You Didn't Hear This From Me
(Mostly) True Notes on Gossip
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH BY TIME MAGAZINE, AMAZON, AND KOBO • NAMED MOST ANTICIPATED BY LIT HUB, PUREWOW, AND W MAGAZINE
“Gossip is the only cultural tradition I care about, and Kelsey McKinney has written its Bible” —Samantha Irby, #1 NYT bestselling author
From the host of the Normal Gossip podcast, a delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir.
As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates and jaw-dropping stories she’d typically collect over drinks with friends—and from her hunger, the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions, Kelsey found herself thinking more critically about gossip as a form, and wanting to better understand the role it plays in our culture.
In You Didn't Hear This From Me, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin, and how can we better recognize when it's being weaponized? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life? And how do we define “gossip,” anyway? As much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of gossiping: how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear.
With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth—and how much the truth really matters in the first place.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We all love good gossip, but no one more so than journalist Kelsey McKinney, host of the long-running podcast Normal Gossip, which dramatically (and hilariously) recounts gossip sagas reported by an anonymous “friend of a friend.” Brought up in a fundamentalist Christian household, McKinney was taught that gossip was a sin, but eventually, her thirst to gather and share information could not be denied. In this book, she ponders gossip itself: its appearances in history and fiction, the pros and cons of establishing a whisper network, the growing spread of celebrity gossip, the potential toxicity of so-called “entitlement gossip,” and more. What right do we have to know information about other people, and what happens when we act on it? McKinney explores these important topics, backed up by research and deeply felt personal experience. Reading this book will definitely make you think about your own relationship to gossip while still making you want to pass the good stuff on.
