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  • Taiye Selasi Reads “Firstborn Immigrant Daughter”

    Taiye Selasi reads her story “Firstborn Immigrant Daughter,” from the July 8, 2026, issue of the magazine. Selasi is an author and photographer. Her début novel, “Ghana Must Go,” a New York Times best-seller, was published in 2013, the year she was named one of the best young British novelists by Granta.

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    0 min
  • Aftershock: Patrick Cockburn, Laleh Khalili & Tom Stevenson

    In an episode of the LRB podcast Aftershock recorded live at the London Review Bookshop, Daniel Soar and contributors discussed the long aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror, from Iraq and Afghanistan to drone strikes, mass surveillance and the weaponisation of the financial system. What is the legacy of Bush and Cheney’s ‘forever war’ in today’s White House? Joining Daniel Soar were Patrick Cockburn, Laleh Khalili and Tom Stevenson.

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    1 hr 7 min
  • Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Transcription,' by Ben Lerner

    Ben Lerner’s slender new novel, “Transcription,” is just 130 pages long, yet it cracks open some of our most colossal and enduring philosophical questions.

    The novel is told in three parts. We open with an unnamed narrator going to interview his mentor, Thomas — an acclaimed artist in his 90s who also happens to be the father of one of the narrator’s friends, Max — for a magazine. Before the interview, however, the narrator’s phone breaks and he has no way to record their conversation. Rather than reschedule, he proceeds with the interview and only pretends to record Thomas as they talk.
    The second section flashes to the future. Thomas has died, and the article that our narrator wrote has become enshrined as the final interview with the iconic artist. At a symposium in Madrid, the narrator confesses that his interview was reconstructed rather than transcribed — a revelation that dismays the other guests and infuriates Max. Then we flash again. In the final section, the narrator talks to Max, who discusses his own complicated relationship with Thomas and technology, including how the internet and other digital tools impacted his family during several crises.
    Through these scenes, “Transcription” asks a series of questions: How does technology mediate our lives? How does it bring us together or pull us apart? Is there a difference between what’s real and what’s true? It also becomes a potent and poignant study of fatherhood and what it means.
    On this episode, MJ Franklin discusses “Transcription” with fellow Book Review editors Gregory Cowles and Alexandra Jacobs.


    Other books mentioned in this episode:

    • “Leaving the Atocha Station,” “10:04” and “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner
    • “The Dance of Anger,” by Harriet Lerner
    • “Reporting,” by Lillian Ross
    • “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art,” by Virginia Heffernan
    • “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss,” by Amy Bloom
    • “No One Is Talking About This,” by Patricia Lockwood
    • “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr
    • “Universality,” by Natasha Brown
    • “White Noise” and “The Body Artist,” by Don DeLillo
    • “A Hunger Artist,” by Franz Kafka
    • “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan
    • “Asymmetry,” by Lisa Halliday
    • “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz
    • “The Mezzanine” and “Vox,” by Nicholson Baker
    • “Outline,” by Rachel Cusk
    • The books of Virginia Woolf

      • 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.


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      50 min
    • How Daniel Lanois made those adventurous records with Dylan, U2 and Willie Nelson

      Daniel Lanois built a studio in his basement in Quebec and began producing local acts when a teenager. Through work with Brian Eno, he went on to record U2, Bob Dylan, Arcade Fire, Emmylou Harris and scores of others with a method that’s unique, cinematic and utterly extraordinary, a brand of sonic architecture that creates settings to accommodate the songs, often in exotic and stimulating places. And he's made nine albums of his own, the latest the magical instrumental suite ‘Belladonna Nocturne’ – “hear this and you may never go home again”. This rich and fascinating conversation includes …

       

      … how the place you record affects the way you think

       

      ... producing Dylan and Willie Nelson in an abandoned Mexican cinema

       

      … why the first record he bought was Wipe Out by the Surfaris

       

      … the process of “printing sound” and his Music Minus One theory

       

      … “Songs are doorways to another dimension”

       

      … Eno’s working method: “he walked round the studio for 45 minutes ringing bells to map out the length of the album”

       

      … drawing song sketches to stop everyone having to crowd round a laptop

       

      … making the Unforgettable Fire with U2, “expanding Slane Castle ‘til there were little critters crawling out of the walls!”

       

      … conjuring the tropical heat of Robbie Robertson’s Somewhere Down the Crazy River

       

      … and what Hells’ Angels like to do to his music.

       

      Order Belladonna Nocturne here: https://artsmusic.lnk.to/BelladonnaNocturne


      Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

      Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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      47 min
    • Will Self

      The writer, satirist and urban explorer Will Self talks to Gyles about his childhood, his career and his life now. From his boyhood as "little Willy", the apple of his mother's eye, who was both enfolded and smothered by her love; to his adolescence when he began smoking, drinking and experimenting with drugs earlier than most; to his student days when his good looks meant he found it easy to get women into bed... this is an absorbing, entertaining and sometimes surprising episode, full of laughs, and full of astute observations (as you might expect from one of our foremost satirists). Will also talks about taking heroin on John Major's plane, being on Shooting Stars and his illness and recent stem cell transplant.


      Our thanks to Will for his dazzling conversation, and for being such charming company. And thank you, too, to his wife Nellie for coming along!


      Will's new book The Quantity Theory of Morality is out now and is HIGHLY recommended. You can buy a copy here.


      Enjoy this... we're sure you will.

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      0 min
    • George Saunders

      The Booker Prize winning American author George Saunders talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. He made his name as a writer of satirical or absurdist short stories which often explore contemporary consumerist society, always underpinned with a strong sense of human compassion and empathy. In 2017, his first full length novel Lincoln In The Bardo - about Presidential grief amid a cacophony of spiritual voices - won the Booker Prize and became a global bestseller. His latest novel Vigil once again explores death and the afterlife. George Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, New York, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in American literature.

      Producer: Edwina Pitman

      44 min
    • Pedro Sanchez, Spain's defiant PM

      Despite mounting pressure at home after his Socialist Party suffered heavy losses in its former Andalusian stronghold, Pedro Sánchez has emerged as one of Europe’s strongest dissenting voices against Donald Trump. He has repeatedly clashed with Washington over issues including the war in Gaza, defence spending and immigration policy.

      • Guest: María Ramírez, journalist and Deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
      • Producer: Ali Benton 
      0 min
    • Coolness

      Play it cool and play this episode. In episode 175 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about what it means to be cool. From swag gap relationships to Mark Zuckerberg and the manosphere’s failed attempts at being cool, your hosts examine coolness’s ties to youth and subversion and its opposition to displays of wealth. They trace how coolness emerged from Black American culture in the 1930s, before being associated with Beat Poets and punk musicians. They consider precursors to cool, like the Italian term sprezzatura, and question the ontology and the morality of coolness. Is coolness an attitude or a state? Is it inherently narcissistic? Can you ever successfully “try” to be cool? In the Substack bonus segment, Ellie and David discuss coolness through an ethical perspective.

      Works Discussed:

      Joel Dinerstein, “Jazz Cool”

      Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz

      bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity

      Dick Pountain and David Robins, Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude


      Enjoy our work? Support Overthink via tax-deductible donation: https://www.givecampus.com/fj0w3v

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      0 min
    • Yuval Noah Harari on Donald Trump’s Core Delusion

      What are the conditions that enable a country to become great — or great again? The Trump administration — and other right-wing movements in other countries — offers a vision of greatness based on power and domination abroad, and a mix of shared national and religious stories at home. And that vision is clearly appealing to a lot of people. Liberals in the U.S. and elsewhere have been struggling to tell a story that can compete.

      What story would Yuval Noah Harari tell? One of the through lines of Harari’s best-selling books — “Sapiens,” “Homo Deus,” “Nexus” — is the huge role that stories play in shaping the arc of history, driving humans to cooperate on a grand scale to achieve great things, or divide violently against one another.

      So I wanted to ask him about the stories that the U.S. and Israel, in particular, seem to have embraced right now. What does history tell us about the power of this story? And why does the liberal story seem so weak right now?

      Mentioned:

      Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

      Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

      Unstoppable Us, Volume 3 by Yuval Noah Harari

      “Understanding AI” by Timothy B. Lee

      Book Recommendations:

      The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut

      Chimpanzee Politics by Frans de Waal

      Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

      Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

      You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

      This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

      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.


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      1 hr 55 min