Eliza Reid never expected to become the First Lady of Iceland.

The Canadian-born writer and mother of four was living a hectic, but totally normal life when her husband launched a presidential campaign during a political crisis. Seven weeks later, she was a First Lady of a small Arctic nation.

Eliza is a magical human who speaks so candidly about the strange experience of becoming publicly known as someone's wife, and the challenge of holding onto your own identity while navigating a role with no job description.

We chat about Iceland's approach to gender equality, the famous Women's Day Off, social media's effect on how we see ourselves and one another, and why Eliza came away from her years as First Lady feeling more optimistic about humanity than ever before.

Pick up Eliza's book The First Lady Nextdoor here.

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Why are we so obsessed with Paris?

It is the f*cking best, but long before Instagram convinced us that a destination could transform our lives, Paris had already perfected the art of selling a fantasy with the promise that if we could just get there, we'd somehow become a more sophisticated version of ourselves.

This week, we sit down with bestselling author Danielle Trussoni (writing as Danielle Postel-Vinay) to unpack the phenomenon known as Paris Syndrome, the very real psychological crash that happens when reality fails to live up to our fantasies about the City of Light.

Together we explore why Paris remains one of the world's most powerful forms of escapism, why women are increasingly drawn to stories centered on pleasure rather than productivity, and what our obsession with escape says about our modern lives.

We also discuss Danielle's delicious new Paris-set mystery Murder Most Delicious, plus: French lingerie, literary ambition, writing routines, perimenopause, and why we all need to be doing more nothing.

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The art market is one of the most secretive, least regulated wealth machines on the planet. Billions of dollars change hands between billionaires, oligarchs, and dynasties with almost no oversight, and behind almost every famous man in that world is a woman who did the work and got written out of the story.

This week I'm sharing my conversation with my brilliant friend Farnoosh Torabi from her podcast So Money, where we get into: the shadowy families who control what art is worth, the real-life scandals that inspired the rich people behaving very badly in The Parisian Heist, and the untold true story of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, the widow who single-handedly made Vincent van Gogh the most famous artist in the world.

We also talk about why women still hand over financial control to the men in their lives, what the end of the tradwife era means for all of us, why I love writing unlikable women (who I still want to have drinks with), and my honest thoughts on Belle Burden's Strangers.

Binge more episodes of So Money here.

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Wilder is back in the Under the Influence feed. A brand new Little House on the Prairie just landed on Netflix and obviously Glynnis and I had thoughts. I talked to Executive Producer Joy Gorman Wettels, who had her whole team listening to Wilder while they made this show, about how she spent years getting the rights from the Friendly family, why this version centers Laura instead of Pa, how they wove in the Osage story, and why Laura Ingalls Wilder might be one of the few things that can actually get people talking to each other again. Little House on the Prairie is on Netflix July 9th.

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Why do we all root for art thieves? This week we're joined by Anthony Amore — director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the heist expert behind the heist in The Parisian Heist — to bust every myth Hollywood ever taught us. We get into the real story of the unsolved 1990 Gardner heist (two fake cops, 81 minutes, 13 masterpieces, none recovered), why the empty frames still hang on the walls, the Robin Hood myth of art heisting, the woman who masterminded a Vermeer heist in 1974, the greatest art thief who ever lived, and what the Louvre heist means for museums everywhere. Plus: why most heists are inside jobs, how AI is changing museum security, and why you could not, in fact, pull a heist off.

Grab all of Anthony's wonderful books here.

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We were promised that if we worked hard enough, checked all the right boxes, and built successful careers, we'd eventually arrive at some stable version of adulthood. So why do so many women in midlife feel like we're teetering on the edge of a cliff.

This week we're joined by writer and cultural critic Amil Niazi, author of Life After Ambition, for a chat about the modern midlife crisis. Not the cliché dude version with sports cars and dramatic reinventions, but the reckoning happening to so many women who have spent decades chasing success only to discover that the old definitions no longer fit.

We chat about aging in industries obsessed with youth, the anxiety of work in an increasingly unstable economy, why ambition may need a complete rebrand, and what happens when we stop measuring success by titles, promotions, and external validation. Most of all, we explore the things that actually sustain us: friendship, community, creativity, family, and the freedom to build an actual life and not just the idea of one.

Get Amil's book Life After Ambition here.

Read her story about Midlife Crisis-ing in End Times here.

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Summer is supposed to be relaxing, so why does it feel like five summers' worth of stress before July even hits? This week, we're pushing back on the algorithm's demands that we all have a "'90s summer" or a "nonna summer" and making the case for opting out of any kind of perfection or summer archetype entirely. We're joined by creator, blogger, and debut novelist Chassity Evans.

We dig into Chassity's wild path to authorship, why she chose self-publishing over the slow grind of querying and traditional publishing, and what it's like to have real-time sales data as an indie author. Plus: our quest to bring badminton back and a tease of a very sexy Sound of Music retelling.

Pre-order The Parisian Heist and grab Pink Sand Summer wherever you get your books.

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Why does Parks and Recreation feel more necessary now than when it first aired?

We're chatting with bestselling author and pop culture journalist Jennifer Keishin Armstrong about the enduring appeal of Leslie Knope, Pawnee, and the sitcom that accidentally became a blueprint for rebuilding community.

We talk about why audiences have embraced earnestness over cynicism, how Amy Poehler helped create one of television's most iconic feminist characters, and what the show's message about friendship, local government, and collective action can teach us today.

This episode is about much more than television. It's about what happens when good people decide to build something together.

Get Jennifer's Book Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit'rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America here.

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Kate Casey, host of Reality Life with Kate Casey returns to the show with recommendations for what to watch right now, from buzzy new documentaries to true crime rabbit holes and reality television that is deliciously bonkers and addictive.

We chat aboutThe Crash, Should I Marry a Murderer?, the surprisingly emotional Martin Short documentary, Kate's latest Housewives obsession, the Martha Moxley case, Spencer Pratt's political future (ed note: we recorded this before the primary), and why some stories stay lodged in our collective imagination for decades.

Listen to Kate's podcast here.

Read Kate's Vanity Fair piece on Martha Moxley here.

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Our friend Stephanie McNeal wrote a truly great piece for Vulture this week called BALLERINA FARM IS HAPPY WITH HER CHOICES. Steph went to the farm and sat down with Hannah inside the homeschooling schoolhouse to talk about everything from being called a tradwife to Yesteryear to who does what in her marriage. It's the best profile of BF and Neeleman we have ever read so we had to get Steph on the show ASAP to chat through it.

Read the piece here.

Subscribe to Steph's Substack here.

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