Readers Digress

Today we’re talking about How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In this complex and wide-ranging book, Odell argues that attention is our most precious resource. The first half of the book is about disengaging from the 'attention economy,' and the second half is about re-engaging with something else: time and space. Odell argues for a recognition of and engagement with ecology and of the history of the places we inhabit.

Summary of the book (2:20)

Our key takeaways (11:25)

Our favorite quotes (38:00)

What questions do we still have? (46:47)

What to check out next: Bo Burnham's Inside

Today we’re talking about Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown. This book covers the relationship between fear, shame, vulnerability, and worthiness through extensive sociological research. Brown unpacks how we shield ourselves from exposure and how to change our behaviors to embrace vulnerability rather than disengage from it—in our families, communities, and workplaces.

Summary of the book (4:40)

Our key takeaways (7:01)

Our favorite quotes (20:43)

What questions do we still have? (53:17)

What to check out next: Kate suggests Big Mouth (TV show, Netflix) and Mollie suggests Philomena (movie, Netflix)

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This week we finish up our discussion of Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, John Carreyrou’s journalistic investigation of the rise and fall of the multi-billion dollar biotech startup, Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes.

Our Favorite Quotes (4:40)

Mollie's question (43:00)

References: 30 Rock episode with Liz meeting Oprah

What to check out next: Kate suggests The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (fiction book) and Mollie suggests The Dropout (podcast)

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Note: Please read this week’s show notes in a fake voice one octave lower than usual as an ode to Elizabeth Holmes. If you don’t get that joke, watch this video and then come back.

This week we’re diving into Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, John Carreyrou’s journalistic investigation of the rise and fall of the multi-billion dollar biotech startup, Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes. Once lauded as a female Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford with a patent for a compact blood-testing system she claimed could perform blood tests cheaper and faster than current technology, and all with just a few drops of blood. Theranos attracted billions in venture capital investments. The only problem was that the technology didn’t work—and it never had. Now, she and her longtime romantic and business partner, Sunny Balwani, are facing criminal charges.

Summary of the book (3:00)

Our key takeaways (6:34)

Kate's question (39:44)

Mollie's quote (58:00)

References: It's an Illusion, Michael

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In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon (aka Your Fat Friend) confronts the cultural attitudes and social systems that deny fat people basic needs and civility. Each chapter takes up a different cultural bias or myth, from the obesity epidemic to the diet industry to concern over others’ health.

Summary of the book (7:58)

Our key takeaways (11:16)

Our favorite quotes (37:48)

What questions do we still have? (1:00:53)

References: Aidy Bryant’s interview with Terry Gross, Shrill, Mean Girls Scene, Obligatory 30 Rock reference about push-ups

What to check out next: Kate suggests Maintenance Phase (podcast) and Mollie suggests Fat yogi Living with Tiffany Croww (videos) and Jessamyn Stanley yoga videos

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This week we’re diving into Rednecks, Queers, & Country Music by Nadine Hubbs. Hubbs argues that the white middle class has villainized country music as a way of distancing themselves from the white working class and that while the middle class portrays sex and gender deviance as new social advances encouraged by the middle class, this sex-gender deviance has only recently moved out of a century-long period of forced allyship with the working class.

Summary of the book (4:35)

Our key takeaways (6:20)

Our favorite quotes (18:00)

What questions do we still have? (58:00)

References: Blake Shelton's Minimum Wage

What to check out next: Mollie and Kate's Anything, Including Country Spotify playlist.

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This week we’re talking about Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by New York Times technology correspondent Mike Isaac. This book is the story of the tech start-up Uber and its founder, Travis Kalanick, but it’s also a case study of the tech bro culture and founder worship in Silicon Valley, the perils of over-ambition, and the incredible economics of venture capital investments.

Summary of the book (2:40)

Our key takeaways (5:13)

Our favorite quotes (33:14)

What questions do we still have? (44:18)

References: Parks & Rec Mona Lisa Meme, Matt Levine’s Bloomberg column

What to check out next: Chris suggests Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (nonfiction books); Mollie suggests Foundering (podcast); and Kate suggests Silicon Valley (HBO, Hulu)

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Who are these people and why did they start a podcast? Let's find out! This week we're mixing it up for a Q&A episode so you can get to know us more.

How we got here (1:56)

Where Mollie found comfort in 2020 (28:15)

Kate's relationship philosophy (33:58)

Mollie: An Emotional Engineer (45:01)

Our favorite books (56:36)

Itching for another book discussion episode? Not to worry! We're super pumped to discuss Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber next time.

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Welcome back to Reader’s Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

This week we’re discussing You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by comedian and overall light in the world Amber Ruffin, and her sister Lacey Lamar.

Amber Ruffin is the host of The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock and a writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. She lives in New York City, and her sister, Lacey Lamar, lives and works in Omaha, NE where they were raised with their parents and other siblings. In this book, Amber and her sister Lacey trade commentary as they tell the stories of racism that Lacey, and other members of the Ruffin family, have survived.

Summary of the book (2:00)

Our key takeaways (19:30)

Our favorite quotes (36:40)

What questions do we still have? (56:58)

References: White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo: “Racism is inherently about power within society—wielded collectively by those who have it against those who don’t.”; Sundown Towns, James W. Loewen.

What to check out next: Kate suggests A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO TV show) and Jokes Seth Can’t Tell (Late Night with Seth Myers clips). Mollie suggests Scam Goddess (podcast).

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Welcome to Readers Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

Our first two episodes dissect Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (book description in Part 1, 2:10). Part 1 focuses on performative masculinity and the myth of victimhood in white patriarchal evangelical culture, while Part 2 analyzes how politics and capitalism propelled evangelicalism to its modern, near-omnipresent status in American culture.

In Part 2, learn how evangelicalism led us to the current political moment (2:10), hear a case study in the popular culture of evangelicalism (33:55), and the pervasiveness of evangelical culture (46:11).

Content Warning: Discussions of disordered eating appear in this episode (33:55 - 45:45).

References: 30 Rock pep talk; Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The First White President,” The Atlantic

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