By Robert Bly
The Book Review - The Best Books of the Year (So Far)
We’re halfway through 2025, and we at the Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the ones that just won’t let us go. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the best books of the year so far.
Here are the books discussed in this week’s episode:
“King of Ashes,” by S.A. Cosby
“The Director,” by Daniel Kehlmann
“A Marriage at Sea,” by Sophie Elmhirst
“Careless People,” by Sarah Wynn-Williams
“Isola,” by Allegra Goodman
“The Catch,” by Yrsa Daley-Ward
“Daughters of the Bamboo Grove,” by Barbara Demick
“The Sisters,” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
“The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” by Stephen Graham Jones
“Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin,” by Sue Prideaux
“Raising Hare,” by Chloe Dalton
“To Smithereens,” by Rosalyn Drexler
“The Fate of the Day,” by Rick Atkinson
“Flesh,” by David Szalay
“Things in Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li
“These Summer Storms,” by Sarah MacLean
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Big Technology Podcast - Grok’s AI Lovebot, Aqui-Hire-Sition Backlash, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent Debuts
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Can Zuck and Elon buy their way into the AI race? 2) Will scaling laws turn AI progress over to the biggest tech 3) Grok's new AI avatars - Rudy and Ani 4) Grok's Ani AI bot gets steamy quickly 5) Why AI companies are counting on companion/love bots 6) The backlash to Aqui-Hire-Sitions after Windsurf, Scale, etc. 7) Did Big Tech antitrust backfire? 8) OpenAI announces ChatGPT Agent 9) Is Perplexity's Comet browser a player 10) Kimi K2 wows with coding availability 11) Can AI industry apply lessons from coding elsewhere? 12) One last word from Ani
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NPR's Book of the Day - New biographies look at the careers of designers Claire McCardell and Virgil Abloh
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Federalist Radio Hour - How Leftist Nonprofits Twist Your Tax Dollars To Fund Democrats’ Agenda
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WSJ Minute Briefing - Trump Calls for Release of ‘Pertinent’ Epstein Grand Jury Material
Plus: Chevron completes its purchase of Hess for $53 billion. And the EU imposes the toughest sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. Zoe Kuhlkin hosts.
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Focus on Africa - Sudan: Why North Kordofan is being targeted?
Sudan: More than 450 civilians have been killed in recent attacks in North Kordofan . Why is the RSF paramilitary increasingly targeting the state?
The kingdom of Lesotho recently declared a 'State of disaster'-What can youth facing unemployment do ?
And how sinkholes in South Africa are affecting people's lives
Presenter: Charles Gitonga Producers: Richard Kagoe in Nairobi, Blessing Aderogba in Lagos and Sunita Nahar in London. Technical Producer :Gabriel O'Regan Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Global News Podcast - Patterns of injury in a Gaza war hospital
British surgeon documents injuries inflicted on wounded Palestinians. Also: Gaming recruitment strategy in Ukraine, oldest ever ice offers glimpse of early Earth and boy band debut for North Korean defectors.
Marketplace All-in-One - $9 billion about to be clawed back
Late last night, the House approved a bill taking back nearly $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes funding to public radio and TV stations, and roughly $8 billion in foreign aid. We'll give an explainer about what's in the bill. Then, from Marketplace's "Age of Work" series, we'll hear how a woman at a U.K. business school prompted conversations about menopause at work, and from "Marketplace Tech," we'll learn why Pentagon leaders are talking about the right to repair.
Newshour - EU agrees fresh round of sanctions on Russia
Three and a half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European Union countries have agreed to slap yet more sanctions on Moscow. Slovakia had been blocking the package over concerns regarding a separate EU proposal phasing out gas imports from Russia. This is the EU’s 18th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine.
Also on the programme: we hear from a British surgeon working in Gaza about what he calls a concerning pattern of injuries in patients being brought to hospital from aid centres; and the North Korean defectors making their debut in a new K-pop boy band.
(Photo: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a press point on 18th package of sanctions against Russia in Brussels, Belgium, June 10, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Yves Herman)