Our Summer Book Club (!) and Reader FAQ's

Plus: A list of resources on rethinking your ambition

I, like everyone else, read the latest Emily Henry and it was a good time!

📚 Summer Book Club: Call for Books!

Since we have a good group of paid subscribers going, I thought it would be fun to read something together this summer—and gather ideas from you! Please leave a comment with your top book ideas. It doesn’t have to be a new book, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a beachy/summer read.

I’ll send out a poll in this Friday’s newsletter with a few top picks. I’m thinking we take all of July to read, then discuss in August? TBD on how we’ll discuss the book, but if you have strong prefs, please let me know!

Here are my 3 picks I’ll throw into the mix…

• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

• The Guest by Emma Cline

• Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

(PS - The book club will be limited to paid subscribers only.)

Books, Podcasts, and Articles I Consumed on Rethinking Ambition

Consider this roundup of resources as a “part two” to my essay on how I’m rethinking my ambition. I wasn’t expecting such a huge response, so a big thank you to everyone who’s shared their experience or written in!

During my break from work, I devoured everything I could to untangle my complicated feelings about my career and ambition. While none of these contain the magic answer or solution, they may help you wrap your head around things…

Pillows from Hotel Magique

Podcasts I listened to:

• 🎧 The What Happened to My Ambition? episode of Work Appropriate ft. Rainesford Stauffer is a must-listen

• 🎧 The Case Against Loving Your Job episode of the Ezra Klein Show argues against what we’ve been sold — that work should be more than just a way to make a living — featuring guest and labor journalist Sarah Jaffe who provides great historical context and background

• 🎧 The Questioning Ambition episode of A Thing or Two from 2020 — an honest, vulnerable, introspective convo that kicked off my own thoughts

The books I read:

• 📗 All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive by Rainesford Stauffer. The book’s just been published, and if you read anything from this list, let it be THIS one. Rainesford is one of (if not the) leading voices on rethinking ambition. In this book, she dives into most of the topics I touched on in my essay in more nuanced and compassionate ways. She interviewed several subjects across diverse industries, ages, and backgrounds about their personal experience with ambition and work. She explores what it might look like to be ambitious outside of work, and the many forms that could take. (Look out for my interview with Rainesford, soon 👀)

Will blow your mind, in a good way!

• 📗 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. Contrary to the title, this book is less about time management hacks and more about the pointlessness of productivity culture. Burkeman deftly highlights the idea that there is always more to be done, to-do lists be damned. Thus, what is the point? Abstracted further, the same logic applies to ambition, work, and accomplishments — there will always be an endless list of things we could achieve and strive toward. But to what end?

• 📗 Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe. *this one’s on my to-read list. Jaffe, a longtime labor journalist, touches on topics of inequality, gender politics, and the history of organized movements that have reclaimed exploitative work-as-love conditions. She interviews people across various sectors like actors, teachers, therapists, social workers, museum staffers, nurses, political organizers, elected officials, childcare workers, and more.

• 📗 Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness--And a New Freedom--At Work by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This book applies a design-thinking approach to creating a balanced career; it’s much more “practical” and workbook-y if that approach works better for you. I personally love a good worksheet!

• 📗 The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life From Work by Simone Stolzoff. *I haven’t read it, but it’s often been mentioned in these conversations around work, burnout, and ambition.

Articles that made me think:

• Losing My Ambition (The Cut): Written by Amil Niazi, which touches on themes of motherhood, felt relatable—like I was peering into a future version of my thoughts. “In the end, I did get a new job with a better title and more money, but motherhood had refocused and sharpened my idea of work.”

• We Should Be Ambitious About Our Friendships (ELLE): Written by the aforementioned Rainesford Stauffer, who’s recently written many GREAT pieces on ambition to complement her book, but I especially loved this one.

• What Comes After Ambition? (ELLE): Written by Ann Friedman in 2022. “It’s become apparent that many of the promised rewards of professional striving are never going to materialize. Why, some women are wondering, should I keep trying so hard?”

• 📰 This Girls’ Night In newsletter issue from 2021 on rethinking ambition, and readers’ thoughts on the topic might be a good re-read.

A gratuitous pic of my dog and I logging many hours on the couch, to break up all this text

📫 Answers to Some of Your Questions

I received some great questions from you since the launch of Downtime. Here are some of the most frequently asked, with my answers, below…

[Note: There are mentions of pregnancy, motherhood, and infertility below. Please feel free to skip if you’re not in the space to read about that.]

1. Will you be writing about your pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood experience?

   (Note: I haven’t “officially” shared this in a newsletter yet, but I am currently pregnant with our first, due this fall.)