“The Devil Raises His Own” (Soho Crime, 368 pp., $27.95) is his latest novel to feature the photographer Bill Ogden, who was first seen in “Cottonwood,” set on the Kansas frontier in 1872.

Now, more than four decades removed from his “Cottonwood” shenanigans, he’s living in Los Angeles, still able to work (and score), albeit more slowly. His granddaughter, Flavia, fresh off killing her husband back in Kansas (“I recently collapsed Albert’s cranial vault,” she says), has taken on partner/successor duties at his photography studio.

Both are pulled into the orbit of the “blue movie” industry — milder in 1916, to be sure, but still prone to violence — where they encounter a vivid, pungent cast of scoundrels and flimflam artists, from a film star named Magnolia Sweetspire to a mousy postal inspector named Melvin de Kamp.

Phillips always adopts a wonderfully deadpan air, but beneath his black humor is a steely emotional core. “The Devil Raises His Own” is a romp, but it’s also a poignant exploration of chosen families, broken homes and desperate dreams.

___

Hollywood muck also figures prominently in Morgan Richter’s “The Divide” (Knopf, 292 pp., $28), a wild ride of a novel that never quite proceeds in the expected direction.

Jenny St. John has been haunting the fringes of the film industry ever since her supposed big break — the lead role in an indie film called “The Divide” — evaporated. There’s only so much money she can make grifting people as a psychic life coach.

Then Serge Grumet, who directed the film she hoped to star in, turns up dead, and his ex-wife, Genevieve, goes missing. Problem is, the cops think Jenny is Gena because they look remarkably similar. Shown a picture of Gena, Jenny “felt a shock of recognition you get coming across a photo of yourself you didn’t know existed.”

As she is pulled into the world of her doppelgänger, one populated with other strivers and schemers and — it would seem — a killer, Jenny understands their resemblance has a biological connection, if only she can figure out what it is.

Richter, an industry veteran and pop culture critic, writes with the energy of a freshly charged battery, full of bright sparks, quick wit and vivid color. Even if I didn’t buy every plot twist, I found Jenny devilishly fun company.

___

The opening line of Snowden Wright’s “The Queen City Detective Agency” (Morrow, 270 pp., $30) sets the tone immediately: “On New Year’s Day of 1985, Turnip Coogan, facing 20 to life for capital murder, decided he’d have to be dumb as a post not to break out of jail, and his mama didn’t raise no post.”

Turnip, a low-level Dixie Mafia guy, turns up dead in due course, shortly before the town of Meridian, Mississippi — Queen City — is overrun with those who make crime their business, and those who want to.

After Coogan tumbles off a roof, his mother hires Clementine Baldwin, the proprietor of the Queen City Detective Agency, to find his killer. Clementine is capable and confident, her skin thickened by too many instances of casual racism, but as the case moves in unexpected and upsetting directions, she discovers the cost of unearthing Queen City’s skeletons from their hiding places.

Wright writes sentences that beg to be quoted. He clearly has studied the pacing and syntax of hard-boiled fiction. And yet, enjoyable as this book was, I wanted it to be more in tune with itself rather than the rhythms of an entire genre.

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Finally, Jamie Harrison’s mysteries featuring Jules Clement, published between 1995 and 2000, were recommended to me in my bookseller days over 20 years ago, but it took their reissue — and the publication of a fifth, “The River View” (334 pp., Counterpoint, $28) — to read them all in a frenzied gulp.

Over the course of the series, Jules transforms from an East Coast doctoral student and archaeologist into the sheriff of Blue Deer, Montana — the post once held by his father, who was murdered when Jules was a teenager. “Maybe Jules chose archaeology because it was the perfect profession for facing the enormity and the inevitability of death,” Harrison writes, “but in the matter of his father’s death, he wanted nothing of the past.”

As the new book opens in 1997, Jules, married and with a young child, has resigned from the sheriff’s office and is working as a PI. He’s also dabbling in archaeology, plumbing the mysteries of old bones — even his father’s — as he tries to make peace with Blue Deer and forge a new path.

I can’t help wondering what he’s doing in 2024, and I hope Harrison catches readers up to the present soon.

An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales were barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A (b) indicates that some bookstores reported receiving bulk orders.

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FICTION

1. THE WOMEN, by Kristin Hannah. (St. Martin’s) In 1965, a nursing student follows her brother to serve during the Vietnam War and returns to a divided America.

LAST WEEK: 2

WEEKS ON LIST: 30

2. BY ANY OTHER NAME, by Jodi Picoult. (Ballantine) A young woman’s play about her ancestor Emilia Bassano, who wrote Shakespeare’s works, is submitted to a festival under a male pseudonym.

LAST WEEK: 1

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

3. THE GOD OF THE WOODS, by Liz Moore. (Riverhead) When a 13-year-old girl disappears from an Adirondack summer camp in 1975, secrets kept by the Van Laar family emerge.

LAST WEEK: 6

WEEKS ON LIST: 9

4. FOURTH WING, by Rebecca Yarros. (Red Tower) Violet Sorrengail is urged by the commanding general, who also is her mother, to become a candidate for the elite dragon riders.

LAST WEEK: 4

WEEKS ON LIST: 69

5. IRON FLAME, by Rebecca Yarros. (Red Tower) The second book in the Empyrean series. Violet Sorrengail’s next round of training might require her to betray the man she loves.

LAST WEEK: 5

WEEKS ON LIST: 43

6. THE WEDDING PEOPLE, by Alison Espach. (Holt) A woman who is down on her luck forms an unexpected bond with the bride at a wedding in Rhode Island.

LAST WEEK: 7

WEEKS ON LIST: 5

7. ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, by Chris Whitaker. (Crown) Questions arise when a boy saves the daughter of a wealthy family amid a string of disappearances in a Missouri town in 1975.

LAST WEEK: 9

WEEKS ON LIST: 10

8. JAMES, by Percival Everett. (Doubleday) A reimagining of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” shines a different light on Mark Twain’s classic, revealing new facets of Jim.

LAST WEEK: 12

WEEKS ON LIST: 14

9. THE DARK WIVES, by Ann Cleeves. (Minotaur) The 11th book in the Vera Stanhope series. Vera and her team search for a missing teen who may be responsible for murder.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 1

10. THE COVEN, by Harper L. Woods. (Bramble) At Hollow’s Grove University, a school for magic that suffered a bloody massacre decades ago, 13 gifted students confront ghosts from the school’s past.

LAST WEEK: 11

WEEKS ON LIST: 4

11. REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES, by Shelby Van Pelt. (Ecco) A widow working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium is aided in solving a mystery by a giant Pacific octopus living there.

LAST WEEK: 13

WEEKS ON LIST: 56

12. THE SPELLSHOP, by Sarah Beth Durst. (Bramble) When the Great Library of Alyssium is set aflame, Kiela and Caz take the spellbooks and bring magic to Kiela’s childhood home.

LAST WEEK: 14

WEEKS ON LIST: 6

13. TOM CLANCY: SHADOW STATE, by M.P. Woodward. (Putnam) The 12th book in the Jack Ryan Jr. series. Jack uncovers dangers in Vietnam.

LAST WEEK: 10

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

14. YOU LIKE IT DARKER, by Stephen King. (Scribner) A dozen short stories that explore darkness in literal and metaphorical forms.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 13

15. JOY, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte) A book editor recognizes the trauma incurred by her partner during his military deployments and seeks to restore her sense of self.

LAST WEEK: 15

WEEKS ON LIST: 3

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NONFICTION

1. THE ANXIOUS GENERATION, by Jonathan Haidt. (Penguin Press) A co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind” looks at the effects of a phone-based life on children’s mental health.

LAST WEEK: 2

WEEKS ON LIST: 23

2. AT WAR WITH OURSELVES, by H.R. McMaster. (Harper) The former national security adviser and author of “Battlegrounds” assesses his time in the Trump White House.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 1

3. WHAT’S NEXT, by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. (Dutton) Two cast members of “The West Wing” share insights into the creation and legacy of the series.

LAST WEEK: 3

WEEKS ON LIST: 3

4. IMMINENT, by Luis Elizondo. (Morrow) The former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program shares insights on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UFOs).

LAST WEEK: 1

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

5. THE ART OF POWER, by Nancy Pelosi. (Simon & Schuster) The U.S. representative from California chronicles her journey in politics, including her time as the first woman to serve as speaker of the House.

LAST WEEK: 4

WEEKS ON LIST: 4

6. OUTLIVE, by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford. (Harmony) A look at recent scientific research on aging and longevity.

LAST WEEK: 10

WEEKS ON LIST: 75

7. THE DEMON OF UNREST, by Erik Larson. (Crown) The author of “The Splendid and the Vile” portrays the months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War.

LAST WEEK: 8

WEEKS ON LIST: 18

8. ON THE EDGE, by Nate Silver. (Penguin Press) The founder of FiveThirtyEight and author of “The Signal and the Noise” profiles professional risk-takers.

LAST WEEK: 7

WEEKS ON LIST: 3

9. THE EASTERN FRONT, by Nick Lloyd. (Norton) A history of battles fought between 1914 and 1918 on the Eastern Front of World War I.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 1

10. THE DEVIL AT HIS ELBOW, by Valerie Bauerlein. (Ballantine) An account of the downfall of personal injury attorney Alex Murdaugh of South Carolina, who was found guilty of murdering his wife and son.

LAST WEEK: 9

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

11. AN UNFINISHED LOVE STORY, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. (Simon & Schuster) A trove of items collected by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian’s late husband inspired an appraisal of central figures and pivotal moments of the 1960s.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 16

12. SHAMELESS, by Brian Tyler Cohen. (Harper) The YouTube host and podcaster gives his take on the current state of the Republican Party.

LAST WEEK: 6

WEEKS ON LIST: 3

13. NUCLEAR WAR, by Annie Jacobsen. (Dutton) The author of “Operation Paperclip” portrays possible outcomes in the minutes after a nuclear missile launch.

LAST WEEK: 15

WEEKS ON LIST: 14

14. THE WAGER, by David Grann. (Doubleday) The survivors of a shipwrecked British vessel on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain have different accounts of events.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 67

15. THE BOOKSHOP, by Evan Friss. (Viking) A professor of history at James Madison University depicts the role bookstores have played in American cultural life.

LAST WEEK: —

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

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The New York Times bestsellers are compiled and archived by the bestseller lists desk of the New York Times news department and are separate from the culture, advertising and business sides of The New York Times Co. More information on rankings and methodology: nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology.

An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales were barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A (b) indicates that some bookstores reported receiving bulk orders. Picture Book rankings include hardcover sales only. Series rankings include all print and e-book sales.

___

PICTURE

1. DRAGONS LOVE TACOS, by Adam Rubin. Illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. (Dial) What to serve your dragon guests. (Ages 3 to 5)

WEEKS ON LIST: 457

2. THE CRAYONS GO BACK TO SCHOOL, by Drew Daywalt. Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. (Philomel) The crayons go back to school and can’t wait for art class. (Ages 4 to 8)

WEEKS ON LIST: 19

3. THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, by Drew Daywalt. Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. (Philomel) Problems arise when Duncan’s crayons revolt. (Ages 3 to 7)

WEEKS ON LIST: 397

4. THE PIGEON HAS TO GO TO SCHOOL!, by Mo Willems. (Hyperion) Pigeon deals with the anxieties of going to school for the first time. (Ages 3 to 5)

WEEKS ON LIST: 62

5. TIME FOR SCHOOL, LITTLE BLUE TRUCK, by Alice Schertle. Illustrated by Jill McElmurry. (Clarion) Blue gives a friend a ride to school. (Ages 4 to 7)

WEEKS ON LIST: 42

6. BLUEY: SLEEPYTIME, by Joe Brumm. (Penguin) Bingo wants to do a big girl sleep and wake up in her own bed. (Ages 4 to 8)

WEEKS ON LIST: 32

7. THE MAGICAL YET, by Angela DiTerlizzi. Illustrated by Lorena Alvarez Gómez. (Little, Brown) A being known as the Magical Yet helps children to realize their potential. (Ages 4 to 8)

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

8. HOW TO CATCH A MONSTER, by Adam Wallace. Illustrated by Andy Elkerton. (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky) A boy tries to catch the monster in his closet. (Ages 4 to 8)

WEEKS ON LIST: 12

9. THE WONDERFUL THINGS YOU WILL BE, by Emily Winfield Martin. (Random House) A celebration of possibilities. (Ages 3 to 7)

WEEKS ON LIST: 408

10. WE DON’T EAT OUR CLASSMATES!, by Ryan T. Higgins. (Disney-Hyperion) Penelope Rex must control her urge to eat the children in her class. (Ages 3 to 5)

WEEKS ON LIST: 53

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MIDDLE GRADE HARDCOVER

1. WONDER, by R.J. Palacio. (Knopf) A boy with a facial deformity starts school. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 458

2. REFUGEE, by Alan Gratz. (Scholastic) Three children in three conflicts look for safe haven. (Ages 9 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 272

3. HEROES, by Alan Gratz. (Scholastic) Friends Frank and Stanley give a vivid account of the Pearl Harbor attack. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 30

4. THE SWIFTS: A GALLERY OF ROGUES, by Beth Lincoln. Illustrated by Claire Powell. (Dutton) Shenanigan Swift heads to Paris in pursuit of art thieves. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 2

5. THE MISFITS: A ROYAL CONUNDRUM, by Lisa Yee. Illustrated by Dan Santat. (Random House) Olive is sent to Reforming Arts School and teams up with a group of crime-fighting outcasts. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 21

6. THE COMPLETE COOKBOOK FOR YOUNG CHEFS, by America’s Test Kitchen Kids. (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky) More than 100 kid-tested recipes from America’s Test Kitchen. (Ages 8 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 214

7. THE SUN AND THE STAR, by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro. (Disney Hyperion) Demigods Will and Nico embark on a dangerous journey to the Underworld to rescue an old friend. (Ages 10 to 14)

WEEKS ON LIST: 70

8. ODDER, by Katherine Applegate. Illustrated by Charles Santoso. (Feiwel & Friends) After a shark attack, Odder recuperates at the aquarium with the scientists who raised her. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 89

9. WINGS OF FIRE: A GUIDE TO THE DRAGON WORLD, by Tui T. Sutherland. Illustrated by Joy Ang. (Scholastic) A deeper dive into the legends of the 10 dragon tribes. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 46

10. THEY CALL ME NO SAM!, by Drew Daywalt. Illustrated by Mike Lowery. (Clarion) A pug named Sam protects his family. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 13

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YOUNG ADULT HARDCOVER

1. THE GRANDEST GAME, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. (Little, Brown) A prize worth millions is up for grabs for seven players sequestered on a private island. (Ages 12 to 18)

WEEKS ON LIST: 5

2. SUNDERWORLD, VOL. I: THE EXTRAORDINARY DISAPPOINTMENTS OF LEOPOLD BERRY, by Ransom Riggs. (Dutton) Leopold Berry discovers that his favorite TV series might be a real place. (Ages 14 to 17)

WEEKS ON LIST: 1

3. THE REAPPEARANCE OF RACHEL PRICE, by Holly Jackson. (Delacorte) Annabel Price’s mother is presumed dead, until she reappears during the filming of a documentary about her disappearance. (Ages 14 to 17)

WEEKS ON LIST: 22

4. DIVINE RIVALS, by Rebecca Ross. (Wednesday) Two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection. (Ages 13 to 18)

WEEKS ON LIST: 63

5. NIGHTBANE, by Alex Aster. (Amulet) In this sequel to “Lightlark,” Isla must choose between her two powerful lovers. (Ages 13 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 43

6. MURTAGH, by Christopher Paolini. (Knopf) Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn, must find and outwit a mysterious witch. (Ages 12 to 15)

WEEKS ON LIST: 42

7. SUCH CHARMING LIARS, by Karen M. McManus. (Delacorte) Two former stepsiblings unwillingly reunite and must solve a murder at a billionaire’s birthday party. (Ages 14 to 17)

WEEKS ON LIST: 5

8. THE DARKNESS WITHIN US, by Tricia Levenseller. (Feiwel & Friends) When Chrysantha’s husband, the Duke of Pholios, dies, she believes she’s the sole heir to his fortune. Until Eryx Demos arrives and claims to be the duke’s estranged grandson. (Ages 13 to 18)

WEEKS ON LIST: 8

9. RUTHLESS VOWS, by Rebecca Ross. (Wednesday) In the sequel to “Divine Rivals,” Roman and Iris will risk their hearts and futures to change the tides of the war. (Ages 13 to 18)

WEEKS ON LIST: 35

10. THE SHADOWS BETWEEN US, by Tricia Levenseller. (Feiwel & Friends) Alessandra plots to kill the Shadow King and take his kingdom for herself. (Ages 13 to 18)

WEEKS ON LIST: 12

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SERIES

1. THE POWERLESS TRILOGY, by Lauren Roberts. (Simon & Schuster) A story of forbidden love between Paedyn, an Ordinary, and Kai, an Elite, in the kingdom of Ilya. (Ages 14 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 9

2. THE WILD ROBOT, by Peter Brown. (Little, Brown) Roz the robot adapts to her surroundings on a remote, wild island. (Ages 7 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 32

3. A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER, by Holly Jackson. (Delacorte) Pippa Fitz-Amobi solves murderous crimes. (Ages 14 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 153

4. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. (Amulet) The travails and challenges of adolescence. (Ages 9 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 807

5. PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS, by Rick Riordan. (Disney-Hyperion) A boy battles mythological monsters. (Ages 9 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 740

6. HARRY POTTER, by J.K. Rowling. (Scholastic) A wizard hones his conjuring skills in the service of fighting evil. (Ages 10 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 806

7. GRAVITY FALLS, by Alex Hirsch and various illustrators. (Disney) The adventures of twins Dipper and Mabel Pines. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 7

8. SUPERNATURAL INVESTIGATIONS, by B.B. Alston. (Balzer and Bray) Amari Peters battles magical beings in the supernatural world. (Ages 8 to 12)

WEEKS ON LIST: 1

9. WHO WAS/IS …?, by Jim Gigliotti and others; various illustrators. (Penguin Workshop) Biographies unlock legendary lives. (Ages 8 to 11)

WEEKS ON LIST: 169

10. THE HUNGER GAMES, by Suzanne Collins. (Scholastic) In a dystopia, a girl fights on live TV to survive. (Ages 12 and up)

WEEKS ON LIST: 340

___

The New York Times bestsellers are compiled and archived by the bestseller lists desk of the New York Times news department and are separate from the culture, advertising and business sides of The New York Times Co. More information on rankings and methodology: nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology.

“It’s election season,” Mom said. “This fall, we get to vote for our mayor, school board members, and even our president!”

So begins the political education of kids Kayden and Emma, the main characters of “Voting With Mommy,” a children’s book written by Eastvale City Councilmember Jocelyn Yow and illustrated by Bonnie Lemaire.

The mother of a 4-year-old named Kayden, Yow, 29, hopes that her book released last month inspires families to talk with their children about civics in hopes they’ll vote as grown-ups.

“I would love for families, for parents to introduce the concept of voting, to talk about voting and what’s happening around them at home, starting at a young age,” Yow said.

Research shows the path to the ballot box starts at home.

Children whose mothers voted in the previous presidential election were 20.3% more likely to vote in their first election, according to research published by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy.

“Parents have a tremendous influence on the interest people have in politics, the values they bring to politics, and the habits they have with regard to citizenship,” Stanford University political science professor Bruce E. Cain was quoted as saying in a 2016 New York Times article about the role parents play in whether their kids vote.

Statewide, voters ages 18 to 34 account for about a third of California’s adult population, but just 21% of likely voters, the Public Policy Institute of California reported this summer. By comparison, California voters 55 and older make up 35% of the state’s adult population but 50% of likely voters.

A Norco College political science professor and the first woman of color to be elected to the Eastvale City Council — she was also the youngest woman of color to become  a city’s mayor in California history — Yow said that while growing up she, “was taught that you never talk about politics at the dining table.”

That changed her freshman year in college, when she went to a friend’s house for dinner.

“My friend’s parents, they would ask me for my opinion about some political issues that were happening at that time,” Yow said.

“Because of that dinner and that experience, it really got me thinking and looking at things from a different perspective and how politics affects all of us, whether we like it or not.”

The idea for writing the book stems from taking her son to her polling place, Yow said.

“He’s like ‘What is that? What is that?’” she said. “If you’re ever around a toddler, they’re very curious. They will ask you, ‘What is this, what is this, what is this?’ … So I would have to explain everything to him and I’m like ‘Let me just start writing all these down.’”

It took four years for Yow to write the book, which is her first.

“It’s one thing to have an idea and then it’s another thing to put it in writing, and I would always get stuck,” she said.

Yow tried to think of “things that little kids would care about.”

“They care a lot about parks and playgrounds,” she said. “Then they don’t necessarily understand the concept of roads or streets or the city budget or public safety just yet. But kids, you don’t mess with their playgrounds and parks.”

As a professor, Yow said the Generation Z students — those born between 1997 and 2012 — she interacts with are “very involved” in politics.

“They have opinions. They are well aware of what’s going on.”

Yow said she’s concerned about where young people are getting their information from.

“I would rather be me talking to my kid about politics and what’s happening than him getting his information from social media or whatnot in a few years,” she said.

“And so it’s important … that we start this conversation at home, and that we guide them in showing them how to find how to source news. I think that’s something that we can start at home by talking about news (and) what’s happening, where can you find accurate information instead of relying on social media.”

Yow will sign copies of her book Saturday, Sept. 21, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Harada Neighborhood Center, 13099 65th St., Eastvale. She’ll do the same Saturday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Corona Public Library, 650 S. Main St.

It was one of his earliest and most unforgettable moments in corporate life. Young Wilbur Ross was closing a real estate deal with the legendary Bill Zeckendorf at the real estate magnate’s panoramic and totally circular office. Catching Ross gawking at his surroundings, Zeckendorf comes up from behind, puts his arm around the young man, and says, “If you had been backed into a f__ing corner as often as I have, you would want a goddamn round office too.”

Not that Ross had been scratching and clawing his way out of adversity all his life, but, well, it comes with the territory of being a Wall Street legend, known as the “King of Bankruptcy.” Over a 55-year career, he helped structure more than $400 billion in assets, was named by Bloomberg as one of the 50 most influential people in global finance, and served — and survived — four tumultuous years as secretary of commerce under President Donald Trump.

That illustrious history and the many lessons learned with it make up the substance of his just-released memoir and life primer, “Risks and Returns” (Regnery, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing Inc.).

The subtitle of the book, “Creating Success in Business and Life,” is not so much a roadmap for young financiers, but rather the path Ross took to reach the pinnacle of his profession. It is colored with fascinating anecdotes from his Harvard Business School days to his start on Wall Street to his counsel with some of the giants of business to his Cabinet position under Trump. The company names he worked with and for read like a Fortune 100 list, and as for the people, Ross finds himself rubbing elbows with names like Rothschild, Buffett, Icahn, Milken, Branson, King Charles, John Lennon.

Ross’s anecdotes do indeed paint a picture of financial life in the fast lane. For example, there’s the time that, during the Federated Department Stores hearings, a professor says, “Mr. Chairman, investment bankers are to the financial system what mud wrestlers are to the performing arts.” As Ross starts to refute, the room can hear the professor mutter, “Another goddamned mud wrestler.”

Or the time that Martin Shugrue, the only man ever to be the CEO of two airlines as they went into bankruptcy, says to Ross, ”You were educated at Yale and Harvard. Surely you can find more appropriate clients than the skirts who are stewardess and the thugs who are Teamsters. You should be ashamed. You have some nerve coming in to tell me how to run an airline.”

Ross was raised by parents who were Democrats but early in his adult life he switches to the Republican Party and eventually lands the Cabinet position under Trump. While he finds the role rewarding, he is also subject to the whims of the commander in chief. A 6:30 a.m. call from Trump demanding he go on TV to oppose the Fed’s decision to raise rates is nothing out of the ordinary.

And there’s the scrutiny from Congress and as well as the media. In a high political position, you give up a part of your life and your privacy.

Ross no doubt is a financial genius, but for readers of “Risks and Returns” fearing they will be caught up in theory and formulas, that is not the case. Ross is a convincing storyteller, with anecdote after anecdote told in layman’s terms for all to cherish, whether playing tennis at Carl Icahn’s oceanside house or hearing Donald Trump lament on how the Obama administration overspent for the ceremonial pens to sign documents into laws. You’ll find yourself savoring one story and then thirsting for the next.

You’ll also find some of the author’s ideas to improve the political system and our regulatory environment.

But as much as anything, “Risks and Returns” gives you insights into one of the financial titans of the last half century, through his actions, his philosophies and his thinking.

“No one will live a life free of difficulty … Lifestyle issues, boring jobs, dumb bosses, work pressures, low pay, political issues … Instead of concentrating on them … drop the self-pity and get on with an affirmative direction.”

“Do not be afraid of taking rational risks — I have found that accepting them as the essential ingredient to achieving high-level returns. Just make sure that you think them through.”

(BookTrib.com is the lifestyle destination for book lovers, where articles and books are paired together to create dynamic content that goes beyond traditional book reviews.)

©2024 BookTrib. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON — It was hard to follow everything that happened when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“If you were a doctor in Louisiana trying to keep up, in just over a month, abortion went from legal, to illegal, to legal for now, to illegal for now, to legal again for now, to illegal pending the outcome of [an] underlying lawsuit,” writes Amanda Becker, a journalist with The 19th.

Becker offers an account of that chaotic time in her new book, “You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America.” She shadows doctors, activists and others around the country as they navigate the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

“This is a story that is going to keep going,” Becker said, describing a “major political realignment.”

She joined the Political Theater podcast this month to talk about what she saw on the ground and how abortion is shaping the current election cycle. This transcript has been edited and condensed. For the full conversation, listen here.

Q: How did this book come about?

A: Everyone who writes about abortion rights knew that Dobbs was coming. It was just a matter of time to see which case was going to be the one that overturned Roe.

And so I had started mentally preparing for that, because I not only thought it was going to be a huge story in terms of health care and the court and civil rights, but potentially the biggest political story of my career.

As we head into the first presidential election with no Roe v. Wade in 50 years, we’re seeing that. We just got some polling from New York Times/Siena College showing that abortion is starting to overtake other top issues among voters in swing states. And for women under 45, it’s already the most important issue.

Q: You spent time with an abortion clinic director in Alabama and a doctor in Arizona. What was that like?

A: Living in America right now, you’re living a very different life based on where you are, and your reality can change dramatically in terms of the type of health care you can access. And it’s not just abortion — when there are abortion bans in place, there’s a cascading effect.

I knew that in that first year, clinics and providers were going to be trying to take care of people in a situation where a lot of times they were uncertain even what type of care they could provide. I was just very aware that I didn’t want to be an added stress to them on top of everything else.

I started with the clinic in Tuscaloosa run by Robin Marty, and I had to ask them a few times before she was like, “OK, you can come on down.” And then she said, “You need to talk to Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick,” so I went out to Phoenix. And I consider those two settings and those two people to really be the heart of the book.

Q: Where else did you go?

A: I write about two women from Maryland who were trying to open an all-terms clinic, and there’s also a chapter in Massachusetts, a state where the vast majority of people support abortion rights, even more so than nationally. I wanted to show a place where people on the local and state level were getting really creative about how to protect abortion access.

In Wisconsin, I followed a medical student. How do you train to be an OB-GYN in a state where you’re prohibited from learning key parts of health care? People tend to practice in the areas where they train, and there are already maternal health care deserts in Wisconsin.

And Kentucky is the other one that comes to mind, where I followed everyday voters in a red state who were campaigning against a ballot measure. One of them had never done any sort of door-knocking before, and I wanted to see what that felt like on the ground, and what made them say, “I’ve had enough. I’m taking to the streets.”

Q: Every book has a deadline, but how did you know when to stop reporting?

A: In the afterword, I write about trying to end the book: “How could I leave readers with the most up-to-date information possible as abortion access continued to ebb and flow across the country, and any single court ruling or election could change everything in an instant?”

This is a story that is going to keep going. It’s a story that I think is turning into what could be a major political realignment in this country. You know, realignments are kind of hard to see when you’re at the beginning of them, and it’s only much later that scholars and political scientists look back and are like, “Oh, the great political realignment of whatever.”

I anticipate that the afterword for the paperback next year will be the election results from this year, and how that changed things.

Q: A number of abortion-related measures are on the ballot this year around the country. Beyond those, what else are you watching? What about congressional races?

A: I absolutely am going to Arizona to cover the Senate race between Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake, and I will be spending some time in Michigan.

I could potentially get back to Wisconsin by November. There’s not only the Senate race between Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde, but there’s also an OB-GYN [Kristin Lyerly] who’s running for the House out there in a district that has been red, but getting less red.

There are no women OB-GYNs in Congress right now, and I’d love to talk to her. Why does a doctor put aside their medical career because they feel like they need to run for office based on protecting the type of health care they were trained and have been providing to patients?

“ You Must Stand Up ” (Bloomsbury) is out Tuesday. Hear more from Becker at Politics and Prose on Friday and at People’s Book on Sept. 19.

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©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Still, it’s an absorbing history. Did you know Malört was originally sold door to door by an elderly Swedish man named Carl Jeppson? Did you know Jeppson’s Malört, as it would become known, was initially sold in stores by a successful Chicago spirits manufacturer and lawyer (George Brode) who spent a year in prison for draft evasion — during World War II? Did you know his former secretary (and later romantic companion) Pat Gabelick steered the Malört brand for decades after Brode died? Did you know it’s made with aptly named wormwood herbs? Did you know Noel collected so many wincing reactions to the taste of Malört — my favorite is “a forest fire, if the forest were made of earwax” — by the end, you have steeled yourself for the inevitable:

OK, I have to taste this myself.

Thus, meeting at a bar.

“Two shots of Malört,” Noel said to the bartender.

We got two small glasses of something kind of … yellow, gasoline-esque. Noel really is a fan of Malört, he explained. He likes to drink it after a big meal. Settles the stomach, he insists. He thinks the dare-ya aspect of drinking a shot of Malört tends to get overblown around Chicago and never really matches the memorable experience of actually drinking Malört. “The lore’s exceeded the awfulness. Most people who try it think it’s less bad than expected — I think. Depends on the palate. If you are used to bitter, strong … Do you drink IPAs? Malört is its own thing and does not taste like anything else. Absinthe is in the same family. It has a point of view.”

He’s in the minority. Or rather, until recently, you might assume so. As the book lays out, about 15 years ago the brand hit a low and was only selling 1,000 cases a year. Since Malört was sold to CH Distillery in 2018, around 35,000 cases are sold annually. And yet, the presiding reaction to Malört is a face scrunch, a shiver, maybe a nervous giggle.

“The reputation,” Noel said, “was why would someone willingly drink this? Or even, why does this exist? Why is this intensely bitter Swedish spirit only available around here?”

I get it.

You probably do too. When I was 11, I was a latchkey kid and I would invite friends over and we would raid the kitchen, find the most disparate ingredients we could come up with — carrots, hot dogs, hot fudge sauce, paprika, gum, a tray of ice — blend it up and dare each other to drink it. Now, every few months there’s a new online food challenge that dares its test subjects to try the seemingly nauseating, spicy or indigestible. Who remembers the One Chip Challenge? (That is, eating one Paqui chip, made of two of the hottest foods around, Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers). The Cinnamon Challenge? The Sprite-Banana Challenge? Those last two led to lots of hospital visits. But in every case, what you’re really asked to swallow is a fear of the unfamiliar.

There are so many questionable viral food videos today, that reactions from famous chefs — Gordon Ramsay comes to mind — is a sub-category. The genius of the popular YouTube series “Hot Ones,” co-created and hosted by former Chicago suburbanite Sean Evans, is predicated on the pressing question of how famous people behave while eating a series of increasingly hot chicken wings. Results vary. Watching New Zealand singer Lorde cruise through was like witnessing a one-minute mile. But watching Jennifer Lawrence (“I feel like I’m going to die!”) was harrowing.

Malört, though, falls into a different category of dare-ya tastes.

Americans call these “acquired tastes.” These are often old, specific and fine with the culture that created them. That name, “Malört,” means “wormwood” in Swedish. Malört arrived in Chicago via Swedish immigrants who’d been drinking it for ages. “So the appeal in Chicago, in the early days, was to Swedish immigrants,” Noel said. “There was a whole line of spirits (from Brode’s Bielzoff Products company) for first-generation immigrants, Scandinavian, German, Polish — they got tastes of home. But when there were not enough first-generation immigrants to appeal to, it was a thing for working-class Chicago. After that, George Brode started to lean into Malört as a gag.”

He ran ads asking: “Are you man enough to drink Jeppson?”

Think of Vegemite, black licorice, anchovies on pizza, haggis, lutefisk — one culture’s no-nonsense go-tos, at least initially, becomes another culture’s insensitive punchlines. Or conversely, a culinary test for belonging, hanging. I remember balking once at biting into a nearly black, sulfur-smelling “thousand-year egg” in a Chinese restaurant, and feeling like a tourist. On the other hand, as an Italian American, the things I have seen done to pasta in the Midwest feel like penance for every time I have hesitated before green bean casseroles.

Malört, Noel reminded me, “is a legit cultural experience, intertwined with the fabric of this city.” Meaning, I assumed: How could I claim to live in Chicago without trying Malört just this once?

“Smell first,” he said.

I edged my nose forward, braced, and it was … fine.

“I’m getting herbal,” Noel said. “All right, now take it all down at once. Do not sip this.” He spoke quickly, like if we’re going to rob this bank then we’re going to rob it now. “OK — onetwothree.”

It was caustic, but less liquid nails than harsh, warm medicine.

“The finish is going off in a couple directions,” Noel said. “You getting that? I’m getting the taste of rubber bands. Dry, and abrasive, but also, sits nicely on the tongue. A little sweetness around the edges to balance it out.”

I tasted pine, I said.

“I totally get pine. I used to say it tastes like Christmas trees. Also, some mint.”

And a touch of licorice. But truly, not so bad. I could feel my legs. Level complete.

“It’s also more memorable than a lot of things in this bar,” Noel said.

So, is there anything you won’t drink, I asked.

He thought. “Oh … milkshake IPAs. Let’s just put it this way, that stuff’s not for me.”

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

These days, there’s no surer way to start a fight than to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. And with election day drawing near, political conversations are increasingly difficult to avoid.

You could muddle your way through the next two months and hope for the best. Or you could take Tania Israel‘s advice and embrace the opportunity to help bridge America’s political divide.

Israel, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, has been facilitating difficult conversations since the 1990s, when she brought together people on opposite sides of the abortion debate.

“It was a transformational experience for me,” Israel recalled. “It didn’t change anything about how I felt about reproductive rights, but it changed so much about how I felt about people who disagreed with me.”

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, she stepped up her efforts to connect with people outside her bubble and wrote a book to guide others willing to do the same. “Facing the Fracture: How to Navigate the Challenges of Living in a Divided Nation,” inspires readers to listen to their fellow Americans rather than debate them.

Israel spoke to The Times about how individual conversations can help the country heal. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why does it seem like there’s more political conflict than there used to be?

People are struggling not just with arguments with their uncle, but arguments with their phone, with the news, and in their own heads. All of that makes us very emotionally activated, which is part of the reason stress-related political conflict is on the rise and keeps going up.

It’s not healthy for us, it’s also not healthy for our relationships, and it’s not healthy for our democracy.

Is it good to try to bridge the divide, or is it better for your mental health to steer clear?

I think what’s best for people is to build the capacity to be able to do both — to be able to have those conversations, and also to be able to know when it’s best not to.

What motivates people to engage with someone from the other side?

Some people say, “I want to maintain a relationship with somebody in my life and we’re having trouble doing that because of political conflict.”

Some people say they want to persuade or convince someone else.

Some people say they want to find common ground or heal the divide.

And then some people say, “I simply cannot fathom how people can think or act or vote like they do,” and they’re looking for some insight.

Are we so used to being on our phones and that makes it hard to deal with people in real life?

It’s much easier to have stereotypes of people when we’re engaging with them only as social media accounts. It distorts our understanding of who other people are.

Are stereotypes the only problem?

As humans, we have these cognitive biases where we see ourselves as being very rational, basing our ideas on solid information. But we see people on the other side as being irrational, illogical, and being brainwashed by misinformation. Both sides are seeing things this way.

My favorite cognitive bias is called motive attribution asymmetry, where we see ourselves as being motivated by protective, caring motives, and we see the other side as being driven by selfishness and by hostility.

How can we correct our cognitive biases?

Recognizing them is probably the most important thing.

We can recognize the other side’s biases. If we just recognize that we are susceptible to all of those same things, that can help us to have that curiosity to correct them.

If you find yourself in the middle of a polarizing argument, how can you turn things around?

The best thing we can do if we’re trying to find common ground, persuade somebody, or gain insight is to try to understand them better.

The way we do that is we listen. We encourage people to elaborate. We manage our own emotions. And when we do share with people, we share stories instead of statistics and slogans.

That’s not what people think they’re supposed to be doing. They think they’re supposed to be having a debate, where they’re bringing in all the information and the stats and the rationale.

Why are stories better than statistics?

When we’re using stats and arguments, we’re drawing those from our trusted sources, which are very often not the same as the trusted sources of the person that we’re talking to.

Confirmation bias causes us to accept information that supports what we already believe to be true, and ignore or dismiss information that conflicts with our beliefs. So when we’re telling people things that are in conflict with what they believe, they are more likely to dismiss what we’re saying — and frankly, to dismiss us as a trusted source.

When we embed information in stories, people remember it better and they accept it more. It’s also how humans relate to each other. Not only is it more effective, it’s a more interesting conversation.

Scientists will say an anecdote is not data. But you’re saying an anecdote is better than data.

Right. We can have all of the information, but when we’ve got another human being involved, it turns out that just telling them all the information doesn’t help.

If we believe in science, we also need to believe in the science that says that’s not the way you get someone to change their behavior.

Why would someone who doesn’t trust your facts trust your story?

Stories feel more true. And you can’t argue with stories, you know? “Here’s my story of my life.” You can’t argue with my story of my life. Also, if there’s some emotion in the story, people connect with that.

We often put our ideas out there to say, “Here are my ideas. This is why you should believe it.” Or to say, “Here are my ideas. This is why this justifies what I think or do.” We very rarely put our ideas out there to say, “Here are my ideas. Here are the limits of my understanding of this. What am I missing?”

That is a completely disarming approach because it brings intellectual humility into it. We can have very strong beliefs but still have curiosity about and respect for views that might be different from our own. That’s going to help to broaden our understanding.

It seems like you’d have to be in the right mindset to want to talk with someone you’re used to disagreeing with, no?

We have to work up the capacity to do this. There are habits we need to form and habits we need to reform. All of that training is going to help us be able to face political division, as well as other challenges in our lives.

What’s involved with that training?

The first step is to reduce polarizing input. We can consume news more wisely, use social media more intentionally and correct our cognitive biases. That’s going to help us be in a space of equilibrium.

Next is building our individual capacity through emotional resilience. That’s being able to face a person or a lawn sign and not completely melt down.

Intellectual humility helps us broaden our minds, and you’re absolutely right that you have to want to do that. It’s about having the curiosity to recognize that you might not have the full story and that there’s something more you can learn.

And then there’s compassion. You’ve got to take all these steps before you can even get to building empathy and compassion.

Once you’ve done all of that, now you’re ready to strengthen connections.

How?

If you want to engage across the divide, you want to do so effectively — listening to others, telling stories, all of that.

It’s also engaging with our communities and our country. Civic engagement is a really important activity. Do something meaningful to support the causes that you care about. Volunteering not only benefits us as society, it also benefits our mental health.

Posting something on social media is not a very effective form of advocacy. Turning away from our screens and engaging with other three-dimensional human beings is probably the best thing we can do for any of these issues.

There’s also this thing most people have never heard of, which is the bridging movement.

What’s that?

There are over 500 organizations that are working on bridging divides and strengthening our democracy. If people join that movement, it’s great. But just knowing that that’s happening can make people more optimistic about their fellow Americans, and about the future of our country.

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©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

We’ll see new books from “The Overstory” writer Richard Powers and “Leave the World Behind” novelist Rumaan Alam, for instance. Here are five others we can’t wait to dive into, all due this month.

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“Creation Lake” by Rachel Kushner. (Simon & Schuster. 416 pp. $29.99. Out now.)

The latest from Kushner, who’s been a Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist, is about a woman who is lying to everyone about everything. Sadie (not her real name, of course) is a secret agent, sent to France to infiltrate a group of anarchists. She has a lover, whom she’s surveilling, and friends, whom she’s using, and everything works well until she becomes fascinated by a man who may be even more duplicitous than she is.

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“Devils Kill Devils” by Johnny Compton. (Macmillan. 288 pp. $28.99. Out now.)

Guardian angels are supposed to be a good thing, but Sarita isn’t so sure when, on her wedding night, her angel, Angelo, who has repeatedly saved her from disaster, kills her husband. Compton’s followup to last year’s “The Spite House” is said to be a super-violent tale of horror that casts vampires in a whole new light.

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“Final Cut” by Charles Burns. (Pantheon. 224 pp. $34. Sept. 24.)

This graphic novel (very graphic — it’s definitely not for kids) is a tale of romantic obsession that’s also about identity and nostalgia. Brian and Jimmy, who used to make goofy science-fiction short films when they were in middle school, reunite as adults to create a more ambitious feature film. Inspired by their beloved “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” it drives them and their collaborators, including muse and lead actor Laura, into a remote forest where things take a dark turn.

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“The Siege” by Ben Macintyre. (Crown. 400 pp. $32. Out now.)

The prolific British writer’s nonfiction accounts of spycraft — including “Agent Zigzag,” “Colditz” and “Operation Mincemeat” — generally take him to World War II and the heroes who worked in the shadows to bring it to a close. But the events of “The Siege” happened in 1980, during America’s Iran Hostage Crisis. It’s a minute-by-minute account of the six days after armed gunmen stormed the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages.

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“The Small and the Mighty” by Sharon McMahon. (Thesis. 320 pp. $32. Sept. 24,)

Duluth, Minnesota-based social media influencer, podcaster and “America’s government teacher” McMahon— whose popularity has zoomed as the country has become more divided and confusing — unveils 12 witty portraits of average Americans who made enormous contributions but didn’t get into the history books, like the guy who was at Alexander Hamilton’s deathbed and who wrote the preamble to the Constitution.

Chris Hewitt is the interim books editor at the Minnesota Star Tribune (Minneapolis).

More than 20 years ago, Zappa made her first attempt at publishing a book about “how difficult it is to be hippie royalty AND try to find your own identity in the shadow of a certifiable self-made ‘genius.’ “

That’s a line from her 2001 novel, “America the Beautiful,” but it also works as a good summation of her latest book, the memoir “Earth to Moon.”

It’s a bare-knuckled, funny and often poignant nonfiction account of what it meant to grow up in a celebrity home in the ‘70s with “pagan absurdist” parents Frank and Gail, who reveled in flouting convention. We’re talking about having one of your dad’s many groupies living in the basement, calling your parents by their first names because they rejected the labels of mom and dad, and having a painting of an orgy as decor for a home with four children living in it.

“My nanny was a Ouija board,” Zappa quipped. “You shouldn’t know who [occultist] Aleister Crowley is at 5 years old.”

Her parents selected her first and middle names to seal her destiny: “Frank gave Gail two choices, Moon or Motorhead. Motorhead was a member of his band, so Gail selected Moon, and Unit was because I was the firstborn and we became a family unit. And so from the time I was very small, I really lived up to my name being this thing that was circumnavigating my father, the sun.”

Anyway, back to that first book. Why did she wait more than two decades to take another stab at publishing?

There are practical reasons, like the fact that she became a mother and was busy raising a child, and that she professes to have “a very hermit-like personality. I’m a very private person.”

But there’s more to it than that.

“I was also really traumatized by writing the first book,” Zappa said during a recent Zoom interview from her home. “I put all this time into working on it, like five years, and then it came out on September 11 [of 2001]. So all of that work was just gone in a Pompeii moment. I knew it wasn’t personal, but it was, still, just a shock that I could put that much effort into something, and it just could be like, poof! Gone.

“Growing up in Los Angeles and in the Hollywood scene, the legend here is that if you finally do your piece just the way you want to do it, all doors open. And it just…didn’t happen.”

Granted, that legend — better called a myth — didn’t factor in a terrorist attack that killed thousands and threw the world into chaos. It didn’t help that the book was called ‘America the Beautiful” when, she says, “America had changed. [The novel] was a girly summer read, and the world was like, ‘We’re going after people. We don’t lay at the beach anymore.”

The novelized attempt at telling her story aside, with “Earth to Moon,” Zappa seems to have matured to the point where she can grapple with her complicated history, no holds barred.

“Yeah, no, thank you for pointing that out,” Zappa said. “It was just too painful to tell it in a nonfiction way when I was younger. So I got creative. I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just make this like a hodge-podge of events and then fictionalize things and throw in some hilarity. But it was just thinking, ‘How do I want to tell a story so that it is palatable, that some of these experiences are not so painful for the reader?’”

But then, as Zappa details in her memoir, as the years wore on, she experienced a series of painful betrayals orchestrated by her mother Gail, whom she cared for during the end stages of her battle with lung cancer. Gail died in 2015.

“Gail did many things…All the adorable, ‘It’s my family’ stuff just went away, and I was stripped bare. I was, like, ‘I have to write nonfiction to save my life.’

“I had to think about what family is, what trust is, what loyalty is, what promises are.”

In wrestling her story to the page, she also had trouble going back to the period of time in the ‘80s that made her into a pop culture touchstone — so much so that the first draft of her memoir she turned in to her publisher didn’t include anything about the making of the hit song “Valley Girl.”

“I had a real blind spot about this time in my life. I’m not even joking,” she said. “It’s hilarious. I literally turned in my memoir with no mention of ‘Valley Girl.’ And so, obviously, they said, ‘You’re missing a couple of stories…’

“[Those were] some of the last pieces that I wrote, because I just didn’t realize how much energy, discomfort and pain was around that particular time. I guess I just wasn’t ready to really roll my sleeves up and look at it. So that took a minute.”

Zappa remembers the feeling of competing for her famous father’s attention not just within the family, but with the world at large.

“I was so desperate for my father’s attention because when he shined his light on you, you felt like you were the only person in the room,” said Zappa.

Then she “figured out the secret formula” for spending time with him: He loved working — recording and performing music.

“I slipped a note under his studio door” proposing they do a song together, she recalled.

“And so he took me up on the offer. On a school night, he woke me up. He said, ‘Do that funny voice that you do,’ because I was going to school in the [San Fernando] Valley, and the girls had this lovely lyrical cadence that just was hilarious to me. And so we recorded a few tracks.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

The popularity of the song, which also inspired the 1983 movie “Valley Girl,” opened up a few acting roles for Zappa. “I wanted to be an actress like Cher, like Carol Burnett. I love those variety style shows and those little vignettes.”

She wanted to be good at the craft of acting, so she began taking lessons — which, in a surprise plot twist, you could say led to her penning two books and numerous articles for magazines.

“I was thinking, ‘OK, I want to have craft here,’ and one teacher in particular, Roy London, was just this an unbelievable teacher. He really saw me journaling and in the class taking feverish notes. He just turned to me and he said, ‘Moon, you’re a writer.’”