I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review and this is the Book Review

Podcast. I always feel like the beginning of a new year

marks a slow start for new books being published which honestly is fine. I know all

of you spent your January reading some of our best books from last year anyway.

My book pile is way too high. However, if you are one of those people constantly on the hunt for the new, I have some quick thoughts on a few novels you might want to look up our reviews of.

There's You Dreamed of Empires, which are critic Why Garner loved by Alvaro Enrigue translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.

This novel imagines the meeting between the conquistadore,

Vernon Cortez and Mach dezuma,

the Aztec emperor in what is today Mexico City.

There's Beauty Land by Marie Helene Bertino, reviewed by our critic Alexander Jacobs.

It's about a young woman of alien origin living on Earth starting in the 1970s,

who communicates with her race back on their home planet via facts machine.

It sounds fantastical in the description.

It's actually very grounded and moving in the execution, according to Alexandra. And I'm very excited to read this one.

And then there's Martyr by Kave Akbar.

We talked about this one in the start of our year preview episode a couple weeks ago

and the novelist Juno Diaz

recently gave this one a rave review for us. So those are a few recommendations

from me but on this week's episode two other members of the book review are going to talk about a few

of their own earlier recommendations.

We have the writer, Sarah Lyle, who you might have recently heard here on the podcast talking about open marriage with the author Molly Rodin Winter.

And we also have Sadie Stein, one of our editors. Sarah, thanks for being here.

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