The Book Review

Sophie Elmhirst on the True Story of a Shipwrecked Couple

books@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Today, we want to bring back an episode from our archives.

It’s about a book that has real beach read vibes. There’s a lot of water. It’s a relationship drama. And it’s also a daring story of survival.

“Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck" made it onto the Book Review Top 10 Books of 2025 and the paperback edition just came out a few weeks ago. It tells the unbelievable story of a British couple in the 1970s who try to sail around the world. They’re trying to reach New Zealand and they almost make it. But their boat gets capsized by a whale in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean and they’re forced to survive there for quite a while.

Here is our conversation from last year with the author, Sophie Elmhirst.

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This Author Says You Shouldn’t Be Intimidated by ‘The Odyssey’

books@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 01:56:06 +0000

If you can’t tell your Eurylochus from your Telemachus, fear not: Your primer on “The Odyssey” is here, just in time for Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of the 3,000-year-old epic.

Madeline Miller, who reinvented “The Odyssey” in her best-selling novel “Circe,” explains why you shouldn’t be intimidated by the classic.

Plus, our critic at large A.O. Scott explains how nearly every genre out there — sci-fi, romance, bloody revenge and more — can be found in this poem’s sprawling tale.

Books and Other Works Discussed on This Episode:

“Philoctetes,” by Sophocles

“The Iliad,” by Homer

“The Penelopiad,” by Margaret Atwood

“Watership Down,” by Richard Adams

“Aeneid,” by Virgil

“I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem,” by Maryse Condé

“An American Marriage,” by Tayari Jones

“The Buddha in the Attic,” by Julie Otsuka

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Jill Lepore on What to Read This Fourth of July

books@nytimes.com (The New York Times) — Fri, 3 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday this summer, giving Americans a chance to reflect on the nation’s past and imagine its future.

Who better to help us make sense of this moment than Jill Lepore? The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker and author of “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” joined the “Book Review” podcast to recommend some reading for the occasion. She also revisits the politics and drama of America’s previous birthdays, and discusses how a dystopian novel may be the most relevant read about the country right now.

After that, Elisabeth Egan, an editor at The Book Review, lays out some of the summer’s most anticipated beach reads.

Books Discussed on This Episode:

“We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” by Jill Lepore

“The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State,” by Jill Lepore (forthcoming)

“American Scripture,” by Pauline Maier

“Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s,” by Marc Stein

“Gliff,” by Ali Smith

“Yesteryear,” by Caro Claire Burke

“Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage,” by Belle Burden

“Whistler,” by Ann Patchett

“The Things We Never Say,” by Elizabeth Strout

“Man Overboard!,” by Kathleen Rooney