The Art of the Everyday: Miranda Keeling, The Anthropologists and the books that slow us down

What if the antidote to our increasingly frantic world isn't a grand gesture, but simply the act of paying attention?

This week, Kate and Laura are joined by actor, podcaster, and author Miranda Keeling – returning to the pod to talk about her wonderful new book, The Place I'm In, a collection of the small, luminous moments she's gathered from daily life. After her debut The Year I Stopped to Notice, Miranda is back with more of her 'noticings': fragments from parks, supermarket queues, and streets that remind us how much magic is hiding in the everyday.

Their book club read is the perfect complement: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Şavas – a soulful, quietly funny novel following Asya and Manu as they hunt for an apartment, trying on different futures for size in a city far from home. Asya, a documentary filmmaker, spends her days in the park gathering footage – an anthropologist of the ordinary – and her project rhymes beautifully with Miranda's own.

Plus recommendations inspired by the art of the everyday.

You can find out more about Miranda and her work at mirandakeeling.com, and her podcast Stopping to Notice – over 200 five-minute episodes of binaural location recording – is the perfect companion listen.

Find all the books mentioned at our bookshop.org shop. And if you'd like to join Kate's monthly book club and reading community, head to patreon.com/thebookclubreview.

Booklist

Ashes and Stones by Alison Shaw – a journey through Scotland in search of the women killed in the witch trials

Open Book by Jessica Simpson – Laura takes a nostalgic trip back through her twenties

No Such Thing as Monday by Sîan Hughes – a brilliantly written novel from the author of Pearl; up there with Eimear McBride ( A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing) and Maggie O'Farrell

The Anthropologists by Aysgul Savas

The Imperfectionist, Oliver Burkeman's newsletter

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Flesh by David Szalay

The Café With No Name by Robert Seethaler

Memories of Distant Mountains (illustrated notebooks) by Orhan Pamuk

A Nobel Laureate's journals offer much colour but little drama, by Dwight Garner for the NYT (gift link)

Look Closer: How to Get More Out of Reading by Robert Douglas Fairhurst

The Place I'm In by Miranda Keeling

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