351 episodes

For 20 years, the Modern Love column has given New York Times readers a glimpse into the complicated love lives of real people. Since its start, the column has evolved into a TV show, three books and a podcast.

Each week, host Anna Martin brings you stories and conversations about love in all its glorious permutations, dumb pitfalls and life-changing moments. New episodes every Wednesday.

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

Modern Love The New York Times

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.3 • 8K Ratings

For 20 years, the Modern Love column has given New York Times readers a glimpse into the complicated love lives of real people. Since its start, the column has evolved into a TV show, three books and a podcast.

Each week, host Anna Martin brings you stories and conversations about love in all its glorious permutations, dumb pitfalls and life-changing moments. New episodes every Wednesday.

Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp

    How to Be Real With Your Kids

    How to Be Real With Your Kids

    Penn Badgley has made a career out of playing deeply troubled characters. From his role as Joe Goldberg on the Netflix series “You” to Dan Humphrey on “Gossip Girl,” Badgley has shown many times over how obsession and delusion can destroy love.

    In his personal life, though, Badgley says he’s not doing too much brooding. He’s a father and a stepfather, and he opens up about the importance of being vulnerable with his kids. Badgley reads “Watching Them Watching Me” by Dean E. Murphy, an essay about a father who can no longer hide his emotions from his sons after they all experience a devastating loss.

    • 30 min
    Why Samin Nosrat Is Now ‘Fully YOLO’

    Why Samin Nosrat Is Now ‘Fully YOLO’

    The chef Samin Nosrat lives by the idea that food is love. Her Netflix series, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” and the James Beard Award-winning cookbook that inspired it, were about using food to build community and forge connections. Since then, all of her creative projects and collaborations have focused on inspiring people to cook, and eat, with their friends and loved ones.

    After the recent loss of her father, Samin has gained an even deeper understanding of what it means to savor a meal — or even an hour — with loved ones. This week, she reads an essay about exactly that: “You May Want to Marry My Husband” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It’s one of the most-read Modern Love essays ever.

    • 30 min
    Brittany Howard Sings Through the Pangs of New Love

    Brittany Howard Sings Through the Pangs of New Love

    Brittany Howard, the five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, makes vibrant, dynamic music about love.

    As the frontwoman of the band Alabama Shakes, she was celebrated for the power and emotionality of her voice. When she began her solo career in 2019 with “Jaime,” an album named after and dedicated to her older sister, who died at 13, Howard revealed new dimensions of her songwriting and herself.

    Her latest album, “What Now,” captures the intensity of processing the past and starting anew. Today, Howard reads a Modern Love essay about the courage it takes to fall back in love: “Was She Just Another Nicely Packaged Pain Delivery System?” by Judith Fetterley.

    • 30 min
    Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things

    Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things

    Before Celeste Ng became a best-selling author, she had a side hustle selling miniatures on eBay — dollhouse-size recreations of food were her specialty. Even after the publication of “Little Fires Everywhere,” “Everything I Never Told You,” and, most recently, “Our Missing Hearts,” Celeste still makes tiny things — now, as a hobby. She’s come to realize the parallels between making small things and writing: Both give her a chance to look closely at the world.

    Today, Celeste kicks off our special podcast series, which celebrates 20 years of the Modern Love column, by reading Betsy MacWhinney’s essay “Bringing a Daughter Back From the Brink With Poems.” She discusses her own deep-rooted relationship to poetry — and the lessons, large and small, that poems can offer parents and children in uncertain times.

    • 31 min
    Three Powerful Lessons About Love

    Three Powerful Lessons About Love

    When Daniel Jones started the Modern Love column in 2004, he opened the call for submissions and hoped the idea would catch on. Twenty years later, over a thousand Modern Love essays have been published in The New York Times, and the column is a trove of real-life love stories.

    Dan has put so much of himself into editing the column over the years, but as he tells our host, Anna Martin, the column has influenced him, too. Today, Dan shares three Modern Love essays that have changed the way he thinks about love and relationships in his own life.

    Also, Anna announces the beginning of a special series of episodes celebrating Modern Love’s 20th anniversary.

    The Modern Love essays mentioned in this episode are:
    One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please
    Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting
    My First Lesson in Motherhood

    • 35 min
    Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

    Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

    The New York Times’s film critic Alissa Wilkinson has a theory about movies: They’re all about relationships. No matter how big the action, the suspense and tension we experience when watching a film is often really about the feelings between the characters.

    But romantic relationships often fall back on old tropes, like the long-suffering wife of an ex-cop who can’t resist that one last, risky case. (We all know her; she leaves teary voice messages urging him to be safe.) Some of this year’s Oscar-nominated films give us fresher portraits of love. Alissa and our host, Anna Martin, discuss the relationships that defy convention or easy definition, and push us to reconsider how we think about human connection, in three of those movies: “Poor Things,” “Maestro” and “Past Lives.”

    • 31 min

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5
8K Ratings

8K Ratings

funier ,

Best show ever!

This is the best show ever!

kidmousey ,

it’s Anna talking about herself

change can be good, but this is no longer Modern Love. it’s not even close. you’ve let Anna turn this into a podcast about her. nearly every episode now begins with a story or experience about Anna. even her questions come across as self indulgent. here’s a person who truly loves hearing herself talk and interject her own life into everything. Anna manages to Zelig herself into nearly every essay. The essays should live on their own. Please, please leave your life and ego out of other peoples experiences and their essays. i just can’t listen anymore.

know better do better ,

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