Free Daily Podcast Summary
The Shift with Sam Baker: Daily Summaries Delivered
by sam baker
The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi B
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 5 days ago43 min
Marina Benjamin on the unseen, unsung, undone work of women - REPLAY
I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was prompted by Marina’s own sudden menopause after a hysterectomy. The sense of dislocation she described was the first time I’d ever seen the way I felt put down in black and white. She followed it up with Insomnia (clue’s in the name) and has now completed her loose midlife trilogy with A Little Give a stunning book about the “unsung, unseen, undone work women do” - and what happens when we tire of being a human rehab centre for everyone around us. I inhaled this book, dog-earing page after page and internally yelling YES! and I’m pretty sure you will too. Marina joined me to talk about emotional labour, why “cleaner guilt” doesn’t seem to affect men (strange that!), time poverty and wresting control of the to-do ticker tape. We also discussed why women’s manual work is invisible and men’s is a skill, how to get maximum benefit from your feminist inner critic, the two way pain of caring for elderly parents and why you should always ALWAYS run towards yourself. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Little Give: the unseen, unsung, undone work of women by Marina Benjamin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 1 weeks ago51 min
Zandra Rhodes: how a 'boring little girl' made a big bold life - REPLAY
I can’t be cool about today’s guest, so I’m not even going to try. Ever since I started The Shift I have had a Wishlist and high up on it from day one was Dame Zandra Rhodes. Yes, that Zandra Rhodes. There can only be one after all. For over 50 years, Zandra has been a leading figure in the British fashion industry, renowned for her prints and her use of colour. Over the years she has dressed everyone from Princesses Diana to Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross and Debbie Harry, and collaborated with everyone from M&S to Ikea. Zandra is nothing if not egalitarian. Now 83 (and in remission from the terminal cancer she was diagnosed with at the start of covid), she has no plans to stop any time soon, as evidenced by her new book Iconic, My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects, a whistle-stop tour through her incredible life hanging out with ossie clark, lunching with Truman Capote, making a lifelong friend of legendary vogue editor Diana Vreeland. Which is how I get to be on my way to Bermondsey to hang out at her fabulous flat to talk about her equally fabulous life. I know! Zandra and I sat down with a cuppa to discuss how a “boring little girl” became synonymous with big, bold, uncompromising style, her lifelong workaholism, living a child-free life, using clothes as armour and the rejection that was the making of her... * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Zandra Rhodes and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago1h 2m
Louise O'Neill on her midlife dating odyssey - BONUS EPISODE
You can be swimming along nicely and then all of a sudden everything you thought you had is gone. That’s what happened to today’s guest, the best-selling Irish novelist, Louise O’Neill. She was 38 and had just taken on a big mortgage with her partner of five years when he blindsided her by pulling the plug. In the wake of losing the future she thought she wanted, suddenly everything she’d achieved throughout her career lost its meaning. Known for her fearless feminist writing, Louise had written six award-winning novels and been compared to Margaret Atwood. For months she struggled. Then, heartbroken but defiant, she made a decision: she was going to spend the next year saying yes to everything that comes her way - except the one thing society teaches women to say yes to, settling for the first man who shows an interest. The result is her first memoir, A Bigger Life, about that radical experiment in learning to bet big - on yourself. Louise joined me to talk about the Christmas her life descended into chaos and her subsequent midlife dating odyssey. We also discussed the eating disorder that devoured her, why we still ask ‘why didn’t you leave?’, the downside of her crack-on, can do mentality, learning to recognise your own appetites, putting the humanity back into dating, feeling younger at 41 than 31, and why she really really doesn’t want her parents to read her book! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Bigger Life by Louise O'Neill as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Kelsey Bennett at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago49 min
Miranda July on the unexpected wildness of ageing - REPLAY
It's two and a half years since I first interviewed Miranda July for this podcast and wow, what a change! Her novel All Fours became a must-read, got shortlisted for the Women's Prize and has been optioned for screen - a far cry from the moment she asked me, will you have my back? We did Miranda, we did! Here it is again... Every so often you get the chance to interview someone whose work has fascinated you for, well, forever. And today is one of those days. Miranda July is an artist, performer, film maker and writer who has been doing it her own way since she was in her teens. She has made three films - The Future, Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, held countless exhibitions, written several books and won a bunch of awards. You get the picture. Now 50, Miranda has turned her attention to midlife with her first novel in a decade. All Fours is a painful, poignant, hilarious and extremely hot exploration of what happens when “a curious, creative, sexually active woman reaches the midpoint of her life, goes off the oestrogen cliff and starts to question her direction?” It is wholly unlike anything else I’ve read about this life stage. And is sure to change a few games. Miranda joined me to talk about her own trip off the oestrogen cliff, reimagining relationships as we get older, conscious co-parenting and moving into the house in the backyard. We also discussed the menopause whisper network, outing herself as “no longer young”, getting out of the anxiety cul de sac and why ageing is “unexpectedly wild”. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including All Fours by Miranda July and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 3 weeks ago56 min
Rachel Eliza Griffiths shares two great loves and two great griefs
My guest today is the writer and award-winning poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Eliza is a woman who has been through A LOT in a short space of time. In September 2020, on the day she married her second husband, the globally renowned novelist Salman Rushdie, her best friend of 17 years, her ‘chosen sister’ Kamila Aisha Moon, died. Then, eleven months later, in the midst of her grief, her husband was brutally attacked as he prepared to go on stage to give a talk. For a time his life hung in the balance. Salman survived, with life-changing injuries, and the dual traumas left Eliza transformed forever. Now, five years on, Eliza has written her first memoir, The Flower Bearers, in which she revisits those two terrible griefs and the glorious relationships that lay at its foundations. It’s a story of friend love, romantic love and self-love, of trauma and recovery, and it’s a gut punch. Eliza joined me from her home in Manhattan to talk about her two great loves, Aisha and Salman, and how she found her way through a kaleidoscope of grief. We also discussed the importance of not prioritising romantic love and why everyone needs an inner village of women, being denied access to your intuition, her extensive toolbox of coping mechanisms, learning to swim in her 40s and Tina Turner. • The documentary Eliza refers to in this conversation is KNIFE: The attempted murder of Salman Rushdie, directed by Oscar Winner Alex Gibley and including never before seen footage shot by Rachel Eliza Griffiths. It's released on 2 October. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Sep 1, 20261h 0m
Meera Syal: 'I am now a Triple Bad Bet – Old, Female and Brown!'
My guest this week is the actor, playwright, screenwriter, novelist and multi-award winner Dame Meera Syal. Most of us have those people we grow up alongside and it feels like Meera has always been a fixture in my life, ever since I first saw her in the 80s film, Sammi and Rosie Get Laid. She’s been writing, performing and breaking new ground ever since and now in her early 60s she still is. In the early 90s she wrote the brilliant film Bhaji on the Beach, co-wrote and starred in the utterly groundbreaking Goodness Gracious Me and gave us the unforgettable character, Ummi, in the Kumars at Number 42. She’s hardly been off our screens and stages ever since. She’s also written three novels - including Anita and Me which she turned into films. She’s won Emmys - two I think - been awarded a BAFTA fellowship, a CBE, an MBE and now a damehood. Now she’s looking back over her life in her first memoir, which I have to say, has the best title ever, Vigilauntie. Meera joined me to talk about growing up Brown in the 70s and wearing the wobbly crown of the good girl while feeling driven to be a bad one. We discussed the wasted potential of older women, writing to survive, the battle to level the playing field and finding herself in an emergency care crisis in her 50s. Plus being a Triple Bad Bet (Old Female and Brown) and why she’s reclaiming Auntie power. I could go on, but I’ll let her tell you herself. I just know you’re going to love this conversations as much as I did. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Vigilauntie by Meera Syal, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Kelsey Bennett at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Aug 25, 202652 min
Tabitha Webb on being an older mum & the menopause-puberty collision
My guest today is the fashion designer and entrepreneur turned novelist Tabitha Webb. What can I tell you about Tabitha - other than her life makes mine look extremely dull? She ran away from university, chased a hot surfer to America, was a roller blading extra in the movie Birdcage and got held up at gunpoint. Then, despairing of finding the bag she wanted, she decided to design her own and a fashion career was born. Tabitha Webb became a go to for celebrities in the noughties. And when I say celebrities I mean the Princess of Wales (then Kate Middleton), not just any old reality TV starr. But fashion is a tough old world and at the end of last year, her label went into liquidation. But like the heroines of her novels, Tabitha is not easily defeated, and in her late 40s she turned her hand to fiction. She wrote her first romance novel, the Jilly Cooper esque No Regrets in 2020 and has now followed it up with the extremely fun sex-filled romp, Playing The Field. Tabitha joined me to talk about her blind faith that anything is possible, being an older mum and the menopause puberty collision, and why she can’t stand the way her husband breathes! We also discussed her fantastic mum who ‘doesn’t want an old man breathing down her neck!’, (there’s that breathing again!) being resolutely uncool, how it felt to turn her back on the fashion label she put so much into and the joy of ‘climbing your second mountain.’ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Playing The Field by Tabitha Webb, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Aug 18, 20261h 1m
Charlotte Wood: 'I don't fear ageing, but I do fear becoming a boring, annoying old person!'
My guest today is the Australian writer and thinker, Charlotte Wood. Charlotte is the celebrated author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. I first encountered her with her novel, The Natural Way of Things, which won the Stella Prize (the Australian equivalent of the Women’s Prize) in 2016. Then, my favourite, The Weekend, which follows three women in their 70s as they clear the house of their dead friend over the course of a weekend, became an international bestseller. She followed it up with Booker Prize shortlisted Stone Yard Devotional. In short, In her mid-50s her career became rocket fuelled. But we’re here to talk, amongst other things, about… food. I know right?! Because Charlotte is not just a critically acclaimed writer, she is also an excellent cook. And in Love And Hunger, she writes about the gift of food, friendship and caring through cooking. Charlotte joined me from her home in Sydney to talk about our mutual adoration of the Australian novelist Helen Garner, challenging cultural representations of older women, what to do with old friends and getting diagnosed with cancer at the same time as BOTH her sisters. The lure of the stripped back life, why she lives in fear of becoming a boring annoying old person and our mutual loathing of home economics! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Love & Hunger by Charlotte Wood, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com. • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Kelsey Bennett at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Get The Shift with Sam Baker summaries in your inbox
Free AI-powered daily recaps. Key takeaways, quotes, and mentions — in a 5-minute read.
Get Free Summaries →Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
You Might Also Like
Listeners also like.
Woman's Hour
Discussions on issues affecting women’s lives, from current affairs to personal stories.
Where To Be A Woman
Journalists compare global practices on women's wellbeing, equality, and quality of life across different countries.
The Tamsen Show
A journalist explores health, reinvention, and relationships with experts and women reshaping their lives.
Good Life Project
Deep conversations about building a meaningful life through midlife reinventions, grounded in science and human experience.
Working Hard with Grace Beverley
Real people share hard-won lessons on success, resilience, and life balance across diverse fields, from activism to business and beyond.
The Balanced, Beautiful and Abundant Show - Rebecca Whitman
A coach helps high-achieving women overcome burnout using a framework centered on spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial well-being.
Almost 30
Best friends explore personal growth, wellness, and life transitions through candid conversations and expert interviews.
SHE MD
Obstetrician Dr. Thais Aliabadi and women’s advocate Mary Alice Haney discuss women’s health issues with experts and celebrity guests.
Between Both Cheeks
Four women share candid, unfiltered conversations about beauty, business, and taboo topics with humor and honesty.
Fortunately... with Fi and Jane
Broadcasters Jane Garvey and Fi Glover interview media figures who share candid, off-the-record stories from their careers.
Treated with Dr. Sara Szal
Dr. Sara Szal explores holistic health solutions through conversations with experts and patients seeking mind, body, and soul healing.
The Dan Buettner Podcast
Shares practical habits and insights from the world’s longest-lived populations to improve longevity and well-being.
About The Shift with Sam Baker
The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi B
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from The Shift with Sam Baker in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's The Shift with Sam Baker daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of The Shift with Sam Baker as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the The Shift with Sam Baker podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official The Shift with Sam Baker product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by sam baker.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does The Shift with Sam Baker release new episodes?
The Shift with Sam Baker publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does The Shift with Sam Baker cover?
The Shift with Sam Baker covers topics including Education, Arts, Books, Fitness, Culture, Journals, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Personal Journals. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting The Shift with Sam Baker summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.