I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself

One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris

By: Glynnis MacNicol

Narrated by: Glynnis MacNicol

“A delight, the literary equivalent of a long catch-up with a brilliant friend.”—New York Times

“One of the most talked-about books of the year.”—Gayle King

When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie?

Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.

After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.

What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment.

The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity.

In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette . . . if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.

The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself—as you are—is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is.

Here’s the proof.

©2024 Glynnis MacNicol (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

One of W Magazine’s Best, Most Talked-About Books of 2024

One of Romper’s 12 New Books On Our Summer Reading List

One of Goodreads’ Readers’ Most Anticipated Summer Books

One of TIME’s 25 New Books You Need to Read This Summer

On Zibby Owens’ Ultimate Summer Reading List

One of Eater’s 10 Food-Filled Beach Reads for Your Summer Vacation

One of BookRiot’s Book Critics’ Most Anticipated Summer Reads

One of LitHub’s The Ultimate Summer 2024 Reading List

One of NPR’s Book of the Day

“A journey of radical pleasure filled with good friends, good food, good wine, and good sex. . . . MacNicol finds purposeful, decadent joy beyond the confines of society’s expectations.”—W Magazine

“The memoir is perhaps more aptly described as a tale, given its compressed, month-ish timeline. You could also interpret it as allegory: In her first memoir, 2018’s No One Tells You This, MacNicol reckoned with turning 40 and caring for her dying mother in the absence of the expected husband or children. (It made me cry on a plane.) Yet in I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, a spiritual sequel, MacNicol’s life is framed not by lack, but abundance. She not only defies convention, but richly enjoys doing so, dedicating 260 pages to the pleasures of being single and childfree. . . . For mothers and wives in the throes of caretaking, MacNicol’s independence, her freedom to travel to Paris at all, may feel downright fantastical. But it also offers a profoundly hopeful counter-narrative: that age can come with an expanding, rather than a limiting, of possibilities. . . . Delicious.”—Vogue

“Sex, though, is only a tiny slice of MacNicol’s pleasure. The book is mainly a travelogue through Paris, where MacNicol stays often and has a close ‘Sex and the City’-type circle of girlfriends. One pleasure for the reader is her casual style of writing, which seems to mimic the pace of life. . . . The digressions feel neither self conscious nor literary but relaxed, implying that one source of a single woman’s pleasure is having the time to follow the flow of her own thoughts.”—Washington Post

Over thought?

Several interesting points. Some of the viewpoints are very singular. The comparisons to women of history and artwork is a great idea but over done.

Insightful, better to read than listen

The author shares some striking and relatable insights about being a single and child-free woman in her late 40s, especially during the pandemic, and the essential and beautiful role that female friendships play in one’s life. Her narration is difficult to listen to, however, especially the butchering of French words and phrases. Nothing ever seems to really happen (though I suppose this is life) and she often veers off on tangents (about women’s genitalia in art, for instance) during which my attention drifted and/or I was tempted to skip ahead. All in all an interesting read but I am not sure I’d recommend this to anyone.

Not what I expected.

I did not dislike this book. But I’m not sure I liked it either. Extremely well written and read.

This is not a summer/beach read. It gave me things to think about that I will long be thinking about.

Lots of French tidbits that are not translated.

Well written and relatable

I found this book to be fun, relatable, inspiring, and empowering. Highly recommend. I also don’t mind her voice as it feels familiar and endearing. Enjoy!

Great book, pronunciation of French words was cringe

I loved the writing, and this is probably nit picky, but the pronunciation of French words was distractingly bad. For someone who’s been to Paris multiple times and who is curious about the world, you would think she’d at least learn how to pronounce basics like “vin” correctly. That aside, this was a great mix of personal narrative, history, and meditation on the joy of growing older as a woman. I’d definitely recommend this book (but brace yourself or go for the written version if you’re a French speaker).

Boring

The narrator had very limited tone and very crisp style, not easy to listen to.

Beautiful, revolutionary

I really enjoyed this book! I found it smart, interesting, and revolutionary as an example of what a story can look like when a woman knows herself, can take care of herself, and focuses on her own desires. Turns out, contrary to the stories we’ve heard for a very long time, this is very interesting and valuable. Thanks for writing this!

Professional Narrator Needed

I couldn’t even get past chapter one. This author should not have insisted on narrating her own book. Lifelessly read. Not the first time I couldn’t finish a book read by the author.

Birthday trip sounded lovely

Really loved the scene of her celebrating her 47yh birthday on the island in France

Sentence structure; descriptions

The extra information about buildings and streets and bike riding was extremely boring. The descriptions of activities and people were interesting. The hints of needed touching and sex were the sum of what is offered for these topics….Actual content is severely lacking.