Ruth Whippman

Author | Journalist | Filmmaker

"A whip-sharp British Bill Bryson"

"I LOVED this book..... I've been quite evangelical about it"

Marian Keyes, NYT bestselling author of Sushi for Beginners

"No one is more eloquent or wickedly funny about (modern anxiety) than Ruth Whippman"

Jason Gots, Big Think's Think Again

"Ruth Whippman has a wicked sense of humor that makes every single page a pure joy to read"

Heather Havrilesky, New York Magazine columnist and author of How to be a Person in the World
Books

BOYMOM (forthcoming June 2024) / America the Anxious

America the Anxious

In America the Anxious, Ruth Whippman embarks on an uproarious pilgrimage to explore the American happiness machine, tackling both the ridiculous and the sublime. In doing so she uncovers  the darker forces in the mix and the damaging narratives we tell about human wellbeing.

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BOYMOM, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity

Blending cultural criticism, memoir, and reporting from the frontlines of contemporary American boyhood, this is a humorous and heartbreaking deep dive into the complexities of raising boys in our fraught political moment.

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About

https://substack.com/@ruthwhippman?utm_source=profile-pageRuth Whippman is an author and journalist from London, living in the USA

Ruth’s essays and cultural criticism appear in The New York Times, Time magazine and The Guardian, amongst other places.

She is the author of the forthcoming Boymom, Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity (June 4th 2024, Harmony, Penguin) and America the Anxious, How Our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks (St Martin’s/ Macmillan, 2016) UK title: The Pursuit of Happiness (Hutchinson, Penguin.)  America the Anxious was a New York Post Best Book of 2016, A New York Times Editors’ Choice and Paperback Row pick, one of Newsweek’s Nine Books to Change the Way You Think in 2016, a Sunday Times top summer read and a Daily Mail Must Read.  The Sunday Times described Ruth as a “whip-sharp British Bill Bryson.”  Ruth’s work was selected by Fortune Magazine in their January 2020 edition as one of “25 ideas to shape the next decade.”

Ruth is a regular contributor to radio shows, television and podcasts, having made appearances on shows including NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show, To the Point, CBS news and Morning Edition amongst many others. She  is also a regular speaker (watch her TEDx talk here ) and has given talks at Google (part of the Authors at Google series) Somerset House in London and UC Berkeley as well as several other venues.

Before becoming a full time writer, Ruth was a producer and director at the BBC in London making documentaries and current affairs shows for BBC television.

She lives in California with her husband and three young sons.

Ruth regularly gives talks to a range of audiences including conferences, corporations, colleges, book groups and community groups. If you would like to request Ruth to speak at your event, to your book group or anywhere else, or for interview requests, please fill out the contact form on the website or contact Washington Speakers Bureau at  webinfo@wsb.com.

You cansubscribe to her Substack, I Blame Society, where she writes about culture, feminism, gender, motherhood, boys, anxiety, fear and self-loathing here.



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