Podcasts about The New York Times Book Review

UFOs were once the stuff of tabloids and conspiracy theories. Today they're the subject of congressional hearings, Pentagon investigations, mainstream news coverage, and a new wave of claims about government cover-ups and alien technology. Adam Kirsch, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters, joins Michael Shermer to ask what changed—and why the idea of extraterrestrial visitors has such a powerful hold on us. They discuss Roswell, UFO "disclosure," eyewitness testimony, government secrecy, alien abductions, Carl Sagan and Contact, the religious impulse behind UFO belief, and the difference between testimony and scientific evidence. The conversation also turns to the serious scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence: the Fermi paradox, why decades of SETI have found nothing, how rare intelligent life might be, and whether our ideas about aliens ultimately tell us more about ourselves than about anything actually out there. Adam Kirsch is the author of several books of poetry and criticism and a senior editor at The Atlantic. A 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, Kirsch has written for publications including The New Yorker, Slate, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, Poetry, and Tablet. His new book is We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters.

Do you suffer with anxiety, depression, or another mental illness? Millions of people do. The usual treatment is a prescription medication. If that doesn't work, the healthcare provider may offer a different one. Diet is certainly not the first topic on the provider's mind. But what if, in addition to appropriate pharmacological treatment, you were able to nourish, protect and energize your brain with your diet? Our guest offers evidence that you can heal your mind with a ketogenic approach to eating. We need to acknowledge that this approach is quite different from the plant-rich eating pattern advocated by last week's guest, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz. Humans around the world have adopted a wide range of dietary regimens that support health. Listen to Dr. Georgia Ede explain why she thinks a paleo or ketogenic diet is helpful for bolstering brain health. At The People's Pharmacy, we strive to bring you up to date, rigorously researched insights and conversations about health, medicine, wellness and health policies and health systems. While these conversations intend to offer insight and perspective, the content is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. Please consult your healthcare provider before making any changes to your medical care or treatment. How You Can Listen You could listen through your local public radio station or get the live stream at 7 am EST on Saturday, August 22, 2026, through your computer or smart phone (wunc.org). Here is a link so you can find which stations carry our broadcast. If you can't listen to the broadcast, you may wish to hear the podcast later. You can subscribe through your favorite podcast provider, download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of the page, or listen to the stream on this post starting on August 24, 2026. Can You Heal Your Brain with Food? We live in stressful times. More than 50 million Americans take prescription antidepressants, and millions more are on anti-anxiety medication. Unfortunately, while these drugs can be life savers, they don't always work as well as we would like. In some cases, antidepressants are only about 10 percent more effective than a placebo. Dr. Georgia Ede is a psychiatrist who began her investigation into how food affects mental health serendipitously. She was experimenting with her own diet to address some physical health issues. She used a food and symptom journal to discover the best dietary choices for her own health. To her surprise, the “upside-down” diet that helped her feel better physically also improved her sleep and her ability to focus. She started looking into evidence that a paleo or ketogenic diet could benefit people with mental health challenges. What Is Metabolic Psychiatry? There is evidence that people consuming unhealthy diets full of fast food or ultra-processed products are more susceptible to symptoms of anxiety (Nutrition Neuroscience, May 19, 2026). On the other hand, people participating in a supervised weight-loss program using either a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet or a low-fat diet reported improvements in mood (Obesity, Jan. 2007). Those on the ketogenic (Atkins) diet reported less hunger and fewer unpleasant symptoms. Researchers have also tested a ketogenic diet in people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (Psychiatry Research, May 2024).  These volunteers also had metabolic disorders, including obesity, which is often an unwanted effect of the ant-psychotic drugs they take to treat their condition. This four-month pilot study saw participants lose weight, reduce insulin resistance and lower their triglycerides. Even more impressive, they had a 32 percent reduction in the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. They also reported better sleep and improved life satisfaction. You may find this recent article from National Geographic of interest: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/metabolic-psychiatry-keto-diet-brain-science. Unfortunately, it might be behind a paywall. How Does Food Affect Our Brains? Most of our body tissues are accustomed to getting energy from glucose, with the help of insulin. However, years of exposure to high levels of these compounds often makes the tissues less sensitive to the effects of insulin. The consequence is that the body–and therefore also the brain–is flooded with high levels of glucose. This exposure can result in the formation of advanced glycation end products in the brain, which can be harmful. The brain evolved to use either glucose or a flexible mix of glucose and ketones. These are the result of burning fat rather than sugar. A paleo diet will naturally provide more ketones and less glucose. Dr. Ede and colleagues have found that a ketogenic diet can be very helpful even for people with relatively serious mental problems. In one study (which was not placebo-controlled), patients hospitalized with severe persistent mental illness were given a ketogenic diet. Most did well and had significant improvements in their depression and psychosis symptoms (Frontiers in Psychiatry, July 6, 2022). Is Ketosis Dangerous? Ketosis itself simply means that you are burning fat as fuel rather than sugar. This can be achieved by following a diet that is high in animal fat, with moderate amounts of animal protein and low amounts of carbohydrate derived from plant foods. Ketosis is not inherently dangerous. However, Dr. Ede urges anyone who wants to heal their brain with diet to ask a healthcare provider to monitor and supervise the process. Prescription drug doses may require adjustment, and people may need support as they adopt a paleo or ketogenic diet. That is why this is not a do-it-yourself approach. Is Coconut Oil Helpful to Heal Your Brain? Dr. Ede described the benefits of medium-chain fatty acids produced in digesting fat. You may recall a video from a few years back in which a doctor described helping her husband recover from Alzheimer disease, at least partially, by giving him coconut oil. Some researchers consider Alzheimer disease to be a form of diabetes because the AD brain does not metabolize sugar effectively. Dr. Ede suggested that the benefits may be real, but getting medium-chain fatty acids from the diet rather than be taking coconut oil might be preferable. After Dr. Ede told us about Fran, who overcame significant memory problems by changing to a ketogenic diet, we hope there will be trials on this. Future Trials on Diet to Heal Your Brain Dietary trials are notoriously difficult to conduct. People often don't stick to the prescribed diet, and it can be difficult to find an appropriate placebo for comparison. Nonetheless, Dr. Ede is looking forward to results from a large trial of the keto diet for people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This study is being conducted in Australia. This Week’s Guest Dr. Georgia Ede is a globally recognized expert in nutritional and metabolic psychiatry. Her 25+ years of clinical experience include 7 years at Harvard University, where she was the first psychiatrist to offer nutrition-based approaches to mental health conditions. Dr. Ede co-authored the first inpatient study of the ketogenic diet for serious mental illness, developed the first medically accredited course in ketogenic diets for mental health, and is a recipient of the Baszucki Metabolic Mind Award. Current research collaborations include pilot studies in pediatric bipolar disorder, adult ADHD, and PTSD. Her internationally bestselling book Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind: A Powerful Plan to Improve Mood, Overcome Anxiety, and Protect Memory for a Lifetime of Optimal Mental Health is being translated into 11 languages and is recommended by the New York Times Book Review. The People's Pharmacy is reader supported. When you buy through links in this post, we may earn a small affiliate commission (at no cost to you). Dr. Georgia Ede, author of Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind Listen to the Podcast The podcast of this program will be available Monday, August 24, 2026, after broadcast on Aug. 22. In this week's podcast, we'll learn how vegetarians can follow a ketogenic diet. How does the evidence Dr. Ede has collected accord with the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness? We also discuss why the standard American diet is not good for mental wellbeing, and we find out what might be in Dr. Ede's own shopping cart. You can stream the show from this site and download the podcast for free. Download the mp3, or listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The New York Times Book Review recently released its list of the 50 best thrillers of the 21st century. To put it together, the team asked almost 300 authors and other experts to vote for the best heart-thumping, page-turning, white knuckle reads published since 2000. In this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” Natalie Kitroeff talks with the Times thrillers columnist, Sarah Lyall, about how the list came together. Then, Natalie speaks with one of the greatest thriller writers of this century — with four books featured on the list — the author Tana French. On Today's Episode: Sarah Lyall writes a monthly thrillers column for The New York Times. Tana French is the author of many best-selling books, including “In the Woods,” “The Searcher,” “The Likeness” and “The Witch Elm.” Background Reading: The 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century Photo credit: Naila Ruechel 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.

Named ‘The Funniest Writer in America' P.J. O'Rourke. Eat the Rich. Audiobook Excerpt Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics by P. J. O'Rourke  A New York Times bestseller: "The funniest writer in America" takes on the global economy (The Wall Street Journal). In this book, renowned political humorist P. J. O'Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and How the Hell Did This Happen? leads us on a hysterical whirlwind world tour from the "good capitalism" of Wall Street to the "bad socialism" of Cuba in search of the answer to an age-old question: "Why do some places prosper and thrive, while others just suck?" With stops in Albania, Sweden, Hong Kong, Moscow, and Tanzania, O'Rourke takes a look at the complexities of economics with a big dose of the incomparable wit that has made him one of today's most refreshing commentators. "O'Rourke has done the unthinkable: he's made money funny." —Forbes FYI "[O'Rourke is] witty, smart and—though he hides it under a tough coat of cynicism—a fine reporter . . . Delightful." —The New York Times Book Review

There's nothing like a good book that keeps you at the edge of your seat.The New York Times Book Review recently put out a list of the 50 best thrillers of the 21st century — all voted on by devotees of the genre.Thursday on Midday Edition, we talk about the list, what makes a great thriller and why people are drawn to the genre today.Then, FilmOut, San Diego's LGBTQ+ Film Festival, returns next week. KPBS arts reporter and horror aficionado Beth Accomando spoke with two horror filmmakers presenting at the festival.And finally, it's a busy weekend in the arts. KPBS Julia Dixon Evans shares her top recommendations for getting your culture fix without breaking the bank.Guests:Tina Jordan, deputy editor, New York Times Book ReviewMichael Varrati, producer, "Scorch Marks"Brendan Haley, writer-director, "Scorch Marks"Julia Dixon Evans, arts reporter, host of "The Finest" podcast, KPBSLinks:"Let's Talk About the 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century" — New York Times Book Review podcast

Jess Row is the author of the novel Your Face in Mine, the essay collection White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination, and two collections of short stories, The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Granta, n+1, and elsewhere, has been anthologized three times in The Best American Short Stories, and has won two Pushcart Prizes and a PEN/O. Henry Award. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA fellowship in fiction, a Whiting Writers Award, and a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. In 2007, he was named a “Best Young American Novelist” by Granta. His nonfiction and criticism appear often in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Threepenny Review, and Boston Review, among other venues. He directs the undergraduate creative writing program in the Department of English at NYU and lives in New York City and Plainfield, Vermont. His latest is the shortstory collection titled, Storyknife. Learn more at jessrow.com Intro reel, Writing Table Podcast 2024 Outro RecordingFollow the Writing Table: @writingtablepodcastEmail questions or tell us who you'd like us to invite to the Writing Table: writingtablepodcast@gmail.com.

A teen golf prodigy launches a powerful drive that kills a golf caddy at a tony New York country club. Investigations and hidden scandals soon follow.So begins best-selling Vermont author Chris Bohjalian's spellbinding new book, “The Amateur.” His 26th novel is classic Bohjalian: a riveting tale told by a female protagonist that weaves together mystery, intrigue, romance, betrayal and secrets that had me frantically turning the page to find out what happens next.Bohjalian is among Vermont's most beloved and prolific authors of literary and historical fiction. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages, and three of his novels — “Secrets of Eden,” “Midwives” and “Past the Bleachers” — have been made into movies. “The Flight Attendant” is an Emmy-nominated series on HBO Max. He has also written three plays. The New York Times Book Review named “The Amateur” one of “The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.”Bohjalian often writes from the perspective of a female protagonist. “I do it because I think a woman is more likely than a man to go on the emotional odyssey that the tale demands,” he told me. He said he considers it high praise when a reader tells him, “I thought you were a woman.”Bohjalian, who lives in Weybridge, has won numerous literary awards. He wrote the “Idyll Banter” column for the Burlington Free Press for nearly 25 years, has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and writes periodic essays on his Substack. He is a graduate of Amherst College.Bohjalian has also been recognized for his efforts to educate Americans about the Armenian genocide. He has family who survived the genocide, which was launched in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and resulted in the deaths of as many as 1.2 million Armenians. He has written regularly on the topic, including his 2012 book, “The Sandcastle Girls,” which is a love story with the genocide as its backdrop. He is keenly aware that history often repeats itself.“Genocide begins with language, by demonizing the minority, by reducing them to something less than human, something like an insect, a vermin, a parasite, a germ,” he told me. “Just as the Ottoman Empire used that language about the Armenians, or the Nazis used that sort of language about the Jewish citizens of Europe, increasingly in the United States we see immigrants or people from other countries demonized in much the same way.”He cited the example of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance “demonizing Ohio Haitian citizens, claiming that they were so animalistic they ate dogs and cats.”“I vacillate wildly between whether I believe that democracy in America is really in jeopardy or simply believing that we are in a cycle right now where there is a stupidity, a cruelty and a savagery that is cyclical, and eventually we will swing back,” he said.Bohjalian kicks off a national book tour for “The Amateur” with an event at the South Burlington Public Library on Saturday. He has another novel due out in 2028 and is at work on a play.His advice to aspiring writers?“Write because you love it. Write in the genre you love to read. Write every day.”

Renowned picture book creators, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, want people of all ages to understand and appreciate children's stories and how this art form enriches our individual lives and our culture. Speaking on the process of creating their latest collaboration, a board book series called Now I See, Barnett and Klassen have insights into what makes a great children's book using elements you can find both on and off the page. This multi-award winning, New York Times bestselling duo operates differently than a lot of children's book creators. Typically, an author and illustrator don't directly collaborate, and yet these two find success in close conversations with each other. Using their unique perspectives, Barnett and Klassen also write a newsletter for adults, Looking at Picture Books, which examines the picture book as a respected art form. Their Now I See board book collection applies that lens by celebrating the spare beauty and wonder of the changing seasons from the point of view of a child. A tree that has full green leaves in Now I See Summer sheds them in Now I See Fall. The snowy sky of Now I See Winter gives way to the rainy sky in Now I See Spring. And of course, the perfect hat changes with each season, too. Barnett and Klassen want to uplift the picture book as an art form, showing everyone of every age what goes into the making of great children's literature. They'll discuss the importance and value of picture books — and how they work. Kids are, of course, welcome, but the primary audience for these events is adults keen to learn more about picture books. Mac Barnett, the 2025-2026 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages and has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. Some of his books include The First Cat in Space graphic novel series, illustrated by Shawn Harris, Twenty Questions, illustrated by Christian Robinson, and Santa's First Christmas, illustrated by Sydney Smith. Jon Klassen is the New York Times-bestselling author and illustrator of numerous books, who was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2018 for his contributions to children's literature. His recent books include the Your Places board book series and The Skull, a #1 New York Times bestseller that earned six starred reviews and a piece in the New York Times Book Review in which Ransom Riggs refers to Jon as both "the dean of deadpan" and a "national treasure." Jon Mooallem is the author of three books, Wild Ones, This is Chance! and the essay collection Serious Face. He lives on Bainbridge Island. Buy the Book Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children (Hardcover) Elliott Bay Book Company

The editors at The New York Times Book Review spend almost the entire year discussing, debating and sometimes arguing about the year's best books. We're halfway through 2026, which means it's time for the host Gilbert Cruz and the Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin to talk about some of the best releases of the year as well as a few hidden gems that captured their attention and affection. Fiction “Whistler,” by Ann Patchett “The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett “Transcription,” by Ben Lerner “The Keeper,” by Tana French “Kin,” by Tayari Jones “This Is Where the Serpent Lives,” by Daniyal Mueenuddin Nonfiction “Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage,” by Heather Ann Thompson “Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: My Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground,” by Zayd Ayers Dohrn “Trash!,” by Simon Paré-Poupart “London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth,” by Patrick Radden Keefe “Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution,” by Anand Gopal Hidden Gems “Lost Lambs,” by Madeline Cash “A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies,” by David Thomson “American Han,” by Lisa Lee Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Kraus spoke with us about book promotion as an introvert, writing two books a year, his creative process, and his first sci-fi novel, THE SIXTH NIK. Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling novelist, screenwriter, and 2026 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction for his novel Angel Down. His novel Whalefall received a front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and was named a Best Book of Year by NPR, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and more. His latest novel is The Sixth Nik, “Perfectly aligned for readers of Iain M. Banks's The Culture series and Ursula K. Le Guin's “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, The Sixth Nik is a galaxy-spanning adventure,” that Booklist called “Strange and intense and impossible to look away from … sf at its most daring.” Daniel Kraus coauthored The Shape of Water with Guillermo del Toro, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy Award–winning Netflix series. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, and more. Kraus's work has been translated into over 25 languages. [Discover The Writer Files Extra: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at writerfiles.fm] [If you're a fan of The Writer Files, please click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Daniel Kraus, Milena, and I discussed: How he overcame the productivity “delays” of winning a Pulitzer Prize When he sensed the momentum shift in his writing career The distinctive honor he shares with Cormac McCarthy Adapting Whalefall for the big screen His first foray into science fiction And a lot more! Show Notes: ElevenReader is a new, award-winning audio app for iOS, Android, Web Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/files! #squarepod DanielKraus.com Angel Down (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A Novel by Daniel Kraus (Amazon) The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus (Amazon) Daniel Kraus Amazon Author Page Daniel Kraus on Instagram Milena Gonzalez | Writer | Reader | Book Reviewer diary_of_a_book_babe on Instagram Kelton Reid Instagram Kelton Reid on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a kid I always wondered where do I belong?Today we meet Mario Elías and we're talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Color of Summer by  Reinaldo Arenas.Mario Elías is a multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Syrian descent based in Chicago. His work spans fiction, nonfiction, photography, painting, and printmaking. His book Queering the Male Gaze reimagined masterpieces of the classical and modern canon through essays and self-portraiture, exploring often-overlooked queer and female figures who shaped them. He is the founder of The KindaSuper Project, a philanthropic initiative offering free photography and video services to underserved communities. His debut novel Beloved Disciples just came out earlier this spring.The Color of Summer is a Rabelaisian tale of survival by wits and wit and ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression. This novel is the fulfillment of author Reinaldo Arenas' life's work, the Pentagonía, a five-volume cycle of novels that is his "secret history of Cuba."Reinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death from AIDS ten years later. His extraordinary memoir, Before Night Falls, was named one of the fourteen "Best Books of 1993" by the editors of The New York Times Book Review and has now been made into a major motion picture.Connect with Mario Elíaswebsite: kindasuper.cominstagram: @kindasupermarioOur BookshopVisit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbookBuy your copy of The Color of Summer: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780140157192Buy your copy of Beloved Disciples: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781612943374Become an Associate Producer!Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbookCreditsHost/Founder: John ParkerExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten VagnerPatreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard.Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy EricksonQuatrefoil LibraryQuatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can't buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you!Support the show

“Theory said, it doesn't matter what you've read. It's how you read.” — Emily Eakin on the seduction of the FrenchmenWhen I was a graduate student at Berkeley in the Eighties, there was a bewildering rage for Frenchmen. Foucault in history, Derrida in literature, Althusser in political philosophy, Lacan in psychology. Not that anybody could quite explain what any of them meant — which only made their ideas even more compelling. It was the seduction of the American mind, especially its elite campus version. Innocent times with forty years of hindsight.Emily Eakin caught this Eighties fever for French theory at Harvard. Now an editor at the New York Times Book Review, Eakin has written The Frenchmen, or My Life in Theory, which is both a confessional of her own seduction and a serious piece of intellectual history.A self-described farm girl from Indiana — albeit one whose Francophile parents once left her waiting at a Paris nursery school because a Lévi-Strauss lecture went overtime — she fell for theory as the intellectual equivalent of a little black dress. It looked expensive, even off the rack, she confesses. For a middle-class Midwesterner, it seemed like a passport to Left-Bank sophistication. All you needed was the jargon, the black clothes and, in Eakin's case, the opera gloves.But her Frenchmen, Eakin warns, turned out to be a slippery bunch. Lacan was so difficult that professors cancelled their own classes rather than teach him. Althusser murdered his wife. Foucault's histories were as much fiction as fact. Not even Derrida took Derrida seriously. These were the men undoing the “master narratives” while an enthralled generation of cross-legged young feminists in their little black dresses took notes.And yet Eakin's Frenchmen may have the last laugh. Their theory of language — an impersonal system requiring no human at its center — presciently describes today's AI revolution. Foucault predicted that “man” would be erased like a face drawn in sand on the beach. Forty years on, that tide may be engulfing us all.Five Takeaways•       The Little Black Dress of the Mind. Eakin grew up in a family of Francophiles — one of her earliest memories is her mother arriving late to the Paris maternelle because Claude Lévi-Strauss's lecture had run over — and arrived at Harvard as a middle-class kid from a middling Midwestern high school, painfully aware of the gaps in her education. Theory offered the shortcut: it didn't matter what you'd read, only how you read. The cliché about the little black dress is that it looks expensive even bought on sale off the rack at Macy's, and theory, Eakin says, was its intellectual equivalent. It was also, frankly, sexy — young professors in jeans lecturing on the masturbation of the comma in Henry James, as Lorrie Moore's barely-parodic parody had it, and students dressed in black. Eakin went as far as the opera gloves.•       System Replaces the Self. After the war, Sartre's existentialism made every accurate thought an authentic act of resistance — a heroic message for a France humiliated by four years of Nazi occupation. But the postwar world was not being changed by individual actors, and Lévi-Strauss dismissed the whole business in Tristes Tropiques as “shop girl metaphysics.” Around the time the Berlin Wall went up, Althusser routed Sartre at the École Normale, and a new philosophy took hold, obsessed with vast impersonal forces: not humans controlling events but a structure — with language at its center. The moment that fascinated Eakin is that sixties moment when system replaced the self.•       Difficult by Design — and Easy to Distort. A colleague of Eakin's at the Times was once assigned Lacan's lecture on The Purloined Letter; a few minutes into class, the professor cancelled it, admitting he didn't understand the text he had assigned. That is the level of difficulty in question. Underedited and self-indulgent, Eakin the editor concedes — but each Frenchman left behind one bold idea worth the struggle, like Lacan's mirror stage, in which identity is formed outside ourselves in an act of misrecognition. The difficulty carried a price: it made the work easy to parody, and conservative pundits handed the public a distorted picture. The Frenchmen never said truth doesn't exist, Eakin insists. Their message was to beware political claims masquerading as eternal truths.•       Slippery Politics, Awkward Pasts. Foucault, insecure about his thinning hair, shaved his head, ditched the suits, and by 1970 was in the streets with a megaphone defending prisoners, immigrants, and workers — and he was in San Francisco at the start of the AIDS catastrophe, which is reason to take his politics seriously. Derrida was temperamentally otherwise: nothing follows from deconstruction, as Stanley Fish put it, and the moment of silence his classmates held for Stalin at the École Normale was a bit much for him. The posthumous exposure of de Man's collaborationist journalism hastened theory's American demise. And there was the paradox Eakin only saw while writing the book: men undoing the master narratives, and a generation of feminists — herself included — enthralled to them. De Beauvoir was the indomitable exception, awarded second place in the agrégation by jurors who could barely decide between her and Sartre.•       The Frenchmen's Revenge: AI. When the chatbots got good, American linguistics went into a tailspin: Chomsky's account of language as a uniquely human, embodied endowment cannot explain a machine producing sophisticated sentences. The structuralists' theory — language as an impersonal system in which meaning derives from how words differ from one another — describes generative AI rather well, and scholars such as NYU's Leif Weatherby are now calling for a structuralist revival to understand it. De Man called language a machine; Foucault wrote of the proliferation of authorless discourse; Eakin's recent New York Times essay argues Foucault foresaw everything from AI to the deep state. The Frenchmen, she thinks, would be fascinated rather than appalled — and would remind us to be just as wary of AI's language as of anyone else's.About the GuestEmily Eakin is an editor at The New York Times Book Review. She has worked as a senior editor at The New Yorker, an ideas reporter for The New York Times, a fashion features writer at Vogue, and a deputy editor of Lingua Franca. Her features, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and The New York Review of Books. A Harvard graduate with graduate degrees from Columbia and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, she lives in New York City. Her first book is The Frenchmen, or My Life in Theory (Penguin Press, July 2026).References:•       The Frenchmen, or My Life in Theory by Emily Eakin (Penguin Press, July 2...

The debate about how old is too old to serve in public office has resurfaced this week after the shock death of the Republican Lindsey Graham and the surprise return of Mitch McConnell, the 84-year-old senator who published a photo of himself in hospital after a long absence from the spotlight. With rumours continuing to swirl around Donald Trump's health, why is it that US politicians seem to cling on to power for so long? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Alexis Coe, a presidential historian and columnist for the New York Times Book Review, about whether the US is becoming a gerontocracy

Die Frage nach der wichtigsten Innovation der Wirtschaftsgeschichte ist für manche ganz einfach zu beantworten: das Internet. Was aber, wenn eine unscheinbare Waschmaschine ihm den Rang abläuft?**********HörtippFragen an den Autor**********In dieser Folge:00:02:57 - War die Waschmaschine wichtiger als das Internet?00:11:24 - Warum neue Technik nicht automatisch zu weniger Arbeit führt00:17:33 - Fazit / Wahres für Bares00:19:46 - Hörtipp: Fragen an den Autor**********An dieser Folge waren beteiligt: Autoren: Marcus Wolf und Gregor Lischka Gesprächspartnerin: Marlene Hobbs, Sozialgeographin, Universität Bonn Faktencheck: Merle Körber und Paulina Lange Redaktion: Michael Böddeker Produktion: Alex Stojanoff**********Die Quellen zur Folge:Robert Solow (1987): "We'd better watch out". New York Times Book Review, 12. Juli 1987 Ruth Schwartz Cowan (1983): More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. Basic Books Marlene Hobbs (2021): Küchentechnik ist politisch! Suburban – Zeitschrift für kritische StadtforschungInterview mit Ha-Joon Chang (2023) zu seinem Buch “23 things they don't tell you about capitalism” Hans Roslings Ted-Talk über die Waschmaschine (2011)Alle Quellen findet ihr hier.**********Weitere Beiträge zum Thema:Dynamic Pricing: Zocken uns Algorithmen ab?Das Panini-Prinzip: Wie man mit WM-Stickern Geld drucktRekord-Börsengang: Elon Musk, SpaceX und die Raumfahrt-Milliarden**********Habt ihr auch manchmal einen WTF-Moment, wenn es um Wirtschaft und Finanzen geht? Wir freuen uns über eure Themenvorschläge und Feedback an whatthewirtschaft@deutschlandfunknova.de.**********Den Artikel zum Stück findet ihr hier.**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok und Instagram .

Debut novelist Tara Menon on writing friendship as a life-shaping bond, the emotional architecture of grief, and researching the natural world for her novel Under Water. You'll learn Why a platonic friendship can shape a life as profoundly as any romance How to build tension in a story when the reader already knows what's coming. What an unexpected sea creature reveals about writing the bonds between women. The difference between endless research and knowing just enough to write the scene. Why fiction demands a kind of surrender that criticism never asks for. How grief for a lost friend and grief for a vanishing natural world can become one story. When self-doubt is evidence you're taking the work seriously. Why cutting a novel down to its essentials can matter more than what you leave in. A writing rhythm that looks nothing like “500 words every morning” (and works anyway). What finally makes the writing worth it, long before publication does. Resources & Links

This week, Jonathan and Gary are joined by multiple award winning writer and critic Amal El-Mohtar, whose first story collection Seasons of Glass and Iron appeared earlier this year, and whose novella The River has Roots has won Nebula and Locus awards for 2026. We talk about our favorite stories in the collection, a diverse range of writers including Patricia McKillip, J.R.R. Tolkien, Hope Mirrlees, Virginia Woolf, and Charle de Lint, and about Amal's own experiences as a writer of Lebanese descent living in Canada and Glasgow. We hope that what the discussion lacks in focus, it makes up with Amal's sharp insights as a writer of fiction, poetry, and criticism (in her occasional New York Times Book Review columns).

New York Times bestselling author Jessica Knoll spoke with us about her career trajectory from magazine editor to novelist and screenwriter, the allure of dark romance, and her latest erotic thriller, HELPLESS. Jessica Knoll is the New York Times bestselling author of Bright Young Women, The Favorite Sister, and Luckiest Girl Alive — now a major motion picture on Netflix starring Mila Kunis. She adapted and executive-produced Luckiest Girl Alive for the screen. In 2021, she was named a screenwriter to watch by Variety, and in 2019, her original script, ‘Til Death, sold to Amazon and made The Black List. Her latest novel, Helpless, was named a New York Times, Oprah Daily, Crime Reads, Town & Country, and Bookpage Most Anticipated Book. Booklist described Helpless as “[A] taut contemporary tale of the explosive reunion of two former lovers… Knoll's twisty tale of psychological suspense, with its exploration of a nuanced relationship with elements of submission and control, will get readers talking.” And the New York Times Book Review wrote, “Knoll is the author of really unsettling thrillers… [Helpless] is like Misery but with your ex.” Before writing fiction, Knoll built a career in editorial journalism, serving as a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and as articles editor at Self magazine. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Vogue. [Discover The Writer Files Extra: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at writerfiles.fm] [If you're a fan of The Writer Files, please click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Jessica Knoll, Milena, and I discussed: Writing her first novel in under ten months How she taught herself the screenwriting craft Why you need to write the book you want to read How to write “low-fat” novels The first time she understood that unlikable characters can anchor your fiction And a lot more! Show Notes: ElevenReader is a new, award-winning audio app for iOS, Android, Web Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/files! #squarepod jessicaknoll.com Helpless: A Novel by Jessica Knoll (Amazon) Jessica Knoll Amazon Author Page⁠ Jessica Knoll on Facebook⁠ Jessica Knoll on TikTok Jessica Knoll on Instagram⁠ Milena Gonzalez | Writer | Reader | Book Reviewer diary_of_a_book_babe on Instagram Kelton Reid Instagram Kelton Reid on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Photographers Jarod Lew and Reagan Louie join PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf to discuss how they explore cultural identity, personal loss, and trauma through photography. Lew and Louie are Asian American photographers from different generations, and their work reflects how the exploration of cultural identity in contemporary photography has evolved over the decades. While Louie takes a documentary photography approach, Lew works through more conceptual constructs. Their conversation with Wolf highlights the visual differences between their practices while revealing striking resonances in how they discuss their approach. https://www.jarodlew.com https://www.reaganlouie.com Jarod Lew is an artist who draws on photography to explore intergenerational encounters with diasporic loss, displacement, and postmemory. Through this exploration, his work contends with the performativity of race and its instability as a locus of meaning. His project, Please Take Off Your Shoes was shortlisted for the Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2021, and was exhibited in a group exhibition at SFMOMA titled Kinship: Photography and Connection in 2023. His other project, In Between You and Your Shadow, examines his relationship with his mother, who was the fiancé of Vincent Chin--the subject of a hate-crime that brought national attention to matters of Asian American civil rights. In 2025, Lew will mount his first museum exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art titled- Strange You Never Knew.  His works are held in public and private collections including the Cantor Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, Kadist, San Francisco, Harvard Art Museum, University of Michigan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lew's work has been written about in Aperture, Artforum, Elephant Magazine, and Aesthetica Magazine. Lew graduated with an MFA in photography at the Yale School of Art. Reagan Louie's photography and installations explore global transformation and cultural identity. He is currently at work on several projects that focus on the relationship between home and homeland; including a book about his family's immigration from China to America. And a Virtual Reality experience about his ancestral home, Wing Wor. His work is exhibited at institutions: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art NY, Philadelphia Art Museum, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Gwangju Biennale. Louie's photographs are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art NY, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum, Cantor Art Museum. Louie's photographs are widely published. His books have received critical acclaim. The New York Times Book Review named his first book on China, “Toward a Truer Life”, the photography book of the year. He is the recipient of numerous awards - The Guggenheim fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Lange-Taylor Prize, and Fulbright Fellowship.

New to the ARC Party?If you're new here, I'll explain why this episode is so cool. Every six months, I get together with two of the most informed and well-read people in the horror book world…Becky Spratford: Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Librarian in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All, writes reviews for Booklist and a Horror review column for Library Journal. Becky has been an elected Library Trustee and a former Board member for both the Reaching Across Illinois Library System and the Illinois Library Association. Known for her work with Horror readers. Becky is the author of three text books for library workers and the Locus Award nominated and Bram Stoker Award winning Why I Love Horror [Saga Press, 2025]. Becky was named one of the Chicago Tribune's Chicagoans of the Year in 2025. She is on the Shirley Jackson Award Advisory Board and is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association, currently serving as the Association's Secretary and Co-Chair of their Libraries Committee.andEmily Hughes: Emily C. Hughes (she/her) is the Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Horror For Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You're Too Scared to Watch and the co-founder of Darker Times, a worker-owned magazine about horror and culture. You can find her writing elsewhere in the New York Times Book Review, Vulture, Slate, Reactor Magazine, Electric Literature, Nightmare Magazine, Thrillist, and more. Emily lives in crunchy western Massachusetts with her husband and four idiot cats.… and we spend a couple of hours talking about books that we're super excited to read in the coming six months. We each choose two books per month, and go around sharing what we know about them. It's a ton of fun, and it gives us an opportunity to talk up dozens of books. To date we have highlighted 219 books! That's a lotta reads. And remember, books don't have an expiration date, so feel free to go back in my YouTube playlist at the end of this entry, and get some recommendations from 2024 and 2025 as well!Don't forget to support your hosts!* Keep coming back for my monthly Horror TBR list episodes!* Becky's book won multiple Bram Stoker Awards at this year's StokerCon!* Subscribe to Emily's new horror magazine: Darker TimesThe Books!JulyFabulous Bodies by Chuck TingleThe Red Sacrament by Sara HinkleyHome Sick by Rhiannon GristCarry Me To My Grave by Christopher GoldenThe Flayed Man by Chloe LauterCaught in the In-Between by Alyson HassonAugustA Plagued Sea by Kim Bo-YoungThe Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam HigginsonCalamities by Chuck WendigThe Minimalist by Kailee PedersenThe Burn Line by Jonathan SimsArson By Design by Tyler JonesSeptemberKiss, Slay, Replay by Rachel HarrisonBlacktail by Scott HawkinsSomething of a Calling by Zoje StageMazywood bt Tananarieve DueAmerican Nightmare by Kelly McWilliamsThe Nudge by Joseph FinkWe Turn Gruesome at Night by Eric LaRoccaIncarnate by Alma KatsuSomething Followed Us Home ed. by Cynthia PelayoNever Whistle At Night II: Back for Blood ed. Shane Hawk and Theodore C Van AlstOur Cut of Salt by Deena HelmThe Ship of Death by Kyle WinklerObserver by Nicholas RussellCrone by Keith RossonThe Rouse by China MiévilleWorry Box by Chris PanatierPictures of You by Josh MalermanOctoberOff The Reservation by Stephen Graham JonesCarrying by Samantha JosephsSavage Lake by Nick MedinaMilk Teeth by Caitlin StarlingThe Unhaunting by Micaiah JohnsonFind Me Where It Ends by Cassandra KhawNovemberDepth Charge by Tyler JonesAnnex of the Obscure vol. 1 by Mo MoshatyWelcome Home Miriam by Sanchita MitraThere Used To Be People Here by Kennedy ColeDecemberDive by Allison MickMotherfucking Sharks by Brian Allen CarrVampire Menstrual Syndrome by SC HunterSee ALL of our recommendations from over the years on my YouTube Playlist:Horror Preview Playlist: 219 Horror Books from 2024 to 2026!For those who prefer YouTube: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thearcparty.com/subscribe

In 2024, The New York Times Book Review gathered more than 500 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets and literary enthusiasts to help pick the best books of the 21st century so far. One of those books was Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Road,” which came in at No. 13. That book tells the story of a man and his young son trying to survive in a postapocalyptic United States. Like other books by McCarthy, it combines ornate prose with moments of unforgettable violence. It is also a moving story of love and parenthood under the most extreme circumstances. One of the people who voted on our best books list was Ryan Holiday, author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, host of the “Daily Stoic” podcast and owner of the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. We recently invited him on the “Book Review” podcast to talk about “The Road,” and how its meaning changed for him after he became a father. Books Discussed on This Episode: “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy “No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy “All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy “The Odyssey” by Homer “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Children of Men” by P. D. James “The Plague” by Albert Camus “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius “Of Boys and Men” by Richard Reeves “Outdoor Kids in an Inside World” by Steven Rinella “Letter to His Father” by Franz Kafka “Range” by David Epstein “Good Inside” by Becky Kennedy “Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy “Death Be Not Proud” by John Gunther “The Revenant” by Michael Punke 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.

EP 31 - "On Writing and Life" | Cleyvis Natera | Award-Winning Author of Neruda on the Park & The Grand Paloma Resort (2025)Cleyvis Natera is an award-winning author whose work spans fiction, essays, and cultural criticism. Her debut novel, Neruda on the Park, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, selected by Malala Yousafzai for her book club, and won a Silver Medal for Best First Book of Fiction from the International Latino Book Awards in 2023. The book was also featured by TIME, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and more. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, TIME, and The Rumpus. She's received fellowships from PEN America,Bread Loaf, the Vermont Studio Center, and was recently named a Fulbright Associate. She teaches creative writing at Barnard College and Montclair State University, where she's helping launch a new bilingual MFA program. Her second novel, The Grand Paloma Resort, was just published by Ballantine Books.

In 1976 historian George H. Nash wrote The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, a celebrated historical accounting that established much of the narrative for how we think about the development of modern conservatism even today.  But much has changed since the seventies.  What can the history of conservatism tell us about this present moment, and what can it tell us about where things may be heading?  Dr. Nash joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to unravel the past, present, and future of conservatism in the United States.   About George H. Nash George H. Nash is the epitome of a gentleman and a scholar.  A graduate from Amherst College who received his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University, Dr. Nash is an authority on the histories of American conservatism and the life of President Herbert Hoover.  Dr. Nash is an independent scholar, historian, and lecturer.  He speaks and writes frequently about the history and present direction of American conservatism, the life of Herbert Hoover, the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the education of the Founding Fathers, and other subjects.  His writings have appeared in the American Spectator, Claremont Review of Books, Intercollegiate Review, Modern Age, National Review, New York Times Book Review, Policy Review, University Bookman, Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.  He has lectured at the Library of Congress; the National Archives; the Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson presidential libraries; the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum; the Hoover Institution; the Heritage Foundation; the McConnell Center; and at various universities and conferences in the United States and Europe.  Several of his lectures have been featured on C-SPAN.  He has also been interviewed by C-SPAN, National Public Radio, numerous radio stations, and the print media.  Dr. Nash lives in Massachusetts.  

Today’s archival episode with Richard Powers, about The Overstory, was recorded in 2019 in the studios of KBOO community radio in Portland, Oregon.  Unusually, that same night I appeared with Richard at a live ticketed event at Revolution Hall to discuss the same book. Beyond the differences between an intimate one-on-one in-studio conversation (which today’s episode is), and a public-facing live event, where the presence of the audience is palpable and becomes part of the collective rapport we establish, I also developed two discrete lines of inquiry for each conversation respectively. So if you haven’t heard the live conversation (aired in 2023), I highly recommend it as well. Barbara Kingsolver for the New York Times Book Review declares The Overstory—winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction—a book that accomplishes “what few living writers from either camp, art or science, could attempt. Using the tools of story, he pulls readers heart-first into a perspective so much longer-lived and more subtly developed than the human purview that we gain glimpses of a vast, primordial sensibility.” What does it mean to de-center humans in a story written for a human readership?  We explore that together today. For the bonus audio archive Richard discusses a collaborative tree cantata between musicans and writers, where writers pick their favorite text about trees and the musicians compose music to accompany it. Richard then reads his selection for the project, “Native Trees” by W.S. Merwin. This joins an ever-growing archive of material contributed by past guests, whether Forrest Gander reading poems in collaboration with a lichen scientist or Jorie Graham reading poems about rain by others; whether writing exercises by Lucy Ives, Lily Dunn or Will Alexander, or craft talks by Jeannie Vanasco and Marlon James. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community, head over to the show’s Patreon page.

Host Greta Johnsen talks to two of her favorite readers -- MJ Franklin, an editor at the New York Times Book Review and host of The Book Review Book Club podcast, and Traci Thomas, who hosts the wonderfully bookish podcast The Stacks.Even though the three of them have WILDLY different reading tastes, they also have an abundance of respect for each other, so these conversations are always a treat. Here's a list of each of their recommendations: Greta's picks: The Children, Melissa Albert (June 2)Land, Maggie O'Farrell (June 2)Etna, Paul Yoon August 4Traci's picks:Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life, Dusty Baker (June 9)The Great Wherever, Shannon Sanders (July 7) Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America, Rozina Ali (August 25)MJ's picks:Country People, Daniel Mason (July 7)Fixer Chao, Han Ong (July 14)The Mortons, Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld (July 21)SHOW CREDITSCreator and host: Greta JohnsenSenior Producer: Ben GoldbergComposers: Ross Bellenoit and Jeremy ThalTile art: Mac MacleanSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alie Dumas-Heidt chats with fellow authors about their earliest beginnings and answer everyone's favorite question - What happens next? - on The Writer's Journey. Sara Hamdan is a Palestinian American author and editor-in-chief of T: The New York Times T Style Magazine MENA. It took her ten years to publish her first novel, written in small moments between work, raising kids and navigating the pandemic, to great critical acclaim. The book was a finalist in the Jimmy Fallon Book Club 2025, recommended by The New York Times Book Review, Goodreads, Forbes, and won a Netflix story award. In her professional life, Sara is a former Google editor, New York Times journalist, and Merrill Lynch banker. She is a proud (and tired) mom of two and lives with her family in sunny Dubai. @bysarahamdan on Instagram --- Alie Dumas-Heidt is the author of The Myth Maker, a detective thriller introducing Det. Cassidy Cantwell, set in Tacoma Washington. She lives in the PNW with her husband, adult kids, and two spoiled dogs. http://aliedh.com

Christina Baker Kline joins Book Gang to discuss The Foursome, a novel inspired by her family ties to the descendants of conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker. This week's Book Gang conversation welcomes #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline, whose new novel The Foursome delivers a captivating book club premise inspired by the true story of Chang and Eng Bunker. Kline's narrative follows the conjoined twins from their international stardom to settling in North Carolina, where they seek love and family, culminating in an unexpected and unforgettable love story with sisters Adelaide and Sarah. Kline invites readers into her flourishing career, where she reflects on Orphan Train's success and what's changed since she began in the 1990s. For writers and readers alike, she offers compelling advice on weathering publishing changes. In this inviting and deeply immersive conversation, we discuss:

Today on Scope Conditions: when the bombs don't go off, the war isn't over.We tend to think of peace as beginning when the bombs stop falling. But as our guest today shows us, this is only half the story. Over the course of the Vietnam War, the United States engaged in massive bombing in Cambodia. Between 1965 and 1973, the U.S. dropped 500,000 tons of explosives there — more than the combined weight of every man, woman, and child in the country. Dr. Erin Lin, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University, set out to understand the continued impacts of this cataclysmic bombing campaign on Cambodian society. A landmark 2011 study had given us a partial answer: it had concluded that US bombing had no measurable long-term effects on economic outcomes in Southeast Asia. For years, that finding set the terms of the debate.In her award-winning book, When the Bombs Stopped: The Legacy of War in Rural Cambodia, published by Princeton University Press, Erin pushes back. She argues that those analyses were looking at the wrong level — that district-level aggregates conceal devastating effects on individual households and farms. More than that, they were looking at only half the intervention. It's the bombs that didn't detonate — an estimated 26 million cluster munitions still embedded in the soil — that are shaping life today in rural Cambodia.Erin spent years farming alongside families, combing through declassified military records, and building some of the most granular data ever assembled on the American bombing campaign. Her creative multi-method research design allows her to trace the dramatic long-term consequences of unexploded ordinance for the economic livelihood of Cambodian farmers.We talk with Erin about the many ironies laced through her findings: that cluster munitions are most likely to fail in soft, fertile soil, meaning Cambodia's most agriculturally valuable land is also its most contaminated; that bomb contamination can paradoxically shield farmers from predatory land seizures by political elites; and that unexploded ordnance, rather than forging solidarity among those living with it, tends to deepen ethnic divisions within villages.We hope you learn from this conversation. To stay informed about future episodes, follow us on X and Bluesky @scopeconditions and check out our website, scopeconditionspodcast.com, where you can also find references to all the academic works we discuss. And if you like the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.We note that we recorded this interview before the recent US-Israeli war with Iran. Now, here's our conversation with Erin Lin.Works cited in this episodeBiddle, Steven. 2004. Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle. Princeton University Press.Brooks, Rosa. 2014. “Cross-Border Targeted Killings: ‘Lawful but Awful'?” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 38:233–50.________. 2014. “Drones and the International Rule of Law.” Ethics & International Affairs 28(1):83–103. ________. 2016. How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon. Simon and Schuster.Horowitz, Michael C. 2010. The Diffusion of Military Power. Princeton University Press.Lyall, Jason, and Isaiah Wilson. 2009. “Rage against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars.” International Organization 63(1):67–106.Reiter, Dan, and Allan C. Stam. 2010. Democracies at War. Princeton University Press.Pape, Robert A. 2014. Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. Cornell University Press.Schelling, Thomas. 2008. Arms and Influence. Yale University Press.Sheehan, Neil. 1971. “Should We Have War Crime Trials?” New York Times Book Review. 

In the words of the Los Angeles Times, “A new book by (Patrick Radden) Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning pages for hours.” Keefe is an award-winning investigative journalist, a staff writer at the New Yorker, the creator of a popular podcast, and the author of six books, including the bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing. “When I go out looking for a good story,” says Keefe, “I almost never find one. Instead, the really good ones tend to fall in my lap.” Say Nothing was prompted by reading an obituary. A wild-seeming rumor about the 90's heavy metal band The Scorpions led to the podcast Wind of Change, a sweeping tale of government secrets, Soviet spies, propaganda, and 90's power ballads. To call his research “meticulous” is an understatement. Keefe's book, Snakehead, required over 300 interviews to complete. Say Nothing found him speaking to thousands of sources. While writing about the opioid epidemic in EMPIRE OF PAIN, Keefe was blocked from speaking to the Sackler family, so instead, he amassed thousands of correspondences from personal emails to Bar Mitzvah announcements. Though Keefe's doggedness recalls the detective stories that inspired him early on, he is perhaps more hopeful than hardboiled. By approaching those forces that appear too vast to unravel, he proves that even institutions and systems that seem unassailable can, in fact, be broken down and examined—one interview, one receipt, one wedding invitation at a time. Like all the great whodunnits, his books contain breathtaking plot twists. Though he has, on at least one occasion, solved a murder mystery, Keefe is less interested in pointing to a perpetrator and more interested in holding up a mirror. The question at the heart of his work is one that pertains to everyone: What does it mean to be human? His newest book, London Falling, is an investigation into the mysterious death of 19-year-old Zach Brettler and its connection to both London's criminal underworld and its elite circles. The author Katherine Rundell says, “Nobody writes like Patrick Radden Keefe; nobody makes achieving something so powerfully complex and difficult look so easy. It's a form of intellectual generosity and, I think, a form of genius.” Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rogues, Empire of Pain, and Say Nothing, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, was selected as one of the ten best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal, and was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of the decade by Entertainment Weekly. His previous books are The Snakehead and Chatter. His work has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. He is also the creator and host of the eight-part podcast Wind of Change.

Today you'll discover insight into how writing a book can instigate insight into your own reinvention, especially when it's about midlife women. My guest today is Jennifer Oko. Jennifer Oko is the author of four books of fiction and nonfiction. Her memoir Lying Together: My Russian Affair was twice named an "Editor's Choice" by The New York Times Book Review. Her novels include Gloss, a satire of morning television hailed as "a rare treat" by The Chicago Tribune; Head Case, a comic mystery about psycho-pharmaceutical trafficking. Learn more: https://suzyrosenstein.com/podcast/ep-457-rewriting-the-story-a-novelists-midlife-reinvention-with-jennifer-oko/

This Gritty Nurse episode is my special kick-off to the National Nursing Week 2026, celebrated May 6–12 in the United States  and celebrated May 11-16 in Canada. Nursing week dedicated to honoring the nurses who show up for us at every stage of life. What does it really mean to care for someone — and why has the profession built around that act been so misunderstood for so long? To open the week, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with Sarah DiGregorio, journalist and author of Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World — a sweeping cultural history of nursing from the Stone Age to the present day. Part love letter, part urgent call for change, the book traces how nurses have always been at the vital intersection of healthcare and community, appearing in hospitals, schools, prisons, homes, and even at NASA — yet remain chronically undervalued in ways rooted in misogyny and racism. Sarah shares how personal encounters with nurses during family medical crises inspired her to write the book, why she believes we need to radically reframe nursing as a fundamental human necessity rather than a supporting role in medicine, and what gets lost when we reduce the profession's rich history to a single heroic figure like Florence Nightingale. We dig into the forgotten nurses whose contributions have been erased from the historical record, the urgent need for nurses to have a seat at the table in advocacy and policy-making, and the persistent racial disparities in healthcare that nursing is uniquely positioned to help address. Whether you're a nurse, a patient, a caregiver, or simply someone who believes the people doing the hardest work deserve to be seen — this conversation is for you.

Host Jason Blitman talks to acclaimed journalist Patrick Radden Keefe about his latest book, London Falling. London Falling is the April 2026 Late Show with Stephen Colbert Book Club pick. Conversation highlights include:

“Love Story,” the FX limited series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's relationship, has taken audiences by storm. Its unstoppable wave of '90s nostalgia has swept through the world of fashion, revitalized iconic New York landmarks and set off a yearning for simpler days before smartphones and dating apps. The series has also drawn significant backlash, with criticism ranging from bad reviews to accusations of inaccuracy and even harm. Today, Rachel Abrams talks to Alexandra Jacobs, a critic for The New York Times Book Review, about why America can't seem to look away from “Love Story.”   On Today's Episode: Alexandra Jacobs, a critic for The New York Times Book Review and occasional features writer.   Background Reading: The Lasting Appeal of John F. Kennedy Jr. Daryl Hannah: How Can ‘Love Story' Get Away With This? 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.

HMSG Interview Author Daniel Kraus - “Partially Devoured” We have a special bonus episode coming at ya!  A fresh conversation with author Daniel Kraus about his new book PARTIALLY DEVOURED.  The book takes a frame by frame look at one of our favorite films - George A. Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)! We hope you grab a copy of Daniel's new book & enjoy this conversation about how it all came together! More About Our Guest!Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more. The film adaptation, co-written by Kraus, will be released by 20th Century Studios in October 2026.With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co- authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series.He co-wrote The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more.Kraus's work has been translated into over 20 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago.Follow Daniel Kraus Here: http://www.danielkraus.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/kraus_author/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/danielkraus.comMore About Partially Devoured Here: https://www.danielkraus.com/books/partially-devoured-how-night-of-the-living-dead-saved-my-life-and-changed-the-world/Support the show

Brian Platzer's novel The Optimists was just reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. I interviewed him live at the Whitby about his beloved teacher, who fell victim to a stroke and whom he visited for years afterwards, how Sarah Jessica Parker interviewed him at a recent event, and the power of loyalty. It also features a love story gone wrong about teens and a star student's descent. Share, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens!** Check out the Z.I.P. membership program—Zibby's Important People! As a Z.I.P., you'll get exclusive essays, special author access, discounts at Zibby's Bookshop, and more. Head to zibbyowens.com to subscribe or upgrade and become a Z.I.P. today!** Follow @totallybookedwithzibby on Instagram for more about today's episode. (Music by Morning Moon Music. Sound editing by TexturesSound. To inquire about advertising, please contact allie.gallo@acast.com.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jason Blitman is joined by debut novelist Tara Menon to talk about her new book, Under Water. Conversation highlights include:

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

Larissa Pham's writing has appeared in The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, Aperture, Bookforum, Art in America, Granta, the Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. Her essays and short fiction have been anthologized in Kink (Simon and Schuster, 2021); Wanting: Women Writing on Desire (Catapult, 2023); and Critical Hits, an anthology of writing on video games (Graywolf, 2023). She holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington. She is an Assistant Professor of Writing at the New School. Her debut novel, just published, is Discipline. Larissa joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about plot, narrative tense, the freedom of writing without quotation marks, metafiction, revision, naming characters, themes, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It's stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you'll find an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It's perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. (Recorded February 6, 2026) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

onight we're chatting with Daniel Kraus, author of the new book PARTIALLY DEVOURED: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World. PARTIALLY DEVOURED (On sale March 10, 2026) is an examination of a horror movie classic's importance to our history, culture, and psychology, a perfect blend of research and memoir in the vein of Quentin Tarantino's Cinema Speculation.Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more. The film adaptation, co-written by Kraus, will be released by 20th Century Studios in October 2026. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/castle-of-horror-podcast--4268760/support.

For more than two decades, Bob Crawford has toured the country as the bassist for the Avett Brothers. But long before he began his career as a musician, he was obsessed with American history. After turning that obsession into two podcasts, he has now written his first book, “America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, From President to Political Maverick.” On this week's episode, Crawford talks with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about what it was like writing a book for the first time and the authors who have inspired him. In addition to discussing what he loves about John Quincy Adams, the country's sixth president and the son of John Adams, Crawford also talks about the research he did for the book. That included scouring Adams's 14,000-page diary. “He's not a perfect man — he's far from perfect,” Crawford said of Adams. “But he's so human. He's suffered depression, and just the humanness in his diary, not to mention the actual historical narrative, is just incredible.” 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.

Happy pub' day Elizabeth! Award-winning author and journalist Elizabeth Arnott spoke with us about her early studies of serial killers, a wild journalism career, and her latest period-set crime novel THE SECRET LIVES OF MURDERERS' WIVES. Elizabeth Arnott has written critically acclaimed historical fiction as Lizzie Pook (her maiden name). As a journalist, she covered everything from true crime to Arctic exploration and appeared in publications such as The Sunday Times, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, and The Guardian among others. She has described her much-anticipated latest historical crime novel as Mad Men with murders, and Lessons in Chemistry with a body count. The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives [available for pre-order and landing March 3, 2026; Berkley Hardcover], is a story that “... centers on three unlikely friends—all former wives of serial killers—and their efforts to solve a string of local killings in 1966 California.” The book was acquired in a heated seven-way auction and named one of “The Best Books for Book Clubs in 2026” by Glamour, and among “The 10 Most-Anticipated Mystery-Thriller Books of 2026” by Marie Claire. Parade wrote of the book, “... a story that feels like Bright Young Women collided with Mindhunter …. a propulsive, period-set whodunit perfect for anyone who loves early criminal profiling and Mad Men-era aesthetics with bite.” [This episode is sponsored by Ulysses. Go to⁠ ⁠ulys.app/writeabook⁠⁠ to download Ulysses, and use the code FILES at checkout to get 25% off the first year of your yearly subscription."] [Discover⁠ The Writer Files Extra⁠: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at⁠ writerfiles.fm⁠] [If you're a fan of The Writer Files, please⁠ click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews⁠. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Elizabeth Arnott, Milena and I discussed: Elizabeth's early obsession with the film Almost Famous Renting a flat above a brothel in grad school Her freewheeling freelance days traveling the globe for stories When her journalism career hit rock bottom The path to writing about the forgotten victims of violent crimes How to write a novel in six weeks And a lot more! Show Notes: ⁠Elizabeth Arnott on Instagram⁠ ⁠The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives By Elizabeth Arnott⁠ – March 3, 2026 (Amazon) ⁠Elizabeth Arnott on Twitter⁠ ⁠Milena Gonzalez | Writer | Reader | Book Reviewer⁠ ⁠diary_of_a_book_babe on Instagram⁠ ⁠Kelton Reid Instagram⁠ ⁠Kelton Reid on Twitter⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Larissa Pham's writing has appeared in The Nation, the New York Times Book Review, Aperture, Bookforum, Art in America, Granta, the Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. Her essays and short fiction have been anthologized in Kink (Simon and Schuster, 2021); Wanting: Women Writing on Desire (Catapult, 2023); and Critical Hits, an anthology of writing on video games (Graywolf, 2023). She holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington. She is an Assistant Professor of Writing at the New School. Her debut novel, just published, is Discipline. Larissa joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about plot, narrative tense, the freedom of writing without quotation marks, metafiction, revision, naming characters, themes, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It's stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you'll find an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It's perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. (Recorded February 6, 2026) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

This week we are joined by Elizabeth Arnott. Elizabeth Arnott is an award-winning writer and journalist and has written critically acclaimed historical fiction as Lizzie Pook. Her work - covering everything from true crime to Arctic exploration - has featured in publications including The Sunday Times, National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review and The Guardian. She lives with her husband and their young daughter in London, where she spends far too much time drinking iced coffee and watching serial killer shows.In this episode, we discuss Elizabeth's journey through autoimmune illness, love for dark stories, and the fascinating worlds of true crime and genre fiction. Discover how life's unexpected turns shape her writing and perspectives. Give this episode a listen!Trigger Warning: This episode mentions the idea of the death of a child Recommendations From This Episode: Alone Being the Queen of Jewish Romance with Jean MeltzerDevil In DisguiseFollow Elizabeth: @elizabetharnottwritesFollow Carly: @carlyjmontagFollow Emily: @thefunnywalshFollow the podcast: @aloneatlunchpodPlease rate and review the podcast! Spread the word! Tell your friends! Email us: aloneatlunch@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

What happens when the world tells you you're too much and you start shrinking yourself to survive?Today we meet William Ollayos and we're talking about the queer book that saved his life: Reverie by Ryan La Sala. And Ryan joins us for the conversation!William Ollayos is an educator, advocate, and aspiring writer based in Connecticut. He serves as an Area Coordinator in Wesleyan University's Office of Residential Life, and as a Law & Policy Fellow with Connecticut's Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity & Opportunity, where he administers the statewide LGBTQ+ Justice & Opportunity Network. Bill is also a J.D. candidate at Quinnipiac University School of Law and holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature from UMass Amherst.Ryan La Sala is a bestselling and award-winning author known for his genre-defying, queer-centered horror and fantasy, including The Honeys, which is in development to become a major motion picture, and The Dead of Summer duology. He is also the author of Beholder, Reverie, and Be Dazzled. He has been featured in The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and more. He writes to you from New York, overseen by his cat, Haunted Little Girl.Connect with William and RyanWilliam's Instagram: @willbruwritesThe Hartford Times: hartfordtimes.com/author/william-ollayos/Ryan's website: ryanlasala.comTiktok: @theryanlasalaThreads: @theryanlasalaOur BookshopVisit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbookBuy your copy of Reverie here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781728255835Become an Associate Producer!Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbookCreditsHost/Founder: John ParkerExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten VagnerPatreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard.Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy EricksonQuatrefoil LibraryQuatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can't buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1Support the show

When a book publisher asked Wesley to write an introduction for a new edition of “The Great Gatsby,” he was confused. So many people had already written about F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel since it was first published in 1925. What could he add? And why him?But eventually, he realized he does in fact have a special relationship with this book. He has read it in three different phases of life, and each time, it seemed profound in an entirely new way.So in the final week of the book's 100th anniversary, Wesley talks to the novelist Min Jin Lee and Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, about why all three of them have found themselves in a decades-long relationship with this book.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.

It's finally the episode we've all been waiting for: The Stacks' Best Books of 2025! Traci talks with two longtime friends of the show, Greta Johnsen, host of Happy to Be Here, and MJ Franklin, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, to share our top 10 books of the year. We discuss the overall year in books, why we struggled to create this list, and all the books we're looking forward to reading in 2026.The Stacks Book Club pick for December is Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, December 31st, with Joel Anderson.You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks website: https://www.thestackspodcast.com/2025/12/24/ep-404-best-books-of-2025Connect with Greta: Instagram | SubstackConnect with MJ: Instagram | TikTok | ThreadsConnect with The Stacks: Instagram | Threads | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | Youtube | SubscribeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

The holiday season is here, which means it's the time to think of great gifts for everyone on your list. While it can feel like a daunting task to choose thoughtful, personalized presents, we've got a fix for you: books.On this edition of The Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by Joumana Khatib and Sadie Stein, editors at the Book Review, for a conversation about the best books to give your family and friends. Joumana and Sadie will share what excited them most this year and also provide recommendations for giftees in very specific categories.Books mentioned in this episode:“The Colony,” Annika Norlin“Perfection,” Vincenzo Latronico“Things: A Story of the 60s,” Georges Perec“The Bee Sting,” Paul Murray“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” Kiran Desai“The Director,” Daniel Kehlmann“Playworld: A Novel,” Adam Ross“A Marriage at Sea,” Sophie Elmhirst“Entertaining is Fun!,” Dorothy Draper“The Thursday Murder Club,” Richard Osman“The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels,” Janice Hallett“Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes,” Roald Dahl“Mrs. Manders' Cook Book,” Sarah Manders, edited by Rumer Godden“Halleluja! The Welcome Table,” Maya Angelou“The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life,” Pat Conroy“Les diners de Gala,” Salvador Dalí“Diaghilev's Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World,” Rupert Christiansen“Finishing the Hat and Look I Made a Hat,” Stephen Sondheim“Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run,” Peter Ames Carlin“The Uncool: A Memoir,” Cameron Crowe“The Gales of November,” John U. Bacon“The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Ralph Waldo Emerson“Cats in Color,” Stevie Smith“Archie and the Strict Baptists,” John Betjeman“Stories 1,2,3,4,” Eugène Ionesco“Trip: A Novel,” Amy BarrodaleOn Today's Episode:Joumana Khatib is an editor at The New York Times Book Review.Sadie Stein is an editor at The New York Times Book Review. 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.

The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is tonight, honoring the best television shows released between June 2024 and May 2025. But before the festivities begin, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, would like to have a TV celebration of his own.On today's episode, he gathers Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The Times, and Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter for The Times, to “channel surf” through some of their favorite shows of the past year.On Today's Episode:Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The New York Times who writes a column about comedy.Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter for The New York Times. Additional Reading:The 9 People Who Check In to Every ‘White Lotus'Sympathy for the Devil, er Boss: In ‘The Studio,' the Powerful Are on Defense 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 kids across America head back to school, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, is thinking about the books he read when he was in school.On today's Sunday Special, Gilbert talks with the Book Review editor Sadie Stein and the author Louis Sachar (“Wayside School” series, “Holes”) about the books they read when they were students, and ways to encourage young readers today to keep reading.Additional reading10 Books for Kids Starting Preschool12 Books for Kids Starting Kindergarten15 Books for Kids Starting Middle SchoolFor a future Sunday Special, ask us your personal style questions. 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.