The Book Review

David Hastings is a retired business executive on a grim mission: He’s going to end his life.
That’s the dramatic setup of Emma Cline’s latest novel, “Switzy.”
When the story opens, David is on a plane, traveling to Europe. Throughout his life, he sacrificed friendship and family to climb to the top of the professional ladder. But now he is suffering from dementia, and his mind is fading. Determined to die on his own terms, David has decided to travel to Switzerland for a medically assisted suicide. But before he lands at his ultimate destination, he wants to settle a few relationships in his life.
Bringing us deep into David’s fragmented consciousness, “Switzy” asks: What will we do when we know the end is near?
On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the novel with his colleagues Emily Eakin and Jennifer Harlan. You can follow along, and add your own comments to the discussion here.
Other books, essays and movies mentioned in this episode:
“The Girls,” “Daddy” and “The Guest,” by Emma Cline
“You’ve Got Mail,” directed by Nora Ephron
“Moby-Dick,” by Herman Melville
“A Separate Peace,” by John Knowles
“Etna,” by Paul Yoon
“Flesh,” by David Szalay
Nora Ephron’s essays “What I Will Miss” and “What I Won’t Miss”
“Atonement,” by Ian McEwan
“Tinkers,” by Paul Harding
“Orbital,” by Samantha Harvey
“Small Rain,” by Garth Greenwell
“On Being Ill,” by Virginia Woolf
Hermione Hoby’s essay “Why Is Illness So Hard to Write About?”

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Halloween is the season for scary stories, but what actually makes a book frightening? And where should you start if you’re not already a horror reader?
This week on “The Book Review” podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks with two writers who know their way around the genre. Leigh Bardugo is the best-selling author behind the Grishaverse series and the Ninth House trilogy, which just concluded with the release of “Dead Beat.” Paul Tremblay is the author of “A Head Full of Ghosts” and this year’s “Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep.”
Bardugo looks back at the books and stories that scared her as a child and talks about why she kept returning to them even after they left her “struggling to sleep for the better part of a month.” She also talks about her love of Anne Rice and recommends horror for readers who might not think the genre is for them.
Tremblay, who describes himself as a lifelong “scaredy-cat,” came to horror fiction later. He talks about the Joyce Carol Oates story that changed the way he thought about reading and writing, and shares some of the books he finds genuinely frightening.
Together, these two authors offer a Halloween reading list that ranges from Shirley Jackson and Stephen King to contemporary writers like Mariana Enriquez, Tananarive Due and Sara Gran.
Books discussed on this episode:
“The Boogeyman,” from “Night Shift,” by Stephen King
“Down a Dark Hall,” by Lois Duncan
“Bunnicula,” by Deborah Howe and James Howe
“’Salem’s Lot,” by Stephen King
“Nightjars,” by Michael Wehunt
“Affinity,” by Sarah Waters
“Black Arts,” by Megan Giddings
“The Reformatory,” by Tananarive Due
“Mazywood,” by Tananarive Due
“The Haunting of Hill House,” by Shirley Jackson
“We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” by Shirley Jackson
“Carrie,” by Stephen King
“The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James
“Afterward,” from “Ghosts,” by Edith Wharton
“Interview With the Vampire,” by Anne Rice
“The Vampire Lestat,” by Anne Rice
“The Witch of Blackbird Pond,” by Elizabeth George Speare
“The Invisible Parade,” by Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio
“Our Share of Night,” by Mariana Enriquez
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?,” by Joyce Carol Oates
“The Skull,” by Jon Klassen
“The Nest,” by Kenneth Oppel
“Come Closer,” by Sara Gran
“Off the Reservation,” by Stephen Graham Jones
“She Said Destroy,” by Nadia Bulkin
“Issues With Authority,” by Nadia Bulkin
“North American Lake Monsters,” by Nathan Ballingrud
“Wounds,” by Nathan Ballingrud
“Books of Blood,” by Clive Barker
“To Bewitch a Hunter,” by Luciano Lamberti
“Trad Wife,” by Sarah Langan
“Desert Radio,” by Pamela M. Durgin
“The Flayed Man,” by Chloe Lauter
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Credits
“The Book Review” podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl, Sarah Diamond and Patricia Sulbarán. The show is mixed by Pedro Rosado.
Special thanks to Dahlia Haddad.

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As much as we love hearing from authors on “The Book Review” podcast, there are precious few who have read more than our staff book critics — Jennifer Szalai, Alexandra Jacobs and Dwight Garner. The three came on the show to talk about some of their favorite books of the year so far, as well as a few of the titles that helped shape their reading lives.
Books discussed on this episode:
“Nothing Random,” by Gayle Feldman
“Will and Attention,” by Meghan O’Gieblyn
“The Disappearers,” by Marlon James
“American Hagwon,” by Min Jin Lee
“Lives Other Than My Own,” by Emmanuel Carrère
“To the Lighthouse,” by Virginia Woolf
“The American Way of Death,” by Jessica Mitford
“Class: A Guide Through the American Status System,” by Paul Fussell
“The Great War and Modern Memory,” by Paul Fussell
“American Fried,” by Calvin Trillin
“Alice, Let’s Eat,” by Calvin Trillin
“Third Helpings,” by Calvin Trillin
“On Fire,” by Larry Brown
“Betsy-Tacy,” by Maud Hart Lovelace
“Betsy-Tacy and Tib,” by Maud Hart Lovelace
“Rabbit, Run,” by John Updike
“Into the Wood Chipper,” by Nicholas Enrich
“Cool Machine,” by Colson Whitehead
“The Oyster Diaries,” by Nancy Lemann
“Biological War: A Scenario,” by Annie Jacobsen
“Nuclear War: A Scenario,” by Annie Jacobsen
“The Story of Your Life,” by Kathryn Jezer-Morton
“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner
“The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek,” by Andrew Durbin
“Contrapposto,” by Dave Eggers
“Brother of the More Famous Jack,” by Barbara Trapido
“Love and Hydrogen,” by Jim Shepard
“Trash!: A Garbageman’s Story,” by Simon Paré-Poupart

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