What If This Were Enough? with Heather Havrilesky & Joan Walsh

Heather Havrilesky (How to Be a Person in the World) talks to The Nation‘s Joan Walsh (What’s the Matter With White People?) about her new essay collection, What If This Were Enough?, an impassioned collection tackling our obsession with self-improvement and urging readers to embrace the imperfections of the everyday.

Havrilesky’s writing has been called “whip-smart and profanely funny” (Entertainment Weekly) and “required reading for all humans” (Celeste Ng). In her work for New York, The Baffler, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic, as well as in “Ask Polly,” her advice column for The Cut, she dispenses a singular, cutting wisdom–an ability to inspire, provoke, and put a name to our most insidious cultural delusions.

What If This Were Enough? is a mantra and a clarion call. In its chapters—many of them original to the book, others expanded from their initial publication—Havrilesky takes on those cultural forces that shape us. We’ve convinced ourselves, she says, that salvation can be delivered only in the form of new products, new technologies, new lifestyles. From the allure of materialism to our misunderstandings of romance and success, Havrilesky deconstructs some of the most poisonous and misleading messages we ingest today, all the while suggesting new ways to navigate our increasingly bewildering world.











When: Wed., Oct. 3, 2018 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby St.
212-966-0466
Price: Free
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Heather Havrilesky (How to Be a Person in the World) talks to The Nation‘s Joan Walsh (What’s the Matter With White People?) about her new essay collection, What If This Were Enough?, an impassioned collection tackling our obsession with self-improvement and urging readers to embrace the imperfections of the everyday.

Havrilesky’s writing has been called “whip-smart and profanely funny” (Entertainment Weekly) and “required reading for all humans” (Celeste Ng). In her work for New York, The Baffler, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic, as well as in “Ask Polly,” her advice column for The Cut, she dispenses a singular, cutting wisdom–an ability to inspire, provoke, and put a name to our most insidious cultural delusions.

What If This Were Enough? is a mantra and a clarion call. In its chapters—many of them original to the book, others expanded from their initial publication—Havrilesky takes on those cultural forces that shape us. We’ve convinced ourselves, she says, that salvation can be delivered only in the form of new products, new technologies, new lifestyles. From the allure of materialism to our misunderstandings of romance and success, Havrilesky deconstructs some of the most poisonous and misleading messages we ingest today, all the while suggesting new ways to navigate our increasingly bewildering world.

Buy tickets/get more info now