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.
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Données mises à jour le 31/10/2026
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David Hastings is a retired business executive on a grim mission: He’s going to end his life.
That’s the dramatic setup of Emma Cline’s latest novel, “Switzy.”
When the story opens, David is on a plane, traveling to Europe. Throughout his life, he sacrificed friendship and family to climb to the top of the professional ladder. But now he is suffering from dementia, and his mind is fading. Determined to die on his own terms, David has decided to travel to Switzerland for a medically assisted suicide. But before he lands at his ultimate destination, he wants to settle a few relationships in his life.
Bringing us deep into David’s fragmented consciousness, “Switzy” asks: What will we do when we know the end is near?
On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the novel with his colleagues Emily Eakin and Jennifer Harlan. You can follow along, and add your own comments to the discussion here.
Other books, essays and movies mentioned in this episode:
“The Girls,” “Daddy” and “The Guest,” by Emma Cline
“You’ve Got Mail,” directed by Nora Ephron
“Moby-Dick,” by Herman Melville
“A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles
“Etna,” by Paul Yoon
“Flesh,” by David Szalay
Nora Ephron’s essays “What I Will Miss” and “What I Won’t Miss”
“Atonement,” by Ian McEwan
“Tinkers,” by Paul Harding
“Orbital,” by Samantha Harvey
“Small Rain,” by Garth Greenwell
“On Being Ill,” by Virginia Woolf
Hermione Hoby’s essay “Why Is Illness So Hard to Write About?”
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What to Read This Halloween, According to Two Best-Selling Writers
vendredi 23 octobre 2026 • Durée 51:32
Halloween is the season for scary stories, but what actually makes a book frightening? And where should you start if you’re not already a horror reader?
This week on “The Book Review” podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks with two writers who know their way around the genre. Leigh Bardugo is the best-selling author behind the Grishaverse series and the Ninth House trilogy, which just concluded with the release of “Dead Beat.” Paul Tremblay is the author of “A Head Full of Ghosts” and this year’s “Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep.”
Bardugo looks back at the books and stories that scared her as a child and talks about why she kept returning to them even after they left her “struggling to sleep for the better part of a month.” She also talks about her love of Anne Rice and recommends horror for readers who might not think the genre is for them.
Tremblay, who describes himself as a lifelong “scaredy-cat,” came to horror fiction later. He talks about the Joyce Carol Oates story that changed the way he thought about reading and writing, and shares some of the books he finds genuinely frightening.
Together, these two authors offer a Halloween reading list that ranges from Shirley Jackson and Stephen King to contemporary writers like Mariana Enriquez, Tananarive Due and Sara Gran.
Books discussed on this episode:
“The Boogeyman,” from “Night Shift,” by Stephen King
“Down a Dark Hall,” by Lois Duncan
“Bunnicula,” by Deborah Howe and James Howe
“’Salem’s Lot,” by Stephen King
“Nightjars,” by Michael Wehunt
“Affinity,” by Sarah Waters
“Black Arts,” by Megan Giddings
“The Reformatory,” by Tananarive Due
“Mazywood,” by Tananarive Due
“The Haunting of Hill House,” by Shirley Jackson
“We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” by Shirley Jackson
“Carrie,” by Stephen King
“The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James
A Book Review Critics’ Roundtable
vendredi 16 octobre 2026 • Durée 41:40
As much as we love hearing from authors on “The Book Review” podcast, there are precious few who have read more than our staff book critics — Jennifer Szalai, Alexandra Jacobs and Dwight Garner. The three came on the show to talk about some of their favorite books of the year so far, as well as a few of the titles that helped shape their reading lives.
“The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek,” by Andrew Durbin
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Credits
“The Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl, Sarah Diamond and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is mixed by Pedro Rosado.
