The Book Review

Early in Douglas Stuart’s new novel, “John of John,” the Booker Prize-winning author describes a peculiar irony: “What skinned him was that the closer he got to home, the more lost he felt.”

It’s a passing line, but it captures the tension at the heart of this magnificent book: Here is a story of two men, each profoundly isolated, trying to figure out how to exist in a small, claustrophobic world.

The traveler heading home and dreading it is Cal, a young gay man who has recently graduated from college in Edinburgh and has been floundering ever since. At the start of the novel, he is summoned back to the small village where he grew up to care for his sick grandmother. He obliges, but he’s not happy about the move — a rakish dreamer, Cal doesn’t fit into the provincial life of his village. His chief antagonist is his father, John. Traditional, religious and stoic, John hates Cal’s flamboyance and inertia, and he’s determined to mold Cal into an upstanding citizen of this tiny community. But John is hiding secrets of his own that, if they were to get out, could upend his life.

Bouncing between John’s and Cal’s stories, “John of John” asks: What does it mean to fit in, what’s the risk of standing out, and what’s the price of both?

On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Leah Greenblatt and Scott Heller.

Other books (and a movie) mentioned in this episode:

“Shuggie Bain” and “Young Mungo,” by Douglas Stuart

“What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan

“The Banshees of Inisherin,” directed by Martin McDonagh

“The Keeper,” by Tana French

“A Natural,” by Ross Raisin

“The Spell,” by Alan Hollinghurst

“Seascraper,” by Benjamin Wood

“Whale Fall,” by Elizabeth O’Connor

“Clear,” by Carys Davies

“Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë

“Persuasion,” by Jane Austen

“Washington Square,” by Henry James

“The Town of Babylon,” by Alejandro Varela

“Memorial,” by Bryan Washington

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The editors at The New York Times Book Review spend almost the entire year discussing, debating and sometimes arguing about the year’s best books. We’re halfway through 2026, which means it’s time for the host Gilbert Cruz and the Book Review editors Joumana Khatib and MJ Franklin to talk about some of the best releases of the year as well as a few hidden gems that captured their attention and affection.

Fiction

“Whistler,” by Ann Patchett

“The Calamity Club,” by Kathryn Stockett

“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner

“The Keeper,” by Tana French

“Kin,” by Tayari Jones

“This Is Where the Serpent Lives,” by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Nonfiction

“Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage,” by Heather Ann Thompson

“Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: My Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground,” by Zayd Ayers Dohrn

“Trash!,” by Simon Paré-Poupart

“London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

“Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution,” by Anand Gopal

Hidden Gems

“Lost Lambs,” by Madeline Cash

“A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of Movies,” by David Thomson

“American Han,” by Lisa Lee

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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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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

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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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

“American Fantasy,” by Emma Straub

“A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck”: Sophie Elmhirst

“The Shampoo Effect,” by Jenny Jackson

The “Nantucket” book series, by Elin Hilderbrand

“Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead

“London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

“How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University,” by Theo Baker

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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