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Pamela Paul’s book recommendations in 2019

147 books · 37 episodes · Pamela Paul’s most recommended books, all years →

Every episode from 2019, newest first

Ralph Ellison’s Life in Letters

The Book Review · 2019-12-27

The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson · discussed · at 0:17
Tightrope by Nicholas D. Kristof · discussed · at 0:48
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya V. Hartman · discussed · at 1:29
The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison by Ralph Ellison · discussed · at 1:46
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison · discussed · at 5:14
The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup · recommended · at 46:55

Times Critics Talk About Their Year-End Lists

The Book Review · 2019-12-20

Night Boat To Tangier by Kevin Barry · discussed · at 4:30
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom · discussed · at 4:30
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann · discussed · at 8:32
Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson · discussed · at 8:32
Solitary by Albert Woodfox · discussed · at 13:00
Black Radical by Kerri K. Greenidge · discussed · at 15:03
American Carnage by Tim Alberta · discussed · at 17:57
Richard Nixon : the life by John A. Farrell · discussed · at 35:36

Poems About the Challenges of Life After Prison

The Book Review · 2019-12-13

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang · discussed · at 23:39

The Life of Mike Nichols

The Book Review · 2019-12-06

Life isn't everything by Ash Carter · discussed · at 0:56
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller · discussed · at 17:12
Still Here by Alexandra Jacobs · discussed · at 19:23
Triggered by Donald Trump Jr. · discussed · at 36:09
Richard Nixon : the life by John A. Farrell · recommended · at 53:52

Among the Trolls

The Book Review · 2019-11-08

Antisocial by Andrew Marantz · discussed · at 0:09
No Stopping Us Now by Gail Collins · discussed · at 0:24

The Life of Thomas Edison

The Book Review · 2019-11-01

Edison by Edmund Morris · discussed · at 0:10
Grand Union Stories by Zadie Smith · recommended · at 49:27

John Lithgow on His Satirical Poems

The Book Review · 2019-10-25

Dumpty by John Lithgow · recommended · at 21:48
Grand Union Stories by Zadie Smith · recommended · at 57:48
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei · recommended · at 58:10
White bird by R. J. Palacio · recommended · at 1:01:12

Are Cheap Clothes Ruining the Planet?

The Book Review · 2019-10-11

Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas · discussed · at 0:13
Beaten Down, Worked Up by Steven Greenhouse · discussed · at 0:25
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy · discussed · at 45:56
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Dickens · critiqued · at 46:02
Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch · discussed · at 47:07

Samantha Power on What She's Learned

The Book Review · 2019-09-27

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball · recommended · at 1:02:15
Something new by Lucy Knisley · recommended · at 1:05:39

Jia Tolentino on Life With the Internet

The Book Review · 2019-08-16

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino, Juan Trejo · discussed · at 0:41
Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley · recommended · at 48:12

Toni Morrison's Legacy

The Book Review · 2019-08-09

Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown · recommended · at 1:03:05

The Fight for the Supreme Court

The Book Review · 2019-08-02

Confirmation Bias by Carl Hulse · discussed · at 0:09
In West Mills by De'Shawn Charles Winslow · discussed · at 0:21

Fiction About Unprecedented Situations

The Book Review · 2019-07-26

Exhalation by Ted Chiang · discussed · at 0:11
The Need by Helen Phillips · discussed · at 0:18
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang · discussed · at 0:43
Anxiety by Ted Livingston · discussed · at 4:33
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang · discussed · at 7:41
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang · discussed · at 10:26
The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang · discussed · at 15:51
The English and their history by Robert Tombs · discussed · at 53:24
Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner · discussed · at 57:24

Colson Whitehead Talks About 'The Nickel Boys'

The Book Review · 2019-07-19

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead · discussed · at 0:52
Separate by Steve Luxenberg · discussed · at 12:32
Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. · discussed · at 12:35
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead · discussed · at 18:35
The Ice at the End of the World by Jon Gernter · discussed · at 22:57
Turbulence by David Szalay · discussed · at 46:01

George F. Will on Conservatism’s Homelessness

The Book Review · 2019-07-12

The Conservative Sensibility by George F. Will · discussed · at 0:18
A Good American Family by David Maraniss · discussed · at 0:27
How Attention Works by Stefan Van der Stigchel · recommended · at 51:31
Exhalation by Ted Chiang · recommended · at 53:56

Picking the Best Memoirs Since 1969

The Book Review · 2019-07-05

Persepolis 1-4 by Marjane Satrapi · discussed · at 29:10
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy · discussed · at 29:26
The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent · recommended · at 50:32

Taffy Brodesser-Akner Talks About Her First Novel

The Book Review · 2019-06-28

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner · discussed · at 0:02
Bottle of Lies by Katherine Eban · discussed · at 0:18
Dangerous doses by Katherine Eban · discussed · at 26:22
Minor characters by Joyce Johnson · discussed · at 50:26
Exhalation by Ted Chiang · recommended · at 58:11

Jill Lepore on the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing

The Book Review · 2019-06-21

Hasselblad & the Moon Landing by Deborah Ireland · discussed · at 3:27
American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley · discussed · at 8:40
The Plaza : The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel by Julie Satow · discussed · at 23:48
Eloise by Kay Thompson · discussed · at 29:14
Digital Renaissance by Joel Waldfogel · discussed · at 57:20
The plague and I. by Betty MacDonald · discussed · at 1:01:20

Rethinking the Epidemic of Domestic Violence

The Book Review · 2019-06-07

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips · recommended · at 53:49

Thrillers for Summer

The Book Review · 2019-05-31

Cari Mora by Thomas Harris · discussed · at 1:06
A Nearly Normal Family by M. T. Edvardsson · discussed · at 4:02
Beyond All Reasonable Doubt by Malin Persson Giolito · discussed · at 4:54
All the Lost Things by Michelle Sacks · discussed · at 8:03
The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora · discussed · at 8:42
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin · book club pick · at 14:52
Pagan Light by Jamie James · discussed · at 22:07
Ottoman Odyssey by Alev Scott · discussed · at 22:37
Volcanoes, Palm Trees & Privilege by Liz Prato · discussed · at 26:30
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn · discussed · at 30:28
In Putin's Footsteps by Nina Khrushcheva · discussed · at 34:55
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips · recommended · at 50:33
Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown · discussed · at 51:28

Harper Lee's Unwritten True-Crime Book

The Book Review · 2019-05-17

Furious Hours by Casey N. Cep · discussed · at 0:11
Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswold · discussed · at 0:21
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee · discussed · at 7:03
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote · discussed · at 13:32
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell · discussed · at 44:50

The Real Life of a Diplomat, Told Like a Novel

The Book Review · 2019-05-10

The Unwinding by George Packer · discussed · at 2:54
The assassins' gate by George Packer · discussed · at 2:54
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb · discussed · at 33:54
So long, see you tomorrow by William Maxwell · recommended · at 1:00:14

Laila Lalami on 'The Other Americans'

The Book Review · 2019-05-03

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami · discussed · at 0:10
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell · discussed · at 0:17
The Moor's account by Laila Lalami · discussed · at 1:02
Odyssey : a Father, a Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn · book club pick · at 17:34
Milkman by Anna Burns · discussed · at 50:23

Connecting the Dots Between Reconstruction and Jim Crow

The Book Review · 2019-04-26

The Beneficiary by Janny Scott · recommended · at 57:44

Ruth Reichl's Delicious New Memoir

The Book Review · 2019-04-12

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl · discussed · at 0:53
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace · discussed · at 14:53
Charged by Emily Bazelon · discussed · at 23:13
Sticks and Stones by Emily Bazelon · discussed · at 33:08
Normal People by Sally Rooney · recommended · at 1:08:17
Working by Robert A. Caro · recommended · at 1:08:17
The House of the Pain of Others by Julián Herbert · recommended · at 1:08:17

The Chernobyl Disaster in Full

The Book Review · 2019-04-05

The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams · discussed · at 45:43
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi · recommended · at 45:59
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee · discussed · at 50:55
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee · discussed · at 53:45

Preet Bharara on the Rule of Law

The Book Review · 2019-03-29

Doing Justice by Preet Bharara · recommended · at 23:07
Bending Toward Justice by Doug Jones · discussed · at 23:53

Isaac Mizrahi on His New Memoir

The Book Review · 2019-03-15

I by Isaac Mizrahi · discussed · at 0:39
A history of private life by Philippe Ariès · discussed · at 1:08
Truth in Our Times by David E. McCraw · discussed · at 23:40
Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante · recommended · at 1:04:12
The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson · recommended · at 1:04:15
Last Days at Hot Slit by Andrea Dworkin · recommended · at 1:04:15

A Violent Summer in Chicago

The Book Review · 2019-03-08

An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz · discussed · at 0:10
The Wall by John Lanchester · discussed · at 0:22
There are no children here by Alex Kotlowitz · discussed · at 0:52
Building stories by Chris Ware · discussed · at 9:02
Capital by John Lanchester · discussed · at 28:06
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro · discussed · at 50:33

A Gripping Political Mystery in Northern Ireland

The Book Review · 2019-03-01

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe · recommended · at 16:24
Mama's Last Hug by Frans de Waal · discussed · at 17:14
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro · discussed · at 52:13

Seeking Silence

The Book Review · 2019-02-22

How to Disappear by Akiko Busch · discussed · at 0:54
Silence by Jane Brox · discussed · at 0:54
Separate by Steve Luxenberg · discussed · at 19:02

A Class in ‘Dreyer’s English’

The Book Review · 2019-02-15

The Great Dictionary English - Dutch by Benjamin Maximilian Eisenhauer · discussed · at 7:48
Landfall by Thomas Mallon · discussed · at 21:23
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro · discussed · at 56:20

Marlon James Talks About His Epic New Trilogy

The Book Review · 2019-02-08

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James · discussed · at 0:11
Maid by Stephanie Land · discussed · at 0:21

Assessing the Facebook Problem

The Book Review · 2019-02-01

Zucked by Roger McNamee · discussed · at 5:35
The Lost Man by Jane Harper · discussed · at 29:43
The Plotters by Un-su Kim · discussed · at 29:43
Watching you by Lisa Jewell · discussed · at 29:43
The Current by Tim Johnston · discussed · at 29:43
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan · recommended · at 51:49
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro · discussed · at 53:05
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig · recommended · at 54:49

Dani Shapiro on Her Surprising 'Inheritance'

The Book Review · 2019-01-25

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer · discussed · at 0:21
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro · discussed · at 0:46
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown · discussed · at 33:06
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li · recommended · at 1:08:56

A New Novel Conjures Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman

The Book Review · 2019-01-18

Unquiet by Linn Ullmann · discussed · at 0:05
How not to fall apart by Maggy Van Eijk · discussed · at 23:07
Anxiety, the missing stage of grief by Claire Bidwell Smith · discussed · at 26:15
A Drinkable Feast by Philip Greene · discussed · at 31:00
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan · recommended · at 46:42

How Curses Function in Literature

The Book Review · 2019-01-11

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi · discussed · at 5:45
She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore · discussed · at 10:12
The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga · discussed · at 17:42
Duped by Abby Ellin · discussed · at 29:00
The Bonjour effect by Julie Barlow · recommended · at 1:06:35

Other mentions in 2019 (130: passing, ad reads, own books)