Book Club: Let's Talk About 'The Hounding' by Xenobe Purvis
30 January - 49 minsXenobe Purvis’s slim but powerful debut novel, “The Hounding,” opens with a jolt: “The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body. Marching up the river path, the villagers.”
How did we get here, with five young sisters living in 1700s England being hunted by an angry mob that suspects them not only of murder but also of the demonic ability to transform themselves into a pack of wild dogs? That is the tale “The Hounding” unfolds, in a gothic parable about male ego, cultural misogyny and the dangers of gossip run amok.
On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin discusses “The Hounding” with his fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.
Other books and works...
Series Episodes
Chuck Klosterman Has So Much to Say About Football
The journalist, novelist and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman is best known for writing about rock music and pop culture. But Klosterman got his start in college as a sports journalist, and with his new book, “Football,” he has finally devoted an entire collection to the sport that has fundamentally shaped him alongside American society at large.
45 mins
23 January Finished
The Books We're Excited About in Early 2026
A new year means new books are on the way! So many new books. On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks with fellow Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin about the upcoming fiction and nonfiction titles they’re most anticipating between now and April.
45 mins
16 January Finished
'The Correspondent' Author Virginia Evans On Her Breakout Year
Virginia Evans’s debut novel, “The Correspondent,” was published last April and became one of the publishing industry’s heartwarming champions of 2025. For Evans, who had written and failed to sell seven previous novels, the book’s popularity has felt magical, as she explains to host Gilbert Cruz on this week’s podcast.
40 mins
9 January Finished
Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘What We Can Know’
Ian McEwan’s latest novel, one of the Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of 2025, is a literary mystery about a scholar’s search for a long-lost poem.
51 mins
27 December 2025 Finished
What Did 2025 Mean for Books?
On this week’s episode, host MJ Franklin talks with his Book Review colleagues Alexandra Alter, Tina Jordan and John Maher about the biggest book stories and most significant reading trends of 2025.
47 mins
19 December 2025 Finished
