From this episode
Recommended books
Good People: A Novel
Author:
Patmeena Sabit
“A thrilling tour de force of a novel. I’ll be recommending this book to everyone.”—ANN PATCHETT “[A] gorgeous and powerful debut.”—TOMMY ORANGE, The New York Times “A stunning read.”—KHALED HOSSEINI “Utterly addictive, Good People will have everyone talking.”—PAULA HAWKINS “Brilliant, original, compelling storytelling.”—ELIN HILDERBRAND NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this haunting debut novel, a private tragedy thrusts one family into the court of public opinion as the media—and their own community—dissect every aspect of their lives.
“A thrilling tour de force of a novel. I’ll be recommending this book to everyone.”—ANN PATCHETT “[A] gorgeous and powerful debut.”—TOMMY ORANGE, The New York Times “A stunning read.”—KHALED HOSSEINI “Utterly addictive, Good People will have everyone talking.”—PAULA HAWKINS “Brilliant, original, compelling storytelling.”—ELIN HILDERBRAND NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this haunting debut novel, a private tragedy thrusts one family into the court of public opinion as the media—and their own community—dissect every aspect of their lives. ONE OF THE NEW YORKER ’S BEST BOOKS OF 2026 SO FAR • SHORTLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask. The Sharaf family is the picture of success. Prosperous, rich, happy. They came to this country as refugees with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. And now, after years of hard work, they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye. When an unthinkable tragedy strikes, everyone is left reeling. There is talk that behind closed doors the Sharafs’ happy household was anything but. Did the Sharaf family achieve the American dream? Or was the image of the model immigrant family just a façade? Like a literary game of ping-pong, Good People compels the reader to reconsider what might have happened even on the previous page. It’s a riveting, provocative story of family—sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and the communities that claim us as family in difficult times.
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The Feast of the Goat
Author:
Mario Vargas Llosa
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE In The Feast of the Goat , this 'masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written' ( Bookforum ), Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit. Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million.
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE In The Feast of the Goat , this 'masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written' ( Bookforum ), Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit. Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of l961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own. "A fierce, edgy and enthralling book ... Mr. Vargas Llosa has pushed the boundaries of the traditional historical novel, and in doing so has written a book of harrowing power and lasting resonance."-- The New York Times
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The Man Who Loved Dogs: A Novel
Authors:
Leonardo Padura,
Anna Kushner
A gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 In The Man Who Loved Dogs , Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader. The story revolves around Iván Cárdenas Maturell, who in his youth was the great hope of modern Cuban literature―until he dared to write a story that was deemed counterrevolutionary.
A gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940 In The Man Who Loved Dogs , Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader. The story revolves around Iván Cárdenas Maturell, who in his youth was the great hope of modern Cuban literature―until he dared to write a story that was deemed counterrevolutionary. When we meet him years later in Havana, Iván is a loser: a humbled and defeated man with a quiet, unremarkable life who earns his modest living as a proofreader at a veterinary magazine. One afternoon, he meets a mysterious foreigner in the company of two Russian wolfhounds. This is "the man who loved dogs," and as the pair grow closer, Iván begins to understand that his new friend is hiding a terrible secret. Moving seamlessly between Iván's life in Cuba, Ramón's early years in Spain and France, and Trotsky's long years of exile, The Man Who Loved Dogs is Padura's most ambitious and brilliantly executed novel yet. This is a story about political ideals tested and characters broken, a multilayered epic that effortlessly weaves together three different plot threads― Trotsky in exile, Ramón in pursuit, Iván in frustrated stasis―to bring emotional truth to historical fact. A novel whose reach is matched only by its astonishing successes on the page, The Man Who Loved Dogs lays bare the human cost of abstract ideals and the insidious, corrosive effects of life under a repressive political regime.
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Episode overview
President Trump is primarily responsible for the Republican shellacking on Tuesday. But to get over the finish line in so many places — across the Midwest and deep into the South – Democrats had to run the right candidates, and those candidates ran very different campaigns.
So how exactly did those Democrats do it? Michelle Goldberg, my colleague at New York Times Opinion, did amazing work this past year covering the biggest races — traveling to Texas, Michigan, Maine and other states, meeting with the candidates, and getting a sense of their campaigns on the ground. She joins me for a deep dive into the most exciting — and shocking — wins, and what they reveal about the new Democratic Party that will emerge out of this election.