Ten top memoirs that take readers on a medical journey

Tiffany Graham Charkosky’s writing explores love, human dynamics, and relationships. Her essays and short stories have been published in Gordon Square Review, Mutha Magazine, The Avalon Literary Review, and South Dakota Review. She lives in Northeast Ohio with her family and has worked in the arts for over twenty years.

Charkosky's new memoir is Living Proof: How Love Defied Genetic Legacy.

At Electric Lit the author tagged ten memoirs that take readers on a medical journey, including:

The Year of the Horses by Courtney Maum

The Year of the Horses starts with Courtney Maum’s young daughter refusing to put on a sock. But a sock is never just a sock. This beautiful metaphor of being in a life that doesn’t fit right catapults Maum’s journey to examine her growing feelings of depression. When standard medical care doesn’t offer the balm she needs, Maum seeks to remember a time when she felt as joyful as she did on the back of a horse as a child. This book moves back and forth through Maum’s challenging childhood and teen years and her grown-up desire to reclaim her sense of self. By introducing readers to the world of horsemanship, Maum shows us that sometimes wisdom isn’t always about growing older—it can be about giving our inner child (and animal) room to play.

Read about another entry on Charkosky's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kim DeRose reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kim DeRose, author of Hear Her Howl.

Her entry begins:

I’m one of those people who has a giant TBR stack beside their bed and normally has 3-5 books I’m simultaneously reading at once (which never stops me from acquiring more books!). Here’s what I’m currently reading and enjoying:

Winter White by Annie Cardi

I loved Annie Cardi’s previous YA book, Red, (a retelling of The Scarlet Letter) and did several panels with Annie discussing the importance of accurately and sensitively representing sexual assault in YA fiction. So when she asked if I’d blurb Winter White I was thrilled. Once again she’s written another beautiful retelling (this time of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale) that this time sensitively portrays a difficult dynamic within a family system. Her characters are always beautifully wrought and there’s a tenderness within her stories that I...[read on]

About Hear Her Howl, from the publisher:

As fiercely feminist as it is hopeful, this speculative, sapphic YA romance from the author of For Girls Who Walk through Fire is simultaneously a modern-day war cry and a PSA that there is a wolf who slumbers inside us all—we only have to wake her.

Rue’s life is over. After she’s caught kissing a girl behind the Sunday School classrooms, she gets exiled to Sacred Heart so she can be transformed into her mother’s idea of a respectable lady. The irony of being sent to—of all places—an all-girls Catholic boarding school is not lost on Rue, especially when she falls irreversibly under the spell of its ethereal, ferocious outcast, Charlotte Savage.

But there’s more to Charlotte than her sharp gaze and even sharper tongue: Charlotte Savage is, against all logic, a werewolf. And Rue can become one, too—any woman can, if she’s brave enough to heed the wild that howls inside of her.

She and Charlotte aren’t alone in answering the call, and upon forming a wolf pack of fearless girls who refuse to remain docile, Rue realizes she couldn’t have been more wrong. Her life isn’t over. It’s just beginning.

This world is not kind to women, much less wild women . . . but God help the man who tries to cage the girls of Sacred Heart.

Visit Kim DeRose's website.

Q&A with Kim DeRose.

The Page 69 Test: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

My Book, The Movie: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

The Page 69 Test: Hear Her Howl.

Writers Read: Kim DeRose.

--Marshal Zeringue

Page 99: Sanya Carley & David Konisky's "Power Lines"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Power Lines: The Human Costs of American Energy in Transition by Sanya Carley and David Konisky.

About the book, from the publisher:

On American energy and its persisting power to destroy.

In the United States, the promise of a green-energy future is complicated by its realities. The country’s legacy energy systems are decrepit; the rollout of new technologies is unequal and piecemeal; households find themselves increasingly without reliable or affordable access; and Americans are excluded from the decisions that shape their energy futures. Having power in America has become an exercise in race, class, and wealth—in more ways than one.

Power Lines is a sweeping portrait of American energy in the twenty-first century, rendered in terms of its increasing—and inevitable—human costs. Coal miners in West Virginia lose their livelihoods as energy markets change; historically marginalized households cannot easily access new technologies; children in “sacrifice zones” adjacent to mineral-mining sites suffer health problems and limited resources; and cities and towns are burdened from the production of alternative energies.

Sanya Carley and David Konisky show current challenges and an uncertain future of America’s greatest policy imperative. The result is not only sobering but also essential for planning and pursuing a clean-energy transition that improves on the errors of the past.

Learn more about Power Lines at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Power Lines.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels featuring fatal friendship failings

Born in the Midwest, Jenna Satterthwaite grew up in Spain, lived briefly in France, and is now happily settled in Chicago with her husband and three kids. Satterthwaite studied classical guitar, English Lit and French, and once upon a time was a singer-songwriter in folk band Thornfield. She loves sushi, reading in her natural habitat (aka her bed), and women taking back their power.

She is the author of Made For You and The New Year’s Party.

At CrimeReads Satterthwaite tagged "five books that deal with friend groups, toxic friendships, family and friend breakups–and of course, murder," including:

Penny Zang, Doll Parts

This debut hit shelves in August and is already finding tons of love. Described as The Virgin Suicides meets I Have Some Questions For You, this dual timeline suspense follows Sadie as she begins to uncover the truth behind the death of her estranged best friend Nikki. A book that’s a poignant picture of female friendship, as well as an ode to nostalgia, Sylvia Plath, and sad girls.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kim DeRose's "Hear Her Howl"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Hear Her Howl by Kim DeRose.

About the book, from the publisher:

As fiercely feminist as it is hopeful, this speculative, sapphic YA romance from the author of For Girls Who Walk through Fire is simultaneously a modern-day war cry and a PSA that there is a wolf who slumbers inside us all—we only have to wake her.

Rue’s life is over. After she’s caught kissing a girl behind the Sunday School classrooms, she gets exiled to Sacred Heart so she can be transformed into her mother’s idea of a respectable lady. The irony of being sent to—of all places—an all-girls Catholic boarding school is not lost on Rue, especially when she falls irreversibly under the spell of its ethereal, ferocious outcast, Charlotte Savage.

But there’s more to Charlotte than her sharp gaze and even sharper tongue: Charlotte Savage is, against all logic, a werewolf. And Rue can become one, too—any woman can, if she’s brave enough to heed the wild that howls inside of her.

She and Charlotte aren’t alone in answering the call, and upon forming a wolf pack of fearless girls who refuse to remain docile, Rue realizes she couldn’t have been more wrong. Her life isn’t over. It’s just beginning.

This world is not kind to women, much less wild women . . . but God help the man who tries to cage the girls of Sacred Heart.

Visit Kim DeRose's website.

Q&A with Kim DeRose.

The Page 69 Test: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

My Book, The Movie: For Girls Who Walk through Fire.

The Page 69 Test: Hear Her Howl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top literary horror novels

At Book Riot Addison Rizer tagged eight literary horror novels, including:

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

In the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic, half the population is left in a zombified state. Those who were not infected by the disease fight to reclaim Manhattan from their safe space called Zone One, including Mark Spitz, a sweeper whose job is to clean the infected out of the city. As Mark works to make space for humanity to live again, he comes face-to-face with a world with different rules and a different role for society.

Read about another entry on the list.

Zone One is among Emily Temple's nine books that destroy New York City as we know it, Ceridwen Christensen's six top zombie novels, and Corey J. White's five top books about the collapse of New York City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alex Zakaras's "Freedom for All"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Freedom for All: What a Liberal Society Could Be by Alex Zakaras.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold vision of liberal society designed to meet the crises of our time

Liberalism is on the defensive almost everywhere. In the past decade, right-wing politicians and intellectuals have staged successful assaults on the most important liberal institutions, including democratic constitutions, independent judiciaries, the free media, and the rule of law. Liberalism’s defenders have struggled to find an adequate response. Many have tried to present liberalism as a humane and reasonable alternative to the chaos and cruelty of the new political right. Political theorist Alex Zakaras argues that this moderate posture is inadequate in our present moment. In the face of rising authoritarianism, rampant inequality, and climate catastrophe, liberals must be willing to demand deep change. Moreover, to compete successfully against charismatic leaders promising dramatic solutions, liberals have to offer a clear and ambitious set of principles and a compelling vision of the future.

Zakaras defends a radical version of liberalism, which is designed to attack the massive inequalities in power, wealth, and status that are pulling the United States apart. At its best, liberalism is an emancipatory political project designed to secure freedom for all. Throughout this book, Zakaras explores what it would mean to implement this project in America today, and what it would demand of its citizens.

Learn more about Freedom for All at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Freedom for All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Martin Edwards

From my Q&A with Martin Edwards, author of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife:

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

The aim of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife is to give readers the chance to play mystery games of various kinds as well as enjoying a twisty mystery. Titles are very important, but it wasn’t easy to find a fresh idea that worked for a crime novel set at Christmas. I was keen on Evil under the Snow, as a jokey riff on Agatha Christie’s Evil under the Sun, but my editor suggested Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife. In the end we compromised. Evil under the Snow became the title of a podcast that plays an important part in the story. And I enjoyed finding ways to make my editor’s choice of title highly relevant to what happens in the remote village of Midwinter – even though there is no character called Miss Winter in the story. But the elements of the title all come together, again in a jokey way, in...[read on]

Visit Martin Edwards’s website.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards (April 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Frozen Shroud.

The Page 69 Test: Dancing for the Hangman.

The Page 99 Test: The Arsenic Labyrinth.

The Page 99 Test: Waterloo Sunset.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards.

Q&A with Martin Edwards.

--Marshal Zeringue

G. M. Malliet's "Death and the Final Cut," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Death and the Final Cut by G. M. Malliet.

If Death and the Final Cut makes it to the screen, I can predict the opening shot: the ancient stones of Cambridge’s Round Church faintly glowing in nightlight, its peace about to be shattered by ambitious actors, a frazzled camera crew, and bloody murder.

Hollywood has descended on the University of Cambridge to film Viking Bride, starring once-famous actress Agnes Dermont in what’s meant to be her big comeback. But the project quickly dissolves into farce—an overworked script, an overwrought leading lady, and a general disregard for historical accuracy.

Then a prop Viking knife turns out to be real, and poor Agnes is found with it buried in her chest.

Enter Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just. A stalwart, quietly decent policeman in his forties, St. Just tries to apply a steady moral compass to a world gone mad. Assisted (and sometimes challenged) by his fiancée, criminologist Portia De’Ath, he navigates a minefield of jealousies and tabloid-worthy secrets as he searches for the truth. Though set in present-day Cambridge, the tone is Golden Age / Agatha Christie whodunit.

My Dream Cast

St. Just should be easy to cast, as I’ve described him vaguely as a large policeman with a head full of dark hair! While my choices have had to change over the years, Chris Evans might now make a good St. Just. He has that rare mix of intelligence, restraint, and quiet wit—a man whose stillness makes people underestimate him.

For Portia, I picture...[read on]

Visit G. M. Malliet's website, Facebook page, and Instagram home.

The Page 69 Test: A Fatal Winter.

The Page 69 Test: The Haunted Season.

Writers Read: G.M. Malliet (April 2017).

Q&A with G. M. Malliet.

My Book, The Movie: Death and the Final Cut.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Georgina Wilson's "Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature by Georgina Wilson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature explores the crucial role of paper in the early history of books and of English literature. Taking up four paradigms of literary scholarship―authorship, composition, form, and reuse―Georgina Wilson shows how the material affordances of paper shaped the work of readers, writers, and critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Looking past the surface of printed texts to less legible forms of labor, Wilson models literary critical readings of paper’s physical aspects, from watermarks to rotatable paper dials, in Ben Jonson’s Sejanus His Fall and George Wither’s emblems, sheets, and fragments. Turning from paper's specific physical attributes to authors who were preoccupied with its imaginative potential, Wilson explores how paper’s tangible qualities intervened in what readers and writers did with it, tracing formalist, legal, and political debates on the textual and nontextual uses of paper through the works of John Taylor and eighteenth-century “it-narratives.”

Drawing upon examples from early modern drama, poetry, and prose to consider the real and imagined women and men who made and used paper, Wilson demonstrates how early modern paper was both the product of embodied labor and of the early modern imagination. Bringing together close reading, critical bibliography, archival research, and literary theory, Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature shows how paper makes literature not only as a physical object but also as a discipline.

Learn more about Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature at the University of Pennsylvania Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books that celebrate diverse definitions of family & community

Josefin Dolsten-Kuhel is a New York-based writer and communications strategist. She provides strategic counsel to organizations that work to advance public health, education access, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Her writing has been published in Daily Beast, GO Magazine, Refinery29, JTA and elsewhere.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight books that "share a nuanced, authentic representation of queer families." One title on the list:

April May June July by Alison B. Hart

This novel follows four siblings in the Barber family, each named after a month of the year, as they navigate the aftermath of the tragic event that defined their childhood: their father’s kidnapping in Iraq. Now, years later, new developments in their father’s case force each sibling to deal with the possibility that their father is still alive. The sibling set includes two queer characters: June (who as an adult goes by Juniper), a soccer coach about to wed her longtime girlfriend, and July, a college student who is learning about his sexuality and navigating feelings for two very different guys. What I love about this book is that it does not fall into the trap of making the queer characters’ sexuality their defining characteristic, rather sexuality is just one of the multitude of aspects that form an identity.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sara Driscoll's "Deadly Trade"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Deadly Trade by Sara Driscoll.

About the book, from the publisher:

FBI K-9 handler Meg Jennings can never walk away from her job, even amid her Hawaiian Islands honeymoon, where she and her search-and-rescue black Lab encounter a double threat from wildlife poachers and Mother Nature.

After a difficult assignment and the excitement of her wedding to firefighter Todd Webb, Meg is more than ready for two weeks of sun, sea, and gorgeous Hawaiian scenery. Her K-9 partner, Hawk, accompanies Meg and Todd to their resort, reveling in his celebrity status with both staff and guests. After a week of relaxation, all three are ready to get out into nature on the Big Island, where Meg and Hawk can practice search strategies.

In the remote fern forest of Pu‘u Maka‘ala Natural Area Reserve, Hawk’s senses are on high alert. When Meg lets him leave the path, they encounter two men trapping bright birds. The poachers escape, leaving their bounty behind, and when agents from the FBI and US Fish and Wildlife arrive, they confirm that the birds are all endangered species near extinction. Super-wealthy collectors acquire them for private zoos, with no regard for the birds’ survival. Alive or dead, these beautiful creatures are merely trophies.

Meg, Todd, and Hawk join an official search using a local conservation dog to pinpoint vulnerable nesting grounds in an attempt to protect trafficked wildlife and to stop the poachers in their tracks. But beyond the threat posed by determined poachers lurks another danger—Mauna Loa, one of the island’s active volcanoes, has been grumbling, and is poised to turn this mission into their most terrifying yet.

Visit Sara Driscoll's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lone Wolf.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Rising.

The Page 69 Test: No Man's Land.

The Page 69 Test: Leave No Trace.

The Page 69 Test: That Others May Live.

The Page 69 Test: Echoes of Memory.

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Trade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Erin Pearson's "Grievous Entanglement"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Grievous Entanglement: Consumption, Connection, and Slavery in the Atlantic World by Erin Pearson.

About the book, from the publisher:

How abolitionists persuaded people of their personal complicity with slavery to advance the cause of freedom

Grievous Entanglement explores the most common way that people in the Atlantic world came to understand their personal connection to, and complicity with, slavery in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: consumption. Consumption became a formidable trope that tied the evils of chattel slavery to individuals’ behavior through their purchase of slave-produced commodities like cotton or sugar. With her groundbreaking analysis of this dominant conceptual framework, Erin Pearson provides new insight into both the motivation behind and the functioning of antislavery activism.

Unlike sentimental literature, which sought to engender sympathy for the enslaved, consumption-as-connection leveraged aversion to inspire people to sever their ties with an evil institution. Strategic disgust, Pearson shows, proved effective in inciting abolitionist action. It also frequently slipped into nonabolitionist and even proslavery uses by actually fomenting racism, as this book is the first to demonstrate. Examining a wide variety of media, including poetry, political cartoons, blackface minstrelsy, slave narratives, and novels produced from the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, this ingeniously interdisciplinary study reveals how aversive consumption powerfully shaped ideas about slavery to both positive and pernicious effect.

Learn more about Grievous Entanglement at the University of Virginia Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Grievous Entanglement.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven Booker Prize-nominated novels with a sporting edge

Emily Facoory curated a list of Booker Prize-nominated novels "that incorporate sports, whether as a central theme or simply a brief scene." One title on the list:

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

Featuring another sport set to be included in the 2028 Olympic Games, Netherland – longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2008 – follows Hans, a wealthy Dutch banker living in New York just after the tragedy of 9/11. Feeling lost and alone after his wife leaves him and returns to London with their son, he stumbles across a New York subculture of cricket players.

There, he befriends Chuck Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure helps Hans to find a community within the sport and rediscover his childhood passion for the game, providing a much-needed sense of stability. As Hans becomes part of the team, he begins to rebuild his life and find his footing in the post-9/11 world.

The New York Times praised author Joseph O’Neill for his depiction. He ‘writes about cricket not with Beckettian economy, but with an insider’s knowledge and a metaphorical sweep,’ they said, hailing Neverland as ‘the first great American novel underpinned by a deep understanding of the complexity of spin bowling’.

Read about another novel on the list.

Netherland is among Jimmy So's five top 9/11 novels, Richard Tomlinson's top ten cricket scenes in fiction, and Brooke Hauser's six favorite books about immigrants.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with R.T. Ester

From my Q&A with R.T. Ester, author of The Ganymedan:

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

I think it belongs to the same naming convention as titles like The Martian and The Bear where there's an ironic layer to it. It's a reference to the main character, but the story itself ends up complicating that connection, and the character you may have assumed would be a typical Martian or bear is revealed to be the outlier in some profound sense. If you're already sort of aware of this convention, I would say the title does a lot. It tells you the protagonist will not be your typical Ganymedan, but an outlier. Briefly, before googling it and seeing that the title already belonged to an excellent short story by the scifi author Derek Kunsken, I considered Ghosts of Ganymede. Parts of the story revolve around a dissident group with chapters that all use the word ghost in their names. One of them had a significant influence on the protagonist growing up and their anti-AI ethos comes back to haunt him at...[read on]

Visit R.T. Ester's website.

Writers Read: R.T. Ester.

The Page 69 Test: The Ganymedan.

Q&A with R.T. Ester.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Tessa Wegert reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Tessa Wegert, author of In the Bones (A North Country Novel).

Her entry begins:

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I always have three books on the go at once — one in print, one ebook or NetGalley arc, and one audiobook — so I’ll share a recent favorite from each bucket.

In print, I adored Jennifer Fawcett’s Keep This for Me, a stunning and atmospheric mystery set in Upstate New York. This re-imagining of the serial killer thriller examines the aftereffects of murder on both the victim’s daughter and the son of the convicted killer with prose that’s lyrical and lush.

I just finished reading an early copy of...[read on]

About In the Bones, from the publisher:

The arrival of a celebrity athlete on a remote peninsula in New York’s Thousand Islands unearths dark and deadly buried secrets in this heart-pounding blend of suspense and mystery, the first in the new North Country series—Agatha Christie meets Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley

It’s almost summer in Cape Vincent, and as the heat rises, ex-professional ice hockey superstar Mikko Helle arrives, ready to move into his extravagantly renovated waterfront home. Mikko is 30, handsome, and wealthy. He’s a stranger in town. There’s no reason to suspect Mikko is anything other than he seems.

Local married mother-of-two Nicole Durham works her connections hard to get hired as his cleaner. She needs this job—and not just because of the money. Nicole is desperate to expose a secret, and she’s running out of time.

But when Nicole disturbs an intruder while cleaning, New York State Police Investigator Tim Wellington discovers that the luxury mansion is hiding its own unthinkable truth. Deep in the basement lie the bones of a young woman, identity unknown.

The celebrity athlete. The local. The thief. Everyone is hiding something—but someone in the North Country’s a ruthless killer, and one of the three knows exactly who it is.

Visit Tessa Wegert's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Dead Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Season.

Q&A with Tessa Wegert.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Wind.

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (April 2022).

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert (December 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Devils at the Door.

The Page 69 Test: The Coldest Case.

Writers Read: Tessa Wegert.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrea Horbinski's "Manga's First Century"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 by Andrea Horbinski.

About the book, from the publisher:

A comprehensive English-language history of a beloved medium, Manga’s First Century tells the story of the artists and fans who built a cultural juggernaut.

Manga is the world’s most popular style of comics. How did manga and anime—“moving manga”—become ubiquitous? Manga’s First Century delves into the history and finds surprising answers.

In fact, manga has always been a global phenomenon. Countering essentialist myths of manga’s emergence from the deepest wells of Japanese art, author Andrea Horbinski shows it was born in the early 1900s, a hybrid form that crossed single-panel satirical cartoons popular in Europe and America with the Edo period’s artistic legacy. As a medium, manga initially focused on political commentary, expanding to include social satire, children’s comics, and proletarian art in the 1920s and 1930s. Manga’s evolution into a medium embracing complex, long-form storytelling was likewise driven by creators and fans pushing publishers to accept new, radical expansions in manga’s artistic and narrative practices. In the 1970s, innovative creators and fans empowered a new breed of fan-generated comics (dōjinshi) and established robust audiences of adult, female, and queer manga readers, while nurturing generations of amateur and professional creators who continue to enrich and renew manga today.

Visit Andrea Horbinski's website.

The Page 99 Test: Manga's First Century.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top novels that find comic truth in disability

Brian Trapp is the author of Range of Motion (2025). He is the director of disability studies at the University of Oregon, where he also teaches creative writing and serves as editor of the Northwest Review. His work has been published in the Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Longreads, Brevity, and elsewhere. He grew up near Cleveland, Ohio, with his twin brother, Danny.

At Electric Lit Trapp tagged nine novels by authors who have "lived experience as either a disabled person or a caregiver—and each chose the novel and the comic mode to tell their tales." One title on the list:

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

You don’t find much fiction narrated by Direct Support Professionals, a job Jonathan Evison did while launching his writing career. In this 2012 buddy comedy, former stay-at-home-dad Ben Benjamin is reeling from his impending divorce after a tragic accident kills his two children. He begins caring for Trev, a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed 19-year-old with muscular dystrophy who has been coddled by his overprotective mother. Ben pushes Trev out of his comfort zone and encourages him to explore the world. They embark on a cross-country road trip to visit Trev’s hapless and estranged father. Hijinks ensue. A cast of misfit hitchhikers come along for the ride, including a sarcastic and spunky runaway who falls for Trev. There’s rich caregiving details ripe for awkward comedy: lifting, showering, and assisting with bathroom functions. But what I love most about this sardonic and big-hearted novel is the laugh-out-loud banter between Trev and Ben.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: R.T. Ester's "The Ganymedan"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Ganymedan by R.T. Ester.

About the book, from the publisher:

A dark science fiction debut examining agency and sacrifice through one man’s desperate attempt to reach home after he murders his tyrannical employer.

Verden Dotnet made an easy living mixing drinks for the creator of all sentient tech in the galaxy—until he decided to kill the creator. Now this man is dead, really dead, no cloud back-ups, and V-Dot is on the run, carrying a galaxy-shattering secret in his pocket. When he misses the last ship back to Ganymede, he convinces an old, outdated but still sentient ship, TR-8901, to give him a lift.

But TR suspects that something is up—it is hearing rumours about his creator’s death, and the man who fled the scene. But TR is a dutiful ship, and will carry out its duties until proven otherwise…

Visit R.T. Ester's website.

Writers Read: R.T. Ester.

The Page 69 Test: The Ganymedan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jonathan A. Stapley's "Holiness to the Lord"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Holiness to the Lord: Latter-day Saint Temple Worship by Jonathan A. Stapley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Across a wide array of religious traditions, temples are sacred, private spaces where observers can worship with other members of their congregation. Temple worship in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church, is kept virtually secret from outsiders. And even Mormons themselves might find certain aspects of worship confusing. While respecting the privacy of church members, Jonathan A. Stapley's Holiness to the Lord provides an insightful, fresh overview of Latter-day Saints temple worship, including the initiatory washing and anointing rituals, the endowment ceremony, and relational sealings.

Within a year of organizing a church in the early 1800s, Joseph Smith began revealing liturgies, introducing increasingly expansive ceremonies and cosmologies and establishing temples as their liturgical center. After Smith's murder, church leaders worked to broaden access to the temple liturgy, bringing forth regular periods of change and reform. Stapley offers new insights into both the historical exclusion of Black people from the temple and the simultaneous integration of Native Americans, Polynesians, and other non-white racial and ethnic groups into the religion. He traces the contemporary fight against racism in the church and its adjacent communities, all while centering temple liturgy and the religious construction of participants' inclusion into a priesthood of heaven and earth.

Stapley's deep dive into Mormon history, cosmology, and ritual sheds fresh light on contemporary Mormonism.

Visit Jonathan A. Stapley's website.

The Page 99 Test: Holiness to the Lord.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top cozy mysteries featuring animals other than cats

A former Spanish teacher, Allison Brook writes mysteries, romantic suspense, and novels for young readers. She loves traveling, reading, knitting, doing Sudoku, and visiting with her grandchildren on FaceTime.

Her new novel, Death on Dickens Island, is the series debut of Books on the Beach Mysteries.

At CrimeReads Brook tagged a collection of cozy mysteries featuring animals other than cats. One title on the list:

Laurien Berenson, Wagging Through the Snow

Laurien Berenson’s sleuth Melanie Travis breeds standard poodles. The books in this popular series center around mysteries involving a dog of a different breed. A Maltese appears in Wagging Through the Snow.

Read about another title on Brook's list.

Coffee with a Canine: Laurien Berenson & Dash.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mirta Ojito's "Deeper than the Ocean," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Deeper than the Ocean by Mirta Ojito.

The entry begins:

Oooh, I love this question! I’m a huge movie fan.

I didn’t think about actors when I was writing the book, but I did have images that inspired me. For example, for the two protagonists — Mara Denis and Catalina Quintana — I had pictures of what I wanted them to look like. With the picture of Mara, I cheated a bit. I used a photo of me circa 1992 that a friend took during a trip to Mexico. I was much younger then than the character I was writing about -a slightly cynical, deeply wounded journalist, who lost the love of her life at young age and was left alone caring for their child, a boy named Dylan. What I liked about the picture was that, in it, I look pensive and troubled, just like I imagined Mara to be.

The perfect actress for this role would be Juliette Binoche. Few actresses can convey as much inner turmoil as she does with the muscles of her face. It is a face that telegraphs pain and acceptance equally. And that is the Mara I created, a woman intent on unearthing a family secret so that she can understand her own life and conquer her fears.

The other protagonist is more complicated because she ages in the book. She is Catalina Quintana, the great grandmother Mara is looking for, and the keeper of a secret that haunted her family for generations. For inspiration I found a picture of a young woman with flowing red curly hair, which fit the description of the character, and kept it on my desk during the long years of writing. Two actresses would have to play her.

For the young, easily impressed, impulsive and stubborn Catalina, I’d say someone like Emma Stone, who looks far younger than her 36 years. For the older, resilient, strong but profoundly damaged Catalina...[read on]

Visit Mirta Ojito's website.

My Book, The Movie: Deeper than the Ocean.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Derek Edyvane's "The Politics of Politeness"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Politics of Politeness: Citizenship, Civility, and the Democracy of Everyday Life by Derek Edyvane.

About the book, from the publisher:

Politeness is political. It is easy to disregard our everyday, street-level interactions and the politeness, or impoliteness, by which they are marked, but those interactions determine the quality of the social atmosphere we inhabit, and democracies cannot flourish without an atmosphere congenial to their ends. We must therefore enlarge our understanding of citizenship to encompass the democracy of everyday living, and we must learn to think politically about the dilemmas of politeness it presents.

The Politics of Politeness develops the first sustained account of 'ordinary citizenship'. Arguing for the political significance of everyday urban interactions, Edyvane proposes an interpretation of politeness as civility and as a key political practice for democracies. Against recent conceptualisations of polite civility as a 'communicative' virtue, the book elaborates an innovative 'ceremonial' account that takes seriously the ritual-like character of polite interaction, and its embeddedness in a larger civilisational discourse.

Drawing on an eclectic range of sources from empirical ethnography to novels and TV shows, the book offers a new perspective on familiar dilemmas of everyday politeness. What should you do when codes of manners embarrassingly clash? Should you say something when a shop assistant slights another customer, or should you mind your own business? How should you finesse awkward encounters with beggars and vagrants? And is there ever any place for rudeness in polite society? By treating these dilemmas as political problems, as problems of democratic citizenship, we gain fresh insight into them: into why they matter, and how to navigate them more wisely.

Learn more about The Politics of Politeness at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Politics of Politeness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five fresh literary takes on classic creatures

Leah Rachel von Essen is an editor, writer, and book reviewer. She is a copyeditor and fact-checker at Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as a contributing editor, Adult Books, for American Library Association’s magazine Booklist. She writes regularly for Chicago Review of Books and is a senior contributor at Book Riot.

At Book Riot she tagged five "stories [that] put an exciting new spin on the classic creature horror we all think we know, from vampires and zombies to sirens." One title on the list:

Night’s Edge by Liz Kerin

Saratov’s Syndrome is a fairly new problem for the world when Mia’s mother contracts it. Her mom now needs blood to survive, and she doesn’t trust the centers where vampires are being institutionalized, surveilled, and supported. So Mia becomes her mother’s support system instead, drawing blood so her mom can survive. She barely questions it for 13 years, giving her mom everything she has—her time, her social life, her ambitions. But then she meets a girl who makes her feel some kind of way, and she starts to wonder how long she can give her mother everything she has.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Night's Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is R.T. Ester reading?

Featured at Writers Read: R.T. Ester, author of The Ganymedan.

His entry begins:

I started a novel recently called Extremophile by Ian Green. It's one whose very bold cover design I had been captivated by for months. So far, I've enjoyed the book's vision of a near-future London that sort of reminds me of the gritty, neon-streaked streets that make up much of the Night City setting of William Gibson's Neuromancer. It's also written in a prose style that doesn't use dialog markers and often has me feeling like a fly on a wall to the story's proceedings, which is something I generally enjoy when I read books in the cyberpunk genre. There are...[read on]

About The Ganymedan, from the publisher:

A dark science fiction debut examining agency and sacrifice through one man’s desperate attempt to reach home after he murders his tyrannical employer.

Verden Dotnet made an easy living mixing drinks for the creator of all sentient tech in the galaxy—until he decided to kill the creator. Now this man is dead, really dead, no cloud back-ups, and V-Dot is on the run, carrying a galaxy-shattering secret in his pocket. When he misses the last ship back to Ganymede, he convinces an old, outdated but still sentient ship, TR-8901, to give him a lift.

But TR suspects that something is up—it is hearing rumours about his creator’s death, and the man who fled the scene. But TR is a dutiful ship, and will carry out its duties until proven otherwise…

Visit R.T. Ester's website.

Writers Read: R.T. Ester.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Maxim Samson's "Earth Shapers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, from the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way by Maxim Samson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The globetrotting story of how humans have harnessed the geographical landscape and written ourselves onto our surroundings.

Mountains, meridians, rivers, and borders—these are some of the features that divide the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far less set in stone than we might believe, and, as Maxim Samson’s Earth Shapers contends, in our relatively short time on this planet, humans have become experts at fundamentally reshaping our surroundings.

From the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca’s “great road,” and Mozambique’s colonial railways to a Saudi Arabian smart city, and from Korea’s sacred Baekdu-daegan mountain range and the Great Green Wall in Africa to the streets of Chicago, Samson explores how we mold the world around us. And how, as we etch our needs onto the natural landscape, we alter the course of history. These fascinating stories of connectivity show that in our desire to make geographical connections, humans have broken through boundaries of all kinds, conquered treacherous terrain, and carved up landscapes. We crave linkages, and though we do not always pay attention to the in-between, these pathways—these ways of “earth shaping,” in Samson’s words—are key to understanding our relationship with the planet we call home.

An immense work of cultural geography touching on ecology, sociology, history, and politics, Earth Shapers argues that, far from being constrained by geography, we are instead its creators.

Visit Maxim Samson's website.

The Page 99 Test: Earth Shapers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine books that explore the unique intimacy of sisters

Lisa K Friedman is a writer and essayist living in Washington, D.C. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Huffington Post, and other publications.

Friedman's new novel is Hello Wife.

At Electric Lit she tagged "nine novels [that] explore the intricacies of trauma, love, conflict, and support between sisters." One title on the list:

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Elf and Yoli are sisters who exist in the shadow of their father’s suicide. Elf is a superstar concert pianist plagued by depression—she wants desperately to die. Her younger sister, Yoli, is devoted to her sister and to the intellectual and spiritual closeness they’ve created together. She will do anything to save her sister, and she also respects Elf’s wishes. This conflict is evidence of an extraordinary love that must span the divide between sacrifice and support. The nature of this bond combines nurturing and anguish. Also, check out Miriam Toews’s new memoir, A Truce That is Not Peace, and her latest interview in EL.

Read about another title on Friedman's list.

All My Puny Sorrows is among Matt Rowland Hill's top ten books about losing faith and Katie Yee's five unconventional fictional families.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Finley Turner's "The Tarot Reader"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Tarot Reader: A Novel by Finley Turner.

About the book, from the publisher:

A phony psychic vision goes wrong when a woman unexpectedly finds herself involved in a murder investigation, perfect for fans of May Cobb and Catherine McKenzie.

Twenty-five-year-old Jade Crawford spends her days selling crystals, conducting séances, and reading tarot cards in her shop in Winston-Salem, NC. But her connection to the other side is all a facade. After losing their mother to a terrible accident and their father serving jail time, Jade and her younger sister Stevie do what they can to survive. When a local politician goes missing, Jade sees a lucrative opportunity to drum up new clients and inject some much-needed cash into their pockets.

Jade submits a “psychic vision” to the police tipline only to discover that her shot in the dark is chillingly accurate when the police find the politician’s body. Caught in a media whirlwind, Jade revels in her newfound popularity and success, but she quickly finds herself the target of not only a police investigation but of the killer who is still on the loose.

With stunning suspense that is perfect for fans of Samantha M. Bailey, Finley turns the screws tighter into a taut and thrilling read.

Visit Finley Turner's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party.

Q&A with Finley Turner.

Writers Read: Finley Turner.

The Page 69 Test: The Tarot Reader.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five essential books for understanding why we choose what we choose

Sophia Rosenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and former chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy.

[The Page 99 Test: Common Sense: A Political History; The Page 99 Test: Democracy and Truth]

Her latest book is The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life.

At Lit Hub Rosenfeld tagged five important books for understanding why we choose what we choose. One title on her list:

Lorraine Daston, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By

Rules: A Short History of What We Live By is an eye-opening recent account of how something as fundamental as the different kinds of rules by which we organize our existences have evolved, in practice and theory, from antiquity to the present. After reading this book, you won’t look the same way at shaking hands, getting on a highway at a busy interchange, or buying groceries on your computer. Daston’s specialty is the history of thinking itself.

Read about another title on Rosenfeld's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Ivermee's "Glorious Failure"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Glorious Failure: The Forgotten History of French Imperialism in India by Robert Ivermee.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is a powerful new account of a chapter in history that is crucial to understand, yet often overlooked. For 150 years, from the reign of Louis XIV to the downfall of Napoleon, France was an aggressive imperial power in South Asia, driven by the pursuit of greatness and riches. Through their East India company and state, the French established a far-reaching empire in India, only to see their dominant position undermined by conflict with Indian rulers, competition from other European nations, and a series of fatal strategic errors.

Exploding the myth of a benign French presence on the subcontinent, Robert Ivermee's extensive research reveals how France's Indian empire relied on war-making, conquest, opportunistic alliances, regime change and slavery to pursue its ambitions. He considers influential French figures' reactions to the collapse of the imperial project, not least their deployment of new ideas, like freedom and the rights of man, to justify fresh ventures of domination--even as colonial authorities failed to acknowledge the equality of French India's diverse indigenous peoples, both before and after the French Revolution.

From great power rivalry to informal empire and entrenched inequalities, Glorious Failure tackles topics that remain vital and urgent in today's world.

Learn more about Glorious Failure at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Glorious Failure.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Maryka Biaggio

From my Q&A with Maryka Biaggio, author of Gun Girl and the Tall Guy:

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

Gun Girl and the Tall Guy is based on the true story of a young couple who went on a robbery spree in 1924 Brooklyn. I wanted the title to include both the main characters, and I had to look no further than the headlines of the day to discover the many monikers the press applied to the duo, including the bob-haired bandit and her handsome companion or the feisty gun girl and her shy man. I settled on gun girl for Celia because it’s short and catchy and tall guy for Ed because it makes it clear he’s in a supporting role.

At its heart, the story is about why this young couple resorted to crime and also why New Yorkers—and the whole country, for that matter—were so fascinated by these two. They were the Bonnie and Clyde of the 1920s, with a few twists. So I wanted a title that featured both Celia and Ed and provided a sense of...[read on]

Visit Maryka Biaggio's website.

My Book, The Movie: Parlor Games.

The Page 69 Test: Parlor Games.

Writers Read: Maryka Biaggio (February 2013).

Q&A with Maryka Biaggio.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Martin Edwards reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Martin Edwards, author of Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

His entry begins:

I read all the time, and much of my reading is crime fiction, because that is what I love. I also need to research books for the British Library Crime Classics series of reprints, for which I’m the consultant. Because I’ve been heavily involved with writing and then promoting Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife for the past two years, I’ve read a huge number of detective stories with a puzzle element of one kind or another. Lately I’ve become rather obsessed with the books of a Scottish writer called D.M. Devine, who also wrote as Dominic Devine. He wrote in the 1960s and 1970s and he was very good at writing traditional mysteries with an ingenious puzzle to be solved. Agatha Christie was a fan of his work, but although his serial killer mystery The Fifth Cord was filmed, as an Italian giallo, he is now more or less forgotten. This is partly because...[read on]

About Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife, from the publisher:

Six down-on-their-luck people with links to the world of crime writing have been invited to play a game this Christmas by the mysterious Midwinter Trust. The challenge seems simple but exciting: Solve the murder of a fictional crime writer in a remote but wonderfully atmospheric village in north Yorkshire to win a prize that will change your fortunes for good.

Six members of staff from the shadowy Trust are there to make sure everyone plays fair. The contestants have been meticulously vetted but you can never be too careful. And with the village about to be cut off by a snow storm, everyone needs to be extra vigilant. Midwinter can play tricks on people's minds.

The game is set - but playing fair isn't on everyone's Christmas list.

Learn more about the book and author at Martin Edwards’s website.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards (April 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Frozen Shroud.

The Page 69 Test: Dancing for the Hangman.

The Page 99 Test: The Arsenic Labyrinth.

The Page 99 Test: Waterloo Sunset.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Writers Read: Martin Edwards.

--Marshal Zeringue