How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?

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What to expect

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Stop searching for the answers - and start delighting in the questions with Pandora Sykes, co-host of The High Low podcast.

'Brilliant' EVENING STANDARD
'Joyful and wise' LISA TADDEO
'Timely and fulsome' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS
'Deliciously fascinating' MARIAN KEYES
'Refreshing ... thoughtful, considered' STYLIST

Modern life is full of choices - but how do we know we're making the right ones? Why, in our attempts to make life easier, do we often make it harder?

With a light touch and plenty of humour, Pandora Sykes delves into the myths we've been sold and the stories we tell ourselves, in a timely bid to encourage us to consider the lives we once led, and how they might better serve us. It's time to stop looking for the answers - and start delighting in the questions.
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'Thoughtful and funny' DOLLY ALDERTON

'Like a very clever, lucid, charming friend unpacking all the messy anxieties of modern existence with tremendous intelligence and elan. Read this book. It will help your life.' INDIA KNIGHT

'Energetic and compelling' OLIVIA SUDJIC

'Navigates complicated issues with great humanity, humour and humility ... [it] left me wanting more' SATHNAM SANGHERA

'Self-aware, self-deprecating, relatable, funny, and brilliantly curious.' STACEY DOOLEY

'Witty and zeitgeisty ... strikes a fresh, honest note' VANITY FAIR
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Readers love Pandora's first book:

'A truly marvellous debut'
'Insightful and beautifully written'
'Totally brilliant ... I devoured this masterpiece in one sitting'
'A bright book in a gloomy year'
'Feeling a lot better about life after finishing this!'
'I adored Pandora's book and will be thinking about it for a long time.'
'So clever and thought-provoking'
'Pandora is a wonderful writer and I found myself unexpectedly in tears by the end'

INCLUDES A NEW PROLOGUE

Critics Review

  • A timely collection of essays from journalist and podcast host Pandora Sykes that touch on everything from happiness to wellness; womanhood to consumerism and the anxieties and agendas that consume our lives … Sharp and observant writing … A manifesto for the millennial woman.

    Evening Standard

  • A collection of essays that feel like I’m in a deep and open conversation with the person who peered inside my head and saw exactly what I’ve been thinking about all these years. Thorough, timely and fulsome.

    Candice Carty-Williams

  • Sykes’s essays, written pre-pandemic, could have read like a relic from a pampered bygone age with nothing bigger to worry about. Yet, instead, it feels like a cleareyed warning of the world to which we may now be returning.

    Guardian

  • Tackles subjects that some might dismiss as trivial (texting, social media, why women increasingly want to dress like one another) with striking intellectual rigour … refreshing for the depth and breadth of its research. Rather than making generalisations about womanhood based on anecdotes from her own life, Sykes draws on statistics, philosophy, pop culture and more to make thoughtful, considered observations.

    Stylist

  • I absolutely loved How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?. It’s like a very clever, lucid, charming friend unpacking all the messy anxieties of modern existence with tremendous intelligence and elan. Women will recognise parts of the themselves on every page, regardless of their age, whether Sykes is writing about authenticity, social media or the need to always seem busy. I found it deeply interesting and often enlightening: I kept putting it down to think about something the author had said. Read this book. It will help your life.

    India Knight

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