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

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’s episode:“Intermezzo,” by Sally Rooney“Playground,” by Richard Powers“Sonny Boy: A Memoir,” by Al Pacino“Cher: The Memoir, Part One,” by Cher“The Sequel,” by Jean Hanff Korelitz“Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” by Ina Garten“We Solve Murders,” by Richard Osman“Creation Lake,” by Rachel Kushner“V13: Chronicle of a Trial,” by Emmanuel Carrère“Absolution,” by Jeff VanderMeer“Lazarus Man,” by Richard Price“Rejection,” by Tony Tulathimutte“Colored Television,” by Danzy Senna“Health and Safety,” by Emily Witt“Patriot: A Memoir,” by Alexei Navalny“The Message,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates“The Serviceberry,” by Robin Wall Kimmerer“Revenge of the Tipping Point,” by Malcolm Gladwell“From Here to the Great Unknown,” by Lisa Marie Presley“The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” by Haruki Murakami

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 joins the podcast and tells the host Gilbert Cruz how he accounts for its enduring legacy.“People are interested in power,” Caro says. “This is a particular kind of power. Robert Moses’ power was unchecked power. We all live in a democracy where we think that power comes from our votes at the ballot box. He was a man who was never elected to anything and he held on to power for 44 years, almost half a century. And with the power, this man who wasn’t elected to anything shaped New York and its surrounding suburbs. So I think, if you’re interested in government, you have to say, as I said maybe 55 years ago when I started this, How did he do it? What happened here?”

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 survey of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.But she may be best known for her Jackson Brodie series of crime novels, which began with “Case Histories” in 2004 and was later adapted into a British television show. The sixth book in the series, “Death at the Sign of the Rook,” has just been released, and from the title to the plot to the cast of characters it pays winking homage to the golden age of English cozy mysteries. Atkinson visits the podcast this week to discuss her new novel, and tells The Times’s Sarah Lyall how she approached her tribute to an earlier era.

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 over the course of the 20th century.

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 neighborhood in Naples, Italy, even as family, relationships and work pull their lives in different directions.In this week’s episode, MJ Franklin discusses the book with fellow editors Joumana Khatib, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles. 

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 the early challenges it faced in finding an audience, the meaning of its title and her initial reluctance to decide whether the book was a novel or a story collection.

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’s podcast, Liz Moore chats with Gilbert Cruz about her new novel. (Spoiler alert: the last 10 or so minutes address the book's ending.)

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 the books that have been occupying their attention this season.Books mentioned on this episode:"Talk," by Linda Rosencrantz"Crossroads," by Jonathan Franzen"You Like It Darker," by Stephen King"Transactions in a Foreign Currency," by Deborah Eisenberg"Veronica," by Mary Gaitskill"The Bright Sword," by Lev Grossman"Asymmetry," by Lisa Halliday"Out," by Natsuo Kirino"The God of the Woods," by Liz Moore"The Devil's Grip," by Lina Wolff"Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay," by Elena Ferrante"Spy Hook," by Len Deighton"All Fours," by Miranda July

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 novel "Lincoln in the Bardo."

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 week to chat with the host Gilbert Cruz about her lifelong love of reading, the kinds of books that excite her most and her entry into the publishing business, among other topics.“I just keep learning,” Parker says. “And I think, every time I feel ill equipped, I just recommit to the idea of what books have meant to me since, well, my entire life, literally my entire life, and how I can help an author. … Every year we do this whistlestop of going to literary agents’ offices and just reminding them of the imprint and what we've published and who we're about to publish and the mission of our particular imprint. Because I think people have every right to assume those ideas — ‘dilettante,’ ‘not deserving’ or, like I said, ‘ill equipped.’ People have spent, you know, their whole lives in higher education, and then they come out and pursue this dream of being in publishing in a variety of jobs. And I didn't. And I was very concerned about perception, but also my own concerns for myself about taking care of a writer.”