The Book Review

Ben Lerner’s slender new novel, “Transcription,” is just 130 pages long, yet it cracks open some of our most colossal and enduring philosophical questions. The novel is told in three parts. We open with an unnamed narrator going to interview his mentor, Thomas — an acclaimed artist in his 90s who also happens to be the father of one of the narrator’s friends, Max — for a magazine. Before the interview, however, the narrator’s phone breaks and he has no way to record their conversation. Rather than reschedule, he proceeds with the interview and only pretends to record Thomas as they talk. The second section flashes to the future. Thomas has died, and the article that our narrator wrote has become enshrined as the final interview with the iconic artist. At a symposium in Madrid, the narrator confesses that his interview was reconstructed rather than transcribed — a revelation that dismays the other guests and infuriates Max. Then we flash again. In the final section, the narrator talks to Max, who discusses his own complicated relationship with Thomas and technology, including how the internet and other digital tools impacted his family during several crises. Through these scenes, “Transcription” asks a series of questions: How does technology mediate our lives? How does it bring us together or pull us apart? Is there a difference between what’s real and what’s true? It also becomes a potent and poignant study of fatherhood and what it means. On this episode, MJ Franklin discusses “Transcription” with fellow Book Review editors Gregory Cowles and Alexandra Jacobs. Other books mentioned in this episode: “Leaving the Atocha Station,” “10:04” and “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner “The Dance of Anger,” by Harriet Lerner “Reporting,” by Lillian Ross “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art,” by Virginia Heffernan “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss,” by Amy Bloom “No One Here Is Talking About This,” by Patricia Lockwood “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr “Universality,” by Natasha Brown “White Noise” and “The Body Artist,” by Don DeLillo “A Hunger Artist,” by Franz Kafka “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan “Asymmetry,” by Lisa Halliday “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz “The Mezzanine” and “Vox,” by Nicholson Baker “Outline,” by Rachel Cusk The books of Virginia Woolf Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See

Today we are delighted to share an episode from our colleagues on “The Ezra Klein Show,” originally published on March 31. Ezra interviewed author Michael Pollan, whose best-selling books include “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “In Defense of Food,” and “How to Change Your Mind.” Pollan’s latest book, “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness,” came out earlier this year. It’s an exploration of what consciousness is, and the book is — as our review put it — “highly pleasurable to read.” Mentioned in the episode: “The Descriptive Experience Sampling method” by Russell T. Hurlburt and Sarah A. Akhter “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” by Thomas Nagel The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damasio “The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought” by Kalina Christoff and Kieran C. R. Fox Book Recommendations: The Blind Spot by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Being You by Anil Seth You can find transcripts and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at <s

Matt Haig was already several books into his career as a writer by the time he published “The Midnight Library” in 2020. One of those books, the 2015 memoir “Reasons to Stay Alive,” had even been a best seller in England, his home nation. Yet, “The Midnight Library” was a true breakout phenomenon. The novel, about a depressed woman who, after deciding to end her own life, ends up in a magical library in which every book presents her with an alternative life, eventually sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. The author’s new book, “The Midnight Train,” takes place on a parallel track. In it, an older man dies and finds himself on a train, able to revisit key moments in his life on his way to the hereafter. Like its blockbuster sibling, the book is concerned with questions of gratitude, regret and perspective. Haig joined the “Book Review” podcast and spoke to the host, Gilbert Cruz, about his new book and why he returned to the world of “The Midnight Library.” If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Books Discussed on This Episode “The Midnight Library,” by Matt Haig “Reasons to Stay Alive,” by Matt Haig “The Labrador Pact,” by Matt Haig “Winnie-the-Pooh,” by A. A. Milne “The House at Pooh Corner,” by A. A. Milne “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll “The Outsiders,” by S. E. Hinton “Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau “Paris Trance,” by Jeff Dyer “Invisible Cities,” by Italo Calvino “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue,” by V. E. Schwab

“Angel Down,” a grisly novel about World War I told in a single, almost 300-page-long sentence, was awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In a review for The New York Times, Ben H. Winters described it as a “thunderous gallop” that captures the “cruel and self-perpetuating logic of war.” (It was also one of the Book Review’s Top 10 books of 2025.) The day after the Pulitzers were awarded, the book’s author, Daniel Kraus — who has written horror, fantasy and young adult novels — spoke to the Book Review’s editor, Gilbert Cruz, about putting together his semi-experimental story. Cruz also spoke with Patricia Cornwell, a best-selling author who rose to prominence in the 1990s with novels about the character Kay Scarpetta, a chief medical examiner. A Scarpetta series starring Nicole Kidman debuted this year on Amazon. Cornwell has released a new memoir, “True Crime,” in which she tells the surprising story of her childhood and the events that led her to become a novelist. Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We Want to Hear From You We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected]. Credits The “Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl, Sarah Diamond and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed b

Since its first episode in April 2006, the “Book Review” podcast has played host to hundreds of authors talking about their new works and possibly as many conversations about the best (and sometimes worst) that books have to offer. In this anniversary episode, the Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz is joined by the deputy editor Tina Jordan and the critic Dwight Garner to look back at some of the titles, trends and turning points that have helped define the last two decades in publishing. They revisit blockbuster hits, literary movements and industry-shifting moments, starting with an unforgettable Oprah-related controversy and moving through several hit genres and literary trends. To close out this two-decade retrospective, Cruz puts his colleagues’ literary memories to the test with an only slightly grueling quiz. Books discussed on this episode: “A Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert “The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J.K. Rowling “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy “Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson “My Struggle,” Book 1, by Karl Ove Knausgaard “How Should a Person Be?,” by Sheila Heti “My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante “The Story of the Lost Child,” by Elena Ferrante “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel “Bring Up the Bodies,” by Hilary Mantel “The Mirror and the Light,” by Hilary Mantel “Life,” by Keith Richards with James Fox “Just Kids,” by Patti Smith “Born to Run,” by Bruce Springsteen “Chronicles: Volume 1,” by Bob Dylan “Fifty Shades of Grey,” by E.L. James “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn “The Sellout,” by Paul Beatty “Where the Crawdads Sing,” by Delia Owens “American Dirt,” by Jeanine Cummins “Crying in H Mart,” by Michelle Zauner “Blood, Bones & Butter,” by Gabrielle Hamilton “Heat,” by Bill Buford “Dirt,” by Bill Buford “The Song of Achilles,” by Madeline Miller “We Were Liars,” by E. Lockhart “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” by Sarah J. Maas “Fourth Wing,” by Rebecca Yarros Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | <

Dilara, the heroine of Kenan Orhan’s debut novel, is a Turkish exile living in Italy and undergoing a routine bathroom renovation that turns out to be not so routine: When the contractors leave, she steps into the refurbished space and finds herself somehow transported to an actual cell in Istanbul’s infamous Silivri Prison. Initially dismayed, she soon grows resigned and even magnetically attracted to the cell, which offers a connection in its way to the lost homeland where her father — now dying of Alzheimer’s disease — was labeled a dissident by the ruling government. Is this strange portal a retreat or a trap, a bridge to the country she misses or a gateway for the danger she fled? And what will she sacrifice for a taste of home? On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, host MJ Franklin discusses “The Renovation” with fellow editors Joumana Khatib and Dave Kim.  Other books mentioned in this episode: “Man of My Time,” by Dalia Sofer “The Spare Room,” by Helen Garner “The Trial,” by Franz Kafka “The Disconnected” and “Waiting for the Fear,” by Oguz Atay “The Anthropologists,” by Aysegul Savaş “What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “The Memory Police,” by Yoko Ogawa “We Do Not Part,” by Han Kang Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How is it that a seven-book series written in Danish about a single day repeating over and over has become something of a sensation among the literary set? Since the English translations of Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume” series were first published in the United States in 2024, they have been nominated for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award. With the latest volume to be translated into English, Book IV, out this week, Gilbert Cruz sat down with A.O. Scott, a critic at large, and Joumana Khatib, a Book Review editor, to talk boredom, stuckness and time loops. Plus, the books in translation you should read next. Books discussed on this episode: “On the Calculation of Volume,” by Solvej Balle “The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann “Tyll,” by Daniel Kehlmann “Breasts and Eggs,” by Mieko Kawakami “Heaven,” by Mieko Kawakami “Sisters in Yellow,” by Mieko Kawakami “King Kong Theory,” by Virginie Despentes The “Vernon Subutex” trilogy, by Virginie Despentes “Time Shelter,” by Georgi Gospodinov “Territory of Light,” by Yuko Tsushima “The Betrothed,” by Alessandro Manzoni “Kairos,” by Jenny Erpenbeck “Go, Went, Gone,” by Jenny Erpenbeck “In Search of Lost Time,” by Marcel Proust “Ulysses,” by James Joyce “Anna Karenina,” by Leo Tolstoy Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Patrick Radden Keefe joins “The Book Review” to discuss his new book, “London Falling,” which begins when a family loses a 19-year-old son, Zac Brettler, under mysterious circumstances. His parents eventually discover he had been living a secret life, posing as the son of a Russian oligarch. Speaking with the host Gilbert Cruz, Keefe describes the moment he first heard the story and how he immediately knew it would become his next major project. He talks about gaining the trust of the young man’s parents, Matthew and Rachelle Brettler, and following the threads of their son’s life into a world of wealth, influence and deception in London. The conversation also explores how the book moves beyond the night of Zac’s death and into a broader story about ambition, reinvention and the uneasy question at its center: How well can we ever know the people closest to us? Books discussed on this episode: “Say Nothing,” by Patrick Radden Keefe “Seasons of Fury,” by Rozina Ali “The Emperor’s Children,” by Claire Messud “Out of Sheer Rage,” by Geoff Dyer “Middlemarch,” by George Eliot “In Cold Blood,” by Truman Capote “The Power Broker,” by Robert A. Caro “Far From the Tree,” by Andrew Solomon “Chatter,” by Patrick Radden Keefe “The Last Samurai,” by Helen DeWitt Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d9314635-147c-409a-ae6a-fdf8358

We have made it to April. We survived the snowstorms and the cold, and now that the days are getting longer, there’s more time to read. So this week, if you are looking for some books to tide you over until summer, our Book Review editors Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib have got you covered. Also on this week’s episode, the former United States poet laureate Ada Limón joins us to talk about her new book, “Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry.” And she reads two of her poems. Books discussed on this episode: “Transcription,” by Ben Lerner “This Land Is Your Land,” by Beverly Gage “The Witch,” by Marie NDiaye “London Falling,” by Patrick Radden Keefe “Prophecy,” by Carissa Véliz “Ghost Town,” by Tom Perrotta “From Life Itself,” by Suzy Hansen “The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett “Dog Days,” by Emily LaBarge “The Midnight Train,” by Matt Haig “The Land and Its People,” by David Sedaris “On the Calculation of Volume (Book 4),” by Solvej Balle “Famesick,” by Lena Dunham “The Sane One,” by Anna Konkle “On Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward “John of John,” by Douglas Stuart “The Things We Never Say,” by Elizabeth Strout “Yesteryear,” by Caro Claire Burke “Arsenio,” by Arsenio Hall “Five Weeks in the Country,” by Francine Prose “The Ending Writes Itself,” by Evelyn Clark (V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark) “Go Gentle,” by Maria Semple “True Crime,” by Patricia Cornwell “Against Breaking,” by Ada Limón Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’ Apple Podcasts | Spotify | <a href="https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d9314635-147c-409a-ae6a-fdf8358caee5/the-book-review" target="_blank" rel="noopen

Tayari Jones’s new novel, “Kin,” follows two orphaned girls, Annie and Niecy, who grow up together in Louisiana in the 1950s. Annie was abandoned as a baby when her mother ran away to Memphis, while Niecy was orphaned when her father murdered her mother. The girls grow up under the shadow of loss, but at the very least they have each other, two “cradle friends” so close they’re practically sisters. After high school, though, they take different paths: Niecy sets out for Spelman College to try to make a name for herself, while Annie flees to Memphis to seek the mother she never knew. Along the way, each must confront major questions about love and family, including what sacrifices are acceptable to achieve them. On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin talks about “Kin” with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan. Other books mentioned in this episode: “An American Marriage,” “The Untelling” and “Silver Sparrow,” by Tayari Jones “Clutch,” by Emily Nemens “This Is Not About Us,” by Allegra Goodman “Lonely Crowds,” by Stephanie Wambugu “The Vanishing Half,” by Brit Bennett “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers “Sula,” by Toni Morrison “Beaches,” by Iris R. Dart “Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?,” by Lorrie Moore “Cat’s Eye,” by Margaret Atwood “The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett “South to America,” by Imani Perry “Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Andy Weir’s first time at the Hollywood rodeo was a singular trip. His debut novel, “The Martian,” went from self-published project to blockbuster, best picture-nominated film starring Matt Damon. His most recent book, “Project Hail Mary,” was also a sensation, and its adaptation, starring Ryan Gosling as a middle school science teacher tasked with saving humanity from slow extinction, charts warmly familiar territory: a lone man, stuck in space far from Earth, solving science problem after science problem with many a humorous aside. Weir joined the Book Review’s podcast and spoke to the host, Gilbert Cruz, about the similarities and differences between Mark Watney and Ryland Grace (the main characters of “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary”), his second novel, “Artemis,” and the alien character that readers have fallen in love with. We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected]. “The Book Review Podcast” is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Sarah Diamond and Amy Pearl. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado. Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad, and Paula Szuchman. Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Taylor Glascock for The New York Times Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Since the publication of her first novel, “Love Medicine,” in 1984, Louise Erdrich has written fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children’s books. Her work has earned multiple awards, including the National Book Award (“The Round House”) and the Pulitzer Prize (“The Night Watchman”). On this week’s episode, Erdrich talks with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about her new short story collection, “Python’s Kiss.” She reflects on some of the formative experiences that shaped her as a writer, including watching “Planet of the Apes” and growing up in North Dakota, a state that housed hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles. She says that writing has been her “only real way of processing” her experiences and that her creative process is full of mystery. “There’s really no way to control everything that happens in a piece of art. Some of these stories — I wasn’t sure that I had written it,” she said, adding: “And yet, obviously, it was in my handwriting.” Plus, Erdrich recommends the one book that always puts her to sleep. Books discussed on this episode: “Animal Farm,” by George Orwell “Brawler,” by Lauren Groff “Winter in the Blood,” by James Welch “The Pillow Book,” by Sei Shōnagon “The Death of the Heart,” by Elizabeth Bowen “Save Me, Stranger,” by Erika Krouse “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison “Austerlitz,” by W.G. Sebald “The Rings of Saturn,” by W.G. Sebald “Whistler,” by Ann Patchett “Make the Golf Course a Public Sex Forest,” published by Maitland Systems Engineering   Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcast

For more than two decades, Bob Crawford has toured the country as the bassist for the Avett Brothers. But long before he began his career as a musician, he was obsessed with American history. After turning that obsession into two podcasts, he has now written his first book, “America’s Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, From President to Political Maverick.” On this week’s episode, Crawford talks with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about what it was like writing a book for the first time and the authors who have inspired him. In addition to discussing what he loves about John Quincy Adams, the country’s sixth president and the son of John Adams, Crawford also talks about the research he did for the book. That included scouring Adams’s 14,000-page diary. “He’s not a perfect man — he’s far from perfect,” Crawford said of Adams. “But he’s so human. He’s suffered depression, and just the humanness in his diary, not to mention the actual historical narrative, is just incredible.” Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” is a tale of star-crossed lovers: Catherine, the wild daughter of an aristocratic family, and Heathcliff, an orphan whom Catherine’s father brings home unexpectedly. While Catherine’s brother and mother denigrate Heathcliff, depriving him of an education and forcing him into a servant-like role, Catherine forms an intense, almost spiritual bond with her family’s new charge. Despite their deep connection, however, she marries the scion of a nearby wealthy family — a decision that leaves Catherine yearning, Heathcliff bent on revenge and everybody in their orbit on a path to calamity. Brontë’s classic has long been a favorite among readers, and the novel is back in the zeitgeist thanks to Emerald Fennell’s recent film adaptation. On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin discusses “Wuthering Heights” with colleagues from the New York Times Book Review. Other works discussed: “Wuthering Heights,” the song by Kate Bush “Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer “But Daddy I Love Him,” by Taylor Swift “Wuthering Heights,” the 2026 film directed by Emerald Fennell “The Safekeep,” by Yael van der Wouden “Mexican Gothic,” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia The “Wuthering Heights” comics in Kate Beaton’s “Hark! A Vagrant” series “Villette,” by Charlotte Brontë “Rebecca,” by Daphne du Maurier “The Idiot,” by Elif Batuman “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Count of Monte Cristo,” by Alexandre Dumas Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The latest film from the writer and director Clint Bentley, “Train Dreams,” is nominated for four Oscars, including best adapted screenplay. The movie is based on Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name and tells the story of Robert Grainier, a logger in the Pacific Northwest, in stream-of-consciousness, nonlinear prose. This week, Gilbert Cruz talks with Bentley, who wrote the screenplay with Greg Kwedar, his longtime collaborator, about how he went about translating Johnson’s work into a visual medium. Bentley first read “Train Dreams” just after college, long before he ever thought of making it into a movie. When producers with rights to the book approached Bentley, he was suddenly worried. “Going back and reading the book again,” Bentley said, “I was like, Oh, maybe this thing is unadaptable.” Set on capturing the spirit of the book, Bentley and Kwedar focused on “the vastness of this small little life,” he said. “We very rarely have an understanding of our lives in the moment we’re actually living them,” Bentley said. “We only start to understand them when it’s too late.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For decades, the director Guillermo del Toro has built a career blending the grotesque and the beautiful in films like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water” and “Pinocchio.” Now he’s earned his latest Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of “Frankenstein,” Mary Shelley’s classic novel. On this week’s episode, he talks with the host Gilbert Cruz about discovering the book as a lonely child, how it shaped his worldview and why this screenplay is the one he’s proudest of. “I always felt the creature is me,” del Toro said of the first time he read the book. “I felt so alone at age 11, and so full of love to give and so full of rage to dispose of. It was a very complicated emotional scope for somebody that young.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Julia Quinn published "The Duke and I," the first book in the 'Bridgerton' series, in 2000. Seven books and a quarter century later, its adaptation remains one of the biggest series ever to air on Netflix. Quinn spoke to host Gilbert Cruz about the show, her books and why the heck that family has so many children."I don't even remember why I made eight kids," said Quinn. "I just, I wanted her to have a big family and somehow that's how many kids there were. And if I had planned on eight, I would've plotted things out better. There were a number of places where I really wrote myself into a corner." Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Keza MacDonald, the video games editor at The Guardian and author of the new book “Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play,” chose to write her first book about Nintendo because it has been so central for so long to the culture of games. “It was the company that got me into video games,” she says. “I know that’s the same story that millions of other people have had as well." She speaks with host Gilbert Cruz about the iconic Japanese company as well as how the perception of gaming has changed over the decades. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Xenobe Purvis’s slim but powerful debut novel, “The Hounding,” opens with a jolt: “The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body. Marching up the river path, the villagers.”How did we get here, with five young sisters living in 1700s England being hunted by an angry mob that suspects them not only of murder but also of the demonic ability to transform themselves into a pack of wild dogs? That is the tale “The Hounding” unfolds, in a gothic parable about male ego, cultural misogyny and the dangers of gossip run amok.On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin discusses “The Hounding” with his fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.Other books and works mentioned in this podcast:“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson“The Sound of Music,” directed by Robert Wise“The Testament of Yves Gundron,” by Emily Barton“The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne“Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch,” by Rivka Galchen“Delicate Edible Birds,” by Lauren Groff“Paradise,” by Toni MorrisonThe podcast “Normal Gossip”“You Didn’t Hear This From Me,” by Kelsey McKinney Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The journalist, novelist and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman is best known for writing about rock music and pop culture in astute essay collections like “The Nineties,” “X” and “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.” But Klosterman got his start in college as a sports journalist, and with his new book, “Football,” he has finally devoted an entire collection to the sport that has fundamentally shaped him alongside American society at large.“I’ve unconsciously been thinking about football for most of my life,” Klosterman tells host Gilbert Cruz on this week’s episode. “I decided at some point, I do want to write a book about sports. You know, I’d always mentioned sports here and there in the culture writing I had done, or the kind of conventional pop culture writing I’d done, but I wanted to do a real sports book. And initially my idea was it would be about basketball — but over time it became very clear to me it had to be about football, for a variety of reasons. … It seemed as though if you’re going to do a sports book, particularly as it relates to society, there is only one choice in the United States.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A new year means new books are on the way! So many new books. On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks with fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin about the upcoming fiction and nonfiction titles they’re most anticipating between now and April.Here are the books discussed in this week’s episode:“Vigil,” by George Saunders“Where the Serpent Lives,” by Daniyal Mueenuddin“Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings and the Rebirth of White Rage,” by Heather Ann Thompson“Five Bullets,” by Elliot Williams“Lost Lambs,” by Madeline Cash”Half His Age,” by Jennette McCurdy“A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness,” by Michael Pollan“On Morrison,” by Namwali Serpell“Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon,” by Toni Morrison“Clutch,” by Emily Nemens“Murder Bimbo,” by Rebecca Novack“Kin,” by Tayari Jones“Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks,” by Benjamin Hale“Lake Effect,” by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney“Now I Surrender,” by Alvaro Enrigue“The Keeper,” by Tana French Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Virginia Evans’s debut novel, “The Correspondent,” was published last April and became one of the publishing industry’s heartwarming champions of 2025: a slow-burn success story that gathered momentum over the summer and fall and finally topped the New York Times hardcover best-seller list in December. For Evans, who had written and failed to sell seven previous novels, the book’s popularity has felt magical, as she explains to host Gilbert Cruz on this week’s podcast.“I went on a kind of a brief book tour in the fall, meeting hundreds of people,” Evans says, “and … different bookstores were starting to say, this is becoming a thing, we can’t keep it in the store. We keep running out of stock. And then they were going back, reprint after reprint. So then I started to think, oh, it’s getting bigger. But I think, I just didn’t have a context. I still don’t understand publishing. So I thought every step of the way was the mountaintop. I keep getting a new mountaintop.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ian McEwan’s latest novel, “What We Can Know,” is many things at once: It’s a science fiction imagining of a future world devastated by climate catastrophe; it’s a literary mystery about a scholar’s search for a long-lost poem; it’s a deep dive into complicated marriages; and it’s a meditation on how the past lingers and how history morphs with time.“It’s the best thing McEwan has written in ages,” our critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review. “It’s a sophisticated entertainment of a high order.”In this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses “What We Can Know” with his colleagues Sarah Lyall (who profiled McEwan for the Book Review this year) and Leah Greenblatt. You can follow along, and add your own comments to the discussion here.Other Books mentioned in this discussion:“Atonement,” “Saturday,” “On Chesil Beach,” “The Comfort of Strangers,” “The Cement Garden” and “Enduring Love,” by Ian McEwan“Fleishman Is in Trouble,” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner“Fates and Furies,” by Lauren Groff“Marston Meadows: A Corona for Prue,” by John Fuller“How the Word Is Passed,” by Clint Smith“The Stranger’s Child,” “The Line of Beauty” and “Our Evenings,” by Alan HollinghurstWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From political tell-alls to the continued triumph of romantasy novels, it’s been an eventful year in the publishing world. On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin talks with his Book Review colleagues Alexandra Alter, Tina Jordan and John Maher about the biggest book stories and most significant reading trends of 2025.Correction: An earlier version of this podcast referred incorrectly to an arts grant from the Mellon Foundation. The $50 million initiative, launched by Mellon, is a collaborative effort with six other foundations and is intended to support nonprofit literary organizations across a range of genres and forms; it is not solely intended to support poetry. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here we are in mid-December, which means that along with all of the other year-end lists we produce and avidly consume at this time each year, The New York Times Book Review's staff critics are also looking back on everything they read in 2025, and toasting the books that have stayed with them.On this episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks with Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai about their standout fiction and nonfiction of the past 12 months.Books mentioned:"What We Can Know," by Ian McEwan"Flesh," by David Szalay"The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny," by Kiran Desai"Playworld," by Adam Ross"When the Going Was Good," by Graydon Carter"I Regret Almost Everything," by Keith McNally"When All the Men Wore Hats," by Susan Cheever"Notes to John," by Joan Didion"A Flower Traveled in My Blood," by Haley Cohen Gilliland"38 Londres Street," by Philippe Sands"Wild Thing," by Sue Prideaux"Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life," by Dan Nadel"Class Clown," by Dave Barry"Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel," by Frances Wilson"Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures: A Biography of Denis Johnson," by Ted Geltner"Shadow Ticket," by Thomas Pynchon"Selected Letters of John Updike," edited by James Schiff"Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford," by Carla Kaplan"More Everything Forever, AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity," by Adam Becker Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All year long, the staff of The New York Times Book Review conducts a running discussion over what belongs on its year-end Top 10 list. In this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz gathers a group of fellow Book Review editors to talk about the most exciting fiction and nonfiction of the year. Here are the books discussed in this week’s episode:Fiction“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” by Kiran Desai“Angel Down,” by Daniel Kraus“The Sisters,” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri“The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann“Stone Yard Devotional,” by Charlotte WoodNonfiction“A Marriage at Sea,” by Sophie Elmhirst“Wild Thing,” by Sue Prideaux“Mother Emanuel,” by Kevin Sack“There Is No Place for Us," by Brian Goldstone“Mother Mary Comes to Me,” by Arundhati Roy Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

History has not graced us with many details about Shakespeare as a person, but we do know that he and his wife had three children, including a son named Hamnet who died at the age of 11 in 1596, four years before Shakespeare went on to write his great tragedy “Hamlet.”Maggie O’Farrell’s novel “Hamnet” — one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2020, and the source of Chloé Zhao’s new movie of the same name — starts from those scant facts, and spins them into a powerful story of grief, art and family steeped in the textures of late-16th-century life.In this episode of the Book Review Book Club, host MJ Franklin discusses “Hamnet” with his colleagues Leah Greenblatt, Jennifer Harlan and Sarah Lyall. Other works mentioned in this podcast:“Hamlet,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “The Winter’s Tale,” by William Shakespeare“Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott“Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,” by Max Porter“Lincoln in the Bardo,” by George Saunders“Fi,” by Alexandra Fuller“Things In Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li“The Accidental Tourist,” by Anne Tyler“Will in the World” and “Dark Renaissance,” by Stephen Greenblatt“Gabriel,” by Edward Hirsch“Once More We Saw Stars,” by Jayson Greene“The Dutch House,” by Ann Patchett Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Literature isn’t a horse race. Taste is subjective, and artistic value can’t be measured in terms of “winners" and “losers.”That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try.The book world’s awards season officially kicked off on Oct. 9, when the Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai won the 2025 Nobel Prize, and continued this month when the Booker Prize in England went to the novel “Flesh,” by the British writer David Szalay (also of Hungarian descent, as it happens). Then this week, five National Book Award winners were crowned in various categories at a ceremony in New York.On this episode of the podcast, the host MJ Franklin talks with his fellow Book Review editors Emily Eakin, Joumana Khatib and Dave Kim about the finalists, the winners and what this year’s big book awards might tell us about the state of literature in 2025.We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nicholas Boggs’s “Baldwin: A Love Story,” is many things at once. It’s a comprehensive biography of James Baldwin. It’s a nimble excavation of Baldwin’s work, filled with astute literary analysis of his books and prose. And, most pressingly, it’s an argument for a new critical framework to understand Baldwin through the lens of love. The biography is structured around Baldwin’s relationships with a series of men — relationships that, as Boggs outlines, shaped Baldwin’s life and writing in crucial ways. Boggs joins MJ Franklin on this week's episode to talk about his new book.Other works mentioned in this discussion:Zadie Smith’s essay “Conscience and Consciousness: A Craft Talk for the People and the Person,” from her new collection “Dead and Alive”“James Baldwin: A Biography,” by David Leeming“Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood,” by James Baldwin, illustrated by Yoran Cazac, edited by Nicholas Boggs and Jennifer DeVere Brody“Goodbye Days,” by Jeff Zentner“Virginia Woolf,” by Hermione Lee Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Nov. 10, 1975, during a calamitous storm, the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk below the waves of Lake Superior. All 29 men aboard went down with the vessel. With no survivors and no eyewitnesses, there’s always been a sense of mystery to what is arguably the most famous shipwreck in American history. The story itself was almost immediately immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s surprise hit ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”Fifty years on, John U. Bacon has written a new account of the disaster. In “The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” he humanizes the story, telling stories of each man on the ship as well as several of the families left behind. (Readers will also learn a good deal about the history of industry and shipping on the Great Lakes.). In this week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, Bacon spoke with the host Gilbert Cruz about his new book. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” by Stephen Graham Jones, is two things at once: a searching historical novel that examines America’s past sins and also a gory horror thriller.The book opens in 2012, when a construction worker in a dilapidated church parsonage finds a 100-year-old journal written by a pastor named Arthur Beaucarne. The journal recounts a strange tale: In 1912, a mysterious Indigenous man, Good Stab of the Blackfeet tribe, walked into Arthur’s church and revealed the harrowing and disturbing story of how he had been transformed into a vampire who sought revenge for the violence done unto his people.In this Halloween episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” with his colleagues Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib. Other books and movies mentioned during this discussion:“Dracula,” by Bram Stoker“Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil,” by V.E. Schwab“Sinners,” directed by Ryan Coogler“Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer“Twin Peaks: The Return,” created and directed by David Lynch“Pushing the Bear: After the Trail of Tears,” by Diane Glancy“Lone Women,” by Victor LaValle“The Reformatory,” by Tananarive Due Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

May October never end! As Halloween approaches, we present you with two conversations from years past with great horror authors. Joe Hill, whose latest, "King Sorrow," is out now, recommends several great spooky reads. And Victor LaValle ("Lone Women") talks about the book he has read the most in his life: Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House." Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's October, which means it's time for scary books and scary movies. There's one person who is well known for both: Stephen King. Since his first novel, "Carrie," was published in 1974 and adapted into a hit film two years later, his novels and short stories have been a reliable source of material for film and TV adaptations. And while he's known as a master of horror, some of the more popular films based on his work are drawn from non-horror material. On this week's episode, Sean Fennessey, co-host of the Ringer podcast "The Big Picture," joins Gilbert Cruz to talk about "Stand By Me," "The Shawshank Redemption" and more.Books and movies discussed in this episode:"Stand by Me," based on the novella "The Body" from 1982's "Different Seasons""The Running Man," based on the 1982 novel of the same name published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman"The Shawshank Redemption," based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" from "Different Seasons""Dolores Claiborne," based on the 1992 novel of the same name"The Green Mile," based on the 1996 serial novel of the same name"The Life of Chuck," based on the novella from 2020's "If It Bleeds""The Long Walk," based on the 1979 novel of the same name published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The novelist Brandon Taylor has been a force to reckon with right from the start: His debut, “Real Life,” was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2020, and he quickly followed that up with two other books, the story collection “Filthy Animals” in 2021 and another novel, “The Late Americans,” in 2023, along with a steady stream of reviews, essays and literary hot takes he publishes on his popular Substack account, Sweater Weather.Now Taylor returns with a new novel, “Minor Black Figures,” about a 31-year-old painter on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who falls unexpectedly in love with a former Catholic priest. On this week's episode, MJ Franklin speaks with Taylor about how he came to write “Minor Black Figures” and what drew him to the world of fine art as a setting.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, the Book Review podcast presents an episode of The Sunday Special from early September.Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz talks with fellow word lover Sadie Stein and the author Louis Sachar (“Wayside School” series, “Holes”) about the books that they all read when they were students, and ways to encourage young readers today to keep reading. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”So opens Jane Austen’s Regency-era romantic comedy “Pride and Prejudice,” which for centuries has delighted readers with its story of the five Bennet sisters and their efforts to marry well. While the novel moves nimbly among all of the family members and their various entanglements, its particular focus remains on the feisty second-eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and her vexed chemistry with the wealthy, arrogant, gorgeous Mr. Darcy. Their sharp wit, verbal jousting and mutual misunderstandings form the core of what might be considered the first enemies-to-lovers plot in modern literature.On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Pride and Prejudice” with his colleagues Jennifer Harlan, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles, and Austen in general with The Times’s Sarah Lyall. Other books and authors mentioned in this discussion:“Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors,” by Sonali Dev“Book Lovers,” by Emily Henry“The Marriage Plot,” by Jeffrey Eugenides“Washington Square,” by Henry James“Such a Fun Age,” by Kiley Reid Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre, hilarious bits of trivia that the human body offers up. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In last week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, host Gilbert Cruz and his fellow editor Joumana Khatib offered a preview of some of the fall’s most anticipated works of fiction. This week they return to talk about upcoming nonfiction, from memoirs to literary biographies to the latest pop science offering from the incomparable Mary Roach.Books discussed in this episode:“All the Way to the River,” by Elizabeth Gilbert“Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival,” by Stephen Greenblatt“Mother Mary Comes to Me," by Arundhati Roy“Poems and Prayers,” by Matthew McConaughey“The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us,” by John J. Lennon“We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution," by Jill Lepore“Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel,” by Francis Wilson“Joyride: A Memoir," by Susan Orlean“Next of Kin,” by Gabrielle Hamilton“Paper Girl,” by Beth Macy“Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America,” by Jeff Chang“Book of Lives," by Margaret Atwood”The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding,” by Joseph J. Ellis“History Matters," by David McCullough“The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II,” by David Nasaw“Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor,” by Christine Kuehn“Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy," by Mary Roach Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every fall brings the promise of some of the year’s biggest books and this one is no different. On this week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, the host Gilbert Cruz and fellow editor Joumana Khatib talk about several of their most anticipated titles as well as a few upcoming big screen adaptations. (Come back next week for our fall nonfiction preview.)Books mentioned in this episode:“The Secret of Secrets,” by Dan Brown“The Wayfinder,” by Adam Johnson“Clown Town,” by Mick Herron“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” by Kiran Desai“The Impossible Fortune,” by Richard Osman“We Love You, Bunny,” by Mona Awad“Shadow Ticket,” by Thomas Pynchon“What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan“Trip,” by Amie Barrodale“King Sorrow,” by Joe Hill Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, “Wild Dark Shore,” opens with an enigma: A mysterious, half-drowned woman washes ashore.The stranger’s name is Rowan, and she has arrived on Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica. The island, which houses an important seed bank, was once teeming with a community of scientists, but now the project is shutting down, the workers have left and the land lies quiet and deserted, everybody gone except for the Salt family, whose members are all lost in their own way. And all are hiding terrible secrets.They’re not alone. Rowan herself has come to the island with a hidden purpose, putting this small community on a crash course for a long-overdue reckoning.On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Wild Dark Shore” with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Summer is slipping away and we are on break this week. But we have a fantastic rerun for you — our conversation with Min Jin Lee from last summer, when her book "Pachinko" was named one of the "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" by a New York Times Book Review panel. She spoke about her novel as well as the book she's read the most times — George Eliot's "Middlemarch."“I’m willing to say it’s the best English language novel, period. Without question,” Lee says. “George Eliot is probably the smartest girl in the room ever as a novelist. She really was a great thinker, a great logician, a great empathizer and also a great psychologist. She was all of those things. And she was also political. She understood so many aspects of the human mind and the way we interact with each other. And then above all, I think she has a great heart.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Imagine, if you will, that for unknown reasons North Korea has just launched a nuclear bomb at the United States. What happens next?The journalist Annie Jacobsen has imagined exactly that, and spent more than a decade interviewing dozens of experts while mastering the voluminous literature on the subject — some of it declassified only in recent years — for her 2024 book “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” which walks readers through the 72 minutes from launch to global annihilation. In the Book Review last year, Barry Gewen said the book was “gripping,” and declared it essential reading “if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision.”This week, Jacobsen visits the podcast to talk about her book and why she wrote it, as well as offering some hope that catastrophe can be avoided. “I wanted to write a book that showed in absolutely appalling detail how horrific nuclear war would be,” she tells the host Gilbert Cruz. “And so when people say to me either ‘I could barely read your book, but I had to read it.’ or ‘I had to read it in one sitting, I was terrified, I was horrified,’ I believe I did my job.” Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Summer is the season for road trips, and also for road trip stories. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may be the most famous example in American literature — but there are lots of other great road trip books, so this week the Book Review’s staff critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai presented readers with a list of 18 of their favorites. On this episode of the podcast they chat with host Gilbert Cruz about the project, their picks and the top-down, wind blown, carefree appeal of the road trip narrative as a genre.Books discussed in this episode:“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac“Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward“Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli“I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” by Lorrie Moore“Tramps Like Us," by Joe Westmoreland“Driving Mr. Albert,” by Michael Paterniti“Gypsy: A Memoir," by Gypsy Rose Lee“The Dog of the South,” by Charles Portis“All Fours,” by Miranda July“Hearts,” by Hilma Wolitzer“The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life,” by John le Carré“Machine Dreams,” by Jayne Anne Phillips“Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry“Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov“The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck“The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this month’s installment of the Book Review Book Club, we’re discussing “The Catch,” the debut novel by the poet and memoirist Yrsa Daley-Ward. The book is a psychological thriller that follows semi-estranged twin sisters, Clara and Dempsey, who were babies when their mother was presumed to have drowned in the Thames.The novel begins decades later, when Clara sees something strange: A woman who looks just like their mother is stealing a watch. Clara believes this is her mother, and wants to welcome her back into her life. Dempsey is less certain, in part because the woman doesn’t seem to have aged a day. She believes the woman is a con artist because it’s simply not possible for her to be their mother … right?What’s real? What’s not? And what does that mean for the lives of these struggling sisters? Daley-Ward unpacks it all in her deliciously slippery novel. On this episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin talks about “The Catch” with fellow Book Review editors Jennifer Harlan and Sadie Stein.Other books mentioned in this week’s episode:“The Other Black Girl,” by Zakiya Dalila Harris“The Haunting of Hill House,” by Shirley Jackson“Wish Her Safe at Home,” by Stephen Benatar“Erasure,” by Percival Everett “Playworld,” by Adam Ross “The House on the Strand,” by Daphne du Maurier“Grief Is the Thing With Feathers,” by Max Porter“The Furrows,” by Namwali Serpell“Dead in Long Beach, California,” by Venita Blackburn“The Vanishing Half,” by Brit Bennett“Death Takes Me,” by Cristina Rivera Garza“Audition,” by Katie Kitamura Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We’re halfway through 2025, and we at the Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the ones that just won’t let us go. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the best books of the year so far.Here are the books discussed in this week’s episode:“King of Ashes,” by S.A. Cosby“The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann“A Marriage at Sea,” by Sophie Elmhirst“Careless People,” by Sarah Wynn-Williams“Isola,” by Allegra Goodman“The Catch,” by Yrsa Daley-Ward“Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” by Barbara Demick“The Sisters,” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri“The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” by Stephen Graham Jones“Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin,” by Sue Prideaux“Raising Hare,” by Chloe Dalton“To Smithereens,” by Rosalyn Drexler“The Fate of the Day,” by Rick Atkinson“Flesh,” by David Szalay“Things in Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li“These Summer Storms,” by Sarah MacLean Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Some time ago, the British journalist Sophie Elmhirst was reporting a story about people who try to escape the land and to live on the water. “I found myself trolling around as you do in these moments, online and on a website devoted to castaway stories and shipwreck stories,” she tells host Gilbert Cruz. “There were lots of photographs and tales of lone wild men who were pitched up on desert islands and had various escapades. And in among all of these was a tiny little black-and-white picture of a man and a woman."The couple were Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a husband and wife who took to the seas from 1970s England, selling their suburban home to buy a boat and sail to New Zealand. Nine months into the trip, a sperm whale breached under their boat, leaving them stranded on a crude raft with an assortment of salvaged items, luckily including water, canned food, a camera — and a biography of King Richard III. Elmhirst tells the Baileys’ story in her new book, “A Marriage at Sea." Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”: So reads one of the great opening lines in British literature, the first sentence of Virginia Woolf’s classic 1925 novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.”The book tracks one day in the life of an English woman, Clarissa Dalloway, living in post-World War I London, as she prepares for, and then hosts, a party. That’s pretty much it, as far as the plot goes. But within that single day, whole worlds unfold, as Woolf captures the expansiveness of human experience through Clarissa’s roving thoughts. On this week’s episode, Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses it with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Laura Thompson.Other books mentioned in this episode:“The Passion According to G.H.,” by Clarice Lispector“A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing,” by Eimear McBride“The Lesser Bohemians,” by Eimear McBride“To the Lighthouse,” by Virginia Woolf“Orlando,” by Virginia Woolf“A Room of One’s Own,” by Virginia Woolf“The Hours,” by Michael Cunningham“Headshot,” by Rita Bullwinkel“Tilt,” by Emma Pattee Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this week's episode, A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about the value of close reading poetry. And New York Times Book Review poetry editor Greg Cowles recommends four recently published collections worth reading.Books mentioned in this episode* "New and Collected Hell: A Poem," by Shane McCrae* "Ominous Music Intensifying," by Alexandra Teague* "Ecstasy: Poems," by Alex Dimitrov* "New and Selected Poems," by Marie Howe Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Steven Spielberg’s movie “Jaws” hit theaters 50 years ago this month, in June 1975, and became a phenomenon almost instantly. In some ways that was no surprise: The Peter Benchley novel it was based on, also called “Jaws,” had been a huge best seller the year before, and the public was primed for a fun summer scare. Brian Raftery — the author of “Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen” — wrote about “Jaws” for the Book Review last year in honor of the novel’s 50th anniversary, and this week he visits the podcast to talk about the book, the movie adaptation and the era of blockbuster thrillers.“If you’ve seen ‘Jaws,’ you could probably guess what the opening chapter of the book is,” he tells Gilbert Cruz (who has indeed seen “Jaws,” dozens of times). “It’s this shark attack, where this shark at night just devours this young female swimmer. The writing is really fun. It’s really gnarly, and it’s one of those amazing opening chapters where the book is moving as fast as the shark. After you read that first chapter, you are just completely pulled in.”We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In S.A. Cosby’s latest thriller, “King of Ashes,” a successful and fast-living financial adviser is called suddenly back to the small Virginia hometown he fled, where his family runs the local crematory and his father is in a coma stemming from a car crash that may not be as accidental as it seems.Cosby himself is from a small Virginia town, and on this week’s podcast he discusses the allure of homecoming, the tricky emotional terrain of complicated families and the reason he keeps revisiting the rural South in his fiction.“Once manufacturing moved out of these places, these rural places, there was nothing left to replace it. But crime — crime is America’s great secret industry. It’s our great secret empire. And when the legitimate businesses leave, crime steps in the fold. Nature abhors a vacuum, so crime steps in to fill that place. And I wanted to talk about cities like that." Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.