Colin Cotterill's "Curse of the Pogo Stick," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Colin Cotterill's Curse of the Pogo Stick.

Cotterill's entry begins:

It’s my own silly fault. I know that now. How am I ever going to break into Hollywood without a western protagonist? My sin, you see, is that all my characters are Lao. There have been, so far in the series, only one direct and one peripheral role for honkies and one of those was a Soviet circus performer. How can I get my movie made without any A-list actors queued up to play the main role of Dr. Siri Paiboun?

We could use makeup I suppose. In fifteen movies, Charlie Chan was played by a Swede, Warner Oland, and nobody noticed he was a Norseman. (I hesitate to suggest there was any racism involved in the fact that audiences could so happily accept him as an émigré from mainland China.) When poor old Warner passed away, who took over the mantle of the most famous Chinese in the west? Sidney Toler, a Scot. When they were looking for an actor to play Kentaro Moto, in a popular series about a Japanese secret agent they needed to look no further than Peter Lorre, the world’s most famous Hungarian. And after Lorre had made a Japanese name for himself in eight feature films, when it came to a remake, The Return of Mr. Moto, even as late as 1965, who did they call? (Sidney Toler was busy), good old Henry Silva, a New York Sicilian. It looks like there just weren’t any real Asians around in them days.

So, assuming we go with the clothes pegs behind the ears method, who should I ring in?...[read on]

Visit Colin Cotterill's website and his Crimespace page, and learn more about Curse of the Pogo Stick at the publisher's website.

Colin Cotterill is the author of The Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, and Anarchy and Old Dogs, featuring seventy-three year old Dr. Siri Paiboun, national coroner of Laos. He and his wife live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he teaches at the university.

The Page 69 Test: Anarchy and Old Dogs.

My Book, The Movie: Curse of the Pogo Stick.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10: books with secret signs

Justin Scroggie is the author of Tic-tac Teddy Bears and Teardrop Tattoos. For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of books with secret signs.

His introduction and one title from his list:

I'm an author (and television producer) with a passion for secret signs – all the ways that people in the know privately communicate with each other. I love books where something hinges on a sign or a symbol that the protagonist has to decipher. Authors are playful people, too, so I'm always on the lookout for any hidden messages they might have included, in a character's name, for example, or even on the cover.

* * *

The Name of the Rose

William of Baskerville arrives at a Benedictine abbey in medieval Italy to lay the groundwork for a theological meeting. Instead, there is a gruesome murder, and Baskerville (a pun on Sherlock Holmes), investigates. The plot revolves (and revolves!) around a secret book by Aristotle, hidden in a labyrinthine library. To penetrate the library and its secrets, Baskerville must decode manuscripts, solve riddles and much much more. Umberto Eco's 1980 classic is full of secret signs, from the abbey door to the abbot's ring – not surprising as Eco is a professor of semiotics, the study of signs and symbols as a form of language.

Read more about Scroggie's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mike Walsh's "Bowling Across America"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Bowling Across America: 50 States in Rented Shoes by Mike Walsh.

About the book, from the publisher:

Inspired by his father’s unexpected passing, Mike Walsh, a 27 year-old Chicago advertising executive, quits his job to embark on a one-of-a-kind quest. The destination: bowling alleys in each of the 50 states. Though dubbed "career suicide" by colleagues, the endeavor soon touches a nerve among many people­—­from frustrated middle managers to radio talk show hosts to a woman who merely identifies herself as "Bowling Spice" in an innuendo-laden email.

Conversations and adventures with the people he finds in bowling alleys at all hours of the day and night—retired Maine lobstermen, saucy European nannies, recovering addicts, former bowling champions, college students, World War II vets and lingerie saleswomen, to name a few—combine to form a picture of what America looks like while standing in a pair of rented shoes.

Hilarious, insightful and at times moving, BOWLING ACROSS AMERICA is an epic journey that will enthrall readers everywhere.

Learn more about the book and author at the Bowling Across America website and blog.

Mike Walsh is one of the world’s leading authorities on the geographic nuances of rented footwear. A graduate of Miami University, he grew up in a family of six children in Upper Arlington, Ohio. He lives in Chicago within walking distance of four bowling alleys.

The Page 69 Test: Bowling Across America.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ann Littlewood reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Ann Littlewood, author of the new zoo mystery, Night Kill.

From her Writers Read entry:

I try to balance my reading thus: two mysteries, one non-fiction, one literary fiction. This plan was meant to nourish the zoo mystery series I write, my long-standing fascination with environmentalism, botany and zoology, and a large, erratic list of occasional interests. Well, it was a good idea. My actual current reading includes ... Darkness & Light by John Harvey and Hannah's Dream by Diane Hammond. [read on]

Ann Littlewood was a zoo keeper in Portland, Oregon for twelve years. She raised lions and cougars, an orangutan; and native mammals, as well as parrots, penguins, and a multitude of owls. The financial realities of raising primates (two boys of her own) led Ann to exchange a hose and rubber boots for a briefcase and pantsuit in the healthcare industry. Ann has maintained her membership in the American Association of Zookeepers and has kept in touch with the zoo world by visiting zoos and through friendships with zoo staffers.

Visit Ann Littlewood's website and blog.

Writers Read: Ann Littlewood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Archer's "The Long Thaw"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: David Archer's The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate.

About the book, from the publisher:

If you think that global warming means slightly hotter weather and a modest rise in sea levels that will persist only so long as fossil fuels hold out (or until we decide to stop burning them), think again. In The Long Thaw, David Archer, one of the world's leading climatologists, predicts that if we continue to emit carbon dioxide we may eventually cancel the next ice age and raise the oceans by 50 meters. By comparing the global warming projection for the next century to natural climate changes of the distant past, and then looking into the future far beyond the usual scientific and political horizon of the year 2100, Archer reveals the hard truths of the long-term climate forecast.

Archer shows how just a few centuries of fossil-fuel use will cause not only a climate storm that will last a few hundred years, but dramatic climate changes that will last thousands. Carbon dioxide emitted today will be a problem for millennia. For the first time, humans have become major players in shaping the long-term climate. In fact, a planetwide thaw driven by humans has already begun. But despite the seriousness of the situation, Archer argues that it is still not too late to avert dangerous climate change--if humans can find a way to cooperate as never before.

Revealing why carbon dioxide may be an even worse gamble in the long run than in the short, this compelling and critically important book brings the best long-term climate science to a general audience for the first time.

Read an excerpt from The Long Thaw, and learn more about the book at the Princeton University Press website.

David Archer is professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, the author of Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, and a frequent contributor to the weblog RealClimate.

Visit David Archer's webpage and read his blog posts at RealClimate.

The Page 99 Test: The Long Thaw.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jeri Westerson's "Veil of Lies"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Jeri Westerson's Veil of Lies.

About the book, from the publisher:

Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight, stripped of his rank and his honor - but left with his life - for plotting against Richard II. Having lost his bethrothed, his friends, his patrons and his position in society. With no trade to support him and no family willing to acknowledge him, Crispin has turned to the one thing he still has - his wits - to scrape a living together on the mean streets of London. In 1383, Guest is called to the compound of a merchant - a reclusive mercer who suspects that his wife is being unfaithful and wants Guest to look into the matter. Not wishing to sully himself in such disgraceful, dishonorable business but in dire need of money, Guest agrees and discovers that the wife is indeed up to something, presumably nothing good. But when he comes to inform his client, he is found dead - murdered in a sealed room, locked from the inside. Now Guest has come to the unwanted attention of the Lord Sheriff of London and most recent client was murdered while he was working for him. And everything seems to turn on a religious relic - a veil reported to have wiped the brow of Christ - that is now missing.

Learn more about the book and author at Jeri Westerson's website, her "Getting Medieval" blog, and the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir blog.

Westerson wrote about Crispin Guest's place among fictional detectives for The Rap Sheet.

The Page 69 Test: Veil of Lies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cornel West's most important books

Princeton professor Cornel West's latest book is Hope on a Tightrope.

For Newsweek, he named his five most important books.

And addressed a couple of related issues:

A classic that, upon revisiting, disappointed:

The poems of Philip Larkin. He's renowned for his comic sensibility, but I found mere wit and iciness.

A book you hope parents read to their children:

"The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin. His letter to his nephew is wise advice to love and serve.

Read more about West's most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stephen Gundle's "Glamour: A History"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Stephen Gundle's Glamour: A History.

About the book, from the publisher:

Glamor is one of the most tantalizing and bewitching aspects of contemporary culture--but also one of the most elusive. The aura of celebrity, the style of the fashion world, the vanity of the rich and beautiful, and the publicity-driven rites of café society are all imbued with irresistible magnetism. But what exactly is glamor? Where does it come from? How old is it? And can anyone quite capture its magic?

Stephen Gundle answers all these questions and more in this first ever history of glamor. From Paris in the tumultuous final decades of the eighteenth century through to Hollywood, New York, and Monte Carlo in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the glamorous fictional characters of Walter Scott to iconic figures such as Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe to modern idols such as Paris Hilton, this marvelous book maps the origins of glamor and investigates the forms that it takes in modern times. Gundle entertainingly discusses the role of writers, journalists, artists, photographers, film-makers and fashion designers, occupations like the model and the air stewardess, cities and resorts such as Paris, New York and Monte Carlo, and products including luxury cars and jets--all of which have been associated in the public mind with the magical aura of glamor. And he shows how glamor feeds on the middle class yearning for a thrilling and colorful life, a yearning reinforced by the cinema and the press, which serve as a stage for acting out scenes of a desirable life, while also creating trends, promoting fashions, and furnishing celebrities.

Here then is all the excitement and sex appeal of glamor, a fabulous tour of the beautiful, the rich, the sleazy, the false, and the tragic.

Learn more about Glamour: A History at the Oxford University Press website.

Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. His books include Between Hollywood and Moscow: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943-91 and Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy.

The Page 99 Test: Glamour: A History.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Claire Berlinski reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Claire Berlinski, author of a new book, There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, just out from Basic Books.

She has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun, the Oxford International Review, Asia Times, the Weekly Standard, the National Review, Policy Review, Azure, Traveler's Tales, and numerous anthologies.

Lion Eyes, the sequel to her novel Loose Lips, was published in Spring 2007. Her first non-fiction book, Menace in Europe, was published in February, 2006.

Part of her entry:

I read Bernard Henri-Levy's new book Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism, because I was asked to review it. I don't know if I would have read it otherwise, but I'm very glad I did. I thought it was very effective. The second half of the book, in particular, is outstanding. Then I was thinking about Margaret Thatcher's speech at Bruges (this is the 20-year anniversary of that speech), so I went back to my shelf and had a look at the first and second volumes of her autobiography, as well as her book Statecraft (which I recommend enthusiastically to anyone looking for an introduction to her thoughts about foreign policy). I also re-read parts of John Campbell's gold-standard biography of Thatcher (the second volume), as well as an excellent book, which very few people know about, called The Future of Europe, by the economists Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi. They make a very compelling argument that Europe is on a state-subsidized train to economic and political irrelevance.[read on]

Visit Claire Berlinski's website.

Writers Read: Claire Berlinski.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joe Barone's "The Body in the Record Room"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Joe Barone's The Body in the Record Room.

About the book, from the publisher:

It’s 1954. When a mental patient who calls himself Roy Rogers finds a body in the hospital record room, his investigation leads him to the murder of Marcia Weinhart. Twenty years earlier, authorities found her mutilated corpse lying on the altar of St. Adrian's Catholic Church in Sunrise, Missouri.

Roy, his friend Harry, and Harry’s beloved dog, Bullet, move through the buildings and grounds of the Sunrise Mental Hospital, a thousand-acre facility with more than two thousand patients and eight hundred employees. They go from the record room to the hospital’s Catholic chapel, from the blacksmith shop to the hospital cemetery, looking for victims of the terrible abuse behind the Weinhart murder.

In the process, Roy comes to better understand the strength and moral stature of his hero, the real Roy Rogers. He is able to overcome the terror of his past, choosing to forgo violence and work within the law.

Joe Barone’s debut makes for an intriguing mystery while also elevating old-time heroes and their values.

Learn more about the book and author at Joe Barone's website and blog.

Joe Barone was raised on the grounds of a state mental hospital in the 1950's. He is a retired ordained minister who lives in Missouri.

The Page 69 Test: The Body in the Record Room.

--Marshal Zeringue

James Hynes: 10 Halloween stories

The writer James Hynes posted his 2008 list of Halloween stories on his website.

One item on his list:

"The July Ghost," by A. S. Byatt. This is the newest story in this list—it was published in 1987—and the only one not to come from one of the ancient anthologies of my youth. But it's also one of the best ghost stories I've ever read, and widely anthologized; I have it in several different volumes, including the Leithauser anthology [The Norton Book of Ghost Stories]. It's also, if you know anything about A. S. Byatt's personal history, almost unbearably poignant.

Read about another item on Hynes' list.

Related: Brad Leithauser's five best ghost tales.

--Marshal Zeringue

Steve Brewer's "Lonely Street," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Steve Brewer's Lonely Street.

The entry begins:

An author may have a movie star in mind when he's writing his book, but it's practically guaranteed that Hollywood will choose someone else.

The director and producers have their own favorite stars. There are myriad business reasons that actors get picked for roles and those reasons may have no relation to how well-suited they are. Even if the author gets a chance to speak up (which is rare) and if someone is listening (even rarer), actors often are unavailable or too expensive or not interested.

Those are facts of life in Hollywood, but many of us still picture particular movie idols when "casting" our stories. It's a nice shortcut in thinking about characters.

My first novel, Lonely Street, was recently made into an independent movie, and virtually none of the actors resemble the people I pictured when writing the book more than 15 years ago.

Lonely Street features Bubba Mabry, a low-rent private eye in Albuquerque, NM. I've written eight different comic mysteries about Bubba, and have a very solid picture of him in my mind. The actor who would most closely resemble my balding, hangdog detective would be Nicolas Cage. So naturally, Bubba is played in the movie by...[read on]

Learn more about Steve Brewer at his website and his blog.

My Book, The Movie: Lonely Street.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Alan Jacobs reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Alan Jacobs, a professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is the author of several books including The Narnian, a biography of C. S. Lewis, and Original Sin: A Cultural History.

His literary and cultural criticism has appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including the Boston Globe, The American Scholar, First Things, Books & Culture, and The Oxford American.

His entry opens:

Right now I'm in the middle of Nicholson Baker's witty and curious Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. Baker always writes beautifully, but he's also a man of enthusiasms and frustrations, which is not always good. This is for work, sort of, because I'm in the early stages of writing a book about reading, but I'm also making time to read things just for fun. That was the spirit in which I picked up David Liss's A Conspiracy of Paper: a book about a retired-pugilist-turned-private-investigator in 1719 London had to be quite distant from any contemporary concerns, right? — except that it's also about the early stock market, prone to bubbles of excitement and, and when confidence fails, sudden and dramatic crashes. As I say: quite distant from any contemporary concerns.[read on]

Alan Jacobs blogs at The American Scene.

Writers Read: Alan Jacobs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: J. Howard's "Concentration Camps on the Home Front"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: John Howard's Concentration Camps on the Home Front: Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow.

About the book, from the publisher:

Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration camps were set up across the country to confine over 120,000 inmates. Almost 20,000 of them were shipped to the only two camps in the segregated South—Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas—locations that put them right in the heart of a much older, long-festering system of racist oppression. The first history of these Arkansas camps, Concentration Camps on the Home Front is an eye-opening account of the inmates’ experiences and a searing examination of American imperialism and racist hysteria.

While the basic facts of Japanese-American incarceration are well known, John Howard’s extensive research gives voice to those whose stories have been forgotten or ignored. He highlights the roles of women, first-generation immigrants, and those who forcefully resisted their incarceration by speaking out against dangerous working conditions and white racism. In addition to this overlooked history of dissent, Howard also exposes the government’s aggressive campaign to Americanize the inmates and even convert them to Christianity. After the war ended, this movement culminated in the dispersal of the prisoners across the nation in a calculated effort to break up ethnic enclaves.

Howard’s re-creation of life in the camps is powerful, provocative, and disturbing. Concentration Camps on the Home Front rewrites a notorious chapter in American history—a shameful story that nonetheless speaks to the strength of human resilience in the face of even the most grievous injustices.

Read one except from Concentration Camps on the Home Front at Southern Spaces, and another excerpt at the University of Chicago Press website.

Learn more about Concentration Camps on the Home Front at the publisher's website, and visit John Howard's faculty webpage.

John Howard is professor in and head of the Department of American Studies at King’s College London and the author of Men Like That: A Southern Queer History.

The Page 99 Test: Concentration Camps on the Home Front.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elizabeth Bear's "All the Windwracked Stars"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Elizabeth Bear's All the Windwracked Stars.

About the book, from the publisher:

It all began with Ragnarok, with the Children of the Light and the Tarnished ones battling to the death in the ice and the dark. At the end of the long battle, one Valkyrie survived, wounded, and one valraven – the steeds of the valkyrie.

Because they lived, Valdyrgard was not wholly destroyed. Because the valraven was transformed in the last miracle offered to a Child of the Light, Valdyrgard was changed to a world where magic and technology worked hand in hand.

2500 years later, Muire is in the last city on the dying planet, where the Technomancer rules what’s left of humanity. She's caught sight of someone she has not seen since the Last Battle: Mingan the Wolf is hunting in her city.

Read excerpts from All the Windwracked Stars, and learn more about the author and her work at Elizabeth Bear's website and blog.

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the author of eight sf/f novels, including A Companion to Wolves with Sarah Monette.

The Page 69 Test: All the Windwracked Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: ghost tales

Brad Leithauser, editor of The Norton Book of Ghost Stories, named a five best list of ghost tales for the Wall Street Journal.

One title from his list:

The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
Viking, 1959

For reasons perhaps only the dead could explain, the sophisticated ghost story reached its zenith in the Victorian era. Later supernatural fiction tended to be both grislier and less frightening. So there was a special pleasure, for fans of the old-fashioned tale, when Shirley Jackson resurrected the form in 1959 with "The Haunting of Hill House." Her haunted house is an all but living thing, intent on confounding the scientific investigators who come to probe it. Ghost stories often convey a feeling of eerie diminishment, in which the characters grow smaller and smaller as something large and inexplicable and implacable discloses itself. This is wonderfully the case in "The Haunting of Hill House," where the human interlopers dwindle as the "empty" house expands.

Read more about Leithauser's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alexander Rose's "American Rifle"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Alexander Rose's American Rifle: A Biography.

About the book, from the publisher:

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized.

Now, in this first-of-its-kind book, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle. Drawing on the words of soldiers, inventors, and presidents, based on extensive new research, and encompassing the Revolution to the present day, American Rifle is a balanced, wonderfully entertaining history of this most essential firearm and its place in American culture.

In the eighteenth century American soldiers discovered that they no longer had to fight in Europe’s time-honored way. With the evolution of the famed “Kentucky” Rifle—a weapon slow to load but devastatingly accurate in the hands of a master—a new era of warfare dawned, heralding the birth of the American individualist in battle.

In this spirited narrative, Alexander Rose reveals the hidden connections between the rifle’s development and our nation’s history. We witness the high-stakes international competition to produce the most potent gunpowder . . . how the mysterious arts of metallurgy, gunsmithing, and mass production played vital roles in the creation of American economic supremacy . . . and the ways in which bitter infighting between rival arms makers shaped diplomacy and influenced the most momentous decisions in American history. And we learn why advances in rifle technology and ammunition triggered revolutions in military tactics, how ballistics tests—frequently bizarre—were secretly conducted, and which firearms determined the course of entire wars.

From physics to geopolitics, from frontiersmen to the birth of the National Rifle Association, from the battles of the Revolution to the war in Iraq, American Rifle is a must read for history buffs, gun collectors, soldiers—and anyone who seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between the rifle and this nation’s history.

Read an excerpt from American Rifle, and learn more about the author and his work at Alexander Rose's website and blog.

Born in the United States, Alexander Rose was raised in Australia and Britain. A military historian and former journalist, he is the author of Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, and his writing has appeared in the New York Observer, the Washington Post, Studies in Intelligence, and many other publications.

The Page 99 Test: American Rifle: A Biography.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Steve Carlson's "Final Exposure"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Final Exposure by Steve Carlson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The future looks great for David and Rebecca Collier. They are moving into more creative careers and moving to a beach house north of San Francisco. But life is altered considerably one day when Rebecca answers the door to a stranger, who calmly raises a silenced pistol and shoots her dead.

In the subsequent chase, David is wounded. He will never walk without a limp and he is nearly deaf when not wearing his rather temperamental hearing aid. He’s plagued by questions, most significantly: Why would anyone want to kill Rebecca? She was the sweetest person in the world---a photographer doing a photo/essay piece on “Northern California Mansions of the ’30s.” Someone wants him dead, too---a second attempt on his life is made before he even gets out of the hospital.

With the help of Chuck, his best friend from high school and a cop, David is determined to find the man who killed his beloved wife. Eventually they discover that Rebecca’s murder appears to be tied to one of the old houses she photographed, which guards a mysterious operation by some very dangerous men.

Steve Carlson’s debut mystery is a thrilling, emotional ride that signals a new and energetic talent in crime fiction.

Read more about the book and author at Steve Carlson's website.

Steve Carlson has been a working actor and screenwriter for more than thirty years. In his varied career, he has been a series regular on General Hospital, Young and the Restless, and A New Day in Eden on Showtime. He has also guest-starred in hundreds of hours of television and starred or costarred in ten feature films. Steve has written feature films, television episodes, and books on working in acting. Last year he applied the Page 69 Test to his novel, Almost Graceland.

The Page 69 Test: Final Exposure.

--Marshal Zeringue

Steven Pinker: most important books

Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University.

He is the author of several books, including How the Mind Works and, most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature.

Pinker told Newsweek about his five most important books.

And addressed two related issues:

A book you always return to:

"Principles of Psychology" by William James. Like Mark Twain, James has a witty quote on every subject.

A book you hope parents read to their kids:

"One, Two, Three, Infinity" by George Gamow. A delightful introduction to number theory.

Read more about Steven Pinker's most important books.

Related: Steven Pinker's "five best" list of of books that explore human nature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William B. Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine.

About the book, from the publisher:

One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.

In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable first-hand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus our efforts on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have.

Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows readers how to become thoughtful observers of their own life. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain in our life. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life.

Read an excerpt from A Guide to the Good Life, and learn more about the author and his work at William B. Irvine's website.

William B. Irvine is Professor of Philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of On Desire: Why We Want What We Want.

The Page 99 Test: A Guide to the Good Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Martha Brockenbrough reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us (Sic): The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, the White House, and the World.

One paragraph from her entry:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. A young magician in England summons a reluctant demon, and together they have to save the world from power-hungry madmen. These books are built beautifully around interesting, compelling, and truly funny characters, and if you can get to the end of the third one without feeling a serious pang, then you need to have your heart examined.[read on]

Martha Brockenbrough is the founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, as well as a writer for Encarta.com and the former editor-in-chief of MSN.com.

Visit Brockenbrough's websites at www.SPOGG.org, www.thingsthatmakeussic.com and www.nationalgrammarday.com.

Read an excerpt from Things That Make Us (Sic).

Writers Read: Martha Brockenbrough.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Matt Bondurant's "The Wettest County in the World"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Matt Bondurant's The Wettest County in the World.

About the book, from the publisher:

Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant's grandfather and two granduncles, The Wettest County in the World is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. Forrest, the eldest brother, is fierce, mythically indestructible, and the consummate businessman; Howard, the middle brother, is an ox of a man besieged by the horrors he witnessed in the Great War; and Jack, the youngest, has a taste for luxury and a dream to get out of Franklin. Driven and haunted, these men forge a business, fall in love, and struggle to stay afloat as they watch their family die, their father's business fail, and the world they know crumble beneath the Depression and drought.

White mule, white lightning, firewater, popskull, wild cat, stump whiskey, or rotgut -- whatever you called it, Franklin County was awash in moonshine in the 1920s. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the "wettest county in the world." In the twilight of his career, Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads trying to find the Bondurant brothers, piece together the clues linking them to "The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy," and break open the silence that shrouds Franklin County.

In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men -- their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires -- to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.

Read an excerpt from The Wettest County in the World, and learn more about the author and his work at Matt Bondurant's website.

Matt Bondurant received a B.A. and an M.A. in English at James Madison University and a Ph.D. at Florida State University where he was a Kingsbury Fellow. His short fiction has appeared in journals such as Glimmer Train, Prairie Schooner, and New England Review, among others. His first novel, The Third Translation, was sold in fifteen countries.

The Page 69 Test: The Wettest County in the World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Humphrey Hawksley's "Security Breach," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Humphrey Hawksley's Security Breach.

The entry begins:

Security Breach is a story of high-action and complex relationships – all of it revolving around the smart, vulnerable, kick-ass heroine, Kat Polinski.

I would like to develop the filmic style around the The Washington Post’s description of the book -- Die Hard meets 1984.

One idea would be to introduce two highly talented, but relatively unknown action actors into the lead roles, such as Livvy Scott or Emily Beecham as Kat, and James Layton as the superb, monosyllabic moral beacon of Mike Luxton. Alternatively, I would try to get Liv Tyler and Matt Damon for the same roles. [read on]

Visit Humphrey Hawksley's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The History Book.

My Book, The Movie: Security Breach.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books about Elvis

Bob Stanley, music writer and a member of the pop band St Etienne, named a "critic's chart" of top books about Elvis for the (London) Times.

One book on the list:

Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley

Short on scandal but still an astonishing tale from the King's teen bride.

Read about Number One on Stanley's chart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Marco Iacoboni's "Mirroring People"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Marco Iacoboni's Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others.

About the book, from the publisher:

What accounts for the remarkable ability to get inside another person’s head—to know what they’re thinking and feeling? “Mind reading” is the very heart of what it means to be human, creating a bridge between self and others that is fundamental to the development of culture and society. But until recently, scientists didn’t understand what in the brain makes it possible.

This has all changed in the last decade. Marco Iacoboni, a leading neuroscientist whose work has been covered in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, explains the groundbreaking research into mirror neurons, the “smart cells” in our brain that allow us to understand others. From imitation to morality, from learning to addiction, from political affiliations to consumer choices, mirror neurons seem to have properties that are relevant to all these aspects of social cognition. As The New York Times reports: “The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines, shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation, autism and psychotherapy.”

Mirroring People is the first book for the general reader on this revolutionary new science.

Read an excerpt from Mirroring People, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

Marco Iacoboni is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Director of the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab at the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Iacoboni pioneered the research on mirror neurons, the “smart cells” in our brain that allow us to understand others. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, The Economist, and major TV networks.

The Page 99 Test: Mirroring People.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Martin Corrick's "By Chance"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Martin Corrick's By Chance.

About the book, from the publisher:

An author whose debut novel, The Navigation Log, garnered him comparisons with Waugh and Maugham, Martin Corrick now returns with a story even more dazzling. By Chance is both suspenseful and thought-provoking, a philosophical tale that is rivetingly readable.

“The events that resulted in Bolsover’s presence at the Alpha Hotel are closely related to his memories of his wife.” James Watson Bolsover is an apparently normal middle-aged man, a shy yet soulful engineer turned technical writer who for many years shared a passionate marriage with his lovely wife, Katherine. Bolsover’s wife and his deep interest in his work made his life perfect, but then–by chance, misfortune, bad luck–he lost Katherine and, with her, his innocence. Now he travels by sea to a remote island and checks into what seems to be an ordinary hotel; in this safe haven he hopes to understand the past and start afresh. But we quickly discover that all of the hotel’s occupants, like Bolsover himself, have uncertain histories: All of them are “someone else,” seeking to leave their former lives behind.

As Bolsover grows accustomed to his new surroundings–and close to a new woman–the truth of his life trickles out like blood from a wound. He is not quite the simple fellow he seems, but a man who has carefully shielded his own history not only from others but also from himself. Culpability, identity, morality, and luck–all these play a part in a story that echoes our own lives.

Writing in terse, elegant, and irresistible prose, Martin Corrick proves himself a new British master. By Chance is an unforgettable novel that combines intelligence with emotion, and lingers in the mind.

Learn more about By Chance at the Random House website.

Martin Corrick is the author of the acclaimed debut novel, The Navigation Log. He holds an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and for much of his working life was a university lecturer, but he has also worked as a journalist and copywriter.

The Page 69 Test: By Chance.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Peter Dauvergne reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Peter Dauvergne, author of the newly released The Shadows of Consumption and other works on the politics of global environmental change.

One paragraph from his entry:

I especially enjoy reading classics by writers who I feel can help me to improve my own writing. A few days ago I finished Ernest Hemingway's novel, To Have and Have Not. I finished this short book, but I was not able to relate to the rough language, wooden characters, or disjointed narrative: I would not recommend it. (The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls are much better.) I'm now near the end of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, a light novel with lively characters and humorous stories. (Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath are both more hard-hitting.) In the next day or so, I'll begin George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.[read on]

Peter Dauvergne is Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Politics at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the politics of global environmental change, including current projects on sustainable consumption and corporate social responsibility.

In addition to The Shadows of Consumption (MIT Press, 2008), his books include Paths to a Green World (MIT Press, 2005) (with Jennifer Clapp), Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Shadows in the Forest (MIT Press, 1997), winner of the 1998 Sprout Award from the International Studies Association for the best book in global environmental affairs.

Read more about The Shadows of Consumption, and visit Peter Dauvergne's faculty webpage.

Writers Read: Peter Dauvergne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Fromkin's "The King and the Cowboy"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: David Fromkin's The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story of the unlikely friendship between King Edward the Seventh of England and President Theodore Roosevelt, which became the catalyst for an international power shift and the beginning of the American century.

In The King and the Cowboy, renowned historian David Fromkin reveals how two unlikely world leaders—Edward the Seventh of England and Theodore Roosevelt—recast themselves as respected political players and established a friendship that would shape the course of the twentieth century in ways never anticipated.

In 1901, these two colorful public figures inherited the leadership of the English-speaking countries. Following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, Edward ascended the throne. A lover of fine food, drink, beautiful women, and the pleasure-seeking culture of Paris, Edward had previously been regarded as a bon vivant. The public—even Queen Victoria herself—doubted Edward’s ability to rule the British Empire. Yet Edward would surprise the world with his leadership and his canny understanding of the fragility of the British Empire at the apex of its global power.

Across the Atlantic, Vice President Roosevelt—the aristocrat from Manhattan who fashioned his own legend, going west to become a cowboy—succeeded to the presidency after President McKinley’s 1901 assassination. Rising above criticism, Roosevelt became one of the nation’s most beloved presidents.

The King and the Cowboy provides new perspective on both Edward and Roosevelt, revealing how, at the oft-forgotten Algeciras conference of 1906, they worked together to dispel the shadow cast over world affairs by Edward’s ill-tempered, power-hungry nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. At Algeciras, the U.S and major European powers allied with Britain in protest of Germany’s bid for Moroccan independence. In an unlikely turn of events, the conference served to isolate Germany and set the groundwork for the forging of the Allied forces.

The King and the Cowboy is an intimate study of two extraordinary statesmen who—in part because of their alliance at Algeciras—would become lauded international figures. Focusing in particular on Edward the Seventh’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s influence on twentieth-century foreign affairs, Fromkin’s character-driven history sheds new light on the early events that determined the course of the century.

Read more about The King and the Cowboy at the publisher's website.

David Fromkin is the Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. He also holds appointments as Frederick S. Pardee Professor for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, University Professor, and Professor of International Relations, of History, and of Law.

The Page 99 Test: The King and the Cowboy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Zoë Sharp's "Third Strike"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Zoë Sharp's Third Strike.

About the book, from the publisher:

“I was running when I saw my father kill himself. Not that he jumped off a tall building or stepped in front of a truck but – professionally, personally – what I watched him do was suicide.”

The last person that professional bodyguard, Charlotte “Charlie” Fox, ever expected to self-destruct was her own father, an eminent surgeon. But when Charlie unexpectedly sees him admitting to gross professional misconduct on a New York news program, she can’t just stand by and watch his downfall.

That’s not easy when Richard Foxcroft, always cold towards his daughter, rejects her help at every turn. The good doctor has never made any secret of his disapproval of Charlie’s choice of career – or her relationship with her boss, Sean Meyer. And now, just as Charlie and Sean are settling in to their new life in the States, Foxcroft seems determined to go down in a blazing lack of glory, and take Charlie and everyone she cares about down with him.

But he has not bargained on Charlie’s own ruthless streak. And when the game turns deadly, Charlie will need to stake her life and her father’s against a formidable foe.

Read an excerpt from Third Strike, and learn more about the author and her work at Zoë Sharp's website.

Zoë Sharp's professional writing career began in 2001 with Killer Instinct, the first Charlie Fox book. This novel was followed by Riot Act, Hard Knocks, and First Drop, which earned a nomination for a Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel. Road Kill and Second Shot are the fifth and sixth titles in the series.

The Page 69 Test: Third Strike.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: the Civil War away from the battlefield

James M. McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom and the newly released Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief, named a five best list of "books about the Civil War away from the battlefield" for the Wall Street Journal.

One title from his list:

The Imagined Civil War
by Alice Fahs
University of North Carolina, 2001

In this sparkling study, Alice Fahs rescues from undeserved obscurity the vast outpouring of popular literature produced during the Civil War. Far from being the "unwritten war" described by literary historians, the conflict produced fiction, nonfiction and poetry that interpreted a people's war to the people. "Only weeks after the start of war in 1861," Fahs writes, "illustrated weeklies such as Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper began publishing columns labeled 'war humor,' 'war romance,' and 'thrilling incidents of the war.' " The most intriguing aspect of "The Imagined Civil War" is its discussion of magazine stories and books written for children, which not only shaped their perceptions of the earth-shaking events of their youth but also influenced their worldview as adults during the postwar era.

Read more about McPherson's list.

Learn more about McPherson's Tried by War: Lincoln as Commander in Chief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ariel Sabar's "My Father’s Paradise"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Ariel Sabar's My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic—the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq—one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back—until he had a son of his own.

My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.

Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers—marvelous characters all— this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention.

Read an excerpt from My Father’s Paradise, and learn more about the author and his work at Ariel Sabar's website and blog.

Ariel Sabar covered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for the Christian Science Monitor and is an award-winning former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, Moment, Christianity Today and other publications.

The Page 99 Test: My Father’s Paradise.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Peter Golenbock reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Peter Golenbock, whose books include two titles which hit the bookstands last Tuesday, In the Country of Brooklyn and American Prince, a book he wrote with Tony Curtis. His biography of George Steinbrenner comes out in the spring.

His entry begins:

More often than not, I read biographies or autobiographies. I recently finished reading Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector by Mick Brown, a really great journey into the life of one of rock's geniuses.[read on]

Learn more about Peter Golenbock and his work at his official website and blog.

Writers Read: Peter Golenbock.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laurie Graff's "The Shiksa Syndrome"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Laurie Graff's The Shiksa Syndrome.

About the book, from the publisher:

Manhattan publicist Aimee Albert knows a good spin, but she’s the one who winds up reeling when her gorgeous, goyishe boyfriend breaks up with her—on Christmas! For a stand-up comedian, you’d think he would have better timing. But Aimee’s not about to let a man who doesn’t even have a real job get her down. She dusts herself off and decides to seek companionship with a member of her own tribe. There’s just one problem: all the shiksas are snapping them up!

So when the very cute, Jewish, and gainfully employed Josh Hirsch catches Aimee’s eye at a kosher wine tasting and mistakes her for a shiksa, what’s a girl to do? Hey, her heart was broken, not her head! Unfortunately, the charade goes on longer than Aimee planned, and her life becomes more complicated than a Bergman film. To make matters worse, Josh and Aimee aren’t exactly on the same page as far as their attitudes toward Judaism go, creating tension in the relationship. But as Aimee begins to discover that her identity isn’t as easily traded as a pair of Jimmy Choos, she must decide if having the man of her dreams is worth the price of giving up so much of who she is.

Wry and witty, The Shiksa Syndrome is a by turns laugh-out-loud funny and disarmingly poignant.

Read an excerpt from The Shiksa Syndrome, and learn more about the author and her work at Laurie Graff's website and The Shiksa Syndrome on MySpace.

Laurie Graff is the author of the novels You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs and Looking for Mr. Goodfrog.

The Page 69 Test: The Shiksa Syndrome.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Andy Clark reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Andy Clark, Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and the author of several books including Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and The Future Of Human Intelligence, and the newly released Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension.

Among the fiction included in his entry:

Michael Chabon: Kavalier and Clay
Neal Stephenson: Interface
[read on]

Visit Andy Clark's University of Edinburgh webpage.

Writers Read: Andy Clark.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books on jazz

John Edward Hasse, curator of American Music at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, founder of national Jazz Appreciation Month, and author of Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington, named a five best list of books on jazz for the Wall Street Journal.

One title from his list:

Reading Jazz
Edited by Robert Gottlieb
Pantheon, 1996

Don't be put off by the massive size of this anthology. You can dip into its 1,068 pages one piece at a time. Robert Gottlieb, former editor of The New Yorker, has judiciously selected and excerpted 106 examples of the most memorable English-language writing on jazz, culled from books and magazines between 1919 and the 1990s. In the autobiographical entries, we learn about the thoughts and experiences of musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Anita O'Day and Miles Davis. In "Reading Jazz" we also encounter the work of gifted writers, including Ralph Ellison, Martin Williams, Nat Hentoff, Gary Giddins and Dan Morgenstern. Their essays and criticism further strengthen this cornerstone collection.

Read about Number One on Hasse's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Kane's "Between Virtue and Power"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: John Kane's Between Virtue and Power: The Persistent Moral Dilemma of U.S. Foreign Policy.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this survey of U.S. history, John Kane looks at the tensions between American virtue and power and how those tensions have influenced foreign policy. Americans have long been suspicious of power as a threat to individual liberty, Kane argues, and yet the growth of national power has been perceived as a natural byproduct of American virtue. This contradiction has posed a persistent crisis that has influenced the trajectory of American diplomacy and foreign relations for more than two hundred years.

Kane examines the various challenges, including emerging Nationalism, isolationism, and burgeoning American power, which have at times challenged not only foreign policy but American national identity. The events of September 11, 2001, rekindled Americans' sense of righteousness, the author observes, but the subsequent use of power in Iraq has raised questions about the nation’s virtue and, as in earlier days, cast a deep shadow over its purpose and direction.

Read an excerpt from Between Virtue and Power, and learn more about the book at the Yale University Press website.

Visit John Kane's faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Between Virtue and Power.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rachel Toor reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Rachel Toor, author of The Pig and I: How I Learned to Love Men (Almost) as Much as I Love My Pets, Admissions Confidential: An Insider’s Account of the Elite College Selection Process, and the newly released Personal Record: A Love Affair with Running.

Toor teaches writing at Eastern Washington University, is a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education, and a senior writer for Running Times.

A couple of paragraphs from her entry:

By my bed I have towering stacks. During daylight hours, I'm only allowed to read nonfiction that is work-related. So I'm going through Nicholas Lemann's history of the SAT, The Big Test, and also Jerome Karabel's The Chosen, about the history of admissions at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. This is because I was asked to write a chapter for a three-volume history of the business of higher education.

Then, before I go to sleep, I always read from a mystery (or other genre-ish) novel. At this moment it's an older Lee Child, from his Jack Reacher series. [read on]

Visit Rachel Toor's website.

Writers Read: Rachel Toor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lin Anderson's "Easy Kill," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Lin Anderson's Easy Kill.

Anderson's entry begins:

Easy Kill is the latest book in my crime thriller series starring forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. Readers tend to stay with a series because they grow fond of the characters and want to know what happens to them next. The crime is important but essentially a crime book is about the character rather than the crime. Being asked to come up with someone to play Rhona is intriguing but fraught with difficulty. Let me tell you why. Nowhere in the books does it tell you what Rhona looks like. When I ask my audience at author events, everyone has their own Rhona MacLeod and they often argue with one another’s version. They’re all in agreement with her character traits but not what she looks like. That’s great, because if you give your readers room to put a bit of themselves in a character they make her their own.[read on]

Read more about the author and her work at Lin Anderson's website and the official Rhona MacLeod website.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Flight.

My Book, The Movie: Easy Kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Todd Hasak-Lowy's "Captives"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Captives by Todd Hasak-Lowy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Daniel Bloom will either fix our broken world in his imagination or destroy his real life trying.

A sniper is taking down suits and politicians—in Daniel Bloom’s head.

Bloom is the kind of guy who ends most social gatherings with an alternately raging and despairing conversation about The State of the World. And recently things have taken a turn for the worse. His marriage is on the rocks, his teenage son is becoming increasingly unknowable, and his sense of hopeless impotence has reached a stage of spiritual crisis that's no longer a matter of vapid dinner-party conversation.

So he decamps to his home office to work on his fifteenth screenplay, this time about a federal agent and a nameless assassin. The assassin is a sniper who targets the power elite: corporate chiefs who defraud their employees of billions of dollars in pensions, and political flacks who've rigged the system in their own favor. Only the federal agent isn't sure he wants to capture the sniper.

Soon Bloom realizes that his screenplay hits too close to home: He really does want these people dead, so much so that this revenge fantasy takes over his life, sending him in search of salvation in an outrageous mentor, a possibly dangerous foreign country, and, finally, his very own backyard.

Read an excerpt from Captives and learn more about the book at the publisher's website. Visit Todd Hasak-Lowy's faculty webpage.

Todd Hasak-Lowy received his Ph.D. in comparative literature from UC Berkeley, where he studied Hebrew, Arabic, and English literature. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Florida, where he teaches Hebrew language and literature. He is the author of The Task of This Translator, a collection of stories.

The Page 69 Test: Captives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Buettner's "Orphan's Alliance"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Robert Buettner's Orphan's Alliance.

About the book, from the publisher:

Humans have been discovered on the Outworlds. And the Army decides to send emissaries. Emissaries like Jason Wander.

As intraplanetary conflicts rage around him, and the personal stakes get ever higher, Jason finds that playing planet-hopping politician can be harder than commanding armies.

When united mankind squares off to battle the Slugs for a precious interstellar crossroad, Jason will discover that the most dangerous enemy may be the one he least expects.

Learn more about the author and his work at Robert Buettner's website and blog.

Robert Buettner is a former Military Intelligence Officer, National Science Foundation Fellow in Paleontology, and has been published in the field of Natural Resources Law.

The Page 99 Test: Orphan's Alliance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's chart: books on young leaders

Iain Finlayson, a biographer and a nonfiction reviewer for the (London) Times, named a critic's chart of "six books on young leaders" for his newspaper.

One title on the list:

My Early Life Winston Churchill

From unhappy childhood to happy years of derring-do as a young army officer.

Read about another title on Finlayson's chart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Karen Maitland's "Company of Liars"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Company of Liars by Karen Maitland.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this extraordinary novel, Karen Maitland delivers a dazzling reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—an ingenious alchemy of history, mystery, and powerful human drama.

The year is 1348. The Black Plague grips the country. In a world ruled by faith and fear, nine desperate strangers, brought together by chance, attempt to outrun the certain death that is running inexorably toward them.

Each member of this motley company has a story to tell. From Camelot, the relic-seller who will become the group’s leader, to Cygnus, the one-armed storyteller . . . from the strange, silent child called Narigorm to a painter and his pregnant wife, each has a secret. None is what they seem. And one among them conceals the darkest secret of all—propelling these liars to a destiny they never saw coming.

Magical, heart-quickening, and raw, Company of Liars is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.

Read an excerpt from Company of Liars and listen to the Company of Liars podcast.

Karen Maitland has a doctorate in psycholinguistics. She has traveled and worked in many parts of the world, from the Arctic Circle to Africa, before finally settling in the medieval city of Lincoln in England. Her British debut novel, The White Room, was short-listed for the Authors’ Club of Great Britain Best First Novel Award.

Learn more about the author and her work at Karen Maitland's website.

The Page 69 Test: Company of Liars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Susan Wise Bauer's "The Art of the Public Grovel"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Susan Wise Bauer's The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America.

About the book, from the publisher:

Whether you are a politician caught carrying on with an intern or a minister photographed with a prostitute, discovery does not necessarily spell the end of your public career. Admit your sins carefully, using the essential elements of an evangelical confession identified by Susan Wise Bauer in The Art of the Public Grovel, and you, like Bill Clinton, just might survive.

In this fascinating and important history of public confession in modern America, Bauer explains why and how a type of confession that first arose among nineteenth-century evangelicals has today become the required form for any successful public admission of wrongdoing--even when the wrongdoer has no connection with evangelicalism and the context is thoroughly secular. She shows how Protestant revivalism, group psychotherapy, and the advent of talk TV combined to turn evangelical-style confession into a mainstream secular rite. Those who master the form--Bill Clinton, Jimmy Swaggart, David Vitter, and Ted Haggard--have a chance of surviving and even thriving, while those who don't--Ted Kennedy, Jim Bakker, Cardinal Bernard Law, Mark Foley, and Eliot Spitzer--will never really recover.

Revealing the rhetoric, theology, and history that lie behind every successful public plea for forgiveness, The Art of the Public Grovel will interest anyone who has ever wondered why Clinton is still popular while Bakker fell out of public view, Ted Kennedy never got to be president, and Law moved to Rome.

Read an excerpt from The Art of the Public Grovel, and learn more about the book at the Princeton University Press website.

Susan Wise Bauer is the author of The History of the Ancient World, the first part of a four-volume history of the world. Her other books include The Well-Trained Mind and The Well-Educated Mind.

Visit Susan Wise Bauer's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: The Art of the Public Grovel.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nick Bostrom reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and a full professor in the Faculty of Philosophy.

His entry begins:

I happen at the moment to be reading A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, by James G. March. Judging by the title and the cover, it looks like yet another one of those decision-theory-for-managers books that clog the business section in most bookstores (you know the ones typically produced by business consultants who feel that they must publish one book to establish their credibility, whether or not they have anything new to say). And the undistinguished prose also bears the hallmarks of something composed in great haste. So much greater, then, my delight in discovering that this is actually...[read on]

Nick Bostrom has more than 140 publications to his name, including the books Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (OUP, 2008), and Enhancing Humans (OUP, 2008).

Briefly, Bostrum's research credo:

I see philosophy and science as overlapping parts of a continuum. Many of the questions that I am interested in lie in the intersection. I tend to think in terms of probability distributions rather than dichotomous epistemic categories. I guess that in the far future the human condition will have changed profoundly (for better or worse). I think there is a non-trivial chance that this "far" future will be reached in this century, within the lifespan of some currently existing people. Regarding many big picture questions, I think there is a very real possibility that our views are very wrong. Improving the ways in which we reason, act, and prioritize under uncertainty would have wide relevance to many of our biggest challenges.

Visit Nick Bostrom's website.

Writers Read: Nick Bostrom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ad Hudler's "Man of the House"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Man of the House by Ad Hudler.

About the book, from the publisher:

For more than a decade, Linc Menner has raised the status of househusband to an art form....

While his wife, Jo, brings home the bacon, Linc Menner holds down the fort–his gourmet cooking is sublime, his cleaning unrivaled, and his devotion to his daughter, Violet, unparalleled.

But when the Menners relocate from upstate New York to the steamy beaches of Naples, Florida, life takes an unexpected turn. As the Menners renovate their new home Linc’s bliss turns into a war zone of contractors, dry wall dust, and chaos. And suddenly being surrounded by guys whose faces go blank as he expounds on the virtues of lump-free gravy makes Linc realize he has forgotten what it feels like to be a man.

So Linc trades his flip-flops for work boots, and his wild mop of hair for a barbershop buzz, and marches his flabby physique to the nearest gym–attracting the secret devotion of one of Violet’s teacher in the process. And his stunned family watches helplessly as they lose the man who keeps them all together. To make matters worse, it’s hurricane season and there’s a category 5 heading right for Naples. As life on the home front explodes into hilarity and catastrophe, Linc must chart his own delightfully crooked course to finally become the Man of the House.

Read an excerpt from Man of the House, and learn more about the author and his work at Ad Hudler's website and blog.

Ad Hudler is the author of All This Belongs To Me, Southern Living, and the best-selling Househusband.

The Page 69 Test: Man of the House.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ann Packer's five most important books

Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Songs Without Words, listed her five most important books for Newsweek. And addressed a couple of related issues:

A book you always return to:

Alice Munro's "Friend of My Youth." Hard to pick any one Munro title. Her stories let me see people and begin to understand them.

A book you hope parents read to their children:

Dr. Seuss's "The Sneetches and Other Stories." Star-bellied or plain-bellied, doesn't matter.

Read about Packer's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Asali Solomon reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Asali Solomon, author of Get Down.

From her entry:

I'm reading for the classes I teach, but it turns out to be serious pleasure reading. I just re-read Toni Morrison's Love, which disguises itself as a sort of playful riff on some of Morrison's other books, but turns out to be the history of everything: women, men, girls, black people, America, love, food, pettiness, class, cruelty, snitching, sex, Eden, social movements. It sounds daunting but it goes down easy and has about the most amazing final sequence I've read in any book.[read on]

Asali Solomon was born and raised in Philadelphia and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Trinity College.

Get Down, her first book, earned her a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, was chosen as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2007, and was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Read an excerpt from Get Down, and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and the Asali Solomon AALBC webpage.

Writers Read: Asali Solomon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alexander & Nicholas Humez's "On the Dot"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: On the Dot: The Speck That Changed the World by Alexander Humez and Nicholas Humez.

About the book, from the publisher:

Despite the humble origins of its name (Anglo Saxon for "the speck at the head of a boil"), the dot has been one of the most versatile players in the history of written communication, to the point that it has become virtually indispensable. Now, in On the Dot, Alexander and Nicholas Humez offer a wide ranging, entertaining account of this much overlooked and miniscule linguistic sign.

The Humez brothers shed light on the dot in all its various forms. As a mark of punctuation, they show, it plays many roles--as sentence stopper, a constituent of the colon (a clause stopper), and the ellipsis (dot dot dot). In musical notation, it denotes "and a half." In computerese, it has several different functions (as in dot com, the marker between a file name and its extension, and in some slightly more arcane uses in programming languages). The dot also plays a number of roles in mathematics, including the notation of world currency (such as dollars dot cents), in Morse code (dots and dashes), and in the raised dots of Braille. And as the authors connect all these dots, they take readers on an engaging tour of the highways and byways of language, ranging from the history of the question mark and its lesser known offshoots the point d'ironie and the interrobang, to acronyms and backronyms, power point bullets and asterisks, emoticons and the "at-sign."

Playful, wide-ranging, and delightfully informative, On the Dot reveals how thoroughly the dot is embedded in our everyday world of words and ideas, acquiring a power inversely proportional to its diminutive size.

Read an excerpt from On the Dot, and learn more about the book at the Oxford University Press website.

Alexander Humez has authored or co-authored ten trade and reference books, including collaborations with his brother such as Latin for People, Alpha to Omega, A B C Et Cetera, and Zero to Lazy Eight (also with J. Maguire). Nicholas Humez is a freelance writer and silversmith. In addition to the above collaborations, he is the author of Silversmithing: A Basic Manual, plus four poetry chapbooks.

The Page 99 Test: On the Dot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Craig McDonald's "Toros & Torsos"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Craig McDonald's Toros & Torsos.

About the book, from the publisher:

Hector Lassiter is a legendary crime novelist who writes what he lives and lives what he writes. But Hector frequently goes a step beyond, drawing friends and lovers into the tawdry and turbulent territory of his fiction. Now, the large-living pulp author has at last met his match in the ultimate performance artist: a phantom killer committed to the art of murder… a blood-thirsty provocateur who leaves a string of macabre tableaus modeled on famous works of surrealist painting and photography…

Against the vivid backdrops of a killer hurricane that nearly destroyed the Florida Keys in 1935, the Spanish Civil War, post-war Hollywood and the first days of the Castro regime in Cuba, Hector engages in a decades-long duel against a cabal of killer artists…

As in its Edgar®-nominated predecessor Head Games, history and myth merge, drawing on recent scholarship pointing to the existence of a dark underground of artists, photographers and art collectors that flourished in Europe and United States through most of the Twentieth Century.

In a blood-limned haze of love, deception, murderous metaphor and devastating betrayal, nothing is what it seems and obsession and creativity collide in a wicked and unexpected climax that will shake the art world to its foundations…

Read an excerpt from Toros & Torsos, and learn more about the author and his work at Craig McDonald's website and his Crimespace page.

Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and several online crime fiction sites. His nonfiction books include Art in the Blood, a collection of interviews with 20 major crime authors, and Rogue Males: Conversations and Confrontations About the Writing Life, from Bleak House Books.

McDonald's debut novel, Head Games, was selected as a 2008 Edgar® nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author.

The Page 69 Test: Toros & Torsos.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books on financial meltdowns

For the Wall Street Journal, Martin Mayer, a guest scholar in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and the author of many books about banking and finance, named a five best list of book on financial meltdowns.

One title on his list:

Bailout
by Irvine H. Sprague
Basic Books, 1986

"Bailout" is a superbly honest first-person account of the big bank traumas of the 1980s, written by a long-term director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Irvine H. Sprague lived through it all -- the collapse of Commonwealth Bank of Detroit, First Pennsylvania of Philadelphia, Penn Square of Oklahoma City, Seafirst of Seattle, Continental of Chicago. He responded by closing some banks, sustaining some and arranging the acquisition of others. Sprague knows all the theories, but they are not his business here; he has some stories to tell. And judgments to make: "In First Pennsylvania we put money in the bank and saved the holding company. In Continental we put money in the holding company and saved the bank. Either way, the stockholders received an outright gift from FDIC." He wrote the book, he says, to show how banking regulators make decisions, and after reading "Bailout" we do in fact know more about how the sausage got to be sausage. He leaves us with a question: "Should megabanks continue to receive favored treatment?" The past few weeks have found the wrong answer to that one.

Read about Number One on Mayer's list.

Related: Critic's chart: books on cash crashes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eric Stone's "Flight of the Hornbill," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Eric Stone's Flight of the Hornbill.

The entry begins:

I don’t expect a movie of any of my books to actually be much like my books. I’m not sure I’d want it to be. I want different things from movies and books. They’d be welcome to add action and plot elements if they wanted, so long as they stayed true to the characters, settings and basic ideas. So I’ve never given much thought as to who would play who, or who would direct.

Flight of the Hornbill is certainly no comedy, but I’d love to see it directed by Preston Sturges, my favorite comedy director of all time. He’d have a very nice feel for the social, cultural and political nuances of the books, as well as the way the characters interact with those elements. A modern director would be tougher. Maybe...[read on]

Read an excerpt from Flight of the Hornbill, and learn more about the book and author at Eric Stone's website.

Flight of the Hornbill is the third Ray Sharp novel. See the Page 69 Test for Grave Imports, the second book in the series.

My Book, The Movie: Flight of the Hornbill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: S. Squire's "I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire.

About the book, from the publisher:

A provocative survey of marriage and what it has meant for society, politics, religion, and the home.

For ten thousand years, marriage—and the idea of marriage—has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads to paternity (and hence to couplehood), and leading up to the dawn of the modern “love marriage,” Squire delves into the many ways men and women have come together and what the state of their unions has meant for history, society, and politics — especially the politics of the home.

This book is the product of thirteen years of intense research, but even more than the intellectual scope, what sets it apart is Squire’s voice and contrarian boldness. Learned, acerbic, opinionated, and funny, she draws on everything from Sumerian mythology to Renaissance theater to Victorian housewives’ manuals (sometimes all at the same time) to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic view of the many things marriage has been and meant. The result is a book to provoke and fascinate readers of all ideological stripes: feminists, traditionalists, conservatives, and progressives alike.

Read an excerpt from I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage, and learn more about the author and her work at Susan Squire's website.

Susan Squire is the author of three books. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, New York, and The Washington Post, and in the best-selling essay collection, The Bitch in the House.

The Page 99 Test: I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Joe Abercrombie reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Joe Abercrombie, author of the First Law Trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings.

His entry begins:

Over the last couple of weeks - in an airport, on a flight, and standing on the stairs for an hour this evening - I have been reading an exciting first novel that has set its genre aflame, called The Blade Itself.

I know what you're thinking. "But isn't that your book? How dare you promote it in such a barefaced manner? You pompous arse!" And you'd be right. I am a pompous arse. But not for that reason. Because although I have been reading an exciting first novel entitled The Blade Itself, the genre it set aflame was not fantasy but crime, and the author was not me, but a very pleasant young man from Chicago called Marcus Sakey.

Allow me to explain.[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at Joe Abercrombie's website and blog.

Best Served Cold, a standalone book set in the same world as the First Law Trilogy, is due in June 2009.

Scott Lynch, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora, on Abercrombie's writing: "If you're fond of bloodless, turgid fantasy with characters as thin as newspaper and as boring as plaster saints, Joe Abercrombie is really going to ruin your day. A long career for this guy would be a gift to our genre."

Writers Read: Joe Abercrombie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Hooman Majd's "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran by Hooman Majd.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revealing look at Iran by an American journalist with an insider’s access behind Persian walls

The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, now an American citizen, Hooman Majd is, in a way, both 100 percent Iranian and 100 percent American, combining an insider’s knowledge of how Iran works with a remarkable ability to explain its history and its quirks to Western readers. In The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, he paints a portrait of a country that is fiercely proud of its Persian heritage, mystified by its outsider status, and scornful of the idea that the United States can dictate how it should interact with the community of nations.

With wit, style, and an unusual ability to get past the typical sound bite on Iran, Majd reveals the paradoxes inherent in the Iranian character which have baffled Americans for more than thirty years. Meeting with sartorially challenged government officials in the presidential palace; smoking opium with an addicted cleric, his family, and friends; drinking fine whiskey at parties in fashionable North Tehran; and gingerly self-flagellating in a celebration of Ashura, Majd takes readers on a rare tour of Iran and shares insights shaped by his complex heritage. He considers Iran as a Muslim country, as a Shiite country, and, perhaps above all, as a Persian one. Majd shows that as Shiites marked by an inferiority complex, and Persians marked by a superiority complex, Iranians are fiercely devoted to protecting their rights, a factor that has contributed to their intransigence over their nuclear programs. He points to the importance of the Persian view of privacy, arguing that the stability of the current regime owes much to the freedom Iranians have to behave as they wish behind “Persian walls.” And with wry affection, Majd describes the Persian concept of ta’arouf, an exaggerated form of polite self-deprecation that may explain some of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s more bizarre public moments.

With unforgettable portraits of Iranians, from government figures to women cab drivers to reform-minded Ayatollahs, Majd brings to life a country that is deeply religious yet highly cosmopolitan, authoritarian yet with democratic and reformist traditions—an Iran that is a more nuanced nemesis to the United States than it is typically portrayed to be.

Read an excerpt from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, and learn more about the book and author at Hooman Majd's website.

Hooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1957, and educated in the West. He has written about Iran for GQ, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Observer, and was executive vice president at Island Records and head of film and music at Palm Pictures. He is a contributing editor at Interview magazine.

View the video trailer for the book, and watch Jon Stewart's interview with Hooman Majd on The Daily Show.

The Page 69 Test: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's chart: six books on Anglo-French conflict

Robert Tombs, the co-author (with Isabelle Tombs) of That Sweet Enemy, a book "about the long and sometimes fractious relationship between England and France," named a critic's chart of books on Anglo-French conflict for the Times (London).

One title on his list:

Churchill And De Gaulle by Francois Kersaudy

A French view of a formative, fraught relationship.

Read about another book on Tombs' chart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter Mansoor's "Baghdad at Sunrise"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Peter Mansoor's Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq.

About the book, from the publisher:

This compelling book presents an unparalleled record of what happened after U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Army Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, the on-the-ground commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division—the “Ready First Combat Team”—describes his brigade’s first year in Iraq, from the sweltering, chaotic summer after the Ba’athists’ defeat to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government a year later. Uniquely positioned to observe, record, and assess the events of that fateful year, Mansoor now explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency of unexpected strength and tenacity.

Drawing not only on his own daily combat journal but also on observations by embedded reporters, news reports, combat logs, archived e-mails, and many other sources, Mansoor offers a contemporary record of the valor, motivations, and resolve of the 1st Brigade and its attachments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet this book has a deeper significance than a personal memoir or unit history. Baghdad at Sunrise provides a detailed, nuanced analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, and along with it critically important lessons for America’s military and political leaders of the twenty-first century.

Read an excerpt from Baghdad at Sunrise, and learn more about the book at the Yale University Press website.

Peter Mansoor is the General Raymond Mason Chair of Military History, The Ohio State University. A recently retired U.S. Army colonel, he served as executive officer to Commanding General David H. Petraeus, Multi-National Force–Iraq (2007–8); as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategy Group that proposed the surge strategy in Iraq (2006); as founding director of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center (2006); and as Commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, in Baghdad (2003–4).

Visit Peter Mansoor's faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Baghdad at Sunrise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Keir Graff's "One Nation, Under God"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: One Nation, Under God by Keir Graff.

About the book, from the publisher:

The United States is holding an election, and control of the country may be determined by a single seat in the ‘Buckle of the Bible Belt’: Tulsa, Oklahoma . . . In Tulsa, recovering methamphetamine addict Seth Stevens is trying to hold his fragile life together. But his decision to campaign for the church-supported candidate forces him to answer an age-old question: what do you do when following your faith means breaking the law?

Learn more about the book and author at Keir Graff's website.

Keir Graff is also the author of the novels Cold Lessons, under the pseudonym Michael McCulloch, and My Fellow Americans.

The Page 69 Test: One Nation, Under God.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Martin Millar reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Martin Millar, author of Love and Peace with Melody Paradise, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, Lux the Poet, The Good Fairies of New York, Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving, Ruby & The Stone Age Diet, Lonely Werewolf Girl, and Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me ... and other novels and plays and short stories and articles.

In the Los Angeles Times, Ed Park wrote of Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me: "despite the narrator's Zep obsession, the novel doesn't try to replicate the sprawling grandeur and virtuosic excess of the band's music. Instead, it unfolds in irresistibly short chapters ("Short enough for your limited attention span") and simple prose.... Even readers who last listened to "Houses of the Holy" during the Reagan administration will find much to enjoy here."

One part of his entry:

I like Japanese comics, or Manga. In the past few months I've worked my way through a large bundle of Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto. Naruto features hordes of fighting Ninja, which is basically what I want from Manga. I've been reading some of Bleach, too, by Tite Kubo. Both Naruto and Bleach are very popular Manga but I've been reading a few other interesting titles too, such as Apothecarius Argentum by Tomomi Yamashita, an unusual tale about a Japanese apothecary.[read on]

Visit Martin Millar's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Writers Read: Martin Millar.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ray Taras' "Europe Old and New"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Europe Old and New: Transnationalism, Belonging, Xenophobia by Ray Taras.

About the book, from the publisher:

Is Europe indeed uniting or instead falling apart as a result of anti-immigrant prejudices, a massive Islamic influx, and ancient intra-European hatreds? This innovative and engaging book explores this key question by examining the national and religious phobias and prejudices, antipathies and sympathies, stereotypes and heterotypes of Europe west and east. Considering the sources of Europe's culture-based divide, Ray Taras argues that the idea of two 'Europes' is grounded both in reality and myth. The accession process that brought a dozen new members into the European Union after 2004 highlighted the persisting gulf between "old" and "new" Europe. While many concrete borders between east and west were removed (commercial, legal, passport regimes), many remained (absence of a single Euro currency zone, labor market, and security community). Virtual borders too were invented or re-imagined: the postmaterialist, inclusionary, tolerant values supposedly found in old Europe versus the materialist, nationalistic, xenophobic ones of new Europe.

After reviewing the two Europes' contrasting historical legacies, Taras examines the EU institutions designed to overcome the historical European divide. He considers the treaties, political rhetoric, citizen attitudes, and literary narratives of belonging and separation that both bind and fray the fabric of Europe. Throughout, this interdisciplinary work provides a comprehensive, hard-hitting, and unabashed review of how enlarged Europe embraces contrasting understandings of its political home and of who belongs and who does not.

Read an excerpt from Europe Old and New, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

For more information on his research, teaching, and publications, visit Ray Taras' faculty webpage.

Ray Taras is professor of political science and director of the world literature program at Tulane University.

The Page 99 Test: Europe Old and New.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten: whale tales

Social historian and author Philip Hoare named a top ten list of books about whales for the Guardian.

One title on his list:

In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

A gripping account of the whale ship Essex, which was attacked by an enraged bull sperm whale and whose shipwrecked survivors resorted to cannibalism. The story inspired Moby-Dick, although the dialogue from the original 1821 account reads more like an outtake from In Which We Serve: "My God, Mr Chase, what is the matter?" "We have been stove by a whale."

Read about Number One on Hoare's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69 & 99: William G. Tapply's "Hell Bent"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Hell Bent by William G. Tapply.

About the book, from the publisher:

With his personal life at a bit of a cross-roads, Boston attorney Brady Coyne finds his own past coming back to haunt his professional life when his ex-girlfriend Alex Sinclair turns up looking for a lawyer to represent her brother. Augustine Sinclair was a notable photo-journalist, happily married to his high-school sweetheart with two small children – until he returned from a stint a freelancer photographer in Iraq missing a hand and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – now he’s lost his career, his peace of mind and his family. Brady is brought in to help him handle the divorce so that he does lose any more but before they get very far, the photographer is found dead in his rented apartment, an apparent suicide.

But something isn’t right about the suicide – the details are just a bit off – and Brady starts to think that his client has been murdered, the suicide staged. With very little to go on and with nearly everyone wanting to quickly close the books on a case that has all the classic indications of suicide, Brady soon finds himself in the midst of one of the most dangerous situations of his entire life, facing people who will stop at nothing to keep from being exposed.

Read an excerpt from Hell Bent, and learn more about the book and author at William G. Tapply's website.

William G. Tapply is a contributing editor to Field & Stream and the author of numerous books on fishing and wildlife, as well as more than twenty books of crime fiction.

The Page 69 Test: Hell Bent.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susan Reinhardt reading?

The latest featured contributor to Writers Read: Susan Reinhardt, an award-winning syndicated humor columnist and author of three books -- Not Tonight, Honey: Wait ‘til I’m a Size 6 (2005); Don’t Sleep With a Bubba Unless Your Eggs are in Wheelchairs (2007); and Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin (2008).

She has been called “the Southern Belle’s answer to David Sedaris” and “a modern-day, Southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry.”

Part of her entry:

It's really crazy because I read three books at a time. Currently, I'm reading one I'd never choose on my own, but a friend said the writing was sharp and clever. It's called Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, and it's by Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno, the film, and won and Oscar for it. [read on]

Read Reinhardt's interview with Mary Ward Menke at January Magazine.

Visit Susan Reinhardt's website.

Writers Read: Susan Reinhardt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Kimball's "Dear Everybody"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Michael Kimball's Dear Everybody.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jonathon Bender had something to say to the world, but the world wouldn’t listen. However, he left behind unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, employers, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the state of Michigan, and a weather satellite, among many others. These form the narrative of a remarkable life.

Dear Everybody maintains a tone of finely judged tension between laughter and tears in an involving and sympathetically written work of fiction.

Read an excerpt from Dear Everybody, and learn more about the book and author at Michael Kimball's website and blog.

Michael Kimball's first two novels are The Way the Family Got Away (2000) and How Much of Us There Was.

The Page 99 Test: Dear Everybody.

--Marshal Zeringue

Suzanne Kingsmill's "Forever Dead," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Suzanne Kingsmill's Forever Dead.

The entry begins:

I had no actors in mind when I wrote my murder mystery Forever Dead. However, while watching TV my characters have sometimes jumped out at me after their creation. I saw Cordi O'Callaghan, my lead character and a university zoology professor, in Julia Roberts as she grappled with The Pelican Brief. Cordi is continually faced with obstacles and life threatening situations and handles them as Julia Roberts's character does - with smarts.

Martha Bathgate, Cordi's overweight and humourous lab technician and best friend leapt out at me as....[read on]

Listen to the Prologue from Forever Dead and learn more about the book at Suzanne Kingsmill's website.

The Page 69 Test: Forever Dead.

My Book, The Movie: Forever Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Peterson's "First to Kill"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Andrew Peterson's First to Kill.

About the book, from the publisher:

When you’re the best at what you do, it’s not always easy to walk away. Nathan McBride was retired. The former Marine sniper and covert CIA operative had put the violence of his former life behind him. But not anymore. A deep-cover FBI agent has disappeared, along with one ton of powerful Semtex explosive, enough to unleash a disaster of international proportions. The U.S. government has no choice but to coax Nathan out of retirement. He’s the only man with the skills necessary to get the job done. But almost as soon as Nathan reluctantly accepts the assignment, he’ll find himself caught in the middle. On the one side is a ruthless adversary with a blood-chilling plan—and on the other are agents who will stop at nothing to see their own brand of justice done.

Read the first chapter of First to Kill, and learn more about the book and author at Andrew Peterson's website.

First to Kill is Andrew Peterson's debut thriller.

The Page 69 Test: First to Kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on the history of medicine

Stephanie J. Snow is a Research Associate at the Center for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine at the University of Manchester and the author of Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain and the newly released Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World.

She named a five best list of her favorite books on the history of medicine for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on her list:

The Social Transformation of American Medicine
by Paul Starr
Basic Books, 1982

"The dream of reason did not take power into account" -- so begins this Pulitzer Prize-winning portrait of the development of the American health-care system. Paul Starr, a sociology and public-affairs professor at Princeton University, tells the story in two parts. First, the rise of the medical profession through the 19th and early 20th centuries is shown to hinge on an unprecedented "cultural authority" derived from the legitimacy of science. It was this authority that enabled doctors to build a prosperous profession and to shape the medical system. In the second half of the book, Starr focuses on the ways in which for-profit corporations, such as insurance companies and hospitals, challenged the medical authority of doctors in the later decades of the 20th century, producing the health-care system -- much criticized yet much envied -- that the U.S. has today.

Read about Number One on Snow's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David S. Reynolds' "Waking Giant"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson by David S. Reynolds.

About the book, from the publisher:

America experienced unprecedented expansion and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. In Waking Giant, Bancroft Prize-winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds illuminates the period's exciting political story as well as the fascinating social and cultural movements that influenced it. He casts fresh light on Andrew Jackson, who redefined the presidency, along with John Quincy Adams and James K. Polk, who expanded the nation's territory and strengthened its position internationally.

Waking Giant captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. Reynolds reveals unknown dimensions of the Second Great Awakening with its sects, cults, and self-styled prophets. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America's worst social ills. He uncovers the political roots of some of America's greatest authors and artists, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: bloody duels and violent mobs, P. T. Barnum's freaks and all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets and wealthy prostitutes, table-lifting spiritualists and rabble-rousing feminists. All were crucial to the political and social ferment that led to the Civil War.

Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.

Among the praise for Waking Giant:

“A pleasure to read…. [Reynolds] does not confine himself to the staples of conventional narrative history…The result of his research is a happy mosaic of an era that may well be, just as the author suggests, "the richest" in American history.”
--Wall Street Journal

“A really good volume of history provides the reader with a keen sense of perspective and a genuine appreciation of the past. This is exactly what David S. Reynolds does in Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, which authoritatively describes the early to middle part of the American 19th Century and makes clear how important this period was to the nation’s growth in sociocultural, industrial and political terms.”
--BookPage

“A remarkable synthesis, impressive on many levels…. Award-winning historian Reynolds charts the political, cultural, economic, artistic, scientific and religious currents roiling America from the Era of Good Feelings to the verge of the Civil War.”
--Kirkus, starred review

“Offers a fine addition to the literature on pre-Civil War American history in this account of the years 1815-1848.”
--Publishers Weekly

“Highly recommended…. Bancroft Prize winner Reynolds has produced a thorough chronicle of America from 1815 to 1848.”
--Library Journal

Browse inside Waking Giant, and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and David S. Reynolds' faculty webpage.

David S. Reynolds is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His books include John Brown, Abolitionist, winner of the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award; Walt Whitman's America, winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Beneath the American Renaissance, winner of the Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

The Page 99 Test: Waking Giant.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Dan Hooper reading?

The latest featured contributor to Writers Read: Dan Hooper, author of the newly released Nature's Blueprint: Supersymmetry and the Search for a Unified Theory of Matter and Force.

Part of his entry:

Within the last month or so, I finished reading Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life and The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis. I also read a book about the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but can't say that I found it very compelling.[read on]

Dan Hooper is also the author of Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy, a SEED magazine Notable Book.

He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago and an Associate Scientist in the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where he investigates dark matter, supersymmetry, neutrinos, extra dimensions, and cosmic rays.

Read more about Nature's Blueprint at the publisher's website.

Visit Dan Hooper's website.

Writers Read: Dan Hooper.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Betsy Thornton's "A Song for You"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Betsy Thornton's A Song for You.

About the book, from the publisher:

In A Song for You, Betsy Thornton returns to her dynamic character Chloe Newcombe, victim advocate at the Cochise County Attorney’s Office.

A heavy storm hits Dudley, Arizona, wreaking havoc. A local woman drowns in a flash flood. A heavy drinker falls into the draining system and is finally found a few days later. The Barnetts, who moved into town six months ago, are unhappy to learn that a retaining wall on their property will need immediate fixing. And they’re even more dismayed when the workers’ digging unearths a dead body.

The man’s body has obviously been there a long time. When Rachel Macabee reads about it in the local paper, she is convinced that the dead man was a member of the band that her mom sang with when Rachel was a little girl. He had disappeared just a few days before her mother was killed. The band members assumed that he had left in search of a better job, but Rachel had never believed that---and now she knows she was right.

She doesn’t trust the police---they were wrong the first time. So she approaches private detective Brian Flynn, a former police officer as well as Chloe Newcombe’s former lover. He agrees to try to discover what really happened. And after all these years, Rachel may finally find her mother’s killer.

Betsy Thornton pens the stories about the inhabitants of this very real-life mountain town with great style. A Song for You promises more atmosphere, likable characters, and another entertaining puzzle.

Read an excerpt from A Song for You, and learn more about the author and her work at Betsy Thornton's website.

Betsy Thornton, who works for the Cochise County Attorney’s Victim Witness Program as a victim compensation advocate and a victim advocate, is the author of the Chloe Newcombe Mystery series.

The Page 69 Test: A Song for You.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lisa Lutz's "The Spellman Files"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.

Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.

The Spellman Files is the first novel in a winning and hilarious new series featuring the Spellman family in all its lovable chaos.

Read an excerpt from The Spellman Files, and learn more about the book and author at Lisa Lutz's website.

Lisa Lutz wrote the screenplay for a mob comedy called Plan B; her other novels include Curse of the Spellmans.

The Page 99 Test: The Spellman Files.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten: Irish crime fiction

At The Rap Sheet, crime writer Declan Burke posted a recommended list of Irish crime fiction.

One title on the list:

The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe.

In its first-person evocation of a poignant, childish need to belong that sours into murderous obsession, The Butcher Boy is literary Ireland’s equivalent of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me.

Read about another title from Burke's list.

Check out an excerpt from Burke's The Big O and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and the Crime Always Pays blog.

The Page 99 Test:: The Big O (Irish edition).

The Page 99 Test: The Big O.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Fuller's "Sweetsmoke"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: David Fuller's Sweetsmoke.

About the book, from the publisher:

The year is 1862, and the Civil War rages through the South. On a Virginia tobacco plantation, another kind of battle soon begins. There, Cassius Howard, a skilled carpenter and slave, risks everything—punishment, sale to a cotton plantation, even his life—to learn the truth concerning the murder of Emoline, a freed black woman, a woman who secretly taught him to read and once saved his life. It is clear that no one cares about her death in the midst of a brutal and hellish war. No one but Cassius, who braves horrific dangers to escape the plantation and avenge her loss.

As Cassius seeks answers about Emoline’s murder, he finds an unexpected friend and ally in Quashee, a new woman brought over from another plantation; and a formidable adversary in Hoke Howard, the master he has always obeyed.

With subtlety and beauty, Sweetsmoke captures the daily indignities and harrowing losses suffered by slaves, the turmoil of a country waging countless wars within its own borders, and the lives of those people fighting for identity, for salvation, and for freedom.

Read an excerpt from Sweetsmoke, and learn more about the book and author at David Fuller's website and blog.

Screenwriter David Fuller spent eight years researching Sweetsmoke, his first novel, and along the way discovered that he had ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetsmoke.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Thomas P. Slaughter reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Thomas P. Slaughter, Professor of History at the University of Rochester and author, most recently, of The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition (Hill & Wang, September 2008).

One item from his entry:

the Library of America volume Zuckerman Bound, which collects Phillip Roth’s trilogy from the 1980s.[read on]

Among the praise for Slaughter's The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition:

“A masterful biography... Any understanding of the history of social reform in America begins with Woolman, and understanding Woolman begins here.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A “superb narrative. . . In our own age of conspicuous consumption, the complex soul Slaughter so ably and beautifully resurrects is full of contemporary relevance as an example of principled living.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

A “thoughtful, scrupulous, enlightening, and engrossing masterpiece.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Thomas Slaughter has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of rescuing a saint—here an Abolitionist Quaker saint—entombed merely in fame. This discerning, poetic biography discloses a Woolman far more powerful, both personally and morally, than even his famous Journal revealed. Few histories are more quietly riveting, more piercingly compelling. The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman is an amazing reconstruction of a daring human life.”
—Jon Butler, Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University

Read more about The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition at the publisher's website.

Writers Read: Thomas P. Slaughter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Diana Spechler's "Who By Fire"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Diana Spechler's Who By Fire.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bits and Ash were children when the kidnapping of their younger sister, Alena—an incident for which Ash blames himself—caused an irreparable family rift. Thirteen years later, Ash is living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel, cutting himself off from his mother, Ellie, and his wild-child sister, Bits. But soon he may have to face them again; Alena's remains have finally been uncovered. Now Bits is traveling across the world in a bold and desperate attempt to bring her brother home and salvage what's left of their family.

Sharp and captivating, Who by Fire deftly explores what happens when people try to rescue one another.

Browse inside Who By Fire, and read more about the book and author at Diana Spechler's website.

Diana Spechler's fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, Moment, Lilith, and elsewhere. She received her MFA degree from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University.

The Page 99 Test: Who By Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joanne Rendell 's "The Professors' Wives' Club"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Joanne Rendell 's The Professors' Wives' Club.

About the book, from the publisher:

A debut novel about the intertwining lives of college faculty wives.

Nestled among Manhattan University's faculty housing, there is a garden where four women will meet—each with a scandalous secret that could upset their lives, destroy their families, and rock the prestigious university to its very core.

With its maple trees, iron gate, and fence laced with honeysuckle, Manhattan U's garden offers faculty wives Mary, Sofia, Ashleigh, and Hannah much needed refuge from their problems. But as Mary's husband, the power-hungry dean, plans to demolish their beloved garden, these four women will discover a surprising secret about a lost Edgar Allan Poe manuscript—and realize they must find the courage to stand up for their passions, dreams, and desires.

Learn more about the book and author at Joanne Rendell's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Joanne Rendell was born and raised in the UK. After completing a PhD in English Literature, she moved to the States to be with her husband, a professor at NYU. She now lives in a student dorm in New York City with her family.

The Page 69 Test: The Professors' Wives' Club.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about Horatio Nelson

Roy and Lesley Adkins are the authors of the newly released Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy and other books, including Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (US title, Nelson's Trafalgar).

For the Guardian, they named a top ten list of books about Horatio Nelson.

One title on the list:

Nelson: A Dream of Glory by John Sugden

This is the book for those who want more about the hero. It covers his early life and career, from his birth in 1758 to the disastrous, failed attack on Tenerife in 1797, in which he lost his right arm. These years are presented in great detail in the 788 pages; publication of the second volume was expected this spring, and its delay is a huge disappointment to Nelson enthusiasts.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue