Katherine May first joined us on Reconsidering in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, to talk about her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It was a timely topic and a memorable conversation as most of us were confronting one of the most challenging and isolating holidays seasons of our lifetimes.
With that moment now thankfully behind us, Katherine has returned with a new book, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age. This time around, she turns our attention to fundamental questions about how else we might live and in particular how might we find a way to reconnect in a quiet and intimate way with the natural and immediate world that surrounds us all.
It’s an important question, a wonderful book, and a rich starting point for our conversation.
Resources from this episode
Katherine’s podcast: How We Live Now
About Katherine May
Katherine May is an internationally bestselling author and podcaster living in Whitstable, UK. Her most recent book, Enchantment became an instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Her internationally bestselling hybrid memoir Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times was adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and was shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. The Electricity of Every Living Thing, her memoir of a midlife autism diagnosis, was adapted as an audio drama by Audible. Other titles include novels such as The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club, and The Best, Most Awful Job, an anthology of essays about motherhood which she edited. Her journalism and essays have appeared in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Observer and Aeon.
Katherine’s podcast, How We Live Now, ranks in the top 1% worldwide, and she has been a guest presenter for On Being’s The Future of Hope series.
Katherine lives with her husband, son, two cats and a dog. She loves walking, sea-swimming and pickling slightly unappealing things.
