How is it that a seven-book series written in Danish about a single day repeating over and over has become something of a sensation among the literary set? Since the English translations of Solvej Balle?s ?On the Calculation of Volume? series were first published in the United States in 2024, they have been nominated for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award.

With the latest volume to be translated into English, Book IV, out this week, Gilbert Cruz sat down with A.O. Scott, a critic at large, and Joumana Khatib, a Book Review editor, to talk boredom, stuckness and time loops. Plus, the books in translation you should read next.

Books discussed on this episode:

?On the Calculation of Volume,? by Solvej Balle

?The Director,? by Daniel Kehlmann

?Tyll,? by Daniel Kehlmann

?Breasts and Eggs,? by Mieko Kawakami

?Heaven,? by Mieko Kawakami

?Sisters in Yellow,? by Mieko Kawakami

?King Kong Theory,? by Virginie Despentes

The ?Vernon Subutex? trilogy, by Virginie Despentes

?Time Shelter,? by Georgi Gospodinov

?Territory of Light,? by Yuko Tsushima

?The Betrothed,? by Alessandro Manzoni

?Kairos,? by Jenny Erpenbeck

?Go, Went, Gone,? by Jenny Erpenbeck

?In Search of Lost Time,? by Marcel Proust

?Ulysses,? by James Joyce

?Anna Karenina,? by Leo Tolstoy

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Patrick Radden Keefe joins ?The Book Review? to discuss his new book, ?London Falling,? which begins when a family loses a 19-year-old son, Zac Brettler, under mysterious circumstances. His parents eventually discover he had been living a secret life, posing as the son of a Russian oligarch.

Speaking with the host Gilbert Cruz, Keefe describes the moment he first heard the story and how he immediately knew it would become his next major project. He talks about gaining the trust of the young man?s parents, Matthew and Rachelle Brettler, and following the threads of their son?s life into a world of wealth, influence and deception in London.

The conversation also explores how the book moves beyond the night of Zac?s death and into a broader story about ambition, reinvention and the uneasy question at its center: How well can we ever know the people closest to us?

Books discussed on this episode:

?Say Nothing,? by Patrick Radden Keefe

?Seasons of Fury,? by Rozina Ali

?The Emperor?s Children,? by Claire Messud

?Out of Sheer Rage,? by Geoff Dyer

?Middlemarch,? by George Eliot

?In Cold Blood,? by Truman Capote

?The Power Broker,? by Robert A. Caro

?Far From the Tree,? by Andrew Solomon

?Chatter,? by Patrick Radden Keefe

?The Last Samurai,? by Helen DeWitt

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Credits

?The Book Review? podcast is hosted by Gilbert Cruz and produced by Amy Pearl and Sarah Diamond. The show is edited by Larissa Anderson and mixed by Pedro Rosado.

Special thanks to MJ Franklin, Dahlia Haddad and Brooke Minters.

Illustration by The New York Times; Photo: Erik Tanner for The New York Times

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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