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Celebrating 15 Years of “The Book Review” Podcast

The podcast, which debuted in 2006, features the biggest names in literature.

The New York Times is thrilled to celebrate the 15th anniversary of “The Book Review” podcast this month, our show that takes listeners inside the literary world. Produced since 2006, “The Book Review” is the longest-running podcast at The Times.

Throughout the years, the show, hosted by Pamela Paul, editor of The New York Times Book Review (Sam Tanenhaus was the founding host) and produced by Pedro Rosado of Headstepper Productions, has featured some of the biggest names in literature: from Gary Shteyngart, the very first author to appear on the show, to Toni Morrison to John Updike to John Grisham to Colson Whitehead, and in nonfiction, writers ranging from Michael Lewis to Calvin Trillin to Isabel Wilkerson. “The great joy of this podcast for me as host is in the guests,” Paul said. “It’s such a privilege to ask the writers I admire most about how and why they’ve written the books they’ve put out in the world.”

The podcast, which routinely appears at the top of the Arts chart on Apple Podcasts, has also featured voices from throughout The Times, including Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, Wesley Morris and Frank Bruni, Thomas Friedman and James B. Stewart, to name a few.

Over the past 15 years, “The Book Review” podcast has missed only three weeks — the first three weeks of quarantine in March 2020. “We were pretty desperate to get back,” Paul said. “The podcast crew here at the Book Review is small and works closely together. This allowed us both to keep one another company and to connect us to the outside world.”

You can read more about the history of the Book Review podcast, including some of the team’s fondest memories, here . To listen to Pamela’s favorite episodes from her eight years hosting the show (and interviews with more than 800 authors and critics), please head here .

Explore Further

Andrew lavallee named deputy, news and features, books, pamela paul to oversee daily and sunday book coverage, introducing “rabbit hole,” a new narrative audio series from the new york times.

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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. Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;} 100 Years of Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster is not growing old quietly.

The venerable publishing house — one of the industry’s so-called Big 5 — is celebrating its 100th birthday this month after a period of tumult that saw it put up for sale by its previous owner, pursued by its rival Penguin Random House in an acquisition bid that fell apart after the Justice Department won an antitrust suit , then bought for $1.62 billion last fall by the private equity fir...

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;} Looking Back at 50 Years of Stephen King

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel, “Carrie.” In the decades since, King has experimented with length, genre and style, but has always maintained his position as one of America’s most famous writers.

On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks to the novelist Grady Hendrix, who read and re-read many of King’s books over several years, writing an essay on each as well as King su...

Books That Make Our Critics Laugh

Earlier this month, the Book Review’s staff critics — Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai — released a list of 22 novels they have found reliably funny since Joseph Heller’s landmark comic novel “Catch-22” came out in 1961. On this week’s episode, they tell Gilbert Cruz why “Catch-22” was their starting point, and explain a bit about their process: how they think about humor, how they made their choices, what books ...

Talking to Tana French About Her New Series

If you're familiar with Tana French, it's likely for her Dublin Murder Squad series of crime novels that kicked off in 2007 with "In the Woods." But her new book, "The Hunter," a sequel to 2020's "The Searcher," takes place outside of that series.

In this episode of the podcast, speaking to Sarah Lyall about her shift to new characters, French said, "I wasn't comfortable with sticking to the detective's perspective anymore. I think ...

Talking ‘Dune’: Book and Movies

Frank Herbert’s epic novel “Dune” and its successors have been entrenched in the science fiction and fantasy canon for almost six decades, a rite of passage for proudly nerdy readers across the generations. But “Dune” is experiencing a broader cultural resurgence at the moment thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s recent film adaptations starring Timothée Chalamet. (Part 2 is in theaters now.)

This week on the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks to ...

Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Erasure,’ by Percival Everett

It’s not often that the Academy Awards give the publishing world any gristle to chew on. But at this year’s Oscars ceremony — taking place on Sunday evening — one of the Best Picture contenders is all about book publishing: Cord Jefferson ’s “American Fiction” is adapted from the 2001 novel “ Erasure ,” by Percival Everett, and it amounts to a scathing, satirical indictment of publishers, readers and the insidious biases that the mark...

Tommy Orange on His "There There" Sequel

Tommy Orange’s acclaimed debut novel, “ There There ” — one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2018 — centered on a group of characters who all converge on an Indigenous powwow in modern-day Oakland, Calif. His follow-up, “ Wandering Stars ,” is both a prequel and a sequel to that book, focusing specifically on the character Orvil Red Feather and tracing several generations of his family through the decades before and after the even...

The Rise and Fall of The Village Voice

Tricia Romano’s new book, “The Freaks Came Out to Write,” is an oral history of New York’s late, great alternative weekly newspaper The Village Voice, where she worked for eight years as the nightlife columnist. Our critic Dwight Garner reviewed the book recently — he loved it — and he visits the podcast this week to chat with Gilbert Cruz about oral histories in general and the gritty glamour of The Village Voice in particular.

Let's Talk About 'Demon Copperhead'

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “ Demon Copperhead ,” a riff on “David Copperfield” that moves Charles Dickens’s story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples engagingly with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction, was one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2022 . And — unlike an actual copperhead — “Demon Copperhead” has legs: Many readers have told us it was their favorite book in 2023 as well.

In this week’s spoiler-fille...

4 Early-Year Book Recommendations

The early part of a year can mean new books to read, or it can mean catching up on older ones we haven’t gotten to yet. This week, Gilbert Cruz chats with the Book Review’s Sarah Lyall and Sadie Stein about titles from both categories that have held their interest lately, including a 2022 biography of John Donne, a book about female artists who nurtured an interest in the supernatural, and the history of a Jim Crow-era mental asylu...

'Killers of the Flower Moon': Book and Movie Discussion

Former New York Times film critic A.O. Scott joins to talk both David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon," which continues to sit near the top of the bestseller list, and Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated film adaptation. 

Spoilers abound for both versions. (Also, for history.)

Talking the Joys and Rules of Open Marriage

Molly Roden Winter and her husband, Stewart, have been married for 24 years. But since 2008, by mutual agreement, they have also dated other people — an arrangement that Winter details in her new memoir, “More: A Memoir of Open Marriage.”

In this week’s episode, The Times’s Sarah Lyall chats with Winter about her book, her marriage and why she decided to go public.

“I didn’t see any representations of either people who were still suc...

Our Early 2024 Book Preview

It's gonna be a busy spring! On this week’s episode, Gilbert Cruz talks with Tina Jordan and Joumana Khatib about some of the upcoming books they’re anticipating most keenly over the next several months.

Books discussed in this week’s episode:

“Knife,” by Salman Rushdie

“James,” by Percival Everett

“The Book of Love,” by Kelly Link

“Martyr,” by Kaveh Akbar

“The Demon of Unrest,” by Erik Larson

“The Hunter,” by Tana French

“Wandering Stars,...

Steven Soderbergh on His Year in Reading

Every January on his website Extension765.com , the prolific director Steven Soderbergh looks back at the previous year and posts a day-by-day account of every movie and TV series watched, every play attended and every book read. In 2023, Soderbergh tackled more than 80 (!) books, and on this week's episode, he and the host Gilbert Cruz talk about some of his highlights. 

Here are the books discussed on this week’s episode:

"How to Li...

Book Club: 'The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store'

James McBride’s novel “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” was one of the most celebrated books of 2023 — a critical darling and a New York Times best seller. In their piece for the Book Review, Danez Smith called it “a murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel” and praised its “precision, magnitude and necessary messiness.”

On this week’s episode, the Book Review editors MJ Franklin, Joumana Khatib and Elisabeth Egan conven...

How to Tell the Story of a Giant Wildfire

John Vaillant’s book “Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World” takes readers to the petroleum boomtown of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, in May 2016, when a wildfire that started in the surrounding boreal forest grew faster than expected and tore through the city, destroying entire neighborhoods in a rampage that lasted for days.

On this week’s episode, Vaillant (whose book was one of our 10 Best for 2023) calls it a “bell...

Our Critics' Year in Reading

The Times’s staff book critics — Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs — do a lot of reading over the course of any given year, but not everything they read stays with them equally. On this week’s podcast, Gilbert Cruz chats with the critics about the books that did: the novels and story collections and works of nonfiction that made an impression in 2023 and defined their year in reading, including one that Garner say...

10 Best Books of 2023

It’s that time of year: After months of reading, arguing and (sometimes) happily agreeing, the Book Review’s editors have come up with their picks for the 10 Best Books of 2023 . On this week’s podcast, Gilbert Cruz reveals the chosen titles — five fiction, five nonfiction — and talks with some of the editors who participated in the process.

“The Bee Sting,” by Paul Murray

“Chain-Gan...

Talking Barbra Streisand and Rebecca Yarros

Book Review reporter Alexandra Alter discusses two of her recent pieces. The first is about Georgette Heyer, the "queen of Regency romance," and recent attempts to posthumously revise one of her most famous works in order to remove stereotypical language. The second looks at Rebecca Yarros, author of one of this year's most surprising and persistent bestsellers: the "romantasy" novel "Fourth Wing."

Then, staff critic Alexandra Jaco...

Why is Shakespeare's First Folio So Important?

In 1623, seven years after William Shakespeare died, two of his friends and fellow actors led an effort to publish a single volume containing 36 of the plays he had written, half of which had never been officially published before. Now known as the First Folio, that volume has become a lodestone of Shakespeare scholarship over the centuries, offering the most definitive versions of his work along with clues to his process and plent...

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484 episodes

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. Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

The Book Review The New York Times

• 4.2 • 175 Ratings
• 12 APR 2024

100 Years of Simon & Schuster

The publisher has gone through a lot of changes since its founding in 1924. Its current chief executive, Jonathan Karp, talks about the company’s history and its hopes for the future.

Looking Back at 50 Years of Stephen King

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel, “Carrie.” On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks to the novelist Grady Hendrix, who read and re-read many of King’s books over several years for a writing project, as well as King superfan Damon Lindelof, the TV showrunner behind shows such as “Lost” and “The Leftovers.”

• 29 MAR 2024

Books That Make Our Critics Laugh

Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai weigh in on 22 of the funniest novels since “Catch-22.”

• 22 MAR 2024

Talking to Tana French About Her New Series

The great Irish crime novelist Tana French joins Sarah Lyall to talk about her new novel "The Hunter," a sequel to 2020's "The Searcher."

• 15 MAR 2024

Talking ‘Dune’: Book and Movies

The Times’s critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel and Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptations.

Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Erasure,’ by Percival Everett

A scathing satire about race, publishing and identity politics, Everett’s acclaimed 2001 novel is the basis of the Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction.”

• © 2023 The New York Times Company

Customer Reviews

175 Ratings

Outstanding

This is an outstandingly good podcast 💫 Pamela Paul has always been really great and I will miss her!

I will miss this pod!

Sorry Gilbert I know your trying your best, but I’m going to unsubscribe. Pamela Paul was a brilliant host very knowledgeable and great interviewer.

Nothing without Pamela

Not worth listening to since Pamela Paul left - her insight, wit and natural tone is much missed. John Williams could have carried it, but not this new guy. Unsubscribing.

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The Book Review

By The New York Times

What's The Book Review 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.

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

2550 2,550 ratings

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The Book Review episodes:

100 years of simon & schuster.

The publisher has gone through a lot of changes since its founding in 1924. Its current chief executive, Jonathan Karp, talks about the company’s history and its hopes for the future.

Looking Back at 50 Years of Stephen King

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Stephen King’s first novel, “Carrie.” On this week’s episode, host Gilbert Cruz talks to the novelist Grady Hendrix, who read and re-read many of King’s books over several years for a...

Books That Make Our Critics Laugh

Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai weigh in on 22 of the funniest novels since “Catch-22.”

Talking to Tana French About Her New Series

The great Irish crime novelist Tana French joins Sarah Lyall to talk about her new novel "The Hunter," a sequel to 2020's "The Searcher."

Talking ‘Dune’: Book and Movies

The Times’s critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel and Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptations.

Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘Erasure,’ by Percival Everett

A scathing satire about race, publishing and identity politics, Everett’s acclaimed 2001 novel is the basis of the Oscar-nominated movie “American Fiction.”

Tommy Orange on His "There There" Sequel

Tommy Orange’s acclaimed debut novel, “There There” centered on a group of characters who all converge on an Indigenous powwow in modern-day Oakland, Calif. His follow-up, “Wandering Stars,” is both a prequel and a sequel to that book. This week,...

The Rise and Fall of The Village Voice

Dwight Garner discusses a new oral history of the venerable alt-weekly, Tricia Romano’s “The Freaks Came Out to Write.”

Let's Talk About 'Demon Copperhead'

On this week's episode, a roundtable conversation about Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead,” a riff on “David Copperfield” that moves Charles Dickens’s story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction.

4 Early-Year Book Recommendations

The early part of a year can mean new books to read, or it can mean catching up on older ones we haven’t gotten to yet. This week, Gilbert Cruz chats with the Book Review’s Sarah Lyall and Sadie Stein...

'Killers of the Flower Moon': Book and Movie Discussion

A.O. Scott joins for a spoiler-filled conversation about both David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated film adaptation.

Talking the Joys and Rules of Open Marriage

Molly Roden Winter and her husband have been married for 24 years. But since 2008 they have also dated other people — an arrangement that Winter details in her new memoir, “More: A Memoir of Open Marriage.” In this week’s...

Our Early 2024 Book Preview

It's gonna be a busy spring! On this week’s episode, we talk about some of the upcoming books we are anticipating most keenly over the next several months, including new work from Salman Rushdie, Percival Everett, Tana French and Erik...

Steven Soderbergh on His Year in Reading

Every January, the director Steven Soderbergh posts a detailed list of his previous year's cultural consumption — every movie and TV series watched, every book read. On this week's episode, we talk books!

Book Club: 'The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store'

In our last episode of 2023, we convene to talk about James McBride's novel — one of the year's most celebrated books.

How to Tell the Story of a Giant Wildfire

John Vaillant, the author of “Fire Weather” (one of our 10 Best Books this year), discusses climate change and the fire that devastated a Canadian petroleum town in 2016.

Our Critics' Year in Reading

Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and Alexandra Jacobs look back on the books that have stuck with them in 2023.

10 Best Books of 2023

They're here!

Talking Barbra Streisand and Rebecca Yarros

Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz talks to reporter Alexandra Alter about Rebecca Yarros, author of the smash "romantasy" hit "Fourth Wing," and critic Alexandra Jacobs, who reviewed Barbra Streisand's sprawling new memoir.

Why is Shakespeare's First Folio So Important?

The Book Review's Sarah Lyall talks with Adrian Edwards, head of the Printed Heritage Collections at the British Library, about a new edition of Shakespeare’s First Folio.

Happy Halloween: Scary Book Recommendations

It's scary story season. The Book Review's Gilbert Cruz talks to fellow editors Tina Jordan and Sadie Stein about their favorites.

How Did Marvel Become the Biggest Name in Movies?

Host Gilbert Cruz is joined by writers and podcasters Joanna Robinson and Dave Gonzales to talk about their new book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios."

What Big Books Have Yet to Come Out in 2023?

Book Review editor Gilbert Cruz is joined by Joumana Khatib to talk about the biggest titles yet to arrive in 2023.

What It's Like to Write a Madonna Biography

A conversation with Mary Gabriel, whose substantial new biography offers a comprehensive and surprising look at Madonna'a life and career.

Audiobooks are the Best

You love books. You love podcasts. Ergo, we assume you love audiobooks. This week we’ve devoted our entire episode to the form.

Zadie Smith on Her New Historical Novel

Zadie Smith joins the podcast to talk about her new novel "The Fraud." And we talk about the recent controversy involving the National Book Awards and erstwhile host Drew Barrymore.

Elon Musk's Biography and Profiling Naomi Klein

Times critic Jennifer Szalai talks about Walter Isaacson's biography of the world's richest man and her recent look at the writer and activist Naomi Klein.

Talking to Stephen King and September Books to Check Out

Stephen King joins the podcast to talk about his new thriller "Holly." And Joumana Khatib gives us a look at six of the month's most anticipated releases.

Amor Towles Sees Dead People

The novelist discusses his career and his recent essay about cadavers in crime fiction, and the actor Richard E. Grant talks about his memoir and his love of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

What to Read in August

Sarah Lyall discusses a new thriller in which a scuba diver gets swallowed by a sperm whale and Joumana Khatib gives recommendations for five August books.

Ann Patchett on Her Summery New Novel

Ann Patchett returns to the podcast to talk about her new novel, "Tom Lake," and waxes poetic on Thornton Wilder.

It's Getting Hot Out There

As record breaking temperatures are recorded across the world, we talk to Jeff Goodell, author of the new book "The Heat Will Kill You First."

Colson Whitehead and His Crime Novel Sequel

Colson Whitehead joins the podcast once again, this time to talk about his new novel "Crook Manifesto."

Great Books from The First Half of 2023

The editors of the Book Review revisit some of the most popular and most acclaimed books of 2023 so far, including "Birnam Wood," "The Wager" and "You Could Make This Place Beautiful."

The Magic of Literary Translation and 'Bridget Jones' at 25

The editors of The Book Review talk about the nitty gritty of literary translation. And then, a conversation about the novel “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” which was published in the U.S. 25 years ago.

Remembering Cormac McCarthy and Robert Gottlieb

Gilbert Cruz and Dwight Garner discuss the legacy of a titanic author, followed by some stories about one of the great American book editors.

What It’s Like to Write an MLK Jr. Biography

Jonathan Eig discusses his new book about the life and times of Martin Luther King.

Summer Book Preview and 9 Thrillers to Read

Gilbert Cruz is joined by The Times’s thriller columnist, Sarah Lyall, to talk about some great suspenseful titles to check out this summer. And the editor Joumana Khatib gives her picks for books to look out for between now and...

On Reading ‘Beloved’ Over and Over Again

Salamishah Tillet, a Pulitzer-winning critic, discusses the book she has read the most over the course of her life — Toni Morrison’s classic novel of slavery and trauma.

Remembering Martin Amis

The Times critics Dwight Garner and Jason Zinoman celebrate the life and work of the great British novelist and literary critic, who died last week.

Essential Neil Gaiman and A.I. Book Freakout

Where to start with one of today’s most prolific and beloved fantasy writers, and the robot who wrote a murder mystery.

Pulitzer Winners

Hua Hsu, author of the memoir “Stay True,” and Hernan Diaz, author of the novel “Trust,” discuss their books and their reactions to winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Book Bans and What to Read in May

Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth Harris talk publishing news, and Joumana Khatib previews the month’s big books.

Eleanor Catton on ‘Birnam Wood’

The New Zealand writer, who won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 for her novel “The Luminaries,” discusses her latest book.

David Grann on the Wreck of the H.M.S. Wager

The New Yorker staff writer discusses his new book, “The Wager,” about the harrowing circumstances and conflicting stories surrounding a 1741 shipwreck.

The Enduring Appeal of Judy Blume and Gabriel García Márquez

Elisabeth Egan discusses “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” and Miguel Salazar tells readers where to start with Gabo’s extensive catalog.

What We're Reading

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz talks to the Book Review editors Tina Jordan and Greg Cowles about what they're reading, and loving.

Victor LaValle Talks About Horror and ‘Lone Women’

The horror novelist talks about his new book and his swerve into the realm of westerns and historical fiction.

Gilbert Cruz talks to Book Review staff members about the books they’ve been enjoying lately.

Books About the Oscars

Just in time for the Academy Awards, our critic Alexandra Jacobs discusses two recent books on the subject, Michael Schulman’s “Oscar Wars” and Bruce Davis’s “The Academy and the Award.”

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By the Book

Doris Kearns Goodwin Wasn’t Competing With Her Husband

Richard Goodwin, an adviser to presidents, “was more interested in shaping history,” she says, “and I in figuring out how history was shaped.” Their bond is at the heart of her new book, “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.”

Credit... Rebecca Clarke

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Describe your ideal reading experience.

The early hours before dawn have always been best. I have all that is necessary: quiet, a bathrobe, a comfortable old blue leather couch, a table stacked with books and research.

What books are on your night stand?

Right now: “Three Roads Back,” a powerful book (especially after the death of my husband, Dick Goodwin ) on how Emerson, Thoreau and William James dealt with grief. “The Facts,” by Philip Roth, in which I am delighted to find a hilarious dinnertime conversation concerning the politics of divorce between Roth, Robert Kennedy and my husband. And, in readiness for reading time with my grandson, “Frog and Toad Are Friends” and “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”

How do you organize your books?

I’ve come to realize my books organize me more than I organize them! Every book I’ve written has required its own library. Before I knew it, I had amassed full-blown libraries, including fiction as well as nonfiction, for Lincoln, the Civil War, Theodore Roosevelt, the muckraker journalists, F.D.R., World War II and the 1960s. I even built an extended alcove to hold baseball books and memorabilia. Not to mention my husband’s extensive library of plays, poetry, science and philosophy. Books took over every room of the house Dick and I shared in Concord, Mass., as they do now in my Boston home.

What books would people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Stacks and stacks of mystery and detective stories. As W.H. Auden wrote, “The reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol.”

Did spending so much time with your husband’s letters and journals influence your beliefs about how history gets told?

Too often, history is told and remembered with the knowledge of how events turned out. For 50 years, Dick had resisted opening the 300 boxes he had saved, a time capsule of the 1960s. The ending of the decade — the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Dick’s close friend Robert Kennedy, the riots, the violence on college campuses — had cast a dark curtain on the entire era for him and the country.

But when Dick turned 80 and we finally opened the boxes in chronological order, what struck both of us were not the tremendous sorrows of the time, but the exhilarating convictions that individuals could make a difference. This was the impulse that led tens of thousands of young people to join the Peace Corps, participate in sit-ins, freedom rides, marches against segregation and the denial of the vote.

Reading all that alongside him must have been head-spinning.

I‘ve often called the subjects of my books — Abraham Lincoln and both Roosevelts — “my guys,” because I spent decades immersing myself in their letters, diaries and memoirs. I would often talk to them and ask them questions. They never answered. But now, my actual guy, my husband, was sitting across the room from me — arguing, correcting, laughing as he read aloud from his own letters and diaries. Head-spinning for sure!

Which of you was the better writer?

I could never have withstood the pressure and time constraint under which Dick drafted his most important presidential speeches. History is far more patient, far better suited to my slow pace of research and writing. It took me twice as long to unwind the interrelated stories I wanted to tell about the Civil War and World War II as it took those wars to be fought. Dick and I were never in competition. We complemented one another. He was more interested in shaping history, and I in figuring out how history was shaped.

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

This past Christmas my son and daughter-in-law, Joe and Veronika, gave me a signed first edition of Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” — a gift that carried me back to the first time I read the book 60 years ago in college. Here was a woman writing about the field of war traditionally reserved for men. Here was a master storyteller who believed historians must write only what was known by the people at the time, resisting the urge to reference future events.

What’s the most terrifying book you’ve ever read?

“2666,” by Roberto Bolaño.

What do you plan to read next?

James McBride’s “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” and Geraldine Brooks’s “Horse.”

You’re organizing a dinner party. Which three storytellers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Lincoln, F.D.R. and L.B.J. I know what they liked to drink and eat. So I would serve water, oyster stew and chicken fricassee with biscuits for Lincoln; martinis and hot dogs with all the fixings for F.D.R.; and Cutty Sark Scotch, chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes for L.B.J. And for once I would keep my mouth shut and listen to three of the most entertaining and enlightening storytellers America has ever produced.

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, “Knife,” addresses the attack that maimed him  in 2022, and pays tribute to his wife who saw him through .

Recent books by Allen Bratton, Daniel Lefferts and Garrard Conley depict gay Christian characters not usually seen in queer literature.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? The writer Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward .

At 28, the poet Tayi Tibble has been hailed as the funny, fresh and immensely skilled voice of a generation in Māori writing .

Amid a surge in book bans, the most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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2002 Episodes