The Lives of Flies
9 July 2021 - 44 minsThe subtitle of Jonathan Balcombe’s new book, “Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World’s Most Successful Insects” leads to the first question on this week’s podcast. Why “successful”?
“Their diversity, for one,” Balcombe says. “There’s over 160,000 described species — and it’s important to add that qualifier, ‘described,’ because it’s estimated there may be about five times that many that are undescribed. Insects make up 80 percent of all animal species on the planet, so that says something right there about how incredibly successful they are, and flies are arguably the most species-rich subset of insects. It’s estimated there’s about 20 million flies on earth at any moment for every h...
Series Episodes
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
Our Book Critics on Their 2025 in Reading
On this episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks with New York Times Book Review critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai about their standout fiction and nonfiction of the past 12 months.
36 mins
12 December 2025 Finished
The 10 Best Books of 2025
In this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz gathers a group of fellow editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the most exciting fiction and nonfiction of the year.
1 hour 18 mins
2 December 2025 Finished
Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Hamnet'
In this week's episode, host MJ Franklin leads a discussion about Maggie O'Farrell's "Hamnet" — one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2020, and the source of Chloé Zhao’s new movie of the same name.
1 hour 2 mins
28 November 2025 Finished
Welcome to Literary Award Season
It began with Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize in October, and continued this month with the Booker Prize and the National Book Awards. Our panel of editors discusses what it all means.
46 mins
22 November 2025 Finished
