The world's top authors and critics join host Gilbert Cruz and editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the week's top books, what we're reading and what's going on in the literary world. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
What this show covers
Book Clubbooksbook criticismnonfictionfictionbook recommendationseducationAmerican HagwonMin Jin LeeKorean diasporaimmigrationDark TowerPeter StraubThe TalismanWriting process
What listeners will find here
Min Jin Lee on education, ambition and the costs of starting over
Min Jin Lee discusses how education and community shape her new novel, American Hagwon. The episode centers on her years of research into Korean diaspora life, and on how a cherished belief in education can also fuel punishing competition and impossible expectations.
Stephen King returns to Jack Sawyer — and to Peter Straub’s voice
Stephen King discusses finishing “Other Worlds Than These,” the long-planned third book in the Jack Sawyer series he began with Peter Straub. The episode explores grief, collaboration, genre, and why King is still chasing new stories after more than 50 years of publishing.
A war novel told through a dog’s journey home gets the Book Club treatment
Paul Yoon’s “Etna” centers on a bomb-sniffing military dog trying to find his way home through the aftermath of war. MJ Franklin, Elisabeth Egan and Scott Heller discuss its survival story, emotional force and the literary echoes it brings to mind.
John Green’s adult-fiction turn meets a critic’s rave for Marlon James
John Green discusses his adult-fiction debut, “Hollywood, Ending,” along with fame and the books that shaped him early on. The episode also features critic Dwight Garner on why Marlon James’s “The Disappearers” struck him as a masterpiece and what that says about his approach to criticism.
Why “The Corrections” Still Looms Large 25 Years Later
Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections” gets a focused discussion on why it remains central to modern American literature. Gilbert Cruz talks with novelist and magazine writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner about the novel’s legacy, its turn-of-the-century America, and its place among the century’s best books.
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