Susan Swain on the First Ladies Ahead of Showtime's New Series "The First Lady"

Hi listeners! I have a very exciting announcement today—our episode today marks our 200th episode! Most podcasts don’t make it to 100 episodes, and to make it to 200 is a milestone I am so, so proud of and thrilled to achieve. All of you know that I’d Rather Be Reading is my absolute passion project and to have spent 200 episodes with you is an honor I don’t take lightly. I am raising a glass to all we’ve done here on the show and all that we will do. As we continue to grow and expand, our focus will always be the best current nonfiction books, but I’m really enjoying our occasional forays into fiction on the show, and we’ll have a couple more before season 11 concludes. Today we have on the show Hannah Brown, who wrote a memoir, God Bless This Mess: Learning to Live and Love Through Life’s Best (and Worst) Moments in 2021; now she’s turning her focus to fiction with Mistakes We Never Made, which comes out May 7. I learned that this is actually book one in a two-book deal, which is exciting, because Hannah has a talent for this. Hannah has let us get to know her through most of her work heretofore—through her memoir, her podcast “Better Tomorrow,” and appearances on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Dancing with the Stars, but in Mistakes We Never Made, we get to know Emma Townsend and Finn Hughes in this work of romance fiction that reads on the page just like a rom-com on the screen. Hannah is an avid reader and said of writing this book that “Storytelling is something I’ve always wanted to do,” and in this book we meet two characters who have had a ton of almosts together, and quite frankly, they can’t stand each other. Then, as one of their mutual friends is getting married, Emma and Finn have to pretend that they don’t remember all of their nearlys and so close but yet so far aways. There’s a big mystery in there and it is absolutely perfect for your upcoming beach trips, poolside lazy days, and such a refreshing escape from reality. I also get to talk to Hannah about wedding planning, as she has found her happily ever after, and I know you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did.   Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown

In his latest book The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, Erik Larson—who I think is one of the best if not the best historical nonfiction writers there is—takes us back to the beginnings of the Civil War. In 1860, we see Abraham Lincoln elected president that November 6; Lincoln’s own reaction to his election is “God help me. God help me.” Just five months later, it’s April 12, 1861, a Friday; Larson writes that that day was destined to be the single-most consequential day in American history. It was that day, at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, that the Civil War began, a location Larson describes as a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor. In the leadup and path to the Civil War, Southern states were seceding one after another, and Lincoln was powerless to stop them. Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union when finally, on that day at Fort Sumter, a simmering crisis finally tore a deeply divided nation in two. In the months between his election and Fort Sumter, Lincoln is trying to keep the country together while dealing with betrayal in his own inner circle, attempting to avoid what would become the Civil War, beginning on that April day in 1861 and raging on until 1865, eventually killing 750,000 Americans. In this book, Larson draws on so much historical record—diaries, slave ledgers, plantation records, one of the most thrilling 600 pages I’ve ever read with not one page wasted. If you don’t know who Erik Larson is, please change that immediately, although if you are a lover of nonfiction, I’m all but certain you know who this man is. He has written six national bestsellers—The Splendid and the Vile, The Devil in the White City, Dead Wake, Thunderstruck, In the Garden of Beasts, and Isaac’s Storm—which have collectively sold more than 10 million copies. His books have covered topics ranging from the sinking of the Lusitania during World War I to Winston Churchill to an American ambassador in Hitler’s Berlin to the United States’ first serial killer, but in The Demon of Unrest, which is out today, April 30, Larson turns his gaze to Fort Sumter and the advent of the Civil War. Sit back and get ready to hear from someone who is a master at what he does.   The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson

Hi listeners—in our conversation today, we will be discussing suicide. If you or someone you know needs mental health help, please text STRENGTH to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or visit crisistextline.org to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. You are not alone. On the morning of Sunday, January 30, 2022, April Simpkins woke to a text from her daughter Cheslie Kryst that read “First, I’m sorry. By the time you get this, I won’t be alive anymore, and it makes me even more sad to write this, because I know it will hurt you the most.” That day Cheslie took her own life, and on her Instagram had, just hours before, written a final message: “May this day bring you rest and peace.” Cheslie was Miss USA 2019, made the top 10 at the Miss Universe competition, was a complex civil litigation attorney, a correspondent for Extra and nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards, creator of the blog White Collar Glam, a graduate of the University of South Carolina and Wake Forest School of Law with both a JD and an MBA, beautiful, intelligent, successful. But when you have depression—even high-functioning depression, which Cheslie’s mother, April, will explain in this episode—accomplishments don’t mean much, and oftentimes all that you can see is your perceived inadequacies. From the outside looking in, Cheslie appeared to have it all, but like with so many, there was inner turmoil beneath the surface. Cheslie said that she had imposter syndrome and a “constant inner voice repeating ‘never enough.’” She wrote it herself in a manuscript, which she left behind at her death, which shares the story of Cheslie’s life—the high highs, and the low lows. Her final wish was that her manuscript be published, and this week, on April 23, just over two years after her death, her mother April took the book across the finish line and put it out into the world. The first two-thirds of the book are Cheslie’s words; April comes in and finishes the book, allowing readers to meet not just one but two powerful women. That book—the fulfillment of a promise to her daughter—is called By the Time You Read This: The Space Between Cheslie’s Smile and Mental Illness—Her Story in Her Own Words, and it is a must-read. I have dealt with suicide in my immediate family, but I have never lost a child. I cannot fathom and I cannot comprehend all that April has gone through in the two-plus years since losing Cheslie. April has turned her pain into purpose, becoming a mental health advocate and launching the Cheslie C. Kryst Foundation, which is being founded in Cheslie’s honor. Net proceeds from the book will be used to support the work of this foundation, and that thrills me to no end. Today, April 28, is Cheslie’s birthday; she was born on this day 33 years ago. Stay tuned to hear how you can join in on Cheslie’s birthday party happening later today—where we can all join together to honor the life of someone who made an enormous difference in this world.   By the Time You Read This: The Space Between Cheslie’s Smile and Mental Illness—Her Story in Her Own Words by Cheslie Kryst and April Simpkins   Join the birthday party live on Instagram at 3:30 p.m. EST on Sunday, April 28! April’s Instagram handle is @aprils_hr.

In her book The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age, clinical psychologist Dr. Meg Jay writes of the 75 million adults between the ages of 18 and 35 that most of them “are living through the most uncertain years they will ever know.” She continues, perhaps contrary to popular belief, that young adults are far from problem free; she writes in the book, which came out April 9, that today’s young workers will have, on average, nine different jobs by the age of 35, and it’s not just young adult lives that are unsettled: the era in which they live is unsettling, too. Every decade of life is difficult, but for twentysomethings, uncertainty is the most difficult part of all, she writes. I had a lot of takeaways from The Twentysomething Treatment, but perhaps more than anything? I learned a greater empathy for those in their twenties. It wasn’t too long ago when I was a twentysomething myself—I am 37 and will be 38 later this year—but it’s long enough that this group of twentysomethings have somehow even more challenges facing them than even my generation did. Dr. Jay is an expert in what it’s like to be a twentysomething and has been doing this work for 25 years; I read her first book The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—and How to Make the Most of Them Now when it came out in 2012, so I would have been roughly 26, and it changed the trajectory of the decade for me. (She has also written another book, Supernormal: The Secret World of the Family Hero, which came out in 2019 and talks about ordinary people who are made extraordinary by all-too-common experiences.) She is not just a clinical psychologist but also an associate professor at the University of Virginia and, in addition to her three books, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Psychology Today, the BBC, NPR, and TED. In this new book and in our conversation today, Dr. Jay talks about why one’s twenties are the most challenging time of life and reveals essential skills for handling the persistent uncertainties that are part of the decade surrounding work, love, friendship, mental health, and more during that decade and beyond. By the way, many of these essential skills are skills this 37-year-old is still learning. This is a really, really interesting conversation I can’t wait for you to dig into. The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age by Dr. Meg Jay

One of the buzziest films of the month is Netflix’s new movie Scoop starring Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell—it came out April 5 and is about the BBC’s process of securing Prince Andrew to appear on its program Newsnight, which he ultimately did in November 2019. This interview, which largely touched on his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ended Andrew’s career as a working royal; his interview with Emily Maitlis aired on a Saturday, and by that next Wednesday, he resigned from his position as a senior royal. Today on the show we have the person responsible for securing that landmark interview, Sam McAlister, who was a producer and booker at the BBC at the time. Now, it’s important to note—and Sam and I do this in our conversation today—how absolutely impossible the prospect of getting a senior working royal to sit down and talk about his association with a convicted sex offender is. After all, the unofficial motto of the British royal family is “Never complain, never explain.” Members of the royal family rarely give interviews, and they never give interviews where they are already set up to fail. But Andrew’s ego led the way, and not only was the interview allowed to happen at Buckingham Palace, but it was allowed to air, as Andrew thought he did a great job. Oh, the joys of self-delusion. In the film, Scoop, Sam is played by actress Billie Piper, who called Sam an “unsung hero.” If you’ve seen Scoop, while Andrew will no doubt draw viewers in, it’s actually Sam who is the star of the movie, and as I say today on the show, a central theme is the story of women at the top of their game banding together to change history. That’s exactly what happened here. I interviewed Sam both for the show and for a piece I wrote about her for Marie Claire, and in doing so I watched the Newsnight interview for the first time since November 2019, and it is ridiculously painful to watch. Sam, in her book, calls the interview on Andrew’s part “a masterclass in how to destroy your life.” By that Wednesday, as I said, Andrew had left royal duty, and in January 2022, his mother, Queen Elizabeth, stripped Andrew of all of his royal patronages and military titles, in a final coup de grace for her reported favorite son. It’s also important to note that, in addition to just being associated with Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew was accused of sexual assault by Virginia Guiffre, who alleged that she was 17 when he had sex with her. In February 2022, Andrew settled out of court with Guiffre, and he has repeatedly, fastidiously, and continuously up to present day denied any of these allegations. Sam’s book, Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews, came out in September 2022 and became the basis of Scoop, which is out now on Netflix. In the book, Sam—who is a single mother and a former lawyer—details booking many hard-to-book guests, Prince Andrew of course, but also Julian Assange, Amy Schumer, Stormy Daniels, and so many others. I am so excited for you to meet the dynamo that is Sam McAlister and learn about what she calls “45 minutes of TV history.” Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews by Sam McAlister My piece for Marie Claire about Sam, “Don’t Be Fooled: ‘Scoop’ Isn’t About One Man—It’s About the Power of Women”

Last week, on April 18 and 19, the woman formerly known as Grace Kelly and, after marriage, Princess Grace of Monaco, would have marked 68 years of marriage to Prince Rainier III, had either lived to see it. Grace died at just 52 years old from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1982; Rainier died in 2005, 23 years later. Born in Philadelphia, Grace had just won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Country Girl when she met Rainier in April 1955. It all started as a publicity gimmick while she was in Europe attending the Cannes Film Festival that, somehow, turned into what would become a 26-year marriage, but before their three children Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stephanie, and before her work as Princess of Monaco, and before her tragic death, there was the dress—one of the most elegant, memorable, and famous wedding gowns of all time. On her wedding day, Grace was 26 years old and was retiring from acting to marry a literal prince. Grace was arguably at the height of her Hollywood career when she met Rainier, and by the end of 1955, they were engaged; Rainier was already the monarch of the small principality of Monaco in the French Riviera and had been on the throne since 1949. He was 32 years old when they married, and reportedly being pressured—as all who are on the throne or who will be on the throne are—to produce an heir to ensure the continuation of the monarchy. As per Monegasque tradition, on April 18, 1956, Grace and Rainier were married in a civil ceremony in the throne room of the Royal Palace in front of just 80 guests. The ceremony was performed by Monaco’s Minister of Justice and was the precursor to the next day’s religious ceremony—that one watched by over 30 million viewers. Grace’s $60,000 religious ceremony wedding dress was a gift from MGM to its star and was a worthwhile investment: is has become one of the most iconic wedding dresses of all time. The timeless look has gone on to inspire brides like Kate Middleton, whose 2011 Alexander McQueen gown bore a close resemblance to the gown worn by Grace, another royal bride that walked down the aisle 55 years before her. Grace and Rainier’s religious ceremony on April 19 was held at the St. Nicholas Cathedral, and the high mass was conducted by the bishop of Monaco. A mixture of high society and Hollywood stars gathered for the occasion, including Ava Gardner, Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, Aristotle Onassis, Conrad Hilton, and Egypt’s former King Farouk. Tatler reports that “During the wedding breakfast, guests were treated to lobster, caviar, and a six-tier wedding cake by the Hotel de Paris’ pastry chefs, from which two live turtle doves were released after Rainier sliced through it with his sword.” The couple left in a Rolls-Royce—a gift from their subjects—and sailed away on a seven-week honeymoon onboard Deo Juvante II, a gift from Onassis; by the time the newlyweds returned to Monaco, Grace was pregnant with her first child, Princess Caroline, who was born nine months and four days after her royal wedding in January 1957. Today on the show we welcome back author J. Randy Taraborrelli and induct him into the elite I’d Rather Be Reading second timers club. He was on the show way back in February 2022 discussing his book Jackie, Ethel, Joan, about life as a Kennedy wife. In addition to writing extensively about the Kennedys—Jackie in particular—he has also written biographies on Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Beyonce, the Hiltons, the Bushes, and more. He’s endlessly interesting to talk to, and today we’re digging into his book Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairytale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier, which I think is the definitive book on not just Grace, but her marriage, too. It turns out the story of Grace and Rainier is a fairytale, but maybe not in the way you might think. Once Upon a Time: Behind the Fairytale of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier by J. Randy Taraborrelli

There are no two ways around this fact: today’s conversation is tough. It’s really, really tough. Today, April 20, 2024, marks 25 years since the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado. I woke up this morning and read an article in People magazine about Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal at Columbine at the time of the shooting. In the article, DeAngelis said that every single morning, he wakes up and says the names of those killed in that day’s horrible events. He said he almost died twice that day, and, in his words, “For whatever reason God spared me that day. So I need to try to help others.” I will take a page from Principal DeAngelis and begin this episode by saying the names of the 12 students and one teacher killed that day: Cassie Bernall, Steven Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matt Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Danny Rohrbough, Dave Sanders, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, and Kyle Velasquez. Thirteen people who woke up on this morning 25 years ago and headed into school for what they probably imagined would be a typical Tuesday—and they never came home. Today on the show I have Dave Cullen, who wrote the definitive book on the Columbine massacre, simply titled Columbine, in 2009, 10 years after the attack happened. It took Dave a full decade to write this masterpiece, and he followed it up with a book about the Parkland school shooting, simply titled Parkland, in 2019. Dave’s Columbine book has a new edition and we talk about that in today’s episode. You can feel Dave’s passion for a topic he spent a full decade writing about oozing throughout this conversation. I was 12 years old and in the sixth grade on April 20, 1999, when perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 fellow classmates and a teacher at the school. The massacre was also an attempted bombing that failed, and 10 of the 12 students killed were in the school library, the epicenter of the attack, where Harris and Klebold also killed themselves at the massacre’s end. When it happened, Columbine was the deadliest mass school shooting at a K-12 school in U.S. history; Harris and Klebold had been planning their attack for at least a year and planned for it to be primarily a bombing attack, and secondarily a shooting attack. When the bombs they’d built failed to detonate, they began shooting. Their motive remains inconclusive, but Dave and I get into the “why” of it all in our conversation today. Its aftermath has unfortunately spawned dozens of copycat killings, called “the Columbine effect,” and the word “Columbine” itself has become a word symbolizing school shootings. The attack took place from 11:19 a.m. to 12:08 p.m., culminating in the suicides of Harris and Klebold. In 2007, the Columbine Memorial opened to the public, and two years later, in 2009, Dave’s book came out. Dave is considered the nation’s foremost authority on Columbine, and his book covers two major storylines: the killers’ evolution leading up to the attack, and the survivors’ struggles with its aftermath after it happened. Chapters alternate between those two stories, and the book spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and won numerous awards, drawing comparisons to Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood and Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me. This conversation is a difficult one, but necessary.   Columbine by Dave Cullen The audiobook is also available “Confronting: Columbine” podcast

On April 19, 1995—29 years ago tomorrow—at 9:02 a.m., a fertilizer truck bomb exploded outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Fueled by anti-government sentiment—and specifically angered by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, Ruby Ridge in 1992, and the Waco siege exactly two years to the day earlier in 1993—the blast killed 168 and injured 680. Prior to September 11, 2001, the bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history and remains to this day the deadliest act of domestic terrorism our country has ever seen. The bomb destroyed more than one-third of the building—which ultimately had to be demolished—and damaged 324 other buildings, causing an estimated $652 million in damages. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the bombing, and within days, both were charged. On that April 19, McVeigh detonated a Ryder truck in front of the building; Nichols had assisted with the bomb’s preparation. McVeigh and Nichols had met in 1988 during basic training for the Army and were both tried and convicted in 1997; McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, and Nichols is currently serving life in prison. The victims of the bombing ranged in age from three months old to 73 years old and included three pregnant women; 19 of the victims were babies and children, many of whom were in the building’s day care center. Today on the show we honor the victims of this senseless attack by talking to Jeffrey Toobin, author of the definitive book on the bombing, 2023’s Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism, and the host of the excellent and brand-new podcast Homegrown: OKC. In both works, Toobin draws parallels between the Oklahoma City bombing and January 6, 2021, writing that this study of the Oklahoma City bombing is “Not just a glimpse of the past, but a warning about the future.” It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss.   Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism by Jeffrey Toobin Homegrown: OKC podcast

On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic—a British ocean liner operated by the White Star Line—sank in the North Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The loss of life was devastating—of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, about 1,500 died, making the Titanic the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time, 112 years ago. Titanic had aboard her some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of immigrants seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The Titanic was deemed “unsinkable,” which perhaps accounted for its disturbing lack of lifeboats. The ship was capable of having 48 lifeboats aboard; it only had 20 in actuality. Of those 20 lifeboats, 1,178 lives could have been saved in them, roughly half of the number of passengers on board. When the Titanic sank, the lifeboats lowered were only filled up to an average of 60 percent, which has always troubled me. She set off on her maiden voyage on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, and was due to arrive at New York Pier 59 one week later, on April 17. As played out in the blockbuster 1997 film Titanic directed by James Cameron and starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, you can see that the ship was the lap of luxury. At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead, and alerted the bridge. First Officer William Murdoch ordered the Titanic to steer around the iceberg and the engines to be reversed, but it was too late. The starboard side of the ship struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline, allowing water to rush in. It soon became clear that the ship was doomed. Between 2:10 and 2:15 a.m., a little over two-and-a-half hours after the Titanic struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking increased suddenly as the boat deck went underwater; as her stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, the ship broke into two. The bow was now underwater and the stern remained afloat and buoyant for a few minutes longer, rising to a nearly, and terrifyingly, vertical angle with hundreds of people still clinging to it, before foundering at 2:20 a.m. All of the remaining passengers and crew were flung into water at a temperature of 28 degrees Fahrenheit, or -2 degrees Celsius. Only five thrown into the frigid waters were helped into the lifeboats, though the lifeboats had room for almost 500 more souls. Women and children survived the disaster at rates of about 75 percent and 50 percent, respectively; because of the “women and children first” policy, only 20 percent of the men aboard made it out alive. Today on the show I have one of my favorite interview subjects ever: Gareth Russell, the author of 2019’s The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era. As you’ll hear, he is an expert on the Titanic, and there’s no one better to honor those lives lost and to remember her than him; to me, anyway, this is the absolute definitive book on the Titanic—no questions asked. The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era by Gareth Russell

Welcome to this special fiction episode of I’d Rather Be Reading—specifically part two in my latest fiction subgenre obsession: royal family fiction. We’ve already had Katharine McGee on the show of the four-part American Royals series, and we will later have the writing duo behind The Royal We and The Heir Affair; today we have the writing duo behind The Royal Game, my latest royal family fiction favorite. (I’d also throw Red, White, and Royal Blue onto this list, as well.) It is a subgenre that is growing and growing in popularity, and not surprisingly, considering how ubiquitous the royal family has become in culture, especially lately. Today you get the chance to meet Linda Keir, a writing duo who has now written four books together and has been writing together since 2016. Linda Keir is a portmanteau of Linda Joffe Hull and Keir Graff, both of whom have successful writing careers on their own and as a team. The Royal Game—which came out on January 30 of this year—is their first foray into royal family fiction, but hopefully not their last. I won’t give too much away, but the loose plot of The Royal Game involves the love story between American pop singer Jennie Jenson and Prince Hugh of England, the heir to the throne. Someone is determined to keep Jennie from becoming a princess, and to have the happy ending to her fairytale, Jennie will have to play “the royal game.” Not everyone is excited about the prospect of an American princess, apparently. Jennie finds parallels between what’s happening to her and Hugh’s mother, Princess Penelope, who died in a mysterious plane crash. (Don’t worry, I ask Linda and Keir if my theories that Jennie and Hugh and Penelope are based on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry and Princess Diana are true.) Jennie wants to know if Penelope is murdered—and worries she might be next. It’s a thrilling mystery, a romantic love story, and really, really good. Today on the show we talk about their process of being a writing team, what they think about the royal family and if they follow it outside of their work on this latest book, why they chose to get into the royal family fiction subgenre, and what, exactly, “the royal game” is, anyway.   The Royal Game by Linda Keir We also mention On Duty with the Queen by Dickie Arbiter on the show!