The fifteen best opening lines in literature

One title on the Independent's list of the fifteen best opening lines in literature:

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see: Robert McCrum's list of ten of the best opening lines of novels in the English language.

Nineteen Eighty-four is on W.B. Gooderham's top ten list of books given in books, Katharine Trendacosta and Amanda Yesilbas's list of ten paranoid science fiction stories that could help you survive, Na'ima B. Robert's top ten list of Romeo and Juliet stories, Gabe Habash's list of ten songs inspired by books and a list of the 100 best last lines from novels. The book made Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten science fiction novels we pretend to have read, Juan E. Méndez's list of five books on torture, P. J. O’Rourke's list of the five best political satires, Daniel Johnson's five best list of books about Cold War culture, Robert Collins' top ten list of dystopian novels, Gemma Malley's top 10 list of dystopian novels for teenagers, is one of Norman Tebbit's six best books and one of the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King. It made a difference to Isla Fisher, and appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best Aprils in literature, ten of the best rats in literature, and ten of the best horrid children in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Meryl Gordon's "The Phantom of Fifth Avenue"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Phantom of Fifth Avenue by Meryl Gordon.

About the book, from the publisher:

Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in American, and not above bribing his way into the Senate.

Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at twenty-two with a personal fortune of $50 million to her name, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend William MacDonald Gower. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society--first living with her mother in a kind of Grey Gardens isolation then as a modern-day Miss Havisham, spending her days in a vast apartment overlooking Central Park, eating crackers and watching The Flintstones with only servants for company.

All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?

Visit Meryl Gordon's website.

See: Meryl Gordon's five best chronicles of high society.

The Page 99 Test: The Phantom of Fifth Avenue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books to help you understand modern cities

At io9, Annalee Newitz tagged ten books will help you untangle the mysteries of today's city life, including:

The Works: Anatomy of a City, by Kate Ascher

Cities may be dreamlands and economic powerhouses, but they are also marvels of engineering. In this beautifully-illustrated book, Ascher uses New York City to give you a lesson in how urban infrastructure works, from water and sewage to power and beyond. A lot of the technology we use today hasn't changed much since the aqueducts of ancient Rome, so it's fascinating to see how millennia-old ideas have intermingled with cutting-edge wiring techniques. Another great book in this genre is Scott Huler's On the Grid, which deals with the infrastructure of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Serhii Plokhy's "The Last Empire," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy.

The entry begins:

The Last Empire is about the event that Vladimir Putin called the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century and that many of his opponents consider its brightest moment—the fall of the Soviet Union. Although my book is not fiction by any stretch of the imagination, it is hard to think of the downward spiral of the USSR in the last five months of 1991 (the chronological scope of my narrative) as anything but the closing act of a drama.

The main actors in the drama were President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, President George H. W. Bush of the United States, and the leaders of two Soviet republics, Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine. I also take a close look at the wives of my first two characters, Raisa Gorbachev and Barbara Bush.

Mikhail Gorbachev takes center stage in the book, as he had the most to gain or lose from the way things turned out. He lost it all—prestige, power, and country. Gorbachev’s personal drama—the story of a leader who dragged his country out of its totalitarian past, opened it to the world, introduced democratic procedures, and initiated economic reform, changing his homeland and the world around him so drastically that there was no place left for him—is the hinge of my narrative. I am not sure who would be better at playing Gorbachev, Kevin Spacey or Tom...[read on]

Learn more about The Last Empire at the Basic Books website.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Empire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten notable children’s books that celebrate multicultural society

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Molly Schoemann-McCann tagged "ten favorite beautifully illustrated children’s books that embrace a wide spectrum of children and families of different colors, cultures, abilities, and nationalities," including:

Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream, by Jenny Han

When 8-year-old Clara Lee has a bad dream that is interpreted by her Korean grandfather as lucky, she does indeed have a great day at school! But soon her luck runs out—does that mean she’s going to lose her chance at being the next Little Miss Apple Pie in the town’s fall festival? Readers will sympathize with Clara Lee’s dilemmas in this charming chapter book. (Ages 7–10)

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sheila Kohler's "Dreaming for Freud"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Dreaming for Freud: A Novel by Sheila Kohler.

About the book, from the publisher:

An award-winning author reimagines one of Freud’s most famous and controversial cases

Acclaimed for her spare prose and exceptional psychological insights in her novels Becoming Jane Eyre and Love Child, Sheila Kohler’s latest is inspired by Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. Dreaming for Freud paints a provocative and sensual portrait of one of history’s most famous patients.

In the fall of 1900, Dora’s father forces her to begin treatment with the doctor. Visiting him daily, the seventeen-year-old girl lies on his ottoman and tells him frankly about her strange life, and above all about her father’s desires as far as she is concerned. But Dora abruptly ends her treatment after only eleven weeks, just as Freud was convinced he was on the cusp of a major discovery. In Dreaming for Freud, Kohler explores what might have happened between the man who changed the face of psychotherapy and the beautiful young woman who gave him her dreams.

Visit Sheila Kohler's website.

Writers Read: Sheila Kohler.

The Page 69 Test: Dreaming for Freud.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about lost (and found) artifacts

Ayelet Waldman is the author of Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road and the New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. Her novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits was adapted into a film called The Other Woman starring Natalie Portman. Her personal essays and profiles of such public figures as Hillary Clinton have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her radio commentaries have appeared on “All Things Considered” and “The California Report.”

One of Waldman's favorite books about lost (and found) artifacts, as shared at Goodreads:

Running Dog by Don DeLillo

Could anyone other than DeLillo write a novel about a mysterious (and perhaps nonexistent) pornographic movie shot in Hitler's bunker and starring the führer himself? I suppose the answer has to be 'Yes,' but the results wouldn't be anywhere near as funny. Everyone is trying to get their hands on the film: mafioso and senators, porn kings and spies, and an intrepid young reporter (a stock character who might have come off as trite in anyone other than DeLillo's capable hands). I can't say anymore for fear of ruining the ending.

Read about another book on the list.

Visit Ayelet Waldman's website.

Writers Read: Ayelet Waldman.

The Page 69 Test: Love and Treasure.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Fuller reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Fuller, author of Sundance.

From his entry:

I am always reading a dozen or more books at the same time. I am researching a new project, and I have recently finished two books that I enjoyed. They are fine pieces of work.

Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz is one of those books that, once I saw my first novel in print, people thought would interest me. At that point, I was pretty much done with Civil War books. But time has passed, and it called out to me from my shelf.

I was particularly taken with Chapter 5, set in Kentucky, entitled Dying For Dixie. A white young man named Michael Westerman was driving his red pickup, flying a large rebel flag from a post in the bed of his truck. This was on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. It annoyed some nearby African American young men. It is possible that Westerman...[read on]

About Sundance, from the publisher:

A gripping historical novel of love and vengeance starring Harry Longbaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid.

Legend has it that bank robber Harry Longbaugh and his partner Robert Parker were killed in a shootout in Bolivia. That was the supposed end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.

Sundance tells a different story. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Longbaugh is very much alive, though serving in a Wyoming prison under an alias.

When he is released in 1913, Longbaugh reenters a changed world. Horses are being replaced by automobiles. Gas lamps are giving way to electric lights. Workers fight for safety, and women for the vote. What hasn’t changed are Longbaugh’s ingenuity, his deadly aim, and his love for his wife, Etta Place.

It’s been two years since Etta stopped visiting him, and, determined to find her, Longbaugh follows her trail to New York City. Confounded by the city’s immensity, energy, chaos, and crowds, he learns that his wife was very different from the woman he thought he knew. Longbaugh finds himself in a tense game of cat and mouse, racing against time before the legend of the Sundance Kid catches up to destroy him.

By turns suspenseful, rollicking, and poignant, Sundance is the story of a man dogged by his own past, seeking his true place in this new world.

Learn more about the book and author at David Fuller's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetsmoke.

The Page 69 Test: Sundance.

Writers Read: David Fuller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten bookworms' tales

Niall Williams, a Dublin born writer, has lived in Kiltumper, Co Clare in the west of Ireland for the past 30 years. He is the author of eight novels, three stage plays, four non-fiction works and several screenplays. His new novel is History of the Rain.

One entry on his list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, as shared at the Guardian:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Perhaps the greatest recent addition to the humus of bookworms is Oscar Wao. Oscar's family came from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey. He is a Casanova when he is seven and for one full beautiful week loves two girls, Maritza and Olga. But once his ménage a trois collapses, Oscar retreats from the known world and inhabits another. This one is found in the novels of Lovecraft, Wells, Burroughs, Howard, Alexander, Herbert, Asimov, and others, as well as the comic books that make up the Marvel universe. In Díaz's brilliant narration Oscar's bookwormery and general nerdiness are transformed into something utterly cool.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also appears among Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ronlyn Domingue's "The Chronicle of Secret Riven"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Chronicle of Secret Riven by Ronlyn Domingue.

About the book, from the publisher:

An uncanny child born to brilliant parents, befriended by a prince, mentored by a wise woman, pursued by a powerful man, Secret Riven has no idea what destiny will demand of her or the courage she must have to confront it in the breathtakingly epic, genre-spanning sequel to The Mapmaker’s War.
* * *

To see is a trick of the mind, but to believe is a trick of the heart.

One thousand years after a great conflict known as The Mapmaker’s War, a daughter is born to an ambitious historian and a gifted translator. Secret Riven doesn’t speak until her seventh year but can mysteriously communicate with plants and animals. Unsettled by visions and dreams since childhood, she tries to hide her strangeness, especially from her mercurial father and cold mother. When her knowledge of an esoteric symbol brings unwelcome attention, gentle, watchful Secret finds acceptance from Prince Nikolas, her best friend, and Old Woman, who lives in the distant woods.

When Secret is twelve, her mother, Zavet, receives an arcane manuscript to translate from an anonymous owner. Zavet begins to suffer nightmares and withdraws into herself. Secret sickens with a fever and awakens able to speak an ancient language, discovering that her mother is fluent as well. Suddenly, Zavet dies. The manuscript is missing, but a cipher has been left for Secret to find. Soon, Secret will have a choice to make: confront a destiny tied to an ancient past or deny it, never to know its whole truth.

A spellbinding story, rich with vivid characters and set in a fascinating world, The Chronicle of Secret Riven explores the tension between love and hate, trust and betrayal, fate and free will.

Learn more about the book and author at Ronlyn Domingue's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Mapmaker's War.

My Book, The Movie: The Mapmaker's War.

Writers Read: Ronlyn Domingue.

The Page 69 Test: The Chronicle of Secret Riven.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Satlow's "How the Bible Became Holy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: How the Bible Became Holy by Michael L. Satlow.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this sweeping narrative, Michael Satlow tells the fascinating story of how an ancient collection of obscure Israelite writings became the founding texts of both Judaism and Christianity, considered holy by followers of each faith. Drawing on cutting-edge historical and archeological research, he traces the story of how, when, and why Jews and Christians gradually granted authority to texts that had long lay dormant in a dusty temple archive. The Bible, Satlow maintains, was not the consecrated book it is now until quite late in its history.

He describes how elite scribes in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E. began the process that led to the creation of several of our biblical texts. It was not until these were translated into Greek in Egypt in the second century B.C.E., however, that some Jews began to see them as culturally authoritative, comparable to Homer’s works in contemporary Greek society. Then, in the first century B.C.E. in Israel, political machinations resulted in the Sadducees assigning legal power to the writings. We see how the world Jesus was born into was largely biblically illiterate and how he knew very little about the texts upon which his apostles would base his spiritual leadership.

Synthesizing an enormous body of scholarly work, Satlow’s groundbreaking study offers provocative new assertions about commonly accepted interpretations of biblical history as well as a unique window into how two of the world’s great faiths came into being.

Learn more about How the Bible Became Holy at the Yale University Press website.

Michael L. Satlow is Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University.

The Page 99 Test: How the Bible Became Holy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jonathan Rose's "The Literary Churchill," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Literary Churchill: Author, Reader, Actor by Jonathan Rose.

The entry begins:

My book The Literary Churchill is a fairly unconventional portrait of Winston. Far from the sonorous, crusty old Tory we're used to, my Churchill was a bohemian artist, a flamboyant public performer. He admired and (to some extent) modeled himself after Oscar Wilde, so we would need an actor with that kind of panache. Charlie...[read on]

Learn more about The Literary Churchill at the Yale University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: The Literary Churchill.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sheila Kohler reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sheila Kohler, author of Dreaming for Freud.

Her entry begins:

I have been rereading Freud's case histories for my novel which comes out this May and also for the classes I'm teaching this semester. The more I reread these five case histories: Dora, Little Hans, The Ratman; the Wolfman and the President Schreber the more skillful they seem to me. Freud, of course, was well-read and quotes often from Shakespeare, for example. Still his taste was conservative in literature as it was in art, and perhaps the influence of a mystery writer like Conan Doyle is prevalent here. He creates suspense and mystery from the start of each of these cases. What is wrong, we wonder ...[read on]

About Dreaming for Freud, from the publisher:

An award-winning author reimagines one of Freud’s most famous and controversial cases

Acclaimed for her spare prose and exceptional psychological insights in her novels Becoming Jane Eyre and Love Child, Sheila Kohler’s latest is inspired by Sigmund Freud’s Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. Dreaming for Freud paints a provocative and sensual portrait of one of history’s most famous patients.

In the fall of 1900, Dora’s father forces her to begin treatment with the doctor. Visiting him daily, the seventeen-year-old girl lies on his ottoman and tells him frankly about her strange life, and above all about her father’s desires as far as she is concerned. But Dora abruptly ends her treatment after only eleven weeks, just as Freud was convinced he was on the cusp of a major discovery. In Dreaming for Freud, Kohler explores what might have happened between the man who changed the face of psychotherapy and the beautiful young woman who gave him her dreams.

Visit Sheila Kohler's website.

Writers Read: Sheila Kohler (December 2009).

Writers Read: Sheila Kohler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three top books on China

At the Guardian, Pushpinder Khaneka named three of the best books on China. One title on the list:

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

Li's prizewinning debut collection of 10 stories delves into the lives of everyday Chinese – both at home and in the US – struggling to cope with a fast-changing, new China.

In Extra, Granny Lin finds herself without a job or a pension after being laid off ("honourably retired", in official parlance) from her state-owned garment factory, which has gone bust. She ends up working as a maid at a boarding school.

In Son, an emigrant returns from the US to find that his mother has forsaken Mao for Jesus. He, meanwhile, has to tell her that he is no longer traditional marriage material (a Chinese-American "diamond bachelor") because he is gay.

In immortality, the most ambitious and overtly political story, a boy is born with Mao's face and is used to impersonate him in propaganda films.

Using beautifully pared-down prose, Li illustrates how the personal, political and past bear down on her protagonists' often precarious lives and make happiness elusive. These provocative and poignant portraits offer a kaleidoscope of characters who give us an inside view of China today.

Li grew up in Beijing, leaving after university to study in the US where she now lives.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Fuller's "Sundance"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sundance: A Novel by David Fuller.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gripping historical novel of love and vengeance starring Harry Longbaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid.

Legend has it that bank robber Harry Longbaugh and his partner Robert Parker were killed in a shootout in Bolivia. That was the supposed end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy.

Sundance tells a different story. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Longbaugh is very much alive, though serving in a Wyoming prison under an alias.

When he is released in 1913, Longbaugh reenters a changed world. Horses are being replaced by automobiles. Gas lamps are giving way to electric lights. Workers fight for safety, and women for the vote. What hasn’t changed are Longbaugh’s ingenuity, his deadly aim, and his love for his wife, Etta Place.

It’s been two years since Etta stopped visiting him, and, determined to find her, Longbaugh follows her trail to New York City. Confounded by the city’s immensity, energy, chaos, and crowds, he learns that his wife was very different from the woman he thought he knew. Longbaugh finds himself in a tense game of cat and mouse, racing against time before the legend of the Sundance Kid catches up to destroy him.

By turns suspenseful, rollicking, and poignant, Sundance is the story of a man dogged by his own past, seeking his true place in this new world.

Learn more about the book and author at David Fuller's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetsmoke.

The Page 69 Test: Sundance.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books to read aloud to children

William Sutcliffe is the author of five adult novels, including the international bestseller, Are You Experienced?. His first novel for Young Adults, The Wall, was published in 2013 and has had much critical acclaim, including being longlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Circus of Thieves is his first novel for younger children.

One title on his top ten list of books to read aloud to children, as shared at the Guardian:

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

As children start reading longer books, one of the curious experiences you have as a bedtime reader sharing the task with a spouse is reading books in alternating ten page chunks, without ever finding out exactly what happens in the missing sections. This is not how any writer wants to be read, but few books stand up to this treatment better than Lemony Snicket. There is joy to be had in the gothic richness of every sentence, with subtle jokes aimed at adults cleverly pitched to not exclude the listening child. The whole series is excellent, as are the audio books.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is on Matt Whyman's top ten list of unusual fictional families and John Mullan's list of ten of the best poisonings in literature.

Also see: Mal Peet's top ten books to read aloud to children.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elisabeth Gifford's "The Sea House," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford.

The entry begins:

Like many novelists I did have a flurry of excitement when a couple of production companies were considering making The Sea House into a film. As yet no offers but it did make me daydream about who might play the lead roles. For Alexander, Ben Whishaw who played Q in Skyfall. He has just the right mix of vulnerability and intensity to play a newly ordained Victorian minister, struggling to live up to his ideals and fighting against the idea of grace- or undeserved love.

Katriona, daughter of the castle, I have always seen as Carrie Mulligan, with her impish youth and spark. Combine her in scenes with Ben Whishaw as the young Alexander, alone on the island, and I think something is going to melt.

That is until the maid to the church manse comes in, with her tatty dress, red hair and ardent love for Alexander. Always setting the cat among the pigeons, I think Moira would look like...[read on]

Visit Elisabeth Gifford's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sea House.

My Book, The Movie: The Sea House.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top time travel books

Damian Dibben is the creator of the internationally acclaimed series The History Keepers published in over 40 countries and translated into 26 languages.

One of his top ten time travel books, as shared at the Guardian:

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Crichton's huge bestseller takes place in the present, but the characters are, in essence, travelling back to the time of the dinosaurs. The beasts are cloned from fossilized DNA, brought to life and placed in a theme park on a desert island. During a testing phase, disaster strikes when some of the deadliest animals escape their enclosure.

Interestingly, the book was partly inspired by novels written a century ago, in particular The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, (who penned Sherlock Holmes) a story about explorers who discover a secret land in South America populated by dangerous, prehistoric animals. Steven Spielberg (again! He has great taste) who directed the Jurassic Park movies, even borrowed Conan Doyle's title for his sequel.

Read about another title on the list.

Jurassic Park is among Becky Ferreira's eleven best books about dinosaurs.

Also see Michael Brooks's top ten list of time travel books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Reed Farrel Coleman's "The Hollow Girl"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl by Reed Farrel Coleman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The final novel in one of the most critically acclaimed PI series in the annals of crime fiction!

Drunk, alone, and racked with guilt over the tragic death of his girlfriend Pam, Moe Prager is destined for oblivion. But destiny takes a detour when a shadowy figure from Moe's past reappears to beg for Moe's help in locating her missing daughter. As a reluctant, distracted Moe delves into the case, he discovers that nothing is as it seems and no one involved is quite who or what they appear to be. This is especially true of the missing daughter, an early internet sensation known ironically as the Lost Girl or the Hollow Girl. The case itself is hollow, as Moe finds little proof that anyone is actually missing.

Things take a bizarre twist as Moe stumbles across a body in a trendy Manhattan apartment and the Hollow Girl suddenly re-emerges on video screens everywhere. It's a wild ride through the funhouse as Moe tries to piece together a case from the half-truths and lies told to him by a fool's parade of family members, washed-up showbiz types, uncaring cops, a doorman, and a lovesick PI. Even as the ticking clock gets louder, Moe is unsure if it's all a big hoax or if someone's life is really at stake. The question isn't whether or not Moe can find the Hollow Girl, but whether the Hollow Girl was ever there at all.

Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

Writers Read: Reed Farrel Coleman.

The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mimi Sheller's "Aluminum Dreams"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Aluminum Dreams: The Making of Light Modernity by Mimi Sheller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Aluminum shaped the twentieth century. It enabled high-speed travel and gravity-defying flight. It was the material of a streamlined aesthetic that came to represent modernity. And it became an essential ingredient in industrial and domestic products that ranged from airplanes and cars to designer chairs and artificial Christmas trees. It entered modern homes as packaging, foil, pots and pans and even infiltrated our bodies through food, medicine, and cosmetics. In Aluminum Dreams, Mimi Sheller describes how the materiality and meaning of aluminum transformed modern life and continues to shape the world today.

Aluminum, Sheller tells us, changed mobility and mobilized modern life. It enabled air power, the space age and moon landings. Yet, as Sheller makes clear, aluminum was important not only in twentieth-century technology, innovation, architecture, and design but also in underpinning global military power, uneven development, and crucial environmental and health concerns. Sheller describes aluminum's shiny utopia but also its dark side. The unintended consequences of aluminum's widespread use include struggles for sovereignty and resource control in Africa, India, and the Caribbean; the unleashing of multinational corporations; and the pollution of the earth through mining and smelting (and the battle to save it). Using a single material as an entry point to understanding a global history of modernization and its implications for the future, Aluminum Dreams forces us to ask: How do we assemble the material culture of modernity and what are its environmental consequences?

Aluminum Dreams includes a generous selection of striking images of iconic aluminum designs, many in color, drawn from advertisements by Alcoa, Bohn, Kaiser, and other major corporations, pamphlets,films, and exhibitions.

Learn more about Aluminum Dreams at the MIT Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Aluminum Dreams.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ronlyn Domingue reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ronlyn Domingue, author of The Chronicle of Secret Riven.

One book Domingue tagged:

A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond: Every few years, I reread a book I loved as a child. This one is an honest novel about grief—a woman dies in a car accident and leaves behind a husband and three children—depicting how each person copes, or doesn’t, with the loss. Bond mirrors this with a desolate setting, a small town in Wales, wonderfully depicted. But what grabbed me then and now is what happens to Peter, the middle child. He finds a harp’s tuning key, and every time he holds it, he has visions of...[read on]

About The Chronicle of Secret Riven, from the publisher:

An uncanny child born to brilliant parents, befriended by a prince, mentored by a wise woman, pursued by a powerful man, Secret Riven has no idea what destiny will demand of her or the courage she must have to confront it in the breathtakingly epic, genre-spanning sequel to The Mapmaker’s War.
* * *

To see is a trick of the mind, but to believe is a trick of the heart.

One thousand years after a great conflict known as The Mapmaker’s War, a daughter is born to an ambitious historian and a gifted translator. Secret Riven doesn’t speak until her seventh year but can mysteriously communicate with plants and animals. Unsettled by visions and dreams since childhood, she tries to hide her strangeness, especially from her mercurial father and cold mother. When her knowledge of an esoteric symbol brings unwelcome attention, gentle, watchful Secret finds acceptance from Prince Nikolas, her best friend, and Old Woman, who lives in the distant woods.

When Secret is twelve, her mother, Zavet, receives an arcane manuscript to translate from an anonymous owner. Zavet begins to suffer nightmares and withdraws into herself. Secret sickens with a fever and awakens able to speak an ancient language, discovering that her mother is fluent as well. Suddenly, Zavet dies. The manuscript is missing, but a cipher has been left for Secret to find. Soon, Secret will have a choice to make: confront a destiny tied to an ancient past or deny it, never to know its whole truth.

A spellbinding story, rich with vivid characters and set in a fascinating world, The Chronicle of Secret Riven explores the tension between love and hate, trust and betrayal, fate and free will.

Learn more about the book and author at Ronlyn Domingue's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Mapmaker's War.

My Book, The Movie: The Mapmaker's War.

Writers Read: Ronlyn Domingue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Simon Sebag Montefiore's six favorite books

As a historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore's works include Jerusalem: The Biography, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, and Young Stalin, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the Costa Biography Prize (UK), and Le Grand Prix de Biographie Politique (France). His novels include the critically acclaimed Sashenka and the newly released One Night in Winter.

One of the author's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel

This masterpiece tells the story of a bespectacled Jewish journalist who joins the Bolshevik Cossacks as they ride into Poland in 1920, raping, murdering, and pillaging. The book is about war, but it's also about sensuality and Jewishness.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see Simon Sebag Montefiore's five best books about Moscow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anna Godbersen's "The Blonde," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Blonde by Anna Godbersen.

The entry begins:

One of the challenges of writing The Blonde was that I knew I was going to have to write love scenes between two of the most charismatic people of all recorded history. But they are also, to us, such ciphers, such pure images, and one of the pleasures of the book (I hope! Certainly one of the pleasures of writing it) is that it goes deep into the desperate inner lives of people who we are accustomed to viewing as shiny objects. Movies aren't as deft as novels at getting into consciousness, and we already know how Marilyn and JFK look, how they move, how they sound, how they flirt. So that would be a real handicap in making a movie out of my book -- in the hands of a literal-minded director it would be a disaster! But I actually thought about Inglourious Basterds a lot when I was writing this, about the loony latitude that Tarantino allows himself with history and storytelling, and I think if someone adapted The Blonde with that kind of wild, gonzo spirit, it would be crazy cinematic and awesome! It's already so much about the movies, about imagination, about what sleight of hand movieland storytelling (all storytelling, really) relies upon.

And who to play the leads? It's such a...[read on]

Visit Anna Godbersen's website, Facebook page and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Anna Godbersen.

The Page 69 Test: The Blonde.

My Book, The Movie: The Blonde.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top orphans in children's literature

Katherine Rundell grew up in Africa and Europe and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She begins each day with a cartwheel and believes that reading is almost exactly the same as cartwheeling: It turns the world upside down and leaves you breathless. She is the author of Girl Savage and Rooftoppers.

At the Guardian, Rundell named her top ten orphans in children's literature. One entry on the list:

Alex Rider, Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

Alex's orphan status means that there is nobody to tell him to be home for supper, to hold on tight or wash his face. Stories in which children take on traditionally adult jobs require dead or absent parents, and as a child spy, like Kim in Rudyard Kipling's novel 100 years before, Alex needs to be free of worrying mothers and fathers.

Read about another orphan on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jenny Milchman's "Ruin Falls"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a suspenseful follow-up to her critically acclaimed Cover of Snow, Jenny Milchman ratchets up the tension with this edge-of-your-seat story of a mother determined to find her missing children.

Liz Daniels has every reason to be happy about setting off on a rare family vacation, leaving behind her remote home in the Adirondack Mountains for a while. Instead, she feels uneasy. Her children, eight-year-old Reid and six-year-old Ally, have met their paternal grandparents only a handful of times. But Liz’s husband, Paul, has decided that, despite a strained relationship with his mother and father, they should visit the farm in western New York where he spent his childhood.

On their way to the farm, the family stops at a hotel for the night. In the morning, when Liz goes to check on her sleeping children, all her anxiety comes roaring back: Ally and Reed are nowhere to be found. Blind panic slides into ice-cold terror as the hours tick by without anyone finding a trace of the kids. Soon, Paul and Liz are being interviewed by police, an Amber Alert is issued, and detectives are called in.

Frantic worry and helplessness threaten to overtake Liz’s mind—but in a sudden, gut-wrenching instant she realizes that it was no stranger who slipped into the hotel room that night. Someone she trusted completely has betrayed her. Though she knows that Ally and Reid are safe, Liz will stop at nothing to find them and get them back. From her guarded in-laws’ unwelcoming farmhouse to the deep woods of her own hometown, Liz follows the threads of a terrible secret to uncover a hidden world created from dreams and haunted by nightmares.

Learn more about the book and author at Jenny Milchman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Cover of Snow.

The Page 69 Test: Cover of Snow.

Writers Read: Jenny Milchman.

The Page 69 Test: Ruin Falls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thirteen of literature's most dysfunctional parents

Julia Fierro's new novel is Cutting Teeth.

One entry on the author's list of the most dysfunctional parents in literature, as shared at the Huffington Post:

Prospect Park West by Amy Sohn, 2009, and the sequel, Motherland, 2012

The novel that had Park Slope mommies up way past their bedtimes, Prospect Park West, is the queen of dysfunctional mom fiction. Those same mothers who stayed up late turning pages might have gone along with the herd the next day at the playground, dismissing the four mother characters, not wanting to lose face in front of the sancti-mommies in their playgroup. But in secret, with the bedroom door closed (and maybe the child-proof lock latched), mom readers devoured chapter after chapter of Amy Sohn's urban parenting tale, making it a bestseller. As much as readers, particularly mothers, criticized Prospect Park West's four protagonists--Melora Leigh, Rebecca Rose, Karen Bryan Shapiro, Lizzie O'Donnell--I'm willing to bet Amy Sohn's dysfunctional mama drama, as well as its sequel, Motherland, held a mirror up to many readers' faces, daring them to recognize their own flaws, or look away.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Motherland.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lisa O'Donnell reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lisa O'Donnell, author of Closed Doors.

Her entry begins:

I just finished The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I haven’t seen the movie yet and was advised by a friend to read the book first. It’s told in the first person and Death is the narrator. He takes an interest in a little girl called Liesel Meminger, or The Book Thief because she steals book even though she can’t read in the beginning. Anyway an opportunist, Death saves her journal and tells us the story of her childhood. It’s...[read on]

About Closed Doors, from the publisher:

In this tense and brilliant tale from the national bestselling author of The Death of Bees, a young boy on a small Scottish island, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, discovers that a secret can be a dangerous thing.

Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: hacky sack and keeping secrets. His family thinks he's too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors—it's the only way to find out anything. And Michael's heard a secret, one that may explain the bruises on his mother's face.

When the whispers at home and on the street become too loud to ignore, Michael begins to wonder if there is an even bigger secret he doesn't know about. Scared of what might happen if anyone finds out, and desperate for life to return to normal, Michael sets out to piece together the truth. But he also has to prepare for the upcoming talent show, keep an eye out for Dirty Alice—his archnemesis from down the street—and avoid eating Granny's watery stew.

Closed Doors is the startling new novel from Lisa O'Donnell, the acclaimed author of The Death of Bees. It is a vivid evocation of the fears and freedoms of childhood and a powerful tale of love, of the loss of innocence, and of the importance of family in difficult times.

Learn more about the book and author at Lisa O'Donnell's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Death of Bees.

Writers Read: Lisa O'Donnell (December 2012).

Writers Read: Lisa O'Donnell.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vikram Chandra: five books that changed me

Vikram Chandra is the author of three highly acclaimed works of fiction, most recently Sacred Games, which won the 2006 Hutch Crossword Award, and the nonfiction book, Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty.

One of five books that changed him, as shared with the Sydney Morning Herald:

MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN
Salman Rushdie

When I was growing up, there were Indian writers who wrote very good books in English, but their language was not the English we used when we spoke to each other. So discovering all the energy and wordplay and delicious diction-mixing in Midnight's Children was a revelation.

Read about another book on the list. 

Midnight's Children also appears among Sheena Iyengar's six best books, Luke Leitch's ten most successful literary sequels ever, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best noses in literature and ten of the best visits to the cinema in literature.

Also see: Chandra's top ten computer books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kristie Macrakis's "Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies: The Story of Invisible Ink from Herodotus to al-Qaeda by Kristie Macrakis.

About the book, from the publisher:

Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies is a book about concealing and revealing secret communications. It is the first history of invisible writing, uncovered through stories about scoundrels and heroes. Spies were imprisoned or murdered, adultery unmasked, and battles lost because of faulty or intercepted secret communications. Yet, successfully hidden writing helped save lives, win battles, and ensure privacy; occasionally it even changed the course of history.

Kristie Macrakis combines a storyteller’s sense of drama with a historian’s respect for evidence in this page-turning history of intrigue and espionage, love and war, magic and secrecy. From the piazzas of ancient Rome to the spy capitals of the Cold War, Macrakis's global history reveals the drama and importance of invisible ink. From Ovid’s advice to use milk for illicit love notes, to John Gerard's dramatic escape from the tower of London aided by orange juice ink messages, to al-Qaeda’s hidden instructions in pornographic movies, this book presents spellbinding stories of secret messaging that chart its evolution in sophistication and its impact on history. An appendix includes fun kitchen chemistry recipes for readers to try out at home.

Learn more about Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies at the Yale University Press website and Kristie Macrakis's website.

The Page 99 Test: Seduced by Secrets.

The Page 99 Test: Prisoners, Lovers, and Spies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable books about food

Mark Bittman, longtime food writer for the New York Times, is the author of How to Cook Everything and The VB6 Cookbook. One of his six favorite books about food, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Old World Kitchen by Elisabeth Luard

I'm convinced this is the best cookbook that no one's ever heard of. This broad survey of European peasant cooking covers culinary territories both familiar (France, Italy) and foreign (Bulgaria, Romania). And don't worry: You're given permission to use beef for the Lapland reindeer stew.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see: Dell Villa's top twelve food books that will feed your mind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mike Mullin's "Sunrise"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sunrise by Mike Mullin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Yellowstone supervolcano nearly wiped out the human race. Now, almost a year after the eruption, the survivors seem determined to finish the job. Communities wage war on each other, gangs of cannibals roam the countryside, and what little government survived the eruption has collapsed completely. The ham radio has gone silent. Sickness, cold, and starvation are the survivors' constant companions.

When it becomes apparent that their home is no longer safe and adults are not facing the stark realities, Alex and Darla must create a community that can survive the ongoing disaster, an almost impossible task requiring even more guts and more smarts than ever — and unthinkable sacrifice. If they fail . . . they, their loved ones, and the few remaining survivors will perish.

This epic finale has the heart of Ashfall, the action of Ashen Winter, and a depth all its own, examining questions of responsibility and bravery, civilization and society, illuminated by the story of an unshakable love that transcends a post-apocalyptic world and even life itself.

Learn more about the book and author at Mike Mullin's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ashfall.

Writers Read: Mike Mullin.

The Page 69 Test: Sunrise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable books for "X-Men" fans

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Nicole Hill tagged six top books for X-Men fans, including:

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

If you couldn’t get into Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, there are worse places to be than under Miss Peregrine’s tutelage. Invisible boys, girls with super strength—this orphanage is a hopping place where you can always be your unusual self.

Read about another entry on the list.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is on Sabrina Rojas Weiss's list of five novels she thinks should become TV series.

--Marshal Zeringue

Linda Rodriguez's "Every Hidden Fear," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Every Hidden Fear by Linda Rodriguez.

The entry begins:

Readers of my Skeet Bannion series of mysteries—Every Last Secret, Every Broken Trust, and Every Hidden Fear—often ask me when a movie or television series will be made from them. I point out to them that, though one of my short stories has been optioned for film, it usually takes much longer for a series to be considered, seven or eight books, at least. Still, because of these questions, I have given thought to who would play my characters.

The major character in the books is Skeet Bannion, the Cherokee campus police chief who is the first-person narrator. Skeet is a woman who’s earned success in the man’s world of law enforcement. She’s smart, tough, used to having to stand up to men who don’t want her around, and a consummate professional who believes in the rules and plays by them unless compelling reasons force her into circumventing or breaking them. Because at bottom, Skeet is a protector, and protecting the innocent and vulnerable will always take precedence over everything for her. Another character says of her in Every Hidden Fear, “Skeet, you are the person they invented the word honor for. If you’d lived back in the middle ages, you’d have to have found some way to be a knight, even as a woman. You’re that kind of honorable.”

If Every Hidden Fear were turned into a movie, I could see the director choosing someone like Hilary...[read on]

Find Linda Rodriguez on Twitter, on Facebook, and on blogs with The Stiletto Gang, Writers Who Kill, and her own blog.

The Page 69 Test: Every Hidden Fear.

My Book, The Movie: Every Hidden Fear.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty of the best dystopian novels

One title on ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels:

The Road (2006)

Author: Cormac McCarthy

A harrowing and brutal look at a post-apocalyptic America where a father and son make their way across a destroyed landscape devoid of virtually all life on Earth. The future is hopeless, but on they must go, into the unknown and whatever awaits them. As dystopian novels go, this is certainly one of the most bleak.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Road appears on Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, 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

Pg. 69: Mindee Arnett's "Avalon"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Avalon by Mindee Arnett.

About the book, from the publisher:

Of the various star systems that make up the Confederation, most lie thousands of light-years from First Earth—and out here, no one is free. The agencies that govern the Confederation are as corrupt as the crime bosses who patrol it, and power is held by anyone with enough greed and ruthlessness to claim it. That power is derived from one thing: metatech, the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster than the speed of light.

Jeth Seagrave and his crew of teenage mercenaries have survived in this world by stealing unsecured metatech, and they're damn good at it. Jeth doesn't care about the politics or the law; all he cares about is earning enough money to buy back his parents' ship, Avalon, from his crime-boss employer and getting himself and his sister, Lizzie, the heck out of Dodge. But when Jeth finds himself in possession of information that both the crime bosses and the government are willing to kill for, he is going to have to ask himself how far he'll go to get the freedom he's wanted for so long.

Visit Mindee Arnett's website.

The Page 69 Test: Avalon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kelly A. Ryan's "Regulating Passion"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Regulating Passion: Sexuality and Patriarchal Rule in Massachusetts, 1700-1830 by Kelly A. Ryan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sexuality was critical to how individuals experienced, learned, and contested their place in early America. Regulating Passion shows the sweeping changes that affected the social and political morass centered on sexual behavior during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Massachusetts-even as patriarchy remained important to those configurations of power. Charting the government's and society's management of sexuality, Kelly A. Ryan uncovers the compelling stories of the individuals charged with sexual crimes and how elites hoped to contain and exploit "illicit" sexual behavior.

In the colonial era, elites designed laws, judicial and religious practices, and sermons that defined certain groups as criminal, the cause of sexual vice, and in need of societal oversight-while defining others as chaste and above reproach. Massachusetts fornicators, adulterers, seducers, and rapists were exemplars of improper behavior in the colonial era and were central to emerging sexual subjectivities associated with gender, race, and class status in the early republic. As Massachusetts modernized, culture and socialization became vehicles for enforcing the marital monopoly on sex and gendered expectations of sexual behavior.

The American Revolution saw the decline of direct sexual regulation by government and religious institutions and a rise in the importance of sexual reputation in maintaining hierarchy. As society moved away from publicly penalizing forms of illicit sexual behavior, it circulated ideas about sexual norms, initiated social ostracism, and interceded with family and friends to promote sexual morality, even as the government remained involved in cases of prostitution and interracial sex. At the same time, this transformation in sexual regulation opened up means to contest the power of patriarchy. Women, African Americans, Indians, and the poor often resisted the efforts of elites and established their own code of sexual conduct to combat ideas about what constituted sexual virtue and how society defined its leaders. They challenged derisive sexual characterizations, patriarchal visions of society, and sexual regulation to establish a space in the body politic. Ironically, their efforts often reinforced patriarchal ideals as their petitions asked for patriarchal privileges to be extended to them.

Based on records of crimes in lower and upper courts, print literature, and other documentary sources, Regulating Passion underscores the ways in which sexual mores remained essential to the project of differentiating between the virtue of citizens and contesting power structures in the tumultuous transitions from the colonial to early national period.

Learn more about Regulating Passion at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Regulating Passion.

--Marshal Zeringue