Afleveringen
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The year 1986 was notable for two big disasters, both of them attributable to human error and bureaucratic negligence at competing super powers: the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in the United States.
The journalist Adam Higginbotham wrote about Chernobyl in his 2019 book, âMidnight in Chernobyl.â Now heâs back, with a look at the American side of the ledger, in his new book, âChallenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.â On this weekâs episode, Higginbotham tells host Gilbert Cruz why he was drawn to both disasters, and what the Challenger explosion revealed about weaknesses in Americaâs space program.
âThere was certainly a lot of hubris and complacency that led into this accident,â Higginbotham says. âIn complex decision-making processes like those leading to the Chernobyl accident and the Challenger disaster, those concerned with making the decisions start off with a series of extremely carefully governed and defined practices for what constitutes acceptable risk and normal behavior. And then gradually over time, they subtly and almost unconsciously expand what they deem to be acceptable without even realizing it."
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In the world of fantasy fiction, Leigh Bardugo is royalty: Her Grishaverse novels are mainstays on the young adult best-seller list, her âShadow and Boneâ trilogy has been adapted for a Netflix series and her adult novels âNinth Houseâ and âHell Bentâ established her as a force to reckon with in the subgenre known as dark academia.
Now Bardugo is back with a new fantasy novel, âThe Familiar,â and itâs also her first work of historical fiction: Set during the Inquisition in 16th-century Spain, it deals with literal royalty (King Philip II of Spain) through the story of a young scullery maid who happens to possess some magical abilities. This week on the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks with Bardugo about her career, her writing process and her decision to write a historical novel
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Colm TĂłibĂnâs 2009 novel âBrooklynâ told the story of a meek young Irishwoman, Eilis Lacey, who emigrates to New York in the 1950s out of a sense of familial obligation and slowly, diligently begins building a new life for herself. A New York Times best seller, the book was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Saoirse Ronan â and now, 15 years after its publication, TĂłibĂn has surprised himself by writing a sequel.
âLong Island,â his new novel, finds Eilis relocated to the suburbs and, in the opening scene, confronting a sudden crisis in her marriage. On this weekâs podcast, TĂłibĂn talks to Sarah Lyall about the book and how he came to write it.
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How to explain the British writer Dolly Alderton to an American audience? It might be best to let her work speak for itself â it certainly does! â but Alderton is such a cultural phenomenon in her native England that some context is probably helpful: âLike Nora Ephron, With a British Twistâ is the way The New York Times Book Review put it when we reviewed her latest novel, âGood Material,â earlier this year.
âGood Materialâ tells the story of a down-on-his-luck stand-up comic dealing with a broken heart, and it has won Alderton enthusiastic fans in America. In this weekâs episode, the Book Reviewâs MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Emily Eakin and Leah Greenblatt.
Caution: Spoilers abound!
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Simon & Schuster is not growing old quietly.
The venerable publishing house â one of the industryâs so-called Big 5 â is celebrating its 100th birthday this month after a period of tumult that saw it put up for sale by its previous owner, pursued by its rival Penguin Random House in an acquisition bid that fell apart after the Justice Department won an antitrust suit, then bought for $1.62 billion last fall by the private equity firm KKR.
With conditions seemingly stabilized since then, the company is turning 100 at an auspicious time to celebrate its roots and look to its future. On this weekâs episode, Gilbert is joined by Simon & Schusterâs publisher and chief executive, Jonathan Karp, to talk about the centennial and what it means.
âIt was a startup 100 years ago,â Karp says. âIt was two guys in their 20s. Richard Simon and Max Schuster. They were just a couple of guys who loved books. And they made a decision that they wanted to read every book they published. ⊠The first book was a crossword puzzle book. It was a monster success. Theyâd actually raised $50,000 from their friends and family. They didnât need it. They returned the money. And the company was up and running.â
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
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This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen Kingâs first novel, âCarrie.â In the decades since, King has experimented with length, genre and style, but has always maintained his position as one of Americaâs most famous writers.
On this weekâs episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks to the novelist Grady Hendrix, who read and re-read many of Kingâs books over several years, writing an essay on each as well as King superfan Damon Lindelof, the TV showrunner behind shows such as âLostâ and âThe Leftovers.â
Some of the books discussed in this episode: "Carrie," "Cujo," "Duma Key," "From a Buick 8," "The Tommyknockers," "The Stand," and "The Long Walk."
Some of the articles referenced:
Grady Hendrix's Stephen King essaysWhen Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and J.J. Abrams met Stephen KingStephen King reviews Tom Perrotta's "The Leftovers" -
Earlier this month, the Book Reviewâs staff critics â Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai â released a list of 22 novels they have found reliably funny since Joseph Hellerâs landmark comic novel âCatch-22â came out in 1961. On this weekâs episode, they tell Gilbert Cruz why âCatch-22â was their starting point, and explain a bit about their process: how they think about humor, how they made their choices, what books they left off and what books led to fights along the way. (âAmerican Psychoâ turns out to be as contentious now as it was when it was first published.)
âThere are only a very few number of books in my lifetime that have made me laugh out loud,â Jacobs says. âAnd some of them no longer make me laugh out loud, because the thing about humor is itâs like this giant shifting cloud, this shape-shifting thing that changes over the course of our lives and also the life of the culture.â
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
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If you're familiar with Tana French, it's likely for her Dublin Murder Squad series of crime novels that kicked off in 2007 with "In the Woods." But her new book, "The Hunter," a sequel to 2020's "The Searcher," takes place outside of that series.
In this episode of the podcast, speaking to Sarah Lyall about her shift to new characters, French said, "I wasn't comfortable with sticking to the detective's perspective anymore. I think from the perspective of a detective, a murder investigation is a very specific thing. It's a source of power and control. It's a way that you can retrieve order after the disruption that murder has caused. But I kept thinking there are so many other perspectives within that investigation for whom this investigation is not a source of power or control or truth and justice. It's the opposite. It's something that just barrels into your life and upends it and can cause permanent damage."
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Frank Herbertâs epic novel âDuneâ and its successors have been entrenched in the science fiction and fantasy canon for almost six decades, a rite of passage for proudly nerdy readers across the generations. But âDuneâ is experiencing a broader cultural resurgence at the moment thanks to Denis Villeneuveâs recent film adaptations starring TimothĂ©e Chalamet. (Part 2 is in theaters now.)
This week on the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks to The Timesâs critic Alissa Wilkinson, who covers movies, culture and religion, about Herbertâs novel, Villeneuveâs films and the enduring hold of Fremen lore on the audienceâs imagination.
âThereâs a couple things that I think are really unsettling in âDune,ââ Wilkinson says. âOne is, the vision of Frank Herbert was, I believe, to basically write a book that questioned authoritarians and hero mythology genuinely, across the board. Any kind of a hero figure he is proposing will always have things and people come up alongside that hero figure that distort their influence. Even if they intend well, if theyâre benevolent, thereâs still all of this really awful stuff that comes along with it. So Paul is a messiah figure â we believe he wants good things for most of the book â and then he turns on a dime or it feels like he might be turning on a dime. You can never quite tell where anyone stands in this book. And I think that is unsettling, especially because so many of the other kinds of things that we watch â the superhero movies, âStar Wars,â whatever â thereâs a clear-cut good and evil fight going on. Good and evil donât really exist in âDune.ââ
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
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Itâs not often that the Academy Awards give the publishing world any gristle to chew on. But at this yearâs Oscars ceremony â taking place on Sunday evening â one of the Best Picture contenders is all about book publishing: Cord Jeffersonâs âAmerican Fictionâ is adapted from the 2001 novel âErasure,â by Percival Everett, and it amounts to a scathing, satirical indictment of publishers, readers and the insidious biases that the marketplace can impose in determining who tells what stories.
Obviously, we recommend the movie. But even more, we recommend Everettâs novel. In this weekâs episode, the Book Reviewâs MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, also from the Book Review, and Reggie Ugwu, a pop culture reporter at The Times. Caution: Spoilers abound for both the book and the movie.
Have you read âErasureâ or seen âAmerican Fiction,â or both? Weâd love to know what you thought. Share your reactions in the comments and weâll try to join the conversation.
Weâll get you started:
Joumana Khatib: âIâd read Percival Everett before. I love watching his mind on the page. Heâs funny, he's irreverent, heâs sarcastic. Thereâs nobody that writes like him. And I have to tell you that âErasureâ totally blew me away, just because of the sheer number of textures in this book. ⊠Itâs obviously a parodical novel. Itâs obviously unbelievably satirical and itâs just outrageous enough that it keeps the momentum without feeling schlocky or shticky.â âŠ
Reggie Ugwu: âHe has a great sense of pace, like he never wastes time. ⊠You can tell that itâs the work of a very sophisticated and mature writer who knows exactly what to leave on the page and exactly what he can cut. There are some moments where I marveled when he would just leap the plot forward in a few lines.â
Send your feedback about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general, to [email protected].
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Tommy Orangeâs acclaimed debut novel, âThere Thereâ â one of the Book Reviewâs 10 Best Books of 2018 â centered on a group of characters who all converge on an Indigenous powwow in modern-day Oakland, Calif. His follow-up, âWandering Stars,â is both a prequel and a sequel to that book, focusing specifically on the character Orvil Red Feather and tracing several generations of his family through the decades before and after the events of âThere There.â
This week, Orange visits the podcast to discuss âWandering Starsâ as well as the book he has read most in his life, Clarice Lispector's "The Hour of the Star."
Orange explained how he decided to write a historical novel while sticking with the characters and story line from his earlier book.
âI got drawn in by this part of history because it was so specific to my tribe,â Orange says. âI donât necessarily love reading historical fiction, but if itâs driven from the interior and itâs character driven, itâs compelling to me. So figuring out the types of humans they might have been or things they might have thought or felt, that was a way for me to try to figure out how to make them real. and thatâs sometimes on a sentence level and sometimes on a, like, what are their motivations or what are they doing in their day-to-day lives? What do they want?â
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Tricia Romanoâs new book, âThe Freaks Came Out to Write,â is an oral history of New Yorkâs late, great alternative weekly newspaper The Village Voice, where she worked for eight years as the nightlife columnist. Our critic Dwight Garner reviewed the book recently â he loved it â and he visits the podcast this week to chat with Gilbert Cruz about oral histories in general and the gritty glamour of The Village Voice in particular.
âYou would pick it up and it was so prickly,â Garner says. âThe whole thing just felt like this production that someone had really thought through, from the great cartoons to the great photographs to the crazy hard news in the front to the different voices in back. It all came together into a package. And there are still great writers out there, but it doesnât feel the same anymore. No one has really taken over, to my point of view. ... Thereâs no one-stop shopping to find the great listings at every club and every major theater, just a great rundown of what one might be interested in doing.â
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Reviewâs podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].
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Barbara Kingsolverâs novel âDemon Copperhead,â a riff on âDavid Copperfieldâ that moves Charles Dickensâs story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples engagingly with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction, was one of the Book Reviewâs 10 Best Books of 2022. And â unlike an actual copperhead â âDemon Copperheadâ has legs: Many readers have told us it was their favorite book in 2023 as well.
In this weekâs spoiler-filled episode, MJ Franklin talks with Elisabeth Egan (an editor at the Book Review) and Anna Dubenko, the Timesâs newsroom audience director, about their reactions to Kingsolverâs novel and why it has exerted such a lasting appeal.
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The early part of a year can mean new books to read, or it can mean catching up on older ones we havenât gotten to yet. This week, Gilbert Cruz chats with the Book Reviewâs Sarah Lyall and Sadie Stein about titles from both categories that have held their interest lately, including a 2022 biography of John Donne, a book about female artists who nurtured an interest in the supernatural, and the history of a Jim Crow-era mental asylum, along with a gripping new novel by Janice Hallett.
âItâs just so deft,â Stein says of Hallettâs new thriller, âThe Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels.â âItâs so funny. It seems like sheâs having a lot of fun. One thing I would say, and I donât think this is spoiling it, is, if there comes a moment when you think you might want to stop, keep going and trust her. I think itâs rare to be able to say that with that level of confidence.â
Here are the books discussed in this weekâs episode:
âSuper-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne,â by Katherine Rundell
âThe Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World,â by Jennifer Higgie
âThe Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels,â by Janice Hallett
âMadness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum,â by Antonia Hylton
(Briefly mentioned: "You Dreamed of Empires," by Ălvaro Enrigue, "Beautyland," by Marie-Helene Bertino, and "Martyr!" by Kaveh Akbar.)
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Former New York Times film critic A.O. Scott joins to talk both David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon," which continues to sit near the top of the bestseller list, and Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated film adaptation.
Spoilers abound for both versions. (Also, for history.)
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Molly Roden Winter and her husband, Stewart, have been married for 24 years. But since 2008, by mutual agreement, they have also dated other people â an arrangement that Winter details in her new memoir, âMore: A Memoir of Open Marriage.â
In this weekâs episode, The Timesâs Sarah Lyall chats with Winter about her book, her marriage and why she decided to go public.
âI didnât see any representations of either people who were still successfully married after having opened it up or people who were honest about how hard it was,â Winter says. âThe stories that were coming out were either, âOh, we tried it. It didnât work,â or âWeâre born polyamorous and itâs just the best and I just feel love pouring out of me 24/7.â Neither of those things was true for me. I felt like I had learned something really profound through this journey of opening my marriage, and I wanted to share it."
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It's gonna be a busy spring! On this weekâs episode, Gilbert Cruz talks with Tina Jordan and Joumana Khatib about some of the upcoming books theyâre anticipating most keenly over the next several months.
Books discussed in this weekâs episode:
âKnife,â by Salman Rushdie
âJames,â by Percival Everett
âThe Book of Love,â by Kelly Link
âMartyr,â by Kaveh Akbar
âThe Demon of Unrest,â by Erik Larson
âThe Hunter,â by Tana French
âWandering Stars,â by Tommy Orange
âAnita de Monte Laughs Last,â by Xochitl Gonzalez
âSplinters,â by Leslie Jamison
âNeighbors and Other Stories,â by Diane Oliver
âFunny Story,â by Emily Henry
âTable for Two,â by Amor Towles
âGrief Is for People,â by Sloane Crosley
âOne Way Back: A Memoir,â by Christine Blasey Ford
âThe House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir,â by RuPaul
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Every January on his website Extension765.com, the prolific director Steven Soderbergh looks back at the previous year and posts a day-by-day account of every movie and TV series watched, every play attended and every book read. In 2023, Soderbergh tackled more than 80 (!) books, and on this week's episode, he and the host Gilbert Cruz talk about some of his highlights.
Here are the books discussed on this weekâs episode:
"How to Live: A Life of Montaigne," by Sarah Bakewell
"Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining,'" by Lee Unkrich and J.W. Rinzler
"Cocktails with George and Martha," by Philip Gefter
The work of Donald E. Westlake
"Americanah," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"Pictures From an Institution," by Randall Jarrell
"Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will," by Robert M. Sapolsky
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James McBrideâs novel âThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Storeâ was one of the most celebrated books of 2023 â a critical darling and a New York Times best seller. In their piece for the Book Review, Danez Smith called it âa murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novelâ and praised its âprecision, magnitude and necessary messiness.â
On this weekâs episode, the Book Review editors MJ Franklin, Joumana Khatib and Elisabeth Egan convene for a discussion about the book, McBride, and what you might want to read next.
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John Vaillantâs book âFire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter Worldâ takes readers to the petroleum boomtown of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, in May 2016, when a wildfire that started in the surrounding boreal forest grew faster than expected and tore through the city, destroying entire neighborhoods in a rampage that lasted for days.
On this weekâs episode, Vaillant (whose book was one of our 10 Best for 2023) calls it a âbellwether,â and tells the host Gilbert Cruz how he decided to put the fire itself at the center of his story rather than choosing a human character to lead his audience through the narrative.
âIt was a bit of a leap," he says. "It was a risk. But it also felt like, given the role that fire is increasingly playing in our world now, it really deserved to be focused on, on its own merit, from its own point of view, if you will.â
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