Russel D. McLean's "Mothers of the Disappeared," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Mothers of the Disappeared by Russel D. McLean.

The entry begins:

When I first approached this theoretical question around the time of my debut novel, The Good Son, I wasn’t sure who could take on the character of J McNee, the dour Dundonian detective. I’m still not sure, to be honest. I like the idea of a lead who’s not as well known as the others in the cast, although I’ve softened a little on the idea of someone like David Tennant taking the lead. If he dialed back the performance, he might be suitably dark enough to play the character.

I still, after all these years, think that Brian...[read on]

Visit Russel McLean's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Son.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Sister.

The Page 69 Test: Mothers of the Disappeared.

My Book, The Movie: Mothers of the Disappeared.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gillen D'Arcy Wood's "Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World by Gillen D'Arcy Wood.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted in 1815, it unleashed the most destructive wave of extreme weather the world has witnessed in thousands of years. The volcano's massive sulfate dust cloud enveloped the Earth, cooling temperatures and disrupting major weather systems for more than three years. Amid devastating storms, drought, and floods, communities worldwide endured famine, disease, and civil unrest on a catastrophic scale. On the eve of the bicentenary of the great eruption, Tambora tells the extraordinary story of the weather chaos it wrought, weaving the latest climate science with the social history of this frightening period to offer a cautionary tale about the potential tragic impacts of drastic climate change in our own century.

The year following Tambora's eruption became known as the "Year without a Summer," when weather anomalies in Europe and New England ruined crops, displaced millions, and spawned chaos and disease. Here, for the first time, Gillen D'Arcy Wood traces Tambora's full global and historical reach: how the volcano's three-year climate change regime initiated the first worldwide cholera pandemic, expanded opium markets in China, set the stage for Ireland's Great Famine, and plunged the United States into its first economic depression. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, inspired by Tambora's terrifying storms, embodied the fears and misery of global humanity during this transformative period, the most recent sustained climate crisis the world has faced.

Bringing the history of this planetary emergency grippingly to life, Tambora sheds light on the fragile interdependence of climate and human societies, and the threat a new era of extreme global weather poses to us all.

Learn more about Tambora at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Tambora.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Janie Chang's "Three Souls"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Three Souls A Novel by Janie Chang.

About the book, from the publisher:

An absorbing novel of romance and revolution, loyalty and family, sacrifice and undying love

We have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this....

So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife. Beside her are three souls—stern and scholarly yang; impulsive, romantic yin; and wise, shining hun—who will guide her toward understanding. She must, they tell her, make amends.

As Leiyin delves back in time with the three souls to review her life, she sees the spoiled and privileged teenager she once was, a girl who is concerned with her own desires while China is fractured by civil war and social upheaval. At a party, she meets Hanchin, a captivating left-wing poet and translator, and instantly falls in love with him.

When Leiyin defies her father to pursue Hanchin, she learns the harsh truth—that she is powerless over her fate. Her punishment for disobedience leads to exile, an unwanted marriage, a pregnancy, and, ultimately, her death. And when she discovers what she must do to be released from limbo into the afterlife, Leiyin realizes that the time for making amends is shorter than she thought.

Suffused with history and literature, Three Souls is an epic tale of revenge and betrayal, forbidden love, and the price we are willing to pay for freedom.

Learn more about the book and author at Janie Chang's website.

The Page 69 Test: Three Souls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top nonfiction adventure books

At the Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Amelia Schonbek came up with four riveting nonfiction adventure books, including:

Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen

Karen Blixen, a Danish aristocrat, had the spirit of an adventurer from a very young age. As soon as she could escape the stiff Victorian world of her upbringing, she did so, marrying a Swedish cousin and moving to Africa in the early 20th century. She tells the story in her memoir Out of Africa, written under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen soon divorced, and the most compelling sections of her book are those in which she finds herself alone in an unknown country and must decide what kind of life she wants to make for herself.

Read about another entry on the list.

Out of Africa is one of Helena Frith Powell's top five books on glamour.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Catherine McKenzie reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Catherine McKenzie, author of Hidden.

Her entry begins:

I recently raced through Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys, his take on high-frequency trading and its effect on Wall Street. I’m a big fan of Lewis’, having read Liar’s Poker, Moneyball and The Big Short. I feel like he’s the Bill Bryson of financial journalism—someone who can take big, complicated ideas (like Bryson did in A Short History of Nearly Everything) and break them down into compelling, digestible (and often funny) pieces. This book was no exception, though I did find that Lewis...[read on]

About Hidden, from the publisher:

While walking home from work one evening, Jeff Manning is struck by a car and killed. Not one but two women fall to pieces at the news: his wife, Claire, and his co-worker Tish. Reeling from her loss, Claire must comfort her grieving son and contend with funeral arrangements, well-meaning family members and the arrival of Jeff's estranged brother, her ex-boyfriend Tim.

With Tish's co-workers in the dark about her friendship with Jeff outside of the office, she volunteers to attend the funeral on the company's behalf, but only she knows the true risk of inserting herself into the wreckage of Jeff's life. Told through the three voices of Jeff, Tish, and Claire, Hidden explores the complexity of relationships, the repercussions of our personal choices, and the responsibilities we have to the ones we love.

Visit Catherine McKenzie's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hidden.

Writers Read: Catherine McKenzie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten timeless children's classics

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Joel Cunningham tagged ten timeless classics that belong in every child’s library, including:

Good Dog, Carl, by Alexandra Day

At just 29 years, Carl is by far the youngest entry on this list (though in dog years, he’s practically ancient). Still, it’s impossible to imagine this nearly wordless story of a gentle Rottweiler, a baby girl, and a wildly, possibly criminally inattentive mother won’t endure. Plus, because there is no text, you get to figure out how to explain in your own words that, though the baby survived a drop down the laundry chute with no apparent injuries, it probably isn’t a good idea to try it out.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Rebecca Stead's top ten American children's classics you may have missed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joy A. Schroeder's "Deborah's Daughters"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Deborah's Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation by Joy A. Schroeder.

About the book, from the publisher:

Joy A. Schroeder offers the first in-depth exploration of the biblical story of Deborah, an authoritative judge, prophet, and war leader. For centuries, Deborah's story has challenged readers' traditional assumptions about the place of women in society.

Schroeder shows how Deborah's story has fueled gender debates throughout history. An examination of the prophetess's journey through nearly two thousand years of Jewish and Christian interpretation reveals how the biblical account of Deborah was deployed against women, for women, and by women who aspired to leadership roles in religious communities and society. Numerous women-and men who supported women's aspirations to leadership-used Deborah's narrative to justify female claims to political and religious authority. Opponents to women's public leadership endeavored to define Deborah's role as "private" or argued that she was a divinely authorized exception, not to be emulated by future generations of women.

Deborah's Daughters provides crucial new insight into the history of women in Judaism and Christianity, and into women's past and present roles in the church, synagogue, and society.

Learn more about Deborah's Daughters at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Deborah's Daughters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Pauline Rowson's "Shroud of Evil"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Shroud of Evil by Pauline Rowson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Rugged Detective Inspector Horton investigates a missing person in a case that has personal ramifications which could end his career...

When a private investigator goes missing, Detective Inspector Horton of Portsmouth CID believes he's probably run off with a woman. But when the man's car turns up, and a shocking discovery is made, things turn serious, and Horton himself embroiled in an investigation that has major personal ramifications, and could potentially end his career.

For more information about Pauline Rowson, visit her website, Twitter perch, and the DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery Facebook page.

Writers Read: Pauline Rowson.

My Book, The Movie: Shroud of Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Shroud of Evil.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books banned for offending the state

Seth Satterlee named six famously banned books for PWxyz, the news blog of Publishers Weekly, including:

[Salman] Rushdie is possibly the most famous exile alive. Since his publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 and the issuing of a fatwa by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Rushdie has lived with the vitriol that comes with insulting the Islamic prophet. He might not be welcome in half the world, but seems to get along well with America.

Read about another book on the list. 

The Satanic Verses is among Diarmaid MacCulloch's five best books about blasphemy, Atul Gawande's favorite books, and Karl O. Knausgaard's top ten angel books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mark Alpert's "The Furies," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Furies by Mark Alpert.

The entry begins:

The Furies is a mash-up of genres. It’s a science thriller about witches. Ariel Fury, the heroine, belongs to an ancient clan that has been steering the course of history for millennia. She has red hair and green eyes, the markers of a genetic mutation that has long made her family a target for mass murder. During the 16th and 17th centuries the witch-hunting mobs in France and Germany and England accused the Furies of being witches and burned nearly all of them at the stake. The few survivors fled to the wilderness of America and spent the next four hundred years living in seclusion. But revolutionary advances in genetic research in the 21st century trigger a civil war among the Furies, threatening to reveal their secrets and wreak havoc across the globe.

The book’s hero, John Rogers, meets Ariel at a bar in Greenwich Village. John is an ex-thug who formerly belonged to a drug gang and is now trying to go straight. He’s delighted when Ariel invites him to a tryst at her hotel, but their lustful encounter is interrupted by a band of rebellious Furies who ambush Ariel and nearly kill her. As John helps the wounded young woman return to her family’s compound in the woods of northern Michigan, he’s caught in the middle of the war among the Furies -- and both sides want him dead.

As I wrote the novel it ran through my mind like a movie, sort of a cross between...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Mark Alpert's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Omega Theory.

My Book, The Movie: Extinction.

My Book, The Movie: The Furies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books for devotees of the BBC’s "Sherlock"

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Nicole Hill tagged six books for fans of the BBC's Sherlock, including:

Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson, by Lyndsay Faye

Many have tried and failed to capture Doyle’s authorial voice, but Faye may come the closest. In this well-researched literary debut, Faye re-creates the world of Holmes and adds a character frequently seen in Sherlock spinoffs: Jack the Ripper. Yes, the Ripper is terrorizing Whitechapel, and the good Doctor Watson is back to tell us the true story of how Sherlock Holmes ended him. It’s an Anglophile’s dream.

Read about another book on the list.

Dust and Shadow is one of Kat Rosenfield's five top Jack the Ripper–inspired reads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elizabeth Crook's "Monday, Monday"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Monday, Monday by Elizabeth Crook.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this gripping, emotionally charged novel, a tragedy in Texas changes the course of three lives

On an oppressively hot Monday in August of 1966, a student and former marine named Charles Whitman hauled a footlocker of guns to the top of the University of Texas tower and began firing on pedestrians below. Before it was over, sixteen people had been killed and thirty-two wounded. It was the first mass shooting of civilians on a campus in American history.

Monday, Monday follows three students caught up in the massacre: Shelly, who leaves her math class and walks directly into the path of the bullets, and two cousins, Wyatt and Jack, who heroically rush from their classrooms to help the victims. On this searing day, a relationship begins that will eventually entangle these three young people in a forbidden love affair, an illicit pregnancy, and a vow of secrecy that will span forty years. Reunited decades after the tragedy, they will be forced to confront the event that changed their lives and that has silently and persistently ruled the lives of their children.

With electrifying storytelling and the powerful sense of destiny found in Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, and with the epic sweep of Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins, Elizabeth Crook’s Monday, Monday explores the ways in which we sustain ourselves and one another when the unthinkable happens. At its core, it is the story of a woman determined to make peace with herself, with the people she loves, and with a history that will not let her go. A humane treatment of a national tragedy, it marks a generous and thrilling new direction for a gifted American writer.

Visit Elizabeth Crook's website.

The Page 69 Test: Monday, Monday.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Linda Przybyszewski's "The Lost Art of Dress"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish by Linda Przybyszewski.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of the women who taught Americans how to dress in the first half of the 20th century—and whose lessons we'd do well to remember today.

As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We chase fads, choose inappropriate materials and unattractive cuts, and waste energy tottering in heels when we could be moving gracefully. Quite simply, we lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and flatteringly.

As historian and expert dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals in The Lost Art of Dress, it wasn't always like this. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women—the so-called Dress Doctors—taught American women how to stretch each yard of fabric and dress well on a budget. Knowledge not money, they insisted, is the key to timeless fashion. Based in Home Economics departments across the country, the Dress Doctors offered advice on radio shows, at women's clubs, and in magazines. Millions of young girls read their books in school and at 4-H clothing clubs. As Przybyszewski shows, the Dress Doctors' concerns weren't purely superficial: they prized practicality, and empowered women to design and make clothing for both the workplace and the home. They championed skirts that would allow women to move about freely and campaigned against impractical and painful shoes. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles—harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis—modern American women from all classes could learn to dress for all occasions in a way that made them confident, engaged members of society.

A captivating and beautifully-illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty—rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.

Visit Linda Przybyszewski's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: The Lost Art of Dress.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Janie Chodosh & Bryn and Darwin

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Janie Chodosh & Bryn and Darwin.

The author, on how she and her dogs were united:

I adopted Darwin from the Santa Fe Humane Society. I fell in love the second I set eyes on him and knew he was my dog, but oh, poor guy. He was terrified. He’d try to disappear through the wall every time someone came by. By the third time I visited him, he wagged his tail and his ears perked up when he saw me. I adopted Bryn from an organization in Denver that rescues heelers. It was...[read on]

About the book, from the publisher:

Life is tough when you have a junkie for a mom. But when sixteen-year-old Faith Flores— scientist wannabe, loner, new girl in town—finds her mom dead on the bathroom floor, she refuses to believe her mom really OD'd. But the cops have closed the case and her Aunt T, with whom she now lives in the Philly ‘burbs, wants Faith to let go and move on.

But a note from Melinda, her mom's junkie friend, leads Faith to a seedy downtown methadone clinic. Were her mom and Melinda trying to get clean?

When Melinda dies of an overdose, Faith tracks down the scientists behind the trial running at the methadone clinic. Soon she's cutting school and lying to everyone—her aunt, her best friend, even the cops. Everyone, that is, except the strangely alluring Jesse, who believes the “real” education's on the street and whose in-your-face honesty threatens to invade Faith's self-imposed “no-dating” rule. A drug-dealer named Rat-Catcher warns Faith to back off, but it doesn't stop Faith from confronting a genetics professor with a guilty conscience. When the medical examiner's body winds up in the Schuylkill River, Faith realizes if she doesn't act fast, she may be the next body in the morgue. Can Faith stop this deal gone bad from taking a sharp turn for the worse?

Death Spiral is a smart, surprising novel featuring an in-your-face heroine sure to appeal to teens and adults alike.

Visit Janie Chodosh's website.

Writers Read: Janie Chodosh.

The Page 69 Test: Death Spiral.

My Book, The Movie: Death Spiral.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Janie Chodosh & Bryn and Darwin.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Russel D. McLean reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Russel D. McLean, author of Mothers of the Disappeared.

His entry begins:

I’m at that stage now where I’m reading very little as I finish the next book. But I recently finished John Connolly’s magnificent, The Wolf in Winter in preparation for interviewing the man for a Scottish newspaper. The book is, as ever, absolutely magnificent. Connolly makes me weep with jealousy the way he slings sentences around, and his mood is always spot on. His particular take on American Gothic seethes with atmosphere, and more than anything I appreciate the way he breaks just about every rule dictated by genre. That and he takes some massive risks with...[read on]

About Mothers of the Disappeared, from the publisher:

Dundee-based private investigator J. McNee finds his past is about to catch up with him in this intriguing mystery.

When the mother of a murdered child asks PI J McNee to re-open a case he helped close during his time in the police, McNee is faced with some uncomfortable questions. Is the wrong man serving a life sentence for a series of brutal murders? If so, why did he admit his guilt before the court? McNee must make a terrifying moral choice.

Visit Russel McLean's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Son.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Sister.

The Page 69 Test: Mothers of the Disappeared.

Writers Read: Russel D. McLean.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top classics by African American authors

One title on Bruna Lobato's list of ten must-read classics by African American authors, as shared at the Christian Science Monitor:

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist writes the story of his life – and of his invisibility. His invisibility, he says, is not a physical condition, but much like the condition of the untouchables in a caste system. The feeling of exclusion eventually leads him to hide from the world and live underground.

Read about another entry on the list.

Invisible Man comes in second on the list of the 100 best last lines from novels; it appears among Peter Dimock's top ten books that rewrite history, five novels that explore the dark side in New York City, Peter Forbes's top ten books on color, Joyce Hackett's top ten musical novels, Sam Munson's six best stoner novels, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best nameless protagonists in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michelle Gable's "A Paris Apartment"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bienvenue à Paris!

When April Vogt's boss tells her about an apartment in the ninth arrondissement that has been discovered after being shuttered for the past seventy years, the Sotheby's continental furniture specialist does not hear the words “dust” or “rats” or “decrepit.” She hears Paris. She hears escape.

Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.

It's about discovering two women, actually.

With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan's private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe's life, April can't help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she's been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.

Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable's A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women.

Visit Michelle Gable's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Paris Apartment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven top "literary" novels paired with a sci-fi classic

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Joel Cunningham paired eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror with works more clearly at home among those genres, including:

If you were captivated by the post-atomic horror of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, read A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Miller's novel, written at the height of the Cold War, is a sci-fi classic for a reason. In three acts, it examines the absurd lengths humanity will go to to keep making the same mistakes

Read about another entry on the list.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of Amanda Yesilbas, Katharine Trendacosta, and Annalee Newitz's top thirteen post-apocalyptic stories that actually teach valuable lessons.

The Road appears on Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue

Pauline Rowson's "Shroud of Evil," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Shroud of Evil by Pauline Rowson.

The entry begins:

On the wall above my desk are photographs of four men. They look down on me as I write my crime novels featuring the flawed and rugged DI Andy Horton and while two of the men in the photographs are dead and the other two are now too old to play DI Andy Horton in the movies of the series they all have one thing in common not only with each other but with Andy Horton – they have all been heroes.

Heroes have always fascinated me. It probably stems from reading so many thrillers and spy novels as a child. Then I married a hero, well he is to me, a former fire-fighter from Red Watch, Portsmouth, UK, who took many risks and saved many lives. It’s no wonder then that I turned to writing about a hero.

DI Andy Horton has been described as...[read on]

For more information about Pauline Rowson and her books, visit her website, Twitter perch, and the DI Andy Horton Marine Mystery Facebook page.

Writers Read: Pauline Rowson.

My Book, The Movie: Shroud of Evil.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven of the best sentences in literature

The editors of The American Scholar tagged their ten (plus one bonus) best sentences, including:

This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees—partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings; partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate’s exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, secure; and also partly (according to some who were there) because of an irresistible, atavistic urge to hide under leaves.

—John Hersey, Hiroshima

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Steve Clarke's "The Justification of Religious Violence"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Justification of Religious Violence by Steve Clarke.

About the book, from the publisher:

How are justifications for religious violence developed and do they differ from secular justifications for violence? Can liberal societies tolerate potentially violent religious groups? Can those who accept religious justifications for violence be dissuaded from acting violently? Including six in-depth contemporary case studies, The Justification of Religious Violence is the first book to examine the logical structure of justifications of religious violence.

Learn more about The Justification of Religious Violence at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Justification of Religious Violence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six bad girls from historical fiction

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Dell Villa tagged six historical novels that feature bad girls, including:

Fallen Beauty, by Erika Robuck

Robuck’s fourth and latest novel since the haunting Call Me Zelda is immense and lyrical, constructed of two parallel narratives. It’s 1928 when Laura Kelley, a struggling seamstress, sneaks off with her lover to see the exotic Ziegfeld Follies, an act that sets her singular fate in motion, for it simultaneously invites judgment from her small town and ignites a lifelong passion for costume design. Meanwhile, in a stunning portrait of poetess Edna St. Vincent Millay (“Vincie”), Robuck introduces us to a fascinating woman who, as she attempts to maintain artistic focus while engaged in romantic entanglements and other frivolities, is also existing perilously close to the edge. The two women’s lives eventually converge, resulting in a reaffirming meditation on friendship and the transformative power of art.

Read about another entry on the list.

Writers Read: Erika Robuck (May 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Catherine McKenzie's "Hidden"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Hidden by Catherine McKenzie.

About the book, from the publisher:

While walking home from work one evening, Jeff Manning is struck by a car and killed. Not one but two women fall to pieces at the news: his wife, Claire, and his co-worker Tish. Reeling from her loss, Claire must comfort her grieving son and contend with funeral arrangements, well-meaning family members and the arrival of Jeff's estranged brother, her ex-boyfriend Tim.

With Tish's co-workers in the dark about her friendship with Jeff outside of the office, she volunteers to attend the funeral on the company's behalf, but only she knows the true risk of inserting herself into the wreckage of Jeff's life. Told through the three voices of Jeff, Tish, and Claire, Hidden explores the complexity of relationships, the repercussions of our personal choices, and the responsibilities we have to the ones we love.

Visit Catherine McKenzie's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hidden.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Heather Brittain Bergstrom reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Heather Brittain Bergstrom, author of Steal the North.

Her entry begins:

I recently read and greatly enjoyed The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen. It’s the story of an American woman who marries a Saudi Arabian man. After living for twenty years in his country, she finds out he has taken a second wife. The political, cultural and natural settings mix to create a world so rich and complex and yet so tangible. What Parssinen does even better than setting, and she does that superbly well, is relationships. She covers the muck and beauty of marriage, the sharp and dull pain of divorce, the scorching and tender love between parents and children. The ...[read on]

About the book, from the publisher:

A novel of love in all its forms: for the land, for family, and the once-in-a-lifetime kind that catches two people when they least expect it

Emmy is a shy, sheltered sixteen-year-old when her mom, Kate, sends her to eastern Washington to an aunt and uncle she never knew she had. Fifteen years earlier, Kate had abandoned her sister, Beth, when she fled her painful past and their fundamentalist church. And now, Beth believes Emmy’s participation in a faith healing is her last hope for having a child.

Emmy goes reluctantly, but before long she knows she has come home. She feels tied to the rugged landscape of coulees and scablands. And she meets Reuben, the Native American boy next door.

In a part of the country where the age-old tensions of cowboys versus Indians still play out, theirs is the kind of magical, fraught love that can only survive with the passion and resilience of youth. Their story is mirrored by the generation before them, who fears that their mistakes are doomed to repeat themselves in Emmy and Reuben. With Louise Erdrich’s sense of place and a love story in the tradition of Water for Elephants, this is an atmospheric family drama in which the question of home is a spiritual one, in which getting over the past is the only hope for the future.

Visit Heather Brittain Bergstrom's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Steal the North.

Writers Read: Heather Brittain Bergstrom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 Shakespeare books for children

Andrew Matthews is an internationally renowned author who has written numerous books for children and teenagers, including Shakespeare Stories. One of ten top Shakespeare books for children he tagged for the Guardian:

King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

This is not a retelling of the plays, but a novel that includes Shakespeare as a main character. Nat Field, a young American, travels to London to play Puck in a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the reconstructed Globe Theatre. He contracts a fever, and wakes up to find himself in Elizabethan times, and about to play Puck in the premiere of the play. The time-shift element is convincingly handled, and the reason behind it provides an elegant plot twist at the end of the book. Cooper's Shakespeare is warm, human, and sympathetic. I would recommend the novel to teenagers, or advanced readers.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ross E. Cheit's "The Witch-Hunt Narrative"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Ross E. Cheit.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the 1980s, a series of child sex abuse cases rocked the United States. The most famous case was the 1984 McMartin preschool case, but there were a number of others as well. By the latter part of the decade, the assumption was widespread that child sex abuse had become a serious problem in America. Yet within a few years, the concern about it died down considerably. The failure to convict anyone in the McMartin case and a widely publicized appellate decision in New Jersey that freed an accused molester had turned the dominant narrative on its head. In the early 1990s, a new narrative with remarkable staying power emerged: the child sex abuse cases were symptomatic of a 'moral panic' that had produced a witch hunt. A central claim in this new witch hunt narrative was that the children who testified were not reliable and easily swayed by prosecutorial suggestion. In time, the notion that child sex abuse was a product of sensationalized over-reporting and far less endemic than originally thought became the new common sense.

But did the new witch hunt narrative accurately represent reality? As Ross Cheit demonstrates in his exhaustive account of child sex abuse cases in the past two and a half decades, purveyors of the witch hunt narrative never did the hard work of examining court records in the many cases that reached the courts throughout the nation. Instead, they treated a couple of cases as representative and concluded that the issue was blown far out of proportion. Drawing on years of research into cases in a number of states, Cheit shows that the issue had not been blown out of proportion at all. In fact, child sex abuse convictions were regular occurrences, and the crime occurred far more frequently than conventional wisdom would have us believe. Cheit's aim is not to simply prove the narrative wrong, however. He also shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with a far more grim reality. The belief that the charge of child sex abuse was typically a hoax also left us unprepared to deal with the far greater scandal of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, which, incidentally, has served to substantiate Cheit's thesis about the pervasiveness of the problem. In sum, The Witch-Hunt Narrative is a magisterial and empirically powerful account of the social dynamics that led to the denial of widespread human tragedy.

Learn more about The Witch-Hunt Narrative at the official website/blog WitchhuntNarrative.org and the book's Facebook fan page.

The Page 99 Test: The Witch-Hunt Narrative.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top animal companions in fiction

Django Wexler is the author of The Thousand Names and The Forbidden Library. At the Guardian, he shared a top ten list of animal companions in children's fiction, including:

Hedwig from Harry Potter by JK Rowling

You can't make a list like this one and fairly leave off Harry's faithful owl Hedwig. Unlike most of the animals on this list, she doesn't get to talk, but she becomes a beloved character all the same.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Harry Potter books made Sophie McKenzie's top ten list of mothers in children's books, Nicole Hill's list of five of the best fictional bookstores, Sara Jonsson's list of the six most memorable pets in fiction, Melissa Albert's list of more than eight top fictional misfits, Cressida Cowell's list of ten notable mythical creatures, and Alison Flood's list of the top 10 most frequently stolen books.

Butterbeer is among Leah Hyslop's six best fictional drinks.

Albus Dumbledore is one of Rachel Thompson's ten greatest deaths in fiction.

Hermione Granger is among Nicole Hill's nine best witches in literature and Melissa Albert's top six distractible book lovers in pop culture.

Dolores Umbridge is among Melissa Albert's six more notorious teachers in fiction, Emerald Fennell's top ten villainesses in literature, and Derek Landy's top 10 villains in children's books. The Burrow is one of Elizabeth Wilhide's nine most memorable manors in literature.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban appears on Amanda Yesilbas and Katharine Trendacosta's list ot twenty great insults from science fiction & fantasy and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest prison breaks in science fiction and fantasy.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best owls in literature, ten of the best scars in fiction and ten of the best motorbikes in literature, and Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest personality tests in sci-fi & fantasy, Charlie Higson's top 10 list of fantasy books for children, Justin Scroggie's top ten list of books with secret signs as well as Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that publishers didn't want to touch. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made Chrissie Gruebel's list of six top fictional holiday parties and John Mullan's list of ten best graveyard scenes in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Clea Simon's "Panthers Play for Keeps"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Panthers Play for Keeps by Clea Simon.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Pru Marlowe takes a dog for a walk, she doesn’t expect to find a body. But Spot, a service dog in training, has too good a nose not to lead her to the remains of the beautiful young woman, and despite her own best instincts, Pru can’t avoid getting involved. The young woman seems to have been mauled by a wild cat – and Pru knows there have been no pumas in the Berkshire woods for years. And while Wallis, Pru’s curmudgeonly tabby, seems fixated on the idea of a killer cat, Spot has been sending strange signals to Pru’s own heightened senses, suggesting that the violent death was something more than a tragic accident. As motives multiply, a cougar of a different sort sets her eyes on Pru’s sometime lover, and another woman disappears. With panther panic growing, Pru may have to put aside her own issues – and her own ideas of domesticity – to solve a savage mystery.

Visit Clea Simon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Panthers Play for Keeps.

--Marshal Zeringue

George Saunders' 6 favorite books

George Saunders is an acclaimed short-story writer and a professor at Syracuse University.

One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This book reawakened part of me that had been slumbering since my young Catholic days—the part that knows that the point of life on earth is to learn to be more sympathetic to others. This novel — which was Morrison's first — is both a modeling and a thrilling enactment of that notion.

Read about another book on the list.

The Bluest Eye is among James McBride's six favorite books and Susheila Nasta's top ten cultural journeys.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ken Baker's "How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love by Ken Baker.

The entry begins:

Reflecting the lack of roles for plus-sized actresses in Hollywood, it’s next to impossible to draft much of a list of known actresses who could play Emery Jackson, the outspoken and obese teen narrator of my new novel, How I Got Skinny, Famous and Fell Madly in Love. Although the incredibly funny and talented Rebel Wilson is too old to play Emery, she would have been great, say, nearly ten years ago. So, given Hollywood’s lackluster stable of actresses who approximate Emery’s general age and physical appearance, I defer to Plan B: An actress who could play Emery who also is willing to add weight like others have, such as Charlize Theron in Monster and, to a lesser extent, Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary.

That actress is...[read on]

Visit Ken Baker's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Ken Baker.

The Page 69 Test: How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love.

My Book, The Movie: How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about Mississippi published in the past year

At Country Living, Lyn Roberts, the general manager of Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, tagged five top books about Mississippi published in the past year, including:

Michael Farris Smith looks to the not-too-distant-future in his novel Rivers (Simon & Schuster), about a future in which weather patterns have become more violent and hurricanes like Katrina batter the coast faster than the population can rebuild, causing the federal government to declare the coast a wasteland.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Rivers.

Writers Read: Michael Farris Smith.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Russel D. McLean's "Mothers of the Disappeared"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Mothers of the Disappeared: A J. McNee mystery set in Scotland by Russel D. McLean.

About the book, from the publisher:

Dundee-based private investigator J. McNee finds his past is about to catch up with him in this intriguing mystery.

When the mother of a murdered child asks PI J McNee to re-open a case he helped close during his time in the police, McNee is faced with some uncomfortable questions. Is the wrong man serving a life sentence for a series of brutal murders? If so, why did he admit his guilt before the court? McNee must make a terrifying moral choice.

Visit Russel McLean's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Son.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Sister.

The Page 69 Test: Mothers of the Disappeared.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Steven P. Miller's "The Age of Evangelicalism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Age of Evangelicalism: America's Born-Again Years by Steven P. Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the start of the twenty-first century, America was awash in a sea of evangelical talk. The Purpose Driven Life. Joel Osteen. The Left Behind novels. George W. Bush. Evangelicalism had become so powerful and pervasive that political scientist Alan Wolfe wrote of "a sense in which we are all evangelicals now."

Steven P. Miller offers a dramatically different perspective: the Bush years, he argues, did not mark the pinnacle of evangelical influence, but rather the beginning of its decline. The Age of Evangelicalism chronicles the place and meaning of evangelical Christianity in America since 1970, a period Miller defines as America's "born-again years." This was a time of evangelical scares, born-again spectacles, and battles over faith in the public square. From the Jesus chic of the 1970s to the satanism panic of the 1980s, the culture wars of the 1990s, and the faith-based vogue of the early 2000s, evangelicalism expanded beyond churches and entered the mainstream in ways both subtly and obviously influential.

Born-again Christianity permeated nearly every area of American life. It was broad enough to encompass Hal Lindsey's doomsday prophecies and Marabel Morgan's sex advice, Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Carter. It made an unlikely convert of Bob Dylan and an unlikely president of a divorced Hollywood actor. As Miller shows, evangelicalism influenced not only its devotees but its many detractors: religious conservatives, secular liberals, and just about everyone in between. The Age of Evangelicalism contained multitudes: it was the age of Christian hippies and the "silent majority," of Footloose and The Passion of the Christ, of Tammy Faye Bakker the disgraced televangelist and Tammy Faye Messner the gay icon. Barack Obama was as much a part of it as Billy Graham.

The Age of Evangelicalism tells the captivating story of how born-again Christianity shaped the cultural and political climate in which millions of Americans came to terms with their times.

Learn more about The Age of Evangelicalism at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Age of Evangelicalism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best book series

Christian Science Monitor contributor Casey Lee strongly recommends ten favorite book series, including:

Jack Reacher

Reacher is a former military cop. He was good at his job, really good. What makes him so successful (besides his imposing physique) is that he has a clear understanding of good and bad. Reacher is not a man to see the shades of grey. He is also a man of action. If Reacher sees something wrong, or comes across someone in trouble, he doesn't hesitate. He does something about it. His rough-and-ready attitude really appeals to readers weary of protagonists inclined to agonize and over-think. Every "Reacher" book is full of action and fight scenes and author Lee Child never allows for a dull moment.

Read about another series on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Daryl Gregory reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Daryl Gregory, author of Afterparty.

His entry begins:

When I’m in the early days of writing a novel, my reading is mostly non-fiction, and mostly predatory: Can this book feed my book? When I was writing Afterparty, the stack was all neuroscience and pharmacology books, and a few about religious experiences.

Now I’ve started a new book, and I’m reading a lot about psychics—remote-viewers, palm readers, spoonbenders, psychokinetics—and the goofy government-funded programs to study and weaponize them.

The two books I’m reading right now (alternating between them based on my mood) are opposite sides of the paranormal coin. First is Reading the Enemy’s Mind: Inside Star Gate: America’s Psychic Espionage Program by Paul Smith. You know it’s serious, because it has two colons in the title. The book is a first-person account of an intelligence officer who was recruited in the 1980s for one of the army’s remote-viewer programs....[read on]

About Afterparty, from the publisher:

It begins in Toronto, in the years after the smart drug revolution. Any high school student with a chemjet and internet connection can download recipes and print drugs, or invent them. A seventeen-year-old street girl finds God through a new brain-altering drug called Numinous, used as a sacrament by a new Church that preys on the underclass. But she is arrested and put into detention, and without the drug, commits suicide.

Lyda Rose, another patient in that detention facility, has a dark secret: she was one of the original scientists who developed the drug. With the help of an ex-government agent and an imaginary, drug-induced doctor, Lyda sets out to find the other three survivors of the five who made the Numinous in a quest to set things right.

A mind-bending and violent chase across Canada and the US, Daryl Gregory's Afterparty is a marvelous mix of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, and perhaps a bit of Peter Watts’s Starfish: a last chance to save civilization, or die trying.

Visit Daryl Gregory's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Afterparty.

The Page 69 Test: Afterparty.

Writers Read: Daryl Gregory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nose in a book: Mallory O'Meara

Who: Mallory O'Meara

What: Control Point by Myke Cole

When: April 2014

Where: the set of Dark Dunes Productions' new film starring Malcolm McDowell, Kids Vs. Monsters

Photo credit: Dark Dunes Productions

My Book, The Movie: Control Point.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Daryl Gregory's "Afterparty"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Afterparty by Daryl Gregory.

About the book, from the publisher:

It begins in Toronto, in the years after the smart drug revolution. Any high school student with a chemjet and internet connection can download recipes and print drugs, or invent them. A seventeen-year-old street girl finds God through a new brain-altering drug called Numinous, used as a sacrament by a new Church that preys on the underclass. But she is arrested and put into detention, and without the drug, commits suicide.

Lyda Rose, another patient in that detention facility, has a dark secret: she was one of the original scientists who developed the drug. With the help of an ex-government agent and an imaginary, drug-induced doctor, Lyda sets out to find the other three survivors of the five who made the Numinous in a quest to set things right.

A mind-bending and violent chase across Canada and the US, Daryl Gregory's Afterparty is a marvelous mix of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, and perhaps a bit of Peter Watts’s Starfish: a last chance to save civilization, or die trying.

Visit Daryl Gregory's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Afterparty.

The Page 69 Test: Afterparty.

--Marshal Zeringue