Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchS.A. Cosby on 'Razorblade Tears'
Episode 356
On this week’s podcast, S.A. Cosby says that a writer friend once told him: “I think you’re like the bard of broken men.” In Cosby’s new novel, “Razo…
4 years, 8 months ago
The Lives of Flies
Episode 355
The subtitle of Jonathan Balcombe’s new book, “Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World’s Most Successful Insects” leads to the first question on…
4 years, 8 months ago
An Outsider Finds Suspense in Hollywood
Episode 354
The actress and thriller writer Catherine Steadman visits the podcast this week to talk about “The Disappearing Act,” her new suspense novel about th…
4 years, 9 months ago
Clint Smith on ‘How the Word Is Passed’
Episode 353
Clint Smith’s “How the Word Is Passed” is about how places in the United States reckon with — or fail to reckon with — their relationship to the hist…
4 years, 9 months ago
George Packer on Our Divided America
Episode 352
In his new book, “Last Best Hope,” George Packer describes “Four Americas,” and the tensions that exist between these different visions of the countr…
4 years, 9 months ago
A More Perfect Union
Episode 351
“The Engagement,” by Sasha Issenberg, recounts the complex and chaotic chain reaction that thrust same-sex marriage from the realm of conservative co…
4 years, 9 months ago
Reimagining the Aftermath of a Wartime Attack
Episode 350
Francis Spufford’s new novel, “Light Perpetual,” is rooted in a real event: the rocket attack on a Woolworth’s in London, killing 168 people, toward …
4 years, 10 months ago
A Desperate Writer Steals 'The Plot'
Episode 349
Jake Bonner, the protagonist of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s “The Plot,” writes a novel based on someone else’s idea. The book becomes a big hit, but Jake h…
4 years, 10 months ago
Maggie O’Farrell on ‘Hamnet’
Episode 348
Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet,” one of last year’s most widely acclaimed novels, imagines the life of William Shakespeare, his wife, Anne (or Agnes) Hat…
4 years, 10 months ago
Louis Menand on 'The Free World'
Episode 347
Louis Menand’s new book, “The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War,” covers the interchange of arts and ideas between the United States and Eu…
4 years, 10 months ago