Picking the Best Memoirs Since 1969

The Book Review

The New York Times

Arts, Books

4.0 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Times’s book critics talk about choosing the best 50 memoirs of the past 50 years, and Daniel Okrent discusses “The Guarded Gate.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Something special this week on the podcast, the 50 Best Memoirs of the last 50 years.
0:12.2	Our critics, Carl Saelel, Jennifer Salai, Dwight Garner, and John Williams, fight it out
0:16.9	and sing the praises of the best 50 memoirs since 1969.
0:22.6	How long and how fiercely did Americans fight to keep immigrants out of this country?
0:27.3	Daniel O'Crant will be here to talk about his latest book, The Garded Gate.
0:31.5	This is the Book Review Podcast for the New York Times.
0:33.9	I'm Pamela Paul.
0:38.3	Joining us now to talk about a big special issue of the Book Review.
0:42.6	We have our critics Dwight Garner, Jennifer Salai, and Carl Saelel, as well as their editor
0:47.4	who is known well to our listeners, John Williams.
0:50.8	And we are going to talk about the 50 Best Memoirs of the last 50 years, why we did something
0:57.7	so audacious and just how difficult it was and surprisingly perhaps fun and all the books
1:04.3	that made it and didn't make it and many other arguments to be had and that have already
1:08.5	been had.
1:09.5	So welcome guys.
1:10.5	Hey, guys.
1:11.5	Hi.
1:12.5	Alright, let's start with the genesis of this.
1:14.8	And maybe even before that define what a memoir is and how you all defined that for
1:20.6	this list.
1:21.6	I mean, what is a memoir?
1:22.6	This is like, we're getting deep into it.
	...

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