The Book Review 23 Books We Are Looking Forward to This Spring
Ada Limón, poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate, talks about the public life of poetry and why adults shy away from it. She reflects on poetry’s reach and reads two poems about resilience and language. Short, lively conversations highlight spring reading picks and why this season’s list leans toward nonfiction.
47:35
The Witch Mixes Domestic Life With Subtle Magic
- Marie NDiaye's The Witch blends suburban realist concerns—marriage and parenting—with mild, intergenerational magic where daughters outstrip their mother's powers.
- Gilbert Cruz emphasizes its human core combined with a light magical element and Booker longlist pedigree.
The Calamity Club Is A Sweeping Southern Page Turner
- Kathryn Stockett's The Calamity Club is a sprawling May novel set in 1930s Mississippi that interweaves an orphan Meg and a struggling bookkeeper Birdie.
- Joumana Khatib describes reading 700 pages quickly and being surprised by enjoying plot-driven momentum.
Midnight Train Revisits Life Through A Metaphysical Journey
- Matt Haig's Midnight Train revisits his Midnight Library universe with an older man reliving life moments on a metaphysical train after death.
- Gilbert Cruz predicts its bestseller potential despite some finding it overly sentimental.
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Intro
00:00 • 37sec
Why this spring feels different for books
00:37 • 1min
Ben Lerner's Transcription: slim, idea-driven fiction
02:04 • 3min
Tom Perrotta's Ghost Town: a nostalgic summer
04:54 • 3min
Suzy Hansen's From Life Itself: Turkey through a neighborhood
07:38 • 2min
Beverly Gage's road-trip history of America
09:59 • 2min
Prophecy: ancient oracles and modern algorithms
11:51 • 3min
Marie NDiaye's The Witch: suburban magic and motherhood
14:24 • 2min
Ad break
16:29 • 1min
Patrick Radden Keefe's London Falling: true crime and grief
17:36 • 3min
Kathryn Stockett's The Calamity Club: sprawling southern novel
20:39 • 3min
Matt Haig's Midnight Train: revisiting a life on a train
23:39 • 2min
Emily LaBarge's Dog Days: hostage survival and memory
25:25 • 2min
David Sedaris' The Land and Its People: aging and humor
27:49 • 58sec
Lightning round: more spring books to watch
28:47 • 6min
Ada Limón on being Poet Laureate
34:31 • 3min
Poetry's public life and surprising readership
37:41 • 2min
Why adults distance themselves from poetry
39:25 • 6min
Ada Limón reads: 'Instructions on not giving up'
45:26 • 2min
Ada Limón reads: 'Literary Theory' and language's power
47:49 • 2min
Outro
49:58 • 25sec
#5899
• Mentioned in 8 episodes
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
Yesteryear follows Natalie, a social media influencer who has built her career on promoting a traditional, idyllic lifestyle.
However, her life takes a dramatic turn when she wakes up to find herself in the year 1805.
The novel explores themes of modern womanhood, capitalism, and the performance of perfection online, challenging readers to think deeply about these issues.
Burke's writing delves into the contradictions of modern womanhood and the false nostalgia for a past that never truly existed.
#80752
Transcription
Ben Lerner
Ben Lerner's 'Transcription' is a compact novel that follows an unnamed narrator whose phone breaks the night before a crucial interview, forcing him to rely on memory and presence; this incident unfolds into reflections on technology, ethics, and the construction of narratives.
Lerner blurs autobiography and fiction, interrogating how events are recorded, remembered and transformed into stories.
The novel examines interpersonal relationships and the journalist's dilemma of capturing truth without intrusive tools.
Stylistically spare yet intellectually dense, it layers philosophical inquiries about art and language over an intimate personal crisis.
'Transcription' continues Lerner's interest in the ethics of representation and the instability of factual accounts within contemporary media culture.
#72515
The Land and Its People
Audiobook
David Sedaris
In The Land and Its People, David Sedaris's first collection since Happy-Go-Lucky, he explores themes of travel, family, friendship, and the absurdities of life.
From caretaking after his boyfriend's surgery to adventures in Guatemala, Kenya, and Vatican City, Sedaris blends humor, sadness, and keen observation of human experiences.
The essays mix acerbic wit with tenderness, marveling at the challenges and delights of being alive.
#69469
London Falling
A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
Patrick Radden Keefe
London Falling chronicles the true story of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, who fell to his death from a luxury apartment building on the Thames in November 2019.
His grieving parents discovered that Zac had been leading a secret life, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch and becoming entangled with dangerous criminals.
Patrick Radden Keefe masterfully reports on the family's desperate quest to understand their son's death while exposing the seedy truths behind London's glamorous facade of wealth, corruption, and money laundering by post-Soviet oligarchs.
#11174
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
The midnight meat train
Tom Rosenberg
Gary Lucchesi
Jorge Saralegui
Jeff Buhler
Clive Barker
Richard Wright
Ryūhei Kitamura
Jonathan Sela
Eric Reid
Clive Barker's "Midnight Meat Train" is a chilling novella that delves into the dark underbelly of a city's subway system.
The story follows a photographer who becomes entangled with a gruesome serial killer.
Barker's signature blend of body horror and psychological suspense creates a visceral and unsettling reading experience.
The novella explores themes of urban decay, the hidden horrors lurking beneath the surface of society, and the consequences of obsession.
The shocking twist ending leaves a lasting impact on the reader, highlighting the unpredictable nature of evil.
#59399
The Things We Never Say
A Novel
Elizabeth Strout
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's new novel follows Artie, a teacher plagued by isolation despite his outwardly normal life on the Massachusetts coast.
A chance incident reveals a devastating secret that upends his world, forcing him to reassess his closest relationships and grapple with grief, friendship, parenthood, and unspoken truths.
With exquisite prose, Strout explores human frailty, the reverberations of past events, and the sustaining power of love and understanding.
#68968
Famesick
Hardcover
Lena Dunham
In Famesick, Lena Dunham chronicles her journey through chronic illness, the rise to fame with Girls, and the blurring lines between passion and self-destructive ambition.
From hospital stays and drug dependency to distorted relationships under the spotlight, she questions if fulfilling her dreams was worth the pain, ultimately finding wisdom in acceptance and reconnection with what she loves.
#44715
Dog Days
Emily LaBarge
Emily LaBarge's Dog Days is a nonfiction account that opens with a harrowing hostage situation her family endured while on vacation in 2009 and examines the long shadow such trauma casts.
As an arts critic, LaBarge brings analytic rigor to how traumatic experiences are narrated and understood, resisting sensationalism while probing memory and public storytelling.
The book reflects on the ethics of retelling trauma, the desire to craft a 'good' story, and how art can help make sense of painful episodes.
LaBarge's measured voice avoids maudlin or exploitative tropes, instead offering nuanced insights into recovery, identity, and the limits of language.
Dog Days melds personal memoir with cultural reflection, making it both intimate and intellectually engaged.
#85334
Five Weeks in the Country
Francine Prose
Francine Prose's Five Weeks in the Country is a historical novel that imagines the intimacy and creative exchange between Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen during a shared period.
Prose draws on historical detail and literary imagination to reconstruct conversations, tensions, and the personal lives behind famous works.
The novel explores authorship, friendship, and the interplay between public persona and private longing.
Through lush period detail and character-driven scenes, Prose illuminates how great writers influence and complicate one another.
The book offers both literary homage and fresh psychological insight into two towering 19th-century figures.
#89318
John of John
Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart's John of John continues the author's exploration of intimate, often painful family and community narratives in a working-class setting.
Following the acclaim of Shuggie Bain, Stuart is known for raw, empathetic storytelling that centers marginalized characters and the forces that shape them.
The new novel is expected to deliver richly textured prose, complex character studies, and emotional intensity.
Stuart's attention to detail and moral imagination make his fiction both heartbreaking and humane.
John of John likely cements his reputation as a major contemporary voice in literary fiction.
#8018
• Mentioned in 6 episodes
Life itself
Its Origin and Nature
Francis Crick
In 'Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature,' Francis Crick delves into the fundamental question of how life originated on Earth.
Crick advances the hypothesis of 'Directed Panspermia,' suggesting that life on Earth may have been deliberately seeded by an alien civilization.
He argues that the uniformity of the genetic code across all living organisms on Earth is a strong indicator that life may not have emerged spontaneously.
The book also touches on astrobiology, the Fermi paradox, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), providing a broad and speculative view on the origins of life.
#16700
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
Arsenio
Arsenio.
string
#15973
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
The Witch
Robert Eggers
#56773
The Ending Writes Itself
Evelyn Clark (pseudonym for V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke)
The Ending Writes Itself is a crime thriller written by V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke under the joint pseudonym Evelyn Clark; it follows six authors invited to a remote island to help finish an unfinished final novel and becomes a locked-room murder mystery that skewers publishing industry practices.
The authors drew on real anecdotes about the pressures and 'horror stories' of publishing while combining genre tropes with satirical commentary.
They collaborated closely, co-writing in person to maintain a single cohesive narrative voice for the pseudonymous author.
The book played with the idea of authors bound by restrictive rules when novelising major IP and explored themes of ambition, middling careers, and the squeeze on midlist writers.
Its anonymous marketing created online speculation about the true author before the pair were unmasked at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival.
#12065
• Mentioned in 4 episodes
On the Calculation of Volume, Volume 1
Solveig Birkeland
No information available.
#32828
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
This Land Is Our Land
Vikas Adam
Suketu Mehta
string
#31214
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
Prophecy
What Great Investors See That Others Don't
Robert Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki's "Prophecy" presents a controversial perspective on the future of the economy and markets, predicting a significant downturn.
The book's central thesis revolves around the author's belief that a major market crash is imminent, driven by various economic and geopolitical factors.
Kiyosaki's predictions have been met with mixed reactions, with some critics questioning the validity of his analysis.
The book's focus on preparing for economic uncertainty has resonated with some readers, while others find its doomsday predictions alarmist and lacking in substantial evidence.
The book's impact lies in its ability to spark discussions about economic vulnerability and the importance of financial preparedness.
#10716
• Mentioned in 5 episodes
True Crime
The Novel
Andrew Klavan
In 'True Crime', Andrew Klavan crafts a gripping narrative centered around Steve Everett, a flawed reporter tasked with covering the execution of Frank Beachum, a man who claims innocence.
As Everett delves deeper into the case, he uncovers potential evidence of Beachum's innocence, leading to a tense race against time to save his life.
The book explores themes of justice, morality, and redemption through its complex characters.
#7925
• Mentioned in 6 episodes
Gentle
Courtney Carver
Gentle is a self-help book that offers 30 practices to help readers overcome chronic overwhelm, cultivate self-compassion, and find permission to do less.
Organized into three parts—Rest, Less, and Rise—the book provides simple challenges to help readers shift their pace, headspace, and heart.
It rejects the old rules of hustle culture and invites readers into real self-care that goes beyond superficial measures, focusing on trusting oneself and embracing a rhythm that frees them to enjoy their lives.
#86987
Ghost Town
Gui Difang
Kevin Chen 陳思宏
Kevin Chen's "Ghost Town" is a powerful novel exploring themes of identity, migration, and sexuality within the context of Taiwanese society.
The story follows the protagonist's journey of self-discovery and their complex relationship with their hometown.
The novel's evocative language and stylistic approach have garnered significant international acclaim.
It delves into the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in Taiwan and the broader societal shifts towards greater acceptance.
The book's success has led to numerous translations and adaptations, solidifying its place in contemporary Taiwanese literature.
#45887
The Calamity Club
Kathryn Stockett
#33706
• Mentioned in 2 episodes
The Sane One
Anna Konkle
#65982
Against Breaking
On the Power of Poetry
Ada Limón
In 'Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry,' Ada Limón expands a Library of Congress lecture into a meditation on how poetry can restore clarity and community when language and reality feel unstable.
Combining personal narrative, cultural critique, and literary history, Limón argues for poetry as a secular sacred space accessible to all.
The book explores how poets converse across centuries and how private acts of writing can have public, healing effects.
Limón draws on her experience as U.S.
Poet Laureate to illustrate initiatives that bring poetry into public life.
Overall, the work champions poetry's capacity to resist distortion and to reassemble truth.
We have made it to April. We survived the snowstorms and the cold, and now that the days are getting longer, there’s more time to read. So this week, if you are looking for some books to tide you over until summer, our Book Review editors Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib have got you covered.
Also on this week’s episode, the former United States poet laureate Ada Limón joins us to talk about her new book, “Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry.” And she reads two of her poems.
Books discussed on this episode:
“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner
“This Land Is Your Land,” by Beverly Gage
“London Falling,” by Patrick Radden Keefe
“Prophecy,” by Carissa Véliz
“Ghost Town,” by Tom Perrotta
“From Life Itself,” by Suzy Hansen
“The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett
“Dog Days,” by Emily LaBarge
“The Midnight Train,” by Matt Haig
“The Land and Its People,” by David Sedaris
“On the Calculation of Volume (Book 4),” by Solvej Balle
“Famesick,” by Lena Dunham
“The Sane One,” by Anna Konkle
“On Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward
“John of John,” by Douglas Stuart
“The Things We Never Say,” by Elizabeth Strout
“Yesteryear,” by Caro Claire Burke
“Five Weeks in the Country,” by Francine Prose
“The Ending Writes Itself,” by Evelyn Clark (V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark)
“Go Gentle,” by Maria Semple
“True Crime,” by Patricia Cornwell
“Against Breaking,” by Ada Limón
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Credits
“The Book Review Podcast” is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl and Sarah Diamond. 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; Inset photos: Scribner; Viking; Spiegel & Grau
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