Not-not Midlife Crisis: Priyanka Mattoo & Emily Nemens

About this event

Authors Priyanka Mattoo ( How to B e Less Useful ) and Emily Nemens ( Clutch ) sit down to discuss their latest books that explore the pleasures and challenges of midlife. Whether in the fictional world of Clutch , or the pers onal stories in How to B e Less Useful , both authors question our professional priorities and the joy that really matters most. Moderated by author Maris Kreizman .

About How to Be Less Useful :

A delightful book about reclaiming pleasure in mid-life—a potent mix of self-help and memoir, from one of today’s wittiest, wisest voices.

“I have done everything right, and I have missed everything.”

When did our lives become entirely about efficiency and optimization? Especially as office workers, as parents, as consumers, as exercisers and healthy eaters. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be less useful?

With self-deprecating humor, devastating insight, and bracing honesty, Priyanka Mattoo shares her own journey toward being a less useful human, to investigate why pleasure gets back-burnered in American culture.

Think about what we choose to systematically cut out or overlook as we mature: Solo travel. Dessert. Sweaty dancing. “Pointless” hangs with friends. And then there are the activities that used to be fun and have somehow lost their luster, usually in the decade between 30 and 40: Cooking (ruined by exhaustion). Bad tv (the algorithm). Other humans (bandwidth). Eating at restaurants (Instagram).

Mattoo takes on the zeitgeist, delivering invaluable, laugh-out-loud entertaining life lessons without an ounce of preachiness or pressure. She looks at where pleasure begins, what it serves, how we learn to repress it—in families, in friendships and romantic relationships, in jobs. And she shows us a way back: to identify and accept the things that give us pleasure, then to welcome them into our lives. What if, instead of being useful, we could all learn how to be happier, lighter, more present, more engaged? How to Be Less Useful is refreshing, funny, sparklingly astute, unignorable–a book for the current moment.

About Clutch :

A close-knit group of women navigate mid-life’s biggest challenges—marriage, career, addiction—in what Lynn Steger Strong calls a “sharp, funny, utterly engrossing” novel.

“ White Lotus with more sincerity and heart.” — Los Angeles Times

Named a Best Book by The New York Times Book Review , People , Los Angeles Times , Alta Journal , Bustle , and more

From Priyanka Mattoo