Well, what about you then? Do writers get a break or is the summer about work, work, work?

Well, for me, I have actually a deadline coming up.

That's the end of the summer.

So I've timed that very badly because it means my children, I have four children, they're off school.

And so I'm kind of getting up at 6am.

I'm writing until they wake up at around 9 or 10.

So I get a good bit done.

Have you a favourite exercise?

That got a huge response, wasn't it? Yeah

... yeah, it got a huge response.

It was kind of the first, uh, memoir on motherhood.

Like, they're, they're everyday now, but it was the first one that kind of described it as a little bit less than the sort of, um, delightful, uh, misty-eyed experience that, uh, it's presented to women as a lot of the time.

And she got an awful lot of criticism about that, and she was kind of labeled as a bleak, depressive, and very critical writer.

And then in 2012, she wrote about the breakdown of her marriage.

Um, it was called Aftermath.

Is it a good book?

Uh, the next one you have is much more literary, uh, Ben Lerner's Transcription.

Yeah.

But now, when you say it's much more literary, I wouldn't be put off by that.

It is incredibly accessible.

I think it's just, it's much more highbrow in terms of what it is, um, analyzing.

But it is a slim book, 120 pages long, and it's about a man...

Well, like, it's about a few men.

That's why I said, "What's that about?" [laughs]

Is she almost a mentor figure to generations of women?

Yes, she has become this kind of cultural touchstone, particularly for millennial women.

Um, uh, I, I don't know how or why it happened, but, uh, she seemed to sort of explode, uh, in popularity, particularly after her death.

Um, and it, maybe it's to do with the fact that her films, you know, the, the streaming, uh, phenomenon, her films are widely accessible on all the streamers now, and before you would've had to, you know, rent them or catch them on TV whenever they're on.

Also, social media.

A lot of, a lot of...

She was responsible for so many pithy one-liner and quips that, you know, they're, they're very adaptable to social media.

[laughs]

And, uh, Adele, tell me about Michelle Obama and what she's saying about Gen Z people needing to be more resilient.

Yeah, I was kind of, uh, encouraged, um, on my, my kitchen sink rants to my children by Michelle Obama's, uh, statement that, uh, um, [lips smack] Gen Z workers needed to learn to sort of endure bad bosses and not expect instant career satisfaction and learn how to do something you don't like and be good at it because it builds resilience, essentially.

Um, I, I, I mean, I think everything she said, she was speaking at, um, she was speaking in London at their sort of South by Southwest, um, event.

And I, I think what's unfortunate about what she said i- is that it's kind of targeting Gen Z workers, and it's sort of feeding into that, um, idea that Gen Z workers or Gen Z in general are, um, are, are snowflakes, are lazy, or, you know, they don't wanna do any hard work.

They, they wanna do just things they enjoy.

Um, when actually what she's saying, I think she's generally s- s- just applying some fairly common sense and saying, you know, "You can't just leave school and expect to walk into, you know, your ideal job.

None of us have done that.

So, can you tell us what this case is all about, and why now, in June, it has become so controversial in Britain?

do.

Because, yeah, people might not have read it.

It is 900 pages long.

So it is quite an undertaking if you do want to read it.

Most people kind of read it in their English courses if they do an English degree or something like that, because it's kind of one of those ones that it's like Ulysses in that way.

You know, you kind of you are the maid, read it or you don't approach it unless like somebody is standing over you and making you do it.

But it is it's about these.

And to the modern mind, that can be difficult to adjust to.