What is Arvind Ethan David reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Arvind Ethan David, author of The Great Game: A Thriller.

His entry begins:

I tend to read three or four things at once, a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and consume some as audiobooks and others as print.

At the moment, like everybody else, I’m reading The Odyssey, but I’m simultaneously inhaling two different translations. I’m reading the print edition of Emily Wilson’s version whilst listening to Daniel Mendelsohn’s. The combination is so instructive. Wilson’s iambic pentameter is urgent, terse, resonant, modern, powerful, and really drives the story forward. Mendelsohn’s more prosaic rendition lacks music (unusually for him, as he is a usually graceful writer), but he makes up for it with enormous precision and detail that gives you the full context and meaning of every line. The fact that I’m reading both means...[read on]

About The Great Game, from the publisher:

An outsider in London investigates a series of brutal murders targeting English aristocrats in a timely and provocative historical novel brimming with intrigue, wit, and rage.

London, 1905: Law student and military veteran Balvinder dev Singh has found an extralegal way to fund his studies. As friend and accomplice to the infamous gentleman thief AJ Raffles, he rubs shoulders with the upper crust―and steals their valuables. That is, until their next mark, an imperialist general, is grotesquely murdered in the library of his Mayfair mansion. Bal and Raffles find themselves implicated in a series of killings that soon attracts the attention of Scotland Yard―and the aging Sherlock Holmes himself.

As Bal works to clear his name, he must hide his checkered past from a new acquaintance, the beautiful Irish violinist Maud Adler. Her fiery views lead Bal to question his own place in the world. But when he comes face-to-face with a plot to strike at the very heart of the British government, he must decide how much he’s willing to risk for his adopted city.

Visit Arvind Ethan David's website.

Visit Arvind Ethan David's website.

Q&A with Arvind Ethan David.

Writers Read: Arvind Ethan David.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Emma Taylor's "An Elite Education"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: An Elite Education: How Privilege Is Produced in a Private School by Emma Taylor.

About the book, from the publisher:

An examination of the making of privilege at one of Britain’s top boys’ schools

Alumni of Britain’s elite schools are consistently overrepresented in positions of power and influence. It is no surprise, then, that elite schools play a pivotal role in reproducing inequality. In An Elite Education, Emma Taylor draws on years of immersive ethnographic research and teaching experience at one of Britain’s leading private boys’ schools to highlight how these institutions cultivate the dispositions that propel students into elite universities and professions.

Taylor finds that elite schools provide a forgiving, flexible and exclusive training ground, enabling students to push boundaries, bend rules and negotiate with those in authority. She argues that this ability to navigate elite spaces with confidence—which she conceptualises as “audacity”—is a carefully cultivated form of privilege that is frequently mistaken for merit. Behind the formal façade of architecture, traditions and rituals lies a messy web of everyday interactions through which students learn to assert themselves without fear of consequence.

An Elite Education ultimately calls for a deeper interrogation of the taken-for-granted dispositions that continue to shape access to opportunity in Britain.

Visit Emma Taylor's website.

The Page 99 Test: An Elite Education.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen of the best books for "Black Mirror" fans

One title on Tertulia's list of fifteen books "for every Black Mirror fan to satisfy their techno-dystopian cravings:"

Infomocracy: Book One of the Centenal Cycle by Malka Older

In a world where an influential search engine monopoly has pushed humanity to transition away from large warring states to a global network of micro-democracies, an upcoming election sparks a battle for power and exposes the dark underbelly of this alluring new system.

Read about another entry on the list.

Infomocracy is among Book Riot's best science fiction books of the century (so far), Rob Hart's five top books about humans making a mess of things, Jeff Somers's eighteen SFF novels that get serious about economics and fifty science fiction essentials written by women, Emily Wenstrom's eight science fiction novels that explore the human dilemma, Joel Cunningham's twelve science fiction & fantasy books for the post-truth era, and Sam Reader's six most intriguing political systems in fantasy and science fiction.

The Page 69 Test: Infomocracy.

Also see Addison Rizer's six top thrillers for fans of Black Mirror.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Arvind Ethan David

From my Q&A with Arvind Ethan David, author of The Great Game: A Thriller:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Titles are hard, man, really hard. The title was literally the last thing that got done on this book, and it is not the title I started with. The book starts as a historical murder mystery. It escalates into a conspiracy thriller and then gradually evolves into a rather pointed examination of empire and imperialism.

Oh, and amongst its major characters are an aging Sherlock Holmes and a young Winston Churchill. It was a challenge to get all of that in a title.

Other contenders included The Dread and the Envy, which I thought he had a certain Imperial cadence, but was dismissed for being too niche. For a while, I was very keen on The Good Colonial, which felt reminiscent of Graham Greene and John le Carré, in whose tradition I would be delighted to sit. Ultimately, The Great Game won because it conjures a certain Sherlockian tone whilst also explicitly referencing the historical spy craft and statecraft between the great imperial powers in the 19th century (while also paying tribute to Rudyard Kipling and his book about another spy caught between two cultures, Kim).

Now that we have it, it feels like...[read on]

Visit Arvind Ethan David's website.

Q&A with Arvind Ethan David.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jason Baehr's "Inquiry and Agency"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Inquiry and Agency: A Theory of Intellectual Virtues and Vices by Jason Baehr.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Inquiry and Agency, Jason Baehr develops a systematic account of the nature, structure, and evaluative status of intellectual virtues and vices. Drawing on a theory of moral virtue by Robert Adams (2006), Baehr argues that intellectual virtues like curiosity, open-mindedness, and intellectual courage are ways of "excellently being for epistemic goods" that reflect favorably on who we are as persons, and that intellectual vices like dogmatism, narrow-mindedness, and intellectual arrogance are ways of falling short of this standard that contribute negatively to our personal worth. Inquiry and Agency is the most in-depth and systematic treatment of intellectual virtues and vices since Linda Zagzebski's pioneering work Virtues of the Mind (1996). While advancing several debates in virtue epistemology, it proposes a model of intellectual virtues and vices that will be accessible to non-experts and useful to researchers in other disciplines. Inquiry and Agency is the product of decades of reflection by a leading virtue epistemologist. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the characterological dimensions of the life of the mind.

Visit Jason Baehr's website.

The Page 99 Test: Inquiry and Agency.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books for fans of "The Odyssey"

At People magazine Janey Wetzel and Lizz Schumer tagged ten Greek mythology retellings and other books to read after seeing The Odyssey. One title on the list:

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Miller’s blockbuster Trojan War retelling is “a story that will stick with you even after you’ve put the book down.”

Read about another book on the list.

The Song of Achilles is among Book Riot's best historical fiction books of the century so far, Charley Burlock and Bethanne Patrick's 25 best historical fiction books of all time, Tobias Madden's seven top books that take you places, Costa B. Pappas's eleven books that are contemporary retellings of classic titles, Bethanne Patrick's twenty-five best historical fiction books of all time, Mark Skinner's nineteen top Greek myth retellings, Alexia Casale's top eight titles sparked by the authors' work life, Allison Epstein's eight queer historical fiction books set around the world, Phong Nguyen's seven titles that live halfway between history & myth, The Center for Fiction's 200 books that shaped two centuries of literature, Sara Stewart's six best books and Nicole Hill's fourteen characters who should have lived.

My Book, The Movie: The Song of Achilles.

Also see Tanaz Bhathena's nine feminist myth and fairytale retellings to read after watching Christopher Nolan’s big screen adaptation of The Odyssey, Paula Munier's eight top works informed by The Odyssey, and Andrew Welsh-Huggins's five novels drawing inspiration from the Odyssey.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Wellington's "Erebus 13"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Erebus 13 (Red Space, 3) by David Wellington.

About the book, from the publisher:

The crew of the Artemis has escaped the nightmare of Paradise-1, but at great cost.

Parker is gone. Petrova’s past continues to haunt her. Worst of all, Erebus—a timeless entity of pure darkness—has been released from its prison.

Now it’s headed for Earth.

Petrova must rally her crew for one final mission. Somehow, they must find a way to unite the disparate factions of the solar system—the United Earth Government, the Lunar colonies, and the outer planets—and find a way to stop Erebus.

The fate of humanity—and the galaxy—is in their hands.

Visit David Wellington's website.

The Page 69 Test: Chimera.

The Page 69 Test: The Hydra Protocol.

The Page 69 Test: Positive.

My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Astronaut.

Q&A with David Wellington.

The Page 69 Test: Erebus 13.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top romantic mysteries with "Happily Ever After" endings

Cara Tanamachi is the USA Today bestselling author of the Emma-Award Winning, The Takeover, and the Diverse Writers and Readers International romance book literary award winner, The Second You’re Single. She also writes under the name Cara Lockwood, and has written 38 books and counting, including I Do (But I Don’t), which became an original Lifetime Movie. She wrote the novelization of The Dater’s Handbook, a Hallmark movie starring Meghan Markle. She lives near Chicago with her spouse and blended family. Her new book is a rom-com murder mystery called Kiss, Marry, Kill.

[Q&A with Cara Tanamachi]

At CrimeReads the author tagged five romantic mysteries with "Happily Ever After" endings. One entry on the list:

Shay Kauwe, The Killing Spell

Hundreds of years in the future, a catastrophic flood destroys the Hawaiian Islands and unleashes magic in the world. Displaced to Los Angeles, a young Hawaiian woman named Kea must fight to clear her name when a Filipino activist is killed by a specific Hawaiian death spell. She needs to catch a killer, though she winds up catching feelings for Sora, whose ability to read minds comes in handy when investigating a murder.

This is the urban fantasy/mystery/paranormal romance steeped in Hawaiian lore that you never knew you needed until now.

Read about another title on the list.

Q&A with Shay Kauwe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Susannah Crockford's "A Perturbed System"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World by Susannah Crockford.

About the book, from the publisher:

A moving study of how religion shapes Western climate discourse.

Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we’ve built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us cannot conceive of climate change as anything but the end of the world, an apocalypse with all its biblical trappings. Why?

In A Perturbed System, anthropologist Susannah Crockford argues that we must understand the climate emergency as a spiritual crisis, a result of Christian colonialism that we (religious or not) still struggle to describe without religious language. Climate discourse in the United States and northern Europe, Crockford shows, is framed by the same theological motifs that drove extraction, including ideas about prophecy, mediation, sacrifice, original sin, cult, messiah, and apocalypse. By listening to people on the edge of the crisis, A Perturbed System reveals a world in transition, what happens when worlds end—ecologically, socially, politically, and personally—and how we might live through these endings together.

Learn more about A Perturbed System at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: A Perturbed System.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Allison Montclair / Alan Gordon reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Allison Montclair (AKA Alan Gordon), author of Fire Must Burn (A Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery, 8).

The entry begins:

I had the honor and privilege of conducting the Guest of Honor interview at the recent Malice Domestic Conference with Jim Huang, who has been involved in just about every aspect of the mystery world as a publisher, reviewer, bookstore owner, and conference organizer. I had used to prepare two of the compilations he had put together, drawing upon the collected knowledge of America's mystery bookstore owners, and am now actually going through them in their entirety.

100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century is a fantastically useful list of the classics, starting with Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles and finishing with Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height. Like all lists, it reminds me of...[read on]

About Fire Must Burn, from the publisher:

The owners of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are back, and more determined than ever to bring love matches to the residents of Post-WWII London . . . so something as trivial as being dragged into a spy mission isn’t going to stop them!

Sparks fly when an old friend comes to town...

London, 1947. After recent events have left the normally steadfast Iris Sparks thoroughly shaken, she’s looking forward to some peace. With The Right Sort doing well, she and business partner Gwen Bainbridge are due a holiday. Until Iris’s former boss enlists their help for a secret mission.

Iris, who left British intelligence after the war, is being recruited for her Cambridge connection to one Anthony Danforth. She hasn’t seen Tony in almost ten years, yet she and Gwen must manipulate him into hiring their marriage service.

Tony’s suspected of being a Soviet operative, and an undercover agent posing as his perfect match could discover the truth. Despite her reluctance at being dragged back into the world of espionage, Iris agrees. After all, Tony was once a very good friend. If he’s innocent, she’ll happily prove it. If not? Well, no one ever said being a spy was easy...

Those who enjoy reading Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Mysteries and Dorothy Sayers will adore this warm and witty historical mystery!

Visit Alan Gordon's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

Q&A with Allison Montclair.

My Book, The Movie: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

The Page 69 Test: Fire Must Burn.

Writers Read: Allison Montclair.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. E. Carr's "When Squirrels Fly," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: When Squirrels Fly: A Novel by D. E. Carr.

The entry begins:

When Mel Caldwell makes an animated, middle of the night phone call to her niece, Allie, but hangs up before explaining herself, Allie initially shrugs it off. Her aunt has always been a little eccentric. But when Aunt Mel disappears from her home less than 24 hours later, Allie drops everything and travels to Michigan to search for her. Shortly after her arrival in Ann Arbor, Allie meets her aunt’s enigmatic next-door neighbor, George Bennet. She reluctantly accepts help from George unaware he hides a dangerous secret that will complicate the search. The duo becomes a trio when Allie’s affable, but annoyingly irreverent younger brother, Nick, arrives to help. To find Aunt Mel, they’ll need to work together to determine how a neighborhood trellis, virtual reality goggles, migraine research, and an itinerant chihuahua, are all connected to the case.

When Squirrels Fly blends the popular genres of Cozy Mystery and light Science Fiction, both of which transition well to the screen. Although Ann Arbor, Michigan is a bit bigger than the typical small town cozy mystery setting, the action is mostly contained in a two-mile radius encompassing the historic Old West Side. The movie could be filmed on location in Ann Arbor where the somewhat quirky ambience allows the characters an easy backdrop for comic relief. There will be no shortage of extras with a wonderfully diverse population to choose from.

To imagine this cozy mystery-sci fi movie, think...[read on]

Visit D. E. Carr's website.

My Book, The Movie: When Squirrels Fly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great SFF novels centering older characters

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five marvelous SFF books with older characters. One entry on the list:

The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

The three main characters of Howrey’s third novel are training to be the crew of the first-ever mission to Mars. But first, they must spend seventeen months in a simulation of their mission, which puts a strain on them all. And if they start cracking under the pressure of a replication of the long journey, how will they ever take the actual trip?

Read about another title on the list.

The Wanderers is among Una McCormack’s five heroines over the age of forty and Michelle Anne Schingler's five books centered on women in space.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mengqi Wang's "Anxious Homes"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market by Mengqi Wang.

About the book, from the publisher:

Anxious Homes is a study of the power that shapes the forms of the homes Chinese citizens strive for and the possible paths they may take to realize their home ownership dreams. Mengqi Wang discusses how the Chinese real estate industry functions in the everyday, welding aspirational middle-class families, especially migrant families, to the property-owning class and the urban growth machine. Urban housing was a socialist benefit in China until the market reforms and privatization in the 1990s. Today, most Chinese citizens consider homeownership a necessity rather than an economic privilege. Wang analyzes the making of homeownership ideologies through "inflexible demand" (gangxu)―a concept that real estate brokers, developers, homebuyers, and the government in China use to craft homeownership as indispensable for fulfilling dreams of urban citizenship. The ethnography shows that gangxu helps to articulate diverse attempts to accumulate value through housing at China's urbanizing city periphery, while giving shape to a housing-based, postsocialist right to the city. Anxious Homes argues that homeownership does not necessarily engender independence but suggests further inclusion of citizens within the dominant regime of accumulation.

Learn more about Anxious Homes at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Anxious Homes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Allison Montclair's "Fire Must Burn"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fire Must Burn (A Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery, 8) by Allison Montclair.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The owners of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are back, and more determined than ever to bring love matches to the residents of Post-WWII London . . . so something as trivial as being dragged into a spy mission isn’t going to stop them!

Sparks fly when an old friend comes to town...

London, 1947. After recent events have left the normally steadfast Iris Sparks thoroughly shaken, she’s looking forward to some peace. With The Right Sort doing well, she and business partner Gwen Bainbridge are due a holiday. Until Iris’s former boss enlists their help for a secret mission.

Iris, who left British intelligence after the war, is being recruited for her Cambridge connection to one Anthony Danforth. She hasn’t seen Tony in almost ten years, yet she and Gwen must manipulate him into hiring their marriage service.

Tony’s suspected of being a Soviet operative, and an undercover agent posing as his perfect match could discover the truth. Despite her reluctance at being dragged back into the world of espionage, Iris agrees. After all, Tony was once a very good friend. If he’s innocent, she’ll happily prove it. If not? Well, no one ever said being a spy was easy...

Those who enjoy reading Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Mysteries and Dorothy Sayers will adore this warm and witty historical mystery!

Visit Alan Gordon's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

Q&A with Allison Montclair.

My Book, The Movie: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.

The Page 69 Test: Fire Must Burn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thriller books for "Reacher" fans

Dhruv Sharma is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division.

He tagged six "standalone crime thriller novels and book series from the genre [that] are as good as Jack Reacher, if not better." One entry on the list:

Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly

The Bosch franchise has almost become synonymous with Titus Welliver because of how brilliantly he played Harry Bosch in the long-running series. However, even before Welliver played the detective character, the original Michael Connelly book series earned immense acclaim for their procedural drama and gritty realism.

Unlike the Jack Reacher books, the Harry Bosch books and the show benefit from the fact that they do not keep changing their primary location. For the most part of their run, they unfold in the sun-soaked landscapes of LA, almost making a character out of the City of Angels. The franchise also keeps evolving and reinventing its formula, instead of merely portraying the titular detective as an invincible force of vigilante justice.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Black Echo begins the saga of Harry Hieronymous Bosch; it is among David Gordon's twelve best LA books. Harry Bosch is among Alan Parks's top ten cops in fiction and Jeff Somers's six fictional cops who do things according to their own set of rules.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Carlton F. W. Larson's "One Nation Under Law"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: One Nation Under Law: The Meaning of the Declaration of Independence by Carlton F. W. Larson.

About the book, from the publisher:

This groundbreaking volume shatters many longstanding myths about the Declaration of Independence. Although states-rights advocates have long claimed that the Declaration created thirteen independent nations, Carlton F. W. Larson shows that the Declaration announced the birth of a new nation: the United States of America, a nation governed by an unwritten constitution in which the states were confederated and subject to national authority from the very beginning. Larson counters libertarian claims that the Declaration views government as a necessary evil, demonstrating instead how it embraces constitutionalism, active government, and the rule of law as positive goods. Along the way, Larson debunks other myths, such as the notion that the Declaration is the parchment text enshrined in the National Archives and that it was authored by Thomas Jefferson. By exploring the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, One Nation Under Law helps us better understand America itself.

Visit Carlton F. W. Larson's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Trials of Allegiance.

The Page 99 Test: One Nation Under Law.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rosanne Limoncelli reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Rosanne Limoncelli, author of Death at King's Cross: A Four Queens of Crime Mystery.

Her entry begins:

When I’m writing a new project, I usually keep my reading to books that will inspire me or keep me in the mood for what I am writing. But I will also take a break and read something completely different. Here are four books I recently read.

The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai is a gorgeously written book about a young man and woman from two very different immigrant families growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970’s. It’s told from the mother’s point of view and focuses on her struggle to keep her family together. The beauty of this book is in the writing and the way that the mother’s understanding of the world grows through the love she has for her daughter as she learns what is...[read on]

About Death at King's Cross, from the publisher:

DCI Lilian Wyles is confronted by a troubling case, one that only the four queens of crime can help solve—even amidst the ongoing war efforts.

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh are back in the follow-up novel to The Four Queens of Crime.

1941, London. When DCI Lilian Wyles finds a young woman murdered at King's Cross Station, she needs the help of someone she can trust, but Richard Davidson, her former Scotland Yard partner, has joined MI5 and is busy tracking black market routes outside of London, so for now, she is on her own.

After having met the four queens of crime during a murder investigation two years earlier, DCI Wyles has kept in touch. But Agatha, Dorothy, Margery, and Ngaio are all involved in the war effort and have problems of their own.

Agatha is volunteering at the University Hospital Pharmacy, where a dangerous anesthetic has been stolen. Dorothy has heard unsettling information from her connections at the BBC regarding members of the Royal Navy. Margery, who has been in the countryside helping families escape the city from the bombing, is worried about one of her charges whose older sister has gone missing. And Ngaio, who has relocated to New Zealand and is volunteering as an ambulance driver, has begun gathering secret intelligence from wounded soldiers and sailors that may put her in danger.

When the four queens contact DCI Wyles for help, the information they share makes the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place. DCI Wyles once again finds herself collaborating with her old partners in crime to solve the mystery and close the case in this thrilling sequel, perfect for fans of Nicola Upson and Anna Lee Huber.

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Queens of Crime.

Q&A with Rosanne Limoncelli.

Writers Read: Rosanne Limoncelli.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top feminist mythological reimaginings

Tanaz Bhathena is an award-winning Zoroastrian author of contemporary and fantasy fiction. Her young adult books include Hunted by the Sky, which won the White Pine Award and the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize, and The Beauty of the Moment, which won the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That, was named a Best Book of the Year by numerous outlets including The Globe and Mail, Seventeen, and The Times of India. Her debut adult fantasy, Witch Daughter, will be published in fall 2026 by Grand Central.

At Lit Hub Bhathena tagged nine feminist myth and fairytale retellings to read after watching Christopher Nolan’s big screen adaptation of The Odyssey. One title on the list:

Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships

Framed by the narrative of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, Haynes’s novel is told in 43 chapters, exploring the perspectives of multiple women on both sides of the Trojan war. We hear from Penelope who pens letters to Odysseus, not knowing if he has survived the war, and from Clytemnestra who loses her daughter in her husband’s quest for Troy. But some of the most poignant narratives come from Trojan women like Creusa, wife of Aeneas who escapes Troy and becomes a founding father for Rome, and Hector’s wife, Andromache, who is taken as a war captive by Achilles’s son.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Thousand Ships is among Book Riot's best historical fiction books of the century so far, Megan Barnard's top eleven books about misunderstood women in history and mythology, the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings, Susan Stokes-Chapman's top ten novels inspired by Greek myths, Jennifer Saint's ten essential books inspired by Greek myth, Deanna Raybourn's six top novels based on historical scandals, and Alyssa Vaughn's forty-two books to help you get through the rest of quarantine.

The Page 69 Test: A Thousand Ships.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elizabeth H. Winthrop's "Conviction"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Conviction by Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The story of a young, American woman’s misguided journey to join ISIS and the grief of the mother she leaves behind—a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of loss, empathy, and hope from the acclaimed author of The Mercy Seat

Maggie is gone. And her mother, Ann, is reeling.

In the aftermath of 9/11, eleven-year-old Maggie’s first instinct was rage. But when her parents took her to an open house at a mosque, she glimpsed a faith of beauty and peace—and over time came to embrace Islam as her own.

A decade later, Maggie has left Maine for the life in New York she always dreamed of. Yet her joy is shadowed by images from Syria: civilians starving, children buried under rubble. She feels powerless to help. Then she meets Ahmet, the handsome and headstrong son of a neighborhood baker. Ahmet is enraged by all the same things she is—so much that he leaves his life behind to join a new rebel group emerging in Syria, electrified by its sweeping vision to fight Assad and create a Muslim utopia. The group is ISIS.

Driven by love, Maggie follows him into territory from which she can’t return. Trapped without her passport and cut off from home, she slowly gleans the brutal nature of the group she has joined, one that does not share her vision of Islam.

Back in Maine, Ann is left with silence and half-truths, with the hope that one day her daughter will realize her mistake and come home. As ISIS explodes into global infamy, Ann becomes consumed by questions of what she did not see in her daughter and how belief—whether religious, political, or maternal—can turn to conviction, and conviction to ruin.

Told in counterpoint between mother and daughter, America and Syria, Conviction is both intimate and global in scope: a portrait of love during war, and a nuanced dive into the horrors of the modern world and the conditions that beget violence.

Visit Elizabeth H. Winthrop's website.

My Book, The Movie: Conviction.

Writers Read: Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

The Page 69 Test: Conviction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that books center platonic friendship

Rebecca Chace is the author of five books: Talking to the Wolf (novel), Leaving Rock Harbor (novel), Capture the Flag (novel), Chautauqua Summer (memoir), and June Sparrow and the Million Dollar Penny (children's book). Her third play, Obit, will premiere in September 2026 at Theater for the New City (NYC). A regular contributor to The New York Times, her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Yale Review, New England Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. Her fellowships include Civitella Ranieri, MacDowell, Yaddo, Dora Maar House, American Academy of Rome (Visiting Artist), among others. She is a Faculty Associate at Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking.

At Electric Lit Chace tagged seven books that "explore the complicated, private heartbreak of losing a friend ." One title on the list:

The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine

The Grammarians is a word lovers’ book. In it, a pair of identical twin sisters not only have their own language—they share an obsession with language itself. Precocious American children of the late 20th century, the dictionary is their favorite toy. The novel explores the tensions, envy, and loyalties that hold these two together, just as it splits them apart. The semiotics of words shape both of their lives, becoming the lens through which they see the world and each other. A tale of two sisters.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael W. Childers's "The Mountains are Calling"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park by Michael W. Childers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Yosemite National Park hosts more than four million visitors annually, a number that underscores both the national park’s immense popularity and its limits. Large numbers of visitors means air pollution from car emissions, noise pollution that drowns out the sounds of nature, and destroyed habitat―especially near campgrounds and crowded hiking trails. From the first party of tourists in 1855 to the millions who visit today, Yosemite’s visitors have played a primary role in shaping the park’s history. Visitors drove Yosemite’s development and, ultimately, its popularity, but in doing so, they have turned out to be the greatest threat to the very experiences they seek.

In seeking to understand how visitors’ perceptions and experiences have shaped their understanding of the purpose of national parks, and nature more broadly, The Mountains Are Calling places visitors at the center of Yosemite’s story. In histories of the national parks, environmental historians traditionally focus on either a conflict between preservation or exploitation, or a celebration of its founders, but such approaches often overlook the millions of visitors or depict them as backdrops in a larger morality play over the preservation of nature. Michael W. Childers instead addresses the lived experiences of visitors and their role in creating national parks, within the context of national park policy shifts and broader American cultural history. Foregrounding the stories of Indigenous people, tourists, innkeepers, soldiers, rangers, climbers, concessioners, and administrators, The Mountains Are Calling tells a more complete story of the park’s past to make sense of tourism’s environmental costs.

Visit Michael W. Childers's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Mountains Are Calling.

--Marshal Zeringue