Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘John of John’
1 August - 55 minsEarly in Douglas Stuart’s new novel, “John of John,” the Booker Prize-winning author describes a peculiar irony: “What skinned him was that the closer he got to home, the more lost he felt.”
It’s a passing line, but it captures the tension at the heart of this magnificent book: Here is a story of two men, each profoundly isolated, trying to figure out how to exist in a small, claustrophobic world.
The traveler heading home and dreading it is Cal, a young gay man who has recently graduated from college in Edinburgh and has been floundering ever since. At the start of the novel, he is summoned back to the small village where he grew up to care for his sick grandmother. He obliges, but he’s n...
Min Jin Lee Wants Us to Rethink Education
After almost a decade away, the author of “Pachinko” is back with her latest tale about the Korean diaspora, “American Hagwon.”
56 mins
9 October Finished
Decades Later, Stephen King Is Finishing What He and Peter Straub Started
The author speaks about his new book, “Other Worlds Than These,” which completes a trilogy he began with his friend and co-writer in 1984.
36 mins
2 October Finished
Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Etna,’ by Paul Yoon
Yoon’s latest novel is about a bomb-sniffing dog trying to make it home after a war.
55 mins
26 September Finished
John Green Knows a True Hollywood Ending is Complicated
Critic Dwight Garner talks about his review of Marlon James's “The Disappearers,” and then John Green speaks about writing his first novel for adults, "Hollywood, Ending."
57 mins
18 September Finished
The Best Books of the 21st Century: Taffy Brodesser-Akner on ‘The Corrections’
If you were a reading adult in the early 2000s, you probably tackled, or at least heard about, “The Corrections,” Jonathan Franzen’s best-selling and much discussed book. The novel won the National Book Award, was a Pulitzer finalist, and an Oprah Book Club pick. The book arrives at its 25th anniversary this month, and in today’s episode of the “Book Review” podcast, host Gilbert Cruz talks with Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a writer for The New York Times magazine and novelist, about why this novel is so essential to modern American literature. And that’s not just her take: “The Corrections” ranks fifth on our list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, as voted on by hundreds of influential readers. “The Corrections” is a book about America at the turn of the century; it was published just before 9/11. Brodesser-Akner, who admits to having read the novel 20 times, says that Franzen’s work “became the defining book of America’s golden moment, which ended on Sept. 10.”
47 mins
11 September Finished
It’s Time for a Big Ol’ Fall Book Preview
From horror to history to literary fiction, the Book Review editors discuss 31 titles that deserve a look.
49 mins
4 September Finished