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When librarians from the University of Sydney found a sketch and an inscription in the back of a 1497 copy of Dante's Divine Comedy, they called in Renaissance expert Professor Jaynie Anderson. Soon the discovery was confirmed: the sketch was by the hand of master painter Giorgione, and the inscription solved the mystery of Giorgione's life and death. A book of scholarship on that remarkable discovery has just been published by Melbourne University Press.

• Guest: Jaynie Anderson, Emeritus Professor and Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia
• Producer: Alex Tighe

George Saunders is tired of being the “kindness guy.”

Saunders is one of my favorite fiction writers, and a friend of the pod; I talked to him back in 2021 and 2022. He also has a reputation as a kind of guru of kindness, thanks to a viral commencement speech he gave back in 2013. We talked about kindness on the show before.

But with the publication of his new novel, “Vigil,” I noticed that something about Saunders seemed to have shifted. He was pushing back against that public persona, and wrestling with darker themes.

“Vigil” follows an oil tycoon who, on his deathbed, is visited by angels and people from his past asking him to reassess his life. And you can feel a tension in that book that is also very alive in Saunders himself — between recognizing how much of our lives are conditioned by our circumstances and the need to pass judgment to reckon with the truth.

In this conversation, I discuss that tension with Saunders. I ask him about his relationship not just to kindness but also to anger; how he defines sin; whether he believes in free will; and what he thinks lies beyond kindness.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

Vigil by George Saunders

“What It Means to Be Kind in a Cruel World” by The Ezra Klein Show

“George Saunders Convocation Speech 2013”

“A Tough Question Indeed” by George Saunders

East West Street by Philippe Sands

“When Is It Genocide?” by The Ezra Klein Show

Book Recommendations:

I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1 by Victor Klemperer

Red Cavalry and Other Stories by Isaac Babel

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

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. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota, Efim Shapiro and 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 Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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Dr Rowan Williams, theologian, poet and former Archbishop of Canterbury, joins Andy and John for a thoughtful and moving discussion of Till We Have Faces (1956), the last novel by C.S. Lewis. This episode was recorded in London in June 2025. Although not as well-reviewed as his previous work, C.S. Lewis believed Till We Have Faces to be "far and away my best book". Over the 70 years since publication, critical opinion has risen in line with the author's estimation. The book shows a more troubled, less dogmatic side to Lewis that that displayed in The Case for Christianity or, for that matter, The Chronicles of Narnia. The novel is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, a story that haunted Lewis ever since he was an undergraduate. It is an endlessly fascinating text that cannot be pinned down easily, and we were very fortunate to be able to discuss it with Rowan Williams, who has a lifetime of experience reading Lewis, and this book in particular. We hope you get as much from the conversation, and from reading the novel, as we have.

* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.

* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm

*If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted

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"We all love Thomas Paine. We just wish we liked him." — Jonathan Turley

Jonathan Turley's new book asks a deceptively simple question: why did the American Revolution become the longest-running successful democracy while the French Revolution devoured itself? The answer, he argues, lies in Madison's "auxiliary precautions" — constitutional safeguards designed not to eliminate rage but to channel it. Turley draws a direct line from Robespierre to today's calls to pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Senate, warning that removing those precautions invites the same mobocracy that sent the Jacobins to the guillotine. But the real provocation comes in the book's second half: with AI and robotics threatening mass unemployment, America may soon face a "kept population" — citizens subsidized by the state who lose their vital relationship to productivity and self-governance. We discuss Thomas Paine (brilliant about humanity, clueless about humans), why rage itself isn't the enemy, and whether the republic built to handle the 18th century can survive the 21st.

About the Guest

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University Law School. A legal analyst for CBS, NBC, BBC, and Fox News over three decades, he is the author of The Indispensable Right (a bestseller) and the new Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.

Chapters:

00:01:14 The uniqueness of the American Revolution
Two revolutions, two outcomes; Thomas Paine and James Madison as the twin geniuses

00:03:53 Paine vs. Madison on democracy
Paine wanted direct democracy; it nearly got him guillotined in France

00:05:54 Robespierre's transformation
The ACLU lawyer who came to believe "terror is virtue"

00:09:01 Thomas Paine: the penman of the revolution
From complete failure to revolutionary genius in two years

00:11:46 Slavery and the revolution's contradictions
Why people preferred Jefferson to Paine

00:15:43 Franklin's greatest achievement
Seeing something in "that heap of human wreckage"

00:18:07 What was unique about American rage
Not the rage itself, but the system designed to handle it

00:25:08 The "New Jacobins"
Calls to pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Senate

00:26:40 Rage on both sides
"Your rage is righteous, their rage is dangerous"

00:30:47 AI and the "kept population"
Mass unemployment and the citizen's relationship to the state

00:39:26 "Gynan" jobs
Homocentric industries like psychiatry and education that AI can't replace

00:45:00 Why the American Republic is still the best model
Decentralization over EU-style centralization

References

Figures discussed:

• Thomas Paine — arrived in America "barely alive," became the penman of the revolution in two years
• James Madison — designed the "auxiliary precautions" that prevented American democracy from devouring itself
• Benjamin Franklin — paid for Paine's passage to America, saw genius in "that heap of human wreckage"
• Maximilien Robespierre — began as an advocate for due process, ended declaring "terror is virtue"
• Jean-Paul Marat — radical journalist, killed by Corday in his bathtub (he bathed constantly due to a skin disease)
• Charlotte Corday — Republican who assassinated Marat; Robespierre and Danton watched her execution
• Georges Danton — joined the moderate Girondin wing; executed by the revolution he helped create

Art:

• The Death of Marat (1793) — Jacques-Louis David's painting of Marat's assassination; David was himself a Jacobin

Historical events:

• The Battle of Fort Wilson (1779) — Philadelphia mob attacked founder James Wilson's home; several killed
• The Reign of Terror (1793–94) — nearly all Jacobin leaders guillotined, including Danton and Robespierre

Books mentioned:

• The Wealth of Nations (1776) — Adam Smith; embraced by the founders as "the perfect companion to their political theory"
• The Federalist Papers (1787–88) — Hamilton, Madison, and Jay

About Keen On America
Nobody asks more impertinent questions than the Anglo-American writer, filmmaker and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen. In Keen On America , Andrew brings his sharp Transatlantic wit to the forces reshaping the United States — hosting daily interviews with leading thinkers and writers about American history, politics, technology, culture, and business. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.

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Games are supposed to be fun — so what happens when the logic of games, points and competition escapes the playground and starts reshaping everyday life? The novelist and games-writer Naomi Alderman and her guests explore how the joy of play collides with the pressures of a gamified society.

Philosopher C Thi Nguyen introduces The Score, his examination of how ranking systems and numerical targets can both sharpen and warp our values, revealing how life becomes less playful when everything is reduced to points.

Journalist and critic Keza MacDonald discusses Super Nintendo, her cultural history of the iconic console, tracing how its games, aesthetics and innovations transformed the medium and helped define what play means for generations of players.

The Financial Times' commentator Stephen Bush examines the growing role of games and game like incentives in public life, exploring how the techniques of play — from reward structures to competitive framing — are reshaping political behaviour and communication.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Games are fun. Aren’t they?

When we play games — board games, video games, any kind of game — something magical happens. Games allow us to explore, to create little worlds where we can be different versions of ourselves. But when we turn life into a game — where we have to get the best grade, or the most money, or the most “likes” — then games stop being fun. Why is that?

This week Sean speaks with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen about what a game really is, the difference between playing for enjoyment and playing to win, and why games lose their magic when the stakes become real.

Thi argues that the things we value in life are increasingly captured by grades and likes and downloads and step counts and a thousand other metrics that quietly rewrite what we want and what we think makes us happy.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: C. Thi Nguyen, author of The Score

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

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A famous quip illustrates an important point: Small debts burden the borrower; big debts burden the lender.

Resources & links related to this episode:

Get in touch: [email protected]

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We consider chapter 2, "Aesthetics Is the Root of All Philosophy," where Harman describes how art can help us see behind the veil to things-in-themselves. Art is "theatrical" in that it's really the spectator who is standing in like an actor for the object encountered in art.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Ian MacMillan has love in mind as he is joined by a swoon of poets all interested in the subject of love in lyric form.

Kim Moore’s poetry collections include The Art of Falling and All The Men I Never Married. She's chosen this week's Neon Line, The Verb's feature on lines that shine out from their poems, from a love poem that has long moved her. She also shares a new love poem from her forthcoming collection, The House of Broken Things,

Deborah Alma, poet, editor, and co-founder of The Poetry Pharmacy is a fan of love poetry anthologies She discusses the approach she took in her own love poetry anthology - Words For Love, and why she finds The Emma Press Anthology of Love edited by Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright, and Something New: Alternative Poems for Alternative Weddings edited by Caroline Bird and Rachel Long, such appealing collections.

In Rob Macaisa Colgate's debut poetry book, Hardly Creatures, he models his collection of poems on the experience of a fully accessible art gallery, inspired by his work in disability arts gallery in Toronto called Tangled. Hardly Creatures features a series of love poems which Rob calls Benches to reflect the fact that he sees them as places of rest in a collection often concerned with the practicalities, the pain, and the politics of disability.

Mark Connors, co-founder and editor of Yaffle Press, on the love song inspired poetry in their latest publication - Poems Inspired By the Best Songs of All Time.

Presented by Ian MacMillan

Valeria Luiselli reads her story “Predictions and Presentiments” from the February 16 & 23, 2026, issue of the magazine. A winner of the International Dublin Literary Award, Lusielli is the author of five books, including “Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions” and “Lost Children Archive.” A new novel, “Beginning Middle End,” from which this story was adapted, will be published in July.