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Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books™️
Rebecca Makkai, I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU
Zibby interviews award-winning author, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and repeat MDHTTRB guest Rebecca Makkai about I Have Some Questions For You, an enthralling and unputdownable literary murder mystery (and the April pick for Zibby's Book Club!!) about a successful podcaster who returns to her idyllic New Hampshire boarding school to teach a class and winds up reliving her youth and her senior year roommate’s murder. Rebecca reveals the inspiration behind the book (hint: she currently lives in the same boarding school she attended as a teenager) and describes her unique mode of storytelling and unforgettable cast of characters. She also speaks openly about her own sexual assault and explains how that traumatic childhood experience led to themes of predation, misogyny, and incarceration in her book.
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49. WICKED-themed: Idina Menzel + Cara Mentzel REPLAY!
27:25||Season 22, Ep. 49In honor of the new movie version of "Wicked," here's a replay of Zibby's conversation with the first actress to inhabit the witch's costume on Broadway, Idina Menzel!! Her sister, Cara Mentzel, contributed an essay to On Being Jewish Now, Zibby's anthology.Purchase on Bookshop: bit.ly/3CtApZNShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!48. Replay: Sutton Foster!!!
23:21||Season 22, Ep. 48Sutton Foster has been all the rage on Broadway! Listen to her conversation with Zibby from several years ago about her hobbies, her career, and more!Purchase on Bookshop: bit.ly/3mkaHyPShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!47. Replay: Alicia Keys!!!
30:14||Season 22, Ep. 47One of the best things that happened in all of Covid? Zibby got to interview Alicia Keys about her memoir, More Myself. If you haven't listened, now's the time!Purchase on Bookshop: bit.ly/41Qle6zShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!46. Replay: Natalie Portman!
24:51||Season 22, Ep. 46Natalie Portman shared her children's book, Fables, with Zibby. They spoke about motherhood, literature, and more!Purchase on Bookshop: bit.ly/3pQ6MP3Share, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!45. Replay: Matthew McConaughey!!
26:51||Season 22, Ep. 45One of her most exciting episodes ever! Zibby spoke to Matthew McConaughey about his memoir Greenlights, his children's book, and his career. She was basically sweating the whole time and tried not to show it.Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3r84wmGShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!44. REPLAY: Tovah Feldshuh, Lilyville
28:58||Season 22, Ep. 44Tovah Feldshuh, the legendary actress currently starring in the hit Netflix series "Nobody Wants This" talked to Zibby about her relationship with her mother, fame, and more.Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3P4wjgnShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!43. Julie Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer, CHUTZPAH GIRLS
25:34||Season 22, Ep. 43Julie Silverstein and Tami Schlossberg Pruwer spoke with Zibby about inspiring Jewish women throughout history and their beautiful book Chutzpah Girls applies to today! Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/4fqvMQxShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!42. LIVE at Zibby's Bookshop: Elisa Albert and Zibby Owens!
30:21||Season 22, Ep. 42On Sunday, December 15th, a crowd of 50 people gathered at Zibby's Bookshop to listen to an intimate conversation between Elisa Albert and Zibby Owens. They discussed Elisa's book HUMAN BLUES, her writing process, Zibby's anthology ON BEING JEWISH NOW, and the controversy at the Albany Book Festival about which Elisa wrote a powerful essay entitled, "An Invitation to the Anti-Zionists: You refused to sit on a literary panel with me. I invite you to my Shabbes table instead, so we can actually talk to each other and face her fears."Spoiler: no one accepted her invitation.Bio:Elisa Albert is the author of the novels Human Blues, After Birth, The Book of Dahlia, the story collection How This Night is Different, and the essay collection The Snarling Girl. Her work has been published in n+1, Tin House, Bennington Review, The New York Times, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, Philip Roth Studies, Paris Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Longreads, The Cut, Time Magazine, Post Road, Gulf Coast, Commentary, Salon, Tablet, Washington Square, The Rumpus, The Believer and in many anthologies. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, The College of Saint Rose, Bennington College, Texas State University, University of Maine, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. A Pushcart Prize nominee, finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize and Paterson Fiction Prize, winner of the Moment Magazine debut fiction prize, and Literary Death Match champion, Albert has served as Writer-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Holland and at the Hanse-Wissenschaftkolleg in Germany.41. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, NY Times Op-Ed: "Misogyny and Antisemitism Are a Toxic Brew"
26:15||Season 22, Ep. 41Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Zibby discussed Natalia's recent New York Times op-ed centered on antisemitism. She shared details about her own experiences, the meaning of "intersectionality," and what it's like to be on the faculty at an academic institution today. Bio:Natalia is the author of CLASSROOM WARS: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), and FIT NATION: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession (University of Chicago Press, 2023). She is co-producer and host of the acclaimed podcast WELCOME TO YOUR FANTASY, from Pineapple Street Studios/Gimlet and the co-host of PAST PRESENT podcast. She is a columnist for MSNBC Opinion, a frequent media guest expert, public speaker, and contributor to outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and the Atlantic.Natalia is a Carnegie Corporation Fellow in 2024-25, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar in 2025-26, and is currently working on two new books, a short history of the school culture wars, and a history of the Hamptons, with historian Neil J. Young. She is the executive producer of a new BBC podcast coming in Summer 2024, and of a documentary series based on FIT NATION, in development with TIME Studios. Natalia’s career began as a public school teacher, and she is currently Lead Historian on the Jewish American Hidden Voices curriculum for New York City’s Department of Education, launching in June 2025.Natalia is Professor of History at The New School, co-founder of the wellness education program Healthclass 2.0, and a Premiere Leader of the mind-body practice intenSati. Her work has been supported by the Spencer, Whiting, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations, the Carnegie Corporation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a B.A. from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Stanford and lives with her husband and two children in New York City.