After graduation and a short stint as a fashion writer, she started working as an analyst in the male-dominated Silicon Valley tech ecosystem. Now her third novel, May the Best Player Win, is scheduled to come out this fall.

Q: Can you talk about how you came up with the ideas for your most recent book, Valley Verified?

A: A few months after graduation I made the switch from the high fashion industry to the high tech industry. With that came a lot of impostor syndrome and a massive confidence crisis.

I was feeling really down about myself, and I didn’t think I could really confide in anyone, because all my friends seemed so successful and accomplished.

So I kept it all bottled up within myself. But at some point, I just had to get all these feelings out of me, so I started writing this story of this young woman who works in fashion in New York City, but because of circumstance, she’s forced to move across the country to Silicon Valley to take on a new role and a tech startup. And she’s like a fish out of water.

Q: How does the book touch on themes from your own life experience?

A: There’s just so many amazingly smart people here [in Silicon Valley], I think impostor syndrome is a lot more common than we realize.

I expected that only people around my age would relate to my book. But then I realized that people from different ages, from different stages of their careers, saw how much my story resonated with them. That’s honestly the best feeling because I wrote this book by myself, and it’s in some way inspired by my own experience. To know that my experience is something that other people could relate to as well, that’s a really awesome feeling for any writer.

Another theme that’s really important to me in this book is exploring what it means to be a woman in a very male-dominated industry. And especially how women can support one another.

I think growing up, women or girls have been taught to see one another as competition. Only one girl gets to be the homecoming queen, only one girl gets to be the prettiest, only one girl gets to date the most popular guy. And so from a young age, we think of it as a zero sum game. In order for one of us to succeed, it means that another woman cannot succeed.

That’s why in my book, you have this cast of female characters, they are very different on paper, but they learn to accept one another, and they learn to come together to support one another.

Q: Many people will be going on vacation in the next few weeks, and might be looking for something to read while they’re laying on the beach. Why might someone want to pick up Valley Verified?

A: I describe it as Legally Blonde set in Silicon Valley. It’s about a woman who goes from fashion to tech. These are two fascinating industries, and because I have personal experience with both I’m able to craft an authentic portrayal of these two worlds and all the niche references.

A lot of people have told me that my main character is someone who is very relatable. She’s not perfect, she doesn’t always make the right decisions, but she does try her best. And she has a good head on her shoulders.

Because this is set at a tech startup, you have this ensemble cast of characters who are all very quirky in their own ways. Even though people might recognize some stereotypical features of the tech industry in them, they are much more than a caricature of what people imagine tech people to be like.

Tech billionaires are becoming more mainstream celebrities. You see Jeff Bezos rubbing shoulders with the Kardashians, and Elon Musk is just doing what Elon Musk does. People are getting so much more fascinated with the ecosystem, but it can be very opaque sometimes, and my book is just like a really nice entryway into that. You see this ecosystem through the eyes of an outsider who is sometimes just as bewildered by what is going on as the rest of us.

Q: You graduated from Stanford and got a job working in tech, so what made you want to be an author as well?

A: I never saw myself becoming an author, but during the pandemic I was in my third year at Stanford University, then the pandemic broke out, and I wanted to go home to be with my family in Singapore but this was also a time when every country was shutting down borders, so I decided to stay put in California. For most of 2020 I was living alone and I got very homesick, very lonely, and also just kind of depressed.

I just got so tired of seeing Asians like myself be portrayed in such a negative, derogatory manner. I really wanted us to be portrayed in a more vibrant and fun and joyful manner. That’s when I got the motivation to start writing my own story, set in my home country of Singapore, it became my very first novel, The Fraud Squad, published in early 2023.

It’s kind of like Crazy Rich Asians meets The Devil Wears Prada. It’s really fun.

Q: Your next book is coming out soon, what will May the Best Player Win be about?

A: I describe my next book as a family-friendly version of The Queen’s Gambit, without the drugs and everything, so parents can read it with their kids. It is also set in the Bay Area. It’s about a chess player who makes a bet with a sexist rival, that girls can be as good as boys at the game. That is coming out in September.

I actually wrote the first draft over one month in November 2020, the election month. I just felt very jaded and cynical, seeing grown men say such hateful things, so I really wanted to write a book that was from the perspective of someone younger, someone who still has that youthful innocence.

I grew up playing chess, I was on Singapore’s national junior squad, so I think the commonality between this book and Valley Verified is that it explores what it’s like to be a girl, or woman, in a very male-dominated space.

My main character in this next book also has to deal with people doubting her abilities just because of her gender. She has to find a way to prove herself, but as she tries to prove herself and as she tries to win the bet, performance anxiety begins to creep in. I hope that kids in Silicon Valley, or even adults, can relate to some of what my main characters going through.

Kyla Zhao

Age: 26Position: Author, tech workerEducation: Stanford UniversityResidence: San Jose, CaliforniaFamily: Parents in Singapore, brother at UC Berkeley

Five things about Kyla

1. Has to have three drinks when writing: coffee, water, and something special2. Loves cold desserts: if it’s cake, it should be ice cream cake3. Goes to a pilates studio where she is the youngest but least fit4. Writes in size seven font, so she doesn’t get tempted to edit before a full draft is done5. Comfort movie is The Devil Wears Prada

People disappear, during war, in crimes, from accidents, even by choice. Juliet Grames explores how each disappearance comes with secrets in her sophisticated second novel, “The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia.”

Set during 1960 in a remote Italian village, “The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia” looks at old-fashioned ways thrust into a modern world, small-town life, politics and the lingering influence of WWII. At the center is a young woman trying to find her way on her own.

Francesca Loftfield, a 27-year-old American, is as lost as that mysterious boy. Francesca has come to Santa Chionia, “nestled in the remote heart of the Aspromonte massif in Southern Calabria” to establish a nursery school. The idealistic Philadelphian believes the school not only will educate the youngsters but also their parents in matters of hygiene and nutrition to reduce the child mortality rate. She wants to save “one needy child at a time.”

This isolated mountain village with its sheer cliffs hasn’t quite been able to embrace the 20th century. The village was ignored by the government after WWII, and a cholera epidemic wiped out a quarter of the residents. There is no running water, electricity, nor a proper road — getting there is quite arduous, as part of the journey must be done on foot. None of this deters Francesca, who believes she can make a difference.

Soon after Francesca arrives, the post office is swept away during a flood following a torrential storm that lasts weeks. This cuts off the mail service and destroys the footpath out of the village. The post office’s destruction unearths a decades-old skeleton that few village people seem to care about. Although busy planning the school, Francesca can’t resist the pleas of the priest’s housekeeper who wants to know if the remains are that of her son, who supposedly left more than 40 years before. Her son, Leo, was 15 years old when he left for America but has never been heard from since. Then a second woman wonders to Francesca if the remains may be her missing husband.

Francesca’s inquiries reveal aspects of Santa Chionia that villagers have tried to hide. The past may be buried even deeper in a place where the residents often refer to themselves as a big family.

Grames’ skill at building solid characters shines in “The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia.” Despite being in her late 20s and living in Italy for a couple of years, Francesca comes to Santa Chionia a bit naïve at the struggles of others, especially those in an isolated area. She thinks she understands the area because her mother’s heritage is Calabrian, but she has much to learn.

Grames subtly shows the contrast between the modern world Francesca is used to and life in the village, where running water would be a luxury. Television and rock ‘n’ roll would be inconceivable. It’s revealed that Francesca is telling events that happened to her more than 60 years before. Her time in Santa Chionia will influence the choices Francesca will make for her future.

Breathtaking vistas of Italy further seal the enthralling story of “The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia.”

Is this a good thing? Read on, friends.

“Banal Nightmare” is Butler’s third novel following 2015’s “Jillian” — described admiringly as “the feel-bad book of the year” in this newspaper — and 2019’s “The New Me.” Butler is considered one of those writers who is most tapped into illuminating the lives and minds of the millennial generation. She’s America’s answer to the UK’s Sally Rooney.

As an officially very middle-aged person, I now pick up a millennial novel out of a sense of curiosity, a desire to better understand where a generation that has come of age in a world different from the one I grew up in is coming from. It’s the inverse of how I was reading John Updike’s and Philip Roth’s novels of middle-aged angst when I was a teenager.

I’ve got enough middle-aged angst rattling around my skull now, thank you very much. I don’t need it in my fiction.

“Banal Nightmare” is loosely centered on the character of Moddie, a mostly failing artist who has retreated from her life in Chicago back to the regional college campus town she grew up in, following the break-up of a long, increasingly dysfunctional relationship.

Moddie is unmoored, haunted by the failed relationship, and another disturbing encounter that lurks through the first two-thirds of the book, until it is revealed in a truly stunning set piece that I will not spoil for readers. Moddie lives in a grim apartment, has no work to occupy herself and mostly flails as she tries to reconnect with her high school friends.

But while Moddie is at the center, we also spend significant time with other characters, Pam, a college arts administrator who has invited a visiting artist to campus for the semester and wonders if the artist is a way out of the town and the relationship she finds both emotionally slack and totally suffocating.

There is the artist, David, well beyond his past successes, and who has no idea how he wound up in such a place. Kimberly, a wannabe writer in Moddie’s circle is deeply envious of another character’s short essay published in The New York Times, but rather than writing, she spends her time making a proof-of-concept website if she were to become a writer at the level she’s certain she deserves.

At times, the way Butler mines the interiors of her good-sized cast of characters — those mentioned above and others — all of whom are seemingly possessed by a combination of towering self-regard and pervasive self-loathing, felt almost oppressive. These are deeply alienated people, bottomless wells of wanting who have no specific idea of what might fulfill their desires.

But even as I felt like I was drowning in misery, I was captured by Butler’s deft wit, particularly her way of illuminating the way performative online culture has seeped into the lives of these people. These characters literally don’t know how to live.

On the other hand, who does? Butler is often lacerating to her creations, showing them up as fools, but I also began to wonder if being foolish is simply the default mode for being human. Spending time close to these people was not pleasant, but it was fascinating and utterly absorbing.

“Banal Nightmare” is really the perfect title for this book. These lives seem utterly banal, devoid of meaning, but that lack of meaning is truly the stuff of nightmares.

And when there are glimmers of waking from the nightmare, as happens to Moddie late in the book, something unexpected shines through.

A truly fascinating reading experience.

John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”

Twitter @biblioracle

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America” by Elizabeth Letts2. “The Nature of Fragile Things” by Susan Meissner3. “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks4. “The Good Left Undone” by Adriana Trigiani

— Dee H., Fontana, Wisconsin (on behalf of her book club, which has only read four books this season)

Dee specifically asked for books set in the Midwest of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, which makes things actually kind of easy because I’m recommending the great bard of the region, Jon Hassler’s “Dear James.”

1. “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay2. “What It Takes to Heal” by Prentis Hemphill3. “Living Buddha, Living Christ” by Thich Nhat Hanh4. “The Price You Pay” by Nick Petrie5. “Every Sinner Bleeds” by S.A. Cosby

— Joanne L., Chicago

I’m going to lean into Joanne’s penchant for thriller/crime and recommend the classic, “A Simple Plan” by Scott Smith.

1. “Camino Ghosts” by John Grisham2. “The Furies” by John Connolly3. “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange4. “I Am Pilgrim” by Terry Hayes5. “Calamity of Souls” by David Baldacci

— Dave S., Merrillville, Indiana

I recently turned a friend of mine on to John Sandford’s “Prey” series, and Dave looks like a good candidate for it too. I’ll go with “Phantom Prey” the 18th in the series, which need not be read in order or to completion.

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

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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.

I am a straight man, middle-aged to boot, who does read novels, lots of them, so I found the question somewhat alienating, but at the same time, not surprising. It’s not news to me that women buy the vast majority of books in the U.S. — somewhere around 80% of the total — so I was aware that men flat out don’t read as many books as women.

But I hadn’t considered that it was a problem of novels specifically that men aren’t reading.

If we’re talking about the kinds of novels that we broadly call “literary,” the truth is that very few people read these books, period. Writing in Granta, literary critic Christian Lorentzen relates that an editor at an independent publisher estimated that there are approximately 20,000 people in the country who read literary fiction. If only 20,000 people are reading literary fiction, and 80% of them are women, that means only 4,000 men are reading those books nationwide.

If that number is accurate, I feel like I know a disproportionate number of them, but that would probably be the case given the crowds I run with, including here, where men are sending me their list of five recent reads, most of which contain novels, all the time.

At Dazed, Elliott explores various theories as to why men aren’t reading novels, including that men are not socialized to read as much as women, lacking reading role models in other men. Elliott also shares a theory that men don’t read novels because they have internalized an ethos that they are expected to be “productive” agents acting in the world, rather than passively experiencing the lives of others through fiction. Men are more likely to read self-help than fiction, seeing that genre as more likely to pay off in “meaningful returns,” according to Alistair Brown, a literature professor at Durham University who studies these patterns.

If these theories are true, I find myself mostly feeling sad for my fellow straight white males because there is more to life than being “productive,” at least I hope so, because if that’s not the case, I’m wasting a lot of time reading novels.

I read novels primarily because doing so is an enjoyable way to spend my time. I first experienced this as a child and have had this reconfirmed on a nearly daily basis since. As a kid, I was sometimes called “lazy” because I’d rather read a book than mow the lawn or do homework, but this choice always felt more sensible than lazy to me.

Still does.

But suppose we want to talk about the benefits of reading novels beyond their inherent pleasure. In that case, I can testify that one of the great things about reading fiction is that you are exposed to the incredible variety of the human experience, not as a way to find a model for your own path, but as a demonstration that you should feel free to not worry overmuch about what others think of the path you wish to travel.

Novels are not instructive, like self-help, but they are illustrative, and if you keep reading them, you’ll have a better understanding that there is no one way to live. Looking for answers to how to live a happy life in a self-help book is ultimately fruitless when those answers are invariably going to be found within oneself.

Rather than worrying about being productive, what if we try to be quiet and reflective?

No better way to achieve that than by immersing yourself in the lives of others by reading a novel.

John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”

Twitter @biblioracle

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “The Winner” by Teddy Wayne2. “Muse of Fire: World War I as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets” by Michael Korda3. “Cowboy Graves” by Roberto Bolaño4. “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War” by Erik Larson5. “Don’t Skip Out on Me” by Willy Vlautin

— Joe F., Channahon

For Joe, I’m recommending a novel rooted in both history and literature, “March” by Geraldine Brooks.

1. “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles2. “Pineapple Street” by Jenny Jackson3. “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt4. “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson5. “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson

— Viola P., Chicago

Viola is going to be the recipient of my periodic public service of recommending the most perfectly constructed novel ever, “Mrs. Bridge” by Evan S. Connell.

1. “The Winner” by Teddy Wayne2. “Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance” by Alison Espach3. “James” by Percival Everett4. “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver5. “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin

— Abby T., Wilmette

“Wayward” by Dana Spiotta, published in 2021, was ahead of its time in its exploration of a woman driven mad by the world she’s made to live in, finding an escape in a broken-down house that becomes just hers.

To outsiders, the small, seemingly quiet town of Bethany, Vermont, must seem idyllic in 1962 — far away from the hustle of big cities, a place where everyone knows each other and seems supportive. But that picture of perfection isn’t how the residents view their town, as Sarah Stewart Taylor shows in “Agony Hill,” a solid launch of a new series.

The ramping up of the Vietnam War is beginning to affect the town, with young men facing the draft while others use the area as a gateway to escape to Canada. Farms are being bought to accommodate a new interstate highway that the locals don’t want, fearing it will change the landscape. And as more people move to Vermont, crime follows. Taylor uses this background to create an intimate, slow-burning police procedural with strong, believable characters and an involving plot that captures the essence of a small town during the early 1960s.

Franklin Warren hopes to make a fresh start in Bethany as an investigator for the Vermont State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, distancing himself from Boston, which is full of memories of his deceased wife.

Franklin hasn’t even unpacked when he is called to Agony Hill, a remote area outside of town, to investigate the death of farmer Hugh Weber, who died in his burning barn, which was bolted from the inside. Hugh was a volatile “back-to-the-lander” farmer who moved to Vermont from New York City about 15 years ago. Roundly disliked by just about everyone in town, Hugh had a penchant for writing inflammatory letters to the editor — “always mad about something.” His wife, Sylvie, pregnant with their fifth child, and his four sons kept to themselves, often dressed in thread-bare clothes.

At first, police believe suicide, as Hugh’s death echoes that of another farmer distraught over the interstate plan. But the evidence soon points to murder, and Franklin has no lack of suspects, considering Hugh’s personality.

“Agony Hill” shows how issues of the 1960s echo those of the 21st century — a distrust of government, people quick to judge others. Granted, there are no cell phones, some of the residents don’t even have a phone.

Taylor expertly shows life in a small town with residents’ lives interconnected while myriad secrets ramp up the suspense. A farm wife’s endless work, a former spy’s past, a young couple’s relationship and the challenge of rural life each add to the superb tension of “Agony Hill.”

Franklin is a sturdy character whose intelligence and past show fodder for a long-running series.

Taylor puts aside her well-crafted novels about police detective Maggie D’Arcy, which took place in Long Island and Ireland, for this new series that should prove equally intriguing. Readers will look forward to another trip to Vermont with Franklin Warren.

Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.,” by contrast soared, becoming a national phenomenon. Still, the two share a bond in Chris Nashawaty’s new book, “The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982.”

The other films in the book are “Star Trek: Wrath of Khan,” “Tron,” “Blade Runner” and several others loosely connected to the genre: “Poltergeist,” “Mad Max: The Road Warrior” and “Conan the Barbarian.” Nashawaty tells how each film’s director got there and how each film was made, piling on a full platter of memorable anecdotes: “Poltergeist” was developed from an early version of “E.T.” Leonard Nimoy, after the disappointing first “Star Trek” film, only came back for the sequel because he was promised a good death scene. Arnold Schwarzenegger nearly got torn to shreds by dogs – who had been bred from wolves – while making “Conan.”

Nashawaty spoke recently by video about the films, the genre and his favorite stories. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. How did you come up with the idea?

I was 13 in the summer of 1982 and saw all these movies in the theater and I have fond memories of that summer. Then I was writing an essay for Esquire two years ago about the anniversary of the date both “Blade Runner” and “The Thing” were released. They’re regarded as classics now but were beat up on by critics and neither one did that well. People reacted strongly to it so I looked back at that summer and saw it was weekend after weekend, one big sci-fi movie after another. 

Q. How do you define sci-fi and how do you think sci-fi fans and the general public will? Because I don’t think all of these are sci-fi movies. 

You’re right, it’s a very subjective definition. The genre means different things to different people. Maybe it was the video store I went to when I was a kid where sci-fi was right next to fantasy so they get grouped together, which was my loophole for including “Conan the Barbarian.” I just wanted to write about John Milius and Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Poltergeist” is a horror movie, but began its development as a science fiction movie. “Road Warrior” is an action movie, but I think it fits into the genre. I’m a little bit more elastic with it than other people. I feel like anyone who’s passionate about something that is speculative about the future or even an alternate present will be open to this. It feels right to me. 

Q. Which were your favorites in 1982 and what about now? 

In 1982, my favorite was clearly “E.T.” To me, that was like looking at the Sistine Chapel for the first time. It was a pretty massive experience. I would say now my two favorite movies of the bunch are “Road Warrior” and especially “The Thing.” There’s something about that group of guys in this sub-zero outpost, and the way John Carpenter builds the tension and the amazing special effects. It’s just one of those movies that really speaks to me. 

I wasn’t a huge fan of “Tron” before writing the book but I now have a real respect for it. It’s really a prototype for basically CGI and animation. I don’t think it’s the greatest movie. And the effects look a little dated now, but if you think about how they made it and what they did with it in 1982, it’s pretty staggering. 

And this is controversial, but I realized that I really like the voiceover version of “Blade Runner” better than the director’s cut, because it’s the one I saw first. I like the film noir aspects of it. It feels like “The Maltese Falcon.” I agree that it’s a better movie without the voiceover, but only after you’ve seen it with the voiceover, so you understand what is happening. 

“Conan” has always been a guilty pleasure for me. You’ve got to approach it in the right way to really enjoy it. The music is old-fashioned and it’s cheesy but it’s a real epic. There’s something about the swaggering macho old-school comic book feel I really like. It has a certain appeal for the inner 12-year-old boy in all of us. You know what I mean? 

Q. My inner 12-year-old boy would rather watch “The Bad News Bears.” 

Fair. So would I.

Q. What are some of your favorite stories from the book?

The one where George Miller wanted a three-legged dog for “Mad Max” and they couldn’t find one so he suggested they amputate a healthy dog. It just makes you go, “What the hell?”

I loved Nicholas Meyer, who wrote basically the entire “Wrath of Khan” script in five days without getting paid for it, just because he wanted to direct it. He really impressed me. 

I’ll be honest with you, the book I wrote before this was about “Caddyshack,” which had lots of cocaine stories. So I really liked talking to Oliver Stone about his foggy period while he was writing “Conan.” 

And I love Philip K. Dick finally going to see a screening of “Blade Runner” and being surprised that he loved it. Which was right before he died. 

It’s also really fun seeing what projects didn’t happen, like [Ridley] Scott making “Dune.” Or Dustin Hoffman almost starring in “Blade Runner,” things that you would never expect. 

Q. In the end, you say these eight movies rewrote the rule book and that changed the paradigm for Hollywood. But I think the better argument is that from 1975-1982, Spielberg, George Lucas, Scott and Carpenter did that with movies spanning adventure, horror and sci-fi. Can you make the case for 1982? 

You could go wider. That’s sort of what I tried to do by giving the background of “Jaws” and “Star Wars” and what each of these filmmakers were doing building up to 1982. But I feel like this was the moment Hollywood realized there was this audience of fans who would go back and watch the movie a second, third and fourth time. So they said, “OK, we’re going to cater to you” although it eventually became movies made without the same creativity and just for the money. These movies were a moment when a completely new audience was deemed important to cater to. That’s the change. I think it started good and then it went bad.

The chilling effects of sex trafficking makes for a thoughtful plot in “Diamond Cut,” as Thomas B. Cavanagh shows how vulnerable people can be trapped with little chance to escape.
In addition to exploring the ravages of this crime, “Diamond Cut” also works as a story about a woman rebuilding her life after working as an escort, which, she says, almost took her soul.

About six years ago, Sandra “Sandy” Corrigan gave herself a fresh start after a harrowing experience as an escort, using the code name Diamond. That’s also the same time she learned she was pregnant. It wasn’t easy to change her life, or leave the violent man who managed the young women who worked as prostitutes. She’s now a single mother to her adorable son Tyler, and is gainfully employed in her brother’s Orlando investigation agency.

But Sandy’s old life rears when Collette Green, a woman who still works as an escort, wants to hire her to find another escort, Naomi, a young Asian woman who disappeared. Sandy is reluctant to take the case as she wants nothing to do with her past, her “emotional callouses still so thick.”

But Collette reminds her about the danger of their work and how having someone “care” about them could make a huge difference. The case uncovers a swamp of corruption and brutality that prey on the defenselessness.

Cavanagh makes the most of the Central Florida setting, using the theme parks only as landmarks, not destinations. Cavanagh shows the humanity of the women who feel they have no other options, avoiding the luridness. Sandy’s inner resolve to create a new path in her life makes her an intriguing character.

“Diamond Cut” is Cavanagh’s third novel featuring Mike Garrity, a former cop turned private investigator who works with Sandy. But this time Mike is a minor character, giving Cavanagh a chance to expand his storytelling skills.

There’s a lot to unpack in Steve Hoffman’s new memoir.

On the surface, “A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France” chronicles the six months Hoffman and his family — wife and fellow author Mary Jo and their two children — spent immersed in a small winemaking village in southern France more than a decade ago.

But it’s also a journey of self-discovery, as Hoffman talks readers through his complicated relationship with France, from a Minnesota high school kid learning the language, to a stint in Paris in his early 20s, to falling in love with the Languedoc region as an adult.

It’s a story of a husband and father wanting his family to share his love of France, and how this adventure changed their dynamic — and their futures.

But it’s also about friendship, how Hoffman worked to set aside his idyllic vision of Paris to become part of the village of Autignac, where neighbors became family and local winemakers became close friends. About how the experience upended the way Hoffman, a tax preparer and award-winning food writer from Shoreview, views not only French food and wine but what it means to belong.

And, finally, it’s a lesson in patience.

“It took me about eight years to write the book,” Hoffman said. “It took me that long to give the book time to find itself, to become what it needed to be, to express what that experience meant.”

Ahead of the book’s release, we talked to Hoffman about getting out of his comfort zone, the importance of culinary traditions and how this epic trip changed his relationship with food, wine, France and family. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The French way of life has been a constant thread in your life. Why?

I think it started with the fact that I was able, from a young age, to speak French fairly easily, and there was this feeling of inhabiting a new person when I was speaking French that I found intoxicating. But I was still just a French student until that year in Paris. That manifested what I had felt but never experienced, which is that this language allowed me to essentially be a different person, and a far more interesting and romantic figure — to me — than Steve Hoffman, tennis player and student at Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota.

Cooking plays an important role in the book. Did you cook before you went to France?

I loved to strap on an apron on a Sunday afternoon and open a bottle of wine and spend two or three hours making something complicated and ambitious and making a bunch of dishes. I did cook for the kids when they were young, but I was a recipe follower. I was not somebody who could go to the grocery store or get a CSA and make something with most of what he would find in his kitchen. That was very much an evolution that happened during that trip.

Of all the meals that you cooked in France, which one stands out?

Just grilling fresh sardines over a vine-wood fire in our courtyard with sea salt and a bunch of lemon juice, and picking those skeletons clean. It was just such a simple, beautifully Mediterranean way of preparing that very Mediterranean fish.

Did your experience change the way you cook at home?

I started cooking more often, and spent a lot of time trying to find the recipes that I could make fairly easily that were full of flavor that the kids would love. And I feel as if I did. I’m kind of proud of this, because I didn’t have this as a child. I didn’t have a tradition to draw from, a mother who cooked or a grandmother who cooked. That wasn’t part of our family.

If you’re looking for a taste of France in Minnesota, what do you cook?

Now that we’re here, we’re more focused on how do we translate the spirit of what we did there. We’re still surrounded with beautiful food in Minnesota. How do we make it flavorful? How do we fashion it into dishes that people we love and that our family will love and crave?

You worked in the vineyards. How did that change your relationship with wine?

I was interested in wine previously as an element of a good life. It was very much a part of my relationship with France, but it had more to do with knowing regions and knowing grapes, being able to pick out the notes that come out of a glass of wine. It was very removed from vines and soil and plots of land. And that was really the shift. And it shifted my entire approach to wine, the reasons that I valued wine. It was such an agricultural experience. It allowed me to see from literally the ground up how you take these base materials and slowly move them through this process to turn them into something transcendent in a glass.

At times you longed for comfort, yet you were constantly out of your comfort zone. How did you reconcile that?

That’s a great question. I arrived with a notion in my head that I was just automatically a happier and better person in France. And it just happened without any particular effort on my part because I could speak the language. The lifestyle was conducive to what I love, which is food, wine and a sort of sophisticated European way of moving through your day. I was going there expecting that I would be in my comfort zone, that I would be the French speaker who would help my family fall in love with France. And it would be as simple as that.

And?

Early on Mary Jo was really insistent saying, “Wait a minute, this isn’t working. We’re not going to be a part of the Steve Hoffman show while you go have nice experiences at cafes. … You need to make something happen here. Or this whole dream of France doesn’t really make sense.” So I was faced with this dilemma of, yes, I can stay in my comfort zone and it can be a pretty little trip, but at the risk of maybe losing France in some way. Or I can get out of my comfort zone and start making something happen, that potentially gets us what we wanted in the first place, which is to become part of the fabric of this little village.

Mary Jo seems like the voice of tough love and reality.

Absolutely, and has been for much of our marriage.

I have mad respect for that.

It’s not an easy thing to do. She had both the wisdom to recognize that it wasn’t going that way, and the courage to risk a little bit of conflict in order to engineer something better, knowing that because she didn’t speak the language, she couldn’t just step in and do it. She needed me to do it. I could have been super resentful, or I could have gone into a self-defensive mode. You know, she really kind of risked something by stepping up and having that conversation with me.

You talked about feeling like the Steve you wanted to be. How has that translated into Steve now?

There was that slow movement toward realization, and it happened in part through cooking. My initial efforts were to try to cook like a French chef, which led to this breakthrough of the cooking that I want to do is for this family. Yes, I want to have fun with these beautiful ingredients. And I want to cook good food that people love, but I want to cook it for this family. By the end of the book, I feel as if I had discovered that the best me was the me that was devoted to the few things around me that really meant something, primarily Mary Jo, Joe and Eva.

What was coming back to Minnesota like?

There was a kind of sadness to come back, you know? There was this feeling that we had really been through something that we couldn’t quite put into words, but that we felt really deeply. And there is an ordinariness to daily life that we had to contend with, and that we’re still contending with, even all these years later.

You kept journals during your during this trip. At what point did you say, hey, this should be a book?

Honestly, [former Taste editor] Lee Dean was one of the critical early supporters of my writing. I sent her one of my journal pieces. It was ridiculous. It was like 5,000 words long, but she had made it a point to always read anything submitted by a Minnesota writer, and she took the time to read it. It was obviously unpublishable in that form, but she saw something in my writing and invited me to submit letters from Languedoc to her. That was the turning point.

You’re a real estate broker, tax preparer, food writer and now an author. What’s your next season?

That is the question. I think ideally, it will bring a slow transition toward taking writing more seriously as an actual career as opposed to a side hustle. But I think the next season is Mary Jo [author of the blog and book “Still”] and me both taking these new creative careers and finding a way to create a body of work that we’re proud of, create a legacy that would involve working together on a project that is both of ours, in addition to doing whatever work we would do separately.

A decade ago, could you have imagined you both publishing books in the same year?

Never, never, never. One of our habits throughout our marriage has been to do five-year plans. And it’s been surprising how often everything on the list somehow happens. It seems that there’s a magic in writing it down and making it intentional. When we got back from this trip, we did a five-year plan, and it involved me maybe writing a book and possibly being on the kind of terms with a national food press where I could email, say, the editor of Food and Wine magazine and they would know who I was. And that was the most pie-in-the-sky, never-going-to-happen dreaming. And I’ll be damned if 10 years later, that hasn’t entirely come to pass. It’s absolutely still mind-boggling to us that we’ve reached this point.

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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