Stephen King Isn't Always Scary (with Sean Fennessey)

It's October, which means it's time for scary books and scary movies. There's one person who is well known for both: Stephen King. Since his first novel, "Carrie," was published in 1974 and adapted into a hit film two years later, his novels and short stories have been a reliable source of material for film and TV adaptations. And while he's known as a master of horror, some of the more popular films based on his work are drawn from non-horror material. On this week's episode, Sean Fennessey, co-host of the Ringer podcast "The Big Picture," joins Gilbert Cruz to talk about "Stand By Me," "The Shawshank Redemption" and more.Books and movies discussed in this episode:"Stand by Me," based on the novella "The Body" from 1982's "Different Seasons""The Running Man," based on the 1982 novel of the same name published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman"The Shawshank Redemption," based on the novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" from "Different Seasons""Dolores Claiborne," based on the 1992 novel of the same name"The Green Mile," based on the 1996 serial novel of the same name"The Life of Chuck," based on the novella from 2020's "If It Bleeds""The Long Walk," based on the 1979 novel of the same name published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman 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.

The novelist Brandon Taylor has been a force to reckon with right from the start: His debut, “Real Life,” was a finalist for the Booker Prize in 2020, and he quickly followed that up with two other books, the story collection “Filthy Animals” in 2021 and another novel, “The Late Americans,” in 2023, along with a steady stream of reviews, essays and literary hot takes he publishes on his popular Substack account, Sweater Weather.Now Taylor returns with a new novel, “Minor Black Figures,” about a 31-year-old painter on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who falls unexpectedly in love with a former Catholic priest. On this week's episode, MJ Franklin speaks with Taylor about how he came to write “Minor Black Figures” and what drew him to the world of fine art as a setting.  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.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”So opens Jane Austen’s Regency-era romantic comedy “Pride and Prejudice,” which for centuries has delighted readers with its story of the five Bennet sisters and their efforts to marry well. While the novel moves nimbly among all of the family members and their various entanglements, its particular focus remains on the feisty second-eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and her vexed chemistry with the wealthy, arrogant, gorgeous Mr. Darcy. Their sharp wit, verbal jousting and mutual misunderstandings form the core of what might be considered the first enemies-to-lovers plot in modern literature.On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Pride and Prejudice” with his colleagues Jennifer Harlan, Emily Eakin and Gregory Cowles, and Austen in general with The Times’s Sarah Lyall. Other books and authors mentioned in this discussion:“Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors,” by Sonali Dev“Book Lovers,” by Emily Henry“The Marriage Plot,” by Jeffrey Eugenides“Washington Square,” by Henry James“Such a Fun Age,” by Kiley Reid 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.

The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre, hilarious bits of trivia that the human body offers up. 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.

In last week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, host Gilbert Cruz and his fellow editor Joumana Khatib offered a preview of some of the fall’s most anticipated works of fiction. This week they return to talk about upcoming nonfiction, from memoirs to literary biographies to the latest pop science offering from the incomparable Mary Roach.Books discussed in this episode:“All the Way to the River,” by Elizabeth Gilbert“Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival,” by Stephen Greenblatt“Mother Mary Comes to Me," by Arundhati Roy“Poems and Prayers,” by Matthew McConaughey“The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us,” by John J. Lennon“We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution," by Jill Lepore“Electric Spark: The Enigma of Dame Muriel,” by Francis Wilson“Joyride: A Memoir," by Susan Orlean“Next of Kin,” by Gabrielle Hamilton“Paper Girl,” by Beth Macy“Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America,” by Jeff Chang“Book of Lives," by Margaret Atwood”The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding,” by Joseph J. Ellis“History Matters," by David McCullough“The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II,” by David Nasaw“Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor,” by Christine Kuehn“Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy," by Mary Roach 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.

Every fall brings the promise of some of the year’s biggest books and this one is no different. On this week’s episode of the Book Review podcast, the host Gilbert Cruz and fellow editor Joumana Khatib talk about several of their most anticipated titles as well as a few upcoming big screen adaptations. (Come back next week for our fall nonfiction preview.)Books mentioned in this episode:“The Secret of Secrets,” by Dan Brown“The Wayfinder,” by Adam Johnson“Clown Town,” by Mick Herron“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” by Kiran Desai“The Impossible Fortune,” by Richard Osman“We Love You, Bunny,” by Mona Awad“Shadow Ticket,” by Thomas Pynchon“What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan“Trip,” by Amie Barrodale“King Sorrow,” by Joe Hill 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.

Charlotte McConaghy’s latest novel, “Wild Dark Shore,” opens with an enigma: A mysterious, half-drowned woman washes ashore.The stranger’s name is Rowan, and she has arrived on Shearwater, a remote island near Antarctica. The island, which houses an important seed bank, was once teeming with a community of scientists, but now the project is shutting down, the workers have left and the land lies quiet and deserted, everybody gone except for the Salt family, whose members are all lost in their own way. And all are hiding terrible secrets.They’re not alone. Rowan herself has come to the island with a hidden purpose, putting this small community on a crash course for a long-overdue reckoning.On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Wild Dark Shore” with his colleagues Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan. 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.

Summer is slipping away and we are on break this week. But we have a fantastic rerun for you — our conversation with Min Jin Lee from last summer, when her book "Pachinko" was named one of the "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" by a New York Times Book Review panel. She spoke about 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 English language novel, period. Without question,” Lee says. “George Eliot is probably the smartest girl in the room ever as a novelist. She really was a great thinker, a great logician, a great empathizer and also a great psychologist. She was all of those things. And she was also political. She understood so many aspects of the human mind and the way we interact with each other. And then above all, I think she has a great heart.” 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.

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 last year, 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.”This week, Jacobsen visits the podcast to talk about her book and why she wrote it, as well as offering some hope that catastrophe can be avoided. “I wanted to write a book that showed in absolutely appalling detail how horrific nuclear war would be,” she tells the host Gilbert Cruz. “And so when people say to me either ‘I could barely read your book, but I had to read it.’ or ‘I had to read it in one sitting, I was terrified, I was horrified,’ I believe I did my job.” 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.

Summer is the season for road trips, and also for road trip stories. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may be the most famous example in American literature — but there are lots of other great road trip books, so this week the Book Review’s staff critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai presented readers with a list of 18 of their favorites. On this episode of the podcast they chat with host Gilbert Cruz about the project, their picks and the top-down, wind blown, carefree appeal of the road trip narrative as a genre.Books discussed in this episode:“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac“Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward“Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli“I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” by Lorrie Moore“Tramps Like Us," by Joe Westmoreland“Driving Mr. Albert,” by Michael Paterniti“Gypsy: A Memoir," by Gypsy Rose Lee“The Dog of the South,” by Charles Portis“All Fours,” by Miranda July“Hearts,” by Hilma Wolitzer“The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life,” by John le Carré“Machine Dreams,” by Jayne Anne Phillips“Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry“Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov“The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck“The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith 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.