LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with bestselling author Rhys Bowen, whose books have sold over ten million copies in thirty languages. Educated at London University, Bowen initially worked for the drama departments of the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as a drama teacher and dance instructor. As Janet Quin-Harkin she has written picture books and young adult novels, making her debut as Rhys Bowen in 1997 with Evans Above, the first of her ten-volume Constable Evans mystery series. Other ongoing mystery series include The Lady Georgiana books, about an English aristocrat in the 1930s; and the Molly Murphy books, now being co-written with her daughter Clare Broyles, about an Irish immigrant woman in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Historical stand-alone novels such as Where the Sky Begins (2022) and The Rose Arbor (2024) have also been very successful. Bowen has been nominated for the Edgar Award three times, and has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, including an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel for In Farleigh Field and Naughty in Nice, and a Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery for Oh Danny Boy. Her latest novel, Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure, released in early August by Lake Union Publishing, follows the eponymous heroine as she escapes to the South of France, after her husband makes the shocking announcement that he wants a divorce, after thirty years of marriage. Bowen sat down with Abigail this month to discuss the book.

Your book follows Mrs. Endicott as she sets out to make a new life for herself just before and during World War II. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Did the character appear first? Did you always know it was going to have a WWII setting?

The inspiration was twofold. A few years ago I was on an Italian lake and I saw an abandoned villa. It had once been glorious but now was covered in ivy, shutters hanging off, etc. Being me, a tad impulsive and definitely romantic, I said to my husband, “We should buy this and restore it.” Husband, practical one, “There’s no way we’re doing that.” But the image of that villa stayed in my mind and I thought I’d like to restore it in one of my books. But the other driving force behind the book was invisible women. When women reach a certain age they become invisible. I’ve experienced this myself. So I wanted to write a book that championed women, gave them second chances, showed that life wasn’t over at fifty but a whole new chapter could begin. I think I knew Ellie Endicott from the first page onward. She has lived her husband’s life and never had a chance to find out the person she could be. I gave her that chance.

Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure follows the story of someone who makes a major change in her life, taking a few others along with her. What is it about this story type that is so appealing?

I’ve already had feedback from so many women because the theme speaks to them. Second chances, vindication for unappreciated women and the power of female bonding… those are what appeal to my readers (and to me when I wrote it).

This is your seventh novel set during World War II. You’ve also written a novel set during World War I, as well as two mystery series set in different historical periods. What draws you to writing historical fiction? Are there periods of interest to you? Are there any particular challenges, when setting your story in a historical period?

I’ve always been a keen traveler and thus enjoyed being taken to another time and place in books. When I write historical mysteries I like the fact that there is very little CSI. My characters have to rely on their powers of observation and deduction. Also there are so many delicious motives for murder in the past: I love another but I am not free! Of course the challenge is always that I can’t go and visit to do my research. I can’t interview people from that time period. However I write about the first half of the twentieth century and there is plenty of material, photographs, diaries, newspapers. And I always go to the place I’m writing about to notice the small details, the sights, smells, sounds that bring a setting to life. If it’s in Europe then very little has changed!

I started writing about WWII (In Farleigh Field) because there were so many stories showing how brave the men were but at that time very few that championed women and their bravery. Also I felt the generation that knew about this war was soon to be lost and there were so many stories to be told. Each one of my books is a different aspect of WWII, a different setting and group of people. We no longer know what it’s like to live with that level of stress and danger. I often wonder whether I would have been brave enough to act if I had been called upon, like the women in my books. So I want to champion the heroes of the war before they are forgotten forever.

Also as I write more books I can’t help seeing the parallels between the time leading up to WWII and what we are experiencing in our country and in the world right now. I find it alarming and hope that readers will see the parallels before it is too late.

Did you need to do any research before writing Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure? If so, what are some of the most interesting and memorable things you learned?

I always do lots of research. First background reading about the time period. Timeline of the war, when Germany invaded, etc. Then I went to Cassis, on which St. Benet is based. Noticed everything about it. Tried all the local foods and drinks. I wanted my heroine to help the resistance smuggle Jewish men out to an island and found during my research that there really was a resistance cell in Marseille that did just this.

Tell us about your writing process. Do you have a particular routine? Do you plan your non-mysteries out differently than you do your mysteries? Do you know where your stories are going ahead of time, or do you discover that as you go along?

I think for all my books the process is the same. I do my background reading on time and place. I travel to the setting before I start to write. I know the broad theme of the story. I know what my character will be like. In my mysteries I know who will be murdered and why. I usually know the murderer and his motive but then I start writing. I put my characters in their physical setting and let them interact. I just follow along. Sometimes they do things that surprise me. I couldn’t work from an outline. I need to be free to do what my characters want to do. So I start, plunging blindly ahead, always in panic mode, and let the story take shape. By page 100 I see where I’m going. I try to write 1,500 words a day of a first draft, edit, polish, give it to first readers, polish again.

What’s next for you? Do you have any specific books in the pipeline?

As you know I write two plus books a year. My next Royal Spyness book comes out in November 2025 and is called From Cradle to Grave. Georgie ends up with the nanny from hell and at the same time young aristocrats are dying in suspicious accidents.

I now write my Molly Murphy series with my daughter, Clare Broyles. The next Molly book, Vanished in the Crowd, comes out in March 2026 and features women scientists and the suffrage movement during a big parade. And I’ve just turned in my next stand alone. It’s set in Scotland on the Isle of Skye, and is called, at the moment, From Sea to Skye. It’s about a famous writer who has dementia and can’t finish her last book. A young writer is hired to finish it for her. She goes to Skye to research and comes to believe the story is not fiction but the woman’s own story… which is impossible as the writer is Australian.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

Too many books. Every now and then we have a purge. I own every Agatha Christie, a whole bookcase of reference materials, signed copies of fellow writers’ books and a few old favorites. Apart from those we have donated hundreds. Most books one does not want to read a second time.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I just did a podcast with Adriana Trigiani and read her new book, The View From Lake Como.** It was brilliant. The most authentic voice and sense of place. I relished every moment. Before that it was Louise Penny’s The Grey Wolf which I had to read before The Black Wolf comes out. Oh, and The Midnight Library, which I must be the last person to read but which I LOVED!

**Note: We talked to Adriana Trigiani about The View From Lake Como in a previous month’s author interview. Read that HERE.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with bestselling Anglo-French author Joanne Harris, whose 1999 novel, Chocolat—shortlisted for the Whitbread Award—was made into a popular film of the same name. The author of over twenty novels, including three sequels to Chocolat—as well as novellas, short stories, game scripts, screenplays, the libretti for two operas, a stage musical, and three cookbooks, her work has been published in over fifty countries, and has won numerous awards. She was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2013 and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2022, for services to literature. A former teacher, Harris is deeply involved in issues of author rights, serving two terms as Chair of the UK’s Society of Authors (SOA) from 2018 to 2024. She is a patron of the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), to which she donated the proceeds from sales of her cookbooks. Cooking and food are consistent themes in her work, and she returns to the story of her most famous culinary character in her newest novel, Vianne, a prequel to Chocolat that is due out from Pegasus Books in early September. Harris sat down with Abigail this month to discuss this new book.

Set six years before the events of Chocolat, your new book is actually the fifth novel about Vianne Rocher to be released. What made you decide you needed to write a prequel? Did any of the ideas for the story come to you as you were writing the other books about Vianne, or was it all fresh and new as you wrote?

Vianne and I have travelled together for over 25 years, and although we’re different in many ways, I think we have some things in common. When I wrote Chocolat, I was the mother of a small child, and wrote Vianne’s character from a similar perspective. I left her in 2021 as the mother of two children, both young adults, and I realized that both Vianne and I needed to look back in order to move forward. Hence Vianne, my protagonist’s origin story, which answers a number of questions left unanswered at the end of Chocolat, and hopefully gives some insights into her journey. Most of it was new; I found a few references in Chocolat to work from, but until now I’ve had very little idea of what Vianne’s past might have been, which made the writing of this book such an interesting challenge.

Food and cooking are important themes in your work. Why is that? What significance do they have for you, and what can they tell us about the characters in your stories, and the world in which they live?

Food is a universal theme. We all need it, we all relate to it in different, important ways. It’s a gateway to culture; to the past; to the emotions. In Vianne it’s also a kind of domestic magic, involving all the senses, and with the capacity to transport, transform and touch the lives of those who engage with it.

Talk to us about chocolate! Given its importance in some of your best-known fiction, as well as the fact that you published The Little Book of Chocolat (2014), I think we can assume you enjoy this treat. What are your favorite kinds? Are there real life chocolatiers you would recommend, or recipes you like to make yourself? (Note: the best chocolate confections I myself ever tasted came from Kee’s Chocolates in Manhattan).

As far as chocolate is concerned, my journey has been rather like Vianne’s. I really didn’t know much about it when I wrote Chocolat, but since then I’ve been involved with many artisanal chocolatiers, and I’ve travelled to many chocolate producing countries. Some of my favourites are Schoc in New Zealand, and Claudio Corallo in Principe, who makes single-origin bean to bar chocolate on location from his half-ruined villa in the rainforest. And David Greenwood-Haigh, a chef who incorporates chocolate into his recipes much as Vianne does in the book (and who created the “chocolate spice” to which I refer in the story.)

Like its predecessors (or successors, chronologically speaking), Vianne is set in France. As the daughter of an English father and French mother, what insight do you feel you bring to your stories, from a cultural perspective? Do you feel you are writing as an insider, an outsider, perhaps both— and does it matter?

I think that as a dual national, there’s always a part of me that feels slightly foreign, which is why Vianne, too, is a perpetual outsider. But I do know enough about France to write with authority and affection – and maybe a little nostalgia, too. The France of my books is a selective portrait, based on the places and people I love, some of which have disappeared. These books are a way of making them live again.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Are you someone who maps out your story beforehand, or do you like to discover where things are going as you write? Do you have a particular writing routine? What advice would you give young writers who are just getting started?

My process varies according to the book, but as a rule I don’t map out the story in its entirety: I usually start with a voice, and a mission, and a number of pivotal scenes, and I see where that takes me. I write where I can: if I’m at home, I prefer my shed in the garden, but I can make do with any quiet space. My process involves reading aloud, so it’s best if I’m alone. And I use scent as a trigger to get me into the zone: a trick borrowed from Stanislasky’s An Actor Prepares, which I’ve been using for 30 years. In the case of Vianne I used Chanel’s Coromandel, partly because it’s an olfactory relative of Chanel No. 5, which I used when I was writing Chocolat. (And on the same theme, I’ve created a scent of my own with the help of perfumier Sarah McCantrey of 4160 Tuesdays): it’s called Vianne’s Confession, and it illustrates a passage from the book.)

As for my advice to young writers; just write. You get better that way. And if you are indeed just getting started, don’t be in a hurry to publish or to share your work if you don’t feel ready. You have as long as you like to write your first book, and only one chance at making a first impression. So take it slow, let yourself grow, and enjoy the process, because if you don’t enjoy what you do, why should anyone else?

What’s next for you? Do you have further books in the pipeline? Do you think Vianne, or any of the sequels to Chocolat, will also be made into a film?

I always have more books in the pipeline: the next one is very different; it’s a kind of quiet folk-horror novel called Sleepers in the Snow. As for films, it’s too early to say, but it would be nice to see something on screen again – though preferably as a series, as I really think these books, with their episodic structure, would probably work better that way.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

At least 10,000 books in French, English, German. I find it hard to give books away, so I’ve accumulated quite a library of all kinds of things, in many different genres.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

Right now I’m reading a proof of Catriona Ward’s new book, Nowhere Burning, which is terrific: so well-written, and like all her books, quite astonishingly creepy.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with bestselling author Susan Wiggs, whose prolific body of work—including more than fifty novels—has been translated into more than twenty languages, and is available in more than thirty countries. Known for such popular series as The Lakeshore Chronicles and the Bella Vista Chronicles, and for stand-alone bestsellers like The Oysterville Sewing Circle and Family Tree, she has been described by the Salem Statesman Journal as a writer who is “one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.” A former teacher, a Harvard graduate, and an avid hiker, she lives on an island in Washington’s Puget Sound. Wiggs sat down with Abigail this month to discuss her new novel, Wayward Girls—due out from William Morrow later this month, it is currently on offer through the Early Reviewer program—a tale of six teenage girls confined to a Catholic institution in the 1960s for being “gay, pregnant or unruly.”

Set in Buffalo, NY in 1968, Wayward Girls is described by the publisher as being based on a true story. Tell us about that story—how did you discover it, and what made you want to write about it?

I grew up in a small town in western New York, not far from Buffalo, but we moved overseas when I was a child. I never went back until 2021, when my big brother and I embarked on a journey to revisit our childhood haunts. Jon was facing a terminal diagnosis, and this bittersweet, nostalgic trip was an item on his bucket list.

When we visited the church of our youth, vivid memories of Jon as an altar boy flooded back—especially the time his sleeve caught fire from the incense thurible. You might notice a dramatized version of this incident early in the novel! (There’s a photo of Jon and me at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Olean, NY: photo here)

This moment sparked a deeper exploration into the impact of the Catholic Church in the 60s and 70s. My research led me to a forbidding stone complex at 485 Best Street in Buffalo that had once been a Magdalene Laundry—a place where “wayward girls” were sent to be “reformed” by strict nuns. Teenage girls were forced into slave labor and some delivered babies without proper medical care–babies that were sometimes stolen from them and placed for adoption. Though vaguely aware of the “laundries” in Ireland, I was shocked to learn they existed throughout the U.S. as well.

As a child, I remember more than one babysitter who “went away,” a euphemism for girls sent into hiding when they became pregnant. The more I learned, the more deeply I felt the helpless pain and rage of these young women. Their stories ignited my imagination, and Wayward Girls became one of my most personal and involving novels to date. I hope my passion for this topic touches readers’ hearts and inspires important conversations about our past treatment of young women, and–as Jodi Picoult points out–is a cautionary tale for today.

What kind of research did you need to do, while writing? Were there things you learned that surprised you, or that you found particularly disturbing or noteworthy?

Well, you won’t be surprised to know that I started at the library. The public library, of course, and I also had help from the librarian of the Buffalo History Museum. Every book I write begins with a visit to the library, and that has never varied in my 35+ years of writing fiction.

The former Good Shepherd facility in Buffalo still exists, although it’s no longer a Magdalene laundry. The atrocities committed there have been verified by accounts in scholarly and court documents, and by anecdotal evidence from former inmates. Currently there are multiple lawsuits involving the Good Shepherd, brought by individuals who suffered harm at the hands of the Catholic organizations responsible for operating them.

But as my editor pointed out in her letter to early readers, the novel is about the irrepressible spirit of women, and it’s not all doom and gloom. And in order to bring the story to life for readers, it’s a vivid snapshot of the world in 1968: the war in Vietnam, protests around diversity and women’s rights…eerily not so different from the world today. The race riot in Buffalo that was quelled in part by Jackie Robinson actually did occur. And Niagara Falls was actually “shut off” as depicted in the novel. The nuns characterized it as a “miracle,” although the real explanation is more prosaic and scientific.

Although Magdalen asylums or laundries operated throughout the Anglophone world, revelations regarding the abuses perpetrated in these institutions were particularly explosive in Ireland from the 1990s through the 2010s. Did this history inform your story, set in the states?

Like many readers, I was aware of (and horrified by) the Magdalen asylums in Ireland, thanks to news reports, books like Small Things Like These and films like The Magdalene Sisters and Philomena. There’s even a song called “The Magdalene Laundries” by Joni Mitchell. Probably the most moving and disturbing account I read during my research was Girl in the Tunnel by Maureen Sullivan.

I learned that in the United States, there were at least 38 such institutions. Women and girls, most from poor homes, were regularly sentenced to religious-run, but state-sanctioned prison systems of slave labor and abuse.

How do you approach disturbing topics in general, when writing a book? Is there anything in particular you hope readers will take away from Wayward Girls?

I’ve never shied away from dealing with controversial subjects in my books. I believe fiction can be a safe space to explore difficult realities that many people face. My approach is always to ask whether including disturbing content serves the story and characters in a meaningful way. I hope readers come away with insights about the enduring resilience of the human spirit rather than just feeling shocked.

For me as an author, the most gratifying feedback from a reader is to hear that not only were they transported and entertained, but that they gained something of lasting value from reading my book. Just last week, I received this moving note from a reader who is looking forward to Wayward Girls:

I have a personal history and I am still uncomfortable at times “coming out”, so to speak. While I am not in the book it was my experience in 197* ….At 16 I was sent to the Zoar Home for Unwed Mothers through the Catholic Diocese of Steubenville Ohio.

I look forward to your beautiful writing portraying this story and adding continued society enlightenment of the traumatic experiences and shame those of us suffered, as we are still bearing the pain while continuing to navigate this life and memories….
Thank you Susan

Well. When an author gets a note like this from a reader, she has no higher calling. I only hope this reader will feel seen by Wayward Girls.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you have a particular place or time you like to write, or a specific routine you follow? Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Thank you for this question. I love talking shop! I’ve written 50+ novels, and no matter how the world (and technology) changes, my process is always the same. I write my first draft in longhand, using a fountain pen with peacock blue ink, in a Clairefontaine or Leuchtturm 1917 grid-ruled notebook. People who are left-handed know why—it helps me avoid dragging my sleeve through the wet ink, because the fountain pen ink dries instantly.

This process keeps me away from the computer, which I find to be a delightful distraction. Writing a novel of 130,000 words requires enormous focus. Eventually, I type it up (these days by dictation) in proper manuscript format and revise it about eleven hundred seventy-seven times, and send it to my literary agent and editor for notes. Then I revise it about eight hundred more times until I’m convinced that I’ve done my very best for my readers.

Instead of “aspiring writers,” I like the term “emerging writers.” They are already writing. They are just learning and polishing their craft as their stories emerge. I wish I could say there’s a magic formula to vault you into success, but there isn’t. The first job is to define what success looks like for you, personally. A traditional commercial publisher like HarperCollins? An indie-published book? Or just the sense of accomplishment that you’ve put your heart on paper?

Once you know what you want as a writer, find the journey that will take you there. It probably won’t be easy, but what goal worth having is? For traditional publishing, you need to find a literary agent (never ever ever pay a fee to an agent!) who will place your book with a publisher.

I don’t even know what to say about AI. A novel is meant to be a personal artistic expression–the author’s unique perspective, experiences, and voice. Having AI generate text defeats the purpose of creative writing. If you want to write a novel, the struggle and growth that comes from doing it yourself is actually the point.

In terms of WHAT to write, please write the story you’re dying to tell, not the thing that’s hot in bookstores and on Booktok right now. Those books were conceived and published long ago, so by the time you jump on the bandwagon, it has already left. Make yourself happy with your writing. Reach out to a writers’ group in your community. The local library is a good place toconnect. Take a class. Write together, trade chapters, talk shop.

Writing fiction is like being the ultimate master of your own personal universe. There’s something deeply satisfying about finally having complete control over something, even if it’s just whether your protagonist gets coffee or gets hit by a bus.

It’s also the socially acceptable way to have elaborate conversations with imaginary people. You can kill off that annoying character who’s clearly based on your ex, give yourself superpowers through a thinly veiled alter ego, and resolve conflicts in ways that would never work, or win every argument with a perfectly timed witty comeback.

Plus, fiction lets you experience the rare joy of creating problems on purpose just so you can solve them. It’s like being a chaos agent and a benevolent fixer all at once. Where else can you ruin someone’s entire life in chapter three and then feel genuinely proud of yourself for it?

But I’ve strayed from the question! The answer is, READ. Read new books hot off the press. Read beloved older titles. Read the classics, the ones you thought were so boring when you were a kid in school. Because chances are, these books mean something to you now.

And at the end of the day, the very long writing day, that’s all an author can hope for—that readers were willing to spend their time reading a book filled with the deepest secrets of her heart.

Don’t shy away from your writing dreams. Tell your family/partner/friends that you have two sacred hours every day you’re going to devote to writing. And then write. WRITE.

What’s next for you? Do you have any books in the offing that you can share with us?

This is my second-favorite place to be in the writing journey. I have a blank page in front of me and I get to start something fresh!

In the meantime, there will be lots of editions of my books coming out—new paperback versions, new audiobooks, interesting new formats to explore.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

My library grows and changes over time. While books come and go, there are a few permanent fixtures: the first book I read (The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss), the first book I bought (Yertle the Turtle by Dr Seuss), the first book I took from the library (You Were Princess Last Time by Laura Fisher), and the first long book I read in one sitting and immediately reread (Diary of Anne Frank).

I do love my keepers, but I tend to give books away after I’ve read them. I’m always sending books I’ve loved to my reader friend and family. But I always keep the books signed by the author, because that signature makes me feel like I’m a member of an exclusive club. Although it’s bittersweet, I am especially fond of my books signed by authors who aren’t with us anymore—Madeleine L’Engle, Anne Rice, Sir Roger Bannister, Ray Bradbury, Crosby Bonsall.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I am on a mission to read all the books I can get my hands on by the people who read the early draft of Wayward Girls, because I know what a time commitment it is, how busy we all are, and what fantastic writers they are. So I’ve been reading books by Jodi Picoult, Adriana Trigiani, Patti Callahan Henry, Robert Dugoni, Kristina McMorris, and Shana Abé. All of these authors remind me of why I decided to write in the first place—to transport, entertain, surprise, and delight the reader.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with bestselling author, screenwriter, producer, director, and podcast host Adriana Trigiani, described by USA Today as “one of the reigning queens of women’s fiction.” The author of twenty-one books, she made her debut in 2000 with Big Stone Gap, the first of a series of four novels set in Trigiani’s own Virginia hometown, which the author adapted and directed as a movie of the same name. Trigiani’s 2009 Very Valentine, the first of a trilogy, was adapted by its author as a Lifetime television film. Her books, including stand-alone bestsellers like Lucia, Lucia (2003) and The Shoemaker’s Wife (2012), have been published in thirty-eight countries. In addition to her novels for adults, Trigiani has published two young adult novels about a teen filmmaker—Viola in Reel Life (2009) and Viola in the Spotlight (2011)—a picture book for younger children—The House of Love (2021)—and a number of works of nonfiction, from Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from my Grandmothers (2010), a New York Times bestseller, to Cooking With My Sisters (2004). She is host of the podcast, You Are What You Read, and in 2023 she was knighted by President Sergio Mattarella of Italy with the Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia.

Known to explore her Italian heritage in her work, her latest book, The View from Lake Como, due out from Dutton in early July and currently on offer as a giveaway through Early Reviewers, tells the story of an Italian American woman who travels to her ancestral home in Italy. Trigiani sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about her new book.

Since the release of your debut in 2000, you have produced close to one book per year, many of them bestsellers. Where do you get the ideas for your stories, and how did The View from Lake Como get its start?

My ideas always start with a notion or a story from my family. I’m from a big Italian family, with many branches and many colorful characters. My family is from three regions in Italy—and as you know, every region has its own stories, culture and point of view. The View from Lake Como is a modern retelling of my great grandmother Giuseppina Perin (on my paternal grandmother’s side). Giuseppina was from the Veneto, a proud Venetian. She died very young-of pleurisy at the age of 42. I only knew her through the stories told by my
grandmother and great aunts and uncles—and she always intrigued me. I study the few photographs of her and try to know her. When it came time to write the story, I didn’t want to write it in the past. I had written The Good Left Undone and was so immersed in history for so long, I thought I needed a lighter approach. Also, my great grandmother’s story lent itself to comedy—especially since my dad’s first cousin Monica showed up at a tour stop with my great grandmother’s shoes, hat, and purse—filled with treasures. I was off to the races.

Many have remarked on your exploration of your Italian heritage through the stories you tell. How has this shaped your work? Why is it important for you to explore this theme?

I think the great books, the ones that we remember, the ones that move us, have a feeling of personal resonance—emotion flowing through the words, a keen eye for the experience of the characters through the author’s lens—a specific story that could only be told by you. Or for that matter, me. My heritage is my super-power. The Italian American experience is rich, and yes, I hear the tropes and see the parodies, and all the yakking about the Mob, but the truth is, the Italian American tent is a big one. I wanted the stories of Italian immigration I shared to ring true and to inspire, to paint the America and the Italy through the eyes of my loved ones—and not just my own, your loved ones too. Italy, in a sense, is a feeling. There is a great longing for home. Of course, America is my home, but I find a serenity in Italy that I only experience there. This duality of feeling is worth exploring and writing about. Sometimes the stories involve courage, other times romance, the art of creating, of craftsmanship. I hope all of it has found its way into my novels. Richly told stories of home, set in history or in the moment are always interesting to me. I hope they are for the reader too.

There are two Lake Comos in your new book. Have you visited both of them? Did you have to do any research about either when writing the story, and if so, what was the most interesting thing you learned?

Yes, I think it was important to have spent lots of time in both Lake Como towns. My mother’s people are from the Lombardy region of Italy, north of Bergamo, in the Italian Alps. I set The Shoemaker’s Wife there. Lake Como is a short drive from my mother’s ancestral home. Lake Como is a magnet for me, and I try to get there every time I visit the Alps. I hope if you haven’t had a chance to visit it, you will someday. There is something about it that is soothing, peaceful and mysterious. It’s a place that shores you up. Now, Lake Como, New Jersey is beautiful too—and in that way that is uniquely American. Once called South Belmar, the residents were tired of being a dumping ground between Belmar and Spring Lake, so they changed their name! They became Lake Como, named after the lake in the town. I was so blown away by this research and realized that the story of the town and of the protagonist of the novel—Giuseppina Capodimonte Baratta Bilancia, 33, and living in her parents’ basement—is the same story. What happened to Giuseppina? How would she re-claim her life on her own terms? How could she find happiness and thrive? And how could Lake Como, New Jersey reclaim its glory and reinvent itself?

Has your work as a filmmaker influenced your writing? Do you find that you are a visual storyteller?

The adaptation of a novel is a completely different exercise than writing the book. I began as a playwright, then wrote television and film. The truth is the book helps more when I’m directing than the other way around. I don’t think about film when I’m writing a novel-and why would I? The imagination takes the writer anywhere, I’m not confined by the rules of cinema or a budget. As a novelist, I’m there to please the reader. I can take the reader anywhere, in any time in a good story. And, when the book is done, it can live in other forms and be dramatized—and I love doing it. I love when other artists adapt my work too. But writing a novel and writing a screenplay are separate enterprises, separate creative endeavors. Directing a film is another skill set entirely. But all three bring me enormous challenges and satisfaction—in wholly different ways.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Where and how do you write? Do you have a specific goal you set for each day, week or month?

I write seven days a week in a sunny room, when it’s sunny of course! For those who read this and love vacation or working less, I am in awe of you. I’m always thinking about something that has something to do with whatever I’m writing. I don’t know how else to do it. I like the intensity and embrace it. I love a deadline. I like the feeling of being responsible to a calendar. It pushes me forward. The writing process is one thing, you’re alone in the dark, creating a world where there was none, and the rewriting is the wrangling—making the storytelling smooth. The hardest job in the world is to create a simple, effortless read. It helps to have a sense of humor! I appreciate this question and the opportunity to say, I am lucky and blessed to write for a living—and there isn’t a day or an hour that goes by that I am not grateful for the opportunity to do the work I love. The reader has given me this gift, and in honor of her, I use my time wisely. I am also grateful to my editor and publisher. There are so many more books to write!

What’s next for you? Do you have more novels or other books in the works? Do you think you’ll adapt The View from Lake
Como for film or television?

I hope so! I’m working on a new novel and hope to have it finished in time to write and direct The View from Lake Como. I’m excited about the possibilities of this book adapted to the screen.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

My husband is handy, and I thank God for him. He built a library in our old house in Greenwich Village that accommodates close to 2000 books. Throughout the house, you’ll find more books—and we estimate close to 4,000 in total. I have a pretty extensive cookbook collection-including How to Cook a Wolf. Over the years, I have collected books, some signed, a couple of rare ones, a lot of biographies, autobiographies, history, the books my parents loved, the books my grandparents enjoyed, novels, and even children’s books. When I hold a book, it’s a living art form. Within the covers of a book is everything, a world, a point of view, characters that speak to me, and essential knowledge that makes me look the world with new eyes. As one goes on in life—looking at things with new eyes becomes important. There are even times that we need that new point of view in order to survive. I have an extensive coffee table book collection—because sometimes, images the size of postage stamps are not enough. You do realize that someday there will be no postage stamps so that reference will not make any sense to the person who stumbles upon this interview. When I am building a world of characters, I need those images—some I return to time and again. I’m inspired by the great artists—and their world view. There are days when only Mario Buatta, the decorator, or Louise Dahl-Wolfe, the photographer, or Orson Welles, the filmmaker or Cy Twombly the painter, for example, can push me forward. Books are my refuge, but they are also my hope.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I am lucky to read for the You Are What You Read podcast, and I hope you are enjoying those conversations. Lately, I have been on a non-fiction bender, reading the memoirs of E.A. Hanks, Graydon Carter, Keith McNally and Peter Wolf. There is something in each of these memoirs for everyone—if you’re interested in mother daughter relationships, the heyday of magazines, the story of an unlikely restauranteur or a rock idol in the shark infested waters of the music business, there’s a summer read in there for everybody. The library remains the most exciting place on earth to me, and our librarians, the stewards of knowledge. You are my everything! I don’t think it gets any better than that—and that’s coming from the daughter of a librarian. Thank you all and thank you for inviting me to share these thoughts.

I was pleased to sit down this month with Laura Spinney, the author of Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, a new book about Proto-Indo-European. Spinney is a Paris-based British and French science journalist best known for Pale Rider, a global history of the 1918 influenza, which has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global traces the story of Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of languages spoken by nearly half of humanity, including English, Latin and Irish in western Europe, Sanskrit and Hindi in India, and even the lost Tocharian languages of western China. Starting in its Black-Sea cradle 6,000 years ago, Spinney blends historical linguistics, mythology, archaeology and genetics with travel stories and personal encounters. Kirkus called the result “a smart, dense, detailed account,” while Publishers Weekly concluded that “this rivets.”

As a former student of Latin, Greek and a little Hittite, I was eager to read the book and interview the author. I was excited to find that archaeology and genetics have transformed the field in recent years. We spoke about the DNA revolution, her favorite language and—of course—her books and reading life!

Tim: What made you want to write about Proto-Indo-European?

Laura Spinney: Because it’s a subject that people get passionate and very grumpy about, that matters to them out of all proportion; because getting at the truth requires real detective work, gathering clues in at least three scientific domains; and because the ancient DNA revolution has pretty much rewritten the Indo-European story in the last decade – to the extent that even people working in those three fields will tell you that nobody has an overview. When I heard that, I realised that there was a useful service that I could provide as a journalist, because I could interview people in the three fields and weave a narrative out of what they told me – a sort of state of the union of the Indo-European question, at this moment in history.

Tim: Starting from hundreds or thousands of original speakers, the descendants of Proto-Indo-European now outpace all other language families in numbers and geographic spread. Why?

Laura Spinney: Something was very successful about that particular language family, no doubt about it. But I think a lot of it comes down to historical accident, or accidents. Proto-Indo-European happened to be the language of a group of people who invented a new way of life – nomadic pastoralism – that allowed them to exploit the vast energy reserves of the Eurasian steppe better than anyone had before them. The inevitable result was a population explosion, and as they spread out, those nomads’ descendants carried their languages with them. But Proto-Indo-European itself eventually died out, and so did many of its offspring. About 400 Indo-European languages and dialects are spoken today, and none of them would have been intelligible to the original Proto-Indo-European-speakers, so it’s not as if the family stood still. Its success, if you want to call it that, has been due to (some of) its speakers’ ability to adapt to a changing context.

Tim: After covering the Yamnaya, the likely first speakers, you move onto chapters about the many branches of Proto-Indo-European. What did you most enjoy learning and writing about?

Laura Spinney: I love them all. I would say that, like a good parent. But it’s true that the Tocharian story was one of the ones I took most pleasure in writing, because of the suggestion that the language was seeded by prehistoric people who were on some kind of crusade – looking for their own utopia. People have set off in search of that non-existent paradise throughout history, and now we know they were doing it in prehistory too. The human imagination is a powerful thing.

Tim: The German translation is titled Der Urknall unserer Sprache, “The Big Bang of Our Language.” Maybe that’s because Germans self-centeredly call it “Indo-Germanic.” But is understanding the origin of our language and people also a sort of self discovery?

Laura Spinney: It certainly has been for me. What have I learned? I’ll keep my list to three things. One, that language is unbelievably malleable, and that languages are time capsules that store their own history within them. If we are clever, we can unravel them like old scrolls and discover that history. Two, that there are deep connections between languages spoken very far apart in the world, and between the stories that their speakers tell. This fact seems to me to explain much about us, but it was previously absent from my education. And three, that migration has been a constant throughout human (pre-)history, and that the paths those migrants took are, to a very large extent, preserved in the branchings of our linguistic family trees.

Tim: Tell us about your library.

Laura Spinney: I love to read but unfortunately I’m a slow reader. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be that. I prefer to read physical books, though I’m not dogmatic about it. I live in Paris where apartments are relatively small so there isn’t an enormous amount of space for books and very annoyingly, mine are not organised according to any known system. My solution has been to carve out two emergency areas. One, on the floor, is books relevant to my current project. The other – suitably elevated – is books that have been important to me at various times and that remain close to my heart. They include works by Camus, Kundera, Faulkner, Jeanette Winterson and Italo Calvino. The shelf dedicated to them is always the closest to where I work, so that their good literary vibes can wash over me.

Tim: What have you been reading lately?

Laura Spinney: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. I loved it. I copied out these lines into my diary: “‘Maybe the knowledge is too great and maybe men are growing too small,’ said Lee. ‘Maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they’re becoming atom-sized in their souls. Maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses – the whole world over his fence.'”