The Book Review
Why We Can’t Resist a Great Bookstore
What is it about a bookstore? You walk in planning to browse for a few minutes, and somehow an hour later you’re still wandering the stacks with an armful of books you can’t seem to put down. For this week’s episode, our guest host, MJ Franklin, and the producer Sarah Diamond take a field trip to a local bookstore, McNally Jackson Seaport, at the southern tip of Manhattan. There, they talk with the owner, Sarah McNally, about what it’s actually like to run a bookstore. Then MJ sits down with Jennifer Harlan, an editor at the Book Review, to talk about The Times’s new bookstore crawl series, the bookstores she grew up loving and why bookshops seem to be having a moment. Of course, no bookstore episode would be complete without some book recommendations. MJ and Jen share some of their favorite books about bookstores and booksellers, including a romance set in a small-town bookshop and a memoir about living inside Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Books discussed on this episode: “Switzy,” by Emma Cline “Delicate Edible Birds,” by Lauren Groff “Book Lovers,” by Emily Henry “Monogamy,” by Sue Miller “Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Co.,” by Jeremy Mercer “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore,” by Evan Friss “A Marvelous Light,” by Freya Marske “The Rachel Incident,” by Caroline O’Donoghue 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 this week by MJ Franklin and produced by Amy Pearl, Sarah Diamond and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is edited by Tracy Mumford and mixed this week by Daniel Ramirez. Special thanks to 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
This Reporter Can Tell Us What Nuclear Apocalypse Looks Like (Encore)
Imagine, if you will, that for unknown reasons North Korea has just launched a nuclear bomb at the United States. What happens next? The journalist Annie Jacobsen has imagined exactly that, and spent more than a decade interviewing dozens of experts while mastering the voluminous literature on the subject — some of it declassified only in recent years — for her 2024 book “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” which walks readers through the 72 minutes from launch to global annihilation. In the Book Review, Barry Gewen said the book was “gripping” and declared it essential reading “if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision.” Jacobsen now has another book out: “Biological War: A Scenario.” Our critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review that it “moves like a meteor.” For this week’s episode, we revisit the conversation the host Gilbert Cruz had with Jacobsen last year, in which she discussed why she wrote “Nuclear War,” and how she managed to compile so many details about topics that are among the most secret in the 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
