Show Notes

Special Book Edition: 25,000 Streams Celebration
Recorded in New York City on Thanksgiving Day

A milestone episode. After just a dozen conversations, Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know has crossed 25,000 streams. Instead of another interview, we’re doing something revealing, personal, and surprisingly political: we’re revisiting book recommendations from our guests.

These are the titles that shape how leaders think about New York, democracy, wealth, poverty, power, inequality, science, climate, and their own decisions. From collapsing empires to the Koch era, from hedge funds to poverty in Brooklyn, from spiritual discipline to climate-fiction superheroes, this episode shows how reading choices become political choices.

📚 Featured Book Recommendations

🗽 New York City history and power

• The Gods of New York — Jonathan Mahler (recommended by Brad Lander, Kathryn Wylde, Grace Rauh, Juan Manuel Benítez is currently reading, and the author is coming on the show)
• The City We Became — N.K. Jemisin (Brad Lander)

🌍 Climate imagination & speculative politics

• A Half-Built Garden — Ruth Emrys (Brad Lander)

💡 Ideas reshaping public policy

• Abundance — Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson (Mark Levine)

🧠 Psychology, mindset & self-determination

• The Science of Mind — Ernest Holmes (Eric Adams)

⚔️ Labor history, unions & fear of socialism

• The Jungle — Upton Sinclair (Curtis Sliwa)

💸 Wealth, exploitation & the cost of growing up poor

• Black Edge — Sheelah Kolhatkar (Jessica Ramos)
• Invisible Child — Andrea Elliott (Jessica Ramos)

⚾ Escapism with substance

• The Bee Sting — Paul Murray (Brian Lehrer)

🔎 Race, economics, and shared struggle

• White Poverty — Rev. William Barber (Antonio Delgado)

🏛️ A crumbling empire as metaphor

• The Emergency — George Packer (Ben Smith)

🎙️ Voices in This Episode

Brad Lander • Kathryn Wylde • Mark Levine • Eric Adams • Curtis Sliwa • Jessica Ramos • Brian Lehrer • Grace Rauh • Christina Greer • Josh Greenman • Nicole Gelinas • Antonio Delgado • Ben Smith

📌 Bonus

The most mentioned book: The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler. Stay tuned — the author joins the podcast in a couple of weeks.

🙏 Thank You for 25,000 Streams

If you’ve been listening, reviewing, or sharing episodes, you helped grow a show focused on understanding power in New York City. Keep going:

👍 Subscribe
⭐ Leave a review
📚 Send Juan your current book recommendation
Because the ideas we read today shape the choices we make tomorrow.

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving from Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know.