I’m not one of those people who listened to Zibby Owens’ podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, before I picked up her memoir. Instead, I came at the book from a different angle. Owens just started a publishing company, and she’s publishing one book a month at Zibby Books. She was one of the speakers at a recent webinar for librarians, talking about their first release, My What If Year by Alisha Fernandez Miranda. While I did pick up that book, I was curious about Zibby Owens herself. She tells her story in her memoir, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature.

She would probably be the first to admit she comes from a privileged background. Her father is Stephen Schwarzman, a billionaire businessman. (For those of us who love books and libraries, he gave $100 million to the New York Public Library, and the central reference library was renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.) Owens graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School. But, all that money and privilege doesn’t mean she didn’t suffer from depression and anxiety from the time she was a child. Bookends is a memoir that doesn’t mention her lifestyle too much. But, it does mention books, and her love of the books that helped her find her way. Beginning with E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, Zibby talks about the importance of those books in her life.

Part of the book deals with the loss of people she loved, including her beloved best friend and college roommate who died on 9/11 when the first plane directly hit the floor Stacey worked on. One after another, there was a string of tragic deaths in Owens’ family and circle of friends. She talks about the loss, the grief, and her struggles in dealing with them.

While she doesn’t talk about her first marriage, she does mention her four children, and her attempts to be the perfect Mom. Her podcast title, along with other writings include the phrase “Moms Don’t Have Time…” for a lot of things. Even with a full-time nanny, Zibby struggled, trying to be perfect.

Bookends is about Owens’ struggles with her weight, depression, anxiety, grief. But, there’s also joy in the book, the joy of a new love and a new type of life. She’s always building on her past efforts, with her writing, a book club, her podcast, a publishing company, and now a bookstore in Santa Monica, Zibby’s Bookshop. Throughout the years covered in her memoir, books are a constant presence. She mentions books she read, and there’s a terrific list of them at the end of the book.

Bookends is the memoir of an overachiever. Zibby Owens is a wealthy, privileged woman who still has coped with anxiety and depression, body image, and loss. Really, though, I took away a message that books will help you get through so much in life. Zibby Owens finds joy in sharing books with people.

Zibby Owens’ website is https://www.zibbyowens.com/

Bookends by Zibby Owens. Little A, 2022. ISBN 9781542036986 (paperback), 300p.

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