Book club: Inside Dean Koontz’s new thriller, plus 6 books for Lunar New Year
Good morning, and welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.
Bestselling novelist Dean Koontz often writes about strangers brought together for reasons they can’t explain to confront forces they don’t understand.
His newest page turner, “The Bad Weather Friend,” introduces an Orange County real estate agent beset by a series of unfortunate events that turns his life upside down. Help unexpectedly arrives in the form of a towering giant with a host of special abilities that nudge the novel from the supernatural into the realm of fantasy.
Koontz, who joins book club readers in-person on Jan. 28, says the idea for the novel sprang from his growing dissatisfaction with contemporary movies and television shows.
“We’re living in a time where you’re supposed to be hip and cool and kind of ruthless and a lot of TV shows are about ruthless people that we’re supposed to admire,” Koontz says in a new interview with Jim Ruland. “And I thought: I just don’t admire those kind of people. Wouldn’t it be interesting to write about a guy who’s just too nice and who suffers for it?”
Koontz is the author of more than 140 books that have been translated into 38 languages and sold more than 500 million copies. He writes two books a year — sometimes more, never less — and doesn’t rely on creative collaborations.
Get tickets on Eventbrite for Koontz’s book club conversation with Times editor Samantha Melbourneweaver on Jan. 28 at 1 p.m. at UC Irvine.
What would you like to ask Dean Koontz? Share your questions and comments in Eventbrite or send an email to bookclub@latimes.com.
6 books for Lunar New Year
As the Lunar New Year approaches, I reached out to colleague Anh Do about her favorite books for this season of beginnings and family feasts.
For many Asians and Asian Americans, celebrations continue as Christmas and New Year’s roll right into planning, cleaning, cooking and reading for Lunar New Year. “This is the biggest holiday in China, South Korea and Vietnam, among other countries, and it can have slightly different hours or dates in January or February depending on how people interpret the lunar calendar,” Anh says. “The Chinese often call it ‘Spring Festival,’ while the Koreans call it ‘Seollal.’ The Vietnamese refer to it as ‘Tet.’ ”
Anh, The Times community engagement editor and a veteran reporter who wrote in depth about Southern California’s Asian communities for many years, shared the following reading list:
1. “Vietnamese Food Any Day: Simple Recipes for True, Fresh Flavors” by Andrea Nguyen. The author’s vast repertoire, combined with cooking hacks inherited from her mom, helps us lay out an irresistible traditional table and we make sure to offer tangerines, a symbol of wealth.
2. “Interior Chinatown” by Charles Yu. The National Book Award winner explores the buried legacy of family, essentially the heart of any holiday. This is a brilliant tale that weaves pop culture with assimilation, nailing how immigrants try to blend tradition and day-to-day realities.
3. “The Year of the Dog” by Grace Lin. We may be entering the Year of the Dragon, yet this is a classic depicting the journey of Pacy, whose mom urges her to take time for finding herself. The book is ideal for middle schoolers and a reminder of the beauty of daily living.
4. “2024 Lunar New Year ABC Picture Book” by Grace Don Parker. Cultural appreciation can start young when you introduce children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews to this updated paperback, from A for auspicious to Z for zodiac. We bought some volumes to give as gifts to youngsters, along with the “lucky” red envelopes filled with crisp cash.
5. “Tomorrow Is New Year’s Day” by Aram Kim. Follow Mina, who’s eager to show her colorful hanbok dress to her classmates and to make delicious tteokguk, a rice cake soup, at the stove. I like that the book includes a glossary of terms and a pronunciation guide.
6. “The Manicurist’s Daughter” by Susan Lieu. Be on the lookout for this highly anticipated memoir due in March. I saw the author perform her one-woman play, “140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother,” in Little Saigon before the pandemic. Lieu is a dynamo, spouting humor, profanity and wisdom in the same breath.
Keep reading
Resolutions: Instead of giving things up or taking up tedious routines, critic Bethanne Patrick has a different idea: Why not resolve to finish more books this year? She shares 10 books for January to help you get started, including novels from lvaro Enrigue, Maria Hummel and Venita Blackburn and nonfiction from NPR correspondent Michele Norris.
Just released: Fans of novelist and previous book club author Percival Everett will want to check out this Envelope roundtable featuring actor Jeffrey Wright. He breaks down the heart of “American Fiction,” the new film based on Everett’s novel “Erasure.” Author Steven King tweets: “AMERICAN FICTION is just terrific. So warmhearted and giving that you hardly notice the sharp teeth of its satire.” In The Times, Jordan Riefe writes that actor Sterling K. Brown doesn’t have a lot of screen time in “American Fiction, “yet he’s indelible” as the brother to Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the novelist played by Wright.
Still the reader in chief: Former President Obama, our book club guest in 2021, shares his favorite books of the year, 15 novels and nonfiction titles.
How Aztec Mexico was lost in translation: Novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia digs into “You Dreamed of Empires,” a wild novel by Álvaro Enrigue that revisits the Spanish conquest.
Existential noir: Bethanne Patrick reviews “This Plague of Souls” and how the Wild West inspired Mike McCormack, one of Ireland’s top experimental novelists.
ICYMI: California poet laureate Lee Herrick joined book clubbers Dec. 12 to perform two poems, recounted sharing his work in schools and at a prison and recalled how a racist taunt helped steer him toward a writing career. Watch Herrick in conversation with Times editor Steve Padilla here.
From page to screen
Times TV writer Yvonne Villarreal recently wrote about the appeal and intrigues of “Virgin River,” the popular Netflix series adapted from Robyn Carr’s novels. The drama, which included two Christmas episodes, follows the journey of Mel (Alexandra Breckenridge), a nurse practitioner who moves from Los Angeles to a remote California town to restart her life.
In a new interview, Carr shared more about the books behind the series and what’s ahead.
What should fans of the Netflix series know before diving into the books? The books contain pages of narration and internal dialogue and descriptions and don’t translate to the screen but are at home in books, so there are many changes in storytelling.
Tell us about writing Mel, the L.A. nurse who starts over in a remote town where everybody knows everybody else’s business... It’s the difference between an urban midwife working out of a modern hospital and a rural midwife who has meager office or clinic space and is often called to her patient’s home. The relationship between midwife and patient is very close and often they are also friends, something that is rare in an urban setting.
You set the books in Northern California but the series is filmed in British Columbia. What do you think of the setting? Rural Vancouver is very like Northern California. I think the setting in the series is gorgeous.
What’s a typical writing day like for you in Las Vegas? I get up, let the dogs out, turn on the computer and spend all day working, answering mail, plotting and writing, stopping for chores and errands when necessary. To an onlooker it must seem very boring but in my head there is a lot of action!
What other romance authors do you recommend? Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kristan Higgins, Mariah Stewart
Your new novel, “The Friendship Club,” is out this month. Are more ‘Virgin River’ books in the works? I don’t have plans for more “Virgin River” at this time. There are now 21! I’m thinking of starting a new series but I haven’t done anything on that notion yet. Stay tuned.
Final thank you
In 2019 I returned to The Times to launch the L.A. Times Book Club, and I’m so proud of the past five years of stories and live conversations with world-class authors, thought leaders, emerging writers and my newsroom colleagues, too.
This is my last book club newsletter before I leave The Times for a new adventure this spring. (Books editor Boris Kachka will continue writing the newsletter.) I want to thank all the readers who joined me for memorable evenings that transformed the subject of books into one-of-a-kind experiences. What a blast we’ve had!
And thanks, too, to all of you who shared such wonderful letters, emails, survey responses, questions and book suggestions every month. I’m so grateful for your kindness and generous support and wish everyone a joyful year of reading and discovery in 2024.
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