An Open Letter to University Presidents
5 min read
Meet the woman who’s been called New York City’s most powerful book influencer.
When Zibby Owens was a teenager, she read Judy Blume’s books and they helped her cope with the ups and downs of those formative coming-of-age years. She couldn’t believe she was sitting down at her computer, gearing up to interview author she so admired.
“Judy has been a hero of mine forever,” Owens said. “I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was a total dream come true.”
Owens has been called New York City’s most powerful book influencer – and for good reason. Over the past five years, she’s recorded more than 1,000 episodes of her podcast, “Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books,” which has featured interviews with authors like Natalie Portman, Ari Shapiro, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Tony Robbins.
Every month, she picks out the top books to read for “Good Morning America,” her publishing company Zibby’s Books publishes 12 books per year, and she runs Zibby’s Virtual Book Club. She recently opened Zibby’s Bookshop, a bookstore in Santa Monica, California that hosts readings and other literary events. When does this dynamo find time to read?
Reading has been a lifelong love for Owens, who grew up in a Jewish family on the Upper East Side, went to Hebrew school, and attended Temple Emanu-El.
“The first book that made me cry was Charlotte’s Web, and that got me hooked on reading altogether,” said Owens, a mother of four who still lives on the Upper East Side. “I was eight years old when I read it. I felt this sense of loss. I’m an empath, so I very easily put myself in other people’s shoes.”
Owens couldn’t put books down. She enjoyed reading contemporary literature and got hooked on Blume’s and Beverly Cleary’s books. She also read her favorite classic, Catcher in the Rye when she was a teen.
“I love coming of age books of all kinds,” she said. “I still like to read books that help me through the next period of life. Right now, I’m reading books about mid-life and old age, like books from Nora Ephron and Dani Shapiro. I like to read to know what’s coming next.”
Owens didn’t always work in books. Her first career was in marketing; she held positions at Unilever and Idealab and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. For a while, she also stayed home with her children who are now ages eight to 15, and freelanced as the book columnist for Katie Couric Media.
But in 2018, she had an idea for a podcast for busy moms like herself – and it took off. She was recording several episodes a week, garnering interviews with prominent personalities, racking up millions of listeners, and expanding her book-centric empire. Just three years in, she had the opportunity to return to the Streicker Center at Temple Emanu-El to interview Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton about their book “State of Terror.”
“I spent the hour asking whatever I wanted,” Owens said. “Hillary Clinton and I had fun laughing together. I got to see a whole new side of her. I couldn’t believe I got to do that.”
Another time Owens had to pinch herself was when her memoir, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, came out last year. Writing the book, which is about Owens losing her closest friend on 9/11, stressing out about motherhood, and finding love after divorce, was a lifelong dream fulfilled.
“I’ve been writing my feelings my whole life. It’s how I sort them out. I wrote my first essay in a magazine when I was 14 years old. It was about gaining weight after my parents’ divorce. I’ve always been really open.”
Writing and reading are deeply healing experiences for Owens. During the early stages of Covid, she lost her grandmother-in-law and mother-in-law to the disease, and read to get through this difficult period in her life.
“I read Widowish by Melissa Gould, and even though I wasn’t losing a spouse, a lot of feelings and thoughts in it resonated with me,” she said.
When Owens sits down to read a book, it takes her out of her own life – which is sometimes much needed.
“It puts all my thoughts, feelings, and worries on hold, and I can just live completely through someone else’s eyes,” she said. “I love that feeling.”
For Owens, reading ties into her faith because Jews are called the People of the Book. As a child, she enjoyed hearing Jewish stories, and today she features many Jewish authors on her podcast.
“Jewish values play into everything I do, whether it’s giving back, practicing kindness, or emphasizing education,” she said.
Owens’ favorite Jewish book is “I Feel Bad About My Neck” by Nora Ephron, which is a book of humorous and relatable essays about aging.
“It’s just so perfect,” said Owens.
The top three books she recommends right now to read are Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan (“it’s smart, funny, entertaining, and heartfelt”), A Place Called Home by David Ambroz (“his story of growing up in and surviving the foster care system is heartbreaking and inspiring”), and Slow Motion by Dani Shapiro.
“It’s the first memoir I read and made me fall in love with both her and the genre,” said Owens. “I’ve been following her career ever since it came out and now, through all of my literary activities, we’ve become friends.”
In a time when people are addicted to their smartphones and spend all day watching short videos on social media, Owens encourages everyone to sit down, pick up a good book, and become immersed in a new world inside the pages of it inside.
“Reading slows us down and allows us to think, learn, engage, and connect,” she said. “It gives us an emotional connection. It makes us feel like we aren’t really alone in life.”
