The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello, and welcome to the Slate Audio Book Club for the month of July 2016.

I'm Katie Waldman, Slate's words correspondent, and I'm joined today by the critic and author, Megan O'Rourke.

Hi, Megan.

Hey, Katie.

And by Parul Segal of the New York Times Book Review, also a critic, editor and writer. Hi, Parul. Hey, Katie. Hi, Katie. And by Parul Segal of the New York Times Book Review, also a critic, editor and writer.

Hi, Parul.

Hey, Katie.

Today, we are discussing Rebecca Traster's multifaceted book, All the Single Ladies, which

is subtitled Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.

It is a meaty, comprehensive account of how unmarried women have shaped and continue to shape

American political, social, and economic realities. Blending historical research, original

reportage, and personal memoir, it is passionately invested in the diversity of women's experiences,

which is so refreshing as a lot of pop sociology or thinky provocation about modern ladies

feels confined to the lives of white or privileged women.

And it has a lot to say about not just marriage with the many other possible relationships in a woman's life with, say, her children, parents, friends, and co-workers.

Traster covers a frightening amount of ground, but I'd love to start off by simply asking you guys

whether she convinced you that being single is the way to go. In other words, do you think that

Traster believes that singleness is better than marriage for women and for society or just different?

Yeah, so I'm not sure that her goal is to persuade us that being single is better than being married. I think one of the

really interesting things about this book and one of the things that I ended up feeling made Traster such

a good guide is that she has this way, she's so sensible. It's not, sensible is not always a compliment

...