5: Book Club: The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama

We kvetched, we laughed, we cried. Never-Trumper George Conway and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll puzzled over Jen’s selection for this month’s book, but were quickly won over by THE LIGHT WE CARRY after just a few pages. In fact, George now plans to read BECOMING. Ivan Lett encouraged us all to share the light we carry and appreciated the message about being yourself. In the words of First Lady Michelle Obama, “We only hurt ourselves when we hide our realness away." Lisa Birnbach helped us see the value in self-forgiveness.  Jen and Ivan agreed that when they go low, we don’t go high, we light to get down into the mud and fight. That said, we found so much value in the advice in THE LIGHT WE CARRY. Many passages were read aloud, including one on knitting by E. Jean, and an amusing bit about President Obama’s parenting style. Michelle wrote, “When [Sasha and Malia]  moved to California, he emailed them a lengthy article about earthquake preparedness and offered to have Secret Service give them a natural-disaster-response briefing. (This was met with a polite, 'No thanks.')” Contact Booked Up: You can email Jen & the Booked Up team at: BOOKEDUP@POLITICON.COM or by writing to:  BOOKED UP  P.O. BOX 147 NORTHAMPTON, MA 01061 Get More from Book Club Members Lisa Birnbach Twitter | Website | Author of THE OFFICIAL PREPPY HANDBOOK and TRUE PREP E. Jean Carroll Twitter | Ask E. Jean Substack | Author of WHAT DO WE NEED MEN FOR? George Conway Twitter | On Morniing Joe | Author of Atlantic article Unfit for Office Ivan Lett Twitter | Website | Author of HAARLEM REBORN Get More from Jen Taub: Twitter | Website | Author of BIG DIRTY MONEY 

Om Podcasten

Booked Up with Jen Taub features intimate interviews with nonfiction authors. Jen’s guests include writers of current bestsellers and beloved backlist books. Conversations cover love, money, politics, early dreams, writing habits, reading tastes, procrastination techniques, self-doubt, and news of the day. Creator and host, Jen Taub is a law professor, advocate, and author. Her nonfiction books include BIG DIRTY MONEY (Viking 2020) and OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES (Yale Press 2014). She focuses on “follow the money” matters— promoting transparency and opposing corruption. Jen’s favorite poem is Prufrock (and yes she knows that Eliot held abhorrent views. She contains multitudes and can separate the dancer from the dance.) Taub was the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor of Law in fall 2019 at Harvard Law School and is now a professor of law at the Western New England University School of Law. A former associate general counsel at Fidelity Investments, she is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.