I'm Gilbert Cruz and this is the book

review from the New York Times. Today on

the show, we've got some book

recommendations for you. We're going to

get into those a bit later, but first

it's author Matt Hey. Matt, you live in

Brighton?

Yes, Brighton.

He's most known in the United States for

his smash hit, The Midnight Library.

That's the story of a woman who has

reached a breaking point. She ends up in

a library filled with books that each

hold a different version of her life. if

she opens one, she can step into the

life she would have lived if she had

made different decisions. That book was

published in 2020 and it became hugely

[snorts] popular, selling more than 10

million copies worldwide. Matt is now

out with a new book, something he sees

as kind of a sibling to the Midnight

Library. It's called The Midnight Train.

I'd love to start before we talk about

The Midnight Train with The Midnight

Library since they are connected. This

is a book that really took you to

another level in your career, at least

in terms of your notability. How many

people are reading her books? It's a

story about a woman named Norah Seed.

She has experienced, as have we all,

many regrets in her life. And on one

particular night, she decides that she

doesn't want to live anymore. She finds

herself, however, in quote, "The

Midnight Library, where each book, this

is such a great concept, each book

transports Nora into a life that she

could have lived had she made different

decisions. The little decision trees

that branch off from everything we

choose." Where did that idea come from?

This idea that you can open a book and

maybe enter a different version of your

own life.

Well, it was an idea that was bubbling

away in various forms in my head for

ages and ages and ages. I mean obviously

the sort of literary influences. You've

got the Sylvia Pla idea of the fig tree

branching off. You've got Bartz's idea

of Labyrin Fine Libraries and I always

love that sort of stuff. With me I was

really struggling until I got the title

until I got the midnight library. I

think it was the library of lost lives

for quite a while. And I think, you

know, unconsciously perhaps it came

around from me spending too much time on

social media and on the internet and

that feeling that there's a life

elsewhere or that we're constantly

comparing ourselves

to something else. So, it was a precoid

book. I mean, it's often seen as a COVID

novel because of when it arrived, but it

was pre- pandemic. So, it wasn't quite

that existential moment. It was more

this idea that we weren't living our

best life. And I was doing a lot of uh

wishful thinking, a lot of regretting, a

lot of uh feeling like time was passing

by. And um in the UK, I was already a

bit known for writing about mental

health. and I'd done so in non-fiction.

I'd written a uh memoir slash

slight self-helpy territory book called

Reasons to Stay Alive. And that felt

quite cathartic to write because that

was kind of a release, but at the same

time, non-fiction confines you in

certain ways. You know, you were writing

about real people. You're writing about

your own parents. And so to take a story

with mental health, mental illness

themes and to fictionalize it again,

that was another thing I wanted to do

with it.

I do want to go back a few years because

you made reference to a non-fiction book

that you had written that had received

good notices and a claim in the United

Kingdom. It was a book about your

younger years and I was wondering if you

could talk about how that book in

particular came to be. So many of those

themes are connected to so many of the

themes and the fiction that you've been

writing over the past years,

right? Yes, absolutely. Of all the books

I've written, it was the most

accidental. It was called Reasons to

Stay Alive, which is a very a typical me

sort of two on the nose kind of title.

[laughter]

A little bit um ambitious, but uh yeah,

it was accidental in the sense that I

was a novelist. I saw myself as a

novelist. Then there was a charity in

the UK, a very good charity called Book

Trust. And I was there writer and

residence for a while, which basically

meant I had to write a blog once a week.

And so I started with your basic blogs

about being a writer, writing tips, and

I was I was starting to bore myself

about 3 months in, uh, repeating myself

over and over. So, and I'd had a recent

u mental health wobble. And so, I sort

of like publicly came out in a small way

on the internet as this person who had

been suicidal, who had depression. I'd

never really publicly talked about my

mental health, but I wrote a single blog

called Reasons to Stay Alive at one

point, and it was a sort of bulletointed

list of uh little sort of apheristic

advice. and it went sort of semiviral.

Certainly in the UK book world it sort

of took off a bit and was shared around

and I had a lot a lot of feedback about

it and a woman who worked in publishing

got in touch with me and um she said I

should write a book about it.

Ben, one summer feeling very happy in

about uh 2014, feeling very different to

my younger suicidal self. I mean, I I

literally nearly, you know, ended my

life um at the age of 24. Um and

it was a long way out of that. So, I I

needed to be in a very different place

and I was in a very different place uh

physically and emotionally. And I just

poured it all out without ever having

had therapy at this point in my life,

without knowing I was neurodeiverse,

which you know I've since been diagnosed

with autism and ADHD. Without knowing

that much really about my mind, I wrote

this very raw, quite clumsy at times,

choppy book that was working out what it

was as I was going. I was like, is this

a book of advice or is this a book about

memory and what I remember? And the only

straight line through it was me

remembering myself at 24 wanting to die,

not out of any sort of pre-planned death

wish, but being suddenly thrown into

this state of panic and depression and

physic really physical feelings. Even

the brain stuff felt physical a lot of

the time. And the line between mental

and physical was so sort of blurred and

I didn't know what was happening to me.

So it was like being in a burning

building. You don't plan to throw

yourself out of a window, but suddenly

the situation had massively changed. So,

it was that it was a desperate thing

that had come on the back of years, I

think, of low-level depression,

undiagnosed, masked mental health

issues, masked by alcohol and drugs. It

was very sort of cathartic to write all

that stuff and to speak to that person.

That was what I was sort of trying to

do. I was trying to write a sort of

message in a bottle back through time to

this person to see if there are words

that could keep someone in that state or

someone next to someone who's been in

that state to see if anything could get

through. A lot of the people who

responded to it, obviously yes, there's

a lot who had gone through something

similar, but what really sort of uh

touched me was um people who had been

struggling in relationships with like

their children or parents or partner

understanding what had gone on in their

sort of darkest moments. And I think

that was another incentive of mine to

provide a kind of window because I can

remember being unable to articulate what

I was feeling. Often it was like a a

physical heavy like I could hardly speak

because of a sort of weight.

And so I think to visualize it and to

use a lot of simileies and metaphors to

take this very invisible thing

which doesn't come with crutches. It

doesn't come with a wheelchair. it you

you you kind of have to describe it for

people to empathize with it and often in

the state of depression you're unable to

describe it. So hence stigma rises and

you know that inability to see someone.

So I was trying to make the invisible

visible in that sense and I genuinely

wrote it thinking it was going to be a

very niche book that only a few people.

So the thing that took me back and it's

obviously what you want. You want a you

want a lot of people to read your book.

But because it was that book and not a

fictional book, it was suddenly me out

there. It was suddenly me being

reviewed. It was suddenly me having to

sort of

offer my life story, everything. So that

I think I had a bit of time adjusting it

and to sort of claim myself back as a

novelist. [snorts]

at a point after having a breakdown when

you were in your early 20s, you moved

back home as you write. Uh, and I'm

particularly curious about this. You say

that you moved into your your childhood

bedroom and you started rereading books

that you had loved as a teenager.

There's a book podcast. We have to talk

about books. and and I'm curious what

you were rereading, how it was making

you feel, what you were getting out of

it, and then how that sort of led to you

continuing to realize that you wanted to

be a writer or that this is what you

were meant to do.

Well, I love now looking back that it

was just children's books because I

don't think I could have been reading I

mean, it wasn't just children's books.

There was some classics on there as

well, but it was basically books like

proper childhood books like Winnie the

Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner and um

teenage books like The Outsiders and

things like that. And why I could read

them was because everything else in

terms of television magazines,

I found it so over visually over

stimulating and I was in such a it

sounds pathetic, but I was in such a

sort of fragile state that books were

the sort of like calm place and the fact

that they were all books I'd read before

meant that I could retreat into a sort

of time before I could retreat into that

space before mental illness

and also it was it was kind of training

as well. I was training my mind to

concentrate um to read was like you know

it was like strength training of the

mind in terms of trying to build up

attention

and children's books are great for that

because they kind of lead you in you

know they're not they're not asking you

to come to it they sort of like meeting

you where you are. It was like building

myself up again. It was like sort of

like going back and um there's something

pure about the way you read a book as a

child. And even now, even in the sort of

midnight books, I try and have that

voice. I want the sort of best of both

worlds where you have the freedom to

write about whatever subject you want as

you would do in a novel for adults but

also to have the freedom that comes with

children's fiction which is a sort of

imaginative freedom where you can have

fantasy trains and fantasy libraries and

things children's books for adults.

What were your early writing years like?

When did you say you know I'm going to

I'm really going to try actually to make

a go of this? Um, well, I I'd always

written and my mom's one of those

embarrassingly proud moms who's got the

shoe box.

Oh, yeah.

Full of uh self-illustrated

attempts. My early writing when I was a

kid, it was always heavily heavily

Americanized. It was more American than

American. You know, it was like westerns

and it was always a cowboy called Jake

in Arizona. And, you know, it was just

like as American because everything I

watched on TV was American. Every book I

was reading was American. I had zero

confidence in myself growing up into as

teenager. I wasn't the most academic

teenager at school. You know, some of

the teachers said I was special needs

for certain subjects because I'd be

staring into space or chatting and just

not concentrating on anything. So, you

know, when I sort of spoke to a careers

advisor about wanting to be a writer, it

was just, you know, I wasn't from the

sort of school where people went to the

sort of universities where you'd imagine

you'd go to be a writer. So, it happened

in the moment really when after I was

ill, I don't want to turn turn this into

a therapy session, but I was still in a

sort of agriphobic state. And although

I'd had quite short-lived jobs

previously, I was at a point now where I

genuinely felt I couldn't go out to work

at that point. This was very early in

the sort of working from home

revolution. There wasn't social media.

The internet was very new. There weren't

many options of what you did from home.

And so I thought, you know, ridiculously

I thought I'm going to make my money

writing novels, which obviously didn't

go down well with the parents or

anything else of that time. And to be

fair, it took a long while before I saw

any uh money from it. But the one thing

I felt comfortable doing was writing. So

I suppose it's 22 23 years ago I started

writing a very strange novel which in

America is called the Labrador pact. My

title for it was the last family in

England which is what it's called here.

Very strange quite pretentious

young man's first novel about a well

it's told from the perspective of a dog.

Good start.

Um and but it's not but it's not a

children's story. Mhm.

H and it's about a dysfunctional family

of humans falling apart. And it's to up

the pretentiousness a little bit

further. It's a retelling of

Shakespeare's Henry the fourth part one

[laughter]

with Labradors

at all. I agree with you.

Um and yeah, but I had fun writing it. I

started to realize I like writing short

chapters, which I still do. I still

write short chapters. And I wasn't

consciously thinking about depression or

anxiety or worrying about the sky

falling in. I was in the world that I

was writing. I wouldn't necessarily

recommend anyone to go and read that

word world I was writing. But at that at

that time it was what I kind of needed

to do. Mhm.

You um in the Midnight

Library, you know, Nora, the main

character, has all these interests and

and one of them is philosophy. The book

is studded with all these quotes from

famous thinkers and one of course that

keeps popping up is the American

philosopher thinker [snorts] Henry David

Throw. Um what was it about him in

particular that was important to have as

the focus for this character and why

even put all these philosophical musings

in the Midnight Library? Well, I think

Theorough is like a very attractive

figure for a 21st century mind that

feels overwhelmed by modernity and

contemporary society, capitalism,

everything else. just not necessarily

the real man who he was, but the idea of

Walden, the idea of going into the

woods, building a cabin, retreating from

society and then enriching yourself

more. And I suppose the theme of the

Midnight Library without being too

spoilerish is essentially about valuing

the minimalism of your own existence and

and seeing that as you know the things

that look shiny like the Olympic medals

or the high-flying careers or the

infinite riches, you know, they might

not be the answer. Maybe the answer is

sort of already inside you and

retreating. And I I feel like Walden in

particular, it's about the

practicalities of nature and living in

nature, but it's also on that spiritual

level about stripping everything else

away and seeing what's [music] there.

[music] We're going to take a short

break and then Matt Hey talks about his

new novel, The Midnight Train, in which

an 81-year-old man boards a magical

train that allows him to relive the most

significant moments of his life.

[music]

We'll be right back.

A phrase and a term that has become very

popular in the past couple decades of

course is world building. What was the

impetus to take your Midnight Library

world for lack of a better description

and extend it or you know complicate it

in some way and present a different

perspective to the way that someone

might reexperience their life or

experience their life in a different

way?

Oh yeah, good question. All I can say to

answer that is it happened very

organically.

It didn't happen in a I'm going to write

a sequel sense. And it's not a sequel.

It's a companion at best or a sibling. I

like to call it a sibling. The Midnight

Train started as a very very different

novel. I mean, all my books sort of end

up with different titles and uh

different things. The Midnight Train

originally started as a novel called The

Memory Thief, and it was quite dystopian

science fiction about AI. The only thing

that's been sort of preserved from that

first draft is the fact that there's a

character called Agnes and also there's

a honeymoon in Venice. Everything else

was new and sort of reddrafted and along

the way it became something else. It

became this, you know, about your life

flashing before your eyes. And then it

there was a vehicle for that, a train,

and that came in a minute. It was the

yesterday train. And then I was starting

to talk about the science of your life

flashing before your eyes. And I was

starting to realize I was actually

having an argument a little bit with the

Midnight Library. I feel like it's

coming to a different conclusion about

life and it has slightly different

lesson.

I feel like The Midnight Library is very

much just about acceptance. And I I

agree with I agree we shouldn't always

imagine the grass is greener and stuff

like that, but I feel like this book

represents a desire to act or to change

things. So it's a different approach to

regrets. It's about how you would live

if you had that future perspective of

your last day.

How would that change the course of your

life? What point of the train would you

want to get off and change things?

So, this one is saying something

different. It's saying, "Let's try and

step off the train. Let's try and uh

change things." So, in its own subtle,

gentle way, it's having a little falling

out with the uh Midnight Library. Uh I

have to imagine this is a question that

you will get a bunch but I have to ask

because the the idea of the book demands

it which is um have you given thought to

the moments you would like to look at

again in your life. You don't need to

change them. You don't need to

intervene. Just observe.

Well yeah I'm going to be boring and go

quite recent history. I would go back to

the sort of early parenting years

because it was just the era before

everyone videoed everything. So, we

don't have much sort of video content of

that and I don't have much memory like

career was just getting off the ground.

Um, I'd just been dropped by a publisher

and then I'd found a new publisher and I

was just focused on providing and doing

all that stuff and so I sort of regret

not being there. the I did an event

recently with a a British poet you may

not be aware of called Harry Baker and

he's just written a lovely sweet poetry

collection and each page each poem is a

different day in the first 100 days of

his baby son I think life and so just to

remember and record and I was thinking

oh I wish I'd written something down

that had happened every single one of

those days because those early times

just go down like they

not just fast, but it's kind of this

impressionistic blur and you can't and

it's very hard to sort of remember back.

So, I wouldn't mind looking back at

that. I think if I went right back to

childhood, I'd find that quite uh quite

distressing.

Sure.

I wasn't a happy teenager particularly.

I think before that I've been quite

happy. I'd been at quite a small village

school and stuff, but when I went to big

school, I struggled fitting in. I was,

you know, in Britain there's a lot of

sort of class dynamics and I was at this

very quite tough school and I was seen

as quite posh because my mom was a

teacher, my dad was an architect and I

sort of struggled fitting in there and I

was often

uh quite sort of like downwardly mobile

and I got into shoplifting and I ended

up getting arrested for shoplifting at

the age of 16. And so I was a bit of

delinquent for a while at the same time

as retreating to the library and being

bookish. there was this strange uh

combination. So not happy times at that

point in time and not you know giving my

parents quite a lot of uh grief as well.

So um I would yeah but but the thing is

about having a uh sort of like difficult

teen years. I think Graeme Green said

that childhood is like a miserable

childhood is the bank you keep on

pulling. My childhood wasn't that

miserable all the time, but I had enough

of it in my teenage years to sort of

like, okay, I can write forever can

process.

I am prepared to answer them.

Okay, first question. What book might

people be surprised to find on your

shelves? I think if you looked at my

shelves, you'd be surprised. I've got a

lot of very strange history books. Like

I've got the history of the amusement

park and I've got the history of Las

Vegas architecture and I've got lots of

sort of like pop culture history kind of

books is a niche of mine that I'm very

interested in. It's probably less

surprising. I've got lots of music

biographies and things like that, but my

dad was an architect, so I'm kind of

interested in architectural history, so

I've got a bit of that. I've also got

quite a lot of um manga because my son's

got me into manga. Very cool.

So, that might be surprising.

Matt, what is your favorite book that

you think no one else has heard of?

I'm going to choose one called Paris

Trance by uh Jeff Dyier. Not much

happens apart from four young people. I

think Americans and British and French

are in Paris hanging out together, going

clubbing together, chatting together.

It's very 90s. It absolutely summed up

my sort of life at that point in time.

It just captures Paris. It captur

There's a lot of talk about jazz in it

and there's lots of conversations. It's

if someone wanted to capture that sort

of youth era ' 90s and get a flavor for

it,

there's a lot of places to go, but I

think Paris Trance would be it. So that

was a novel I read at a time when I was

hardly reading anything and it got

through and not many people I don't

think know of it even if they've heard

of Jeff Dyier. So I'd say Paris Trance.

That is a great recommendation. Jeff

Dyer is just one of the most diverse

authors there is. Uh he's written so

many books that are sort of all

different. Okay. Matt, what is the best

book that you have ever received as a

gift?

Best book I've ever received as a gift.

I've got it here. For those who can

actually see this, I am holding up a uh

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland from

the 19th century, but not a first

edition. Alas, it is possibly a third or

fourth or fifth edition, but it's from

like 1890.

Um, so it's probably near

over two decades after it was published.

Um, and but this is from um my

grandmother on my dad's side and um it

was from her grandmother. So, it's the

closest thing I've got to a family

heirloom and it is through the looking

glass and his adventures.

Okay. Make sure you don't lose that one.

Matt, what books do you find yourself

returning to time and again?

I would say two different ones. I would

say Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino,

which is basically every page is a

different city and it's an imagined

city. They're fantastical cities. Um,

the actual setup is Marco Polo talking

to Kubla Khan about his travels, but

essentially he's just talking about

Venice and they're all imaginary

fantastical versions of Venice. So you

can sort of open it up on any page and

disappear into a fantastical city. So

it's like a travel book for the

imagination. I love that. And it's very

rereadable because it's not really a

book with a story. You can sort of pick

it up anywhere. I'd also say, you know,

lots of children's books, but I'll go

with um Winnie the Pooh or the House of

Pooh Corner because I think you read it

as a child and you're just enjoying the

adventures and then you read it as an

adult and you see all these hidden

depths and I'm fascinated by a mil and

the fact that he had a very sort of

troubled life. He probably had what we

would call PTSD, you know, shell shock

from the war and he'd created the world

of 100 Acre Wood to sort of retreat into

that. So, it's incred.

And it's got a lot of wisdom. And I also

like the fact that each character is a

kind of now looking at a 21st century

lens is this kind of mental health

archetype. You've got anxiety with

Piglet. You've got depression with

Eeyore. You've got the sort of

neurodeiversity coming in with like

Kanger and um Tigers ADHD. So you you

you can see in so many different lights

and in in philosophical terms as well.

So I'd say Winnie the Poo is a good one

to go back to as well.

I believe it's celebrating its 100th

there's a 100th anniversary this year.

Yes, it is. There's been lots of sort of

uh celebrations on BBC radio and things,

but yes, I think so. But I think the

original bear, isn't the original bear

in New York?

Yeah. The the Queen of England is

visiting New York next week, I believe,

and it's possibly going to pass by the

New York Public Library.

Oh. And put it in a handbag and take it

back.

Maybe going to steal it. This is going

to be an Oceans 11 type heist.

[music]

It turns out the queen did not steal the

bear. Instead, she brought with her a

replica [music] of the original Little

Rue, Pooh Bear's smallest friend, and

put to rest the question of whether a

Milan's original stuffed animals [music]

would return to their homeland. Pooh,

Piglet, Tiger, Eeyore, KGA, and now Ru

[music] are on permanent display at the

New York Public Library.

Coming up next, my colleague Jen Harland

has some recommendations [music]

for your reading list, especially if you

like books by Matt Hey.

[music]

Okay. Jen Harland. Hello.

Hello.

Hi. I asked you to come on the show

because you're one of the editors at the

book review who is particularly good at

recommending books to people. We tell

you what we're looking for, what we've

liked, what we've read recently, and

then you say, "How about these?"

It is my favorite game both at work and

outside of work.

Uh, you're perfectly matched here. I'd

love to hear your thoughts on some books

to read that are similar to the work of

Matt Hey.

So, I think when people talk about Matt

Hag's books, there are few things that

really draw the fans of those books to

them. They are lifeaffirming. They're

heartwarming. They have some sort of

like inherent tenderness at their core

and also maybe have a little bit of a

speculative element. Not full-blown

fantasy, but there's something funky

going on with time or space or portals

into other parts of your life. Um, and

so those are sort of the things that I'm

thinking about with these uh books that

I'm going to talk to you about today.

The first of which is The Invisible Life

of Addie Laroo by VE Schwab, who is

predominantly a fantasy writer. She's

also written some sci-fi. She had a book

about vampires last year. She's written

about superheroes. She's written about

wizards. Addy Laroo is, I would say,

probably the least heavy fantasy of her

books. So again, if you like that sort

of like light touch of magic that a Matt

Hey book brings, but you don't want to

learn any 10 syllable names or encounter

any dragons, don't worry, there's not

going to be any of that here.

Noted.

Um, so Addie is a young woman living in

the early 1700s in France. Very unhappy

with her circumstances. She's being

forced into a marriage she doesn't want

to be in. and she essentially makes a

deal with the devil, who in this case is

a god of the night, who she names Luke.

And the bargain, you know, a classic god

demon name.

I don't know why that name strikes me as

so funny in this context, but it does.

Um, and so Luke offers her a deal. She

can live forever. She can live all of

the different lives she wants to live.

She doesn't have to be confined to her

circumstances, but everyone she meets

will immediately forget her. So, she

agrees to this and essentially spends

centuries moving through the world like

a ghost. She has these little touches of

influence on people's lives. She

inspires art. She inspires music, but

isn't able to make any sort of lasting

human connection. And then one day in

the 21st century, she stumbles into this

used bookstore in New York City owned by

this guy named Henry who sees her and

remembers her. Um, she's not really sure

what is going on there. This has never

happened to her in centuries of life.

And it turns out that he has made his

own bargain with Luke. um he had gone

through some disappointments including a

proposal that did not go well. It was

been in was in a very dark place. Didn't

feel like he had a reason to go on

living. And so he made this deal with

Luke that whenever people see him, they

see what they desire most, which in

Add's case is to be recognized and

remembered. They're sort of this like

perfect these two perfect puzzle pieces

who fit together.

There's a a lot of the Midnight Library

in here.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

you're again that sort of like touch of

something supernatural but not really in

this idea of like finding your your

puzzle piece and also about like what

are the things that make life worth

living. The other catch with Henry is

that he turns out he has a very short

amount of time left to live. And so he

and Addie end up in this race sort of to

try and

save his life to maybe try and get

freedom for themselves out of this

bargain. It's this magical story about

human connection and what you would do

for someone who you love. Tell us about

another book that you feel like you

would recommend to people who are

looking for those those sweet sweet

Hague vibes.

Yes. Uh another very hesque uh book

which is a term

a haggarfic novel.

Maybe we'll we'll stick we'll keep

workshopping it. [laughter]

This is one of my all-time favorite

books and one of the books I recommend

to everyone I know which is the history

of love by Nicole Krauss. Um this book

came out in 2005. Um, I think some of

the hardest characters to get right in

literature are often children and old

people. They can be very one note. And

this book has two unforgettable

narrators, one of whom is 14, one of

whom is in his 80s, I believe, uh, an

older man, and both of whom are so

memorable and so lively and wonderful.

You have Leo Gerski, who is a Holocaust

survivor. He was a locksmith for most of

his life and has lived in New York. um

and is also a writer who wrote this

amazing book called The History of Love.

Um which was inspired by this woman Elma

who was the love of his life. And though

they both survived the war, they lost

each other in that process. And he's

basically spent his whole life having

lost the love of his life and tried to

figure out how does he move forward? How

does he build a meaningful life um even

despite that loss? So something that uh

I think has a shares some parallels with

the the midnight train especially. Um he

is kind of a hoarder. He lives in this

apartment that like that's full of piles

and stuff and has this big fear of

dying one of those horrible New York

deaths where uh it'll take several days

before the smell brings people to the

apartment. He's afraid of being

forgotten and disappearing. So he takes

a job as a nude model for a figure

drawing class so that at least for an

hour a week he will be seen by people.

I did not expect that. maybe an extreme

reaction to that scenario. Um, and he

also has this really beautiful

friendship with Bruno, who was his

neighbor back in Poland, um, who he

thought died in the war. They didn't see

each other. And then there's this

amazing moment where they run into each

other outside a grocery store in New

York and rekindle their friendship.

Bruno moves into this building and

they've developed this kind of Morse

code where they tap on the radiator to

check in on the other person, make sure

that they're alive. So, that's one

story. And then you have Alma who is 14.

Her dad has died of pancreatic cancer

and she is a very precocious, very smart

girl, but trying to sort of hold her

family together. Her mom is a translator

who has never really moved on from this

loss and Elma decides that she's going

to make it her mission to try and find

her mom love again. Um there's a mystery

at the heart of this book about the a

novel called the history of love that

kind of pops up in different places but

it's really um about again about like

loss and grief but also the different

kinds of love um that can fill our lives

not just romantic love but also love

between parents and children and friends

um and all those again those little

wonderful little things that make life

worth living. We talked about V E

Schwab. Now I think we should move to

another recommendation by TJ Cloon.

Another one of my my favorites from the

fantasy sci-fi world.

Yeah. What's up with the initials here?

Tell me about TJ Cloon.

Um so TJ Cloon whenever if someone asks

me like I want a comfort read. I want a

book that's going to like make my give

me that like warm, happy heart feeling.

TJ Cloon is one of the first people I

think of. Um, and I love a lot of his

books, but I'm actually going to talk

about his newest one, which just came

out in April. It's called We Burned So

Bright. It is a little bit more sci-fi

than his typical books. It's basically

an apocalypse road trip novel, which may

not sound terribly heartwarming um, off

the jump, but basically uh, the premise

of the book is there's a black hole

that's headed towards Earth. We've tried

everything. There's no solution, and so

in 30 days, the world is going to end.

we're all going to get sucked into a

black hole and burn up into and go into

the ether wherever people go after the

heat death of the universe. Um, and you

have Don and Rodney who are two men in

their 70s who've been married for

several decades living on the East Coast

and they decide to pack up their lives

in their RV and drive across the country

because there's some sort of important

promise or thing that they feel like

they have to do um before the world ends

and they and everyone they know dies.

And so you spend the book traveling

across the country with them as they're

reflecting on their life and

relationships and the sort of big loss

that's at the heart of their story.

You're trying to figure out as the book

goes along what it's about. And they

also meet people on their journey who

all have very different reactions to

knowing that their time is limited. Some

people go full hedenism and are like,

I'm going to do all of the drugs and

have all of the sex and go skinny

dipping in a lake every night and who

cares? There's no point to anything

because the world is ending. Uh some

people uh go in a really dark direction

and um there may or may not be a uh

serial killer who is convinced that

she's doing people a favor by killing

them early so they don't have to

experience death by black hole.

Oh my god. [laughter]

Um some people really lean into

tribalism. Some people are looting. And

some people react with incredible

kindness and decide that they want to

use whatever time they have left to uh

enjoy all of the the things that have

made humanity what it is. Um it is a sad

book but also really tender about how

all the ways that humans can be both

selfish and horrible but also

unexpectedly generous and kind.

Yeah. Which um path would you take?

[laughter]

Um,

I think there would maybe be like a a

temptation to go in the like, well, the

world's ending. There's no consequences.

Let's do whatever for a little bit. But

then I think ultimately, I don't know. I

mean, not to like bring the pandemic

into the conversation again in 2026. But

I feel like if that is any guide, it

would be like I'd want to be with the

people that I love and make the most of

of that time. Ideally, somewhere

beautiful.

Probably not. As much as I love New

York, I think I would want to get away

from the millions here if the world is

ending. That's very nice. Uh tell me

about uh your next recommendation for

people who are looking for you know

something a little Matt Hegy uh a novel

love story.

Yeah. So I um as followers of the book

review may have heard I am also a big uh

romance reader. I cover a lot of romance

and I think the reason that a lot of

people are drawn to romance novels is

similar to the reason why people are

drawn to Matt Hey books. Sometimes you

you want to know that you're in no

matter what happens along the way for a

happily ever after. You want to know

that things are going to work out okay

and the like joy and discovery comes

from figuring out how you get to that

point. Um Ashley Poston is a author who

writes primarily what I would call

paranormal romance but again with this

sort of like light magical realism

touch. So no vampires, no werewolves,

but usually something something going on

with time or space that's a little unmed

from reality. Mhm.

A novel love story is about um this

woman named Elsie whose life has kind of

fallen apart. She has been left at the

altar. She's depressed. She's been

really living for this trip that she and

her friends in her book club take every

year where they have a weekend where

they just go and read together for a few

days, which is honestly like maybe my

dream weekend.

That's incredible.

But at the last minute, all of her

friends bail on her. And so she's sort

of like picking herself up by her

bootstraps and is like, I'm going to go

do this on my own. um drives into a

storm, almost runs this guy over, and

then finds herself in this very

charming, idllic small town that seems

strangely familiar. And she uh

eventually realizes that she has somehow

gone through some sort of portal and is

in the world of her favorite cozy

romance books series. [laughter]

So, she recognizes all the landmarks.

It's like romance, Megadun.

It's Yes. Yes. Exactly. [laughter]

It's like romance on romance like and so

uh she recogniz she can see like all of

her favorite couples whose books she's

read but um they're all living after

their happily ever afters in this town

and this is not a Christmas carol or

it's a wonderful life kind of situation.

She is actually in the town interacting

with people and starts to have these

ripple effects on the characters and on

the town. And there's one character

there who she cannot place who is Anders

who is the very grumpy owner of the

bookstore. Classic romance

hero trope and he has not appeared in

any of the books. Um and is very unhappy

with the way that she is disrupting the

um kind of homeostasis of this little

pocket universe. Um, but the more she

gets to know him, they she starts to

start starts to figure out how she got

to the town, why she's trapped there,

how he might have gotten there and

gotten trapped there. And it becomes

this very moving and like tender story

about again like grief and healing and

love and also not just about the sort of

stereotypical happy ending, but about

the real life that comes after that,

which can be messy and complicated, but

it is also more human and real and

satisfying for that. sounds very

charming.

It is. It is very She is a very charming

writer. And if you like her, she has a

new book um coming out on June 16th

called The Someday Garden, which is a

secret garden. Again, like a little a

very teenytiny pocket universe in this

case, uh about a woman who moves to

Maine to be uh the sort of head

groundskeeper

at this nature estate at this like

mansion with all these beautiful gardens

that has some sort of mystical history.

People hear strange rumors about the

garden. You can hear the voice of the

people you love. you can get lost in the

hedge maze forever and end up somewhere

strange. Um, and she stumbles upon a

secret pocket garden that nobody else

seems to know about.

This is why I don't like gardens. Um,

can't be trusted,

you know. Uh, Jen, thank you so much for

coming on. You are just a master

recommener. You read so much. You can

like read a person know what they would

like. I feel like anyone listening to

this who is into Matt Hey is going to

come away with at least one book that

they are going to love. [music] I that

is my sincere hope.

The book [music] review is produced by

Sarah Diamond, Amy Pearl, and Patricia

Sulbaran. It's edited by Lissa Anderson

and mixed by Pedro Rosado. Original

music by [music] Dan Powell and Alicia

Baichu. Special thanks to Dalia Hadad.

We want to hear what you think about the

show, so [music] send us an email at the

bookreview@nytimes.com.

I'm Gilbert Cruz. Thanks for listening.