The Book Review

Summer is the season for road trips, and also for road trip stories. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may be the most famous example in American literature — but there are so many other great ones. This week the Book Review’s critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai chat with host Gilbert Cruz about some of their favorites.

Transcribed - Published: 1 August 2025

In this month’s installment of the Book Review Book Club, we’re discussing “The Catch,” the debut novel by the poet and memoirist Yrsa Daley-Ward. The book is a psychological thriller that follows semi-estranged twin sisters, Clara and Dempsey, who were babies when their mother was presumed to have drowned in the Thames.

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2025

We’re halfway through 2025, and we at the New York Times Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the ones that just won’t let us go. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the best books of the year so far.

Transcribed - Published: 18 July 2025

In "A Marriage at Sea," British journalist Sophie Elmhirst tells the gripping story of a British husband and wife in 1970s England who took to the high seas and found themselves stranded in the middle of the Pacific after a whale sank their boat. As Elmhirst tells host Gilbert Cruz, it's a story of personal survival, but it's also one about how a marriage holds together under the most stressful circumstances imaginable.

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2025

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”: So reads one of the great opening lines in British literature, the first sentence of Virginia Woolf’s classic 1925 novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.” The book tracks one day in the life of an English woman, Clarissa Dalloway, living in post-World War I London, as she prepares for, and then hosts, a party. That’s pretty much it, as far as the plot goes. But within that single day, whole worlds unfold, as Woolf captures the expansiveness of human experience through Clarissa’s roving thoughts. On this week’s episode, Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses it with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Laura Thompson.

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2025

On this week's episode, A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about the value of close reading poetry. And New York Times Book Review poetry editor Greg Cowles recommends four recently published collections worth reading.

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2025

The culture critic Brian Raftery, who wrote about “Jaws” for the Book Review last year, discusses the movie’s anniversary with Gilbert Cruz.

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2025

In S.A. Cosby’s latest thriller, “King of Ashes,” a successful and fast-living financial adviser is called suddenly back to the small Virginia hometown he fled, where his family runs the local crematory and his father is in a coma stemming from a car crash that may not be as accidental as it seems. Cosby himself is from a small Virginia town, and on this week’s podcast he discusses the allure of homecoming, the tricky emotional terrain of complicated families and the reason he keeps revisiting the rural South in his fiction.

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2025

MJ Franklin, who hosts the Book Review podcast’s monthly book club, says that whenever someone asks him, “What should I read next?,” Yael van der Wouden’s “The Safekeep” has become his go-to recommendation. So he was particularly excited to discuss the novel on this week’s episode. Set in the Netherlands in 1961, “The Safekeep” is one of those books it’s best not to know too much about, as part of its delight is discovering its secrets unspoiled.

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2025

Alison Bechdel rose to fame as the creator of a long-running alt-weekly comic strip before jumping to an even wider audience by way of her celebrated graphic memoirs “Fun Home” and “Are You My Mother?” Her new book, “Spent,” is a graphic novel — but it was originally meant to be another memoir, as Bechdel tells Gilbert Cruz on this week’s podcast.

Transcribed - Published: 23 May 2025

The biographer Ron Chernow has written about the Rockefellers and the Morgans. His book about George Washington won a Pulitzer Prize. His book about Alexander Hamilton was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. Now, in “Mark Twain,” Chernow turns to the life of the author and humorist who became one of the 19th century’s biggest celebrities and, along the way, did much to reshape American literature in his own image. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Chernow tells host Gilbert Cruz how he came to write about Twain and what interested him most about his subject.

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2025

Summer arrives just over a month from now. On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz talks with Joumana Khatib about some of the books they're most looking forward to.

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2025

The Book Review is off this week, but please enjoy this episode of the The New York Times podcast "The Interview," in which Gilbert Cruz speaks with the author Isabel Allende about her new novel "My Name is Emilia del Valle."

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2025

Set in New York in the 1980s, Adam Ross’s new novel, “Playworld,” tells the story of a young actor named Griffin as he navigates the chaos of the city, of his family and of being a teenager. On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Playworld” with Book Review editors Dave Kim and Sadie Stein.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2025

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2025

A century after “The Great Gatsby” was first published, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender novel about a mysterious, lovelorn millionaire living and dying in a Long Island mansion has become among the most widely read American fictions — and also among the most analyzed and interpreted. A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz this week to discuss Fitzgerald’s novel and its long afterlife.

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2025

In his new novel, “Twist,” the National Book Award-winning Irish writer Colum McCann tells the story of a journalist deep at sea in more ways then one: A man adrift, he accepts a magazine assignment to write about the crews who maintain and repair the undersea cables that transmit all of the world’s information. Naturally, the assignment becomes more treacherous and psychologically fraught than he had anticipated. On this week’s episode, McCann tells host Gilbert Cruz how he became interested in the topic of information cables and why the story resonated for him at multiple levels.

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2025

The novel “We Do Not Part,” by the Nobel laureate Han Kang, involves a pet-sitting quest gone surreal: It follows a writer and documentarian whose hospitalized friend beseeches her to take care of her stranded pet parakeet on an island hundreds of miles away. When she arrives, the writer finds not only the bird but also an apparition of her friend, who has a devastating history to tell. On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “We Do Not Part” with fellow Book Review editors Lauren Christensen and Emily Eakin.

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

The director Steven Soderbergh has just released his second film of 2025: the spy thriller "Black Bag," starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. In January 2024, Soderbergh spoke with host Gilbert Cruz about some of the more than 80 books that he read in the previous year. (This episode is a rerun.)

Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2025

Every season brings its share of books to look forward to, and this spring is no different. Host Gilbert Cruz is joined by Book Review editor Joumana Khatib to talk about a dozen or so titles that sound interesting in the months ahead.

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2025

In "Orbital," by Samantha Harvey, a group of astronauts in the International Space Station orbit the Earth 16 times over 24 hours. This simple and beautiful novel won the 2024 Booker Prize. On this week's episode, MJ Franklin discusses Harvey's slim book with fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and Jennifer Harlan.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2025

You’re familiar with Edward Gorey, whether you know it or not. The prolific author and illustrator, who was born 100 years ago this week, was ubiquitous for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, and his elaborate black-and-white line drawings graced everything from book jackets to the opening credits of the PBS show “Mystery!” to his own eccentric storybooks. On this week’s episode, the Book Review’s Sadie Stein joins Gilbert Cruz for a celebration of all things Gorey.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2025

Meet the writer who helped turn a book into a cultural phenomenon.

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

How the novel became an Oscar-nominated film.

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2025

The director James Mangold discusses the things we may never understand about the folk legend.

Transcribed - Published: 11 February 2025

The director RaMell Ross on adapting Colson Whitehead’s prize-winning novel.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2025

This sweeping novel about the life, loves, struggles and triumphs of a queer English Burmese actor is the topic of our January book club discussion.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2025

In Alafair Burke’s new thriller, “The Note,” three friends are vacationing together in the Hamptons when they have an unpleasant run-in with a couple of strangers and decide to exact drunken, petty revenge. But the prank they pull — a note reading “He’s cheating on you” — snowballs, eventually embroiling them in a missing-persons investigation and forcing each woman to wonder what dark secrets her friends are hiding. Burke joins host Gilbert Cruz and talks about how she came up with the idea for “The Note,” and how she goes about writing her books in general.

Transcribed - Published: 24 January 2025

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."

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2025

And we're back! Happy new year, readers. On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the upcoming books they’re most anticipating over the next several months.

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2025

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 which reporter Alexandra Alter talks to author Susanna Clarke upon the 20th anniversary of her masterful fantasy novel “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.”

Transcribed - Published: 27 December 2024

Clare Keegan's slim 2021 novella about one Irishman's crisis of conscience during the Christmas season, which was one of The New York Times Book Review's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, has also been adapted into a film starring Cillian Murphy. In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, Lauren Christensen, and Elizabeth Egan.

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2024

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: Dolly Alderton's "Good Material."

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 3 December 2024

This Thanksgiving weekend, we are re-running our roundtable conversation about Percival Everett's recent National Book Award winner for fiction.

Transcribed - Published: 29 November 2024

“One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realist parable of imperialism in Latin America, is a tale of family, community, prophesy and disaster. In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Gregory Cowles and Miguel Salazar.

Transcribed - Published: 22 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 15 November 2024

The works of John le Carré are among the most beloved spy thrillers of all time. So it was a perilous task that author Nick Harkaway, one of le Carré's sons, set out for himself. On this week's episode, Harkaway discusses how he picked up the torch from his father, who died in December 2020, to write a new tale starring George Smiley, the Cold War spy who has appeared in more than a half dozen novels.

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2024

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. In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses “Intermezzo,” her fourth and latest novel, with his fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Sadie Stein and Dave Kim.

Transcribed - Published: 1 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 26 October 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 18 October 2024

The actor-director-producer Stanley Tucci is also, famously, an avid eater. He explored his enthusiasm for food in his 2021 memoir “Taste,” and now a food diary, “What I Ate in One Year." In this week’s episode, Tucci discusses his new book with host Gilbert Cruz and talks about bad meals, his food idol and his path to tracking a year’s worth of eating. Gilbert also chats with The Book Review's Joumana Khatib about the National Book Award finalists in fiction and nonfiction.

Transcribed - Published: 11 October 2024

The writer discusses her follow-up to her best-selling 2021 novel “The Plot.”

Transcribed - Published: 4 October 2024

Jo Hamya’s 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. In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with editors Joumana Khatib and Lauren Christensen.

Transcribed - Published: 27 September 2024

This weekend marks the official start of autumn, so what better time to take a peek at the fall books we’re most excited to read? On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the upcoming season of reading and the books on the horizon that they’re looking forward to most eagerly.

Transcribed - Published: 20 September 2024

Robert Caro’s 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, Caro’s book has exerted an enduring and outsize influence. This week, Caro tells host Gilbert Cruz how he accounts for its enduring legacy.

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2024

The British writer Kate Atkinson has had a rich and varied career since publishing her first book in 1996. But she may be best known for her Jackson Brodie series of crime novels. Sarah Lyall speaks with Atkinson about the sixth entry in the series, "Death at the Sign of the Rook."

Transcribed - Published: 6 September 2024

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 her 2010 book about the Great Migration.

Transcribed - Published: 26 August 2024

The New York Times Book Review recently 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. In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.

Transcribed - Published: 23 August 2024