace yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable - about grief and trauma, bearing the unbearable and how, out of loss, she’s finding a new person to be. But It’s not all sadness. We also discussed midlife sex, sobriety, looking forward to menopause and why we’re bloody lucky to be middle-aged.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Giant on the Skyline and The Red of My Blood by Clover Stroud as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This conversation with legendary musician Tracey Thorn from one of The Shift's very early seasons is one of my very favourites. Back then covid was still a thing and these chats on zoom with incredible women were my life rafts. Anyway, we're revisiting Tracey because by the time you listen to this episode, Everything But The Girl will have very tentatively put their toe back on the stage at a couple of very small gigs in London. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (as I know Tracey doesn't loooove live performing, however, Tracey if you happen to read this, I know there are thousands and thousands of fans hungry for a tour...)

The orginal show notes:

Like many 80s kids, I grew up with today’s guest. Tracey Thorn started early, forming The Marine Girls (once described as looking like they would “break your arm before they’d let you break their hearts”), while still at school, and Everything But The Girl, with her musical and life partner Ben Watt, whilst at university. Since then she’s released three solo albums, three critically acclaimed memoirs - and had three children. 

Her fourth book - My Rock’n’Roll Friend - about her 37 year on-off friendship with Lindy Morrison (drummer of Australian band The Go-Betweens) is my favourite yet.

Tracey talks success, power, the “constant slog” of making women’s voices heard and why equality is a numbers game. She also tells us why menopause made her feel like she’d gone mad, the painful-but-liberating process of ageing and what to do about your statement hair going grey (asking for a friend!).

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including My Rock'n'roll Friend by Tracey Thorn and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the mists of time, Maggie O'Farrell was one of my very first guests on The Shift. So, as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the publication of her very first novel, After You'd Gone and we wait with bated breath for the movie of her smash hit bestseller Hamnet (starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, and co-written by Maggie and Chloe), I thought now was a good time to revisit our conversation from back in 2020. Since then Maggie has of course written the bestselling The Marriage Portrait and gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of Hamnet.

Here are the original show notes:

This week’s guest is the award-winning novelist, Maggie O’Farrell. The author of eight novels, most recently the stunning Women’s Prize winner, Hamnet, and one of my favourite memoirs of all time, I Am, I Am, I am. And now she’s written a children’s book, the absolutely gorgeous Where Snow Angels Go, which is a banker for a Christmas Day teatime animation a la The Snowman if ever I saw one. 

While Maggie noses through my bookcase and plays with Sausage the (tail-less) cat, we talk being a social media refusenik, giving voice to women’s stories, saying good riddance to the male gaze, why she never thought she was the marrying kind. Oh, and why she still secretly fears someone might take her Women’s Prize away! Frankly, if Maggie O’Farrell has imposter syndrome, what hope is there for the rest of us?

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we put the finishing touches to the Spring season of The Shift, I thought we'd raid the archives for a few of my favourite episodes. First up, "the other" Maggie Smith (as she says she will always be), who I first spoke to when her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful was just creeping into the world. Little did we know back then that it would be the leading wave in a tsunami of divorce memoirs written by midlife women. Also look out for Maggie's new book, Dear Writer, a collection of "pep talks and practical advice for the creative life".

Here are the original show notes:

Like most of the rest of the world, I first discovered today’s guest Maggie Smith (no, not the legendary British actress, the American poet) when her poem, Good Bones went viral on social media thrusting her into the news on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on primetime TV and was read at an event by Meryl Streep. 

It’s the kind of exposure people dream of, but in Maggie’s own words “my marriage was never the same after that”. And I know that sentiment is something that will resonate with so many of you.

Maggie’s new book, her debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful is about the collapse of that marriage, but it’s also about the start of something new, how in losing their shared history and knowledge of the future, she began to build a new story - her own. 

Maggie joined me from Ohio to talk about putting herself back together after sudden success destroyed her marriage, being a service provider in your own home, how she got herself back after years of bargaining herself away and why we keep having the same conversation about women and ambition. We also compared our Strong First Daughter Energy and she introduced me to the concept of an emotional alchemist.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including You Can Make This Place Beautiful and Dear Writer and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My final guest of this season is the British TV legend, Lorraine Kelly. You know, Lorraine off the telly! 

Her show, Lorraine, which airs every weekday morning, revolutionised Daytime Telly, she’s now been doing it for an astonishing 40 years. She took so called soft telly and turned it into a must take notice of for politicians and people who thought they were too good to watch telly during the day.

She has won a Royal Television Society Award, a scottish BAFTA, and last year she was awarded a Lifetime achievement by BAFTA. 

Now 65 the bloody over-achiever has only gone and written a bestseller, The Island Swimmer, set on Orkney - a place close to her heart - it’s a family mystery about a woman, Evie, who reluctantly returns home after a long time away. It’s as reassuring, captivating and satisfying as its author.

I went to Lorraine’s old Dundee stomping ground to share a cuppa and talk about life the universe and absolutely blimmin everything. We chatted mums who keep you in your place, toxic people in telly, getting the sack on maternity leave, why she had to be interviewed about menopause on her show because no-one else would, the sheer joy of being a granny and why she’s way too chicken to have Botox.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Island Swimmer by Lorraine Kelly and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the award winning author, screenwriter and poet Jenni Fagan. Jenni has written four novels, several poetry collections and been named Scottish novelist of the year. 

18 months ago Jenni and I met in a suitably spooky basement in Edinburgh’s old town to discuss her incredible, harrowing memoir about growing up in care, Ootlin.

An ootlin, according to Jenni, is ‘someone who creates their story without first seeking permission to do so’. And you’ll soon see why that couldn’t be more apt.

Then, life happened - publication of the book was delayed and the interview never ran. Scroll forward to a couple of weeks ago when Ootlin was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, and then won the Gordon Burn Prize. I decided to raid the archives and listen again. What I heard was a moving conversation about building a life when society dumped you on the scrapheap before birth. And then some. 

As you’ll hear Jenni and I spoke candidly about her childhood growing up in 29 different homes, how she somehow preserved the shining girl inside when life was only interested in snuffing her out, becoming Jenni with an i, the importance of cultural mothers, surfing her way through her 50s and her obsession with property renovation.

CONTENT WARNING: there is some tough stuff in here including reference to sexual abuse and suicidal ideation.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Ootlin by Jenni Fagan and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices