Lily Brooks-Dalton is the author of the acclaimed bestseller “The Light Pirate” and the novel “Good Morning, Midnight,” which was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated film “The Midnight Sky,” which starred George Clooney, Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo. Her first book, the memoir “Motorcycles I’ve Loved,” was an Oregon Book Award finalist. “Ruins,” her latest novel, has just been published, and she took the Book Pages Q&A.
Q. Please tell readers about your new book, “Ruins.”
“Ruins” is about an archaeologist who is trying to find an artifact that she believes has the capacity to upend our understanding of history. It’s a mystery, a character study of a polarizing woman, an adventure story, and a rumination on how we uncover, interpret, and teach about ancient civilizations. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll leave it at that.
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Q. Many readers will know your work from “The Light Pirate.” Was there something you learned from that experience, either writing it or the attention that came from it, that informed the writing of “Ruins“?
Every novel leads to the next, in my experience. I couldn’t have written “Ruins” without first puzzling my way through “The Light Pirate,” and I couldn’t have written “The Light Pirate” without first puzzling my way through “Good Morning, Midnight.” It’s been fascinating for me as a writer to see the threads between these projects cohere, because they aren’t connections I made intentionally. But I’m excited about these three as a triptych — I feel like “Ruins” belongs to the first two and vice versa.
Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
I always shy away from “favorite book of all time” type declarations and just lean toward “the last book I read that blew my mind.” For nonfiction, that was “The Sea Around Us” by Rachel Carson, and for fiction was probably “I Who Have Never Known Men” by Jacqueline Harpman. Both phenomenal.
Q. What are you reading now?
Right now, I’m halfway through “Happy for You” by Claire Stanford, which is about a researcher working on how to tackle happiness in the tech world. Claire and I are doing an event together at Diesel in Santa Monica and so I wanted to read her work before we did that — I’m loving it so much.
Q. How do you decide what to read next?
This year, I am trying to only go to my shelves and find books I already own that I haven’t read yet. But so far, I am failing. I just can’t stop buying books. I usually have a stack that’s maybe 8 books high that I pull from, and from there I just go by whatever mood I’m in when it’s time to crack something new. But sometimes I go rogue.
Q. Is there a book or type of book you’re reluctant to read?
No. I feel strongly about dabbling in all genres. Of course, not every book is for me, but I don’t dismiss genres or “types” out of hand. Execution is everything. Thrillers, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, realism, whatever. I want all of it, just make it good (or bad in a fun way).
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Q. What’s your comfort read?
I find the Solvej Balle series “On the Calculation of Volume” very comforting. I’ve been saving the third book in the series to take with me on my “Ruins” tour because I feel like I’ll need something special to keep me grounded while I travel. Balle is so unbelievably good at rooting her narrator down into exorbitant details in the midst of an utterly ungrounded premise (being stuck in November 18th).
Q. What’s your ideal book?
One that engrosses me so completely I can happily spend an entire day/weekend reading and then turn the last page feeling nourished, full of ideas, and excited to talk to someone else about it.