Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in September 2026
September 2026 featured conversations across multiple prominent podcasts, with guests reflecting on foundational literature, political histories, and contemporary non-fiction. On How I Write, Harlan Coben remembered Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint as a formative coming-of-age work alongside Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, while also praising Mary Higgins Clark's debut novel Where Are the Children? Later on the same show, Ryan Holiday recommended Codie Sanchez's Main Street Millionaire. The Ezra Klein Show hosted Anton Jäger, who recommended Isaac Deutscher's three-part biography of Leon Trotsky, The Prophet, as a masterpiece of political history. Jäger also discussed Willem Elsschot's 1930s novel Cheese as a parable for modern commerce, alongside Michel Houellebecq's memoir Quelques mois dans ma vie and his prescient novel Serotonin. Finally, on The Tucker Carlson Show, Jess Elofson highlighted James L. Kugel's How to Read the Bible, arguing that elementary schools should teach the enduring practical lessons found within the biblical text.
Breaking Points
-
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
Discussed“So if you want to actually dig into one of the use cases, we had on the, one of the co-authors of the book, if anyone builds it, everyone dies and they lay out.”
-
The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived
Discussed“It's called capital without labor, data centers, and the local economy.”
-
Caffeine
Recommended“Mocha and Yemen actually has a very important part in coffee history. Recommend the book called Caffeine, if you were ever interested.”
-
Money to Burn
Discussed“An author of a new book on Leon Black explains his relationship, Leon Black's relationship, not the author's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And also how private equity is eating absolutely everything.”
-
Obsolete
Recommended“Garrison Lovely, the author of the new book which is out in a couple of weeks, uh Obsolete, uh is joining us now to discuss that. Garrison, thanks so much for being here.”
Stuff You Should Know
-
The Penelopiad
Discussed“Margaret Atwood in 2005 wrote a novel called the Penelope ad.”
-
I'm Glad My Mom Died
Discussed“She published a memoir in 2022 titled, "I'm glad my mother's dead," and there's not some ironic twist to that title, like it's exactly what you think, or it sounds like she was glad her mother's dead, in part because her mother pushed her into acting and basically set her up to be exposed to the stuff she was exposed”
Behind the Bastards
-
The Art of Travel
Discussed“His first book was such a hit that he got to write a second in 1855, and the art of travel became a bestseller and in modified form, a textbook for the Royal Geographic Society”
-
Hereditary Genius
Discussed“In 1869, he published a book, Hereditary Genius, that took his initial list of successful men in their offspring and expanded it to collect data on many different kinds of successful people.”
-
Inquiries Into Human Faculty
Discussed“Galton first came up with the infamous term eugenics in the early 1880s, we don't know exactly when, but it's first published when he's working on a book called inquiries into human faculty and its development.”
-
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development
Discussed“Galton first came up with the infamous term eugenics in the early 1880s, we don't know exactly when, but it's first published when he's working on a book called inquiries into human faculty and its development.”
-
Superior
Discussed“As Angela Syne writes in the book Superior, Galton coined the term in 1883 from the Greek prefix "you" for "well" or "good" to describe the idea of using social control to improve the health and intelligence of future generations.”
-
The Iliad
Discussed“Francis recalled performing Milton's paradise loss and Pope's translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey for his family and his autobiography, perhaps sensing that bragging about his tendency for spouting versus a child made him seem arrogant, Francis included this passage.”
-
The Odyssey
Discussed“Francis recalled performing Milton's paradise loss and Pope's translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey for his family and his autobiography, perhaps sensing that bragging about his tendency for spouting versus a child made him seem arrogant, Francis included this passage.”
-
Kropotkin, Read, and the Intellectual History of British Anarchism
Discussed“As documented by historian Matthew S. Adam in Anarchism in the First World War, Kropotkin wrote, "I consider that the duty of everyone who cherishes the idea of human progress is to crush the invasion of the Germans into Western Europe."”
-
The First World War
Discussed“As documented by historian Matthew S. Adam in Anarchism in the First World War, Kropotkin wrote, "I consider that the duty of everyone who cherishes the idea of human progress is to crush the invasion of the Germans into Western Europe."”
-
Peter Kropotkin
Discussed“However, as noted by historian George Woodcock in Pizza Kropotkin from Prince Terrebel, quote, "anti-German sentiment was probably an influence on Kropotkin long before this point..."”
-
Against the Grain
Discussed“But one thing is really stuck with me in reading, for instance, Jamesy Scott, which talks about this and against the green, it's just whole fragile and not inevitable.”
-
Wild Thought
Discussed“In his book, Wild Thoughts, Claude Levy-Strauss had made the point that many of humanity's greatest technological breakthroughs in agriculture, weaving, pottery, animal domestication, they were developed long before we conventionally think of as civilization.”
-
The Botany of Desire
Discussed“I think there's a I forget the name of the book. It said bought any of desire. Yeah, I haven't read that. I've been recommended that book before. Yeah, I've read that a couple years ago.”
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
-
The Seven Storey Mountain
Discussed“I discovered a book in that job called The Seven Story Mountain by a guy named Thomas Merton.”
-
Story of a Soul
Discussed“she wrote a little book called the story of a soul, which has been massively popular all over the world.”
-
The Art of Making Money
Discussed“what happened is they wrote a book about me called the art of making money. Like way back. It was like 2005. And so, and then they put me in Rolling Stone magazine, call me the best counterfeiter ever.”
Modern Wisdom
-
Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics
Discussed“there's a book called coherence and in the latter pages of that book it was one of the first books ever read on resonance breathing”
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
-
Conversation
Discussed“On page five of your new book, Conversations, you talk about how we're in a connection crisis.”
-
Poisonous People
Discussed“- And in your book, under the section that says, hard truths, dark personalities persist.”
Timcast IRL
-
One Second After Trilogy (One Second After, One Year After, the Final Day)
Discussed“if you read the book like 3 seconds after, uh, you know, it's it's the scenario of like, okay, it's an EMP scenario, but it kind of it's a novel. I think Nuke Gri wrote the forward to it.”
The Megyn Kelly Show
-
The War on Reality
Discussed“He talks in the book, writes in the book about what it's like to mentor someone who you know is smarter than you.”
-
For Laci
Discussed“Sharon Rocha has devoted much of the past 20 years to helping crime victims. She wrote a book about her daughter for Lacey, which became a bestseller.”
-
Witness
Discussed“Amber Fry wrote a book called Witness for the prosecution of Scott Peterson, then largely withdrew from public life.”
The Joe Rogan Experience
-
Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development & Imperiling the Future of the Human Race
Discussed“Dr. Shannon Swan uh from she from Harvard, she wrote um this great book called what is it called? Why do I always forget the name of this microplastics and its effect and this the introduction of use of microplastics in America and this rapid decline in countdown how our modern world's treating uh threatening sperm counts altering male and”
-
Alice in Wonderland
Discussed“And it's really what it is, is Lewis Carroll, is the lyrics or Lewis Carroll. Wow, wow, that's crazy. But Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, in Alice in Wonderland was also about LSD.”
How I Write
-
The Great Gatsby
Discussed“So, I read the book, I watched the DiCaprio Gatsby movie, I then watched the Robert Redford Gatsby movie, and then I went to the play.”
-
Portnoy's Complaint
Recommended“two of my favorite books of the you know when I was sort of coming of age poor noise complaint by Philip Roth and Bonfire the Vanities by Tom Wolf both are horrendous films unwatchable”
-
Where Are The Children?
Recommended“Where are the children was her her first legendary book. When Mary was 37 years old, she had five kids.”
Conversations with Tyler
-
Guns, Germs and Steel
Discussed“Your other books, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and so on, are about whole societies for 10,000 years.”
-
Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings
Discussed“Is it correct to think of your new book, again, Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings, as, in essence, the error term for Guns, Germs, and Steel?”
-
The Origin of Species
Discussed“Her book, Silent Spring, that book and Darwin’s Origin of Species are probably the two books by scientists that have had the biggest impact in the last century.”
-
The Third Chimpanzee
Discussed“This is something that I argued in my book, The Third Chimpanzee.”
-
Collapse
Discussed“Now your book on environmental Collapse, that one seemed too pessimistic to me.”
-
Why Is Sex Fun?
Discussed“Still another chapter got expanded into Why Is Sex Fun?”
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
-
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Discussed“You know what is thorns and roses? Oh, romantis. Okay. So, it has all the ingredients I should like totally”
The Daily Stoic
-
Main Street Millionaire
Recommended“she wrote a really good book published by the same publisher that I have called Main Street Millionaire.”
-
A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
Discussed“"We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven't prepared." That's Epictetus and his discourses.”
-
Seneca's Letters from a Stoic: Moral Letters to Lucilius
Discussed“Here's Seneca in Moral Letters 18.”
-
Blue Nights
Discussed“I thought I thought Blue Nights was I like Blue Nights.”
No Stupid Questions
-
Misfit
Discussed“And he wrote a really nice memoir called "Miss Fit" growing up awkward in the 80s. And yes, he is wickedly funny.”
-
Long Walk to Freedom
Discussed“I'm reading the autobiography of Nelson Mandela right now. One reason, because I admire him, but also, this has to be one of the most forgiving... That's a great comic. Funny man. He's got to be the most forgiving man in history.”
-
The Most Good You Can Do
Discussed“I want to get a bigger place, but it has to fall within this range of not too ostentatious, where I would feel guilty because I read this book by Peter Singer, "The Most Good You Can Do," where if you live within certain means and give away a certain amount, you can save lives.”
Pod Save America
-
Liberal Fascism
Discussed“I think you wrote a book called Liberal Fascist that tells you where his head was at, but I just always found Jonah Goldberg to be a really entertaining writer.”
The Ezra Klein Show
-
Hyperpolitics
Discussed“And he's also the author of this book, Hyper politics, extreme politicization without political consequences. And what he's describing is an era in which politics feels like it is everywhere.”
-
The Prophet
Recommended“The first is The Prophet by Isaac Deutscher, a Polish historian who only learned English, I think in his early 30s and then wrote one of the greatest biographies of the 20th century. It's a three-part biography of Leon Trotsky”
-
Cheese
Recommended“The second book is Cheese by Willem Elshot, written in the 1930s. This is something much more obscure. It's by a Flemish or Belgian author.”
-
Quelques mois dans ma vie
Recommended“The final one, and I'm not sure there is already an English translation of this, is some months from my life by the French writer Michel Welbeck.”
-
Serotonin
Recommended“If you go for later works, I would recommend Serotonin, which also gave him a Nostradamus-like quality in France because he seemed to predict part of the yellow vest and farmers protests that shook the country.”
The Tucker Carlson Show
-
The Three Little Pigs
Discussed“We have lost touch with the three little pigs. Tell me. You familiar with the three little pigs, right? Like I don't think that's a story that's told to children anymore. Not enough.”
-
Rumpelstiltskin
Discussed“Hansel and Gretle or Rumple Stiltskin. How is Rumple Stillilskin not like the perfect allegory for everything we are dealing with right now? Creating wealth from nothing and only wanting to eat your children in return.”
-
The New Testament: an Introduction for the General Reader
Discussed“so it's pretty clear in the New Testament, too. I don't They kept this from me in church as a kid to the extent I went. But don't owe anybody anything. Paul says that don't don't be in debt.”
-
How to Read the Bible
Recommended“How much better would the world be if like elementary school just taught the Bible and not even in a religious way, but just for those lessons? Yes. Like that's why that has been so applicable to everybody's lives for 2,000 years, right?”
ChooseFI
-
Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement
Recommended“As we mentioned, your book, tax planning, two and through early retirement, it's incredible. It's hard stop to end a story. I think it's pretty hard to make a book about tax planning really interesting and compelling and a must read.”
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
-
Dante's Inferno
Discussed“Dante, who wrote Dante's Inferno, is one of the figures of the classic age, the Renaissance, let's say, classic European age, who really formulated much of the modern vision of hell.”
People I (Mostly) Admire
-
Scarcity
Discussed“But in this week's episode, I pick up in the middle of our conversation with me telling Sendil about my first reaction to hearing that he had written a book entitled Scarcity.”
The Rubin Report
-
Down Came the Rain
Recommended“For all those listening and suffering and husbands of wives who are suffering, there's a book that saved me. It's called Down Came the Rain and it's by Brooke Shields and my doctor recommended it to me.”
The Book Review
-
Ninth House
Discussed“I'm hibernating and to keep me company during that time I am reading 9inth House the first book in the series”
-
Pachinko
Discussed“I didn't really remember that it has been almost 10 years since Pachinko was published. ... 2017 is when that book came out, but I feel like it has just never left our consciousness.”
-
Other Worlds Than These
Discussed“He has a new book uh titled Other Worlds Than the These. Uh he wrote it with Peter Stra. Stephen King, someone I have talked about on this podcast before”
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow
Discussed“Yan Lee's last book was a memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow. And that delved into the suicides of both of her sons, both of her children, and how she really picked herself up afterwards”
-
The Brightness
Discussed“This is another highly anticipated longest justating sequel to a beloved novel, The Brightness by Chad Harbaugh. Chad Harbach being the author of the art of fielding which was to be uh frank everywhere.”
-
The Art of Fielding
Discussed“Chad Harbach being the author of the art of fielding which was to be uh frank everywhere. So this is actually pretty exciting because the brightness it's still in the universe that Harbach set up in the art of fielding.”
-
Hollywood, Ending
Discussed“Speaking of surprises, we have Hollywood ending by John Green. John Green is the author of The Fault in Our Stars, a ton of YA novels.”
-
No Land to Stand On
Discussed“All right, I have a memoir. This is No Land to Stand on Notes from Detention by Mahmud Hal.”
-
The Time Traveler's Wife
Discussed“So, in 2003, a book called The Time Traveler's Wife came out. I read it so long ago. I remember almost nothing about it other than the fact that I really, really loved it.”
-
Peck & Peck
Discussed“I also have Peek and Peek by Bonnie Garas, who of course is the author of Lessons in Chemistry, which was astronomically popular.”
-
Peek a Boo with Petal
Discussed“I also have Peek and Peek by Bonnie Garas, who of course is the author of Lessons in Chemistry, which was astronomically popular.”
-
A Court of Splintered Harmony
Discussed“This is the latest in Sarah J. Moss's A Court of Thorns and Roses series. This one is called A Court of Splintered Harmony.”
-
Promise Me, America
Discussed“Former President Joe Biden is releasing a book called Promise Me America. And it's a memoir about his presidency.”
-
The Disappearers
Recommended“In September, Marlon James is back with his book, The Disappearers. It's his big return to literary fiction.”
-
The Radiance
Recommended“This is called The Radiance by Ayad Akar. If you're a reader, you probably know him for Homeland Elegies, which is one of the book reviews 10 best books of the year in 2020.”
-
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Recommended“I am here to talk about American Scoundrel by Kybird and Susan Goldmark.”
-
Switzy
Recommended“It's Switzerie by Emma Klene. You may know Emma Klein from books like The Girls. that was her debut novel or The Guest, which was a big summer hit in 2023.”
-
The Vanishing Family
Recommended“The next book that I want to talk about, The Vanishing Family by Robert Kulker, um, is also about dementia.”
-
Dead Beat
Recommended“This is Deadbeat by Lee Bugo. How do you feel about ghosts? ... So, Deadbeat is the third and final book in Lee Bugo's 9inth House trilogy.”
-
American Hagwon
Recommended“This is American Hagwan by none other than Minjin Lee of Pachinko fame.”
-
Free Food for Millionaires
Recommended“I also would love to see people go back to Minjin Lee's like debut book, Free Food for Millionaires. Totally different than Pachenko.”
-
Mazywood
Recommended“The book I have is Maisywood by Tanana Ree Dw. If you don't know Tanana Reeved, know Tanana Ree. She is horror royalty.”
-
Public Access Afterworld
Recommended“Okay, this is called Public Access After World by Jane Shonbrun. The author is a filmmaker and this is their debut.”
-
Partita
Recommended“That um inciting incident is the start of Partida by Barbara Kingsolver. Um you may remember Barbara Kingsolver from a great number of books.”
-
Music Against the Night
Recommended“So this is a novel that's called Music Against the Night by Yan Lee.”
-
The Rush
Recommended“This is called The Rush: California Gold: The Civil War and the Making of the Modern World by Nathaniel Philick.”
-
On the Calculation of Volume (Book V)
Recommended“we devoted an entire episode to a series of novels written by the Danish author Salv Bala. Those novels are titled on the calculation of volume. In April, Bala had just released the fourth volume”
-
Stations
Recommended“This is Stations by Louise Kennedy. Louise Kennedy is an Irish author. Her debut novel, Trespasses, also blew me away.”
-
Trespasses
Recommended“Her debut novel, Trespasses, also blew me away. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking romance.”
-
Dodge City
Recommended“I'm going to start with Dodge City by Patrick Dit. My first thing is that I love Patrick Dit because he's really intelligent without being too clever.”
-
Our Noble Selves
Recommended“Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson out in September. Kate Atkinson is the beloved English mystery writer. She has written the Jackson Brody series of books.”
-
Taipei Story
Recommended“I have Taipei story by RF Kuang, who you might know for yellowface, babble, or catavistus, which I now know how to pronounce.”
-
Exit Party
Recommended“I have Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel who you may remember from Station 11. This new one is a dystopian mystery.”
-
Ply
Recommended“along with the author of this next book Ply by Ernand Diaz. That's out at the end of September. And this is the follow-up to his book Trust”
-
Trust
Recommended“And this is the follow-up to his book Trust, which I I think I've read two or three times at this point. I really love that book.”
-
Life Out of Order
Recommended“Audrey Niffaneer, the author of that, has written a sequel, I think a long-awaited sequel to The Time Traveler's Wife that is called Life Out of Order, and it is out in early October.”
-
Every Story Is a Love Story
Recommended“Uh, I have a novel that I cannot wait to read called Every Story Is a Love Story by Imbolo Buouet. This is about a man who is widowed.”
-
Take My Word for It
Recommended“If you know Reading Rainbow, you know Lavar Burton. um the patron saint of bookish kids, at least in my generation. He has a memoir that's coming out titled Take My Word for It”
-
The Occidental Book of the Dead
Recommended“This is The Accidental Book of the Dead by T. Geronimo Johnson. And this one is really tricky to explain, which is why it's great.”
