Episodes
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As part of The New York Times Book Review's project on the 100 Best Books published since the year 2000, Nick Hornby called "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" one of the "greatest literary achievements of the 21st century." The author Patrick Radden Keefe joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about his book, which has now been adapted into an FX miniseries.
Keefe has now seen his reporting on the life of Irish Republican Army soldier Dolours Price and others make its way from a New Yorker magazine article to an acclaimed nonfiction book to a streaming series. "In terms of storytelling, I try to write in a way that is as visceral and engaging as possible," Keefe said. "But the toolkit that you have when you make a series is so much more visceral. It's almost fissile in its power."
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The works of John le Carré, who died in 2020, are among the most beloved thrillers of all time. For some, books like "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "A Perfect Spy" and "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" are simply among their favorite works of literature ever.
So it was a perilous task that author Nick Harkaway, one of le Carré sons, set out for himself. The author of multiple well-received science fiction novels, Harkaway picked up the torch from his father to write a new tale starring George Smiley, the Cold War spy who has appeared in more than a half dozen novels. According to Harkaway, it took some work to figure out the right period to set the book in.
"Smiley's career is a little bit tricky in terms of the continuity because my dad, when he was writing these books, wasn't writing a franchise," Harkaway said. "He was writing one book after another, and each one was the only truth that he cared about."
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Sally Rooney is a writer people talk about. Since her first novel, âConversations With Friends,â was published in 2017, Rooney has been hailed as a defining voice of the millennial generation because of her ability to capture the particular angst and confusion of young love, friendship and coming-of-age in our fraught digital era.
âIntermezzo,â her fourth and latest novel, centers on two brothers separated by 10 years and periods of estrangement, who are grieving the recent death of their father. Peter Koubek is a 32-year-old lawyer with a younger girlfriend, Naomi, and an unextinguished flame for his ex, Sylvia; his brother, Ivan, is a 22-year-old chess prodigy who falls into a relationship with a 36-year-old divorcĂ©e, Margaret.
In this weekâs episode, the Book Reviewâs MJ Franklin discusses the book with fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Sadie Stein and Dave Kim.
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.
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Halloween is just around the corner, so we turned to two great horror authors â Joe Hill and Stephen Graham Jones â for their recommendations of books to read this season.
Books discussed:
"Mean Spirited," by Nick Roberts"Maeve Fly," by CJ Leede"Come Closer," by Sara Gran"It," by Stephen King"Experimental Film," by Gemma Files"A Head Full of Ghosts," by Paul Tremblay"Lost Man's Lane," by Scott Carson"Fever House," by Keith Rosson"The Devil by Name," by Keith Rosson"The Reformatory," by Tananarive DueUnlock 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.
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Salman Rushdie's "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder," has been nominated in the nonfiction category as part of this year's National Book Awards, which will take place in mid-November. This week, we are running Rushdie's conversation with Ezra Klein from earlier this year.
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The actor-director-producer Stanley Tucci is also, famously, an avid eater, who has explored his enthusiasm for food through his travel show âSearching for Italyâ and through two books: âTaste,â in 2021, and now a food diary, âWhat I Ate in One Year." In this weekâs episode, Tucci discusses his new book with host Gilbert Cruz and talks about bad meals, his food idol and his path to tracking a yearâs worth of eating.
âThe people at Simon & Schuster wanted me to write another book after âTaste,â and I really didnât know what to write,â Tucci says. âMy wife said, Just write what you eat. So I did, because I do everything she says. And it actually ended up being such a pleasure to write. It just flowed very easily. As you start to write about the mundane, you start to mine all this stuff that you didnât know you were thinking about, or that was happening. And thatâs what the book is. Itâs, in essence, the passage of time through the prism of food.â
Also on this weekâs episode, Gilbert chats with Joumana Khatib about the National Book Award finalists in fiction and nonfiction.
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In 2021, the novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz had a hit with âThe Plot,â a book that was partly a mystery, partly a thriller and entirely a delicious sendup of the publishing industry. It told the tale of a once-promising writer, Jacob, who steals somebody elseâs story idea and reaches undreamed-of levels of success before things go very badly for him.
Korelitzâs new novel, âThe Sequel,â is â yes â a sequel to âThe Plot.â It follows Jacobâs widow, Anna, who has unexpectedly become a writer herself, only to be confronted with her own dark secrets. On this weekâs episode, Korelitz talks with the host Gilbert Cruz about the writing life, the shape of her career and her decision to write a sequel to âThe Plot.â
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
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.
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Jo Hamyaâs novel âThe Hypocriteâ follows a famous English novelist as he watches a new play by his daughter, Sophia, in London. The lights go down in the theater, and immediately the novelist realizes: The play is about him, the vacation he took with Sophia a decade earlier and the sins he committed while they were away.
The novel is an art monster story and a dysfunctional family saga that explores the ethics of creating work inspired by real life. In this weekâs episode, the Book Reviewâs MJ Franklin discusses the book with editors Joumana Khatib and Lauren Christensen.
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This weekend marks the official start of autumn, so what better time to take a peek at the fall books weâre most excited to read? On this weekâs episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the upcoming season of reading and the books on the horizon that theyâre looking forward to most eagerly.
Books mentioned in this weekâs episode:
âIntermezzo,â by Sally Rooney
âPlayground,â by Richard Powers
âSonny Boy: A Memoir,â by Al Pacino
âCher: The Memoir, Part One,â by Cher
âThe Sequel,â by Jean Hanff Korelitz
âBe Ready When the Luck Happens,â by Ina Garten
âWe Solve Murders,â by Richard Osman
âCreation Lake,â by Rachel Kushner
âV13: Chronicle of a Trial,â by Emmanuel CarrĂšre
âAbsolution,â by Jeff VanderMeer
âLazarus Man,â by Richard Price
âRejection,â by Tony Tulathimutte
âColored Television,â by Danzy Senna
âHealth and Safety,â by Emily Witt
âPatriot: A Memoir,â by Alexei Navalny
âThe Message,â by Ta-Nehisi Coates
âThe Serviceberry,â by Robin Wall Kimmerer
âRevenge of the Tipping Point,â by Malcolm Gladwell
âFrom Here to the Great Unknown,â by Lisa Marie Presley
âThe City and Its Uncertain Walls,â by Haruki Murakami
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Robert Caroâs 1974 biography âThe Power Brokerâ is a book befitting its subject, Robert Moses â the unelected parochial technocrat who used a series of appointed positions to entirely reshape New York City and its surrounding environment for generations to come. Like Moses, Caroâs book has exerted an enduring and outsize influence. This week, Caro joins the podcast and tells the host Gilbert Cruz how he accounts for its enduring legacy.
âPeople are interested in power,â Caro says. âThis is a particular kind of power. Robert Mosesâ power was unchecked power. We all live in a democracy where we think that power comes from our votes at the ballot box. He was a man who was never elected to anything and he held on to power for 44 years, almost half a century. And with the power, this man who wasnât elected to anything shaped New York and its surrounding suburbs. So I think, if youâre interested in government, you have to say, as I said maybe 55 years ago when I started this, How did he do it? What happened here?â
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The British writer Kate Atkinson has had a rich and varied career since her debut novel, âBehind the Scenes at the Museum,â won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1996; her 14 subsequent books have included story collections, historical fiction and an inventive speculative novel, âLife After Life,â that landed on the Book Reviewâs recent survey of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
But she may be best known for her Jackson Brodie series of crime novels, which began with âCase Historiesâ in 2004 and was later adapted into a British television show. The sixth book in the series, âDeath at the Sign of the Rook,â has just been released, and from the title to the plot to the cast of characters it pays winking homage to the golden age of English cozy mysteries. Atkinson visits the podcast this week to discuss her new novel, and tells The Timesâs Sarah Lyall how she approached her tribute to an earlier era.
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As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Isabel Wilkerson joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss "The Warmth of Other Suns," her sweeping history of the movement of Black Americans from the south to points north over the course of the 20th century.
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.
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This July, The New York Times Book Review published a list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The top choice was âMy Brilliant Friend,â by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein.
The book is the first novel in Ferranteâs so-called Neapolitan quartet, which tracks the lifelong friendship between LenĂč and Lila, two women from a rough neighborhood in Naples, Italy, even as family, relationships and work pull their lives in different directions.
In this weekâs episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.
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.
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As part of its recent 100 Best Books of the 21st Century project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Jennifer Egan joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her Pulitzer-winning novel about the music industry, âA Visit From the Goon Squad,â and talks, among other things, about the early challenges it faced in finding an audience, the meaning of its title and her initial reluctance to decide whether the book was a novel or a story collection.
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A summer camp in the Adirondacks. A rich girl gone missing, 14 years after her older brother also disappeared. A prominent local family harboring dark secrets. Liz Mooreâs new novel, âThe God in the Woods,â turns these elements into a complex and suspenseful meditation on parenting and social class and the rituals of summer friendship.
On this weekâs podcast, Liz Moore chats with Gilbert Cruz about her new novel. (Spoiler alert: the last 10 or so minutes address the book's ending.)
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.
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Itâs August, which means that Labor Day and back-to-school are just around the corner. The vacation that seemed so leisurely a month ago suddenly feels a little more frantic. But thereâs still time to squeeze in a last batch of summer reading. On this weekâs episode, host Gilbert Cruz chats with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the books that have been occupying their attention this season.
Books mentioned on this episode:
"Talk," by Linda Rosencrantz
"Crossroads," by Jonathan Franzen
"You Like It Darker," by Stephen King
"Transactions in a Foreign Currency," by Deborah Eisenberg
"Veronica," by Mary Gaitskill
"The Bright Sword," by Lev Grossman
"Asymmetry," by Lisa Halliday
"Out," by Natsuo Kirino
"The God of the Woods," by Liz Moore
"The Devil's Grip," by Lina Wolff
"Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay," by Elena Ferrante
"Spy Hook," by Len Deighton
"All Fours," by Miranda July
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.
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As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, George Saunders â who had three books on the list, including his short story collections "Pastoralia" and "Tenth of December" â joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his novel "Lincoln in the Bardo."
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Sarah Jessica Parker has been a familiar presence on TV, movie screens and Broadway stages for five decades. But since 2016 she has also been a force in the book world, initially at the helm of the fiction imprint SJP for Hogarth and for the past two years with SJP Lit, an imprint at the independent publisher Zando.
Parker visits the podcast this week to chat with the host Gilbert Cruz about her lifelong love of reading, the kinds of books that excite her most and her entry into the publishing business, among other topics.
âI just keep learning,â Parker says. âAnd I think, every time I feel ill equipped, I just recommit to the idea of what books have meant to me since, well, my entire life, literally my entire life, and how I can help an author. ⊠Every year we do this whistlestop of going to literary agentsâ offices and just reminding them of the imprint and what we've published and who we're about to publish and the mission of our particular imprint. Because I think people have every right to assume those ideas â âdilettante,â ânot deservingâ or, like I said, âill equipped.â People have spent, you know, their whole lives in higher education, and then they come out and pursue this dream of being in publishing in a variety of jobs. And I didn't. And I was very concerned about perception, but also my own concerns for myself about taking care of a writer.â
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As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Min Jin Lee joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her novel, as well as the book she's read the most times â George Eliot's "Middlemarch."
âIâm willing to say itâs the best English language novel, period. Without question,â Lee says. âGeorge 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.â
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Patricia Highsmithâs 1955 thriller âThe Talented Mr. Ripleyâ follows a young, down-on-his-luck scammer, Tom Ripley, who is looking to reverse his fortunes. When he receives a job offer to go to Italy and retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich socialite on an endless holiday, Tom finds the perfect opportunity to work his way into the upper crust. But as he becomes more and more obsessed with Dickie and Dickieâs life, the breezy getaway turns into something much more sinister, sending them down a dangerous path.
In this weekâs episode, the Book Reviewâs MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Tina Jordan, Sadie Stein and Sarah Lyall, our thrillers columnist. Caution: Spoilers abound.
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