The Book Review

“Angel Down,” a grisly novel about World War I told in a single, almost 300-page-long sentence, was awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In a review for The New York Times, Ben H. Winters described it as a “thunderous gallop” that captures the “cruel and self-perpetuating logic of war.” (It was also one of the Book Review’s Top 10 books of 2025.)

The day after the Pulitzers were awarded, the book’s author, Daniel Kraus — who has written horror, fantasy and young adult novels — spoke to the Book Review’s editor, Gilbert Cruz, about putting together his semi-experimental story.

Cruz also spoke with Patricia Cornwell, a best-selling author who rose to prominence in the 1990s with novels about the character Kay Scarpetta, a chief medical examiner. A Scarpetta series starring Nicole Kidman debuted this year on Amazon.

Cornwell has released a new memoir, “True Crime,” in which she tells the surprising story of her childhood and the events that led her to become a novelist.

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We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com.

Credits

The “Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl, Sarah Diamond and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado.

Special thanks to Dahlia Haddad and Brooke Minters.

Illustration by The New York Times; Inset cover: via Grand Central

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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Since its first episode in April 2006, the “Book Review” podcast has played host to hundreds of authors talking about their new works and possibly as many conversations about the best (and sometimes worst) that books have to offer. In this anniversary episode, the Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz is joined by the deputy editor Tina Jordan and the critic Dwight Garner to look back at some of the titles, trends and turning points that have helped define the last two decades in publishing.

They revisit blockbuster hits, literary movements and industry-shifting moments, starting with an unforgettable Oprah-related controversy and moving through several hit genres and literary trends. To close out this two-decade retrospective, Cruz puts his colleagues’ literary memories to the test with an only slightly grueling quiz.

Books discussed on this episode:

“A Million Little Pieces,” by James Frey

“Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert

“The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J.K. Rowling

“The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy

“Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson

“My Struggle,” Book 1, by Karl Ove Knausgaard

“How Should a Person Be?,” by Sheila Heti

“My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante

“The Story of the Lost Child,” by Elena Ferrante

“Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel

“Bring Up the Bodies,” by Hilary Mantel

“The Mirror and the Light,” by Hilary Mantel

“Life,” by Keith Richards with James Fox

“Just Kids,” by Patti Smith

“Born to Run,” by Bruce Springsteen

“Chronicles: Volume 1,” by Bob Dylan

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” by E.L. James

“Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn

“The Sellout,” by Paul Beatty

“Where the Crawdads Sing,” by Delia Owens

“American Dirt,” by Jeanine Cummins

“Crying in H Mart,” by Michelle Zauner

“Blood, Bones & Butter,” by Gabrielle Hamilton

“Heat,” by Bill Buford

“Dirt,” by Bill Buford

“The Song of Achilles,” by Madeline Miller

“We Were Liars,” by E. Lockhart

“A Court of Thorns and Roses,” by Sarah J. Maas

“Fourth Wing,” by Rebecca Yarros

Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’

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Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We Want to Hear From You

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com.

Credits

The “Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Sarah Diamond and Amy Pearl with help this week from Alex Barron. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado.

Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad and Brooke Minters.

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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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.

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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.

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Patrick Radden Keefe joins “The Book Review” to discuss his new book, “London Falling,” which begins when a family loses a 19-year-old son, Zac Brettler, under mysterious circumstances. His parents eventually discover he had been living a secret life, posing as the son of a Russian oligarch.

Speaking with the host Gilbert Cruz, Keefe describes the moment he first heard the story and how he immediately knew it would become his next major project. He talks about gaining the trust of the young man’s parents, Matthew and Rachelle Brettler, and following the threads of their son’s life into a world of wealth, influence and deception in London.

The conversation also explores how the book moves beyond the night of Zac’s death and into a broader story about ambition, reinvention and the uneasy question at its center: How well can we ever know the people closest to us?

Books discussed on this episode:

“Say Nothing,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

“Seasons of Fury,” by Rozina Ali

“The Emperor’s Children,” by Claire Messud

“Out of Sheer Rage,” by Geoff Dyer

“Middlemarch,” by George Eliot

“In Cold Blood,” by Truman Capote

“The Power Broker,” by Robert A. Caro

“Far From the Tree,” by Andrew Solomon

“Chatter,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

“The Last Samurai,” by Helen DeWitt

Listen to and Follow ‘The Book Review’

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

We Want to Hear From You

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to thebookreview@nytimes.com.

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; Photo: Erik Tanner for The New York Times

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.