Podcast appearances and mentions of Dwight Garner

To call Elizabeth Bishop one of the greatest female American poets of the 20th century is to make too many qualifications. Increasingly, critical opinion has converged with Dwight Garner's assertion that she was perhaps ‘the most purely gifted poet of the 20th century'. To mark the publication of his new book, Elizabeth Bishop's Styles of Writing, Andrew Dickinson was in conversation with the poet and critic Peter McDonald. Poet Mark Ford, actor Juliet Stevenson and writer Lamorna Ash will also read from a selection of Bishop's work. You can buy a copy of Elizabeth Bishop's Styles of Writing from the London Review Bookshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode includes discussions of mental health issues, substance abuse, and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.Christa Parravani is the author of the bestselling books, Her: A Memoir, and Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood.Loved and Wanted is acclaimed for its take on curtailed maternal health care as it pertains to children, and its condemnation of the personal, financial, and emotional repercussions of curtailed access for women. Loved and Wanted was a New York Times Editor's Choice, and one of Dwight Garner's favorite books of the year. Christa's bestselling book, Her: A Memoir shares her journey through grief after the death of her identical twin sister, Cara. Her was an NPR critics pick. Vanity Fair called Her, "astonishing." Bookforum said, “Her invites obsessional reader behavior because Parravani has the ability to make life, even at its worst, feel magic-tinged and vital and lived all the way down to the bone.” I've read Her and can tell you it's a most beautifully written and unnerving memoir. I was deeply moved by Christa's telling of her experiences in confronting Cara's challenged life and untimely death. Christa also happens to be married to one of my favorite StoryBeat guests, the extraordinary writer of Jarhead and other books, Tony Swofford.

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, 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.” Jacobsen now has another book out: “Biological War: A Scenario.” Our critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review that it “moves like a meteor.” For this week's episode, we revisit the conversation the host Gilbert Cruz had with Jacobsen last year, in which she discussed why she wrote “Nuclear War,” and how she managed to compile so many details about topics that are among the most secret in the world. 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.

Anna and Geoff react to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, ANGEL DOWN by Daniel Kraus, a World War 1 novel written in one sentence. We also discuss Dwight Garner's New York Times article about the lack of book critics and our views on book influencers and reviews that make news, such as the Harper's review of To Paradise by Hana Yanagihara.   Our book of the week is TRANSCRIPTION by Ben Lerner. This novel about a writer who writes an article about his mentor from his memory of their interview after dropping his phone in a sink tackles issues such as phone addiction, parenting and eating disorders. It was a Telegraph 'most anticipated book of 2026' and a New York Times 'book everyone will be talking about'. Recommended for book clubs.   We had to ask: Why did he not put his phone in a bowl of rice? Is this a book about tech addiction? How does it differ from an Ian McEwan novel? How many unreliable narrators do we have here? Read-alikes: AUDITION by Katie Kitamura LEAVING THE ATOCHA STATION by Ben Lerner   Coming up: LONDON FALLING by Patrick Radden Keefe Follow us! Email: Booksonthegopodcast@gmail.com Instagram: @abailliekaras  Substack: Books On The Go Credits Artwork: Sascha Wilkosz

What if the antidote to our increasingly frantic world isn't a grand gesture, but simply the act of paying attention?This week, Kate and Laura are joined by actor, podcaster, and author Miranda Keeling – returning to the pod to talk about her wonderful new book, The Place I'm In, a collection of the small, luminous moments she's gathered from daily life. After her debut The Year I Stopped to Notice, Miranda is back with more of her 'noticings': fragments from parks, supermarket queues, and streets that remind us how much magic is hiding in the everyday.Their book club read is the perfect complement: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Şavas – a soulful, quietly funny novel following Asya and Manu as they hunt for an apartment, trying on different futures for size in a city far from home. Asya, a documentary filmmaker, spends her days in the park gathering footage – an anthropologist of the ordinary – and her project rhymes beautifully with Miranda's own.Plus recommendations inspired by the art of the everyday.You can find out more about Miranda and her work at mirandakeeling.com, and her podcast Stopping to Notice – over 200 five-minute episodes of binaural location recording – is the perfect companion listen.Find all the books mentioned at our bookshop.org shop. And if you'd like to join Kate's monthly book club and reading community, head to patreon.com/thebookclubreview.BooklistAshes and Stones by Alison Shaw – a journey through Scotland in search of the women killed in the witch trialsOpen Book by Jessica Simpson – Laura takes a nostalgic trip back through her twentiesNo Such Thing as Monday by Sîan Hughes – a brilliantly written novel from the author of Pearl; up there with Eimear McBride ( A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing) and Maggie O'FarrellThe Anthropologists by Aysgul SavasThe Imperfectionist, Oliver Burkeman's newsletter Small Things Like These by Claire KeeganFlesh by David SzalayThe Café With No Name by Robert SeethalerMemories of Distant Mountains (illustrated notebooks) by Orhan PamukA Nobel Laureate's journals offer much colour but little drama, by Dwight Garner for the NYT (gift link)Look Closer: How to Get More Out of Reading by Robert Douglas FairhurstThe Place I'm In by Miranda KeelingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“If criticism isn't going to be written by one human mind, what else is it for? Criticism done by AI means nothing.” — Bethanne Patrick Is London really falling? Perhaps. This week on Keen On America, everything seems to be falling. There are young men falling from riverside apartments. Girlhood is falling to the commodification of appearance. Book reviewing is falling to AI. Mary Todd Lincoln fell through history as a shrill and inconvenient widow. And just three days ago, Yale historian Ian Shapiro argued that democracy itself has fallen — from the euphoric heights of 1989 to today's nadir of illiberal populism. One person who never falls is our unfailingly literate friend Bethanne Patrick — book critic at the Los Angeles Times, founder of #FridayReads, and the best-read lady in America. And her May list of recommended reads is full of books about falling. Take, for example, the New York Times bestselling London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe — a true crime whodunnit about Zac Brettler, a nineteen-year-old who reinvented himself as the son of a Kazakh oligarch and fell to his death from a Thames-side luxury apartment. Then there's Girls by Freya India on Gen Z and the commodification of girlhood; Make Believe by Mac Barnett, the Children's Laureate, on storytelling as an art of raising kids; I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern on AI as useful tool, not a civilizational menace; and An Inconvenient Widow by Lois Romano which rehabilitates the already fallen Mary Todd Lincoln. And then there's the fall of book reviewing itself. Where have all the critics gone? New York Times book critic Dwight Garner wrote its obituary this week. But Bethanne Patrick hasn't fallen. And, last I checked, London is still standing. Five Takeaways •       London Falling: The Oligarchs Were the Problem: Patrick Radden Keefe's new New York Times bestseller is about Zac Brettler, a nineteen-year-old London boy who reinvented himself as the son of a Kazakh oligarch and fell to his death from a Thames-side luxury apartment. Bethanne's reading: the most interesting element is not the Brettler family's grief — sympathetic as they are — but the portrait of a London transformed by money from overseas. Twenty years ago, the worry was economic immigrants. The people who really changed London were the oligarchs. Andrew is sceptical of the neoliberalism-as-villain thesis. Janan Ganesh: London has always been defined by capitalism. •       Girls: The Commodification of Girlhood:  by Freya India (born 1999) argues that Gen Z girls have always been girls — but technology has made the existing anxieties about appearance, body, and social status thousands of times worse. Face-tuning, influencers, targeted advertising, social media bullying. Bethanne's daughter — summa cum laude in economics — relaxes by watching reality shows about the commodification of female appearance. The book's parallel with London Falling: both are about young people who cannot escape the mirror of other people's wealth and image. •       Make Believe: Art for Children, Not Just Books: Mac Barnett, current Children's Laureate of the Library of Congress, argues in Make Believe that children don't just need books — they need art. Great literature, beauty, truth. The book echoes Robert Coles' The Call of Stories and pushes back against the passive consumption of screens. Bethanne's connection to London Falling: Zac Brettler was a brilliant storyteller. He might have been a writer or filmmaker. But stories have to move you toward caring about other people. They're not just about taking in — they're about give and take. •       I Am Not a Robot: AI as Tool, Not Menace: Joanna Stern, the Wall Street Journal's consumer tech columnist, spent a year using AI for almost everything. The book is a stunt memoir in the tradition of “my year of doing this” — but also genuinely useful. Her verdict: AI is a tool. It's not good or bad. She wrote every sentence herself but used AI for spell-checking, research, and editing. Meanwhile: the Authors Guild raised close to $900,000 at their annual gala, with David Baldacci giving an impassioned speech about AI and intellectual property. The Chicago Tribune published AI-generated summer reading recommendations that included a Louise Erdrich novel she never wrote. •       Where Have All the Book Reviewers Gone? A Dwight Garner piece in the New York Times cites a 1981 Donald Barthelme story predicting machines doing reviews. Now it's happening: the New York Times recently discovered a freelance reviewer had been using AI for several reviews. Google Gemini now summarises reviews before you see them. Bethanne Patrick, book critic at the Los Angeles Times, is one of a tiny handful of full-time book critics left. Her verdict: criticism done by a non-human entity misses the point. The point of criticism is judgment. Judgment requires a human mind. About the Guest Bethanne Patrick is a book critic at the Los Angeles Times, founder of #FridayReads, host of the Missing Pages podcast, and the author of Life B: Overcoming Double Depression (Counterpoint, 2023). She is also known as @TheBookMaven on social media. Books Discussed: •       London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday, April 7, 2026). •       Girls by Freya India (2026). •       Make Believe by Mac Barnett (2026). •       I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do Almost Everything by Joanna Stern (2026). •       An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln by Lois Romano (Simon & Schuster, 2026). About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-Ame...

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 | 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 thebookreview@nytimes.com. Credits The “Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Sarah Diamond and Amy Pearl with help this week from Alex Barron. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado. Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad and Brooke Minters. 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 books@nytimes.com. 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.

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.

New York Times book critics Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss their recent article, “Love Jack Kerouac? Read These Great American Road Trip Books Next,” which they co-authored with their fellow critic Dwight Garner, and which includes books published after Kerouac's On the Road. They talk about road trips as escapism, claustrophobia, exploration, and nostalgia, and reflect on their picks, including Hilma Wolitzer's 1980 novel Hearts, Gypsy Rose Lee's 1957 eponymous memoir, Michael Paterniti's 2000 non-fiction book Driving Mr. Albert, and Jesmyn Ward's 2017 novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. Szalai and Jacobs talk about developing an expansive conception of what qualifies as a road trip book, leaving Lolita out, and favorite road trip music and games. They read from the article.  To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Moss Terrell. Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs "Love Jack Kerouac? Read These Great American Road Trip Books Next." by Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs, and Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times  Others: On the Road by Jack Kerouac Hearts by Hilma Wolitzer Gypsy by Gypsy Rose Lee Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch by Alexandra Jacobs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York Times book critics Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss their recent article, “Love Jack Kerouac? Read These Great American Road Trip Books Next,” which they co-authored with their fellow critic Dwight Garner, and which includes books published after Kerouac's On the Road. They talk about road trips as escapism, claustrophobia, exploration, and nostalgia, and reflect on their picks, including Hilma Wolitzer's 1980 novel Hearts, Gypsy Rose Lee's 1957 eponymous memoir, Michael Paterniti's 2000 non-fiction book Driving Mr. Albert, and Jesmyn Ward's 2017 novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. Szalai and Jacobs talk about developing an expansive conception of what qualifies as a road trip book, leaving Lolita out, and favorite road trip music and games. They read from the article.  To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Moss Terrell. Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs "Love Jack Kerouac? Read These Great American Road Trip Books Next." by Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs, and Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times  Others: On the Road by Jack Kerouac Hearts by Hilma Wolitzer Gypsy by Gypsy Rose Lee Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch by Alexandra Jacobs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 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're joined by New York Times book critic and author Dwight Garner. He presents food quips from his favorite writers, as well as John Updike's lunch routine and Hunter S. Thompson's party tricks. Plus, anthropologist Manvir Singh helps us digest the world of “meat-fluencers” and their all-meat diets; A Way with Words give credit to the Old Norse words lingering in our kitchens; and we prepare a Pakistani-Style Chicken Biryani. (Originally aired January 4th, 2024.)Get this week's recipe for Pakistani-Style Chicken Biryani here.We want to hear your culinary tips! Share your cooking hacks, secret ingredients or unexpected techniques with us for a chance to hear yourself on Milk Street Radio! Here's how: https://www.177milkstreet.com/radiotipsListen to Milk Street Radio on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As 2024 comes to a close, critics, reporters and editors at The New York Times are reflecting on the year in arts and culture, including books.The deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle, Melissa Kirsch, speaks with the editor of The New York Times Book Review, Gilbert Cruz, about the best books of 2024 — and of the century. Also, The Times's book critics detail their favorite reads of the year.Guest: Melissa Kirsch, the deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle for The New York Times.Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review.M.J. Franklin, an editor for The New York Times Book Review.Jennifer Szalai, the nonfiction book critic for The New York Times Book Review.A.O. Scott, a critic at large for The New York Times Book Review.Sarah Lyall, a writer at large for The Times and the thrillers columnist for The New York Times Book Review.Alexandra Jacobs, a critic for The New York Times Book Review.Dwight Garner, a critic for The New York Times Book Review.Background reading: The 10 Best Books of 2024The 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyFor more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 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.

Which subpar books actually warrant writing a bad review? Do best sellers usually live up to the hype? And how does our relationship with technology affect the publishing industry? Kara sits down with two of her favorite book critics, Dwight Garner of The New York Times and Becca Rothfeld of The Washington Post, to discuss the best and worst books of 2024.  The trio debates standout books and notable disappointments, the craft of book reviewing, and the best way to experience a great book. They also explore the importance of best-seller lists, how concerned we should be over the rising tide of book censorship, and which books from 2024 could end up becoming forever classics. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs — staff critics for The New York Times Book Review — join host Gilbert Cruz to look back on highlights from their year in books.Books discussed:"Intermezzo," by Sally Rooney"All Fours," by Miranda July"You Dreamed of Empires," by Álvaro Enrigue"When the Clock Broke," by John Ganz"Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring," by Brad Gooch"Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius," by Carrie Courogen"My Beloved Monster," by Caleb Carr"Rejection," by Tony Tulathimutte"Beautyland," by Marie-Helene Bertino"Free and Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society," by Daniel Chandler"Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs and Opera," by Ricky Ian Gordon 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.

As a child, my dream was to have a career in books—a desire most writers share. This week's guest on Beyond Better, Dwight Garner, gets to live that dream every day as a book critic for The New York Times. In this delightful conversation, we talk about Garner's latest book, The Upstairs Delicatessen. This smart, thoughtful book about reading and eating had me laughing out loud and reaching for a snack. We also discuss his writing and research process, as well as his role as a book critic. And as you might expect, I ask about his writing process, including how he balances writing with a demanding job at The Times. Alongside book-related talk, we explore the role of food in family connection—and he answers a special question from my eleven-year-old daughter.  If you love reading, writing, and eating—and listening to two book lovers talk about these topics—don't miss this week's episode.  Show notes:  Eat Your Books Dwight's book: The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading Learn more about Dwight: X: @DwightGarner Facebook: Dwight Garner Instagram: @dwightgarner Threads: @dwightgarner Follow me on: Instagram @stacyennis Facebook @stacyenniscreative LinkedIn YouTube @stacyennisauthor To submit a question, email hello@stacyennis.com or visit http://stacyennis.com/contact and fill out the form on the page.

Dwight Garner, New York Times book critic, took us on a literary tour of Dublin city in his glowing review of our capital city from when he visited Ireland earlier this year. He joined Oliver from New York to tell him all about the trip and his love for "the most literary soaked city in the world".

Today on the show we have two great conversations. First up is Molly Baz. With a signature voice and absolutely wild recipe development skills, Molly has won over millions of fans worldwide and she talks about her latest book, More Is More, which taps into the food world's more maximalist urges. Also on the show is Dwight Garner. Dwight has been a book critic at the New York Times since 2008, and he has now written one of our favorite food books in years (not an exaggeration). The Upstairs Delicatessen is a book about “eating, reading, reading about eating, and eating while reading.” This is completely, 100% Matt's bag, and Dwight's style and rhythm had us reading until we were full (and then some). In this extremely fun episode, Dwight shares the book's origins and digs into some of his most memorable meals and books, and books about meals, and meals…you get the point. Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Earlier this month, the Book Review's staff critics — Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai — released a list of 22 novels they have found reliably funny since Joseph Heller's landmark comic novel “Catch-22” came out in 1961. On this week's episode, they tell Gilbert Cruz why “Catch-22” was their starting point, and explain a bit about their process: how they think about humor, how they made their choices, what books they left off and what books led to fights along the way. (“American Psycho” turns out to be as contentious now as it was when it was first published.)“There are only a very few number of books in my lifetime that have made me laugh out loud,” Jacobs says. “And some of them no longer make me laugh out loud, because the thing about humor is it's like this giant shifting cloud, this shape-shifting thing that changes over the course of our lives and also the life of the culture.”We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Tricia Romano's new book, “The Freaks Came Out to Write,” is an oral history of New York's late, great alternative weekly newspaper The Village Voice, where she worked for eight years as the nightlife columnist. Our critic Dwight Garner reviewed the book recently — he loved it — and he visits the podcast this week to chat with Gilbert Cruz about oral histories in general and the gritty glamour of The Village Voice in particular.“You would pick it up and it was so prickly,” Garner says. “The whole thing just felt like this production that someone had really thought through, from the great cartoons to the great photographs to the crazy hard news in the front to the different voices in back. It all came together into a package. And there are still great writers out there, but it doesn't feel the same anymore. No one has really taken over, to my point of view. ... There's no one-stop shopping to find the great listings at every club and every major theater, just a great rundown of what one might be interested in doing.”We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

We've got some hot topics like celebrity activism and when to share pregnancy news—and even hotter topics like verbal leashes, sleeping with socks on, and weird terminology for just wearing your damn clothes.New nym alert!!! Good Inside by Becky Kennedy brings us MGI: most generous interpretation. Claire's IG exchange with Nancy Meyers in this Instagram post confirms that there are, in fact, Vicente Foods bags in The Holiday (and that N.M. is the greatest). The thing having a moment this week: Rivians and their mascot, Gary the Gear Guard.Two things we're happy about being “in” in 2024 include outfit-repeating and going to the movies. Shoutout to this @flwrchldtweets tweet and Dwight Garner's Grub Street Diet. Dog people: Is a verbal leash (not the yet-to-be-written spinoff to Best in Show) a thing? Please let us know at 833-632-5463, podcast@athingortwohq.com, or @athingortwohq—and chat it up about anything at all in our Geneva!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Christopher Brown uses the voice of a confidant for this cornucopia of pleasures—literary and gustatory. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile's Alan Minskoff discuss Dwight Garner's text crammed with words, quotes, and anecdotes about food and literature. Brown takes on a conversational style for this audiobook rich with literary figures and family members whose food opinions the author shares. Listening to this audiobook is mouthwatering and mind-expanding. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile's website. Published by Tantor Media. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com This episode of Behind the Mic is brought to you by Brilliance Publishing. From the author of The Last Mona Lisa comes a thrilling story of masterpieces, masterminds, and mystery. Alternating between a perilous search and the history of stolen art and lives, listen at audible.com/TheLostVanGogh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined by New York Times book critic and author Dwight Garner. He presents food quips from his favorite writers, as well as John Updike's lunch routine and Hunter S. Thompson's party tricks. Plus, anthropologist Manvir Singh helps us digest the world of “meat-fluencers” and their all-meat diets; A Way with Words give credit to the Old Norse words lingering in our kitchens; and we prepare a Pakistani-Style Chicken Biryani.Get this week's recipe for Pakistani-Style Chicken Biryani here.We want to hear your culinary tips! Share your cooking hacks, secret ingredients or unexpected techniques with us for a chance to hear yourself on Milk Street Radio! Here's how: https://www.177milkstreet.com/radiotipsListen to Milk Street Radio on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This New York Times book critic has many off-the-job accomplishments: “Learning how to eat chicken feet and love them is one thing I'm really proud of.” The author of The Upstairs Deli expands our capacity for joy—in reading, in eating, in life. Produced with Rizzoli bookstore. Music: Stephanie Jenkins.

The Times's staff book critics — Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs — do a lot of reading over the course of any given year, but not everything they read stays with them equally. On this week's podcast, Gilbert Cruz chats with the critics about the books that did: the novels and story collections and works of nonfiction that made an impression in 2023 and defined their year in reading, including one that Garner says caught him by surprise.“Eleanor Catton's ‘Birnam Wood' is in some ways my novel of the year,” Garner says. “And it's not really my kind of book. This is going to sound stupid or snobby, but I'm not the biggest plot reader. I'm just not. I like sort of thorny, funny, earthy fiction, and if there's no plot I'm fine with that. But this has a plot like a dream. It just takes right off. And she's such a funny, generous writer that I was just happy from the first time I picked it up.”Here are the books discussed on this week's episode:“Be Mine,” by Richard Ford“Onlookers,” by Ann Beattie“I Am Homeless if This Ia Not My Home,” by Lorrie Moore“People Collide,” by Isle McElroy“Birnam Wood,” by Eleanor Catton“Biography of X,” by Catherine Lacey“Madonna: A Rebel Life,” by Mary Gabriel“The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune,” by Alexander Stille“The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions,” by Jonathan Rosen“Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State,” by Kerry Howley“The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight,” by Andrew Leland“Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets,” by Burkhard Bilger“King: A Life,” Jonathan Eig“Larry McMurtry: A Life,” Tracy Daugherty“Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey,” by Robert “Mack” McCormick“Roald Dahl, Teller of the Unexpected: A Biography,” by Matthew Dennison“The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality,” by William Egginton“Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World,” by Naomi Klein“The Notebooks and Diaries of Edmund Wilson”“Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair,” by Christian Wiman“Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals,” by Oliver BurkemanWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

This week on Special Sauce we go really deep into Fuschia Dunlop's latest book, ‘Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food'. It just got a rave front page review from NYT book critic Dwight Garner.

Mark Kurlansky's new book "The Core of an Onion" includes the history, interesting facts and recipes including the allium. He tells us about it. And, if ever a book was meant to be savored, it's Dwight Garner's new memoir"The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading about Eating, and Eating While Reading." In it, the New York Times literary critic takes readers on a journey through his food and book-obsessed childhood. Then, "Magic: the Gathering" released a huge new product inspired by Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec history. Guatemalan-American art director Ovidio Cartagena explains how he incorporated Mesoamerican cultures into "Lost Caverns of Ixalan."

This week, the panel begins by reviewing The Curse, a cringe-worthy Showtime series co-produced by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. Fielder and Emma Stone star as Asher and Whitney Siegel, a newlywed couple at the center of a reality HGTV show built on narcissism, gentrification, and lies. Then, the three jump into Alexander Payne's The Holdovers, which Dana describes as a “sadsack Christmas classic,” starring Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly misanthrope professor alongside newcomer Dominic Sessa and Da'Vine Joy Randolph. The three play misfits being held over at a prep school during the winter break of 1970. Finally, the trio is joined by Dwight Garner, book critic for The New York Times, to discuss his delightful new memoir, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel commemorates Jezebel, the now-shuttered women-focused news and cultural commentary site, and reflects on their relationships with media geared towards women overall.    Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Endorsements: Dana: Life on Our Planet on Netflix, a nature documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman that tells the four-billion-year story of life on Earth. It's perfect for at-home family viewing over the holidays.  Julia: A hilarious bit Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone did on Jimmy Kimmel Live! while promoting The Curse. In response to a less-than-glowing review of his acting skills in The New York Times, Fielder shows up in-character as a nonchalant, totally not stilted bad boy alongside Stone's non-acted self.   Stephen: “Camus on Tour,” an excellent tour de force essay by Vivian Gornick in The New York Review of Books, in which she covers Camus' Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World.  Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Production assistance by Kat Hong.    Hosts Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the panel begins by reviewing The Curse, a cringe-worthy Showtime series co-produced by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. Fielder and Emma Stone star as Asher and Whitney Siegel, a newlywed couple at the center of a reality HGTV show built on narcissism, gentrification, and lies. Then, the three jump into Alexander Payne's The Holdovers, which Dana describes as a “sadsack Christmas classic,” starring Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly misanthrope professor alongside newcomer Dominic Sessa and Da'Vine Joy Randolph. The three play misfits being held over at a prep school during the winter break of 1970. Finally, the trio is joined by Dwight Garner, book critic for The New York Times, to discuss his delightful new memoir, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel commemorates Jezebel, the now-shuttered women-focused news and cultural commentary site, and reflects on their relationships with media geared towards women overall.    Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Endorsements: Dana: Life on Our Planet on Netflix, a nature documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman that tells the four-billion-year story of life on Earth. It's perfect for at-home family viewing over the holidays.  Julia: A hilarious bit Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone did on Jimmy Kimmel Live! while promoting The Curse. In response to a less-than-glowing review of his acting skills in The New York Times, Fielder shows up in-character as a nonchalant, totally not stilted bad boy alongside Stone's non-acted self.   Stephen: “Camus on Tour,” an excellent tour de force essay by Vivian Gornick in The New York Review of Books, in which she covers Camus' Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World.  Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Production assistance by Kat Hong.    Hosts Dana Stevens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author of Upstairs Delicatessen:  On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading  Photo by Richard Bowditch YouTube video of the interview Links “Inside the NYT Book Review: Pamela Paul & Dwight Garner” (YouTube) Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany by Dwight Garner (2020) Dwight Garner's book reviews in The New York Times To the Finland Station: A Study in the Acting and Writing of History (FSG) Classics by Edmund Wilson “A Book Critic as Wild for Food as He Is for Literature” by Jennifer Reese at The New York Times Book Review - October 24, 2023 Film reviews in The New Yorker by Anthony Lane Politics columns by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times Books by Cree LeFavour at Amazon.com “Jayne Anne Phillips Finds Anguish and Asylum in Civil War America” by Dwight Garner at The New York Times - September 23, 2023 Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips (Buy This Book!) Joni Mitchell - Blue (Full Album) at YouTube Joni Mitchell Court and Spark album Part 1 and Part 2 (YouTube) Books at Amazon.com by Sheila Heti, Otessa Moshfegh and Catherine Lacey “Review: ‘Martial Bliss,' a Loving Memoir About a Bookstore for Military Buffs” by Dwight Garner at The New York Times - July 30, 2015 Martial Bliss: The Story of The Military Bookman by Margaretta Barton Colt (not available on Kindle) Columns by William F. Buckley Jr. published in National Review Kindle Scribe Books at Amazon.com by the poets Kay Ryan, August Kleinzahler, Louise Glück, and James Fenton “Hunger games: A New York critic's gluttony for books and food” by Adam Begley at the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) - November 3, 2023 If you'd like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. From your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 10 a.m. Eastern Time.  Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.  

Chuck and Callie discuss Issues 1 & 2 in Ohio - two ballot initiatives enshrining abortion, contraception, fertility care, and miscarriage care (among others) in Ohio's Constitution and legalizing recreational weed.  Plus!  Callie talks with Dwight Garner, a NY Times columnist and author of "The Upstairs Delicatessen: On eating, reading, reading about eating, and eating while reading."Get Dwight's book here! https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-upstairs-delicatessen-on-eating-reading-reading-about-eating-and-eating-while-reading-dwight-garner/19509951Timestamps: 00:45  - Issues 1 & 217:56 - Interview with Dwight Garner45:50 - Under-the-radar:  WVU Admin heads rolling?-----------------------------------------------HELP SUPPORT APPODLACHIA!Join our Patreon, for as little as $1/month, and access live events, weekly exclusives, bonus series, and more http://www.patreon.com/appodlachia----------------------------------------------Transition music: "Paper Town" by Balsam Range (used with artist permission)https://www.balsamrange.com/-----------------------------------------------Check out our fantastic sponsors!Red Rooster Coffee! Use our promo code "DOLLY" for free shipping!https://www.redroostercoffee.com/CBD and THC gummies & more: (use code "BANJO" for 25% off) http://www.cornbreadhemp.com/ DISCLAIMER: None of the views expressed in this show represent the views of either Chuck or Callie's employers, and they never will. Support the show

In the spotlight is famed novelist Larry McMurtry and biographer, Tracy Daugherty, author of “Larry McMurtry: A Life,” the first comprehensive biography of the novelist, who authored 40 books, including many hit novels such as “The Last Picture Show,” “The Terms of Endearment” and “Lonesome Dove.” Daugherty's bio of McMurtry hit the cover of the New York Times Book Review where critic Dwight Garner described the book as “vastly entertaining.” We discuss: >> His rambling lifestyle >> Romances that included Cybil Shepard and Diane Keaton >> Screenwriting and Academy Award>> Workmanlike writing regimen >> Friends such as Ken Kesey, Susan Sontag and Swifty Lazar >> The massive rare-book collection and business >> Etc. Learn more about Larry McMurtry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_McMurtry Learn more about Tracy Daugherty here: https://tracydaugherty.com/ Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” “Family Recipes: A Novel About Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century” and “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play.” Buy them on any major bookselling site. Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program. 

Dwight Garner has been a book critic for the New York Times since 2008, and he has now written one of our favorite food books in years (not an exaggeration). The Upstairs Delicatessen is a book about “eating, reading, reading about eating, and eating while reading.” This is completely, 100% our bag, and Dwight's style and rhythm had us reading until we were full (and then some). In this extremely fun episode, Dwight shares the book's origins and digs into some of his most memorable meals and books, and books about meals, and meals…you get the point. It's a fun conversation with one of the sharpest minds in the media.Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. MORE FROM DWIGHT GARNER:Dwight Garner Always Has a Muffuletta in the Freezer [Grub Street]A Remembrance of Diet Cokes Past [FT]A Lightning Rod Defends His Legacy (and Has a Few Regrets) [NYT]

How much do you know about olive oil? After this episode, a lot more. Skyler Mapes, cofounder of EXAU Olive Oil and coauthor of the new book The Olive Oil Enthusiast, joined us from her home in Calabria, Italy, to drop invaluable olive oil knowledge from harvest to bottle, plus Italy travel tips and more. It's a fun episode, and we hope you'll enjoy it.Also on the show, Aliza and Matt go over three things they each are enjoying, including: The Neon Croissant, JJ Johnson's great new book The Simple Art of Rice, IG of note @haileecatalano, Dwight Garner's The Upstairs Delicatessen, C Pam Zhang's How Much of These Hills Is Gold, the TikTokers are coming!Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We'd love to hear from you. MORE FROM SKYLER MAPES:Meet the Woman Bringing Calabrian Olive Oil to the U.S. [Conde Nast Traveler]Forbes 30 Under 30, 2021 [Forbes]Demystifying Extra Virgin Olive Oil With Skyler Mapes and Giuseppe Morisani [Italy Magazine]

Lior Lev Sercarz is the chef, spice blender, and owner of La Boîte, a world-renowned spice company located in New York City. On this episode, we catch up with Lior about his unique path from Israel to some of the most famous restaurant kitchens in New York. We talk about the culinary school he's founding in Northern Israel and dive into his incredible new book, A Middle Eastern Pantry. For real, this is one of our favorite books of the year, and together we go over many of the spices and condiments that shape this amazing culinary history. Lior is a true original, and we hope you enjoy our conversation.Also on the show, Aliza and Matt give some very early thoughts on the upcoming fall cookbook season, including exciting new books from Yossy Arefi, Rie McClenny, Yewande Komolafe, Andrew Tarlow, Pierre Thiam, Jing Gao, Dwight Garner, and C Pam Zhang.FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW:instagram.com/chefliorinstagram.com/mattrodbardinstagram.com/taste

Editor and literary critic Oscar Villalon joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to celebrate the life and legacy of the novelist Cormac McCarthy, who died last month. The hosts and Villalon reflect on McCarthy's vast vocabulary and cinematic descriptions, in which he juxtaposed lyrical prose with graphic violence. Villalon considers McCarthy's use of regionally accurate Spanish in the Border Trilogy as evidence of the author's broad understanding of the U.S.'s multilingual diversity. Villalon also reads and discusses a passage from McCarthy's 1994 novel The Crossing, the second book in the trilogy.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf and Todd Loughran.Oscar Villalon ZYZZYVA LitHub “Barbarians at the Wall,” by Oscar Villalon, from Virginia Quarterly Review Oscar Villalon (@ovillalon) · Twitter Cormac McCarthy The Orchard Keeper (1965) Outer Dark (1968) Child of God (1974) Suttree (1979) Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West (1985) All the Pretty Horses (1992) The Crossing (1994) Cities of the Plain (1998) No Country for Old Men (2005) The Road (2006) The Passenger (2022) Stella Maris (2022) Others: “Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89,” by Dwight Garner, The New York Times “Cormac McCarthy Had a Remarkable Literary Career. It Could Never Happen Now,” by Dan Sinykin, The New York Times “Albert R. Erskine, 81, an Editor For Faulkner and Other Authors,” by Bruce Lambert, The New York Times Paul Yamazaki on Fifty Years of Bookselling at City Lights, by Mitchell Kaplan, Literary Hub “Crossing the Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy and American History,” by Bennett Parten, Los Angeles Review of Books Oprah's Exclusive Interview with Cormac McCarthy - Video - June 1, 2008 Oprah on Cormac McCarthy's Life In Books Oprah's Book Club William Faulkner Cormac McCarthy, MacArthur Foundation Grant City Lights Booksellers and Publishers The Crystal Frontier by Carlos Fuentes Roberto Bolaño Larry McMurtry King James Version of the Bible/Old Testament/Apostle Paul Saul Bellow Ernest Hemingway Caroline Casey Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 7: What Was It Like to Care About Books 20 Years Ago? Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 24: Oscar Villalon and Arthur Phillips on Getting That Big, Fat Writer's Advance Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5, Episode 10: ‘How on Earth Do You Judge Books?': Susan Choi and Oscar Villalon on the Real Story Behind Literary Awards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Editor and literary critic Oscar Villalon joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to celebrate the life and legacy of the novelist Cormac McCarthy, who died last month. The hosts and Villalon reflect on McCarthy's vast vocabulary and cinematic descriptions, in which he juxtaposed lyrical prose with graphic violence. Villalon considers McCarthy's use of regionally accurate Spanish in the Border Trilogy as evidence of the author's broad understanding of the U.S.'s multilingual diversity. Villalon also reads and discusses a passage from McCarthy's 1994 novel The Crossing, the second book in the trilogy. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf and Todd Loughran. Oscar Villalon ZYZZYVA LitHub “Barbarians at the Wall,” by Oscar Villalon, from Virginia Quarterly Review Oscar Villalon (@ovillalon) · Twitter Cormac McCarthy The Orchard Keeper (1965) Outer Dark (1968) Child of God (1974) Suttree (1979) Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West (1985) All the Pretty Horses (1992) The Crossing (1994) Cities of the Plain (1998) No Country for Old Men (2005) The Road (2006) The Passenger (2022) Stella Maris (2022) Others: “Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89,” by Dwight Garner, The New York Times “Cormac McCarthy Had a Remarkable Literary Career. It Could Never Happen Now,” by Dan Sinykin, The New York Times “Albert R. Erskine, 81, an Editor For Faulkner and Other Authors,” by Bruce Lambert, The New York Times Paul Yamazaki on Fifty Years of Bookselling at City Lights, by Mitchell Kaplan, Literary Hub “Crossing the Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy and American History,” by Bennett Parten, Los Angeles Review of Books Oprah's Exclusive Interview with Cormac McCarthy - Video - June 1, 2008 Oprah on Cormac McCarthy's Life In Books Oprah's Book Club William Faulkner Cormac McCarthy, MacArthur Foundation Grant City Lights Booksellers and Publishers The Crystal Frontier by Carlos Fuentes Roberto Bolaño Larry McMurtry King James Version of the Bible/Old Testament/Apostle Paul Saul Bellow Ernest Hemingway Caroline Casey Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 7: What Was It Like to Care About Books 20 Years Ago? Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 24: Oscar Villalon and Arthur Phillips on Getting That Big, Fat Writer's Advance Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5, Episode 10: ‘How on Earth Do You Judge Books?': Susan Choi and Oscar Villalon on the Real Story Behind Literary Awards Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recently, two giants of modern American literature died within a single day of each other. Gilbert Cruz talks with Dwight Garner about the work of Cormac McCarthy's work, and with Pamela Paul and Emily Eakin about the life and legacy of Robert Gottlieb.

The writer Martin Amis, who died last week at the age of 73, was a towering figure of English literature who for half a century produced a body of work distinguished by its raucous wit, cutting intelligence and virtuosic prose.On this week's podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks with The Times's critics Dwight Garner (who wrote Amis's obituary for the paper) and Jason Zinoman (who co-hosts a podcast devoted to Amis's career, “The Martin Chronicles”) about the life and death of a remarkable figure who was, as Garner puts it, “arguably the most slashing, articulate, devastatingly clear, pungent writer of the last 25 years of the past century and the first almost 25 of this century.”We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Are you ready to dive in to the work of the prolific and inventive fantasy writer Neil Gaiman? On this week's episode, the longtime Gaiman fan J.D. Biersdorfer, an editor at the Book Review, talks with the host Gilbert Cruz about Gaiman's work, which she recently wrote about for our continuing “Essentials” series.Also this week, Cruz talks with the Times critic Dwight Garner about “The Death of the Author,” a murder mystery that the novelist Stephen Marche wrote with the assistance of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence programs. Is A.I. in fact a harbinger of doom for creative writers?Here are the books discussed in this week's episode:“American Gods,” by Neil Gaiman“Good Omens,” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett“Stardust,” by Neil Gaiman“Coraline,” by Neil Gaiman“The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” by Neil Gaiman“The Sandman,” by Neil Gaiman“The Hyphenated Family,” by Hermann Hagedorn“Monsters,” by Claire Dederer“The Death of the Novel,” by Aidan MarchineWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

It's been 50 years since Michael Lesy's influential cult classic "Wisconsin Death Trip" was published. A documentary text of found material, the book gathered prosaic historical photos of Wisconsin residents from the turn of the 20th century and paired them to haunting effect with fragmentary newspaper archives from the same time period reporting on often garish deaths — what our critic Dwight Garner, evaluating the book for its anniversary, called "horrific local news items that point, page by page, toward spiritual catastrophe. Nearly every person in it looks as if they are about to be struck by lightning."Garner appears on the podcast this week to talk with the host Gilbert Cruz about "Wisconsin Death Trip" and the resonance it still holds in the culture."It evokes what long nights felt like in America," he says, "before there was electricity and radio, and before — if your child was very sick, there were no antibiotics. And maybe your child was dying. And anxiety of course could not be treated then by antidepressants or other kinds of pills. And people quote-unquote went mad more often than we'd like to think. And there were bankruptcies, people threw themselves in front of trains. There are all kinds of suicides in this book. And it just makes you wonder what was happening, what kind of spiritual crisis was going on in Wisconsin in the 1890s."Garner is a fan of unusual documentary literature, he tells Cruz, and in "Wisconsin Death Trip" he sees not only a portrait of a vanished small-town America but also a portrait of vanished journalism. "Newspapers in America have been gutted out," he says. "You don't have small-town papers like this in many places anymore that have real staffs who report on this stuff. There's a kind of reporting in this book that is sort of the 'crazy death' that we don't read about anymore: the person at the sawmill who gets tangled up. Maybe you'll read about it somewhere. But it was more of a staple of small-town news reporting then. Even papers like The New York Times did a lot of that ... But in general what Lesy is after is stuff that almost suggests, as I said before, a kind of spiritual crisis. So many people having breakdowns. And it just makes you realize that our nostalgia for the good old American heartland, there's a real dark shadow there. And in many ways it's false nostalgia. And this book is one of those correctives that puts you in touch with the night side of life in this way that few books of documentary that I've read actually do."We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

For Episode 4 of Book Chat, we travel back just a decade or so, to Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and David Szalay's short stories in a novel, All That Man Is.We discuss Mohsin Hamid's ability to condense big ideas - what makes a fundamentalist? What biases are you bringing to the story? - into readable prose (and his other magical novels like Exit West) and David Szalay's attempt to condense modern masculinity from teen to OAP, as it roves Europe - in one book. You can get in touch bookchatpod@gmail.comSound by Joel Grove and production by Pandora SykesBooks/articles mentioned:All That Man Is and London and the South-East by David SzalayThe Reluctant Fundamentalist, Exit West and The Last White Man by Mohsin HamidGames and Rituals and Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine HeinyThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le CarréShuggie Bain by Douglas StuartThe Rachel Papers by Martin AmisIf on a winter's night a traveller by Italo CalvinoHome Fire by Kamila ShamsieThe Runaways by Fatima Bhutto‘All That Man Is', by David Szalay, review by Christopher Tayler for the Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/fe2db1c4-f797-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132 'All That Man Is,' and a Lot He Is Not, in David Szalay's View, by Dwight Garner for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/books/review-all-that-man-is-and-a-lot-he-is-not-in-david-szalays-view.html I Pledge Allegiance, by Karen Olsson for The New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/books/review/Olsson.t.html Clip attributions:David Szalay on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2019Mohsin Hamid on Radio 4 Bookclub, 2011Subscribe to Books + Bits: https://pandorasykes.substack.com/ Our books for Ep 5:The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey EugenidesMemorial by Bryan Washington Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week's podcast featured members of The New York Times's Books staff discussing the Book Review's picks for the best books of 2022. The paper's staff book critics participated in that selection process — but as readers inevitably do, they also cherished a more personal and idiosyncratic set of books, the ones that spoke to them on account of great characters or great writing, surprising information or heartfelt vulnerability or sheer entertainment value. On this week's podcast, our critics Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs discuss the books that stayed with them throughout 2022.We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

For the next few months, we're sharing some of our favorite conversations from the podcast's archives. This week's segments first appeared in 2017 and 2019, respectively.Jann Wenner, the co-founder and longtime editor of Rolling Stone magazine, has a new memoir out — but it's not the first book to tell his life story: In 2017, the journalist Joe Hagan published a biography, “Sticky Fingers,” that Wenner authorized and then repudiated after it included unflattering details. Hagan was a guest on the podcast in 2017, and explained his approach to the book's most noteworthy revelations: “I made a decision, really at the outset, that I was going to be honest with him and always be frank with him,” he told Pamela Paul and John Williams. “And if I came across difficult material, I was just going to address it with him. So in that way, it kind of let some of the pressure off. And by the end, we reached a point where I really tried to present him with the most radioactive material and make him aware of what I knew, so he wouldn't be surprised.”Also this week, we revisit a 2019 conversation among Williams and The Times's staff book critics Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Parul Sehgal about their list ranking the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years. No. 1: “Fierce Attachments,” by Vivian Gornick.We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Dan Fesperman's 13th thriller, “Winter Work,” is set just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Stasi, East Germany's brutal Cold War intelligence service, was busy destroying evidence. The C.I.A. was just as busy trying to learn the enemy organization's secrets.“The C.I.A., initially, had people calling ex-Stasi agents,” Fesperman says on this week's podcast. “They got a hold of a directory with home phone numbers of some of these Stasi foreign intelligence people. And they started cold-calling them — like salesmen, like these irritating calls we get at home, except for the Stasi it was the C.I.A. calling. ‘Hey, would you like to share your secrets with us? We can pay you.' They were getting mostly hang-ups, a lot of angry lectures. And when that quickly didn't work out, they then began visiting them door to door, which didn't work a whole lot better.”Isaac Fitzgerald visits the podcast to talk about his new memoir, “Dirtbag, Massachusetts,” which recalls his troubled childhood and his eventual coming to terms with those responsible for it.“I was able to give my parents a little more grace in this book,” Fitzgerald says. “And part of that was recognizing that my story didn't start with my birth; my story starts with the things that happened to them.”Also on this week's episode, Elizabeth Harris has news from the publishing world; and Dwight Garner and Molly Young talk about books they've recently reviewed. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed in this week's “What We're Reading”:“Memoirs” by Robert Lowell“Yoga” by Emmanuel CarrèreWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Gabrielle Zevin's new novel, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” is set in the world of video game design, and follows two friends named Sadie and Sam as they collaborate on what becomes a very successful game.“A friend of mine described the book as being what it's like to co-parent something that's not a child,” Zevin says on this week's podcast. “Sam and Sadie, they are more intimate with each other than anyone else in their lives. Yet they aren't spouses, and he's not her child, and yet this is the most important relationship that both of them have. So I wanted to write about that: What if the most important person in your life was really your colleague and your friend?”Morgan Talty visits the podcast to discuss his debut story collection, “Night of the Living Rez,” which is set on the Penobscot Indian Nation reservation in Maine, where Talty was raised.“I was very much aware that Indigenous fiction tries to perform for a white readership, or a largely white readership, and there are instances in books that I've admired by Native writers that I could see this. And I always wanted to shy away from it, because I didn't want to keep feeding into that type of storytelling,” Talty says. “Throughout the book there's less association with Indigeneity in the characters, so it's the characters who are front and center, it's their human nature that's front and center, as opposed to maybe something cultural.”Also on this week's episode, Elizabeth Harris talks about how #BookTok has become a dominant driver of fiction sales; and Dwight Garner and Alexandra Jacobs talk about what people are reading. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed by The Times's critics this week:“I Used to Live Here Once” by Miranda Seymour“The Last Resort” by Sarah StodolaWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Karen Jennings's novel “An Island,” which was on the longlist for the Booker Prize in 2021, is set on a fictional unnamed island off the coast of Africa, where a man named Samuel has worked as a lighthouse keeper for more than 20 years. When a refugee washes up on shore one day, barely alive, Samuel navigates life around this stranger and flashes back to his own past, including his role in a political uprising and years that he spent in prison. On this week's podcast, Jennings says that the book's somewhat fable-like tone was very intentional.“I knew that if I were to write about any one specific country, then I would have to make it about that country: that country's political events, that country's culture,” Jennings says. “My plan was to make it more universal, and attempt to understand something greater, something more complex. And the only way that I could see to do that was to do it in this very pared-down, focused way, reducing most of the action to this fictional island and then to these brief moments — I guess kind of like highlights — from Samuel's past.”Phil Klay, the Marine Corps veteran and acclaimed fiction writer, visits the podcast this week to talk about a new collection of his nonfiction writing, “Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War.”“There's a huge problem when we're regularly sending troops to kill people and sending troops at risk and the president is not forced on a regular basis to go before Congress to explain what the mission is, how it's in the national interest, what it's going to cost, what we're trying to achieve,” Klay says. “I think that war is the most morally fraught thing we can do as a nation, and it demands more democratic accountability.”Also on this week's episode, Dwight Garner and Alexandra Jacobs talk about books they've recently reviewed. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed by the Times's critics this week:“Phil” by Alan Shipnuck“Here's the Deal” by Kellyanne ConwayWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

The filmmaker, artist, author and general cultural icon John Waters visits the podcast this week to talk about his first novel, “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance.” The book features three generations of women in the Sprinkle family, and their very complicated (and antagonistic) relationships with one another. The first of them we meet is Marsha, an unrepentant thief and overall misanthrope; but Waters says he still wants us to root for her.“She's so crazy and so terrible that you can't believe it at first,” Waters says. “And she's quite serious about herself, as all fanatics are. No one in this book has much of a sense of humor about themselves, which, I think, can be played funny — the same way that when I made a movie, the main thing I told every actor was, ‘Never wink at the audience. Say it like you believe every single word.'”Also on this week's episode, Elizabeth Harris discusses the winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes; and Dwight Garner and Jennifer Szalai talk about books they've recently reviewed. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed by The Times's critics this week:“Tacky” by Rax King“The Last Days of Roger Federer” by Geoff DyerWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Thomas Fisher's new book, “The Emergency,” details his life as an emergency physician at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he's worked for 20 years. It provides an up-close look at a hospital during the pandemic, and also zooms out to address the systemic issues that afflict American health care.“This book was conceptualized prior to Covid,” Fisher says on this week's podcast. “But Covid laid bare so much of what I intended to discuss from the beginning. So in some ways it was weirdly fortuitous. It gave the opportunity to discuss many of the details in much more vivid relief because we had this pandemic laying out all the things that have been a problem for so long.”The critic and essayist Maud Newton's first book, “Ancestor Trouble,” details her investigations into her family's fascinating and sometimes discomfiting history, and reflects on our culture's increased obsession with genealogy.“Allowing ourselves to really imagine our ancestors, in all of their fullness — the difficult and bad things that they did, and of course the wonderful things that they did — can just be a really transformative experience,” Newton says. “I've come to find that the line between imagination and spirituality has become a lot more porous over the course of writing this book.”Also on this week's episode, Dwight Garner and Molly Young talk about books they've recently reviewed. John Williams is the host.We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.