Five amusing AI characters who should all definitely hang out

Deana Whitney has a Masters of Arts in Medieval European History and often credits her love of reading fantasy with her love of history. At Tor.com she tagged five "lovable and charming" fictional AI characters, including:

Murderbot, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Murderbot has an intimidating name and appearance, but really they just want to watch media serials all day. If only the humans they try to protect would stop making stupid choices. The choices a SecUnit with a hacked government module can make are limitless. Thankfully, Murderbot decides to continue to watch over the humans under their care. Murderbot has an internal monologue so filled with sarcasm and wryness that I can’t help but enjoy their thoughts. They have a sense of humor that’s full of irony, which I appreciate greatly. Murderbot and [Brandon Sanderson’s] M-Bot don’t have much in common on the surface, besides their similar names, but I could see them bonding over the crazy humans and the lengths both will go to protect their charges. I’m betting M-Bot would love the media serials too, once Murderbot gets him hooked…

Read about another entry on the list.

All Systems Red also appears among Andrew Skinner's five top stories about the lives of artificial objects, Annalee Newitz's list of seven books about remaking the world, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rivqa Rafael's five top books that give voice to artificial intelligence, T.W. O'Brien's five recent books that explore the secret lives of robots, Sam Reader's top six science fiction novels for fans of Westworld, and Nicole Hill's six robots too smart for their own good.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christopher S. Wood's "A History of Art History"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A History of Art History by Christopher S. Wood.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this wide-ranging and authoritative book, the first of its kind in English, Christopher Wood tracks the evolution of the historical study of art from the late middle ages through the rise of the modern scholarly discipline of art history. Synthesizing and assessing a vast array of writings, episodes, and personalities, this original and accessible account of the development of art-historical thinking will appeal to readers both inside and outside the discipline.

The book shows that the pioneering chroniclers of the Italian Renaissance—Lorenzo Ghiberti and Giorgio Vasari—measured every epoch against fixed standards of quality. Only in the Romantic era did art historians discover the virtues of medieval art, anticipating the relativism of the later nineteenth century, when art history learned to admire the art of all societies and to value every work as an index of its times. The major art historians of the modern era, however—Jacob Burckhardt, Aby Warburg, Heinrich Wölfflin, Erwin Panofsky, Meyer Schapiro, and Ernst Gombrich—struggled to adapt their work to the rupture of artistic modernism, leading to the current predicaments of the discipline.

Combining erudition with clarity, this book makes a landmark contribution to the understanding of art history.

Learn more about A History of Art History at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: A History of Art History.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top standup comedy memoirs

A MacDowell Colony and Hawthornden Castle Fellow, Leland Cheuk is the author of the story collection Letters From Dinosaurs (2016) and the novel The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong (2015), which was also published in translation in China (2018).

His newest novel is No Good Very Bad Asian.

Cheuk lives in Brooklyn and teaches at the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute.

At Electric Lit he tagged seven standup comedy memoirs that will make you laugh and cry. including:

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

“I became an ‘energy producer’ at Bar Mitzvahs. Energy producer is what white suburban people call a ‘hype man.’ I was basically the Flava Flav of Bar Mitzvahs.”

If I had to choose one book to read before going to my grave, I would choose The Last Black Unicorn over just about any work of literary fiction. The book alternates between serious chapters that detail her relationships with abusive, possessive men as well as her violent, brain-injured mother and hilarious chapters about Haddish’s romance with a disabled co-worker and her quirky friendship with Jada Pinkett and Will Smith. Haddish’s inspirational life story is one of overcoming filial abandonment and poverty. It’s legit one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Jennifer Roberson & Cassie and Luka

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Jennifer Roberson & Cassie and Luka.

The author, on how she and Cassie and Luka were united:

Cassie’s mom is a Cardi girl I bred who went to live in Oregon from Arizona. When she had a litter of puppies, her owners gave me pick of the litter—Cassie!

Luka came to me all the way from Russia. I bred his father and sent him to a wonderful home in Finland. Dad went on to make beautiful babies in Europe, and Luka joined me a year ago in Tucson in November 2018, after he and I spent 24 hours at LAX waiting for a new flight after missing our original flight home because of a hold-up in Customs. Luka slept. I...[read on]

About Robrson's new novel Life and Limb, from the publisher:

Life and Limb is the first volume in an ongoing urban fantasy series about the End of Days, and two perfectly ordinary young men who are strangers to one another have been conscripted to join the heavenly host in a battle against Lucifer’s spec ops troops: demons who now inhabit characters and creatures from fiction, history, myths, legends, and folklore. But the angels have agendas, and Gabe and Remi—an ex-con biker and Texas cowboy—must also come to grips with the unwelcome discovery that they themselves are not after all entirely human, even as they climb the steepest of learning curves in an attempt to save the world.

Gabe and Remi are not related on a biological level, but because of their true heritage they do bear a resemblance to one another. Gabe is a long-haired biker in boots and black leather, while Remi is a Texas cowboy in boots and blue denim. Both have very dark hair and tanned skin, and I would love to see Jason Momoa, Adrian Paul in his Highlander days for coloring and eye-candy, and...[read on]

Visit Jennifer Roberson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Life and Limb.

My Book, The Movie: Life and Limb.

Coffee with a Canine: Jennifer Roberson & Cassie and Luka.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christopher Hinz's "Starship Alchemon," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Starship Alchemon by Christopher Hinz.

The entry begins:

It’s always fun to engage in “who should play the role” scenarios even though Hollywood realities dictate that it’s nearly impossible to get an original science fiction novel made into a medium-to-big-budget science fiction film unless: 1) the book sells about a million copies; 2) a major actor wants to play the lead; or 3) Steven Spielberg’s your uncle.

A further impediment to movie adaptation in the case of Starship Alchemon is that it’s a standalone story, with a clear beginning, middle and end. Unfortunately, that violates a principal Hollywood commandment: "Thine book shall be the first in a series in order that a franchise may be launched."

All that said, Starship Alchemon remains wonderfully cinematic in the Alien-esque tradition, featuring a small group of space explorers aboard an AI vessel struggling to survive a bizarre foe that can attack them on physical, emotional and intellectual planes.

Despite the daunting odds of such a film ever being greenlit, I present the following dream-casting: George Clooney as “Ericho Solorzano,” the ship’s besieged captain; Jennifer Lawrence as psychically tormented...[read on]

Visit Christopher Hinz's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starship Alchemon.

My Book, The Movie: Starship Alchemon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top cozy mystery series that include pets

V.M. Burns is the acclaimed author of screenplays, children’s books, and cozy mysteries, including the Dog Club Mysteries, the RJ Franklin Mysteries, and the Mystery Bookshop Series. Born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, V.M. Burns currently resides in Tennessee with her poodles. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Dog Writers Association of America, Thriller Writers International, and a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime.

Burns's new novel is Bookmarked for Murder.

At CrimeReads she tagged six of her favorite cozy mystery series that feature pets, including:

Diane Kelly, Paw Enforcement Series, Paw Enforcement

Officer Megan Luz is lucky she still has a job after tasering a male colleague where it counts the most. He had it coming, which is why the police chief is giving her a second chance. The catch? Her new partner is Brigit, a big furry police dog. When a bomb goes off at the mall’s food court, it’s up to Megan and Brigit to dig up clues and collar a killer.

Paw Enforcement is the first book in this popular (and extremely funny) series.

Read about another entry on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Diane Kelly & Reggie, Junior, and Brownie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Pradip Ninan Thomas's "Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India: A History by Pradip Ninan Thomas.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book, on the history of telecommunications in India is the first of its kind to intentionally link the past and present, the continuities and discontinuities between telecommunications in the era of the British Raj and telecommunications in 21st century India. Beginning with the history of the telegraph, it explores in separate chapters, the history of oceanic cables and wireless in the context of the political economy and compulsions of Empire to control global flows of communications. Telecommunications was vital to the Imperial project and connecting their Jewel in the Crown, India, was a key priority. However inter-colonial rivalries outside and within India and contestations between private and public ownership of telecommunications made that task difficult. This book explores these contestations and the changing priorities related to telecommunications in the era of the British and in modern Independent India. It makes the case that history is absolutely critical to understanding the present and the imprint of the past continues to shape the Indian state's engagements with telecommunications.

Learn more about Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 69 Test: Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Declan Burke reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Declan Burke, author of The Lammisters.

His entry begins:

I always like to read a few books at the same time, picking up a particular book to suit a particular mood or need or time of the day. I also love the idea of the books cross-pollinating one another, with different styles and themes and sets of characters cross-hatching their way through my subconscious.

I’m reading Lee Child’s Blue Moon at the moment, because I’ll be interviewing him next week. I think what I admire most about Lee’s work is how deceptive his style is – it takes a hell of a lot of craft to make a book read so easily.

I’m also working my way through...[read on]

About The Lammisters, from the publisher:

Hollywood, 1923. Having ascended into the pantheon of America’s Most Wanted by dispatching his mortal foes to the holding pens where Cecil B. DeMille keeps his expendable extras, Irish bootlegger Rusty McGrew goes on the lam with the shimmering goddess Vanessa Hopgood, her enraptured swain Sir Archibald l’Estrange-B’stard, and Edward ‘Bugs’ Dooley, the hapless motion picture playwright who has stepped through the looking-glass into his very own Jazz Age adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Delighting in rapid-fire dialogue, subversive genre-bending and metafictional digressions, The Lammisters is a comic novel that will likely be declared a wholly original comedy classic by anyone who has yet to read Flann O’Brien, Jane Austen, PG Wodehouse or Laurence Sterne.

Learn more about the book and author at Burke's Crime Always Pays blog.

The Page 69 Test: Absolute Zero Cool.

My Book, The Movie: Absolute Zero Cool.

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

The Page 99 Test: The Big O.

Writers Read: Declan Burke.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels that capture Detroit, past and present

Jodie Adams Kirshner is a research professor at New York University. Previously on the law faculty at Cambridge University, she also teaches bankruptcy law at Columbia Law School. She is a member of the American Law Institute, past term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and technical advisor to the Bank for International Settlements.

Kirshner received a prestigious multi-year grant from the Kresge Foundation to research her new book, Broke: Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises.

At LitHub she tagged six novels set in Detroit that capture the feeling of the city’s present and past. One title on the list:

Stephen Mack Jones, August Snow

In this classic noir detective mystery, a mixed-race, former Detroit cop flush with settlement money from a wrongful dismissal suit against the city returns to his childhood home and begins to investigate a crime, as he simultaneously tries to turn around his neighborhood. The Detroit setting distinguishes the book from other examples of the genre. In Mack Jones’s writing, the city becomes a character of its own. His portrayal of the Mexicantown neighborhood—its restaurants and its long-time residents—brings to life the vitality and pride simmering in so many of the city’s neighborhoods, and his detective acts at the intersection of the city’s politics, culture, and history. Though the plot veers towards the ridiculous, involving international money laundering and assassins, the book provides a fun and educational read.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James Lovegrove's "Age of Legends"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Age of Legends by James Lovegrove.

About the book, from the publisher:

The shattering conclusion to the Pantheon series!

In a post-Brexit world, the Myths and Legends of the British Isles are alive, and ready for war!

As Great Britain struggles to face its new reality in a post-Brexit world, the government’s affable-seeming Prime Minister Colin Dubois plays a man of the people, while simultaneously purging the country of what he thinks of as “undesirables”.

Ajia Ryker is a young mixed-race woman who in her spare time, when she is not working as a bike courier, runs around London daubing Banksy-esque subversive graffiti on walls. When she runs afoul of the authorities, Ajia finds herself in the world of eidolon, mythical beings who are living incarnations of an idea, from Oberon, King of the Faeries to Robin Hood.

As Dubois seeks to crown himself as the new King Arthur with his own round table of knights, using ancient powers to achieve his agenda, only Ajia and her new allies can stop him.

Visit James Lovegrove's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon.

The Page 69 Test: Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon.

The Page 69 Test: Age of Legends.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten eyewitness accounts of 20th-century history

Charles Emmerson is an Australian-born writer and historian. He studied modern history at Oxford University and international relations in Paris. He is the author of The Future History of the Arctic and 1913: The World Before the Great War.

Emmerson's latest book is Crucible: The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World 1917-24.

At the Guardian he tagged ten top eyewitness accounts of 20th-century history, including:

If This Is a Man by Primo Levi [US title: Survival in Auschwitz]

It was decades before Levi’s account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in 1946 while working in a Turin paint factory, took on the significance it holds today. A testament told with simplicity and directness: the details of camp life and the visceral sensations accompanying it, the accumulation of horrors, the tenuousness of hope and then, one day: “The Germans were no longer there. The watchtowers were empty.”

Read about another entry on the list.

Survival in Auschwitz is among six of Samantha Powers's favorite books, Michael Palin's six best books, Eve Claxton's top ten memoirs and autobiographies, and Gail Caldwell's five groundbreaking memoirs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Douglas R. Egerton's "Heirs of an Honored Name"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Heirs of an Honored Name: The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America by Douglas R. Egerton.

About the book, from the publisher:

An enthralling chronicle of the American nineteenth century told through the unraveling of the nation’s first political dynasty

John and Abigail Adams founded a famous political family, but they would not witness its calamitous fall from grace. When John Quincy Adams died in 1848, so began the slow decline of the family’s political legacy.

In Heirs of an Honored Name, award-winning historian Douglas R. Egerton depicts a family grown famous, wealthy — and aimless. After the Civil War, Republicans looked to the Adamses to steer their party back to its radical 1850s roots. Instead, Charles Francis Sr. and his children — Charles Francis Jr., John Quincy II, Henry and Clover Adams, and Louisa Adams Kuhn — largely quit the political arena and found refuge in an imagined past of aristocratic preeminence.

An absorbing story of brilliant siblings and family strain, Heirs of an Honored Name shows how the burden of impossible expectations shaped the Adamses and, through them, American history.

Learn more about Heirs of an Honored Name at the Basic Books website.

The Page 99 Test: Heirs of an Honored Name.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven novels expectant parents should read instead of parenting books

At Electric Lit Allison Gibson tagged eleven "novels that can illuminate common truths about parenthood by exploring the joys, challenges and, often, spectacularly flawed dynamics of the family experience," including:

Panorama City by Antoine Wilson

Antoine Wilson’s Panorama City, told by the impossibly loveable Oppen Porter through tape recordings made for his unborn son, is a study in parental love and sacrifice. A self-described “slow absorber,” 28-year-old Oppen has always been an easy target, but when he discovers that he is going to be a father, he sets out on a quest of self-discovery that ends up revealing the complex intentions of the adults who’ve cared for him throughout his journey. His bumbling yet, often surprisingly wise, efforts to turn himself into a “man of the world” for the sake of his child display a wide-eyed hopefulness that can teach us a lot about the level of dedication it requires to take on the responsibility of parenthood.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Panorama City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Rajia Hassib's "A Pure Heart"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Pure Heart: A Novel by Rajia Hassib.

About A Pure Heart, from the publisher:

A powerful novel about two Egyptian sisters–their divergent fates and the secrets of one family

Sisters Rose and Gameela Gubran could not have been more different. Rose, an Egyptologist, married an American journalist and immigrated to New York City, where she works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gameela, a devout Muslim since her teenage years, stayed in Cairo. During the aftermath of Egypt’s revolution, Gameela is killed in a suicide bombing. When Rose returns to Egypt after the bombing, she sifts through the artifacts Gameela left behind, desperate to understand how her sister came to die, and who she truly was. Soon, Rose realizes that Gameela has left many questions unanswered. Why had she quit her job just a few months before her death and not told her family? Who was she romantically involved with? And how did the religious Gameela manage to keep so many secrets?

Rich in depth and feeling, A Pure Heart is a brilliant portrait of two Muslim women in the twenty-first century, and the decisions they make in work and love that determine their destinies. As Rose is struggling to reconcile her identities as an Egyptian and as a new American, she investigates Gameela’s devotion to her religion and her country. The more Rose uncovers about her sister’s life, the more she must reconcile their two fates, their inextricable bond as sisters, and who should and should not be held responsible for Gameela’s death. Rajia Hassib’s A Pure Heart is a stirring and deeply textured novel that asks what it means to forgive, and considers how faith, family, and love can unite and divide us.

Visit Rajia Hassib's website.

The Page 69 Test: In the Language of Miracles.

Writers Read: Rajia Hassib.

The Page 69 Test: A Pure Heart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ann Howard Creel's "Mercy Road," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Mercy Road by Ann Howard Creel.

The entry begins:

This is such a fun exercise but is a little difficult for me. As I’m writing I don’t imagine actors—I see my characters as completely new faces. But by making myself imagine the film version of Mercy Road, I came up with a few actors that would work for me.

I choose Carey Mulligan as Arlene Favier, a young horsewoman turned World War I ambulance driver. Mulligan’s portrayal of Bathsheba in the recent remake of Far from the Madding Crowd demonstrated her ability to be both strong and vulnerable. And that’s how I see Arlene.

For Jimmy Tucker, the hometown boy that Arlene runs into in France and ultimately falls for, I choose...[read on]

Visit Ann Howard Creel's website.

The Page 69 Test: The River Widow.

My Book, The Movie: Mercy Road.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ann Durkin Keating's "The World of Juliette Kinzie"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The World of Juliette Kinzie: Chicago before the Fire by Ann Durkin Keating.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Juliette Kinzie first visited Chicago in 1831, it was anything but a city. An outpost in the shadow of Fort Dearborn, it had no streets, no sidewalks, no schools, no river-spanning bridges. And with two hundred disconnected residents, it lacked any sense of community. In the decades that followed, not only did Juliette witness the city’s transition from Indian country to industrial center, but she was instrumental in its development.

Juliette is one of Chicago’s forgotten founders. Early Chicago is often presented as “a man’s city,” but women like Juliette worked to create an urban and urbane world, often within their own parlors. With The World of Juliette Kinzie, we finally get to experience the rise of Chicago from the view of one of its most important founding mothers.

Ann Durkin Keating, one of the foremost experts on nineteenth-century Chicago, offers a moving portrait of a trailblazing and complicated woman. Keating takes us to the corner of Cass and Michigan (now Wabash and Hubbard), Juliette’s home base. Through Juliette’s eyes, our understanding of early Chicago expands from a city of boosters and speculators to include the world that women created in and between households. We see the development of Chicago society, first inspired by cities in the East and later coming into its own midwestern ways. We also see the city become a community, as it developed its intertwined religious, social, educational, and cultural institutions. Keating draws on a wealth of sources, including hundreds of Juliette’s personal letters, allowing Juliette to tell much of her story in her own words.

Juliette’s death in 1870, just a year before the infamous fire, seemed almost prescient. She left her beloved Chicago right before the physical city as she knew it vanished in flames. But now her history lives on. The World of Juliette Kinzie offers a new perspective on Chicago’s past and is a fitting tribute to one of the first women historians in the United States.

Learn more about The World of Juliette Kinzie at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The World of Juliette Kinzie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five villains who have had about enough of domestic life

Margot Hunt is a USA Today best selling author of Best Friends Forever and For Better And Worse. Her new novel is The Last Affair.

Hunt has also written eight previous books as Whitney Gaskell, and the Young Adult series Geek High under the pen name Piper Banks.

At CrimeReads she tagged five books about "ordinary people who turn villainous," including:

Dear Wife by Kimberly Belle

It is a truth of life that no one from the outside knows what happens within a marriage, and Kimberly Bell explores that in this chilling novel. Beth Murphy is on the run, fleeing from her abusive husband. Several hundred miles away, Sabine Hardison has gone missing, her car found abandoned. The book is told from the alternating points of view of Beth, Sabine’s husband Jeffrey, and the detective investigating Sabine’s disappearance. Did Jeffrey kill Sabine? And how is her disappearance connected to Beth? Belle does a masterful job moving the story along at a heart-pounding pace right up the very surprising end.

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

My Lovely Wife starts with a disturbing premise—a couple decides to spice up their relationship by abducting and murdering young women together. Millicent and her husband, the narrator who is never named, have been married for fifteen years and live in an upscale suburban neighborhood outside of Orlando. Their marriage has common stressors – money problems, stagnating careers, caring for their children. But their solution to relieving that stress is anything but common. As the book unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the narrator might not be as willing a participant as originally thought. How far would you go to keep your spouse happy?

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: My Lovely Wife.

The Page 69 Test: Dear Wife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Christopher Hinz's "Starship Alchemon"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Starship Alchemon by Christopher Hinz.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the the award-winning author of the cult-80s classic Liege-Killer and The Paratwa Saga, comes Starship Alchemon – a deep-space action opera combined with a threat to all humanity.

Nine explorers aboard a powerful AI vessel, Alchemon, are sent to investigate an “anomalous biosignature” on a distant planet. But they soon realize their mission has gone to hell as deadly freakish incidents threaten their lives. Are these events caused by the tormented psychic mysteriously put aboard at the last minute? Has the crew been targeted by a vengeful corporate psychopath? Are they part of some cruel experiment by the ship’s ruthless owners? Or do their troubles originate with the strange alien lifeform retrieved from the planet? A creature that might possess an intelligence beyond human understanding or may perhaps be the spawn of some terrifying supernatural force… Either way, as their desperation and panic sets in, one thing becomes clear: they’re fighting not only for their own survival, but for the fate of all humanity.

Visit Christopher Hinz's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starship Alchemon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top works of satire

Dave Eggers's books include The Monk of Mokha; The Circle; Heroes of the Frontier; A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; and What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France’s Prix Médicis Etranger. He is the founder of McSweeney’s and the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired similar programs around the world, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and is the cofounder of Voice of Witness, a book series that illuminates human rights crises through oral history. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into forty-two languages.

Eggers's new book is The Captain and the Glory, an illustrated novel about an unfit, buffoonish leader.

At The Week magazine he recommended six works of satire, including:

The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek (1921).

Any lover of Catch-22 should read this book, which does to World War I soldiering what Joseph Heller did to World War II. Hasek was a private in the Austro-Hungarian army, and if this novel is based at all on his own service, he was the worst soldier in the history of armed conflict. A very funny, perfectly absurd book for the most perfectly absurd of wars.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Good Soldier Svejk is among Michael Honig's top ten satires and Tim Pears's top ten 20th-century political novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew Gutmann's "Are Men Animals?"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Are Men Animals?: How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short by Matthew Gutmann.

About the book, from the publisher:

“Boys will be boys,” the saying goes — but what does that actually mean? A leading anthropologist investigates

Why do men behave the way they do? Is it their male brains? Surging testosterone? From vulgar locker-room talk to mansplaining to sexual harassment, society is too quick to explain male behavior in terms of biology.

In Are Men Animals?, anthropologist Matthew Gutmann argues that predatory male behavior is in no way inevitable. Men behave the way they do because culture permits it, not because biology demands it. To prove this, he embarks on a global investigation of masculinity. Exploring everything from the gender-bending politics of American college campuses to the marriage markets of Shanghai and the women-only subway cars of Mexico City, Gutmann shows just how complicated masculinity can be. The result isn’t just a new way to think about manhood. It’s a guide to a better life, for all of us.

Learn more about Are Men Animals? at the Basic Books website.

The Page 99 Test: Are Men Animals?.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rajia Hassib reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Rajia Hassib, author of A Pure Heart: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

I read this novel a few months ago, and I still can’t get over how much it pulled me in, especially considering that it’s set in one place (a Mennonite colony) over the course of two days when women gather and, as the title reveals, talk. I could not put it down, and I remain in awe of how Toews managed to make these women, whom many would see as “others,” so familiar, and how she makes their dilemma so relevant to all women. It’s a wonderful exploration of the space women must negotiate when...[read on]

About A Pure Heart, from the publisher:

A powerful novel about two Egyptian sisters–their divergent fates and the secrets of one family

Sisters Rose and Gameela Gubran could not have been more different. Rose, an Egyptologist, married an American journalist and immigrated to New York City, where she works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gameela, a devout Muslim since her teenage years, stayed in Cairo. During the aftermath of Egypt’s revolution, Gameela is killed in a suicide bombing. When Rose returns to Egypt after the bombing, she sifts through the artifacts Gameela left behind, desperate to understand how her sister came to die, and who she truly was. Soon, Rose realizes that Gameela has left many questions unanswered. Why had she quit her job just a few months before her death and not told her family? Who was she romantically involved with? And how did the religious Gameela manage to keep so many secrets?

Rich in depth and feeling, A Pure Heart is a brilliant portrait of two Muslim women in the twenty-first century, and the decisions they make in work and love that determine their destinies. As Rose is struggling to reconcile her identities as an Egyptian and as a new American, she investigates Gameela’s devotion to her religion and her country. The more Rose uncovers about her sister’s life, the more she must reconcile their two fates, their inextricable bond as sisters, and who should and should not be held responsible for Gameela’s death. Rajia Hassib’s A Pure Heart is a stirring and deeply textured novel that asks what it means to forgive, and considers how faith, family, and love can unite and divide us.

Visit Rajia Hassib's website.

The Page 69 Test: In the Language of Miracles.

Writers Read: Rajia Hassib.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten good books for "Battlestar Galactica" fans

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Ross Johnson tagged ten "frakking good books for Battlestar Galactica fans," including:

The Cruel Stars, by John Birmingham

The Sturm once terrorized the galaxy, intent on destroying humans who had been in any way genetically or cybernetically altered (making them sort of anti-Cylons). They killed billions before being driven off, and were believed to have disappeared forever. Which, of course, they did not: following a sneak attack, it becomes apparent that the Sturm are back. With humanity’s defenses wiped out, our only hope rests with a few individuals who might be able to turn back the assault. The plot parallels and military sci-fi vibe make it a pretty good fit for Battlestar fans.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Cruel Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Georgie Blalock's "The Other Windsor Girl"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Other Windsor Girl: A Novel of Princess Margaret, Royal Rebel by Georgie Blalock.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a historical debut evoking the style of The Crown, the daughter of an impoverished noble is swept into the fame and notoriety of the royal family and Princess Margaret's fast-living friends when she is appointed as Margaret's second Lady-in-Waiting.

Diana, Catherine, Meghan…glamorous Princess Margaret outdid them all. Springing into post-World War II society, and quite naughty and haughty, she lived in a whirlwind of fame and notoriety. Georgie Blalock captures the fascinating, fast-living princess and her “set” as seen through the eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting.

In dreary, post-war Britain, Princess Margaret captivates everyone with her cutting edge fashion sense and biting quips. The royal socialite, cigarette holder in one hand, cocktail in the other, sparkles in the company of her glittering entourage of wealthy young aristocrats known as the Margaret Set, but her outrageous lifestyle conflicts with her place as Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister. Can she be a dutiful princess while still dazzling the world on her own terms?

Post-war Britain isn’t glamorous for The Honorable Vera Strathmore. While writing scandalous novels, she dreams of living and working in New York, and regaining the happiness she enjoyed before her fiancé was killed in the war. A chance meeting with the Princess changes her life forever. Vera amuses the princess, and what—or who—Margaret wants, Margaret gets. Soon, Vera gains Margaret’s confidence and the privileged position of second lady-in-waiting to the Princess. Thrust into the center of Margaret’s social and royal life, Vera watches the princess’s love affair with dashing Captain Peter Townsend unfurl.

But while Margaret, as a member of the Royal Family, is not free to act on her desires, Vera soon wants the freedom to pursue her own dreams. As time and Princess Margaret’s scandalous behavior progress, both women will be forced to choose between status, duty, and love…

Visit Georgie Blalock's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Other Windsor Girl.

The Page 69 Test: The Other Windsor Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Miriam Kingsberg Kadia's "Into the Field"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Into the Field: Human Scientists of Transwar Japan by Miriam Kingsberg Kadia.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the 1930s, a cohort of professional human scientists coalesced around a common and particular understanding of objectivity as the foundation of legitimate knowledge, and of fieldwork as the pathway to objectivity. Into the Field is the first collective biography of this cohort, evocatively described by one contemporary as the men of one age.

At the height of imperialism, the men of one age undertook field research in territories under Japanese rule in pursuit of "objective" information that would justify the subjugation of local peoples. After 1945, amid the defeat and dismantling of Japanese sovereignty and under the occupation and tutelage of the United States, they returned to the field to create narratives of human difference that supported the new national values of democracy, capitalism, and peace. The 1968 student movement challenged these values, resulting in an all-encompassing attack on objectivity itself. Nonetheless, the legacy of the men of one age lives on in the disciplines they developed and the beliefs they established about human diversity.

Learn more about Into the Field at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Into the Field.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chad Zunker's "An Equal Justice," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker.

The entry begins:

This is always a tough one for me. As a father of three young kids, I haven’t had too much time to watch movies outside of the Disney film zone. So I have no idea who the hot young actors are who could play David Adams well. David is Texas born and raised. Even though he went to law school at Stanford, he still has some of that Texas twang to him. I would want whoever is considered the "next...[read on]

Visit Chad Zunker's website.

My Book, The Movie: Hunt The Lion.

The Page 69 Test: Hunt the Lion.

Writers Read: Chad Zunker.

The Page 69 Test: An Equal Justice.

My Book, The Movie: An Equal Justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that explore the devastating impact of flooding

Edward Platt was born in 1968 and lives in London. His first book, Leadville, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. He is also the author of The Great Flood which explores the way floods have shaped the physical landscape of Britain, and The City of Abraham, a journey through Hebron, the only place in the West Bank where Palestinians and Israelis lived side by side.

At the Guardian, Platt tagged six of the best books about flooding. One title on the list:

It is not just natural forces that are a threat – official neglect may compound their effects, as Rebecca Solnit argues in A Paradise Built in Hell. When Hurricane Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans in 2005, the damage caused by what she calls the “somewhat natural disaster” of the storm was compounded by the “strictly unnatural disaster of the failing levees”. After this humanmade catastrophe came the “failure or refusal of successive layers of government to supply evacuation and relief”, which led to the “appalling calamity of the way that local and then state and federal authorities decided to regard victims as criminals and turned New Orleans into a prison city.”

Read about another entry on the list.

See Alice-Azania Jarvis's reading list on flooding.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Julia Maskivker's "The Duty to Vote"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Duty to Vote by Julia Maskivker.

About the book, from the publisher:

What do we owe those in our communities? What do we owe strangers? In a sense, those who vie for political office locally and nationally do so, at least in part, from duty and obligation to their fellow citizens, to many they do not know and may never meet. In a democratic society, those who wish to participate in politics have the unbridled freedom to do exactly that: whether as leaders, or those who campaign for politicians, or as people who simply struggle to have their voice heard in everything from town hall meetings to protests. But by the same logic, we also have the freedom not to participate: the freedom not to care to be heard at all.

Not so, says Julia Maskivker: such logic collapses when applied to the act of voting. Not only should we vote if we can--we must vote. Even when confronted with two unappealing candidates, or with ballot propositions whose effects we will barely feel, or with the fact that our single vote might never tip an election, we must vote. We have a duty of conscience to vote with care when doing so comes at so small a cost. Maskivker, a political theorist and philosopher, argues that those fortunate to live in democratic societies with freely elected leaders all share, simply, a moral obligation to vote.

The book's argument adds a fresh and uncompromising perspective to voting ethics literature, which is dominated by views that reject the morality and rationality of voting. Maskivker's line of reasoning contends that the duty to vote is a "duty of common pursuit," which helps society to achieve good governance. She compares voting to Samaritan justice, showing that the same duty of assistance that would compel us to help a stranger in need also obligates us to vote to save our fellow citizens from injustice at the hands of bad or even evil leaders.

The book further explores issues of voter incompetence, and how citizens' ignorance can be partly overcome through political reform. Although uninformed voting may lead to bad governance, voting judiciously can be an effective path to justice. In a time of polarization and political turmoil, The Duty to Vote offers a stirring reminder that voting is fundamentally a collective endeavor to protect our communities, and that we all must vote in order to preserve the free societies within which we live.

Visit Julia Maskivker's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Duty to Vote.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Dea Poirier reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Dea Poirier, author of Beneath the Ashes.

Her entry begins:

My most recent read was #FashionVictim by Amina Akhtar. I picked up this book because I saw a blurb that pitched it as Dexter meets Devil Wears Prada, as a huge fan of both of those, I knew I had to pick this book up. I'm so...[read on]

About Beneath the Ashes, from the publisher:

A troubled detective learns that the fires of the past are still burning in this haunting, emotional thriller.

When detective Claire Calderwood is called to a grisly murder scene, she’s haunted by memories of her murdered sister. The victim is tied to a motel bed, her head covered in plastic and her body sprinkled with ashes. Claire’s dealt with vile crime scenes before, but this one strikes close to home.

Claire’s boyfriend, reporter Noah Washington, once helped find her sister’s killer, but now he’s a distraction to this new investigation. She wants to help him resolve the mysteries of his past, but Noah has been distant, and Claire knows he’s keeping something from her.

When another girl is murdered like the first, Claire suspects the work of a serial killer. As the case heats up and evidence mounts, she finds herself in profound danger. Claire’s been burned before; now she must decide if she can trust Noah to help her solve the case and uncover the truth that lies beneath the ashes.

Visit Dea Poirier's website.

Writers Read: Dea Poirier.

--Marshal Zeringue

The great third wheels of literature

Annaleese Jochems was born in 1994 and grew up in the far north of New Zealand. She won the 2016 Adam Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters and the 2018 Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction for Baby, which is her first book.

At CrimeReads Jochems tagged some of the great third wheels of fiction, including:

Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain

Mildred loves her extravagant daughter Veda more than anything. But instead of loving her mother, Veda loves glamour and social prestige, and the men who have the capacity to give them to her. For Veda, any money you have to work for is evidence not of achievement, but of a lack of class and charisma.

Unfortunately for both women the men around them are broke losers. In Decreation, the book I mentioned in the introduction, Anne Carson goes on to say that “Jealousy is a dance in which everybody moves because one of them is always extra—three people trying to sit on two chairs.” In this novel, the drama is not just about who gets to sit on the chairs, but who has to pay for them.

Read about another entry on the list.

Mildred Pierce is among Carol Goodman's top ten books that explore the fears & ambivalences of motherhood, Patricia Abbott's five favorite novels about mothers and daughters, and Ester Bloom's ten favorite fictional feminists.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jessica Whyte's "The Morals of the Market"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism by Jessica Whyte.

About the book, from the publisher:

The fatal embrace of human rights and neoliberalism

Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framework for a market society. In the wake of the Second World War, neoliberals saw demands for new rights to social welfare and self-determination as threats to “civilisation”. Yet, rather than rejecting rights, they developed a distinctive account of human rights as tools to depoliticise civil society, protect private investments and shape liberal subjects.

Learn more about The Morals of the Market at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Morals of the Market.

--Marshal Zeringue

Georgie Blalock's "The Other Windsor Girl," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Other Windsor Girl: A Novel of Princess Margaret, Royal Rebel by Georgie Blalock.

The entry begins:

I love classic films and, if I could make it happen, I’d have classic film stars take the leads in a movie adaptation of The Other Windsor Girl.

Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, would have made a great Princess Margaret. She had the sass and the attitude and the British class to have pulled it off. She was petite like the Princess but with the…[read on]

Visit Georgie Blalock's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Other Windsor Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Howard Andrew Jones's "Upon the Flight of the Queen"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Upon the Flight of the Queen by Howard Andrew Jones.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this sequel to For the Killing of Kings, Howard Andrew Jones returns to the ring-sworn champions of the Altenerai in Upon the Flight of the Queen to continue this thrilling, imaginative and immersive epic fantasy trilogy.

While the savage Naor clans prepare to march on the heart of the Allied Realms, Rylin infiltrates the highest of the enemy ranks to learn their secrets and free hundreds of doomed prisoners. His ailing mentor Varama leads the ever-dwindling Altenerai corps in a series of desperate strikes to cripple the Naor occupiers, hoping for a relief force that may not come in time to save what’s left of the city and her charges.

Elenai, Kyrkenall, and the kobalin Ortok ride through the storm-wracked Shifting Lands to rekindle an alliance with the ko’aye, the only possible counter to the terrible Naor dragons. Even if they survive the hazardous trek deep through kobalin territory to find the winged lizards, though, the three are unlikely to get a warm reception, for the queen of the five realms refused to aid the ko’aye when their homelands were attacked, and the creatures have long memories.

While the Altenerai fight impossible odds to save the realms, their queen delves further and deeper into the magic of the mysterious hearthstones in a frantic attempt to unlock secrets that might just destroy them all.

Praised for his skills in drafting modern epic fantasy that engrosses and entertains, Howard Andrew Jones delivers a sequel that expands the amazing world, relationships, and adventure introduced in the first book of this series.

Learn more about the book and author at Howard Andrew Jones's website.

View the animated book trailer for Upon the Flight of the Queen.

The Page 69 Test: The Bones of the Old Ones.

My Book, The Movie: The Bones of the Old Ones.

Writers Read: Howard Andrew Jones.

The Page 69 Test: Upon the Flight of the Queen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top speculative fiction books about migration

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. The Centenal Cycle trilogy, which also includes Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018), is a finalist for the Hugo Best Series Award of 2018. She is also the creator of the serial Ninth Step Station, currently running on Serial Box, and her short story collection ...And Other Disasters is now out. Her non-fiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and NBC THINK. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than a decade of field experience in humanitarian aid and development. Her doctoral work on the sociology of organizations at Sciences Po Paris explores the dynamics of post-disaster improvisation in governments.

At Tor.com Older tagged six speculative fiction books "that illustrate different elements of immigration and the Othered status of the migrant," including:

Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias

I’d be remiss in writing about SFF and immigration without mentioning this intense, powerful, and all-too-believable book. It tells the terrifying, familiar story of a country slowly and violently turning against immigrants through many different perspectives: immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and native-born; people who feel like part of the system until they’re expelled by it and people who never feel like they belong.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joanna K. Love's "Soda Goes Pop"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Soda Goes Pop: Pepsi-Cola Advertising and Popular Music by Joanna K. Love.

About the book, from the publisher:

From its 1939 “Nickel, Nickel” jingle to pathbreaking collaborations with Michael Jackson and Madonna to its pair of X Factor commercials in 2011 and 2012, Pepsi-Cola has played a leading role in drawing the American pop music industry into a synergetic relationship with advertising. This idea has been copied successfully by countless other brands over the years, and such commercial collaboration is commonplace today—but how did we get here? How and why have pop music aesthetics been co-opted to benefit corporate branding? What effect have Pepsi’s music marketing practices in particular had on other brands, the advertising industry, and popular music itself?

Soda Goes Pop investigates these and other vital questions around the evolving relationships between popular music and corporate advertising. Joanna K. Love joins musical analysis, historical research, and cultural theory to trace parallel shifts in these industries over eight decades. In addition to scholarly and industry resources, she draws on first-hand accounts, pop culture magazines, trade press journals, and other archival materials. Pepsi’s longevity as an influential American brand, its legendary commercials, and its pioneering, relentless pursuit of alliances with American musical stars makes the brand a particularly instructive point of focus. Several of the company’s most famous ad campaigns are prime examples of the practice of redaction, whereby marketers select, censor, and restructure musical texts to fit commercial contexts in ways that revise their aesthetic meanings and serve corporate aims. Ultimately, Love demonstrates how Pepsi’s marketing has historically appropriated and altered images of pop icons and the meanings of hit songs, and how these commercials shaped relationships between the American music business, the advertising industry, and corporate brands.

Soda Goes Pop is a rich resource for scholars and students of American studies, popular culture, advertising, broadcast media, and musicology. It is also an accessible and informative book for the general reader, as Love’s musical and theoretical analyses are clearly presented for non-specialist audiences and readers with varying degrees of musical knowledge.

Learn more about Soda Goes Pop at the University of Michigan Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Soda Goes Pop.

--Marshal Zeringue