Let's Talk About Percival Everett's 'James'
31 May 2024 - 45 minsThe broad outlines of "James" will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom.
But where Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” treated Jim as a secondary character, a figure of pity and a target of fun, Percival Everett makes him the star of the show: a dignified, complicated, fully formed man capable of love and wit and rage in equal measure.
In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Gregory Cowles. Caution: Spoilers aboun...
Series Episodes
Art, Outrage and How the Culture Wars Began
Isaac Butler, an author and cultural historian, joined the “Book Review” podcast to discuss his new book, “The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars.”
34 mins
19 June Finished
The Best Books of the 21st Century: Ryan Holiday on ‘The Road’
The best-selling author joined the “Book Review” podcast to discuss how his relationship to Cormac McCarthy’s novel changed after becoming a father.
36 mins
12 June Finished
A Summer Book Recommendation Bonanza
From doppelgängers to dark academia, the Book Review editors share some of their most-anticipated titles.
43 mins
5 June Finished
Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Transcription,' by Ben Lerner
Ben Lerner’s slender new novel, “Transcription,” is just 130 pages long, yet it cracks open some of our most colossal and enduring philosophical questions. On this episode, MJ Franklin discusses “Transcription” with fellow Book Review editors Gregory Cowles and Alexandra Jacobs.
47 mins
30 May Finished
The Ezra Klein Show: Michael Pollan’s Journey to the Borderlands of Consciousness
Today we are delighted to share an episode from our colleagues on “The Ezra Klein Show,” originally published on March 31. Ezra interviewed author Michael Pollan, whose best-selling books include “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “In Defense of Food,” and “How to Change Your Mind.” Pollan’s latest book, “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness,” came out earlier this year. It’s an exploration of what consciousness is, and the book is — as our review put it — “highly pleasurable to read.”
1 hour 28 mins
22 May Finished
Matt Haig on ‘The Midnight Library,’ Mental Illness and Winnie-the-Pooh
The best-selling author joins the “Book Review” podcast to discuss his new novel, “The Midnight Train.”
42 mins
15 May Finished
