Guest: Phoebe Baker Hyde, author of The Beauty Experiment: How I skipped lipstick, ditched fashion, faced the world without concealer and learned to love the real me
Could you swear off makeup, new clothes, salon haircuts, and jewelry for an entire year? That’s exactly what author Phoebe Baker Hyde did as part of her quest to find self-acceptance. Hyde holds up a mirror to all women and shows how perfectionism can keep us from achieving what we really want: happiness, confidence, and serenity.
Phoebe Baker Hyde started her beauty experiment in 2007 while living in Hong Kong. She holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology and English from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Fine Arts in writing from the University of California, Irvine. She currently lives in Boston with her husband and two children.
Guest: Cynthia Helms, author of An Intriguing Life: A Memoir of War, Washington, and Marriage to an American Spymaster
From wartime England to Nixon’s America and beyond, Cynthia Helms was witness to some of the seminal events of our time—Vietnam, Watergate, and especially the demoralization of the CIA in the 1970s for political purposes. Opening with her feminist “epiphany” in 1968 (the annus horribilus as she describes it) that led her to end her first marriage of 24 years, her memoir reveals a world where appearances always had to be questioned, where rumors and gossip carried the weight of intrigue.
Helms grew up on a farm in Maldon, England and served as one of the original Boat Crew Wrens during World War II. She came to the United States after the war with her first husband. Her later marriage to Richard Helms introduced her to a world previously known only to her in books, not just the physical world from Mexico to Fiji to Iran, but also the world of a spymaster who enjoyed the confidence of some of the most important leaders of the late twentieth century.
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