Book Club Meets: “I was burnt out!” Live a slower life, with Emma Gannon

Sometimes the braver thing isn’t trying to keep going. Writer Emma Gannon hit real burnout, admitted she was overwhelmed, and embarked upon a year of doing... nothing. A Year of Nothing was our Happy Place Book Club pick for February. In it, Emma charts stepping away from the noise and rediscovering joy in life’s simplest pleasures, from dog borrowing and dopamine dressing to relearning how to swim and embracing a child-free life. In this chat with Fearne, she explains how to stop being so mean to yourself, and how to rebuild your identity when you feel you’ve lost it. Often, she says, it’s not about ‘finding yourself’... it’s about unlearning all the stuff everyone else has heaped on top of you! Emma wants to be strong and do big things with her life, but appreciates she had to stop in order to grow. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Emma’s first Happy Place chat Book Club Meets: Maggie O’Farrell Book Club Meets: Nussaibah Younis Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Book Club Meets: “I was burnt out!” Live a slower life, with Emma Gannon is an episode from Happy Place by Fearne Cotton.

This episode is 42:34 long.

This episode was published on Mar 5, 2026.

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