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In this political moment where hostility towards immigrants and outsiders is openly espoused, one of our own colleagues has released a book about growing up as a Muslim-American in the post-9/11 era—and raising his own kids now.
Guest: Aymann Ismail, Slate staff writer and author of “Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America.”
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive episodes of What Next —you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, and Rob Gunther.
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By Robert Bly
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
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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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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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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
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.