Celeste Headlee: Author

Celeste’s upcoming book, Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism–and How to Do It, published by HarperCollins, is available for pre-order.

Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, and We Need To Talk – How To Have Better Conversations, published by Harper Wave, are also available to purchase below.


Speaking of Race

Why Everybody Needs to Talk About Racism—and How to Do It

In this urgently needed guide, the PBS host, award-winning journalist, and author of We Need to Talk teaches us how to have productive conversations about race, offering insights, advice, and support.

A self-described “light-skinned Black Jew,” Celeste Headlee has been forced to speak about race—including having to defend or define her own—since childhood. In her career as a journalist for public media, she’s made it a priority to talk about race proactively. She’s discovered, however, that those exchanges have rarely been productive. While many people say they want to talk about race, the reality is, they want to talk about race with people who agree with them. The subject makes us uncomfortable; it’s often not considered polite or appropriate. To avoid these painful discussions, we stay in our bubbles, reinforcing our own sense of righteousness as well as our division.

Yet we gain nothing by not engaging with those we disagree with; empathy does not develop in a vacuum and racism won’t just fade away. If we are to effect meaningful change as a society, Headlee argues, we have to be able to talk about what that change looks like without fear of losing friends and jobs, or being ostracized. In Speaking of Race, Headlee draws from her experiences as a journalist, and the latest research on bias, communication, and neuroscience to provide practical advice and insight for talking about race that will facilitate better conversations that can actually bring us closer together.

This is the book for people who have tried to debate and educate and argue and got nowhere; it is the book for those who have stopped talking to a neighbor or dread Thanksgiving dinner. It is an essential and timely book for all of us.

Cover image of Speaking of Race by Celeste Headlee


Do Nothing

How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving

We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? This manifesto helps us break free of our unhealthy devotion to efficiency and shows us how to reclaim our time and humanity with a little more leisure.

Despite our constant search for new ways to “hack” our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break?

In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets or productivity apps. Celeste’s strategies will allow you to regain control over your life and break your addiction to false efficiency. You’ll learn how to increase your time perception to determine how your hours are being spent, invest in quality idle time, and focus on end goals instead of mean goals. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.

Celeste's upcoming book, Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, is available for pre-order.

Celeste's upcoming book, Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, is available for pre-order.

Celeste's upcoming book, Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, is available for pre-order.

Celeste's upcoming book, Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, is available for pre-order.

Celeste's upcoming book, Do Nothing — How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, published by Harmony Books, is available for pre-order.


We Need to Talk

How to Have Conversations That Matter

They are, perhaps, the most dreaded four words in the English language. But in her timely, insightful, and wonderfully practical book, We Need to Talk, Celeste Headlee—who earns a living by talking on the airwaves of National Public Radio—makes the case that they are urgently needed.

Today most of us communicate from behind electronic screens, and studies show that Americans feel less connected and more divided than ever before. The blame for some of this disconnect can be attributed to our political landscape, but the erosion of our conversational skills as a society lies with us as individuals.

And the only way forward, says Headlee, is to start talking to each other. In We Need to Talk, she outlines the strategies that have made her a better conversationalist—and offers simple tools that can improve anyone’s communication.

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Heard Mentality

An A-Z Guide to Take Your Podcast or Radio Show from Idea to Hit

This book guides you through the process of creating a radio show or podcast from the initial idea to the finished production.

Drawing on the experience of national broadcasters like Steve Inskeep, Susan Stamberg, and Michel Martin of NPR, this book includes a collective 400 years of wisdom about broadcasting and audio. It also includes a detailed guide to doing great interviews, recruiting the best talent, staffing your show, and a removable guide that you can hand to producers on your staff. Also, templates you can duplicate to begin producing your podcast or show immediately.

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