Brian Lear on

on WNYC and yes here we are in gift-giving season and we know many

listeners to the show love to give books and each year around this time the

New York Times chooses its 100 best books of the year.

Well, as of this very morning, it has winnowed that list down to the top 10 books of

2023.

They publish a list like that, too.

Five fiction and five non-fiction books. The list was just released a few hours ago.

So let's check out their top ten picks with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the New York Times Book Review.

Gilbert, thanks so much for joining us for this on the morning your list came out.

Welcome to WNYC.

Oh, so excited to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Five works of fiction, five of non-fiction.

Since we do mostly non-fiction on this show, let's start there.

And you include a book that we featured on the show, Fire Weather, A Truth Story from

a Hotter World world by John Valiant.

For listeners who don't know that's an account of the big 2016 Fire in Fort McMurray, Canada.

Let's take a listen to a 40 second snippet of the author

who was here on the show back in June.

It was 90 degrees that day, 30 degrees above normal.

The relative humidity was comparable to Death Valley in Southern California.

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