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Brad Meltzer on a Secret Plot to Kill John F. Kennedy and the Book of Inspiration Everyone Needs to Grab
Our guest today, Brad Meltzer, is one of the busiest people in book writing. It’s only March, and already he’s had two books come out in 2025 alone: The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy—and Why It Failed, written with his friend Josh Mensch and released January 14, and Make Magic: The Book of Inspiration You Didn’t Know You Needed, which came out March 4. Today on the show we talk about both books with Brad—and they’re very different. In The JFK Conspiracy, we learn about a plot against John F. Kennedy’s life a full three years before 1963 and Dallas. The almost assassination happened in December 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida, after Kennedy had been elected to the presidency but before he’d been sworn in. I’ll leave it to the episode to explain the gritty details, but what’s interesting is that the book dives into Jackie Kennedy with as much gusto as it does JFK. It’s a fantastic read. Then we have Make Magic, which was birthed from the text of a speech Brad gave at the University of Michigan’s commencement last May, when none other than his son was one of the graduates. Brad, too, graduated from Michigan, and the book is in Michigan’s colors and the text is extremely substantive, especially when he goes into kindness and empathy. The books are very different, but I enjoyed them both immensely, and I can’t wait for you to hear about them. By the way—just want to throw this in here—The JFK Conspiracy and Make Magic were both instant New York Times bestsellers. Brad is such a likeable guy. He’s a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author and has written so many books, perhaps evidenced by the fact that he wrote two books already in 2025 alone. If that’s not enough, he’s also the host of the History Channel shows Brad Meltzer’s Decoded and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History, which he used to help find the missing September 11, 2001 flag that the firefighters raised at Ground Zero on that awful day. Brad has written across so many genres—novels to nonfiction books to comic books to children’s books. I know you’re going to love this conversation. The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy—and Why It Failed by Brad MeltzerMake Magic: The Book of Inspiration You Didn’t Know You Needed by Brad Meltzer
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36:08
Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist on Why Some Stress Might Actually Be Good for Us
There aren’t many of us—if any of us—who aren’t experiencing stress. But what if I told you that a little stress isn’t just okay for us as humans, but it’s necessary? That’s what Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist writes about in her new book The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier, which is out March 25. Now, hear her out—in this fascinating book, she argues that a little bit of being uncomfortable can actually have majorly positive results towards our longevity and vitality. We as humans have, as Sharon writes about, gotten ourselves into a bit of a comfort conundrum—while our modern day comforts are certainly nice, they are stripping us of temporary stressors that actually make us better. Today on the show Sharon walks us through what the stress paradox is and how brief and intermittent stress, counter to what we might think, actually heals, repairs, and regenerates us. There is, it turns out, actually such a thing as good stress, and stress might kind of be getting a bit of a rebrand here. We talk about how to spot the difference between good stress and harmful stress, what stress induced growth is, what a hormetin is and how we activate them, five major steps to bring good stress into our lives that we can all start doing today, and so much more. When you think about it, it really makes sense—no diamond was created without a little pressure first, and applied in the right manner for the right duration, we as humans need that pressure to grow into something (or, rather, someone) beautiful, too. It’s really interesting. Sharon is an award-winning physician and visionary researcher who has helped lead numerous clinical trials, including the Emory Healthy Aging Study and the NIH-funded Emory Healthy Brain Study. She is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to over 200 news segments, including on CNN, Good Morning America, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC News. She too is a podcaster and hosts “The Whole Health Cure” show, and her popular TED video on how stress affects the body has been viewed over 6 million times. She is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Medical School, and makes a really compelling case for stress actually being a necessary component to living our best lives.⁠The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier⁠ by Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist
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Grace Valentine on How to Have Better Friendships—and Be a Better Friend
Welcome back to week two of I’d Rather Be Reading season 16! Today on the show we have the lovely Grace Valentine, here to talk about her new book The Better Friend: 12 Truths to Shift from Shallow and One-Sided Connections to Vibrant Friendships, which comes out March 11. We talked a lot in season 15 about friendship, and the conversation is spilling over to season 16, too. Grace is a TEDx speaker, the host of the podcast “Water Into Wine,” and is the author of five books. She’s a contributing writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries—which I can’t get enough of—and Live Original. She is a native of one of my favorite cities, New Orleans, and is a graduate of Baylor, which is also where my husband graduated from! (Although, admittedly, we graduated a million years before Grace did.) Grace now makes her home in Atlanta and is earning a degree at Asbury Theological Seminary. In The Better Friend, Grace tackles shallow friendships and how friendships that don’t serve us can negatively impact our lives; she talks to us today about signs we might be settling in friendship; how to prioritize friendship in our busy lives; how to maintain friends and make new ones; her thoughts on long distance friendships and friendship breakups; what she wishes everyone knew about friendship; and her faith, which very obviously means so much to her. Take a listen to our powerful conversation.The Better Friend: 12 Truths to Shift from Shallow and One-Sided Connections to Vibrant Friendships by Grace Valentine
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30:45
Neha Ruch on The Power Pause and Reimagining Stay-at-Home Motherhood
I am thrilled to be back with each and every one of you for season 16—and I am thrilled to be joined by our guest today, Neha Ruch, author of The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids—and Come Back Stronger Than Ever, which came out January 14. We’ve all heard that phrase about having it all, about work/life balance (which I find to be a fallacy), and how to juggle it all, and Neha’s book offers a really modern solution: the power pause, which she explains in this episode. After reading her book, truly, for the first time I thought, “I can actually maybe make all of my dreams work in life.” I learned about downshifting; about all of the stigma and shame that comes with being a stay-at-home parent, especially a stay-at-home mom; how to make the decision to take a career pause to settling into the day-to-day of a career pause to how to return from a career pause; how to make it work financially; how we become so attached to our job titles, and how to discover who we are beyond our titles; and how to find fulfillment in each stage of our lives, no matter where we’re at. I also learned that a power pause is not a career dead end, and that we might actually be setting ourselves up for a career comeback that leaves us better off than before. We also talk about how to announce this on LinkedIn, how it should show up on our resumes, and so much more. I am really excited for you to hear this conversation with Neha, and I’d love to tell you a little bit about her and the work she’s doing. First of all, The Power Pause has been so well-received—it’s a USA Today bestseller, for starters! Neha is the founder of Mother Untitled, the leading platform for ambitious women leaning into family life that is catalyzing a shift in how society views stay-at-home motherhood. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, their two children, and their dog Coconut. Take a listen!The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids—and Come Back Stronger Than Ever by Neha Ruch
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33:38
Gretchen Rubin on Secrets of Adulthood, Happiness, Habits, and Her Deep Love of Reading
Today I am chatting with one of my absolute favorite writers, the one and only Gretchen Rubin, about her forthcoming book Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives, which comes out April 1. Gretchen writes here about the lessons she’s learned to making life more meaningful and satisfying, covering areas as wide ranging as self-improvement, adventure, the challenge of love, friendship, work, creativity, procrastination, tough decisions, pain, desire, getting it wrong, and consequences. The book teaches us, or reteaches us, about aphorisms, which Gretchen explains in today’s episode; we also talk about happiness, which is one of Gretchen’s chief topics she writes about, and she writes in the book that as to there being a so-called “secret to happiness” that “there’s no one best way—we each have to figure it out for ourselves.” In addition to happiness, much of Gretchen’s work centers around human nature and habits; we talk about her latest book but also some of her past work, too, as well as her #Read25in25 challenge, which I love. In addition to being a prolific writer, Gretchen is also an avid reader, and I hope by now she’s read the book I recommended to her on the show. You are probably already deeply familiar with her work—she’s written New York Times bestsellers like The Happiness Project, The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, Outer Order Inner Calm, and Life in Five Senses, for starters—and she’s also a podcaster, hosting the top-ranked and award-winning “Happier with Gretchen Rubin.” Gretchen is one of the most forefront thought leaders out there today, and her books have sold a whopping 3.5 million copies worldwide and have been translated to more than 30 languages. Interestingly, Gretchen started her career in law, and realized she wanted to be a writer while she was clerking for none other than Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I can't wait for you to hear what Gretchen has to say.Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives by Gretchen Rubin
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