The Ezra Klein Show

I recommend this book called Enlightened Vagabond by Matthew Ricard. He collected stories about this 19thcentury eccentric Buddhist master, but very eccentric and the stories are totally delightful. And it's like every story has a moral, so to speak.

He's in a book for kids called Unstoppable Us, Volume 3. It is also about cooperation and how enemies turn into friends.

I really like his first book, Chimpanzee Politics, which I've read like 20 years ago and completely changed my understanding, not so much of chimpanzees, but of human beings and of politics.

Patrick McGee's Apple in China, I found just very interesting from an industrial policy standpoint, from a foreign policy standpoint, from a national security standpoint. Really, really, really good and worth reading.

I mentioned Senator Chris Murphy and his new book, The Crisis of the Common Good. I've just been reading it and really recommend it because it articulates a strong theory of what ails our politics, the loss of community and the extraction of wealth.

It's called From Life Itself by journalist Susie Hansen. It's about Turkey, exploring one Istanbul neighbourhood over ten years, showing how immigration, refugees, and Erdogan's politics have reshaped the city.

The book is called Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen. I shared it with my mother in her last months; it's a collection of modern psalms where Cohen wrestles with pain, beauty, suffering and meaning.

it is a 2010 book by Gary Shteyngart and I think more than any other book, it predicted the strangeness of the world we live in today

everyone carries a device called the Apparat... they are constantly being ranked everywhere, credit poles showcase your credit, women are hypersexualized, America is run by a fascist leader...

there is an invasion of Venezuela in this book... Security State Israel... the Rate Me Plus Technology constantly ranks people over and over

Many of those essays will be collected in a new book coming out in November called The Sensualist. That name, The Sensualist, I think tells you something about what his project is, what he believes is necessary to live well in a moment like this one.

I think this is like an interesting bridge to this book of essays you have coming up called The Sensualist. It feels to me that one of the arguments you've quietly been making and then making more loudly in your nonfiction is that it is a radical act to, in a bodily, physical way, just enjoy this life.

Gary Shteyngart, of course, has written a number of wonderful novels, including The Russian Debutant's Handbook, Absurdistan, and his most recent, Vera or Faith.

Gary Shteyngart, of course, has written a number of wonderful novels, including The Russian Debutant's Handbook, Absurdistan, and his most recent, Vera or Faith.

Gary Shteyngart, of course, has written a number of wonderful novels, including The Russian Debutant's Handbook, Absurdistan, and his most recent, Vera or Faith.

The book is called Men Like Ours. Her name is Bindu Bansinath. Set in New Jersey. It's dark humor, as dark as it is funny. I can't say enough about it.

A Tender Age... I think it's his most memoiristic novel. I think a lot of his own background goes into this. He's incredible. He is as sensual as one gets living in Northern California.

I read Michael Kimmelman, his book called The Intimate City. He says the beauty of New York is the juxtaposition of this with that.

I wrote a book, Lake Success, that was set in the world of hedge funders.

I decided to choose three books that are related to the conversation that we are having today the first one is The Holocaust and the Nakba edited by good colleagues and friends Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg it's very important to understand what's happening now it was written before October 7th and the genocide in Gaza but it's still very important essential book

the second is state of denials it's not about Israel Palestine but I claim all the time that the Israelis are suffering from severe denial collective denial and blindness and I'm trying to understand that and I think a lot of people need want maybe to understand and this book States of Denial written by Stanley Cohen is very ... book

the third is the Rob Malley book Tomorrow Is Yesterday you know we're doing this as people on the ground who are committing to doing this bottom up work of building the movement and vision but they've been there in the negotiations learning from the mistakes and I think that is a practice we overlook and we need to really do more often learning from our mistakes

the psalm for the wild built it's a genre that I do you know this book ... I didn't expect it to pop up here yeah it's from a different world I which is very kind of off genre for me but I'm so grateful that I have read it