The Book Review

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.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    Book Club: Let's Talk About 'The Renovation,' by Kenan Orhan

    Dilara, the heroine of Kenan Orhan’s debut novel, is a Turkish exile living in Italy and undergoing a routine bathroom renovation that turns out to be not so routine: When the contractors leave, she steps into the refurbished space and finds herself somehow transported to an actual cell in Istanbul’s infamous Silivri Prison. Initially dismayed, she soon grows resigned and even magnetically attracted to the cell, which offers a connection in its way to the lost homeland where her father — now dying of Alzheimer’s disease — was labeled a dissident by the ruling government. Is this strange portal a retreat or a trap, a bridge to the country she misses or a gateway for the danger she fled? And what will she sacrifice for a taste of home? On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, host MJ Franklin discusses “The Renovation” with fellow editors Joumana Khatib and Dave Kim.  Other books mentioned in this episode: “Man of My Time,” by Dalia Sofer “The Spare Room,” by Helen Garner “The Trial,” by Franz Kafka “The Disconnected” and “Waiting for the Fear,” by Oguz Atay “The Anthropologists,” by Aysegul Savaş “What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “The Memory Police,” by Yoko Ogawa “We Do Not Part,” by Han Kang 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.

    43 min
  2. The Time Loop Book Series You Should Be Reading

    17 APR

    The Time Loop Book Series You Should Be Reading

    How is it that a seven-book series written in Danish about a single day repeating over and over has become something of a sensation among the literary set? Since the English translations of Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume” series were first published in the United States in 2024, they have been nominated for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award. With the latest volume to be translated into English, Book IV, out this week, Gilbert Cruz sat down with A.O. Scott, a critic at large, and Joumana Khatib, a Book Review editor, to talk boredom, stuckness and time loops. Plus, the books in translation you should read next. Books discussed on this episode: “On the Calculation of Volume,” by Solvej Balle “The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann “Tyll,” by Daniel Kehlmann “Breasts and Eggs,” by Mieko Kawakami “Heaven,” by Mieko Kawakami “Sisters in Yellow,” by Mieko Kawakami “King Kong Theory,” by Virginie Despentes The “Vernon Subutex” trilogy, by Virginie Despentes “Time Shelter,” by Georgi Gospodinov “Territory of Light,” by Yuko Tsushima “The Betrothed,” by Alessandro Manzoni “Kairos,” by Jenny Erpenbeck “Go, Went, Gone,” by Jenny Erpenbeck “In Search of Lost Time,” by Marcel Proust “Ulysses,” by James Joyce “Anna Karenina,” by Leo Tolstoy 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.

    36 min

Ratings & Reviews

3.8
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

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.

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