But August is also Women in Translation Month, a yearly celebration of books by women written in languages other than English. And any celebration that involves the reading of books is one I engage with – possibly while enjoying a cool drink and a warm panino after the kids head off to school.

To talk more about it, I reached out to Jennifer Croft, the award-winning author and translator of writers such as Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk, with whom she shared the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. Croft has translated works from Polish, Ukrainian and Argentine Spanish.

Croft is also the author of the memoir “Homesick” and the novel “The Extinction of Irena Rey,” which was published earlier this year, and she spoke by phone from her home in Oklahoma where she is the Presidential Professor of English & Creative Writing at the University of Tulsa. (Croft, by the way, first enrolled as a student at the university when she was 15.)

Croft said Women in Translation Month has been a good thing.

“For me, it has been very helpful as a translator. Initially, when I was starting out, my project was specifically to advocate for and translate contemporary women,” says Croft, who focuses on works by Russian, Polish and Argentine writers including Federico Falco’s “A Perfect Cemetery,” Romina Paula’s “August”  and Tokarczuk’s 912-page “The Books of Jacob.”

When society has blinders on about the work of women, Croft says, that affects which books we read and which get chosen for awards.

“I definitely do still think there’s a value in spotlighting women’s work, because, of course, there are still these sexist tendencies in our society,” says Croft.

Not only are translators often overlooked — something that Croft has advocated to change — but the work can seem a bit mysterious as well. For many, translation sounds like a simple process of switching one set of words for another, but it’s obviously far more complex and can be performed in a variety of ways.

“It’s not the same for everybody, and that was one of the reasons why I also wanted to mention some women translators as well as women writers who are being translated, not necessarily by women,” says Croft, who says these days she works with writers of all genders.

“I really think of the translator as the co-author of the translated book. People don’t realize how much power is in every single choice that we make as we’re translating. And translating is always rewriting, and every translator has a different opinion about to what extent that is true for them, but I just don’t see a way that we as human beings can avoid including our own subjectivities in our translation so it becomes a collaboration,” she says. “And I think that’s a good reason to look at the work of women translators.”

It’s fascinating to hear Croft talk about translation, and I’ll be sharing more of our discussion in the near future following the announcement of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature longlist. (Croft is one of the judges in a group that includes chair Jhumpa Lahiri, and, no, she wouldn’t tell me anything about who’s on the list.)

But to celebrate the work of women writers and translators, Croft was kind enough to compile a list of book suggestions for readers interested to know more. I’ve already started seeking them out. Read on for her suggestions:

“Strange Beasts of China” by Yan Ge, translated by Jeremy Tiang is a wonderfully fun and endlessly intriguing compendium of urban human-beast encounters that troubles the line between the imaginary and the possible.

“Your Utopia” by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur, is such a fun collection of short stories infused with speculative tendencies, Slavic literary traditions, and extremely relatable pandemic-era fears.

“Emily Forever” by Maria Navarro Skaranger, translated by Martin Aitken, is a beautiful and particular coming-of-age novel about a pregnant young woman who lives in a world of her own.

Then there’s my eternal favorite, “Vernon Subutex 1,” by Virginie Despentes and translated by Frank Wynne, a perfect marriage of translator and author and one of the most brilliant books I’ve ever read.

I would also recommend seeking out the work of women translators like Emma Ramadan (French), Saskia Vogel (Swedish), Mui Poopoksakul (Thai), Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Polish), Tiffany Tsao (Indonesian), Tess Lewis (French and German), Susan Bernofsky (German), Esther Allen (Spanish)—each of these translators also has amazing taste, so anything they choose to work on is probably an excellent choice.

And, too, I’d suggest people check out trans writers like International Booker Prize winner Lucas Rijneveld and stories featuring nonbinary characters such as Pajtim Statovci’s excellent and complex novel “Crossing.”

Laura Marris discusses her essay collection, a book she loves and waffles

Author and translator Laura Marris has just published her debut essay collection, “The Age of Loneliness.” Marris teaches creative writing at University of Buffalo.

Q. Would you tell readers about “The Age of Loneliness,” please?

“The Age of Loneliness” is a book of linked essays blending personal and ecological history. I wanted to break through the separation of person and place and write about landscapes in a way that would cultivate layers of closeness, intimacy, locality. The book begins with more alienated sites (like a fake city built to test self-driving cars) and ends with the woods of my earliest childhood, where I first began to understand the depth and complexity of the more-than-human world.

Q. What led you to the essay form? Are there particular essays or essayists that you return to?

I first fell in love with the essay form because it has a way of merging argument with more poetic work. Because part of my background is in poetry, I often think about the paragraph or section breaks like I might think of the stanza breaks in a poem. Beautiful, imaginative leaps can happen in the space between sections of a braided essay—what the writer and translator Rosmarie Waldrop calls “gap gardening.” But I’m also drawn to essays because they allow more room for all the wild stories that surface when you begin to examine the eco/historical context of a place. Toni Morrison’s essay “The Site of Memory” is a classic that I return to over and over. I’ve also loved recent pieces by Carina del Valle Schorske and Erica Berry.

Q. You are also a translator. Can you talk a little about that work (especially as it’s Women In Translation Month)?

There’s no question that translation has shaped both my way of writing and my relationship to language. When you translate another writer, you step inside their memory, their politics, their vision of the world, and the translation you make is built out of your immersion in that space of mutual creativity and collaboration. Translation helped me see my language as a whole ecosystem of voices that I’ve internalized, and in a way, writing is like wayfinding within that ecosystem.

Q. In “The Age of Loneliness” you include lists of birds. Can you talk about those?

I first learned about birds from my father. He was a birdwatcher who participated in community science projects like the Christmas Bird Count. After he died when I was 19, I found a few of his bird lists in the back of a folder, and they surprised me, because some of the species he was seeing had become harder to find, just over the course of my lifetime. And it made me realize the importance of community science projects, where people go out and count birds, or bats, or horseshoe crabs, or plants. These volunteers check on the health of their local ecosystems in vital ways, and many find lifelong human friendships, too. With the bird lists, I wanted to honor their work, as well as my father’s.

Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?

I always recommend Anne Boyer’s “The Undying”—a masterclass in fiercely braided prose.

Q. What are you reading now?

Right now I’m reading shorter things, because my book is launching, and I’m about to go on tour. I’ve been so impressed by Taylor Johnson’s poems in “Inheritance,” a book that listens so deeply to human and more-than-human voices. And Claire Keegan’s novella “Foster” is so good I read it twice.

Q. What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share? 

When I was in college, I had a summer internship at New Directions Publishing, and as interns, we were allowed to take books home when we left the office. I’m pretty sure I maxed out that policy! But they were generous enough not to mind. That summer, I read W.G. Sebald for the first time, and I discovered Susan Howe’s essays in “The Quarry.” Safe to say, I was never the same.

Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?

Here in Buffalo, I love to visit Fitz Books & Waffles. You can get a coffee, a waffle, browse the huge selection of new and used books, or just read on their back deck. Plus, they are a great third space for local events.

Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?

I had to be so patient with some of these essays, to let them find their ultimate forms. And I was quite impatient with that emergence! But I have learned to be gentler with the intuitive part of writing—you can’t rush it.

Q. If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?

I hope that readers will find resonances with the landscapes of their own lives, and that the book will allow them to spend time with all the stories of people, animals, and other living beings that are entangled with their places. I would love to hear some of those stories.

For more about the author, go to lauramarris.com

More bestsellers, authors and books

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Into the future

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“It’s always hard to be off for three weeks because we love what we do,” says Meyers. “The first week of our break — where it was post-debate and everybody was spinning out — that was really hard; whereas the last two weeks felt like the sun was breaking through the clouds a little bit.”

Then he adds in a mock-serious tone, “By the way, I really hope I’m not revealing my politics in this interview.”

Meyers says that doing the show this election cycle feels different for reasons beyond simply a shakeup among the candidates. “This week has been so wonderful to do the show and feel as though there’s just a little bit of hope in the air. Because in 2020, that whole election cycle, we didn’t have an audience; it was COVID. We were doing the show for an empty studio. So this is a very new feeling, and I’ve got to be honest, it’s not one I hate.

“I know anything can change, but also, because I know anything can change, I’ve given myself permission to enjoy the present,” says Meyers, who is also set to do a live “Closer Look Primetime” special on Sept. 11 following the presidential debates.

And the writer, comedian and TV host does have plenty to enjoy. His late-night show and related YouTube series were nominated for three Emmys — Outstanding Talk Series, Outstanding Music Direction and Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series. He’s got successful podcasts, an HBO stand-up special coming in October and thoughts about the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” and the chatter around who, if anyone, should replace “SNL” honcho Lorne Michaels should he decide to retire.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Congratulations on the Emmy nominations. What’s it like being recognized for your work?

It’s embarrassing how satisfying it is because I know you’re not supposed to care about these things. But it’s just so lovely, especially when the show gets nominated because that covers so many people who I just love working with. And it’s very nice to be recognized by your peers; I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. It hasn’t happened for us so many times that we are immune to the satisfaction.

It was the first time [the nominations] happened when we were actually in production, and to find out by hearing a bunch of people cheer — for a guy who liked sports and wasn’t good at sports — I felt like this might be the closest I come to feeling the taste of victory.

Q: In your category, you’re nominated with your friends and “Strike Force Five” podcast co-hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, which must be nice and a little weird.

It’s not weird. One of the many upsides of “Strike Force Five” [a limited-series podcast that raised money for out-of-work staffers during the WGA strike] was going from colleagues to friends with everybody who’s in our category. They were colleagues I respected a great deal, but we all genuinely like each other. It’s almost, sadly, like you need a Writers’ Strike to give you time to make friends. 

There’s nothing more edifying than the moment where you realize you’re not, you know, on an island by yourself, that everybody has had the same things go wrong – and the same things go right. Although it’s more fun, I will say, to talk about the things that go wrong.

Q: Are you all glad that perennial category winner John Oliver is no longer in your category [Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is now in a category called Scripted Variety Series along with “Saturday Night Live”]? 

We’re thrilled. [laughs] I should say Lorne calls me all the time like, ‘You should get him back in [your category]. 

Q: One of the “Late Night With Seth Meyers” nominations is for musical direction. The 8G band is no longer going to be part of the show on-air anymore. That must be bittersweet. 

We have one more week with the 8G band, and we’ll have Fred [Armisen] back next week, which will be very bittersweet. Somebody like me never expected that they would have the luxury of a band that would play them in and out of commercial breaks for a decade. 

First of all, I have such appreciation to Emmy voters for nominating Eli [Janney] and Fred for the work they do. And Syd [Butler] and Seth [Jabour], our other two band members, that’s a nomination for them as well. And yeah, I don’t want only to be sad about it, which I am, but I also really want to be grateful for the fact that I was with that incredible group of musicians for 10 years. 

Q: In decades past, it seemed like everyone could watch “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, but it seems unlikely that a lot of J.D. Vance supporters watch your show. Do you think the culture changed or did late night?

I think post-Jon Stewart, who I really do give credit for this, everybody was allowed to be their authentic self in a way that maybe they hadn’t before. And that’s a lot more interesting way to make television, for my money. 

Q: We were talking earlier about football and you made the point that in the ‘70s there were probably more Pittsburgh Steelers fans and Dallas Cowboys fans because those two teams were so often on TV.

That’s the same reason Johnny Carson didn’t have to do politics. There was an era where we all grew up and we had, like, no choices. You know what I mean? One of the reasons you could do television differently in the ‘70s was because nobody could go anywhere else.

Q: Let me ask about Day Drinking, the segment where you drink with celebrities like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Rihanna and Kristen Stewart: Are you trying to kill yourself?

Guests are trying to kill me because it’s a real hot segment and everybody wants a piece of me. [laughs] It’s hard to say no. I do love doing it.

Q: Waking up with a new tattoo after drinking is usually a sign you’ve had too much to drink. [Meyers and Dua Lipa got tiny matching tattoos].

It is so funny how many times this summer someone has said, “I think you have a tick.”And I say, “No, that’s a tattoo I got with Dua Lipa.”  I’m like, You got a tick, bro. I got a memory.

I have a writer’s blood and so I panic during a normal remote segment when it’s out of my hands and I’m not in control of how it’s all going to cut together. And so the only way for me to relax is to just get immediately hammered. That’s why those terrible mixed drinks off the top, albeit the worst concoctions, serve an important purpose. The part of me that’s like, “This isn’t a good idea,” that part goes to bed first.

Q: Your YouTube-only show, “Corrections,” also got a nomination. How do you describe it to people who haven’t seen it?

“It’s too late; you missed the boat,” is what I would say to them. [laughs] “Corrections” was born out of the vibe we had during COVID when we were doing a show without an audience. Because there was no audience, I will admit that my ego forced me to read YouTube comments just to prove to myself that people were watching the show and I noticed how many sort of pedantic, small corrections people were making in the YouTube comments. 

I just decided it would be fun once we got the audience back to clear the audience out and do a weekly address to the jackals, as I call them who have wasted my and their time correcting the show. It has become, without exception, my favorite part of my job. 

One of my oldest friends, Pete Grosz, is a writer for our show and a really talented writer and actor. He said the nicest thing about “Corrections.” He’s like, “It only took you 20 years in television to figure out the way to get your true self on there.” Because it is, I think, that that is maybe the most like me of anything I do.

It’s become a stand-up set about our show delivered to our group. It’s not a good use of my time, but I really do love it.

Q: Speaking of standup, do you have a new special in the works? 

I have one in the can that will be coming out in October on HBO and so now I’m going to take a little bit of a break. Because sometimes my wife points out that I do comedy all week, and maybe it’s not healthy to do it all weekend. Sometimes she’ll even point at our three children, and that’s helpful. 

Q: You have two current podcasts, one with your brother Josh, “Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers,” and an “SNL”-focused one with Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, “Lonely Island with Seth Meyers.” Did you look at lucrative podcasts like “Smartless” and “Armchair Expert,” and think, Hey, maybe I should get in on this?

One thing about the ones you mentioned, they’re so good at that sort of career-spanning interview, and they do it so well that I didn’t want to try to do something that was just my version of that. Ultimately, I also wanted to use it to hang out with people I love that I don’t hang out with enough. My brother and I, you know, we couldn’t be closer, but we’re on opposite coasts … so it’s been really amazing just getting to hang with him. And I feel the same way about those Lonely Island guys. I mean, it’s probably the most important decade of my life, that 10 years that we were all at [“SNL”] together. And so 1), I love revisiting it, and 2), they’re my favorite people to revisit it with.

Somebody said a really cool thing to me, which is, “I’ve read all the [‘SNL’] books and watched all the documentaries, but I feel as though it’s a whole different dimension to what it’s like to work there [by listening to the Lonely Island podcast],” and that wasn’t our goal. I did think it would be more of a recap of the shorts, but I’m happy that maybe the most memorable part of it is that we all felt this intense anxiety that brought us really close together as friends. And ultimately, when you’re listening to a podcast, you like hearing friends and family. It is a weirdly, I don’t know, intimate thing to spend time with podcasts, and so I’m glad people are digging them.

We’re all different people based on who we’re with, and with Josh especially, I’m the [screw-up], whereas with the Lonely Island, I’m the adult. I just love the fact that it doesn’t feel like I’m working the same muscle in each one.

We all contain multitudes, and I want my multitudes to be monetized.

Q: “SNL” is turning 50 in this new season. Will you, as a former cast member and head writer, be involved with the show’s anniversary season?

I had a fair amount of involvement in the 40th but I had just left and so I felt very connected in a way that I don’t feel now, but in a healthy way. I’m certainly available for anything Lorne would want me to do, but I am not committed to do anything. For me, it’s just so surreal that it’s a full decade after the 40th, which feels like yesterday to me.

Q. I’ve heard your era on”SNL,” which included cast members like Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, referred to — by you — as “an golden era.”

Yeah, there was ‘an golden era,’ and I’m glad a lot of people are coming around to it. I’m seeing a lot of TikTok videos supporting my case.

Look, take me out of it; don’t even make this about praise for me: You look at the work that group did and I’ll tell you this, and I mean it: The easiest time in the history of the show to be head writer was when I was head writer. I’m not saying it’s an easy job. I just know for a fact that it’s never easier than the cast I got to do it with and the writing staff I got to do it with.

Q: It must be asked: Are you planning to take over for Lorne Michaels should he decide he doesn’t want to do it anymore?

Plotting, I wouldn’t say “planning.” I prefer the verb “plotting.” [laughs] No, I mean, again, I appreciate that the question needs to be asked. I really can’t stress my answer enough, which I will give until the end of days: He is irreplaceable.

He is so deeply tied to the DNA of what that show is that the very idea of a person sort of stepping into those shoes — I’m not saying someone can’t do it, but it’s beyond my comprehension to know who that person is.

This year is no different. I’m currently reading a book I’ll share in an upcoming newsletter, and it’s not a flirty rom-com about a Malibu meet-cute – though I would love to read one of those if you have recommendations. (And by the way, we’ll be sharing a fresh helping of romance recs with you soon, too.)

That said, I do often misunderstand the assignment: I once spent a good chunk of a bachelor weekend sitting by a hotel pool reading Robert Crais’s “L.A. Requiem.” And when not reading by the pool? I read in my room.

This week, though, I’m focusing on a different summer reading tradition: Pop culture-infused nonfiction, which is always a good choice for hot weather: breezy histories, juicy memoirs and refreshing dives into films, music and more.

If you’re looking for a story to get lost in as your loved ones build sandcastles or do cannonballs in the pool, one of these may be just the thing.

“Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV” by Emily Nussbaum (Out now)

With prose as bracing as a chilled Chardonnay tossed in your face, the New Yorker critic Nussbaum delivers an essential book on the development of reality TV, which is not the faint praise it may sound like. Some pop culture books can feel like overlong web posts, but Nussbaum digs deep into the genre’s origins and often-queasy mix of high-flying rhetoric and lowdown showbiz chicanery. She writes about shows you’ll remember and some you won’t, crafting deft portraits of everyone from “Candid Camera” host Allen Funt and “Gong Show” impresario Chuck Barris to the inaugural “Survivor” cast and “The Apprentice” host Donald Trump. If you love reality TV, get it. If you hate reality TV, this is still the one you’ll want to read.

“The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War” by James Shapiro (Out now)

Known for his books about Shakespeare, Shapiro has in recent years shifted his gaze to include more recent history, as in his 2020 book “Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future.” “The Playbook” examines the political turmoil that erupted in the 1930s as the Federal Theatre Project attempted to employ actors and writers to bring plays to an American public struggling under the Great Depression, and the cultural battles that ensued will sound all too familiar to modern readers. Shapiro also dispels myths about a noted all-Black cast production of “Macbeth,” which Orson Welles was long credited for masterminding but the actual story differs from the legend.

“Hip-Hop Is History” by Questlove and Ben Greenman (Out now)

Whether leading the Roots, DJing and producing music or writing books, hosting podcasts and making Oscar-winning documentaries, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has already demonstrated a vast set of skills. Despite that, he remains a discerning fan of the things he loves. This book explores the development of hip-hop, spanning from its origin story in a 1973 Bronx rec room to the 2023 Questlove-produced Grammy salute to its first half-century music.

“The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982” by Chris Nashawaty (Out now)

Was summer of 1982 the best three months – heck, the best 8 weeks – in movie theaters ever? That brief period saw the release of eight science-fiction and fantasy heavyweights: “E.T.,” “Blade Runner,” “Mad Max: The Road Warrior,” “Star Trek: Wrath of Khan,” “Poltergeist,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “The Thing” and “Tron.” Nashawaty zips nimbly through the era’s creative clashes, cost overruns and box office bombshells (and bombs) and will still have you wanting more. (I added Paul M. Sammon’s “Future Noir” about the making of “Blade Runner”to my library queue.) And there are always the films: I can personally attest that at a recent Vidiots screening of Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.” there was one man quietly bawling in my row.

The Bookshop: A History of The American Bookstore by Evan Friss (out now)

Readers of this newsletter might just be the target audience for this one — Allison K. Hill, our former book columnist and current CEO of the American Booksellers Association, is one of the interviewees. “The Bookshop” is deeply researched and packed with information about a selection of America’s bookstores from Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia bookshop to a lovingly rendered ode to the staff and regulars at Three Lives & Company in New York City. I’m reading this one slowly, because I want to make it last.

For more, go to the Books section for a range of bestsellers, interviews and more

Laurie Devore wrote part of her novel sitting on the beach in Venice

Laurie Devore is the author of the YA novels “A Better Bad Idea,” “Winner Take All,” and “How to Break a Boy.” “The Villain Edit” is her first novel for adults.

Q. Would you tell readers a little about your book, please?

“The Villain Edit” is about Jac, a down-on-her-luck romance author, who chooses to go on a reality TV dating show to revive her career. However, once these, she is confronted with Henry, a man from her very recent past who also happens to be a producer on the show. Jac soon realizes that Henry, along with the other producers, are casting her as the villain of the season, and this may not be the career comeback she had in mind.

Q. For those who don’t know, what is a “villain edit”?

The villain edit is a phrase popularized by reality TV to describe when a contestant on a show is being framed as the villain by the producers or editors of the show. The villain edit is not necessarily a moral judgement on the person who receives the edit – it is left up to the audience to determine whether the contestant is a true villain or is just receiving a bad edit.

Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?

For fellow fans of romance and women’s fiction, I always recommend “The Royal We” by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. It is a delicious contemporary royal romance with fully realized characters and it ALWAYS makes me cry both happy and sad tears.

Q. What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that has stayed with you from a recent reading?

I recently read “Piglet” by Lottie Hazell and there is a moment in the book that stopped me in my tracks. The main character’s life is crumbling around her and she escapes to a local greasy spoon-type restaurant to indulge in her binge eating habit. Once there, she is confronted with several lies she has told to cover up the mess of her life. While reading the scene, I was so horrified and caught up in the narrative, I felt like it was happening to me. Like a big movie setpiece, I think that scene will be on my mind for a long time.

Q. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?

I LOVE audiobooks and often take long walks so to enjoy listening to them. A recent favorite audiobook series of mine was “The Atlas Six” series by Olivie Blake, which has an incredible full cast of characters. I also love Kiley Reid’s “Come & Get It” audiobook, a laugh-out-loud satire of Southern college life I could not put down.

I was lucky enough that one of my favorite audiobook narrators, Stephanie Nemeth-Parker, read “The Villain Edit” and did an incredible job. It may be taboo to admit to laughing at your own jokes, but Stephanie’s reading amped everything up a notch and I couldn’t help it.

Q. Which books are you planning to read next?

This is a loaded question as I have SO many books on my TBR right now. A couple I have in the pipeline are “A Love Song for Rikki Wilde” by Tia Williams, “Honey” by Isabel Banta, and “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” by Rufi Thorpe.

Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?

I was lucky enough to be able to go on a research trip to Los Angeles while writing “The Villain Edit.” I found it really helped me focus the tone and aesthetics of the book. Every day, I would walk down to the beach from my rented Airstream in Venice Beach and watch the sunset. I often took my laptop there with me and wrote on the beach during those evenings.

For more about the author, go to her website.

More bestsellers, authors and book stories

What came after Camelot

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Western ‘Heart’

22 years later, author Kevin Barry found the key to a novel he’d long meant to write. READ MORE

On ‘Getting to Know Death’

At 85, Gail Godwin survived a broken neck. She reveals her ‘extra life’ in new book. READ MORE

‘Bird Milk’ memoir

From Kashmir to Hollywood, Priyanka Mattoo looks back in new memoir. READ MORE

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Q: Would you tell readers about your novel?

“The Ministry of Time” is a tragicomic time-travel romance about empire, bureaucracy and cigarettes. It follows Graham Gore, a Victorian naval officer and ‘expat’ from a doomed 19th century Arctic expedition to the 21st century; and the book’s narrator, his ‘bridge’ – a civil servant who works as a liaison, helpmeet and supervisor for expats from history. I was partly inspired by Graham Greene novels and James Bond films, partly inspired by the history of British polar exploration, and partly just really wanted to mash these two characters together like Barbie dolls to make them kiss.

Q: Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?

I don’t know about ‘always’ – it depends on the reader and the situation – but I can tell you I’ve been recommending “Beautyland” by Marie-Helene Bertino to everyone since I read it last month. It’s incredibly funny, it has a sort of deceptive weightlessness of prose that is doing major emotional heavy lifting, and it moved me so much that I finished it on a plane and was weeping so hard that I forgot I’m terrified of flying.

Incidentally, if anyone read that and thought, “Oh, I love novels that make me feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach [complimentary],” I also recommend “A Burning” by Megha Majumdar and “The Storm We Made” by Vanessa Chan.

Q: What are you reading now?

I’ve just finished “Real Americans” by Rachel Khong – what a belter of a novel! I slammed the last page at about 1 a.m. last night and went, “Now that’s writing!” to my fiancé (asleep). I’ve also been in a reading group for James Joyce’s “Ulysses” for the past nine months. We’re finishing the book on Bloomsday. I really don’t know what I’ll do when Joyce’s fart jokes are no longer a part of my regular reading landscape.

Q: How do you decide what to read next?

I have so many TBR piles around my house that the decision has been taken out of my hands. I’m trying to work my way through them.

Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

My joint edition of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll. It was the first book I read by myself as a small child. I thought – and still think – it was a stupendous work of playfulness and strangeness. I love the way Carroll treated language as plastic, elastic, and endlessly mouldable. I can still recite ‘Jabberwocky’ by heart and half the words in that aren’t real.

Q: Is there a book you’re nervous to read?

I’m planning on shunting the “Ulysses” gang into a long group read of “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo, but I’m worried it won’t be as fun (fewer fart jokes), or that we’ll lose momentum because it is so large and requires a fair bit of commitment. I’ve never even seen the musical so I don’t know what to expect. Anna Hathaway has a bad time, I think?

Q: Can you recall a book that felt like it was written with you in mind (or conversely, one that most definitely wasn’t)?

Pretty much anything written by Kingsley Amis feels like it was written against me, even as I find him very funny (in a ghastly way) and an effortless stylist. I identified with Margaret Peel in “Lucky Jim” out of sheer pique.

Q. What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that has stayed with you from a recent reading?

I recently read “The Conquest of Bread” by Peter Kropotkin and I was amazed by his empathy for and understanding of the contribution of unwaged domestic labour and care work – chiefly performed by women – to the economy and to communities. It really cheered me up to imagine that a man in 1892 (!!!) was already certain that the emancipation of women had to involve liberation from, or truly equal sharing of, those forms of unwaged labour.

Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?

Yes, it’s the cover of “The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley, available from all good bookshops.

Q: Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?

I don’t listen to audiobooks. My brain goes for a walk and I miss key plot points. I’d experience “Anna Karenina” as a novella.

Q: Is there a genre or type of book you read the most – and what would you like to read more of?

I read a lot of literary fiction and classic fiction. I’d like to read more classic SFF. Over the course of the “Ministry” book tour, I’ve also met a lot of romance writers and booksellers, and I’ve found them so welcoming, smart and unpretentious. I’d love to read more romance.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or books?

Too many to list. I can tell you that my most re-read books are from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. They have sometimes felt like a life raft to me.

Q: Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

On the TBR pile next to my bed (as distinct from, say, the TBR pile in my office, the other TBR pile in my officer, and my TBR pile at work), the next two books are “Thousand Cranes” by Yasunari Kawabata (in Edward G. Seidensticker’s translation), and Aristotle’s “Poetics” (in Malcolm Heath’s translation). They are both extremely short. “Ulysses” has been so very long, you see. Brilliant, and one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, but so. very. long.

Q: Is there a person who made impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

My grandmother – my dad’s mother – wanted me to be Extremely Literate, on the grounds that this was how one got on in life. (Regrettably I think you have to be Extremely Numerate, which I am not.) I was given a copy of Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” when I was a small child, along with the aforementioned copy of “Alice in Wonderland.” When I was about 11, she gave me “Frost in May” by Antonia White (she’d been brought up in a Catholic convent) which blew my tiny mind; and “Masquerade” by Kit Williams, which I was simply not clever enough to solve but I liked looking at anyway.

Q: What do you find the most appealing in a book: the plot, the language, the cover, a recommendation? Do you have any examples?

The language. There’s no particular style that I prefer, but I most admire style that feels deliberate and crafted, that’s serving a particular purpose. I also like it when you can see the writer just doing gymnastics at sentence level. That’s very fun. I know that, e.g., Sheena Patel, Francis Spufford, Julia Armfield, Bryan Washington, Ben Marcus, Raven Leilani and A.K. Blakemore are all doing extremely different things – but I think they’re all being deliberate and also brilliant. This is also why I think translators are so important, and why it’s always worth naming the translator of a book; their creative and stylistic choices will change the way you read a work in translation.

Q: What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share? 

I read “As Meat Loves Salt” by Maria McCann when I had COVID during a 40-degree Celsius [104 degree Fahrenheit] heatwave and it felt like the text was happening just behind my left shoulder (I was very feverish). I got COVID again earlier this year, while I was reading “City of Corpses” by Yoko Ota (in Richard Minear’s translation). It’s about the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, which Ota survived. I do not recommend reading this book when you are very sick and distressed as it is.

Q: What’s something about your book that no one knows?

Well, that would be telling.

Q: If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?

Is “Les Misérables” any good?

For more about the novel, go to the Kaliane Bradley author page

Just ask the author.

“I was sitting in my office, working away; air conditioning was on. I’m in London on a foggy, cold day in winter, and I thought I’d better stop for a bite to eat,” says Winspear during a Zoom interview a few days before the June 4 publication of her latest book, “The Comfort of Ghosts.” “I came out of my office into the garden, and went, ‘Oh my god!’ I had a real culture shock.”

Turns out, that dank London fog had all been in her imagination. She was at home in 21st-century California. 

“I was in Ojai writing. I’d had the curtains closed because, you know, it’s bright and sunny out there and it was a very hot day,” says the British-born author who has lived in the United States for 34 years, mainly in California and the Pacific Northwest. 

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“I just was so immersed I didn’t realize where I was. It’s easy to do that, but I guess I’m so well-practiced now that I can really drop into the era I write about. I can drop into the story.” 

However, the author says she isn’t planning to drop in on Maisie Dobbs anymore.

After 18 books about psychologist and investigator Dobbs and her supporting cast of characters, Winspear announced that “The Comfort of Ghosts” is the final book of the series, which she began writing 24 years ago and first published in 2003. Winspear says the novel, without giving away spoilers, aims to provide a satisfying accounting for all the main characters.

“It’s not a new decision,” she says about ending the series. “I wanted there to be an arc to the overall body of work, not just an arc to each story.

“It’s bittersweet because I’m saying goodbye to the characters. But the great thing is, I have my body of work. It’s there, it’s solid, and it’s not drifting off anywhere,” she says. “I didn’t see the point of carrying on a series or coming up with plots just to carry on … I had done what I needed to do with them, what I wanted to do.”

The novel’s publication also brings Winspear back to her first publisher, Soho Crime, which first launched the series. “The Comfort of Ghosts” is dedicated to the late Laura Hruska, Soho’s co-founder and Winspear’s first editor.

“There was just something right about the idea of coming full circle,” she says. “It was as if, you know, it was the arc to my story.” 

Way Out West

Winspear wrote a moving tribute to the character Maisie Dobbs in a newsletter published June 4, in which she also revealed the very California origins of this very British character. (She followed up with another update on June 10 to say she’d broken a bone in her foot while at the airport and needed to put her appearances on hold.)

“You certainly changed my life, the day you walked into my imagination while I was stuck in traffic,” writes Winspear about Maisie Dobbs. “By the time I reached the office, I had your whole story in my head, even though I had not written a word of fiction since childhood.”

Considering that Winspear has lived here so long, does she consider herself a California writer?

“I think a lot of there’s a lot of California in me,” she says in a crisp British accent, adding that she’s occasionally mistaken for an American when visiting friends in the U.K. “Have I changed? There are things about me that have changed, but there are also my foundations, which are very firmly British.”

Speaking from her home in the Pacific Northwest, where she spends a lot of time, she explained how she landed in Ojai.

“When I first came to California, I lived in Ventura County, and I always liked Ojai very much because it’s got that small-town feel, and it has a great bookshop, good old Bart’s books,” says Winspear. “It was actually for my husband’s health; he needed to live in a more stable climate. And also, my brother lived there … it’s nice to have family close by.”

Winspear speculated on another reason that might have led to her move out West. “My dad loved cowboys. We watched American TV shows when I was a kid,” she says. “America was the shining star on the hill.”

Family stories

Winspear’s 2020 memoir about growing up in rural England, “This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing,” is rich in detail about her early life and provides glimpses into the inspirations for her work. Her interest in the past was piqued during her peripatetic childhood, which at times involved living on a farm without indoor plumbing

“Storytelling was big in my family … Everything became something to talk about,” she says. “Where we lived, there weren’t many kids; there were actually a lot of elderly people. And ever since I was a little girl, someone only had to say, ’Well, in my day…’ and I was ears flapping, you know? I couldn’t wait to hear about ‘their day.’”

The Maisie Dobbs novels, which span the period between the two World Wars, combine history and mystery, often exploring the visible and invisible effects of violence and trauma upon soldiers and people back home. Winspear’s interest in the experiences of soldiers in the First World War arose in part from her interactions with her own grandfather.

“Veterans don’t have finite dates for their wars. My grandfather, who was severely wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, was still removing shrapnel from his legs when he died, aged 77, in 1966,” says Winspear, who wrote in her memoir about seeing her grandfather massaging his scarred legs and picking metal splinters from out of his skin.

She recounts a beloved teacher and neighbor who told her about seeing a WWI veteran with severe facial wounds, a story that both haunted her and helped inspire elements of the first novel. That teacher, Ken Leech, and his wife Pat, influenced Winspear in other ways: their passion and care for animals found a willing audience in the author. (In her recent essay, Winspear, a dog lover who trains in the equestrian sport of dressage, praises her “writing buddies,” the dogs who dozed under her desk as she wrote. During our conversation, she talked about volunteering at the Humane Society and spoke passionately about aiding horses endangered by the war in Ukraine.)

Winspear says the memoir helped her unearth memories that had played an important part of her life, but she’d not been consciously aware of.

“When I wrote my memoir, I recounted a conversation between me and my mother that I realized has underpinned everything I’ve written for the last 24 years,” says Winspear. “I only realized it a few years ago when I wrote the memoir.”

Winspear’s formidable mother – who told her daughter many stories, including that she’d been pulled from the rubble of a bombed-out building during the London Blitz – at one time worked as an administrator in Britain’s prison system, and Winspear recalls asking her mother about the young offenders at the detention center and how they had ended up there.

“She said, ‘You know, Jackie, it’s because someone, somewhere along the line, didn’t care enough,’” says Winspear. “That had such an impact, and I didn’t know it. It was almost as if it nestled in my heart and stayed there.

“I realized it’s underpinned the character of Maisie Dobbs. I wanted to write about people who cared enough amid everything that’s happened,” she says. “I wanted to write about a character that cares enough through the best and worst of times.”

Farewell, Maisie

Having concluded the series, Winspear has “several” new projects underway, including a more lighthearted story about a character who’d previously had a small role in the saga. For that one, or perhaps another, Winspear is already doing prep.

“I’m doing the research right now, and I’ve got a trip planned later in the year. I’m not even going to tell you where I’m going,” she says. “Because I’ll give the game away.” 

So she’s got plenty to do, but it must be asked: Won’t it be hard to say goodbye to Maisie Dobbs? 

“My story is wrapped up in the story of Maisie Dobbs,” she says. “I don’t think she’s ever going to leave my head.” 

And that’s when the novelist saw a message from his literary agent: Call me.

But Battles didn’t have a moment to spare, making it on the plane as the doors closed behind him. 

“I couldn’t even make the call; I had zero time,” says Battles during a Zoom interview. “Once I got to Europe, I had to wait another six hours because now she was asleep.” 

Battles, a novelist with more than 40 books to his credit, including his Jonathan Quinn thriller series, had served as a co-writer on a Stuart Woods’ novel, “Obsession,” about former CIA operative turned Hollywood producer character Teddy Fay. 

“I wrote spy books and I worked in Hollywood,” says Battles of how he came to co-write the Fay novel. “We worked together to do that book. … Two weeks after I turned it in, Stuart passed away in his sleep. I honestly thought that was it; I wouldn’t be playing in his universe anymore.”

So as he strolled around Lake Zurich with friends, Battles tried to stay awake and stave off jet lag until he connected with his agent and got the news: Stuart Woods had been working on a new novel in his popular series of books about cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington when he died. Would Battles be willing to come on and write the rest of the book?

“They were interested in having me finish it. So that was a very shocking moment for me. And of course, I said, ‘Well, yes, please, I would love to do that,’” says Battles, who immediately got to work on what would be published as 2023’s “Near Miss.”

“This was October and they needed it by December 15. And, of course, I was at the beginning of a two-week trip also. I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ … Who’s going to pass up on that opportunity?” says the author. 

Battles threw himself into the challenge, reading Woods’ drafts and listening to the audiobook versions of the novels while on his trip. “I’m making notes, I’m listening to books and going on tours with everybody when I can,” he says. “And then came home and just got to work.”

It sounds like his traveling companions were an understanding bunch.

“Very understanding. They think more highly of the fact that they have a friend who’s an author than I think they should.” he laughs.

Into the Woods

Battles has just published his first solo Stone Barrington novel, “Stuart Woods’ Smolder,” which arrived in stores June 4. The thriller, which includes stops in New York, Los Angeles and Santa Fe, involves art, arson, forgery, fraud, revenge, romance, and the legacy of Barrington’s mother, a painter. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Barrington and his previous 60+ adventures, he seems in the mold of well-to-do crime fighters such as Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, Batman, and “The Thin Man” team of Nick and Nora Charles. Barrington is a wealthy lawyer with charm, good looks and important friends. These include several former U.S. presidents, the heads of MI6 and the CIA, and his sometime girlfriend, who happens to be the sitting president of the United States.

“It’s a really fun world to play in. Stone has enough money to do whatever he wants, or whatever he needs to do, but he still works,” says Battles. “The jokes and the quips and everything – that’s the charm of the novels … they’re enjoyable and just keep you entertained.”

“It’s a very rich world,” says Battles, referring to its creative possibilities before joking about its high-end appeal. “And then it’s also a very rich world.”

Despite collaborating on a book while Woods was alive, Battles says his face-to-face interactions with the author had been brief.

“I had in person only met him twice,” says Battles, who explained that they’d been on a panel at a festival and then later appeared together at a Skylight Books event. “We may have passed and shaken hands, but that’s about it.”

When it comes to bridging his own efforts with all the stories that came before, Battles says he scoured the novels, taking note of anything he might be able to refer or call back to. In “Smolder,” for example, a beach house briefly mentioned in an earlier novel plays a role in the new adventure, which is one way of connecting Battles’ work to Woods’.

“It’s his stuff, but I like to think I’m keeping it alive,” says Battles.

In his own world

Battles and this reporter, full disclosure, first crossed paths more than 15 years ago; we worked for the same company and he signed a copy of his first Jonathan Quinn novel, “The Cleaner,” for me in my office. Last year, we ran into each other at Bouchercon, the mystery writers’ convention in San Diego, and caught up.

Battles, who had worked on various Hollywood projects over the years, told me that he’d always known what his calling was.

“I always wanted to be a writer. In fifth grade, I was telling people I was going to be a novelist. And that was always what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know exactly how to get there. So I went to Cal State Northridge and got a degree in television & film because I also liked film,” he says.

But after working at a TV studio, a graphics company and a cable TV channel, he began to wonder if he’d ever achieve his dream. “I had just kind of fallen into this whole visual arts portion of entertainment while all the time I wanted to be a writer.”

So he decided to get serious about making it happen.

“I actually lived very close to the office so that I could walk and have more time to write in the mornings,” he says. “And then after work, I’d write for an hour or two.”

“In three years, I wrote three books while working,” he says. “That’s always what I wanted to do. I was starting to think I’d never get there and so that’s why I put on the turbo to get stuff done.”

Battles, who is contracted to do more Teddy Fay and Stone Barrington titles, says he’s also currently at work on two related series of his own, which will take him into some new territory. “I love apocalyptic fiction and so I just kind of wanted to play with that a little bit and see what would happen,” says Battles. “I can do it – so, why not?”

Continental draft

As he was working on his next Woods’ novel, Battles says he felt a bit of déjà vul. While making it clear that it was no one’s fault, just a scheduling quirk, he says his deadline for the manuscript changed so the due date coincided with, yes, a vacation overseas.

“I thought, ‘OK, I’ll work on the trip.’ So I’m on another river cruise, getting up early and working on that,” he says. “I literally finished the draft of that book in the airport 45 minutes before we boarded the plane to come home.”

“Maybe I should not go to Europe anymore,” he says. “That’s the message I’m getting.”

That’s what we were left with when I last wrote about Janet Halverson, the creator of iconic book covers from the 1950s to the 1990s, including Joan Didion’s “Play It As It Lays,” Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur.”

Despite creating indelible designs for classic books, Halverson herself is largely unknown and unheralded. And that shouldn’t be.

That’s what Michael Russem, book designer and owner of Katherine Small Gallery near Boston, thought. So after years of tracking down everything he could about Halverson and her work, Russem mounted an exhibit of her designs.

As Russem, who’s also a friend, told me earlier this year, he’d been shocked at how little information there was.

“There’s nothing about her anywhere. There are all sorts of magazine articles about these other guys, but nothing about her,” he’d said then. “Graphic designers … all recognize her work and recognize it as being good. But she just went unnoticed, which is true of all the women of her generation. There are no magazine articles about any of them.”

Even after years of searching, he’d come up empty. Then something changed.

“I got an email not long after your article came out from one of Janet’s nieces,” Russem told me this week, adding that Halverson’s niece Susan lives a little more than 10 miles away from him. “She’d found your piece online.”

“That is something I never expected to happen,” says Russem about connecting with a family member so near. “Somehow we caught her at just the right time.”

Halverson’s niece told him that the designer had died in early 2018, having spent the last few years of her life battling Alzheimer’s disease. Russem invited Susan and her husband to come see what he’d collected.

“They came to the store. Unfortunately, the show had just closed. So we didn’t get to look at the show, but I pulled out some of the books and we talked about them … Janet was Susan’s aunt, not ‘a famous graphic designer,’ so I learned about her as a person, not necessarily what she thought about design,” he says.

I asked Russem how they’d described Halverson. She could be challenging in certain circumstances, he was told, but she could also be a charmer.

“She was smart and funny. She skipped grades in school, which explains how she graduated from college at age 19 – that was something I’d always found weird. She hung out with artists and writers and she lived the life of an artist. And then when she was no longer designing,” he told me. “She switched to painting.”

Was there anything he learned about her work? Apparently, Russem says, Halverson loathed her design for the ’70s blockbuster novel “The Thorn Birds” – the publisher had insisted on a naturalistic illustration – and never wanted to see it again.

Halverson’s niece remembered seeing her aunt’s designs in bookstores as a child. How did she and her husband respond to an entire exhibit devoted to the work?

“They were kind of surprised by all this, even though they had known from googling her that people were interested,” says Russem, who then poses his own question. “Why were people interested? There was just something special about her work – and then to know this work was made by a woman at a time when women weren’t getting any attention made her story even more special.”

Despite the belief that Halverson’s materials, papers and letters did not survive, it’s possible there will be more to unravel, more to learn. A library sciences student has already reached out to Russem about Halverson’s work, he says.

And for Russem, connecting with Halverson’s family was a powerful experience on its own, whatever comes next.

“Oh my gosh, I was ecstatic, because I’d hoped that this would provide all the missing answers,” says Russem. “It didn’t, which I’m almost glad for because then it would mean this was all done and over.”

See more of Russem’s collection of Halverson’s designs at The People’s Graphic Design Archive or visit Katherine Small Gallery.

Jenny Erpenbeck, International Booker Prize winner, in Southern California

This week, the writer Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize for her novel, “Kairos.” Translator Michael Hofmann shares the prize with her.

Just a few days prior, I ventured out to the Wende Museum in Culver City to see Erpenbeck in conversation with Louise Steinman. It was a blustery day and a community event in the park nearby added to the festivities (and the dearth of parking), but it was a pleasure to return to the unusual museum, which is a “art museum, cultural center, and archive of the Cold War.”

Held outside, the discussion was a little hard to hear in some spots, but it was being recorded (I reached out to the museum to find out if it would be made available to the public but hadn’t heard back as I wrote this). Erpenbeck, as she began to read from “Kairos,” joked that Southern California was good for her: “I don’t need my glasses. I become younger here.”

Afterward, I was able to chat with the author for a few minutes as the book signing got underway, mentioning that I’d been introduced to her work by Jean Gillingwators who runs Blackbird Press in Upland and who has great, eclectic taste in books (so I may have picked up a copy for her along with my own from Village Well, which was the event vendor).

And in keeping with the event’s small world feeling, I also ran into Laura Silverstein and Tom Nissley of the excellent Phinney Books, one of my favorite bookstores in Seattle, who were visiting. (Tom is another Backlisted podcast fan, too.) They were with Krank Press printer Elinor Nissley and jack-of-all-cool-trades Alex MacInnis who made a series of audio programs called Valley of Smoke that I really liked. They’re an accomplished bunch – google Tom’s “Jeopardy” run, for example – but also friendly folks. It made the day even better.

Why am I sharing all this? Possibly as a suggestion that it can be a good idea to go to an in-person author reading and pick up a signed book or three. Or that Southern California had the International Man Booker Prize winner in our midst, and it was pretty terrific.

Julia Hannafin likes the covers of old paperback novels

Julia Hannafin is the author of the novel “Cascade,” published in April by independent press Great Place Books. They have worked as a staff writer on Showtime’s “The L Word: Generation Q” and as an assistant to screenwriter Eric Roth while he was writing the script for Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune.” 

Q: How do you decide what to read next?

A mix of friends’ recommendations, Twitter, and following the syllabi of the online classes I’ve taken after college. Rabbit holes of writers I admire.

Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

I was a big reader as a kid and don’t remember the first. But I loved Gabrielle Zevin’s “Elsewhere” and her vision of an afterlife. I read the Tamora Pierce series on Alanna’s journey to becoming a knight cover to cover. And my middle school English teacher made us memorize poems and perform them, which introduced me to e.e. cummings, who showed me I could do whatever I wanted with nouns and verbs.

Q: What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that stayed with you from a recent reading?

I’m thinking about what Hanif Abdurraqib said in a recent interview, how in a desire to love someone in a big way, we can rush to love the imagined person, not the actual. Also, from Maya Binyam’s “Hangman”: “I tried to go home — home was inside of me.” And from Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” “If you can’t fix it you got a stand it. … I been looking at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?”

Q: Do you have any favorite book covers?

I love small, ‘70s and ‘80s style paperbacks — graphic and bright and simple. I also love the Clarice Lispector series of books where her portrait comes together in four parts.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or books?

“Things We Lost in The Fire” by Mariana Enríquez, “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson, “The Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, “To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf.

Q: Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

José Saramago’s “Blindness.”

Q: What’s something about your book that no one knows?

I think part of my writing this book was an attempt to understand my mom Dawn better, whose father, my grandfather, died from a heart attack and the disease of alcoholism. She was pregnant with me when he died.

More books, authors and bestsellers

The week’s bestsellers

The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE

• • •

Band(member) on the run

A disgraced K-pop star hides in Southern California. ‘The Band’ tells the story. READ MORE

• • •

Lush life

A ’90s pop star, Miki Berenyi tells her own story ahead of LA show. READ MORE

• • •

‘Blue’ Clues

Hari Kunzru’s “Blue Ruin” examines love and relationships during lockdown. READ MORE

• • •

Avian calling

Amy Tan hopes “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” makes you a conservationist. READ MORE

• • •

Book pitch

Why Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw agreed to a new biography. READ MORE

Next on ‘Bookish’

Check out the next event with Alex Espinoza and Mike Madrid

June 21 at 5 p.m. Sign up for free now.

• • •

Have you read anything you’d like to share with other readers? Email epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

And if you enjoy this free newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone who likes books or getting a digital subscription to support local coverage.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

“I like the film quite a bit, and I appreciate the fact that it is not my novel. Cord Jefferson mined my novel and took what he needed to make his film,” Everett says. “And that’s what he’s supposed to do.”

Just don’t expect to see Everett, who is not known for seeking the spotlight, appearing at the Hollywood event in the future.

“We did go, and there’s no need to ever go again,” he laughs, adding that he had a “fine” time. “The attention to the work is nice, but … it was hard to sit through. But at least in between during the commercial breaks, you can wander outside.”

One of the nation’s most acclaimed novelists as well as the Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, Everett possesses a work ethic that is legendary: He’s published more than 30 books, and his most recent novels — “Dr. No,” “The Trees” and “Telephone” — have landed on various shortlists including for the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the NBCC Award for Fiction and more. (And he still finds time to paint, fish and play guitar.)

When we meet up on Zoom to discuss his new novel, “James,” Everett is dressed casually and seated in his South Pasadena home office surrounded by books, assorted gear and stringed instruments. In the book, which may be his best yet, the story of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is narrated by the enslaved character Jim rather than Huck Finn.

In Everett’s version, Jim — or, as the character writes when he puts pencil to paper, “James” — reveals himself to be a richer, more complex character: He’s a considerate and loving parent, a teacher and thinker, a builder and fixer of most anything, and a self-taught reader and writer (through his surreptitious visits to Judge Thatcher’s library). He is also a determined man wary of the ways in which slavery not only robs the enslaved of their physical freedom and personal safety, but also aims to stifle intellectual and emotional freedom.

Throughout our conversation, Everett provided thoughtful, wryly humorous responses as we discussed the novel, Twain, “The Andy Griffith Show” and more. (And full disclosure: While this was our first-ever conversation, our spouses were once employed at the same college and know each other.)

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Was ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ a book you had strong feelings about? What drew you to writing your own version?

A. Well, you know, it has an iconic stature in the literary culture. It’s a novel we know even if we don’t know it. I read it as a little kid in an abridged version, which didn’t do anything for me.

I love Twain. I didn’t like ‘Tom Sawyer’ at all, but I loved ‘Roughing It,’ I loved ‘Life on the Mississippi,’ and there was another one that was just crazy, ‘The Mysterious Stranger,’ that no one talks about, ‘The Diaries of Adam and Eve.’ Hilarious stuff.

And so, much of my humor was shaped by Twain, and then when I was older, I did read the unabridged “Huck Finn” and even as a teenager, the depiction of Jim, naively on my part, is problematic. It’s not until I was a little more mature and understood Twain and his position in the culture that I could understand that depiction. Maybe not excuse it completely, but understand it.

Q. Can you talk a little more about that?

A. The novel really is America wandering through this landscape, trying to figure itself out. That’s what Huck is. Huck is the quintessential adolescent American. And I don’t mean 12-year-old American; I mean, 12-year-old America, that young country trying to come to grips with race. And so it really is an important text.

It’s the first novel where it’s about a person who is subjected to slavery and not about slavery. And so with that in my head, I just wondered if anyone had written it from Jim’s point of view. Since then, I found out that there is a short story — I still haven’t seen it – about Jim after the novel. But I was shocked to find out that no one had written one — and then I realized I hadn’t thought of it either, so I couldn’t really blame anybody.

Q. One of the most striking things about the character Jim is how you evoke his concern for his family, for others, and for Huck.

A. Even in “Huck Finn,” the only positive father figure — well, maybe Judge Thatcher, peripherally — that Huck has is Jim. I suppose in some readings it can be reduced to “companion,” but the only positive male role model for him is Jim.

Q. People — like Tom Sawyer, Pap or other adults in his life — are often telling Huck things that aren’t true, but Jim, who is narrating and relating his own story, is possibly the only person telling the truth.

A. I hadn’t thought about that so much, but I like that take on it. For Jim, there’s something at stake in his being able to explore ideas in a literary way. At the other end of that, for him, is a freedom that he can’t physically enjoy.

Q. Can you talk about the elements you introduced to the story and what you decided to leave out?

A. Well, since in the novel, Jim and Huck are separated a lot of the time, those were easy. And since it’s from Jim’s point of view, the dangers inherent in any of those scenes where they are together are different, as well as that it’s through the eyes of an adult rather than a child.

This is not a complaint at all about Twain, but I’m thinking less to entertain than I am to interrogate. And so when I have a chance to work with [con men characters] the duke and the dauphin, my mission is different from Twain’s.

Q. Your novel is affecting, harrowing and, it has to be said, often extremely funny. How did you navigate all those elements?

A. I’m pathologically ironic, and I think any humor that I employ is a result of that irony. I would be a terrible comedian. I’m no good at making up jokes, but just observing an absurd world.

Do you remember “The Andy Griffith Show”? They can wear on you if watch them, but one of the things that I found great about that show — and I found out later that Griffith worked hard on this — is that there’s not a single joke in it. It’s all story-generated — all the humor is story-generated, except for Don Knotts’ physical humor. That was kind of an object lesson to see that.

Q. Jim has hallucinations in which he debates the philosophers Locke and Voltaire. What made you decide to do that?

A. Well, again, irony: The Declaration of Independence, being penned by the gnostic Thomas Jefferson, a figure of the Enlightenment like Voltaire and Locke who can espouse equality among men but yet find ways to rationalize slavery.

Q. You’ve mentioned that you have a tradition where you will write a book in the place you first started it. Where did you start this book and write it?

A. I was at the coffee table. Yeah, that’s pretty much where it happened.

Q. Earlier, you said you don’t remember your books, and I wonder if that’s similar to a reader’s experience — how we can be invested in a book only to find later that it’s hard to recall details of what happened in the story. Is that like what you’re describing?

A. I think that’s probably close to it. I know that sometimes when people remind me of things in my novels, it takes me a while to catch up.

Sometimes it’ll be vivid, other times it’ll be completely new, and I kind of like that. I especially like when they have ideas about what it means that I never thought of. I immediately take credit for it: “This is a great idea; of course, I meant that.” [laughs]

Q. Is that disorienting?

A. Oh, no. It’s just fascinating. People see their own worlds; the work doesn’t exist without a reader and meaning can’t happen without a reader. I wasn’t writing it to convince myself of anything. Lord knows why I was writing it, but there it is.

Q. So after you’ve written it, you no longer need to try to control it.

A. I can’t control it, so why worry about it? I suppose I could go hang out in front of bookstores and explain things to the six people who leave with my book. [laughs]

Q. If you do, please call me. That sounds great.

A. Anything I say about one of my works can be completely disregarded.

Erik Pedersen is a reporter with the Orange County Register.

First-time filmmaker Cord Jefferson, who adapted Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure” to make the film “American Fiction,” won for best adapted screenplay and delivered a rousing acceptance speech that was one of the evening’s highlights.

“I like the film quite a bit, and I appreciate the fact that it is not my novel. Cord Jefferson mined my novel and took what he needed to make his film,” says Everett. “And that’s what he’s supposed to do.”

Just don’t expect to see Everett, who is not known for seeking the spotlight, appearing at the Hollywood event in the future.

“We did go, and there’s no need to ever go again,” he laughs, adding that he had a “fine” time. “The attention to the work is nice, but … it was hard to sit through. But at least in between during the commercial breaks, you can wander outside.”

One of the nation’s most acclaimed novelists as well as the Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, Everett’s work ethic is legendary: He’s published more than 30 books, and his most recent novels — “Dr. No,” “The Trees,” and “Telephone” — have landed on various shortlists including for the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the NBCC Award for Fiction and more. (And he still finds time to paint, fish and play guitar.)

When we meet up on Zoom to discuss his just-published new novel, “James,” Everett is dressed casually and seated in his South Pasadena home office surrounded by books, assorted gear and stringed instruments. In the book, which may be his best yet, the story of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is narrated by the enslaved character Jim rather than Huck Finn.

In Everett’s version, Jim — or as the character writes when he puts pencil to paper, “James” — reveals himself to be a richer, more complex character: He’s a considerate and loving parent, a teacher and thinker, a builder and fixer of most anything and a self-taught reader and writer (through his surreptitious visits to Judge Thatcher’s library). He is also a determined man wary of the ways in which slavery not only robs the enslaved of their physical freedom and personal safety, but also how the barbaric practice aims to stifle intellectual and emotional freedom, too.

Throughout our conversation, Everett provided thoughtful, wryly humorous responses as we discussed the novel, Twain, “The Andy Griffith Show” and more. (And full disclosure: While this was our first-ever conversation, our spouses were once employed at the same college and know each other.)

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Was ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ a book you had strong feelings about? What drew you to writing your own version?

Well, you know, it has an iconic stature in the literary culture. It’s a novel we know even if we don’t know it. I read it as a little kid in an abridged version, which didn’t do anything for me. 

I love Twain. I didn’t like ‘Tom Sawyer’ at all, but I loved ‘Roughing It,’ I loved ‘Life on the Mississippi,’ and there was another one that was just crazy, ‘The Mysterious Stranger,’ that no one talks about, ‘The Diaries of Adam and Eve.’ Hilarious stuff.

And so, much of my humor was shaped by Twain, and then when I was older, I did read the unabridged ‘Huck Finn’ and even as a teenager, the depiction of Jim, naively on my part, is problematic. It’s not until I was a little more mature and understood Twain and his position in the culture that I could understand that depiction. Maybe not excuse it completely, but understand it.

Q. Can you talk a little more about that?

The novel really is America wandering through this landscape, trying to figure itself out. That’s what Huck is. Huck is the quintessential adolescent American. And I don’t mean 12-year-old American; I mean, 12-year-old America, that young country trying to come to grips with race. And so it really is an important text. 

It’s the first novel where it’s about a person who is subjected to slavery and not about slavery. And so with that in my head, I just wondered if anyone had written it from Jim’s point of view. Since then, I found out that there is a short story — I still haven’t seen it – about Jim after the novel. But I was shocked to find out that no one had written one — and then I realized I hadn’t thought of it either, so I couldn’t really blame anybody. 

Q. One of the most striking things about the character Jim is how you evoke his concern for his family, for others, and for Huck.

Even in ‘Huck Finn,’ the only positive father figure — well, maybe Judge Thatcher, peripherally — that Huck has is Jim. I suppose in some readings it can be reduced to ‘companion,’ but the only positive male role model for him is Jim.

Q. People — like Tom Sawyer, Pap or other adults in his life — are often telling Huck things that aren’t true, but Jim, who is narrating and relating his own story, is possibly the only person telling the truth. 

I hadn’t thought about that so much, but I like that take on it. For Jim, there’s something at stake in his being able to explore ideas in a literary way. At the other end of that, for him, is a freedom that he can’t physically enjoy.

Q. Can you talk about the elements you introduced to the story and what you decided to leave out?

Well, since in the novel, Jim and Huck are separated a lot of the time, those were easy. And since it’s from Jim’s point of view, the dangers inherent in any of those scenes where they are together are different, as well as that it’s through the eyes of an adult rather than a child.

This is not a complaint at all about Twain, but I’m thinking less to entertain than I am to interrogate. And so when I have a chance to work with [con men characters] the duke and the dauphin, my mission is different from Twain’s.

Q. Your novel is affecting, harrowing and, it has to be said, often extremely funny. How did you navigate all those elements?

I’m pathologically ironic, and I think any humor that I employ is a result of that irony. I would be a terrible comedian. I’m no good at making up jokes, but just observing an absurd world.

Do you remember “The Andy Griffith Show”? They can wear on you if watch them, but one of the things that I found great about that show — and I found out later that Griffith worked hard on this — is that there’s not a single joke in it. It’s all story-generated — all the humor is story-generated, except for Don Knotts’ physical humor. That was kind of an object lesson to see that.

Q. Jim has hallucinations in which he debates the philosophers Locke and Voltaire. What made you decide to do that?

Well, again, irony: The Declaration of Independence, being penned by the gnostic Thomas Jefferson, a figure of the Enlightenment like Voltaire and Locke who can espouse equality among men but yet find ways to rationalize slavery.

Q. You’ve mentioned that you have a tradition where you will write a book in the place you first started it. Where did you start this book and write it?

I was at the coffee table. Yeah, that’s pretty much where it happened.

Q. Earlier, you said you don’t remember your books, and I wonder if that’s similar to a reader’s experience — how we can be invested in a book only to find later that it’s hard to recall details of what happened in the story. Is that like what you’re describing?I think that’s probably close to it. I know that sometimes when people remind me of things in my novels, it takes me a while to catch up. Sometimes it’ll be vivid, other times it’ll be completely new, and I kind of like that. I especially like when they have ideas about what it means that I never thought of. I immediately take credit for it: “This is a great idea; of course, I meant that.” [laughs]

Q. Is that disorienting?

Oh, no. It’s just fascinating. People see their own worlds; the work doesn’t exist without a reader and meaning can’t happen without a reader. I wasn’t writing it to convince myself of anything. Lord knows why I was writing it, but there it is.

Q. So after you’ve written it, you no longer need to try to control it.

I can’t control it, so why worry about it? I suppose I could go hang out in front of bookstores and explain things to the six people who leave with my book. [laughs]

Q. If you do, please call me. That sounds great.

Anything I say about one of my works can be completely disregarded.

As Sheila Heti discusses her new book, “Alphabetical Diaries,” during a Zoom call from her home in Toronto, her dog Feldman can be seen onscreen in the background, his head resting on the arm of the couch, watching her and waiting to go for a walk. Four thousand miles away in Southern California, my own dog is doing the same thing. 

“The man’s best friend thing? When I used to hear that I’d think, I guess that’s just what people say. But when you have a dog, you’re like, Oh, it’s actually just the truth; they’re your best friend in this way that no human could ever be. Like, who would ever be sitting there like this?” says Heti about Feldman, who occasionally emits a mournful sigh during our conversation.

The author of acclaimed books that include “Motherhood,” “Pure Colour,” “How Should a Person Be?” and more, Heti created her latest book, which arrives in stores Feb. 6, by extracting lines from 10 years of her diaries and arranging them in alphabetical, rather than chronological or contextual, order to create a unique and compelling reading experience.

“It really did take me a decade to figure out,” she says. “I started to see that, with certain kinds of edits, I was starting to create a world the same way there is one in a novel.

“I was able to see this as a separate fictional world in which a person is living and thinking and moving rather than earlier in the process when it just felt like it was my diaries,” she says.  

So is it a novel or a diary or memoir? “At one point, I wanted to call it a memoir, but I think it’s closest to a novel because I don’t feel like it’s confessional,” she says. “I feel like it’s a portrait of a person.”

This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and to reduce how much we talked about our dogs.

Q. Why did you decide to alphabetize your diary in the first place?

I don’t know honestly, I just remember one day I was putting the sentences into Excel and alphabetizing them. I can come up with all sorts of reasons after the fact, but I honestly don’t know what the spark of that idea was.

Q. You got a book idea while using an Excel spreadsheet?

I use Excel a lot. [laughs] I use it to keep track of how many words I’ve written in a day or how many words I’ve cut or just tracking progress. Yeah, I like it. I like Excel very much.

Q. These are actual diary entries. Were you thinking, I have all this writing already – maybe I could put it to use?

Yeah, I’d just finished “How Should a Person Be?” and it was such a huge project – like seven years writing – that I knew was going to be a long time before I had anything else to work on, before I had a lot of material to edit, which is my favorite part of the process. It was like, ‘I have a lot of writing; maybe I can just start working because I like working and I suddenly had nothing to work on. So I think I was like, ‘Here’s this archive – what happens if I start playing with it?’ 

‘How Should a Person Be?’ was sort of about my life, but this was about my life in a much more real way because ‘How Should a Person Be?’ was this fiction whereas with this, once I pulled all the words together, there was no fiction. It was at first just a diary.

Q. The people and names you mention are fictionalized?

I didn’t write any [new] sentences, but I made composite characters out of the sentences … they were like archetypes of the people that I did encounter over the 10 years. But nobody who was in my life would be able to track any of the characters because they are recombined from sentences about lots of different people turned into one character.

Q. I can imagine that could have been awkward if someone said, Hey, is this me?

I didn’t want anyone to know what I thought about them! [laughs] That was a real puzzle – how would I publish this and not reveal that? And that was the solution.

Q. Typically, people put locks on their diaries and guard them. What’s it like publishing yours as a book for people to read?

I published it in the New York Times last year. I wasn’t scared publishing this book, but I was really scared publishing those excerpts in the Times – they were in a slightly different form, but that was the first time it was really available to such a large audience. And I was really scared. I did think, what kind of person is coming across in these? I couldn’t really tell. 

I don’t feel like anyone can judge me for my fiction because those are characters. But this is not a character so much, you know? I was nervous to have friends and my boyfriend read it and I’m just thinking, ‘Am I revealing a self that they don’t know? Am I revealing a self that they’re not going to like?’ None of that seemed to happen, but it was a real fear.

Q. One of the compelling elements of “Alphabetical Diaries” is that the reader starts to build a narrative out of all of these individual lines from your life. 

I come from theater. To me, it’s like theater – the audience and the actors, all in a room together, make something. That’s what I think I always want to keep from the world of the theater that I love so much – you make something in tandem with other people who are there with you in the present. 

Books are less like that. But there’s a way I’m trying to, I think, make books like that, where you feel like you’re creating a moment with the reader rather than just, ‘Well, here’s the thing I created and now you can experience it.’ 

Q. You edited out 90% of your diaries to get to its final form. Were there things you left in that you weren’t sure whether you wanted to? 

I really had to resist that impulse. There were a lot of things where I felt embarrassed. And I just thought, Well, you have to have a better reason for cutting it than that. There’s a kind of discipline in it, like, it’s just a sentence, you know?

Q. As well as being confessional or confiding, diaries can be where we demand self-improvement, saying things like, “Start eating kale!” or “Make more money!” You call these “injunctions” – why do people use that voice when writing to themselves?

That is one of the diary voices, for sure. I think a diary is a place where you organize yourself, where you try and get your thoughts in order and try to get yourself in order … and put all the pieces of yourself in some coherent form. I think a lot of those injunctions are about that.

At least for me, when I write in my diary, there’s some kind of fantasy of like, I’m going to put everything in its place and then afterward I’ll be able to live. I think it does work for like a day … and then it’s revealed as the fantasy it was.

Q. I read the book, and I also listened to the audiobook read by Kate Berlant, which is fantastic. I loved how much she brought to the work, making each line burst with feeling and emotion. How did she come to narrate the book? 

Kate’s a friend of mine and I just thought she’d be perfect. I saw her one-woman show in New York. I love her voice. She’s so intelligent. I just felt like she would just bring the perfect sensibility to it. And she absolutely did. I showed her a draft of it years ago. So she’s also known about the project for a very long time, which is fun. It’s kind of like a one-woman show or something listening to it. 

Q. You recently co-wrote a story with a chatbot for The New Yorker. People tend to be afraid of AI rather than wanting to work with it.

I understand people who don’t know anything about it feeling like that and I understand people who know a ton about it a feeling like that. It’s not crazy. But for me, I think of it as a tool, a human tool. It’s us in a different form. I find it really fascinating, actually. I like this thing that has access to all of world literature and all of one’s Facebook conversations and all of the Enron emails and just like everything and what comes out of that, because no human can sort of digest that much. So it’s like this new kind of mind, made up of all the text we’ve ever created, or that’s the ambition anyways. I think it’s sort of beautiful and godlike and dumb and wrong and right, and it’s all those things at once.

Q. Going back to the diaries, there are some tough moments when you describe some questionable behavior directed at you. While it could be upsetting, it’s also interesting to note that you chose to include these moments in your book.

Yeah, you always get the last word as a writer.