Ezra Klein
Guest on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Host of The Ezra Klein Show
Ezra Klein is an American political journalist, columnist, and podcast host best known as a co-founder of Vox and a prominent liberal commentator. He is currently an opinion columnist at The New York Times and host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast. He is also the author of the books Why We’re Polarized and Abundance.
Products they talk about
Abundance💬 Mentioned
…reflecting on the impact and reception of the abundance book in political discourse
“It's been a little over a year since Derek Thompson and I published the book Abundance. Now, the book didn't begin what I think of as the abundance movement, but it did mark a kind of kickoff of the idea as both an object in the discourse, something people are fighting over and creating factional wars over, and actually something politicians are claiming and trying to think through how they would turn into policy.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Amusing Ourselves to Death👍 Recommends
…citing neil postman's media theory on television and political entertainment
“Just a straightforward argument in Neil Postman's great book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he says that the thing television is going to do to politics is make us believe politics should always be entertaining. And that's going to make politics a space dominated by entertainers. I give that book to everybody all the time. It blew my mind.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Bread of Angels👍 Recommends
…introducing patti smith's newest memoir spanning wider range of her life
“Smith's life's book is Bread of Angels, which, like Just Kids, is a memoir, but spans a much wider range of her life. And it's much more personal in a way, much more experiential. I loved this one, too.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Bronze Age Mindset👎 Not a fan
…reading and critiquing books central to the new right masculinist movement
“I read Bronze Age Mindset. And it's one of the first times I can really remember coming out of something like this and thinking, oh, there was so much less there than I thought.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Buddha, Socrates, and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times👍 Recommends
…introducing stephen batchelor's latest book on ethics and uncertainty
“Batchelor's latest book is Buddha, Socrates, and Us. Ethical Living in Uncertain Times. There he draws on a different tradition of doubt. Socratic questioning. And explores kind of the wisdom that Buddhist and Hellenistic philosophy might offer us today.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Comfortable with Uncertainty👍 Recommends
…opening discussion of pema chodron's most influential books on discomfort
“There's this book I love and I go back to him back to called Comfortable with Uncertainty. It's by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, who has also written really, really, really well-known beloved books like When Things Fall Apart and Welcoming the Unwelcome. But this particular book resonates with me in part because of the title.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Doppelganger👍 Recommends
…naomi klein book about political shadow networks and cancellation effects
“Naomi Klein, the leftist writer and theorist, has a great book on this called Doppelganger. It created a sort of shadow world of Steve Bannon's and Fuentes and things happening outside the sightline of mainstream politics. And now that shadow politics has become mainstream politics.”
on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dragonriders of Pern Series👍 Recommends
…rapid-fire question about surprising pieces of culture you love
“What is a piece of culture you love that would surprise people? My favorite book growing up, and which I still have a lot of love for and keep in my house, was Anne McCaffrey's The Dragon Riders of Pern trilogy. Maybe that won't surprise people that I was very into a fantasy novel.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
East West Street💬 Mentioned
…discussing how seemingly refined people can perpetrate evil and commit atrocities
“I read this book by Philippe Sands called East West Street. And he was on the show. And it's a book about the development of the concept of genocide and war crimes. And it's a book about the Holocaust. And, you know, he's writing it at great length about, among other people, the man Hitler puts in charge of governing Poland.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis👍 Recommends
…introducing the guest and his major published work on central america
“He's also the author of the excellent book, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Feel Free💬 Mentioned
…discussing smith's essay collection on political pressure and identity
“At that moment reading the introduction to Zadie Smith's 2018 book of essays, Feel Free. And she's talking about the political stakes of that period, part of 2016, Brexit in the UK, Donald Trump in America, and the way you could feel it changing people.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
In Defense of Politics👍 Recommends
…discussing quotes about politics and genuine relationships
“I became obsessed with this quote over the past year from Bernard Crick. It's in this book called In Defense of Politics. And he says that politics involves genuine relationships with people who are genuinely other people, not objects for our philanthropy or tasks for our redemption.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Israel's One-State Reality💬 Mentioned
…discussing the publication of a foundational book analyzing israel palestine
“In early 2023, the political scientists Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Mark Lynch, and Shibli Talhami published an edited volume called The One State Reality. Their argument, which they also made in a very controversial foreign affairs piece, was that... the hope of a two-state solution in the future had become a way many in America particularly avoided reckoning with the one-state reality of the present.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Just Kids👍 Recommends
…opening discussion of patti smith's memoir about her early years in new york
“So back in 2010, I picked up this book that everyone seemed to be reading that year. Just Kids by Patti Smith. I vaguely know who Patti Smith was, a musician and artist, sometimes called the godmother of punk. But I didn't really know her. So I picked up the book without any real expectations, and man, did I love that book. One of the few I've read many times since. Just Kids is this memoir of Smith's early years in New York and her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Liberalism👍 Recommends
…referencing another liberal philosophy book for comparison with rosenblatt's work
“One of the other books on liberalism I've quite liked is Edmund Fawcett's Liberalism, The Life. You have an idea, I think is the subtitle. And he makes more than you do of the idea that central to liberalism is the idea that in a conflict-ridden, disputatious society, that you can turn difference into something constructive through argumentation, through the exchange of ideas.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Lions and Scavengers💬 Mentioned
…ben shapiro book about political typology within conservative movement
“I had Ben Shapiro on my show and I was wondering if his book, Lions and Scavengers, is part of what's in your mind there. Though I don't know if that's the one you're thinking of. No, I haven't read that. One of the arguments he's making in that book, I remember having him on the show and I found that book really weird because I was reading it and thinking, he's not naming who he's talking about.”
on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One👍 Recommends
…stewart brand's latest book exploring the philosophy and practice of maintenance
“And then most recently, this book, The Maintenance of Everything, Part 1, which explores something many of us would rather avoid. The constant and almost spiritually important work of fixing our cars, of doing home repairs, of caring for each other.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
On Beauty👍 Recommends
…introducing zadie smith's novel catalog to listeners
“If you've not read her back catalog, like White Teeth and On Beauty and Swing Time, I almost envy you.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Outlive👍 Recommends
…book about longevity and muscle mass importance
“I'm 42. And then I had kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It brought the curve down for a while. And then I turned 40. I read Peter Atiyah's Outlive. Yep, yep. Very persuasive. He really persuaded me that having muscle mass in the long term is important for health. And so I started trying to turn things around.”
on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Super Sad True Love Story👍 Recommends
…predicting contemporary culture through dystopian fiction written before its time
“Over the past six months, I keep telling people, we are living in super sad true love story. And sometimes I'll say to me, what was super sad true love story? What do you mean? Super sad true love story, if for some terrible reason you don't know, is a 2010 book by Gary Steingart. And I think more than any other book, it predicted the strangeness of the world we live in today.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Swing Time👍 Recommends
…introducing zadie smith's novel catalog to listeners
“If you've not read her back catalog, like White Teeth and On Beauty and Swing Time, I almost envy you.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Audacity of Hope👍 Recommends
…obama memoir demonstrating political nuance and containment
“And one of the things that I believe about good politicians is that they are able to contain a thing and then a certain amount of the things opposite at the same time. So Obama is a particular master of this. It's almost like a verbal tick where he would start telling you the right wing position of a thing and what its good points were before he would then tell you his version of the thing. Like, go read The Audacity of Hope. It all has that structure.”
on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
The Fraud👍 Recommends
…discussing smith's novel about 19th century trial as metaphor for contemporary populism
“But still, I was surprised when I finally read The Fraud, the book she released last year. I didn't expect this novel about a trial in 19th century London, which I knew it to be about, to be so resonant, so about 21st century America. But Smith has said that Trump and populism were front of her mind when she wrote it.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Future Is History👍 Recommends
…introducing masha gessen's background and books on authoritarianism and living under putin
“My guest today is Masha Gessen, who grew up in the Soviet Union, who's my colleague here at Times Opinion, has written remarkable books like The Future is History about living under Vladimir Putin, and who's been a clear and relentless and very perceptive voice on what it means and what it is like to live in a country that is turning into a different kind of regime.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Intimate City👍 Recommends
…discovering beauty in urban spaces through architectural perspective
“Michael Kimmelman, when I moved here, which was only a couple years ago, I read Michael Kimmelman, his book called The Intimate City. And he says, the beauty of New York is the juxtaposition of this with that. And that allowed me to see the beauty of New York. It was like a single sentence that reshaped how I looked at a whole place.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Last Men👎 Not a fan
…reading and critiquing books central to the new right masculinist movement
“I read your piece and then I read The Last Men by Charles Cornish Dale, the raw egg nationalist. I read Bronze Age Mindset. And it's one of the first times I can really remember coming out of something like this and thinking, oh, there was so much less there than I thought.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny👍 Recommends
…discussing a favorite book about family separation and cultural tensions
“One of my favorite books by far this year was The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia. It's so beautiful. I mean, it sits in my heart. Like I think about it a couple times a week. It's so beautiful. I'm so happy you're bringing this up. But it's all about this dance.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Lost History of Liberalism👍 Recommends
…ezra klein discussing his personal reading journey on the history of liberalism
“And reading one of those books, "The Lost History of Liberalism" by Helena Rosenblatt, it felt like an epiphany — that this was a piece of the puzzle. So I wanted to have Rosenblatt on the show to talk about it.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource👍 Recommends
…discussing how attention functions in contemporary american politics
“To help me unpack them, I want to have on my favorite person to talk about this particular topic with. My friend Chris Hayes, host of All In with Chris Hayes, and author of the great book on attention in the modern moment, The Siren's Call, How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
The Whole Earth Catalog👍 Recommends
…steve jobs describing the whole earth catalog as inspiration and early internet
“When I was young, there was an amazing publication called the Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the Bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand, not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form 35 years before Google came along.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy💬 Mentioned
…introducing henry farrell and his book on weaponized economic interdependence
“I asked Farrell on the show to explain this dynamic, why this is a "rupture" moment and how other countries are responding. He is an international-affairs professor at Johns Hopkins University, is an author of the book "Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy" and writes an excellent Substack, Programmable Mutter.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Vigil💬 Mentioned
…discussing George Saunders' new novel and shift away from kindness focus
“And I've always thought of Saunders a little bit in that mode, the kindness guy. But reading his new novel, Vigil, which is about an oil tycoon on his deathbed being visited by angels and people from his past trying to get him to reassess his own life, I began to realize that Saunders is more interested in something else now.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Welcoming the Unwelcome👍 Recommends
…opening discussion of pema chodron's most influential books on discomfort
“There's this book I love and I go back to him back to called Comfortable with Uncertainty. It's by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, who has also written really, really, really well-known beloved books like When Things Fall Apart and Welcoming the Unwelcome.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
What Is This?👍 Recommends
…introducing stephen batchelor's meditation practice book co-authored with his wife
“Stephen Batchelor is the author of many books on Buddhism and meditation. Including this book he wrote with his wife Martine Batchelor called What Is This? Which is from a meditation retreat. A Sahn meditation retreat that they held some time ago.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
When Things Fall Apart👍 Recommends
…opening discussion of pema chodron's most influential books on discomfort
“There's this book I love and I go back to him back to called Comfortable with Uncertainty. It's by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, who has also written really, really, really well-known beloved books like When Things Fall Apart and Welcoming the Unwelcome.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
White Teeth👍 Recommends
…introducing zadie smith's novel catalog to listeners
“If you've not read her back catalog, like White Teeth and On Beauty and Swing Time, I almost envy you.”
on The Ezra Klein Show
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance👍 Recommends
…classic book on maintenance philosophy and deliberate thinking before action
“And you quote quite a lot from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is a classic book. I was also very struck in the first chapter you're writing about this sailboat race. And you talk about a sailor thinking about how to fix a problem on his boat and forcing himself to think for two days before acting because, quote, I did not want to crystallize my thinking prematurely.”
on The Ezra Klein Show