How We Live Now with Katherine May – Details, episodes & analysis

This month, Katherine spoke to Lucy Jones about Matrescence, her book about the profound changes wrought by pregnancy and birth. Combining the biological, the social and the political with exquisite writing, this is a radical revision of a subject veiled in forced cosiness and obfuscation. 

Lucy's frankness and curiosity - her utter realness - are an absolute balm for anyone who’s navigated the very particular environment of contemporary western maternity, whether that contact has been personal or at one remove. It helps us to understand why pregnancy feels like such a hinterland, and also why it doesn’t need to be this way. 

Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Lucy's Instagram
• Lucy's website
• Lucy’s book, Matrescence

• Join Katherine's Substack for a free reading guide, video recordings and transcripts
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Katherine was excited to speak to Daniel Tammet about his latest book, Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum. Katherine has been reading Daniel’s writing for a long time - his first book, Born on a Blue Day, came out in 2006. At the time, he was writing about his experience as a savant (his synaesthesia means that he conceptualises numbers and dates in a completely different way to most of us), and in this conversation Katherine and Daniel talk about the way that he was treated during those years. Daniel is a beautiful writer, but his talent was often invisible to people who only wanted to see him as a kind of specimen, not fully human. Hear as they talk about the way Daniel’s persisted, asserting his rightful place as a thinker and a master of prose.

Katherine's book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Daniel's Website
• Daniel’s book, Nine Minds

• Join Katherine's Substack
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we return to a richer, more complex understanding of national identity and personal ethics - one that can only come from folklore?

Amy Jeffs is the perfect person to ask. An art historian and printmaker, she creates immersive retellings of ancient stories, beautifully illustrated with her own woodcuts and etchings. In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, we discuss the function and appeal of folklore, and roam around the wind-blasted landscapes of Medieval Britain. We get a glimpse of the British Isles through ancient eyes - a haunted place stranded on the far edge of Europe, isolated and vulnerable, but full of courageous, hardy folk. What can these tales tell us about who we are now? And how can we restore this agile way of understanding the world?

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Amy’s Instagram
• Amy’s Twitter
• Amy's book, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain
• Amy’s book, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

• Join Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdes
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode of How We Live Now, Katherine speaks to author and public intellectual Báyò Akómoláfé. We consider how we can step out of the belief that humanity is in control of a passive planet, and instead wonder how we can learn to read the intelligence of the systems and landscapes that we inhabit. We meander our way to autism, and begin to think about how we can create a new language of neurodivergent experience that resists the labels applied from disinterested - or disgusted - outside viewers. And we take a look at ‘hushes’, the shadowy, scuttling figures that disrupt Báyò’s narratives.

Born in Nigeria, Báyò is a writer, speaker, teacher and founder of The Emergence Network who finds his most sacred work in fatherhood. His book, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences, is an extraordinary meandering through the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy framed in letters to his daughter, Alethea. He is also the editor of We Will Tell Our Own Story, an anthology exploring Black African scholarship and knowledge. He now divides his time between Germany, India and the USA.

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Bayo’s website
• Bayo's book, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences

• Join Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free, extended intros and immersive, bonus mini-episdes
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s writing rings with a sense of connection between this world and the otherworld, and nowhere is it expressed more clearly than in her latest book, Cacophony of Bone. Here are pages full of subtle signs that are legible only to those who are in the practice of seeking them. It’s a work of plain mysticism, a very personal representation of direct contact with the sacred. At its roots, it’s about perception: how we allow it, honour it, foster it. How we can allow ourselves to encounter beauty and transcendence in the everyday.

But there’s also a hidden political dimension to Kerri’s work. She’s showing us a way of life that’s largely been lost, a mode of perception that has been deliberately crushed and denied. It’s a spiritual mode that’s democratic, resistant, dangerous. These times are ripe for it.

In this interview, we talk about the practice of everyday mysticism, its connection to Kerri’s Irish heritage, and the ways that reading has been warped by contemporary life.

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Kerri’s instagram
• Kerri's book, Cacophony of Bone

• Join Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdes
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I spoke to Morgan Harper Nichols, she was taking a break from assignment-writing for the MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts she’s studying. That’s a telling detail for this exuberant soul: she has ideas and energy to spare, and she’s always learning, always reaching towards new forms. A visual artist, writer, musician, speaker and podcaster, I always see her as a communicator first and foremost. She draws on all these different modes of expression to facilitate the sheer urgency of what she has to say. 

In this episode, I talk with Morgan about the ways that her work ushers us towards a kind of reenchantment with life itself - but, in all honesty, I quickly lost control of the whole interview. Like me, Morgan is autistic, and I got lost in the joy of spending an hour in her thoughtful, inquisitive company. This is a conversation about how we see our work and the world around us, and how creativity helps us to connect. 

Morgan Harper Nichols is an autistic mixed media artist from the Atlanta, Georgia area who has worked with brands such as Google, Starbucks, Hallmark, COACH, KIND bar, and her work has been featured in places such as Target, Anthropologie, Kohls, Barnes & Noble, among others. She is the author of books that combine words and vibrant images, including You Are Only Just Beginning, How Far You Have Come, All Along You Were Blooming, and Peace is a Practice. She is also the creator of the Storyteller app, and her podcast, The Morgan Harper Nichols Show. 

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

• Morgan's website
• Morgan’s instagram
• Morgan’s podcast, The Morgan Harper Nichols Show
• Morgan's book, You Are Only Just Beginning: Lessons for the Journey Ahead

• Join Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdes
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pico Iyer’s latest book, The Half Known Life, looks at the ways in which we seek paradise on earth, sometimes in places that are fraught with risk. In this episode, he and Katherine talk about the similarities in their work, particularly the ways in which they explore secular understandings of big spiritual questions, and they touch on the differences, too. Where Katherine is drawn to the local and the known, Pico quests after the insights that come to travellers and strangers. They are two different ways of looking at the same question: that of how to live a good and peaceful life, via the practice of enchantment.

Pico can truly be called a veteran travel writer, having published his first book in 1984, and gone on to publish fourteen more, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. His writing regularly features in Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the Financial Times among many others, and his four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far.

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is available now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Pico and Katherine in conversation about The Half Known Life
• Katherine and Pico in conversation about Enchantment
• Pico's book, The Half Known Life
• Pico's website

• Join Katherine's Substack to receive episodes ad-free and immersive, bonus mini-episdes
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're in between seasons of How We Live Now and Katherine is in the midst of talking about her new book Enchantment in radio and podcast interviews. We wanted to share one of these conversations with you in the How We Live Now podcast feed.

In this episode of The Shift with Sam Baker, Sam and Katherine talk about Katherine’s midlife autism diagnosis, why she believes we’re living through the burnout decade and how to wrest back control of our lives from our work. 

• Buy Katherine's new book Enchantment: US & Canada, UK
• Sign up to receive Katherine's newsletter
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Find all the episodes of the The Shift with Sam Baker here: https://podfollow.com/the-shift-on-life-after-40-with-sam-baker

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran understands the problems of rightwing populism better than most: she lives as an exile, after her criticism of the Erdogan regime threatened her liberty. But despite the very personal toll that our current politics has taken, Ece remains optimistic. The seeds of a new society, she says, lie in communities, and the ways they find to come together.

In this episode, Katherine and Ece discuss courage, truth and learning to befriend our fear. We also touch on the power of Twitter in the days before Elon Musk took over - so maybe a little of our optimism was misplaced! But Ece has a unique ability to put our current political conflicts into a global context, and her faith in grassroots action is redemptive. 

Join the conversation! We’re also inviting your thoughts on each episode from now on - follow this link to join the conversation. Answers, challenges, ideas and further questions are all welcome - there will be a further episode in a couple of months focusing on your voices.

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is released in March 2023. Pre-order now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Ece's website
• Ece's books
• Follow Ece on Instagram and Twitter

• Join Katherine's Patreon to receive episodes early and ad-free
• Sign up to receive Katherine's newsletter
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Emma Gannon is a true digital native, a storyteller who finds creative inspiration in online communities, and who has sought a more thoughtful way to be in the digital spaces that so dominate our lives. 

In this episode, Katherine and Emma discuss what it means to be a digital citizen - the pleasures and the agonies of coming together in the ether, and the ways it can both warp and welcome connection. Emma’s is a nuanced take, emphasising our own agency within social media spaces, and inviting us to be thoughtful and disciplined, rather than reactive and addicted.

Join the conversation! We’re also inviting your thoughts on each episode from now on - follow this link to join the conversation. Answers, challenges, ideas and further questions are all welcome - there will be a further episode in a couple of months focusing on your voices.

Katherine's new book, Enchantment, is released in March 2023. Pre-order now: US/CAN and UK

Links from the episode:

• Emma's website
• Emma's books
• Follow Emma on Instagram and Twitter

• Join Katherine's Patreon to receive episodes early and ad-free
• Sign up to receive Katherine's newsletter
• Find show notes and transcripts for every episode by visiting Katherine's website.
• Follow Katherine on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.