Patrick Radden Keefes new book, Empire of Pain, is a history of the Sacklers, the family behind Purdue Pharma, the creator of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, which became the root of the opioid crisis in the United States. One of the subjects covered in Keefes investigative work is what the company knew, and when, as the crisis began to unfold. One thing I was able to establish very definitively in the book is that, in fact, there is this paper trail, really starting in 1997, so just a year a...
Apr 23, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep 344•Transcript available on Metacast Weve been in celebration mode all week as the Book Reviews podcast turns 15 years old. Pamela Paul shared 15 of her favorite episodes since she began hosting in 2013. We chose 10 other memorable conversations from the shows full archives, and did a bit of digging to tell the story of the podcasts earliest days . Now, appropriately, we cap things off with a new episode dedicated to the milestone. This week, Paul speaks with Sam Tanenahus, her predecessor and the founding host, and Dwight Garner, ...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep 343•Transcript available on Metacast Blake Baileys long-awaited biography of Philip Roth has generated renewed conversation about the life and work of the towering American novelist who died at 85 in 2018. Bailey visits the podcast this week to take part in that conversation himself. Most of Philips life was spent in this little cottage in the woods of Connecticut, standing at a desk and living inside his head 12 hours a day, Bailey says. This is not unique to Philip. This is a phenomenon that I experienced vis--vis my other subjec...
Apr 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep 342•Transcript available on Metacast In his new book, Lifes Edge, Carl Zimmer asks the modest questions: What is life? How did it begin? And by what criteria can we define things as living? On this weeks podcast, Zimmer, a science columnist for The Times, talks about just how difficult it can be to find answers. There are actually philosophers who have argued that maybe we should just try not to define life at all, in fact; that maybe were getting ourselves into trouble, Zimmer says. If you look for a definition of life from scient...
Apr 02, 2021•57 min•Ep 341•Transcript available on Metacast A.O. Scott, The Timess co-chief film critic, returns to the Book Reviews podcast this week to discuss the work of Tillie Olsen , the latest subject in his essay series The Americans, about writers who give a sense of the countrys complex identity. Olsen, who died in 2007 at 94, was known best as the author of Tell Me a Riddle, a collection of three short stories and a novella published in 1961. She also wrote rigorous depictions of working-class families, conveying the costs of living for burden...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep 340•Transcript available on Metacast Theres nothing wrong with your eyes: The title of Thomas Dyjas new book is New York, New York, New York. (The triplicate is inspired by the urbanist Holly Whytes answer when he was asked to name his three favorite American cities.) On this weeks podcast, Dyja discusses how he went about organizing this sweeping look at the past four decades in the citys history. I love timelines, Dyja says. I make huge charts to take themes through, so this had an eight-foot-long thing on my wall that basically ...
Mar 19, 2021•53 min•Ep 339•Transcript available on Metacast Imbolo Mbue first began writing her new novel, How Beautiful We Were, in 2002. The book concerns the impact of an American oil companys presence on a fictional African village. She eventually put the idea aside to work on what turned into her acclaimed debut novel, Behold the Dreamers. When she began working again on the earlier idea, it was 2016. On this weeks podcast, she says that returning to the novel at that moment changed the way she approached writing it. Flint, Michigan, had happened, a...
Mar 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep 338•Transcript available on Metacast Kazuo Ishigruos eighth novel, Klara and the Sun, is his first since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. Its narrated by Klara, an Artificial Friend a humanoid machine who acts as a companion for a 14-year-old child. Radhika Jones, the editor of Vanity Fair, talks about the novel and where it fits into Ishiguros august body of work on this weeks podcast. How human can Klara be? What are the limits of humanity, in terms of transferring it into machinery? Its one of the many questions th...
Mar 05, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep 337•Transcript available on Metacast Lauren Oylers debut novel, Fake Accounts, features a nameless narrator who discovers that her boyfriend has a secret life online, where he posts conspiracy theories. The novel is about that discovery, but also more broadly about how the time we spend online especially on social media transforms our personalities. The book is about various modes of deceit or lying or misdirection, and the ways we deceive each other in various ways, both on the internet and off, Oyler says on this weeks podcast. S...
Feb 26, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 336•Transcript available on Metacast At 22 years old, Suleika Jaouad was a recent college graduate who had moved to Paris, looking forward to everything life might offer. Then she received a diagnosis of leukemia. In her new memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, Jaouad writes about the ensuing years. On this weeks podcast, she discusses her experience with the disease and her effort, in writing the book, to avoid the many platitudes that surround serious illness. When youre sick, you get bombarded with all kinds of bumper-sticker sayings, ...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 335•Transcript available on Metacast When Simon Winchester takes on a big subject, he takes on a big subject. His new book, Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, travels through centuries and to places like Ukraine, New Zealand, Scotland, the United States and elsewhere. On this weeks podcast, he talks about the history of private land ownership and a few of the many aspects of this history that caught his attention. The whole notion of trespass I find absolutely fascinating, Winchester says. There is this per...
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 334•Transcript available on Metacast Chang-rae Lees new novel, My Year Abroad, is his sixth. On this weeks podcast, Lee says that his readers might be surprised by it. Its kind of a crazy book, and particularly I think for people who know my work, Lee says. Im sure my editor was surprised by what she got. I didnt quite describe it the way it turned out. The novel follows a New Jersey 20-year-old named Tiller, who is at loose ends, as he befriends a very successful Chinese entrepreneur. They go traveling together, Lee says. They hav...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep 333•Transcript available on Metacast Ron Liebers new book, The Price You Pay for College, aims at helping families with, as the books subtitle puts it, the biggest financial decision they will ever make. Lieber, a personal financial columnist for The Times, visits the podcast this week to discuss it. Among other subjects, he addresses all the ways in which the price to attend a particular college can vary from student to student, similar to how the cost of seats on one airplane flight can vary. Michael J. Stephen visits the podcast...
Jan 29, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep 332•Transcript available on Metacast In American Baby, the veteran journalist Gabrielle Glaser tells the story of one mother and child, and also zooms out from there to consider the ethics of adoption in this country. Our reviewer, Lisa Belkin, calls the book the most comprehensive and damning account of the growing realization that old-style adoption was not always what it seemed. Glaser visits the podcast this week to talk about it. Kenneth R. Rosen visits the podcast to discuss his new book, Troubled: The Failed Promise of Ameri...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep 331•Transcript available on Metacast James Comeys Saving Justice, arrives three years after his first book, A Higher Loyalty. Joe Klein reviews it for us , and visits the podcast this week to discuss, among other subjects, how the new book is different from the first. It doesnt differ very much at all, actually, Klein says, except for one thing: He rehearses all of the confrontations he had with Donald Trump in both books, but in the second book he places that in the context of the need for truth and transparency in government, whi...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep 330•Transcript available on Metacast Charles Yus Interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award for fiction in November, is a satire about Hollywoods treatment of Asian-Americans. It features an actor named Willis Wu, who has a very small role in a TV show. On this weeks podcast, Yu, himself a writer for TV as well as a novelist, discusses the book and why he wrote it. David S. Brown visits the podcast to discuss his new biography of Henry Adams, The Last American Aristocrat. Adams was the great-grandson of John Adams, the g...
Jan 08, 2021•55 min•Ep 329•Transcript available on Metacast The author and CNN host Fareed Zakaria calls the coronavirus pandemic the most transformative event of our lifetimes. He says: What has happened over the last 50 years is, we have gotten increasingly confident about the power of science and medicine, so weve kind of lost sight of the effect that something like a plague, a pandemic, has. And I think this was a mistake." The historian Margaret MacMillan visits the podcast to discuss her most recent book, War: How Conflict Shaped Us, one of the Boo...
Jan 01, 2021•58 min•Ep 328•Transcript available on Metacast We respond to questions about criticism, reading habits, favorite stories and more.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.
Dec 25, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep 327•Transcript available on Metacast Kerri Greenidge discusses two books about African-Americans in the years before the Civil War, and Neal Gabler talks about Catching the Wind, his biography of Edward Kennedy.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.
Dec 18, 2020•49 min•Ep 326•Transcript available on Metacast Nesbo discusses his latest novel, and David Michaelis talks about his new biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.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.
Dec 11, 2020•1 hr•Ep 325•Transcript available on Metacast Sedaris talks about The Best of Me and his life as an essayist. 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.
Dec 04, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep 324•Transcript available on Metacast On a special episode of the podcast, taped live, editors from The New York Times Book Review discuss this year's outstanding fiction and nonfiction. 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.
Nov 27, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep 323•Transcript available on Metacast A.O. Scott talks about Williamss fiction, and Nicholas Christakis discusses his new book about the coronavirus, Apollos Arrow. 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.
Nov 20, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep 322•Transcript available on Metacast Byrne talks about his work with the artist Maira Kalman on his latest book, and Brittany K. Barnett discusses "A Knock at Midnight." 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.
Nov 13, 2020•49 min•Ep 321•Transcript available on Metacast Ernest Freeberg talks about A Traitor to His Species, and the illustrator Christian Robinson discusses his career in picture books. 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.
Nov 06, 2020•50 min•Ep 320•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Guralnick talks about Looking to Get Lost, and Alex Ross discusses Wagnerism. 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 30, 2020•59 min•Ep 319•Transcript available on Metacast Ian McGuire talks about his new novel, and Elisabeth Egan discusses Romy Hausmanns Dear Child. 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 23, 2020•54 min•Ep 318•Transcript available on Metacast Alan Mikhail talks about Gods Shadow, and Benjamin Lorr discusses The Secret Life of Groceries. 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 16, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep 317•Transcript available on Metacast David Nasaw talks about The Last Million, and Carlos Lozada discusses What Were We Thinking. 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 09, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep 316•Transcript available on Metacast Kunzru talks about his new novel, and Ben Macintyre discusses Agent Sonya, his latest real-life tale of espionage. 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 02, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep 315•Transcript available on Metacast 
