Opinion | ‘The Ezra Klein Show’ Book Recommendations

“The Ezra Klein Show” explores ideas with some of today’s most dynamic thinkers. We cover politics, culture, history, philosophy, psychology, technology and more. The topics are wide-ranging, but every episode ends with Ezra asking his guest (or guests) to recommend a few books that have shaped their thinking. Below is a list of all the books recommended on the show, in reverse-chronological order.

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The Future Is Going to Be Weird. Are We Ready? (May 2, 2023)

Democrats: Pay Attention to What’s Happening in California (April 28, 2023)

“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros

“And the Band Played On” by Randy Shilts

Matthew Desmond on America’s Addiction to Poverty (April 21, 2023)

“Race for Profit” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

“What Then Must We Do?” by Leo Tolstoy

The ‘Quiet Catastrophe’ Brewing in Our Social Lives (April 18, 2023)

“On the Inconvenience of Other People” by Lauren Berlant

This Philosopher Wants Liberals to Take Political Power Seriously (April 14, 2023)

“The Darkened Light of Faith” by Melvin L. Rogers

What Biden’s Top A.I. Thinker Concluded We Should Do (April 11, 2023)

The Most Amazing — and Dangerous — Technology in the World (April 4, 2023)

“Prestige, Manipulation and Coercion” by Joseph Torigian

“The World For Sale” by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy

Trump’s Legal Jeopardy and America’s Political Crossroads (Mar. 28, 2023)

“Ring of Steel” by Alexander Watson

“We the Fallen People” by Robert Tracy McKenzie

A Radical Way of Thinking About Money (Mar. 24, 2023)

A.I. Is About to Get Much Weirder. Here’s What to Watch For. (Mar. 21, 2023)

“The Making of the Atomic Bomb” by Richard Rhodes

Why Silicon Valley Bank Collapsed — And What Comes Next (Mar. 16, 2023)

How China Went From Economic Superstar to Faltering Giant (Mar. 14, 2023)

“Disturbing the Universe” by Freeman Dyson

“Last and First Men” by Olaf Stapledon

The Men — and Boys — Are Not Alright (Mar. 10, 2023)

“ The Life of Dad ” by Anna Machin

“ Career and Family ” by Claudia Goldin

“ The Tenuous Attachments of Working-Class Men ” by Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, Andrew Cherlin and Robert Franci

If You Read the G.O.P.’s Anti-Trans Policies, You’ll See What It Really Wants (Mar. 7, 2023)

“Can the Monster Speak?” by Paul B. Preciado

“Caliban and the Witch” by Silvia Federici

What a Poetic Mind Can Teach Us About How to Live (Mar. 3, 2023)

“The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin

“Less Than One” by Joseph Brodsky

“Metaphors We Live By” by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Our Brains Weren’t Designed for This Kind of Food (Feb. 28, 2023)

“The Secret of Our Success” by Joseph Henrich

Is A.I. Actually Creative? Are We? (Feb. 24, 2023)

“Soldier of the Mist” by Gene Wolfe

A Surprising Theory for Understanding — and Healing — Pain (Feb. 21, 2023)

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk

“Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert M. Sapolsky

The Inflation Story Has Changed Significantly. Paul Krugman Breaks It Down. (Feb. 17, 2023)

“How the War Was Won” by Phillips Payson O’Brien

“Slouching Towards Utopia” by J. Bradford DeLong

How the $500 Billion Attention Industry Really Works (Feb. 14, 2023)

“Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky

The Tao of Rick Rubin (Feb. 10, 2023)

“The Beatles” by The Beatles (album)

How Liberals — Yes, Liberals — Are Hobbling Government (Feb. 7, 2023)

“The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis

Is This How a Cold War With China Begins? (Jan. 27, 2023)

“See No Stranger” by Valarie Kaur

“Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts” by Jeremy L. Wallace

There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed (Jan. 24, 2023)

“Fei Xiaotong and Sociology in Revolutionary China” by R. David Arkush

“From The Soil” by Xiaotong Fei

How Right-Wing Media Ate the Republican Party (Jan. 20, 2023)

A Revelatory Tour of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Forgotten Teachings (Jan. 16, 2023)

“A More Beautiful and Terrible History” by Jeanne Theoharis

“The Sword and the Shield” by Peniel E. Joseph

“The Trumpet of Conscience” by Martin Luther King Jr.

“Where Do We Go From Here” by Martin Luther King Jr.

A Guide to the ‘Legal Fictions’ That Create Wealth, Inequality and Economic Crises (Jan. 13, 2023)

Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

Dan Savage on Polyamory, Chosen Family and Better Sex (Jan. 10, 2023)

“The Ethical Slut” by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

A Skeptical Take on the A.I. Revolution (Jan. 6, 2023)

“How the World Really Works” by Vaclav Smil

Sabbath and the Art of Rest (Jan. 3, 2023)

“On the Clock” by Emily Guendelsberger

“The Seven Day Circle” by Eviatar Zerubavel

What I’m Thinking About at the End of 2022 (Dec. 16, 2022)

“Here We Are” by Oliver Jeffers

“Happy Birthday to You!” by Dr. Seuss

Time Is Way Weirder Than You Think (Dec. 13, 2022)

“The Age of A.I.” by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher

“When We Cease to Understand the World” by Benjamin Labatut

“Noise” by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein

Three Signals We’ve Entered a New Economic Era (Dec. 9, 2022)

“The World For Sale” by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy

There’s Been a Massive Change in Where American Policy Gets Made (Dec. 6, 2022)

A Conservative’s Take on the Chaotic State of the Republican Party (Dec. 2, 2022)

“The Face of God” by Roger Scruton

“The Demon in Democracy” by Ryszard Legutko

The Hidden Costs of Cheap Meat (Nov. 29, 2022)

This Is Your Brain on ‘Deep Reading.’ It’s Pretty Magnificent. (Nov. 22, 2022)

“Standing by Words” by Wendell Berry

“World and Town” by Gish Jen

Bill McKibben on the Power That Could Save the Planet (Nov. 15, 2022)

“How It Went” by Wendell Berry

George Saunders on the ‘Braindead Megaphone’ That Makes Our Politics So Awful (Nov. 8, 2022)

“The Storm Is Here” by Luke Mogelson

Inflation Does More Than Raise Prices. It Destroys Governments. (Nov. 4, 2022)

“The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order” by Gary Gestle

A Powerful Theory of Why the Far Right Is Thriving Across the Globe (Nov. 1, 2022)

“The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt

“Spin Dictators” by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman

These Political Scientists Surveyed 500,000 Voters. Here Are Their Unnerving Conclusions. (Oct. 28, 2022)

“State of Terror” by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

“Rock Me on the Water” by Ronald Brownstein

“Groundbreakers” by Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han

A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Trump Enabler (Oct. 25, 2022)

“Why We Did It” by Tim Miller

There’s Been a ‘Regime Change’ in How Democrats Think About Elections (Oct. 21, 2022)

“Strangers to Ourselves” by Rachel Aviv

“Slouching Towards Utopia” by J. Bradford DeLong

A Legendary World-Builder on Multiverses, Revolution and the ‘Souls’ of Cities (Oct. 18, 2022)

“The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs

Rachel Maddow Looks Back on a Wild 14 Years (Oct. 14, 2022)

“Down in New Orleans” Billy Sothern

“Nazis of Copley Square” by Charles R. Gallagher

“Hitler in Los Angeles” by Steven J. Ross

How the Fed Is ‘Shaking the Entire System’ (Oct. 7, 2022)

“Slouching Towards Utopia” by J. Bradford DeLong

Interrogating the Stories We Tell About Our Minds (Oct. 4, 2022)

“Madness and Modernism” by Louis Sass

Ethereum’s Founder on What Crypto Can — and Can’t — Do (Sep. 30, 2022)

“Algorithmic Game Theory” by Noam Nisan, Tim Roughgarden, Eva Tardos and Vijay V. Vazirani

“Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality” by Eliezer Yudkowsky

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer

We Know Shockingly Little About What Makes Humanity Prosper (Sep. 27, 2022)

“Scene of Change” by Warren Weaver

“Empire and Revolution” by Richard Bourke

Why Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine (Sep. 23, 2022)

“Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928” by Stephen Kotkin

The Single Best Guide to Decarbonization I’ve Heard (Sep. 20, 2022)

“How Solar Energy Became Cheap” by Gregory F. Nemet

“Making Climate Policy Work” by Danny Cullenward and David G. Victor

Now All Biden Has to Do Is Build It (Sep. 16, 2022)

“Chords of Change” (forthcoming 2023) by Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce

We Build Civilizations on Status. But We Barely Understand It. (Sep. 13, 2022)

“The Theory of the Leisure Class” by Thorstein Veblen

“The Psychology of Social Status” by Joey T. Cheng, Jessica L. Tracy, Cameron Anderson

“Envy Up, Scorn Down” by Susan T. Fiske

The Subtle Art of Appreciating ‘Difficult Beauty’ (Sep. 6, 2022)

“Romance in Marseille” by Claude McKay

“H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald

A Grammy-Nominated Singer Performs and Explores Music’s Deep Power Over Us (Aug. 30, 2022)

“A Fortune for Your Disaster” by Hanif Abdurraqib

Why the Evangelical Movement Is in ‘Disarray’ After Dobbs (August 23, 2022)

“The Resurrection of the Son of God” by N.T. Wright

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis

“The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis

Is the Remote Work Revolution Flopping, Succeeding or Both? (August 16, 2022)

“The Myth of the Paperless Office” by Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper

“In the Age of the Smart Machine” by Shoshana Zuboff

How Do We Face Loss With Empathy? (August 12, 2022)

“The Epic of Gilgamesh” translated by Andrew George

Three Sentences That Could Change the World — and Your Life (August 9, 2022)

Gender Is Complicated for All of Us. Let’s Talk About It. (August 5, 2022)

“Histories of the Transgender Child” by Jules Gill-Peterson

How We Communicate Will Decide Whether Democracy Lives or Dies (July 26, 2022)

“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman

A Top Mental Health Expert on Where America Went Wrong (July 22, 2022)

Why Housing Is So Expensive — Particularly in Blue States (July 19, 2022)

“Neighborhood Defenders” by Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick and Maxwell Palmer

A Weird, Wonderful Conversation With Kim Stanley Robinson (July 15, 2022)

“The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow

“A Brief History of Equality” by Thomas Piketty

Michelle Goldberg Grapples With Feminism After Roe (July 8, 2022)

“Status and Culture” by W. David Marx

“No More Nice Girls” by Ellen Willis

Liberals Need a Clearer Vision of the Constitution. Here’s What It Could Look Like. (July 5, 2022)

“When We Cease to Understand the World” by Benjamín Labatut

“The Second Creation” by Jonathan Gienapp

“The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution” by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath

The Single Best Guide I’ve Heard to the Supreme Court’s Rightward Shift (July 1, 2022)

The Dobbs Decision Isn’t Just About Abortion. It’s About Power. (June 26, 2022)

“You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” by Howard Zinn

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl

“Hope in the Dark” by Rebecca Solnit

Jan. 6 Has Surfaced America’s Disdain for Democracy (June 24, 2022)

“What It Took to Win” by Michael Kazin

Two Years Later, We Still Don’t Understand Long Covid. Why? (June 21, 2022)

“Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder

The Stock Market Is Plummeting. Welcome to the End of the ‘Everything Bubble.’ (June 17, 2022)

“The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order” by Gary Gerstle

“All That She Carried” by Tiya Miles

Is Climate Change a Reason to Avoid Having Children? and Other Listener Questions Answered (June 14, 2022)

“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney

“The Invention of Nature” by Andrea Wulf

“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman

Why One of America’s Leading Socialists Is Worried About His Movement (June 10, 2022)

“The Age of Extremes” by Eric Hobsbawm

“Socialism: Past and Future” by Michael Harrington

Thomas Piketty’s Case for ‘Participatory Socialism’ (June 7, 2022)

“The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt

“The Emergence of Globalism” by Or Rosenboim

Why Reihan Salam Thinks ‘Antiracialism’ Could Break the Democrats (June 3, 2022)

“The Strategy of Denial” by Elbridge A. Colby

A Debate Over What Roe Did — and What Losing It Would Mean (May 31, 2022)

“Feminism Without Illusions” by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

A Conversation With Ada Limón, in Six Poems (May 24, 2022)

The Ethics of Abortion (May 20, 2022)

“Abortion: Three Perspectives” by Michael Tooley, Celia Wolf-Devine, Philip E. Devine and Alison M. Jaggar

Anne Applebaum on What Liberals Misunderstand About Authoritarianism (May 17, 2022)

“The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt

What Does the ‘Post-Liberal Right’ Actually Want? (May 13, 2022)

“The Art of Loading Brush” by Wendell Berry

“The New Class War” by Michael Lind

Donald Trump Didn’t Hijack the G.O.P. He Understood It. (May 6, 2022)

“The Prince of Darkness” by Robert D. Novak

“Let Us Talk of Many Things” by William F. Buckley Jr.

Elon Musk Might Break Twitter. Maybe That’s a Good Thing. (April 29, 2022)

“The Surprise of Cremona” by Edith Templeton

“Typeset in the Future” by Dave Addey

Putin May Not Like How He’s Changed Europe (April 26, 2022)

“The Age of Unpeace” by Mark Leonard

Emily St. John Mandel on Time Travel, Parenting and the Apocalypse (April 22, 2022)

Can Democrats Turn Their 2022 Around? (April 19, 2022)

“A Theory of System Justification” by John T. Jost

A Ukrainian Philsopoher on What Putin Never Understood About Ukraine (April 12, 2022)

“Blood of Others” by Rory Finnin

“The Gates of Europe” by Serhii Plokhy

“Ukraine in Histories and Stories” by Volodymyr Yermolenko

Fiona Hill on Whether Ukraine Can Win — and What Happens if Russia Loses (April 8, 2022)

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu

A Viral Case Against Crypto, Explored (April 5, 2022)

“The Tombs of Atuan” by Ursula K. Le Guin

Sanctioning Russia Is a Form of War. We Need to Treat It Like One. (Apr. 1, 2022)

I Keep Hoping Larry Summers Is Wrong. What if He’s Not? (March 29, 2022)

“Slouching Towards Utopia” by J. Bradford DeLong

“The Price of Peace” by Zachary D. Carter

“The Best and The Brightest” by David Halberstam

Margaret Atwood on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ Totalitarianism and U.F.O.s (March 25, 2022)

“Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien

“Secrets of the Sprakkar” by Eliza Reid

How Energy Markets Are Shaping Putin’s Invasion — and the World (March 22, 2022)

“The Power of Law” by Sebastian Mallaby

A Realist Take on How the Russia-Ukraine War Could End (March 18, 2022)

“Not One Inch” by M.E. Sarotte

Timothy Snyder on the Myths That Blinded the West to Putin’s Plans (March 15, 2022)

“The Gates of Europe” by Serhii Plokhy

“The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt

“Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible” by Peter Pomerantsev

Putin Is ‘Profoundly Anti-Modern.’ Masha Gessen Explains What That Means for the World (March 11, 2022)

“Manual for Survival” by Kate Brown

“The Last Empire” by Serhii Plokhy

Fiona Hill on the War Putin Is Really Fighting (March 8, 2022)

“The Formation of the Soviet Union” by Richard Pipes

“Russia Under the Old Regime” by Richard Pipes

“The Limits of Partnership” by Angela Stent

“Not One Inch” by M.E. Sarotte

Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia —and China (March 4, 2022)

“A World Safe for Democracy” by G. John Ikenberry

“Man, the State, and War” by Kenneth N. Waltz

Can the West Stop Russia by Strangling Its Economy? (March 1, 2022)

“The Future of Money” by Eswar S. Prasad

“The End of the End of History” by Alex Hochuli, George Hoare and Philip Cunliffe

A Critique of Government That Progressives — Myself Included — Need to Hear (Feb. 18, 2022)

“The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson

“India: A Story Through 100 Objects” by Vidya Dehejia

What if We Respected Toddlers as Whole People? (Feb. 15, 2022)

“Siblings Without Rivalry” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

“Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect” by Magda Gerber

It’s Not Your Fault You Can’t Pay Attention. Here’s Why. (Feb. 11, 2022)

“The Apology” by V (formerly Eve Ensler)

“The Anatomy of a Moment” by Javier Cercas

Why (Most) Economists Got This Economy So Wrong (Feb. 8, 2022)

“Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich

“The Weirdest People in the World” by Joseph Henrich

“The Myth of the Rational Voter” by Bryan Caplan

Let’s Talk About How Truly Bizarre Our Supreme Court Is (Feb. 4, 2022)

“Cult of the Constitution” by Mary Anne Franks

“Law and Disagreement” by Jeremy Waldron

Democrats Chase Shiny Objects. Here’s How They Can Build Real Power. (Feb. 1, 2022)

“Let’s Get Physical” by Danielle Friedman

What We Gain by Enchanting the Objects in Our Lives (Jan. 25, 2022)

“The Aleph and Other Stories” by Jorge Luis Borges

“When You Greet Me I Bow” by Norman Fischer

What Biden’s Chief of Staff Has Learned, One Year In (Jan. 21, 2022)

The Pandemic Lessons We Clearly Haven’t Learned (Jan. 18, 2022)

“The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy” by Irvin D. Yalom and Molyn Leszcz

Chris Hayes on How Biden Can Have a Better 2022 (Jan. 11, 2022)

Timeless Wisdom for Leading a Life of Love, Friendship and Learning (Dec. 14, 2021)

“Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Hebrew Bible, especially Genesis and Exodus

Every 8 Seconds, an American Turns 65. How Do We Care for Everyone? (Dec. 7, 2021)

“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee

Predicting the Future Is Possible. These ‘Superforecasters’ Know How. (Dec. 3, 2021)

“Perception and Misperception in International Politics” by Robert Jervis

“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman

Why Is Murder Spiking? And Can Cities Address It Without Police? (Nov. 23, 2021)

“The Truly Disadvantaged” by William Julius Wilson

The Case Against Loving Your Job (Nov. 19, 2021)

“Confessions of the Fox” by Jordy Rosenberg

“Farewell to the Factory” by Ruth Milkman

“Lost in Work” by Amelia Horgan

How Far-Right Extremism Invaded Mainstream Politics (Nov. 16, 2021)

“Future Home of the Living God” by Louise Erdrich

“Fortress America” by Elaine Tyler May

The Mainstream Media Has a Republican Party Problem (Nov. 12, 2021)

“The Boys on the Bus” by Timothy Crouse

Two Acclaimed Writers on the Art of Revising Your Life (Nov. 9, 2021)

“Abolition for the People” by Colin Kaepernick

“Shoutin’ in the Fire” by Danté Stewart

“South to America” by Imani Perry

The Life-Altering Differences Between White and Black Debt (Nov. 2, 2021)

“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee

“A Pound of Flesh” by Alexes Harris

“The Color of Money” by Mehrsa Baradaran

Why This Conservative Wants a More Radical Republican Party (Oct. 29, 2021)

“The Charterhouse of Parma” by Stendhal

“The Adventures of Tintin” by Hergé

What Living ‘At the Edge of Medical Knowledge’ Reveals about American Healthcare (Oct. 26, 2021)

“The Journal of a Disappointed Man” by W.N.P. Barbellion

What Keeping American Democracy Alive Looks Like (Oct. 22, 2021)

“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

“All That She Carried” by Tiya Miles

Why Does It Have to Be Slaveholders That We Unite Around?(Oct. 19, 2021)

“The Negro in the American Revolution” by Benjamin Quarles

A Crypto Optimist Meets a Crypto Skeptic (Oct. 15, 2021)

“My Life in Full” by Indra Nooyi

“The Company” by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge

Lessons on Living Well, From Nick Offerman (Oct. 12, 2021)

“Boys and Sex” by Peggy Orenstein

“Girls and Sex” by Peggy Orenstein

What if We’ll Never Truly Be Free? (Oct. 8, 2021)

“The Force of Nonviolence” by Judith Butler

Warning: This Episode Gets Really Weird About How Much Good You Can Do (Oct. 5, 2021)

“The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers” by Robert L. Kelly

‘We’ve Become Too Complicated’: Where Eric Adams Thinks Democrats Went Wrong (Oct. 1, 2021)

“You Are The Placebo” by Joe Dispenza

“Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself” by Joe Dispenza

“Healthy At Last” by Eric Adams

Richard Powers on What We Can Learn from Trees (Sept. 28, 2021)

“Ever Green” by John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy

“How to Be Animal” by Melanie Challenger

We’re on the Precipice of a Post-Roe World (Sept. 21, 2021)

“Radical Reproductive Justice,” edited by Loretta J. Ross, Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater

“Killing for Life” by Carol Mason

“How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics” by Laura Briggs

Covid Showed Us What Keynes Always Knew (Sept. 17, 2021)

“Essays in Persuasion” by John Maynard Keynes

How Colson Whitehead Writes About Our ‘Big Wild Country’ (Sept. 14, 2021)

“Mad As Hell” by Dave Itzkoff

“When the Emperor Was Divine” by Julie Otsuka

“The Buddha in the Attic” by Julie Otsuka

“Love Goes to Buildings” on Fire by Will Hermes

Can We Change Our Sexual Desires? Should We? (Sept. 7, 2021)

“Feminist International” by Verónica Gago, translated by Liz Mason-Deese

“Revolting Prostitutes” by Juno Mac and Molly Smith

“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks, with Barbara Smith

This Isn’t Your Grandpa’s Joe Biden (Sept. 3, 2021)

“Difference Without Domination” by Danielle Allen and Rohini Somanathan

“The End of the Myth” by Greg Grandin

“Undoing the Demos” by Wendy Brown

My Reading Habits, Explained, and Other Questions You Asked (Aug. 31, 2021)

“Happy Birthday to You!” by Dr. Seuss

“Cars and Trucks and Things That Go” by Richard Scarry

“Here We Are” by Oliver Jeffers

The Foreign Policy Conversation Washington Doesn’t Want to Have (Aug. 27, 2021)

“The Hell of Good Intentions” by Stephen Walt

“The Best and the Brightest” by David Halberstam

This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma (August 24, 2021)

“The Narrow Road to the Deep North” by Richard Flanagan

“Love in Goon Park” by Deborah Blum

How Identity Politics Took Over the Republican Party (Aug. 13, 2021)

“The City We Became” by N. K. Jemisin

“Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi

“Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880” by W. E. B. Du Bois

What Trump Understood About the War on Terror That Others Missed (Aug. 10, 2021)

“Rise of the Black Panther” by Evan Narcisse and Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Lazarus” by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

“The New Gods” by Jack Kirby

The Good and Bad News About the Delta Variant (Aug. 6, 2021)

“Wired for Culture” by Mark Pagel

This Conversation Changed the Way I Interact With Technology (Aug. 3, 2021)

“Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life” by Albert Borgmann

“Tools for Conviviality” by Ivan Illich

What’s Really Behind the 1619 Backlash? (July 30, 2021)

“Avengers of the New World” by Laurent Dubois

“The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson

“Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880” by W. E. B. Du Bois

Ross Douthat Has Been ‘Radicalized a Little Bit, Too’ (July 27, 2021)

“Crucible of War” by Fred Anderson

How Blue Cities Became So Outrageously Affordable (July 23, 2021)

“Stories of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang

This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Thinking (July 20, 2021)

“Thoughts Without a Thinker” by Mark Epstein

“Mind in Motion” by Barbara Tversky

“Supersizing the Mind” by Andy Clark

Ibram X. Kendi on What Conservatives—and Liberals—Get Wrong About Antiracism (July 16, 2021)

“Race for Profit” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

“The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee

“Dying of Whiteness” by Jonathan M. Metzl

How Octopuses Upend What We Know About Ourselves (July 13, 2021)

“The Old Way” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Critical Race Theory, Comic Books and the Power of Public Schools (July 9, 2021)

“Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration” by Reuben Jonathan Miller

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy Wants You to Be Bad at Something. It’s for Your Own Good. (July 2, 2021)

“A Temple of Texts” and other work by William H. Gass

Why Do We Work So Damn Much? (June 29, 2021)

“Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness” by Peter Godfrey-Smith

“Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures” by Merlin Sheldrake

“King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa” by Adam Hochschild

Republicans Are Setting Off a Doom Loop for Democracy (June 25, 2021)

“Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America” by Eyal Press

“Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David Blight

Sarah Schulman’s Radical Approach to Conflict, Communication and Change (June 22, 2021)

“Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote and Insisted on Equality for All” by Martha S. Jones

“Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University” by Matt Brim

Welcome to the ‘Take This Job and Shove It’ Economy (June 18, 2021)

“Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity” by Claudia Goldin

“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Freeing of the American Mind (June 15, 2021)

“Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years With Cage and Cunningham” by Carolyn Brown

“Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945” by Tony Judt

Sam Altman on the A.I. Revolution, Trillionaires and the Future of Political Power (June 11, 2021)

“The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov

Employers Are Begging for Workers. Maybe That’s a Good Thing. (June 8, 2021)

“Poorly Understood” by Mark Rank, Lawrence Eppard and Heather Bullock

If ‘All Models Are Wrong,’ Why Do We Give Them So Much Power? (June 4, 2021)

“How to Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell

“Finite and Infinite Games” by James P. Carse

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots” by Julie Shah and Laura Major

Obama Explains How America Went From ‘Yes We Can’ to ‘MAGA’ (June 1, 2021)

Violent Crime Is Spiking. Do Liberals Have an Answer? (May 21, 2021)

“The Condemnation of Blackness” by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

“Becoming Ms. Burton” by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn

The Spectacle of the G.O.P.’s Shrinking Tent (May 18, 2021)

“The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr. and the Debate Over Race in America” by Nicholas Buccola

“Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex and Gender in the Twentieth Century” by Charles King

“Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America” by Kathleen Belew

Status Games, Polyamory and the Merits of Meritocracy (May 14, 2021)

“Augustine of Hippo” by Peter Brown

Michael Lewis Is Asking the Right Question (May 11, 2021)

“Young Men and Fire” by Norman McLean

“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro

Elizabeth Warren on What We Get Wrong About Inequality (May 7, 2021)

“Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

“Heart of Fire” by Mazie Hirono

How to Have Better Conversations About Hard Things (May 4, 2021)

“The Secret to Superhuman Strength” by Alison Bechdel

“Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner

“Death in Mud Lick” by Eric Eyre

How Chuck Schumer Plans to Win Over Trump Voters (April 30, 2021)

Shame, Safety and Moving Beyond Cancel Culture (April 27, 2021)

“The Tao Is Silent” by Raymond Smullyan

“Conflict Is Not Abuse” by Sarah Schulman

Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Human Nature and Joe Biden (April 23, 2021)

“All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw” by Theodore Rosengarten

“The Last of the Just” by Andre Schwarz-Bart

That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn. (April 20, 2021)

“The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein

Why Adults Lose the ‘Beginner’s Mind’ (April 16, 2021)

“The Children of Green Knowe” by L.M. Boston

“Mary Poppins in the Park” by P.L. Travers

“Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak

Your Success Probably Didn’t Come From Merit Alone (April 13, 2021)

“Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred Taylor

“Fearing the Black Body” by Sabrina Strings

Did the Boomers Ruin America? A Debate. (April 6, 2021)

“A Book of Americans” by Stephen Vincent Benét

“Coming of Age on Zoloft” by Katherine Sharpe

“A Tale of Two Utopias” by Paul Berman

“The Culture of Narcissism” by Christopher Lasch

Humanity’s Awesome, Terrifying Takeover of Evolution (April 2, 2021)

“Winnie the Pooh” by A.A. Milne

“The Eighth Day of Creation” by Horace Freeland Judson

The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear A.I. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’ (March 30, 2021)

“Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard

“A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan

“CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” by George Saunders

A Top G.O.P. Pollster on Trump 2024, QAnon and What Republicans Really Want (March 26, 2021)

“Grand New Party” by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam

Andrew Cuomo and the Performance of Power (March 19, 2021)