The New Yorker: Fiction

Rank #1: David Sedaris Reads Miranda July. David Sedaris reads "Roy Spivey," by Miranda July.

Rank #2: David Sedaris Reads Wells Tower. David Sedaris joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss "Leopard," by Wells Tower from a 2008 issue of the magazine.

The Guardian Books podcast

Rank #1: Bill Nighy reads The Invisible Child by Tove Jansson – books podcast. In this special episode in collaboration with Oxfam, hear the Love Actually star read an uplifting short story originally featured in Tales from Moominvalley

Rank #2: Pinocchio and the Field of Miracles, read by Andrew Scott – Travel folktales for kids podcast. The little wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy was born in Tuscany. The second of our new audio series for children explains how

The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker

Rank #1: Curtis Sittenfeld Reads “The Prairie Wife”. Kirsten’s commute is when she really focusses on whether she has the power to destroy Lucy Headrick’s life. Yes, the question hums in the background at other moments, like when Kirsten is at the grocery store and sees a cooking magazine with Lucy on the cover—it’s just so f*****g weird how famous Lucy is—but it’s in the car that Kirsten thinks through, in a realistic way, which steps she’d take. 

Rank #2: Kristen Roupenian Reads "Cat Person". Kristen Roupenian reads her story "Cat Person," from the December 11, 2017, issue of the magazine. Roupenian recently completed an M.F.A. and is now a Zell Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Rank #1: Maggie Haberman: Gang War in the White House. Maggie Haberman and Donald Trump go way back.  

Rank #2: The Fall of a Chinese Pop Star, and Calvin Trillin’s Happy Marriage. For some years, Denise Ho was one of the most popular singers in Asia. A Hong Kong native, she performed the style known as Cantopop in mainland China and in foreign countries with Chinese émigré populations. But, as Ho told the staff writer Jiayang Fan, she began to have qualms about the often-saccharine content of the genre. “Is that all? Is that all I can do with my songs, my career—just for personal wealth, and all that?” She was one of the first stars in China to come out as a lesbian, which the government took in stride; but, when she took part in political demonstrations in Hong Kong, she was arrested on television and detained. Authorities began to cancel her concerts, and to block access to her work on the Internet in China. Her endorsements followed suit. “I expected to be banned from China, but I wasn’t expecting the government to react to it in such a way,” she says. “The main goal is to silence everyone—especially the younger generations—with fear.” Now Denise Ho is trying to rebuild her career as something unfamiliar in China: an underground protest singer. Plus: Kai-Fu Lee on China’s tech sector and the challenge it poses to Silicon Valley; and the longtime staff writer Calvin Trillin, who puts his happy marriage onstage in a new play, “About Alice.” “This play certainly would have failed Drama 101 . . . But you have to write about what you know.”

The New Yorker: Politics and More

Rank #1: The World View of James Mattis. Dexter Filkins joins Evan Osnos to discuss Secretary of Defense James Mattis, his view of the Middle East, and what this means for U.S. foreign policy.

Rank #2: The Producer dream hampton Talks with Jelani Cobb about “Surviving R. Kelly”. For decades, it’s been an open secret that R. Kelly has allegedly kept young women trapped in abusive relationships through psychological manipulation, fear, and intimidation. His domestic situation has been compared to a sex cult. He was acquitted of child-pornography charges even though a video that appears to show him with a fourteen-year-old girl was circulated around the country. It was described only as the “R. Kelly sex tape.” Why has it taken so long for the reckonings of the #MeToo movement to catch up to him? Lifetime just aired “Surviving R. Kelly,” a six-part documentary by the producer dream hampton that airs the full breadth of the accusations against Kelly. (He continues to deny all charges of illegal behavior.) One young woman featured in the documentary left a relationship with Kelly, whom she met when she was a teen-age supporter outside the Chicago courtroom where he was being tried. “He was cruising eleventh graders on that trial,” hampton tells the New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb. “I mean, the hubris!” Cobb and hampton discuss the complicated dynamics of accusing R. Kelly. “It’s a deep shame black women have, handing over black men to this system we know to be unjust and that targets them,” she says. “At the same time, black women are black people, and we too are targeted . . . . Most sexual-violence survivors don’t find justice in this system, regardless of race.”   Update: After our program went to air, RCA Records dropped R. Kelly from its roster. 

All the Books!

Rank #1: 172: 172: New Releases and More for August 21, 2018. This week, Liberty and María Cristina discuss Small Animals, Tragedy Plus Time, Underbug, and more great books. This episode was sponsored by Google Play, Impostor's Lure, and Bombas.  

Rank #2: 192: 192: New Releases and More for January 22, 2019. This week, Liberty and María Cristina discuss Golden State, The Red Address Book, Unmarriageable, and more great books.

World Book Club

Rank #1: JD Salinger - The Catcher In The Rye. Harriet Gilbert discusses JD Salinger's classic novel The Catcher in the Rye with a studio audience, including questions from BBC World Service listeners as far afield as Nepal and the Czech Republic. She's in New York's Algonquin Hotel, long-time hangout of our reclusive writer, and answers your questions with the help of authors David Gilbert and Joanna Rakoff. JD Salinger wrote the book in 1951, and died in 2010. (Photo: JD Salinger) (Credit: AP)

Rank #2: Barbara Kingsolver. This month's World Book Club comes from the Jesus Centre in London. Harriett Gilbert and readers talk to bestselling writer Barbara Kingsolver about her internationally acclaimed novel The Poisonwood Bible. Having sold four million copies around the world, Kingsolver's most ambitious novel paints an intimate portrait of a crisis-ridden family amid the larger backdrop of an African nation in chaos. In 1959 an overzealous Baptist minister Nathan Price drags his wife and four daughters deep into the heart of the Congo on a mission to save the unenlightened souls of Africa. As his plans unravel in tandem with the country's dreams of becoming an independent democracy, the five women narrate the novel, each in their own inimitable voice.

Books and Authors

Rank #1: A Good Read: Phill Jupitus and Robin Ince. Comedians Phill Jupitus and Robin Ince talk to Harriett Gilbert about books they love. Phill's is Dada: Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter, the founder of the punk art movement. Robin's is Soviet-era science fiction: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the book on which Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker was based. Lastly, Harriett introduces them to a dark and compelling new crime novel in which the protagonists are children: Dodgers by Bill Beverly. Producer Beth O'Dea.

Rank #2: Crime writer John Harvey on his new book Body and Soul. John Harvey and favourite characters in fiction

Audio Book Club

Rank #1: Slate's Audio Book Club: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Slate's Audio Book Club. Stephen Metcalf, Troy Patterson, and Katie Roiphe discuss the American classic The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

Rank #2: Slate's Audio Book Club: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. Slate's Audio Book Club. Katie Roiphe, Troy Patterson, and James Surowiecki discuss David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. We recommend, but don't insist, that you read the book before listening to this audio program.

Radio Atlantic

Rank #1: The Great Recession, One Decade Later. In December 2007, the U.S. marked the beginning of its longest recession since World War II. Now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency born in the ashes of the nation's economic downturn, is under new leadership that promises big changes. Meanwhile, a tax plan speeding through Congress could have far-reaching effects on the economy, well beyond taxes. On paper, the U.S. economy looks robust. But for whom, and for how long?This week, Annie Lowrey and Alana Semuels join our hosts to look at what's happened in the decade since the Great Recession, and what's happening now. What lessons have we learned from the crisis? And which are we doomed to repeat?Links:- "The Never-Ending Foreclosure" (Alana Semuels, December 1, 2017)- "The Great Recession Is Still With Us" (Annie Lowrey, December 1, 2017)- “The GOP Targets America’s Most Loved and Hated Tax Break” (Alana Semuels, November 2, 2017)- “The U.S. Isn’t Prepared for the Next Recession” (Annie Lowrey, October 31, 2017)- “Mick Mulvaney Is Pretending Everything's Totally Normal at Work” (Gillian B. White, November 28, 2017)- “Could a Tax Fix the Gig Economy?” (Alana Semuels, November 6, 2017)- “Trump Says His Tax Plan Won't Benefit the Rich—He's Exactly Wrong” (Annie Lowrey, September 29, 2017)- "Could a Memo by Christina Romer Have Saved the Economy?" (John Hudson, February 22, 2012)- “The Fight Over the CFPB Reveals the Broken State of American Politics” (David A. Graham, November 28, 2017)- "The Shadow of the Stimulus" (Ross Douthat, February 1, 2009)- "Return of the Shopping Avenger" (Jeffrey Goldberg, December 1, 2009)- The Half Has Never Been Told  (Edward Baptist)- The Unwinding (George Packer)- "The Nutshell Studies" (Katie Mingle, 99 Percent Invisible)- "The Reason This 'Racist Soap Dispenser' Doesn't Work on Black Skin" (Max Plenke, Mic.com, September 9, 2015)

Rank #2: What Happened to the GOP?. Observing antidemocratic ‘power grabs’ by state Republicans, Atlantic staff writer George Packer writes that “the corruption of the Republican Party in the Trump era seemed to set in with breathtaking speed. In fact, it took more than a half century to reach the point where faced with a choice between democracy and power, the party chose the latter.”To understand how the party of Lincoln became the party of Trump, Alex Wagner spoke with Packer on this week’s episode of Radio Atlantic. Listen to hear Packer describe the three ‘insurgencies’ that explain the transformation of the GOP over the last half-century. An ideological revolution that began with Barry Goldwater became a coup for power with Newt Gingrich (A.K.A. “The Man Who Broke Politics”). Afterwards, moderate Republicans became an endangered species, the Tea Party emerged as a major force, and Trump’s brand of corrosive politics became, Packer says, “inevitable.”

Bookworm

Rank #1: David Sedaris: Calypso. David Sedaris is hilarious but that’s just the obvious. He discusses the art of melancholy, and mortality, topics in his new book of humorous stories, Calypso.

Rank #2: Susan Orlean: The Library Book. Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is about the cultural institution of libraries, with each chapter a source of its own excitement.

The New Yorker: Poetry

Rank #1: John Ashbery Reads Charles Simic. John Ashbery reads Charles Simic and his own work, and has a discussion with the New Yorker poetry editor, Paul Muldoon.

Rank #2: Robert Pinsky Reads Elizabeth Bishop. Robert Pinsky joins Paul Muldoon to read and discuss Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses” and a poem of his own.

London Review Podcasts

Rank #1: The Dress in Your Head. Rosemary Hill explores frock consciousness in life and literature.

Rank #2: Marilyn Monroe. Jacqueline Rose celebrates Marilyn Monroe.

Longform

Rank #1: Episode 129: Rukmini Callimachi (Part 1). Rukmini Callimachi covers ISIS for The New York Times. “Nine out of 10 Americans said they were aware of James Foley's execution. That's a huge win for ISIS. That's what they want. I think they've realized that journalists are the crème de la crème as far as targets. And that's a really scary thing for our profession.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Lynda for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to support the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Show Notes: @rcallimachi Callimachi on Longform [4:00] "The Horror Before the Beheadings" (The New York Times • Oct 2014) [4:00] "From Amateur to Ruthless Jihadist in France" (The New York Times • Jan 2014) [7:00] "ISIS Declares Airstrike Killed a U.S. Hostage" (The New York Times • Feb 2015) [11:00] "With Proof From ISIS of Her Death, Family Honors Kayla Mueller" (The New York Times • Feb 2015) [12:00] "As U.S. Bombs Fall, British Hostage of ISIS Warns of Another Vietnam" (The New York Times • Sep 2014) [21:00] Callimachi's Pulitzer-nominated work for the AP [26:00] McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Misha Glenny • Random House • 2008) [27:00] The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Lawrence Wright • Alfred A. Knopf • 2006)

Rank #2: Episode 159: Ira Glass. Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of This American Life. “You can only have so many questions about feelings, I think. At some point people are just like alright, enough with the feelings.” Thanks to MailChimp, EA SPORTS FIFA 16, Fracture, and FRONTLINE's "My Brother's Bomber for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @iraglass Out on the Wire (Jessica Abel • Broadway Books • 2015) [10:00] "1: New Beginnings" (This American Life • Nov 1995) [14:00] Serial [21:00] "75: Kindness of Strangers" (This American Life • Nov 1995) [27:00] Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host [28:00] "480: Human Sacrifice" (This American Life • Nov 2012) [30:00] "562: The Problem We All Live With" (Nikole Hannah-Jones • This American Life • July 2015) [31:00] "564: Too Soon" (This American Life • Aug 2015) [31:00] "565: Lower 9+10" (This American Life • Aug 2015) [35:00] "513: 129 Cars" (This American Life • Dec 2013) [53:00] Longform Podcast #124: Alex Blumberg [54:00] Conan's Farewell Speech