G.P. Putnam\u2019s Sons Books for Young Readers, 368 pages, $20<\/p>\n
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Aimee Phan did not intend to time the publication of her first Young Adult book to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, which she describes as \u201cthe inciting event that created the Vietnamese diaspora.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the Berkeley author, a second generation Vietnamese American, her interest in the diaspora is a thematic constant that runs through her three books.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her latest, The Lost Queen, is her first YA book in a duology geared to ages 13 and up.<\/p>\n
Phan grew up steeped in the myths and stories of her ancestral home. Her 2004 story collection, We Should Never Meet<\/a>, is based on the evacuation of thousands of Vietnamese orphans weeks before the fall of Saigon. Her 2012 novel, The Reeducation of Cherry Truong<\/a> follows two feuding families that escape Vietnam, ending up in Orange County\u2019s \u201cLittle Saigon.\u201d (Phan lived close to that neighborhood, but did not live there.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Phan\u2019s previous books were deeply rooted in realism, so she was keen on trying her hand at a YA fantasy, a genre she had always been interested in. Like her other books, she began with a young protagonist, only this time she was \u201cwriting about dragons, writing about magic, writing about time travel.\u201d The experience turned out to be good for her writing.<\/p>\n \u201cThese genre departures from realistic fiction are really fun and allow my characters and their situation to go in unpredictable ways,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can explore very true emotional feelings but in a more spectacular, captivating way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lost Queen follows the adventures of Jolie Lam, a San Jose high school sophomore, who, with her sister, discovers that they have been reborn as the Trung sisters, the real-life founding queens of Vietnam who rebelled against the Chinese Han Empire and established the Kingdom of Vietnam in 40 A.D. Though their rule was brief, the sisters remain two of Vietnam\u2019s greatest national heroes. The book culminates in an epic battle that forces Jolie to determine right from wrong in a fight for everything she loves \u2014 and the fate of the world.<\/p>\n The magic and myths may be Vietnamese, but Phan finds the belief in superstitions to be universal. One purpose of myth, she said, is to give people hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo many cultures have dragons. So many cultures have these mystical, mythical fantasies,\u201d she said. \u201cIt empowers people to imagine solutions even if they seem unrealistic.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rabbi\u2019s Suitcase<\/a> by Robert Kehlmann<\/p>\n Koehler Books, 364 pages, $22<\/p>\n For Robert Kehlmann, one of the most difficult \u2014 and cringeworthy \u2014 aspects of writing The Rabbi\u2019s Suitcase, a work of historical fiction, was reading the real-life love letters between his mother, the former Zipora Siev, and Reuven Borstein, one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel who would later change his surname to the Hebrew Barkat, meaning \u201clightening.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReuven\u2019s letters were sexually explicit,\u201d Kehlmann said. \u201cIt was hard for me to imagine my mother in that way. It\u2019s probably an oedipal thing. But the letters are what inspired the book.\u201d<\/p>\n Kehlmann discovered the letters shortly after his mother\u2019s death in 2009. Kehlmann, an internationally renowned glass artist, author and known in Berkeley for creating the historic plaque project in 1996 while chair of the city\u2019s Landmarks Preservation Commission, began working on the book 12 years ago. The deeper he dug into the subject matter, the more he realized that his mother\u2019s story had broader implications.<\/p>\n Kehlmann devotes a third of the book to his family\u2019s migration odyssey from Lithuania to Brooklyn, by way of Cypress and Mandatory Palestine, setting the scene for his mother\u2019s coming-of-age story. The narrative begins in 1880 and ends in New York in 1933.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though the book is steeped in history, Kehlmann never considered writing a strictly historical account.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe this is a work of fiction,\u201d he said, \u201cbut that allowed me to give people personalities, to be able to see what it was like when they interacted with each other and that filled out an entire narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n While early sections are devoted to the family epic, it\u2019s the love story between Zipora and Reuven that becomes the focus, thanks to those love letters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zipora, the eldest of eight, meets Reuven when she is 17. Their long-distance relationship exists mostly in passionate letters while he studies first in Strasbourg and Paris and she works in Brooklyn, sending some of her earnings to him. Their six-year love affair broke taboos in their rabbinic Orthodox families and does not end well.<\/p>\n In the endnote, Kehlmann writes that he felt protective of his mother and resentful toward Reuven, but said later that the story of these star-crossed lovers was not so black-and-white.<\/p>\n \u201cThey wanted to break free from old world ways,\u201d he said. \u201cReuven was potentially her saviour for the life she was trapped in. He takes her to plays, introduces her to a world of culture she had never seen. That was her ticket to the 20th century and the possibility of a broader life.\u201d<\/p>\n Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost<\/a> by Jude Berman<\/p>\n She Writes Press, 243 pages, $18<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be ashamed,\u201d writes Jude Berman, after citing gun statistics in her latest work of fiction. \u201cAnd we should do more.\u201d<\/p>\n Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost, a short story collection about gun violence, is the Berkeley author\u2019s attempt to take action.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I do have is the ability to write fiction,\u201d Berman said. \u201cPeople are telling the real stories, but haven\u2019t used fiction and storytelling as a tool for gun violence prevention. I felt like this was something that I could offer that hasn\u2019t been done. The appeal is a little more indirect psychologically. That\u2019s why we watch movies. It\u2019s easier sometimes to take something in when it\u2019s in storytelling or fiction form.\u201d<\/p>\n Each of the collection\u2019s 26 stories are named for a character whose first name corresponds with a letter of the alphabet. Berman greatly varied the characters in terms of age, race, class, religion, gender orientation, geographic location and their views regarding guns. Not all of the characters end up dying from gun violence.<\/p>\n Berman spent a career in academic research before segueing into freelance writing and editing in the late \u201980s. She has also run two small indie presses, including Pathways Press in Palo Alto in the \u201990s. She is the author of 10 books, including textbooks and novels she has ghost written for others.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAfter working on other people\u2019s novels for a long time, I decided to finally write my own,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She published The Die, a work of speculative fiction, in April 2024 and The Vow, historical fiction, seven months later. Both The Vow and Shot were produced by the Berkeley-based She Writes Press.<\/p>\n NonfictionThe Glory of Giving Everything: The Taylor Swift Business Model,<\/a> by Crystal Haryanto<\/p>\n John Wiley & Sons, 240 pages, $25<\/p>\n With her fringed, Versace bodysuit, thigh-high boots and football player beau, pop superstar Taylor Swift is an unlikely marketing genius whose approach to her own brand development is the subject of a popular course at UC Berkeley\u2019s Haas School of Business taught by Crystal Haryanto, who has brought together her findings in a debut monograph, The Glory of Giving Everything: The Taylor Swift Business Model.<\/p>\n An economic consultant at Cornerstone Research in San Francisco, Haryanto graduated from UC Berkeley in 2023 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in economics, cognitive science, and public policy. Her class, \u201cArtistry, Policy, & Entrepreneurship: Taylor\u2019s Version,\u201d\u00a0 has attracted global media coverage.<\/p>\n Designed for entrepreneurs, marketers, and fans alike, The Glory of Giving Everything addresses how Swift has not only revolutionized the music industry but created a sustainable brand that resonates deeply with fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n The book\u2019s title comes from a Swift song called \u201cClara Bow,\u201d which traces the lineage of women working in entertainment, commanding them to \u201ctake the glory, give everything.\u201d Haryanto interprets that as Taylor \u201caccepting the fame and prestige while also subjecting every part of herself to public consumption and dedicating her all to her craft,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Giving everything\u2019 isn\u2019t something you \u2018give up\u2019 in order to get success,\u201d Haryanto said, \u201cfulfillment is found in the giving itself.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s something Swift channels when she pours her experiences into art, making her fans feel as if she knows them and commits to long performances.<\/p>\n Since the beginning, Swift has been intimately involved in every stage of her own marketing and brand development, Haryanto noted. In 2005, when she met with record labels, she had already been communicating directly with supporters on the platform Myspace, developing a devoted fan base. Taylor\u2019s continued commitment to her fans, through her ability to create songs that resonate with them and connect deeply with them is key to her marketing savvy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy take on Taylor\u2019s marketing is that art and business function in tandem,\u201d Haryanto said. \u201cTaylor pushes herself to exceed industry standards because doing so gives her the means to continue creating art.\u201d<\/p>\n As for all that Swiftie merchandise, which raked in more than $200 million <\/a>during the 2023 Eras Tour? Haryanto disagreed with critics who blasted the singer for manipulating fans into buying her products.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFans are the ones choosing to continuously demand it,\u201d she said, \u201cprompting Taylor to continuously supply it.\u201d<\/p>\n Stumbling Blocks<\/a> by Jennifer Krebs<\/p>\n Legacy Book Press, 265 pages, $16<\/p>\n Growing up on a farm in 1960s upstate New York, Jennifer Krebs remembers her German Jewish family switching to German when they felt the subject matter was not meant for their American children\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather or my father and his sisters would interject in German and no one would translate for me,\u201d said Krebs, who has lived in Berkeley for three decades. \u201cYou knew there was more going on than what you were being told.\u201d<\/p>\n She later learned that such conversations were about their former lives during the Nazi occupation \u201cin the middle of nowhere Germany,\u201d Krebs said, aka the rural village of Berleburg. Krebs explores her family\u2019s wartime journey and her own in Stumbling Blocks: A Second Generation Holocaust Memoir.<\/p>\n An environmental planner who worked for a short time for the City of Berkeley as a hazardous waste inspector in the 1990s, Krebs has published essays and stories over the years. This is her first book.<\/p>\n The title comes from the German word stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, brass plaques that were placed in the pavement in front of her family\u2019s former home in Berleburg, part of a public art project to commemorate the victims of Nazism. The book is based on years of research and numerous visits to Europe and Israel over her lifetime. She began writing in 2019.<\/p>\n The book begins after Kristallnacht, when Jennifer\u2019s father and two sisters are sent to live with relatives in Belgium for two years. In 1941 they unite with their parents and flee Germany for the U.S. The Belgian family, meanwhile, is sent to Auschwitz and does not survive.<\/p>\n Krebs has wrestled with the survivors\u2019 guilt she was exposed to, along with the stumbling blocks she herself encountered when coming out as a gay woman in a small town.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not want to be overtaken by all this baggage,\u201d she said, \u201cthe survivors\u2019 guilt and anxiety about things I couldn\u2019t do anything about as a child of people who have gone through trauma.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She pointed out the cover image of her driving a tractor as a pre-teen as an example of the can-do ethic her family required of her.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t expect me to wait around and be given stuff,\u201d she said. \u201cThey expected me to land on my feet and start running.\u201d<\/p>\n Life-Changing Homes: Eco-Friendly Designs That Promote Well-Being<\/a> by Kirsten Dirksen and Nicol\u00e1s Boullosa<\/p>\n Abrams, 240 pages, $40<\/p>\n A home made from a dilapidated stone stable in the Italian Alps. A Huck Finn-inspired boat made of scraps found in a Santa Cruz backyard that sailed down the Mississippi. A Scandinavian house encased within a geodesic dome to protect against extreme weather and aid plant growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n These are a few of the 80 or so unconventional dwellings featured in Kirsten Dirksen and Nicol\u00e1s Boullosa\u2019s first book, drawing on homes from around the world they have featured on their 15-year-old YouTube Channel, @kirstendirksen\/*faircompanies<\/a>, which attracts some two million subscribers. Many of the homes both on the website and in the book were created with sustainability in mind, a desire to escape modern living and\/or pursue a quirky dream.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes a home doesn\u2019t just provide shelter \u2014 it becomes deeply aligned with the person or people living in it,\u201d Dirksen said. \u201cThere\u2019s a kind of quiet inevitability to it, a resonance or rightness on a deeper level.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s path to YouTube began in 2004, when Dirksen, a videographer\/filmmaker, met her journalist\/photographer husband in Spain. They found common ground in their mutual interest in sustainability and minimalism. They married in 2006 and spent 18 years in Europe \u2014 often working with their kids in tow \u2014 before landing in Berkeley two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n But their work in Berkeley goes way back. Berkeley-based videos the couple has taken over the years include the backyard ADU of a UC Berkeley professor<\/a>, developer Patrick Kennedy\u2019s micro units<\/a> and architect Karl Wanaselja\u2019s<\/a> car-parts home.\u00a0<\/p>\n The couple and their three children reside in a life-changing home of their own: a 1908 South Berkeley fixer that they haven\u2019t entirely fixed, but have tweaked to suit their needs, turning a laundry room into a bedroom, squeezing laundry appliances into the kitchen and carving out a sleeping nook for themselves in the attic.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels grounded and intimate, and in many ways, suits us better than some of the sprawling homes we\u2019ve stayed in while filming,\u201d Dirksen said.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Aimee-Phan-Author-Photo-c-Nicholas-Lea-Bruno-2560x1707.jpg\")
Aimee Phan. Credit: Nicholas Lea Bruno<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-29.png\")
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