This Reporter Can Tell Us What Nuclear Apocalypse Looks Like (Encore)
14 August - 45 minsImagine, if you will, that for unknown reasons North Korea has just launched a nuclear bomb at the United States. What happens next?
The journalist Annie Jacobsen has imagined exactly that, and spent more than a decade interviewing dozens of experts while mastering the voluminous literature on the subject — some of it declassified only in recent years — for her 2024 book “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” which walks readers through the 72 minutes from launch to global annihilation. In the Book Review, Barry Gewen said the book was “gripping” and declared it essential reading “if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision.”
Jacobsen no...
Series Episodes
Let’s Talk About the 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century
explicitFrom “Gone Girl” to “Mystic River,” Gilbert Cruz, Tina Jordan and Sarah Lyall revisit the books that changed the genre, discuss overlooked favorites and recommend the thrillers that everyone should read next.
51 mins
5 August Finished
Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘John of John’
Douglas Stuart’s latest novel follows a profoundly isolated father and son, each grappling with long-held secrets.
55 mins
1 August Finished
Let’s Talk About the Best Books of the Year (So Far)
It’s time for our annual midyear check-in on the books that we can’t stop thinking about.
39 mins
24 July Finished
Sophie Elmhirst on the True Story of a Shipwrecked Couple
Host Gilbert Cruz's conversation from last year with author Sophie Elmhirst features "Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck" — the gripping 1970s story of a couple shipwrecked by a whale — newly out in paperback this summer.
31 mins
17 July Finished
This Author Says You Shouldn’t Be Intimidated by ‘The Odyssey’
explicitFirst, a primer from the author of “Circe,” Madeline Miller. Then, A.O. Scott on all the genres inside the 3,000-year-old poem.
43 mins
10 July Finished
