Decades ago, after he lost in home in a California wildfire, the travel writer and essayist Pico Iyer started to go to a small monastery in Big Sur in search of solitude. On this week's episode he discusses those retreats, which he writes about in his new book "Aflame: Learning from Silence." "It's true that even from a young age, I only had to step into the silence of any monastery or convent and I felt a kind of longing, the way other people feel a longing when they see a delectable meal or a ...
Jan 17, 2025•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast And we're back! Happy new year, readers. On this weeks episode, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the upcoming books theyre most anticipating over the next several months. Books discussed on this episode: "Stone Yard Devotional," by Charlotte Wood "Aflame: Learning from Silence," by Pico Iyer "Onyx Storm," by Rebecca Yarros "Glyph," by Ali Smith "The Dream Hotel," by Laila Lalami "The Colony," by Annika Norlin "We Do Not Part," by Han Kang "Playworld," by Adam Ross "Death of the...
Jan 10, 2025•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Book Review podcast is off for the holidays, but please enjoy this episode of the The New York Times's Culture Desk show from earlier this fall. In 2004, Susanna Clarke published her debut novel, the sprawling 800-page historical fantasy Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It was a sensation. Clarke sold millions of copies, won literary awards and landed on best-seller lists. After just one book, Clarke was regarded as one of Britains greatest fantasy novelists. It would be 16 years before she r...
Dec 27, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Clare Keegan's slim 2021 novella about one Irishman's crisis of conscience during the Christmas season, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has also been adapted into a film starring Cillian Murphy . In this weeks episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, Lauren Christensen, and Elisabeth Egan. Keegan's book was also one of The New York Times Book Review's 100 best books of the 21st century. As we wrote , "Not a word is wasted in Keegans small, burnished...
Dec 20, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs staff critics for The New York Times Book Review join host Gilbert Cruz to look back on highlights from their year in books. Books discussed: "Intermezzo," by Sally Rooney "All Fours," by Miranda July "You Dreamed of Empires," by lvaro Enrigue "When the Clock Broke," by John Ganz "Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring," by Brad Gooch "Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius," by Carrie Courogen "...
Dec 13, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Following our Top 10 Books of 2024 episode, we are re-running our book club discussion about one of the novels on our year-end list: "Good Material." How to explain the British writer Dolly Alderton to an American audience? It might be best to let her work speak for itself it certainly does! but Alderton is such a cultural phenomenon in her native England that some context is probably helpful: Like Nora Ephron, With a British Twist is the way The New York Times Book Review put it when we reviewe...
Dec 06, 2024•47 min•Ep 514•Transcript available on Metacast Don't let anyone tell you differently end of year list time is a wonderful time, indeed. And, as we do every December, we are ready to discuss the 10 best books of the year. Host Gilbert Cruz gathers the editors of the New York Times Book Review to discuss the most exciting fiction and nonfiction of the year. The New York Times Book Review's Top 10 Books of 2024 "James," by Percival Everett "You Dreamed of Empires," by lvaro Enrigue; translated by Natasha Wimmer "Good Material," by Dolly Alderto...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast The broad outlines of "James" will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom. But where Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn treated Jim as a secondary character, a figure of pity and a target of fun, Percival Everett makes him the star of the show: a dignified, complicated, fully formed man capable...
Nov 29, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast It begins with one of the most iconic lines in literature: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buenda was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garca Mrquezs magical realist parable of imperialism in Latin America, is a tale of family, community, prophesy and disaster. In this weeks episode, the Book Reviews MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Gregory Cowles and Miguel Salaz...
Nov 22, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast As part of The New York Times Book Review's project on the 100 Best Books published since the year 2000, Nick Hornby called "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" one of the "greatest literary achievements of the 21st century." The author Patrick Radden Keefe joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about his book, which has now been adapted into an FX miniseries. Keefe has now seen his reporting on the life of Irish Republican Army soldier Dolours Price and others make its ...
Nov 15, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast The works of John le Carr, who died in 2020, are among the most beloved thrillers of all time. For some, books like "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "A Perfect Spy" and "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" are simply among their favorite works of literature ever. So it was a perilous task that author Nick Harkaway, one of le Carr sons, set out for himself. The author of multiple well-received science fiction novels, Harkaway picked up the torch from his father to write a new tale starring George S...
Nov 08, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sally Rooney is a writer people talk about. Since her first novel, Conversations With Friends, was published in 2017, Rooney has been hailed as a defining voice of the millennial generation because of her ability to capture the particular angst and confusion of young love, friendship and coming-of-age in our fraught digital era. Intermezzo, her fourth and latest novel, centers on two brothers separated by 10 years and periods of estrangement, who are grieving the recent death of their father. Pe...
Nov 01, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Halloween is just around the corner, so we turned to two great horror authors Joe Hill and Stephen Graham Jones for their recommendations of books to read this season. Books discussed: "Mean Spirited," by Nick Roberts "Maeve Fly," by CJ Leede "Come Closer," by Sara Gran "It," by Stephen King "Experimental Film," by Gemma Files "A Head Full of Ghosts," by Paul Tremblay "Lost Man's Lane," by Scott Carson "Fever House," by Keith Rosson "The Devil by Name," by Keith Rosson "The Reformatory," by Tana...
Oct 26, 2024•53 min•Ep 513•Transcript available on Metacast Salman Rushdie's "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder," has been nominated in the nonfiction category as part of this year's National Book Awards, which will take place in mid-November. This week, we are running Rushdie's conversation with Ezra Klein from earlier this year. 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....
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep 512•Transcript available on Metacast The actor-director-producer Stanley Tucci is also, famously, an avid eater, who has explored his enthusiasm for food through his travel show Searching for Italy and through two books: Taste, in 2021, and now a food diary, What I Ate in One Year." In this weeks episode, Tucci discusses his new book with host Gilbert Cruz and talks about bad meals, his food idol and his path to tracking a years worth of eating. The people at Simon & Schuster wanted me to write another book after Taste, and I reall...
Oct 11, 2024•47 min•Ep 511•Transcript available on Metacast In 2021, the novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz had a hit with The Plot, a book that was partly a mystery, partly a thriller and entirely a delicious sendup of the publishing industry. It told the tale of a once-promising writer, Jacob, who steals somebody elses story idea and reaches undreamed-of levels of success before things go very badly for him. Korelitzs new novel, The Sequel, is yes a sequel to The Plot. It follows Jacobs widow, Anna, who has unexpectedly become a writer herself, only to be co...
Oct 04, 2024•39 min•Ep 509•Transcript available on Metacast Jo Hamyas novel The Hypocrite follows a famous English novelist as he watches a new play by his daughter, Sophia, in London. The lights go down in the theater, and immediately the novelist realizes: The play is about him, the vacation he took with Sophia a decade earlier and the sins he committed while they were away. The novel is an art monster story and a dysfunctional family saga that explores the ethics of creating work inspired by real life. In this weeks episode, the Book Reviews MJ Frankl...
Sep 27, 2024•42 min•Ep 508•Transcript available on Metacast This weekend marks the official start of autumn, so what better time to take a peek at the fall books were most excited to read? On this weeks episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the upcoming season of reading and the books on the horizon that theyre looking forward to most eagerly. Books mentioned in this weeks episode: Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney Playground, by Richard Powers Sonny Boy: A Memoir, by Al Pacino Cher: The Memoir, Part One, by Cher The Sequel, by...
Sep 20, 2024•31 min•Ep 507•Transcript available on Metacast Robert Caros 1974 biography The Power Broker is a book befitting its subject, Robert Moses the unelected parochial technocrat who used a series of appointed positions to entirely reshape New York City and its surrounding environment for generations to come. Like Moses, Caros book has exerted an enduring and outsize influence. This week, Caro joins the podcast and tells the host Gilbert Cruz how he accounts for its enduring legacy. People are interested in power, Caro says. This is a particular k...
Sep 13, 2024•47 min•Ep 506•Transcript available on Metacast The British writer Kate Atkinson has had a rich and varied career since her debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1996; her 14 subsequent books have included story collections, historical fiction and an inventive speculative novel, Life After Life, that landed on the Book Reviews recent survey of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century . But she may be best known for her Jackson Brodie series of crime novels, which began with Case Histories in 2...
Sep 06, 2024•45 min•Ep 505•Transcript available on Metacast As part of its recent " 100 Best Books of the 21st Century " project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Isabel Wilkerson joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss "The Warmth of Other Suns," her sweeping history of the movement of Black Americans from the south to points north over the course of the 20th century. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today...
Aug 26, 2024•39 min•Ep 497•Transcript available on Metacast This July, The New York Times Book Review published a list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century . The top choice was My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. The book is the first novel in Ferrantes so-called Neapolitan quartet, which tracks the lifelong friendship between Len and Lila, two women from a rough neighborhood in Naples, Italy, even as family, relationships and work pull their lives in different directions. In this weeks episode, MJ Franklin discusses...
Aug 23, 2024•51 min•Ep 504•Transcript available on Metacast As part of its recent 100 Best Books of the 21st Century project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Jennifer Egan joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her Pulitzer-winning novel about the music industry, A Visit From the Goon Squad, and talks, among other things, about the early challenges it faced in finding an audience, the meaning of its title and her initial reluctance to decide whether the book was a novel or a stor...
Aug 19, 2024•41 min•Ep 496•Transcript available on Metacast A summer camp in the Adirondacks. A rich girl gone missing, 14 years after her older brother also disappeared. A prominent local family harboring dark secrets. Liz Moores new novel, The God in the Woods, turns these elements into a complex and suspenseful meditation on parenting and social class and the rituals of summer friendship. On this weeks podcast, Liz Moore chats with Gilbert Cruz about her new novel. ( Spoiler alert: the last 10 or so minutes address the book's ending.) Unlock full acce...
Aug 16, 2024•40 min•Ep 503•Transcript available on Metacast Its August, which means that Labor Day and back-to-school are just around the corner. The vacation that seemed so leisurely a month ago suddenly feels a little more frantic. But theres still time to squeeze in a last batch of summer reading. On this weeks episode, host Gilbert Cruz chats with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the books that have been occupying their attention this season. Books mentioned on this episode: "Talk," by Linda Rosencrantz "Crossroads," by Jonathan F...
Aug 09, 2024•33 min•Ep 502•Transcript available on Metacast As part of its recent " 100 Best Books of the 21st Century " project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, George Saunders who had three books on the list, including his short story collections "Pastoralia" and "Tenth of December" joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his novel "Lincoln in the Bardo." Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes...
Aug 05, 2024•41 min•Ep 495•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah Jessica Parker has been a familiar presence on TV, movie screens and Broadway stages for five decades. But since 2016 she has also been a force in the book world, initially at the helm of the fiction imprint SJP for Hogarth and for the past two years with SJP Lit, an imprint at the independent publisher Zando. Parker visits the podcast this week to chat with the host Gilbert Cruz about her lifelong love of reading, the kinds of books that excite her most and her entry into the publishing b...
Aug 02, 2024•36 min•Ep 501•Transcript available on Metacast As part of its recent " 100 Best Books of the 21st Century " project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Min Jin Lee joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her novel, as well as the book she's read the most times George Eliot's "Middlemarch." Im willing to say its the best English language novel, period. Without question, Lee says. George Eliot is probably the smartest girl in the room ever as a novelist. She really was a g...
Jul 29, 2024•35 min•Ep 494•Transcript available on Metacast Patricia Highsmiths 1955 thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley follows a young, down-on-his-luck scammer, Tom Ripley, who is looking to reverse his fortunes. When he receives a job offer to go to Italy and retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich socialite on an endless holiday, Tom finds the perfect opportunity to work his way into the upper crust. But as he becomes more and more obsessed with Dickie and Dickies life, the breezy getaway turns into something much more sinister, sending them down a dangerous...
Jul 26, 2024•46 min•Ep 500•Transcript available on Metacast As part of its recent " 100 Best Books of the 21st Century " project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his 2016 novel. 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....
Jul 22, 2024•36 min•Ep 493•Transcript available on Metacast 
