Welcome to the Sunday Special, running now through the end of the year. Every Sunday, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, will talk with a rotating cast of Times critics and culture and lifestyle reporters about “the fun stuff”— pop culture, movies, TV, music, fashion and more.On today’s inaugural episode, Gilbert sits down with Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The Times, and Madison Malone Kircher, an internet reporter at The Times, to recap their cultural highs and lows of this summer.

The acclaimed writer has a new memoir, and a warning.

Over the past 24 hours, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been plunged into turmoil. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to fire the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, igniting a standoff that prompted three other senior officials to resign. One of those officials, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, explains why he chose to take a stand.

A curious news story emerged in New York last week. It involved the mayor’s race, a reporter from the news outlet The City and a bag of chips. Michael Forsythe, a reporter on the investigations team at The New York Times, explains how the episode fits into a larger story about how China has been attempting to influence American politics.

President Trump’s decision to try to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s governing board is his most audacious attack yet on the independence of the central bank. Ben Casselman, chief economics correspondent for The New York Times, discusses why Mr. Trump’s route to controlling the Fed passes through the governor, an economics professor named Lisa Cook.

Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff officially join Michael Barbaro as co-hosts of the show. Welcome to the next chapter.

When Taffy Brodesser-Akner became a writer, Mr. Lindenblatt, the father of one of her oldest friends, began asking to tell his story of survival during the Holocaust in one of the magazines or newspapers she wrote for. He took pride in telling his story, in making sure he fulfilled what he felt was the obligation of all Holocaust survivors, which was to remind the world what had happened to the Jews. His daughter Ilana knew it was a long shot but felt obligated to pass on the request — it was her father, after all. Taffy declined because after a life hearing about the Holocaust, she said, she was “all Holocausted out.” But, years later, when she learned of Mr. Lindenblatt’s imminent passing, Taffy asked herself what would become of stories like his if the generation of hers that was supposed to inherit them had taken the privilege that came with another generation’s survival and decided not to listen? So here it is, an old Jewish story about the Holocaust and a man who somehow survived the pernicious, organized and intentional genocide of the Jews. But right behind it, just two generations later, is another story, one about the children and grandchildren who have been so malformed by the stories that are their lineage that some of them made just as eager work of running from it, only to find themselves, same as anything you run from, having to deal with it anyway.

Sometime in the 1850s or ’60s, at a terrible moment in U.S. history, a strange man seemed to sprout, out of nowhere, into the rocky landscape between New York City and Hartford, Conn. The word “strange” hardly captures his strangeness. He was rough and hairy, and he wandered around on back roads, sleeping in caves. Above all, he refused to explain himself. As one newspaper put it: “He is a mystery, and a very greasy and ill-odored one.” Other papers referred to him as “the animal” or (just throwing up their hands) “this uncouth and unkempt ‘What is it?’” But the strangest thing about the stranger was his suit.

Today, millions of Americans will have the opportunity to see a rare total solar eclipse. Fred Espenak, a retired astrophysicist known as Mr. Eclipse, was so blown away by an eclipse he saw as a teenager that he dedicated his life to traveling the world and seeing as many as he could. Mr. Espenak discusses the eclipses that have punctuated and defined the most important moments in his life, and explains why these celestial phenomena are such a wonder to experience. Guest: Fred Espenak, a.k.a. “Mr. Eclipse,” a former NASA astrophysicist and lifelong eclipse chaser.

Jeanna Smialek, who covers the U.S. economy for The Times, will be 33 in a few weeks; she is part of a cohort born in 1990 and 1991 that makes up the peak of America’s population. At every life stage, that microgeneration has stretched a system that was often too small to accommodate it, leaving its members — so-called peak millennials — with outsize economic power but also a fight to get ahead. Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a U.S. economy correspondent for The New York Times.

Fifty years ago, eight Americans set off for South America to climb Aconcagua, one of the world’s mightiest mountains. Things quickly went wrong. Two climbers died. Their bodies were left behind. Here is what was certain: A woman from Denver, maybe the most accomplished climber in the group, had last been seen alive on the glacier. A man from Texas, part of the recent Apollo missions to the moon, lay frozen nearby. There were contradictory statements from survivors and a hasty departure. There was a judge who demanded an investigation into possible foul play. There were three years of summit-scratching searches to find and retrieve the bodies. Now, decades later, a camera belonging to one of the deceased climbers has emerged from a receding glacier near the summit and one of mountaineering’s most enduring mysteries has been given air and light.

It was meant to mark the start of their lives out of college, but the adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Beginning with what seemed to be a lucky whale sighting, three friends set out on a sea-kayaking trip through Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, watching out for bears, and having a good time, when tragedy struck. In recounting the days preceding and following the accident, which seriously injured one of his friends, the Times journalist Jon Mooallem explains how he was forced to reckon with his fears. Detailing the incident’s surprising repercussions, he muses on the importance of overcoming one’s fears, and finding poetry in life’s darkest moments.

On June 24, 2015, Dawn Dorland, an essayist and aspiring novelist, did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys — and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular, but for a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor. Several weeks before the surgery, Ms. Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from GrubStreet, the Boston writing center where she had spent many years learning her craft. After her surgery, she posted something to her group: a heartfelt letter she’d written to the final recipient of the surgical chain, whoever they may be. Ms. Dorland noticed some people she’d invited into the group hadn’t seemed to react to any of her posts. On July 20, she wrote an email to one of them: a writer named Sonya Larson. A year later, Ms. Dorland learned that Ms. Larson had written a story about a woman who received a kidney. Ms. Larson told Ms. Dorland that it was “partially inspired” by how her imagination took off after learning of Ms. Dorland’s donation. Art often draws inspiration from life — but what happens when it’s your life?