Best Gabriel Ripley Podcasts (2025)

1
Spring Preview: A Few Books We're Excited For 31:48

12d ago31:48

31:48

Every season brings its share of books to look forward to, and this spring is no different. Host Gilbert Cruz is joined by Book Review editor Joumana Khatib to talk about a dozen or so titles that sound interesting in the months ahead. Books discussed on this episode: "Dream Count," by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "Sunrise on the Reaping," by Suzanne C…

1
Book Club: Let's Talk About "Orbital," by Samantha Harvey 41:51

19d ago41:51

41:51

Samantha Harvey’s novel “Orbital,” which won the Booker Prize last year, has a tight, poetic frame: We follow one day in the lives of six people working on a space station above Earth, orbiting the planet 16 times every 24 hours. But this is not a saga of adventure or exploration. It’s a quiet meditation on what it means to be human, prompted by a …

1
Celebrating 100 Years of Edward Gorey 35:22

26d ago35:22

35:22

You’re familiar with Edward Gorey, whether you know it or not. The prolific author and illustrator, who was born 100 years ago this week, was ubiquitous for a time in the 1970s and 1980s, and his elaborate black-and-white line drawings — often depicting delightfully grim neo-Victorian themes and settings — graced everything from book jackets to the…

1
Inside the Making of ‘Wicked’ 26:38

28d ago26:38

26:38

One day, several decades ago, the writer Winnie Holzman was shopping in a Manhattan bookstore where a particular cover caught her eye. It showed a woman with a green face, a black hat pulled down over her eyes. The book was “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, a retelling of L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” stories from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West.…

1
Adapting the Twists and Turns of ‘Conclave’ 23:05

1M ago23:05

23:05

The screenwriter Peter Straughan has become adept at taking well known — and beloved — books and adapting them for the big and small screens. He was first nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of the 2011 film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” based on the classic John le Carré spy novel, and then adapted Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy into an …

1
Is Bob Dylan Still a ‘Complete Unknown’? 22:46

1M ago22:46

22:46

Elijah Wald’s 2015 book, “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties,” traces the events that led up to Bob Dylan’s memorable performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The book is about Dylan, but also about the folk movement, youth culture, politics and the record business. For the writer and director Jam…

1
How ‘Nickel Boys’ Became One of the Year’s Most Visually Striking Films 22:05

1M ago22:05

22:05

When the filmmaker and photographer RaMell Ross first read “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Black boys in a dangerous reform school in the 1960s, he couldn’t help but put himself in the shoes of its protagonists, Elwood and Turner. In his film adaptation of the book, Ross does that to the audience: You se…

1
Book Club: Let’s Talk About Alan Hollinghurst’s ‘Our Evenings’ 47:52

2M ago47:52

47:52

The novel “Our Evenings,” by Alan Hollinghurst, follows a gay English Burmese actor from childhood into old age as he confronts confusing relationships, his emerging sexuality, racism and England’s changing political climate in the late 20th and early 21st century. It’s the story of a life — beautifully related by a literary master whose 2004 novel…

1
Alafair Burke On Writing Crime Novels and Teaching Law 34:16

2M ago34:16

34:16

In Alafair Burke’s new thriller, “The Note,” three friends are vacationing together in the Hamptons when they have an unpleasant run-in with a couple of strangers and decide to exact drunken, petty revenge. But the prank they pull — a note reading “He’s cheating on you” — snowballs, eventually embroiling them in a missing-persons investigation and …

1
How a Wildfire Sent Pico Iyer in Search of Silence 42:56

2M ago42:56

42:56

Decades ago, after he lost in home in a California wildfire, the travel writer and essayist Pico Iyer started to go to a small monastery in Big Sur in search of solitude. On this week's episode he discusses those retreats, which he writes about in his new book "Aflame: Learning from Silence." "It's true that even from a young age, I only had to ste…

1
The Books We’re Excited About in Early 2025 37:46

2M ago37:46

37:46

And we're back! Happy new year, readers. On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the upcoming books they’re most anticipating over the next several months. Books discussed on this episode: "Stone Yard Devotional," by Charlotte Wood "Aflame: Learning from Silence," by Pico Iyer "Onyx Storm," by Rebecca Yarros "Glyp…

1
The 20th Anniversary of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" 16:22

3M ago16:22

16:22

The Book Review podcast is off for the holidays, but please enjoy this episode of the The New York Times's Culture Desk show from earlier this fall. In 2004, Susanna Clarke published her debut novel, the sprawling 800-page historical fantasy “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.” It was a sensation. Clarke sold millions of copies, won literary awards an…

1
Book Club: "Small Things Like These," by Claire Keegan 51:41

3M ago51:41

51:41

Clare Keegan's slim 2021 novella about one Irishman's crisis of conscience during the Christmas season, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has also been adapted into a film starring Cillian Murphy. In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib, Lauren Christensen, and Elisabeth Egan. Keegan's boo…

1
Our Book Critics On Their Year in Reading 31:39

3M ago31:39

31:39

Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs — staff critics for The New York Times Book Review — join host Gilbert Cruz to look back on highlights from their year in books. Books discussed: "Intermezzo," by Sally Rooney "All Fours," by Miranda July "You Dreamed of Empires," by Álvaro Enrigue "When the Clock Broke," by John Ganz "Radiant: Th…

1
Book Club: Dolly Alderton's 'Good Material' (Rerun) 46:41

3M ago46:41

46:41

Following our Top 10 Books of 2024 episode, we are re-running our book club discussion about one of the novels on our year-end list: "Good Material." How to explain the British writer Dolly Alderton to an American audience? It might be best to let her work speak for itself — it certainly does! — but Alderton is such a cultural phenomenon in her nat…

1
The 10 Best Books of 2024 1:18:44

4M ago1:18:44

1:18:44

Don't let anyone tell you differently — end of year list time is a wonderful time, indeed. And, as we do every December, we are ready to discuss the 10 best books of the year. Host Gilbert Cruz gathers the editors of the New York Times Book Review to discuss the most exciting fiction and nonfiction of the year. The New York Times Book Review's Top …

1
Book Club: 'James,' by Percival Everett (Rerun) 45:32

4M ago45:32

45:32

The broad outlines of "James" will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom. But where Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” treated Jim as a secon…

1
Book Club: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" 41:09

4M ago41:09

41:09

It begins with one of the most iconic lines in literature: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realist parable of imperialism in Latin America, is a tale of family…

1
Patrick Radden Keefe on Taking "Say Nothing" From Book to Show 44:07

4M ago44:07

44:07

As part of The New York Times Book Review's project on the 100 Best Books published since the year 2000, Nick Hornby called "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" one of the "greatest literary achievements of the 21st century." The author Patrick Radden Keefe joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about his book, which has no…

1
What It's Like to Write a New John le Carré Novel 38:15

4M ago38:15

38:15

The works of John le Carré, who died in 2020, are among the most beloved thrillers of all time. For some, books like "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "A Perfect Spy" and "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" are simply among their favorite works of literature ever. So it was a perilous task that author Nick Harkaway, one of le Carré sons, set out for …

1
Sally Rooney's "Intermezzo": Our Book Club Conversation 38:55

5M ago38:55

38:55

Sally Rooney is a writer people talk about. Since her first novel, “Conversations With Friends,” was published in 2017, Rooney has been hailed as a defining voice of the millennial generation because of her ability to capture the particular angst and confusion of young love, friendship and coming-of-age in our fraught digital era. “Intermezzo,” her…

1
Two Horror Authors on the Scary Books You Should Be Reading 52:49

5M ago52:49

52:49

Halloween is just around the corner, so we turned to two great horror authors — Joe Hill and Stephen Graham Jones — for their recommendations of books to read this season. Books discussed: "Mean Spirited," by Nick Roberts "Maeve Fly," by CJ Leede "Come Closer," by Sara Gran "It," by Stephen King "Experimental Film," by Gemma Files "A Head Full of G…

1
The Ezra Klein Show: Salman Rushdie 1:00:53

5M ago1:00:53

1:00:53

Salman Rushdie's "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder," has been nominated in the nonfiction category as part of this year's National Book Awards, which will take place in mid-November. This week, we are running Rushdie's conversation with Ezra Klein from earlier this year. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everythi…

1
Stanley Tucci on His Year in Eating and a Look at the National Book Awards 46:35

5M ago46:35

46:35

The actor-director-producer Stanley Tucci is also, famously, an avid eater, who has explored his enthusiasm for food through his travel show “Searching for Italy” and through two books: “Taste,” in 2021, and now a food diary, “What I Ate in One Year." In this week’s episode, Tucci discusses his new book with host Gilbert Cruz and talks about bad me…

1
Jean Hanff Korelitz on "The Sequel" 38:35

6M ago38:35

38:35

In 2021, the novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz had a hit with “The Plot,” a book that was partly a mystery, partly a thriller and entirely a delicious sendup of the publishing industry. It told the tale of a once-promising writer, Jacob, who steals somebody else’s story idea and reaches undreamed-of levels of success before things go very badly for him.…

1
Book Club: 'The Hypocrite,' by Jo Hamya 41:55

6M ago41:55

41:55

Jo Hamya’s novel “The Hypocrite” follows a famous English novelist as he watches a new play by his daughter, Sophia, in London. The lights go down in the theater, and immediately the novelist realizes: The play is about him, the vacation he took with Sophia a decade earlier and the sins he committed while they were away. The novel is an art monster…

1
The Fall Books We're Looking Forward To 31:19

6M ago31:19

31:19

This weekend marks the official start of autumn, so what better time to take a peek at the fall books we’re most excited to read? On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about the upcoming season of reading and the books on the horizon that they’re looking forward to most eagerly. Books mentioned in this week…

1
Robert Caro on 50 Years of 'The Power Broker' 46:37

6M ago46:37

46:37

Robert Caro’s 1974 biography “The Power Broker” is a book befitting its subject, Robert Moses — the unelected parochial technocrat who used a series of appointed positions to entirely reshape New York City and its surrounding environment for generations to come. Like Moses, Caro’s book has exerted an enduring and outsize influence. This week, Caro …

1
Kate Atkinson on the Return of Jackson Brodie 44:48

6M ago44:48

44:48

The British writer Kate Atkinson has had a rich and varied career since her debut novel, “Behind the Scenes at the Museum,” won the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1996; her 14 subsequent books have included story collections, historical fiction and an inventive speculative novel, “Life After Life,” that landed on the Book Review’s recent surve…

1
21st Century Books Special Edition: Isabel Wilkerson on 'The Warmth of Other Suns' 39:12

7M ago39:12

39:12

As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Isabel Wilkerson joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss "The Warmth of Other Suns," her sweeping history of the movement of Black Americans from the south to points north ove…

1
Book Club: 'My Brilliant Friend,' by Elena Ferrante 50:56

7M ago50:56

50:56

This July, The New York Times Book Review published a list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The top choice was “My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein. The book is the first novel in Ferrante’s so-called Neapolitan quartet, which tracks the lifelong friendship between Lenù and Lila, two women from a rough nei…

1
21st Century Books Special Edition: Jennifer Egan on 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' 41:08

7M ago41:08

41:08

As part of its recent 100 Best Books of the 21st Century project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Jennifer Egan joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her Pulitzer-winning novel about the music industry, “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” and talks, among other things, about th…

1
Liz Moore on Her Summer Camp Mystery "The God of the Woods" 39:39

7M ago39:39

39:39

A summer camp in the Adirondacks. A rich girl gone missing, 14 years after her older brother also disappeared. A prominent local family harboring dark secrets. Liz Moore’s new novel, “The God in the Woods,” turns these elements into a complex and suspenseful meditation on parenting and social class and the rituals of summer friendship. On this week…

1
What We're Reading This Summer 32:34

7M ago32:34

32:34

It’s August, which means that Labor Day and back-to-school are just around the corner. The vacation that seemed so leisurely a month ago suddenly feels a little more frantic. But there’s still time to squeeze in a last batch of summer reading. On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz chats with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Anna Dubenko about …

1
21st Century Books Special Edition: George Saunders on 'Lincoln in the Bardo' 41:21

8M ago41:21

41:21

As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, George Saunders — who had three books on the list, including his short story collections "Pastoralia" and "Tenth of December" — joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his nov…

1
Sarah Jessica Parker on Her Life in Publishing 35:44

8M ago35:44

35:44

Sarah Jessica Parker has been a familiar presence on TV, movie screens and Broadway stages for five decades. But since 2016 she has also been a force in the book world, initially at the helm of the fiction imprint SJP for Hogarth and for the past two years with SJP Lit, an imprint at the independent publisher Zando. Parker visits the podcast this w…

1
21st Century Books Special Edition: Min Jin Lee on 'Pachinko' 34:58

8M ago34:58

34:58

As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, Min Jin Lee joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss her novel, as well as the book she's read the most times — George Eliot's "Middlemarch." “I’m willing to say it’s the best …

1
Book Club: Let's Talk About "The Talented Mr. Ripley," by Patricia Highsmith 46:12

8M ago46:12

46:12

Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 thriller “The Talented Mr. Ripley” follows a young, down-on-his-luck scammer, Tom Ripley, who is looking to reverse his fortunes. When he receives a job offer to go to Italy and retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich socialite on an endless holiday, Tom finds the perfect opportunity to work his way into the upper crust. But as …

1
21st Century Books Special Edition: Colson Whitehead on 'The Underground Railroad' 36:20

8M ago36:20

36:20

As part of its recent "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his 2016 novel. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything fr…

1
What It's Like to Write a King Arthur Tale 32:46

8M ago32:46

32:46

Lev Grossman, author of fantasy novel "The Magicians" and its two sequels, joins host Gilbert Cruz to talk about writing his version of Camelot in "The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur." 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…

1
The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century 37:05

8M ago37:05

37:05

This week The New York Times Book Review rolled out the results of an ambitious survey it conducted to determine the best books of the 21st century so far. On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with fellow editors Tina Jordan, Scott Heller and Joumana Khatib about the results of that survey and about the project itself, including the willingne…

1
Book Club: 'Headshot,' by Rita Bullwinkel 34:06

9M ago34:06

34:06

Rita Bullwinkel’s impressive debut novel, “Headshot,” follows eight teenagers fighting in the Daughters of America Cup, a youth women’s boxing tournament staged in a dilapidated gym in Reno. Each chapter details a match between fighters, bout after bout, until finally a champion is declared. We are thrown into the high-octane theater of each fight,…

1
Griffin Dunne on His Joyful and Tragic Family Memoir 37:50

9M ago37:50

37:50

Every family has its stories, and every family has its drama — and some families, like the one the actor and director Griffin Dunne was born into, have an excess of both. His uncle was the writer John Gregory Dunne, his aunt was Joan Didion and his father was Dominick Dunne, who became famous for his Vanity Fair dispatches from the trial of the man…

1
10 Books to Check Out This Summer 28:27

9M ago28:27

28:27

Summer is upon us and you're going to need a few books to read. Book Review editors Elisabeth Egan and Joumana Khatib join host Gilbert Cruz to talk through a few titles they're looking forward to over the next several months. Books discussed in this episode: "Farewell, Amethystine," by Walter Mosley "The Cliffs," by J. Courtney Sullivan "Horror Mo…

1
Elin Hilderbrand on Her Final Nantucket Summer Book 37:38

10M ago37:38

37:38

For many years now, Elin Hilderbrand has published a novel every summer set on the island of Nantucket. With her 30th book, 'Swan Song,' the bestselling author says she will step off that hamster wheel and try something new. On this week's episode, she and host Gilbert Cruz talk about her career, what she's reading, and what's next. Unlock full acc…

1
Let's Talk About Percival Everett's 'James' 45:40

10M ago45:40

45:40

The broad outlines of "James" will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom. But where Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” treated Jim as a secon…

1
Writing About NASA's Most Shocking Moment 43:03

10M ago43:03

43:03

The year 1986 was notable for two big disasters, both of them attributable to human error and bureaucratic negligence at competing super powers: the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in the United States. The journalist Adam Higginbotham wrote about Chernobyl in his 2019 book, “Midnight…

1
Fantasy Superstar Leigh Bardugo on Her New Novel 41:44

10M ago41:44

41:44

In the world of fantasy fiction, Leigh Bardugo is royalty: Her Grishaverse novels are mainstays on the young adult best-seller list, her “Shadow and Bone” trilogy has been adapted for a Netflix series and her adult novels “Ninth House” and “Hell Bent” established her as a force to reckon with in the subgenre known as dark academia. Now Bardugo is b…

1
Colm Toibin on His Sequel to 'Brooklyn' 44:19

11M ago44:19

44:19

Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel “Brooklyn” told the story of a meek young Irishwoman, Eilis Lacey, who emigrates to New York in the 1950s out of a sense of familial obligation and slowly, diligently begins building a new life for herself. A New York Times best seller, the book was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Saoirse Ronan — and now…

1
Book Club: Dolly Alderton's 'Good Material' 46:41

11M ago46:41

46:41

How to explain the British writer Dolly Alderton to an American audience? It might be best to let her work speak for itself — it certainly does! — but Alderton is such a cultural phenomenon in her native England that some context is probably helpful: “Like Nora Ephron, With a British Twist” is the way The New York Times Book Review put it when we r…

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