The Sunday Special: The Books We Read in School

It's October, which means it's time for scary books and scary movies. There's one person who is well known for both: Stephen King. While he's known as a master of horror, some of the more popular films based on his work are drawn from non-horror material. On this week's episode, Sean Fennessey, co-host of the Ringer podcast "The Big Picture," joins Gilbert Cruz to talk about "Stand By Me," "The Shawshank Redemption" and more.

Brandon Taylor's debut novel, “Real Life,” was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2020, and he quickly followed that up with the story collection “Filthy Animals” and another novel, “The Late Americans." On this week's episode, MJ Franklin speaks with Taylor about his latest work, “Minor Black Figures.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” So opens Jane Austen’s Regency-era romantic comedy “Pride and Prejudice,” which for centuries has delighted readers with its story of the five Bennet sisters and their efforts to marry well. On this week’s episode, Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses the novel with fellow Book Review editors Jennifer Harlan, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles.

The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy. On this week’s episode, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre bits of trivia that the human body offers up.

In last week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, host Gilbert Cruz and his fellow editor Joumana Khatib offered a preview of some of the fall’s most anticipated works of fiction. This week they return to talk about upcoming nonfiction, from memoirs to literary biographies to the latest pop science offering from the incomparable Mary Roach.