I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the book review

podcast.

Recently, we released our Top 10 Books of the Year episode in which we discussed our collection

of books collectively chosen by the editors and writers here.

But this week, we want to hear from the bold-faced names. No anonymity

here. I'm joined by our staff critics. Jen Zalai. Hello, Jen. Hi, Gilbert. Dwight Garner.

Hey, Gilbert. And Alexandra Jacobs. Hi, Gilbert. The three of you, as you've done for the last several years, have written a piece

looking back at your years in reading. We're going to talk about some of the highlights that each

of you wrote about. I do want to start with Dwight. At the beginning of your little section of this

piece, you write, this year's best books mattered because they offered refuge from the wheels

grinding in our heads.

They made us feel less alone and reminded us that we are still sane.

Do you still feel that way?

It was such a year of turmoil for so many people, uncertainty and angst, and books, at least for me, is they're where I went to escape. And these

themes, these kind of, these themes that we worked out in this year's fiction and nonfiction are

themes that are there every year. But I think this year, they really stuck out for a lot of us,

the things that spoke to our concerns. And when we weren't escaping, that spoke to the things

we were all thinking about. One of the books that you were big on this year,

I don't know that you called it out in your piece, but I did want to briefly touch on it was

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, as you recall, and I think as you might have said, this was a book that

going into it, you had heard people on this desk sort of talking smack about it, and then you dipped

into it yourself, and you found love with it. It's carbs, it's cheese, it's butter, and it's really

...