Hello, this is everything else, the FT Culture Podcast.

I'm Gris, commissioning arts editor in the London office.

And I'm Lila, the FTs community editor in New York.

First up, we're focusing on one book and the conversations it raises.

That book is Three Women by Lisa Todayo.

And later on, I'll be chatting with my colleague James Fontenella Khan.

We just published an investigation in FT Weekend magazine together about workplace mental health.

So. in FT Weekend Magazine together about workplace mental health. So on our most recent episode, our summer books special, I was saying, Lila, that one of the books I really was looking forward to reading this summer was three women.

And since we spoke then, I have read it and loved it.

Yeah, you know, in that conversation, you also successfully convinced me to also read the book.

And we've been talking about it.

And we thought we need to track down Lisa Todayo and talk to her about what it was like to write about desire, what it was like to spend eight years working on a book about women's sex lives.

Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of book that you really want to know what the process of writing it was like to spend eight years working on a book about women's sex lives? Yeah, I mean, it's the kind of book that you really want to know what the process of writing

it was like, not only because it's just come out this week and there's loads of buzz around it,

but also because it's a really sort of strange, hybrid book.

Yeah.

It reads like a novel, but it's based on years and years of reporting on the intimate lives of these real women.

So it's kind of a brilliant example of literary nonfiction.

Yeah, so she was a magazine feature writer for many years and then was approached by Simon & Schuster to write a book about whatever she wanted.

So she spoke with hundreds of people, and she ended up

focusing on these three women, and each of them delves into these themes of desire, like not

just for sex, but also for love and admiration and understanding. And it was a really interesting

...