Catherine Newman on surviving the midlife sandwich – THE SHIFT LIVE

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a special live episode of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast, recorded live at the wonderful Portobello Bookshop in Edinburgh. Catherine Newman is the author of some of the most on-the-nose books about being a woman in midlife that I’ve ever read - her bestselling debut, We All Want Impossible Things, Sandwich and, now, Wreck. Imagine if Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton met in a bar and did edibles together and you have something approximating Catherine’s creation, Rocky, and her family - Nick, Willa and Jamie and her 93 year old dad. A normal loving, anxious, messy, unpredictable, relatable, family, living through a year of what ifs that veer uncomfortably close to home. Wreck asks, how do we live when we don’t know what next? I think that’s something we can all identify with right now! Catherine has also written two memoirs and a couple of children’s books, is an award-winning writer and columnist and contributes regularly to the New York Times and O, the oprah magazine. For ten years she also wrote Real Simple’s etiquette column and she has an excellent substack, Crone Sandwich. Which I highly recommend you check out. Catherine and I chatted generational (mis)understanding, surviving the midlife sandwich, giving up drinking, life after menopause, rewriting your family's life and being a covert cookbook nerd. f you’re listening to this on the podcast, you can get a signed copy of Wreck by going to Portobello Bookshop’s website - theportobellobookshop.com. * Alternatively, you can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Wreck and Sandwich by Catherine Newman as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Hannah from the Standard Issue podcast. Join us every Wednesday for rated or dated.
0:05.3	Well, we watch a famous or sometimes infamous film to see whether or not it has stood the test of time.
0:11.7	This week, we watched The Birds, Pretty Woman, Flash Dance, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Casablanca, Rosary's Baby.
0:20.5	It's the 18s in a film, isn't it? None of thieves. Casablanca. Rosemary's baby. It's the 18s in a film, isn't it?
0:23.1	None of this makes any sense.
0:26.8	It's like putting on the comfiest pair of pajamas.
0:30.7	She's like, oh, what could that be?
0:32.7	Oh, what do you think it is?
0:33.8	It's loads of birds.
0:35.1	And they naturally live happily ever after.
0:38.0	Do they?
0:39.3	It's quite a feminist parable.
0:41.0	Terribly, terribly dated, but I did have a nice time watching it.
0:43.8	Absolutely 100% dated.
0:46.1	A triumvirate of rated.
0:47.9	A lot of results.
0:49.1	You can listen to standard issues rated or dated wherever it is you listen to your podcast.
0:54.1	And make sure you follow us to find out what we do on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
0:59.7	Spoiler alert, it's a lot.
1:07.4	So hello, everybody, and welcome to this special episode of the Shift Podcast brought to you live from the wonderful Portobello books in Edinburgh.
1:16.6	I'm Sam Baker and I'm delighted to be here. I'm truly delighted to be here, not just saying it, with Catherine Newman, author of some of the most on-the-nosed books about being a woman in midlife that I've ever read.
1:28.0	Her best-selling debut, we all want Impossible Things, which controversially is my favourite,
	...

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