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The New York Times

The world's top authors and critics join host Gilbert Cruz and editors at The New York Times Book Review to talk about the week's top books, what we're reading and what's going on in the literary world.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The Book Review

Today we want to bring back an episode from our archives. 

It’s about a book that has real beach read vibes. There’s a lot of water. It’s a relationship drama. And it’s also a daring story of survival. 

“Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck" made it onto the Book Review Top 10 Books of 2025 and the paperback edition just came out a few weeks ago. It tells the unbelievable story of a British couple in the 1970s who try to sail around the world. They’re trying to reach New Zealand and they almost make it. But their boat gets capsized by a whale in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean and they’re forced to survive there for quite a while. 

Here is our conversation from last year with the author, Sophie Elmhirst. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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Sophie Elmhirst on the True Story of a Shipwrecked Couple

If you can’t tell your Eurylochus from your Telemachus, fear not: Your primer on “The Odyssey” is here, just in time for Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of the 3,000-year-old epic.

Madeline Miller, who reinvented “The Odyssey” in her best-selling novel “Circe,” explains why you shouldn’t be intimidated by the classic.

Plus, our critic at large A.O. Scott explains how nearly every genre out there — sci-fi, romance, bloody revenge and more — can be found in this poem’s sprawling tale.

Books and Other Works Discussed on This Episode:

“Philoctetes,” by Sophocles

“The Iliad,” by Homer

“The Penelopiad,” by Margaret Atwood

“Watership Down,” by Richard Adams

“Aeneid,” by Virgil

“I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem,” by Maryse Condé

“An American Marriage,” by Tayari Jones

“The Buddha in the Attic,” by Julie Otsuka

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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This Author Says You Shouldn’t Be Intimidated by ‘The Odyssey’

The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday this summer, giving Americans a chance to reflect on the nation’s past and imagine its future.

Who better to help us make sense of this moment than Jill Lepore? The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and author of “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” joined the “Book Review” podcast to recommend some reading for the occasion. She also revisits the politics and drama of America’s previous birthdays, and discusses how a dystopian novel may be the most relevant read about the country right now.

After that, Elisabeth Egan, an editor at The Book Review, lays out some of the summer’s most anticipated beach reads.

Books Discussed on This Episode:

“We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” by Jill Lepore

“The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,” by Jill Lepore (forthcoming)

“American Scripture,” by Pauline Maier

“Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s,” by Marc Stein

“Gliff,” by Ali Smith

“Yesteryear,” by Caro Claire Burke

“Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage,” by Belle Burden

“Whistler,” by Ann Patchett

“The Things We Never Say,” by Elizabeth Strout

“Man Overboard!,” by Kathleen Rooney

“American Fantasy,” by Emma Straub

“A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck”: Sophie Elmhirst

“The Shampoo Effect,” by Jenny Jackson

The “Nantucket” book series, by Elin Hilderbrand

“Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead

“London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

“How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University,” by Theo Baker

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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Jill Lepore on What to Read This Fourth of July

“Yesteryear,” Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, tells the story of Natalie Heller Mills: an ultrasuccessful tradwife influencer who posts about her life on Yesteryear Ranch, a homestead where she grows her own food, tends to cows and chickens, raises her six children and models a particular brand of conservative Christian womanhood. But not all is as it seems. Behind the cameras, nannies care for the children, Natalie shops for the types of groceries she decries online, she detests her husband with his manosphere beliefs, and she’s on the cusp of being exposed by a rogue video producer.

One day she wakes up and discovers she has been transported to 1855, forced to live the pioneer persona she has been performing online. How did she get there? How can she escape? And what does her misery mean about the lifestyle she has embraced for profit?

"Yesteryear" was met with fanfare after it was published in April. Even before the book was released, it was scooped up for a film adaptation that Anne Hathaway is set to star in and produce. The novel was selected as a “Good Morning America” Book Club pick; Burke appeared on “Late Night With Seth Meyers”; and the book has spent more than a month on The Times’s best-seller list.

Everyone, it seems, is talking about “Yesteryear.” But does it live up to the hype? On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Jennifer Harlan and Joumana Khatib.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

 • “Running Out of Time,” by Margaret Peterson Haddix

 • “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn

 • “The Power,” by Naomi Alderman

 • “Eileen,” by Ottessa Moshfegh

 • “The Compound,” by Aisling Rawle

 • “Hot Girls With Balls,” by Benedict Nguyen

 • “Just Watch Me,” by Lior Torenberg

 • “A Good Person,” by Kirsten King

 • “The Guest,” by Emma Cline

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Yesteryear,' by Caro Claire Burke

In April 1989, a newspaper clipping about an art exhibit landed in the mailbox of the Rev. Donald Wildmon, the founder of a conservative evangelical group, the American Family Association.

Partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the exhibit included a now-infamous photograph by Andres Serrano that showed a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s own urine. Incensed, Wildmon sent a copy of the photo to every member of Congress, setting off a battle led by the Christian right over what contemporary art could be and who should receive federal funding for it.

Isaac Butler, an author and cultural historian, walks through this and other pivotal moments in the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s in his new book, “The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars.”

Butler spoke to the Book Review’s editor, Gilbert Cruz, about how these fights unfolded and what they meant for the artists themselves. He sat down to write the book, he said, when “it really felt like the culture wars of the ’80s and ’90s that I grew up in were repeating again.”

Books and plays discussed on this episode:

“The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars,” by Isaac Butler

“Measure for Measure,” by William Shakespeare

“Transgressions: The Offences of Art,” by Anthony Julius

“It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic,” by Jack Lowery

“The Devil Finds Work,” by James Baldwin

“Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz,” by Cynthia Carr

“Elia Kazan: A Life,” by Elia Kazan

“Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War and the Fight to End Slavery,” by Richard Kreitner

“The Kindness of Strangers,” by Salka Viertel

“The Talmud: A Biography,” by Barry Scott Wimpfheimer

“My Last Sigh,” by Luis Buñuel

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Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts, and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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Art, Outrage and How the Culture Wars Began

In 2024, The New York Times Book Review gathered more than 500 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets and literary enthusiasts to help pick the best books of the 21st century so far. One of those books was Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Road,” which came in at No. 13. That book tells the story of a man and his young son trying to survive in a postapocalyptic United States. Like other books by McCarthy, it combines ornate prose with moments of unforgettable violence. It is also a moving story of love and parenthood under the most extreme circumstances.

One of the people who voted on our best books list was Ryan Holiday, author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, host of the “Daily Stoic” podcast and owner of the Painted Porch Bookshop in Bastrop, Texas. We recently invited him on the “Book Review” podcast to talk about “The Road,” and how its meaning changed for him after he became a father.

Books Discussed on This Episode:

“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy

“No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy

“All the Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy

“Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy

“The Odyssey” by Homer

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The Children of Men” by P. D. James

“The Plague” by Albert Camus

“Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates

“Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius

“Of Boys and Men” by Richard Reeves

“Outdoor Kids in an Inside World” by Steven Rinella

“Letter to His Father” by Franz Kafka

“Range” by David Epstein

“Good Inside” by Becky Kennedy

“Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy

“Death Be Not Proud” by John Gunther

“The Revenant” by Michael Punke

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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The Best Books of the 21st Century: Ryan Holiday on ‘The Road’

June is here and the long summer days are stretching out ahead, which means it’s time to settle in front of the air-conditioner with a pile of books. (Just us?) But which ones should you read this summer? The “Book Review” podcast’s Gilbert Cruz talks with the Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin about the titles they’re most excited about.

Books discussed in this episode:

“Red Sheet,” by James Ellroy

“Villa Coco,” by Andrew Sean Greer

“They All Fall in Love at the End,” by Haili Blassingame

“Whistler,” by Ann Patchett

“As If,” by Isabel Waidner

“The Housewives Underground,” by Kaitlyn Tiffany

“Nebraska,” by Monica Datta

“Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead

“The Mortons,” by Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld

“Country People,” by Daniel Mason

“Fixer Chao,” by Han Ong

“Biological War,” by Annie Jacobsen

“We Were Forbidden,” by Jacqueline Harpman

“The Amateur,” by Chris Bohjalian

“A Tender Age,” by Chang-rae Lee

“The Jackal,” by Joby Warrick

“A Moment in the Sun,” by Shane White

“A Sudden Flicker of Light,” by David Thomson

“Rabbit, Fox, Tar” by P.C. Verrone

“The Au Pair,” by Teddy Wayne

“Land,” by Maggie O’Farrell

“Sublimation,” by Isabel J. Kim

“Cloudthief,” by Nathaniel Rich

“Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep,” by Paul Tremblay

“You Won’t Get Free of It,” by Rachel Aviv

“Awake Awake,” by Fiona Mozley

“Triage,” by Claudia Rankine

“Catch the Devil,” by Pamela Colloff

“Helpless,” by Jessica Knoll

“Life of M,” by Rachel Cusk

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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A Summer Book Recommendation Bonanza

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.

 The novel is told in three parts. We open with an unnamed narrator going to interview his mentor, Thomas — an acclaimed artist in his 90s who also happens to be the father of one of the narrator’s friends, Max — for a magazine. Before the interview, however, the narrator’s phone breaks and he has no way to record their conversation. Rather than reschedule, he proceeds with the interview and only pretends to record Thomas as they talk.

 The second section flashes to the future. Thomas has died, and the article that our narrator wrote has become enshrined as the final interview with the iconic artist. At a symposium in Madrid, the narrator confesses that his interview was reconstructed rather than transcribed — a revelation that dismays the other guests and infuriates Max. Then we flash again. In the final section, the narrator talks to Max, who discusses his own complicated relationship with Thomas and technology, including how the internet and other digital tools impacted his family during several crises.

 Through these scenes, “Transcription” asks a series of questions: How does technology mediate our lives? How does it bring us together or pull us apart? Is there a difference between what’s real and what’s true? It also becomes a potent and poignant study of fatherhood and what it means.

 On this episode, MJ Franklin discusses “Transcription” with fellow Book Review editors Gregory Cowles and Alexandra Jacobs.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

 • “Leaving the Atocha Station,” “10:04” and “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner

 • “The Dance of Anger,” by Harriet Lerner

 • “Reporting,” by Lillian Ross

 • “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art,” by Virginia Heffernan

 • “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss,” by Amy Bloom

 • “No One Is Talking About This,” by Patricia Lockwood

 • “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr

 • “Universality,” by Natasha Brown

 • “White Noise” and “The Body Artist,” by Don DeLillo

 • “A Hunger Artist,” by Franz Kafka

 • “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan

 • “Asymmetry,” by Lisa Halliday

 • “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz

 • “The Mezzanine” and “Vox,” by Nicholson Baker

 • “Outline,” by Rachel Cusk

 • The books of Virginia Woolf

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Transcription,' by Ben Lerner

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.”

Mentioned in the episode:

“The Descriptive Experience Sampling method” by Russell T. Hurlburt and Sarah A. Akhter

“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” by Thomas Nagel

The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms

Descartes’ Error by Antonio Damasio

“The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought” by Kalina Christoff and Kieran C. R. Fox

Book Recommendations:

The Blind Spot by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Being You by Anil Seth

You can find transcripts and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Kim Freda. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota and Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

Listen to and Follow the “Book Review” Podcast

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We Want to Hear From You

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
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The Ezra Klein Show: Michael Pollan’s Journey to the Borderlands of Consciousness

Matt Haig was already several books into his career as a writer by the time he published “The Midnight Library” in 2020. One of those books, the 2015 memoir “Reasons to Stay Alive,” had even been a best seller in England, his home nation. Yet, “The Midnight Library” was a true breakout phenomenon. The novel, about a depressed woman who, after deciding to end her own life, ends up in a magical library in which every book presents her with an alternative life, eventually sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.

The author’s new book, “The Midnight Train,” takes place on a parallel track. In it, an older man dies and finds himself on a train, able to revisit key moments in his life on his way to the hereafter. Like its blockbuster sibling, the book is concerned with questions of gratitude, regret and perspective.

Haig joined the “Book Review” podcast and spoke to the host, Gilbert Cruz, about his new book and why he returned to the world of “The Midnight Library.”

If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

Books Discussed on This Episode

 • “
The Midnight Library • ,” by Matt Haig

 • “Reasons to Stay Alive,” by Matt Haig

 • “
The Labrador Pact • ,” by Matt Haig

 • “
Winnie-the-Pooh • ,” by A. A. Milne

 • “
The House at Pooh Corner • ,” by A. A. Milne

 • “
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland • ,” Lewis Carroll

 • “The Outsiders,” by S. E. Hinton

 • “Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau

 • “
Paris Trance • ,” by Jeff Dyer

 • “
Invisible Cities • ,” by Italo Calvino

 • “
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue • ,” by V. E. Schwab

 • “
The History of Love • ,” by Nicole Krauss

 • “We Burned So Bright,” by T. J. Klune

 • “A Novel Love Story,” by Ashley Poston

 • “The Someday Garden,” by Ashley Poston

Listen to and Follow the ‘Book Review’ Podcast

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We Want to Hear From You

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com.

Credits

The “Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Sarah Diamond, Amy Pearl, and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado.

Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad, and Brooke Minters.

Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

 
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sophie Elmhirst on the True Story of a Shipwrecked Couple

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