SEP 05 This Really Isn't About You; Reading and Q&A With Jean Hannah Edelstein

Posted 12:04, 5 September 2018

I'm so happy this is happening.

Thanks to someone called Natalie on twitter I'm delighted to tell you that we will have Jean Hannah Edelstein in the shop for a reading of her new book This Really Isn't About You. Written in her inimitable, wry and insightful voice, Jean Hannah Edelstein’s memoir is by turns heart-breaking, hopeful and yet also disarmingly funny. This Really Isn’t About You is a book about finding your way in life. Which is to say, it’s a book about discovering you are not really in control of that at all.

She writes regularly for outlets including The Guardian and The Pool, and a weekly TinyLetter, which Vogue said ‘pops up in your inbox like lucid dreaming.’ She also writes all of the marketing emails for Spotify, so you’ve probably deleted her work. This Really Isn’t About You is her second book.

In 2014 I moved back to the United States after living abroad for fourteen years, my whole adult life, because my father was dying from cancer.

Six weeks after I arrived in New York City, my father died. 
Six months after that I learned that I had inherited the gene that would cause me cancer too.

When Jean Hannah Edelstein’s world overturned she was forced to confront some of the big questions in life: how do we cope with grief? How does living change when we realize we’re not invincible? Does knowing our likely fate make it harder or easier to face the future? How do you motivate yourself to go on your OkCupid date when you’re struggling with your own mortality?

As always tickets cost £5 and include a glass of wine and £4 off purchases made on the night.