Six top books about books & bookstores

USA Today bestselling author Susan Coll is the author of eight novels, including The Literati, Real Life & Other Fictions, and Bookish People. Her other books include The Stager, Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and Karlmarx.com.

[Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe; The Page 69 Test: Acceptance; The Page 69 Test: Beach Week; The Page 69 Test: The Stager; The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions]

At Lit Hub Coll tagged six favorite books about books and bookstores, including:

Jenna Blum, Murder Your Darlings

This fun, twisty thriller about two successful writers who fall in love—or at least what passes for love in the case of one of the protagonists—is not about bookstores, per se, and yet indies feature prominently throughout as we follow these authors on tour. And among the three alternating points of view is one possibly unhinged bookseller.

Beneath the surface of this glossy novel is a heartfelt depiction of the obstacles aspirant writers face in trying to both produce and publish. Also, a lot is said about their all-too-easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities.

Blum—a successful novelist and co-founder of the popular Mighty Blaze podcast, knows of what she writes. In its observations about the pressures of publishing and its inverse—the heartbreak of not publishing—the novel is at times so close to the bone that it makes one wonder why anyone would want to engage in the business of books at any level. But don’t let that dissuade you—this book is not only good fun, but it ends with a homage to the business: “We writers, all of us, need booksellers. And readers! What would we do without you? You save our lives.”

Read about another book on Coll's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Katherine Fusco's "Hollywood's Others"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hollywood's Others: Love and Limitation in the Star System by Katherine Fusco.

About the book, from the publisher:

We tend to think about movie stars as either glamorous or relatable. But in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Hollywood star system was taking shape, a number of unusual stars appeared on the silver screen, representing groups from which the American mainstream typically sought to avert its eyes. What did it mean for a white entertainment columnist to empathize with an ambiguously gendered Black child star? Or for boys to idolize Lon Chaney, famous for portraying characters with disabilities?

Hollywood’s Others explores the affective ties between white, non-disabled audiences and the fascinatingly different stars with whom they identified—but only up to a point. Katherine Fusco argues that stardom in this era at once offered ways for viewers to connect across group boundaries while also policing the limits of empathy. Examining fan magazines alongside film performances, she traces the intense audience attachment to atypical celebrities and the ways the film industry sought to manage it. Fusco considers Shirley Temple’s career in light of child labor laws and changing notions of childhood; shows how white viewers responded to Black music in depictions of the antebellum South; and analyzes the gender politics of conspiracy theories around celebrity suicides. Shedding light on marginalized stardoms and the anxieties they provoked, Hollywood’s Others challenges common notions about film’s capacity to build empathy.

Visit Katherine Fusco's website.

The Page 99 Test: Hollywood's Others.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Simon Tolkien's "The Room of Lost Steps"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Room of Lost Steps: A Novel (Theo Sterling, book 2) by Simon Tolkien.

About the book, from the publisher:

An American boy with impossible dreams is thrust into the cauldron of the Spanish Civil War in this arresting and thrilling historical coming-of-age epic and sequel to The Palace at the End of the Sea.

Barcelona 1936. Theo helps the Anarchist workers defeat the army that is trying to overthrow the democratically elected government, and he is reunited with his true love, Maria. But all too soon, his joy turns to terror as the Anarchists turn on him, led by a rival for Maria’s affection.

Lucky to escape with his life, Theo returns to England to study at Oxford. But his heart is in Spain, now torn apart by a bloody civil war, and he is quick to abandon his new life when his old schoolmate Esmond offers him the chance to fight the Fascists. He is unprepared for the nightmare of war that crushes his spirit and his hope until, back in Barcelona, Theo is confronted with a final terrible choice that will define his life forever.

As Theo’s tumultuous coming-of-age journey reaches its end, can his dream to change the world―so far from home―still hold true?

Visit Simon Tolkien's website.

Q&A with Simon Tolkien.

The Page 69 Test: The Room of Lost Steps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann

From my Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann, author of North of the Sunlit River: A Novel:

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

I hope the title North of the Sunlit River is compelling and original, but also relatable enough that people don’t ask, what the heck could this book possibly be about? I think the word “north” is fitting because it’s not just about a specific place in Alaska, but about the idea and feel of living in the North. “Sunlit” is a reference to the extended daylight hours of summer in Alaska, and it also describes the river as not a specific one, but one that means something to these characters in this story. Every river is sunlit at some point, but this one belongs to them and the particular memories they made there. I also think the themes suggested by the title are present throughout the novel, but they don’t come fully together until the very end, so my hope is the title is a thread that can be followed to...[read on]

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alma Katsu's "Fiend," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Fiend by Alma Katsu.

The entry begins:

In the case of Fiend, this isn’t a hypothetical. We optioned Fiend for a TV series shortly after we buttoned up the final version of the manuscript, literally days after the Los Angeles wildfires. As an aside, when my film agent said we were going to go on submission, I thought she must be crazy but she was right. There was a lot of interest and despite everything going on in Hollywood at the time, we got a great offer.

There are four main characters in the novel. First is Zef, the father and patriarch of the Berisha family, one of the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties in the world. The Berishas are known for being ruthless, but they’re also dogged by rumors that they’ve benefitted from an ancient power that’s somehow been gifted to them. They call it “the family blessing,” a power that sees things fall in their favor and that their enemies are punished. I could see Oscar Isaac as Zef: handsome but hard and ruthless. He’s got the strong facial characteristics needed for this character: the piercing eyes, strong jaw, prominent nose.

Even though there are multiple narrators, Maris is ostensibly the book’s protagonist. She’s the middle of Zef’s three children. She thinks she’s the obvious choice to take over as head of the family and the business empire, but...[read on]

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Fiend.

My Book, The Movie: Fiend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas J. Main's "Reforming Social Services in New York City"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Reforming Social Services in New York City: How Major Change Happens in Urban Welfare Policies by Thomas J. Main.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reforming Social Services in New York City examines efforts across six decades to respond to poverty, joblessness, and homelessness through the establishment and periodic restructuring of the city's Human Resources Administration (HRA) and related social welfare agencies.

As Thomas J. Main shows through archival research and interviews with key figures, the HRA has been the focus of several mayoralties. The John Lindsay administration's creation of the HRA in 1966 was a classic liberal effort to fight poverty; Rudy Giuliani brought dramatic change by implementing work-oriented welfare reform; and the Bill de Blasio administration attempted to install a progressive social welfare agenda within the city's social service agencies to reduce inequality. Reforming Social Services in New York City tells the story of these efforts, assessing the strategies employed and the success of their outcomes, concluding that major nonincremental change in urban welfare policy is not only possible but has been effective.

Thomas J. Main is Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of The Rise of Illiberalism, The Rise of the Alt-Right, and Homelessness in New York City.

Learn more about Reforming Social Services in New York City at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Reforming Social Services in New York City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the transformative power of live music

M. L. Rio has been an actor, a bookseller, an academic, and a music writer. She holds an MA in Shakespeare studies and a PhD in English literature. She is the author of the internationally bestselling novel If We Were Villains and the USA Today bestselling novella Graveyard Shift. Her new novel is Hot Wax.

At Electric Lit she tagged "eight books [that] showcase how triumphant and transformative live music can be." One title on the list:

Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti

Durastanti’s semi-autobiographical novel follows the daughter of two deaf parents as she navigates a chaotic upbringing divided between a small town in Southern Italy and New York City. Her early life is defined by her parents’ shared disability, the unique sonic landscape she and her brother—who are both hearing—occupy. Her mother loves to watch live concerts on TV, moved by the performances she cannot hear, prompted to ask the young Claudia, “What is music like?”

Their extended Italian family is inherently musical. Claudia’s grandfather and his friends try to share the experience with her mother by dancing tarantellas and stomping on the floor, “hoping the vibrations would sail up her calves, ripple in her hips, crash against her ribs.” Claudia’s mother eventually sours on music, while Claudia herself becomes a devotee, moving to London as a young adult in a doomed effort to join the fading punk scene. She too is disappointed, realizing she has arrived too late and moved there for the wrong reasons. But music still has enormous influence and becomes a defining feature of her identity outside of a family where there was little room for her.

Read about another entry on Rio's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kitty Zeldis reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis, author of One of Them: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I’ve just finished with When Women Ruled Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow. It’s a portrait of three major department stores in New York City—Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor and Bendel’s—and the women responsible for their respective successes. The glory days of the American department store are, alas, over, but this book makes them live again. I enjoyed it so much that...[read on]

About One of Them, from the publisher:

The beloved author of Not Our Kind and The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights returns with a story of secrets, friendship, and betrayal about two young women at Vassar in the years after World War II, a powerful and moving tale of prejudice and pride that echoes the cultural and social issues of today.

Anne Bishop seems like a typical Vassar sophomore—one of a popular group of privileged WASP friends. None of the girls in her circle has any idea that she’s Jewish, or that her real name is or that her real first name is Miriam. Pretending to be a Gentile has made life easier—as Anne, she no longer suffers the snubs, snide remarks, and daily restrictions Jews face. She enjoys her college life of teas, late-night conversations, and mixers. She turns a blind eye to the casual anti-Semitism that flourishes among her friends and classmates—after all, it's no longer directed at her.

But her secret life is threatened when she becomes fascinated by a girl not in her crowd. Delia Goldhush is sophisticated, stylish, brilliant, and unashamedly Jewish—and seems not to care that she’s an outcast among the other students. Knowing that her growing closeness with Delia would be social suicide if it were discovered, Anne keeps their friendship quiet. Delia seems to understand—until a cruelty on Anne’s part drives them apart and sends them scattering to other corners of the world, alone and together.

Visit Kitty Zeldis's website

My Book, The Movie: Not Our Kind.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis (December 2018).

Coffee with a Canine: Kitty Zeldis & Dottie.

The Page 69 Test: Not Our Kind.

The Page 69 Test: The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights.

My Book, The Movie: One of Them.

Q&A with Kitty Zeldis.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight dark tales from Spanish-speaking authors

Natalie Sierra is a Latina poet, author, and editor whose work explores themes of desire, identity, and the supernatural. She is the author of the poetry collection Medusa (2020), and the novel Charlie, Forever and Ever (2021). Sierra currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Pomona, California, and is the President of Cafe Con Libros Press, a nonprofit bookstore and literary hub. Her writing has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Westwind Journal of the Arts, and other literary outlets. She specializes in dark, genre-bending narratives with strong emotional and psychological undercurrents.

Sierra's new book is Beyond the Grace of God: A Story of Desire.

At B&N Reads the author tagged eight "chilling works by Spanish-speaking authors prove that horror transcends borders." One title on the list:

The Devil Takes You Home: A Novel
By Gabino Iglesias


A father, drowning in debt and grief, takes one last job hijacking a cartel shipment—only to be pulled into a nightmarish journey of violence and the supernatural across Texas and Mexico. Brutal, poetic and unforgettable, Iglesia’s story cements him as one of today’s most boundary-breaking voices in horror.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Devil Takes You Home is among Elizabeth Gonzalez James's eleven weird and wild books of Texas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Obst's "Saving Ourselves from Big Car"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Saving Ourselves from Big Car by David Obst.

About the book, from the publisher:

Cars are killing people and making the planet uninhabitable. Crashes take the lives of more than a million people around the world each year. Air pollution linked to motor vehicles contributes to even more untimely deaths. Highways and unsafe streets have devastated cities, yet traffic congestion still swallows up countless hours. And carbon emissions from transportation are a key driver of climate change, which now threatens to make the world unlivable. Why do we still worship at the altar of the car? How can we find alternatives that are healthier for the planet and ourselves?

This book exposes how “Big Car”―the complex of companies in the automobile, oil, insurance, media, and concrete industries that promote and entrench car dependence―has pursued profit at the expense of the common good. David Obst explores how Big Car gained almost immeasurable influence over our lives, weighing the benefits and the costs of reliance on private automobiles. He details how industry covered up the harms of lead additives, fought against seatbelts, and continues to fund climate-change denialism. Obst considers the future of mobility, surveying how cities―from Taipei to Tempe, Copenhagen to Chicago―are experimenting with forms of transportation that offer alternatives to the dominance of cars. Provocative and comprehensive, Saving Ourselves from Big Car is a powerful wake-up call for us to change how we use cars before it’s too late.

Visit David Obst's website.

The Page 99 Test: Saving Ourselves from Big Car.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alma Katsu's "Fiend"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fiend by Alma Katsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.

Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.

The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.

At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Fiend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books marrying climate fiction with technology

Carolina Ciucci is a teacher, writer and reviewer based in the south of Argentina. She hoards books like they’re going out of style. In case of emergency, you can summon her by talking about Ireland, fictional witches, and the Brontë family. At Book Riot she tagged eight titles marrying climate fiction with technology.

One title on the list:

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

It takes impressive technology to build a floating city in the Arctic Circle, from geothermal heating to sustainable energy. But people are people everywhere, and soon crime and corruption join the inhabitants in this supposedly miraculous place. But when a woman arrives (riding an orca and accompanied by a polar bear, no less), she begins to put together a resistance.

Read about another entry on the list.

Blackfish City is among Vanessa Armstrong's five nautical SFF books to read when you’re far from shore and Amy Brady's seven books that provocatively tackle climate change.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ayoush Lazikani's "The Medieval Moon"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing by Ayoush Lazikani.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vivid new history of how medieval people around the world perceived the moon

When they gazed at the moon, medieval people around the globe saw an object that was at once powerful and fragile, distant and intimate—and sometimes all this at once. The moon could convey love, beauty, and gentleness; but it could also be about pain, hatred, and violence. In its circularity the moon was associated with fullness and fertility. Yet in its crescent and other shifting forms, the moon could seem broken, even wounded.

In this beautifully illustrated history, Ayoush Lazikani reveals the many ways medieval people felt and wrote about the moon. Ranging across the world, from China to South America, Korea to Wales, Lazikani explores how different cultures interacted with the moon. From the idea that the Black Death was caused by a lunar eclipse to the wealth of Persian love poetry inspired by the moon’s beauty, this is a truly global account of our closest celestial neighbour.

Learn more about The Medieval Moon at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Medieval Moon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Zoë Rankin

From my Q&A with Zoë Rankin, author of The Vanishing Place:

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

When my manuscript was still in working draft form on my computer, it was titled The Wilder Child. This first title idea was inspired by the opening hook of an unkempt child appearing from the bush (vast areas of dense New Zealand forest). But something about it didn’t hit quite right. My New Zealand publisher and I went back and forth, over a few months, until we settled on The Vanishing Place. At one point, a character in the novel says, ‘this is the vanishing place,’ a statement which holds true on a number of levels. The New Zealand bush has this ability to swallow you up, to hold tight and never let go. It is a place where secrets and people can truly disappear. I think, as a title, The Vanishing Place evokes questions and intrigue and creates a sense of...[read on]

Follow Zoë Rankin on Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A with Zoë Rankin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David McGlynn's "Everything We Could Do"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Everything We Could Do: A Novel by David McGlynn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of a small-town Wisconsin NICU, a sweeping story of parenthood, family, and redemption

After a decade of miscarriages, Brooke Jensen is finally pregnant—with quadruplets. When she goes into labor after twenty-three weeks, Brooke and her husband rush to the hospital in the small town of Hanover, Wisconsin. For the 203 days that follow, they’re plunged into the terrifying and mysterious netherworld of the neonatal intensive care unit.

As the babies grow and struggle, fall turns to stark upper-Midwest winter. Brooke bonds with Dash, a senior nurse whose son, Landon, had been a patient in the NICU years earlier and is now straining his parents’ abilities to care for him. Both families bend and edge closer to breaking, and the questions mount: What does love look like? What does it mean to save a life?

A fiercely honest portrait of American parenthood, the American healthcare system, and Rust Belt communities, Everything We Could Do lays bare the ways that families are formed and remade in times of crisis.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

Q&A with David McGlynn.

The Page 69 Test: Everything We Could Do.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Amanda Laury Kleintop's "Counting the Cost of Freedom"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Counting the Cost of Freedom: The Fight Over Compensated Emancipation after the Civil War by Amanda Laury Kleintop.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the Civil War, the US government abolished slavery without reimbursing enslavers, diminishing the white South’s wealth by nearly 50 percent. After the Confederacy’s defeat, white Southerners demanded federal compensation for the financial value of formerly enslaved people and fought for other policies that would recognize abolition’s costs during Reconstruction. As Amanda Laury Kleintop shows, their persistence eventually led to the creation of Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which abolished the right to profit from property in people. Surprisingly, former Confederates responded by using Lost Cause history-making to obscure the fact that they had demanded financial redress in the first place. The largely successful efforts of white southerners to erase this history continues to generate false understandings today.

Kleintop draws from an impressive array of archival sources to uncover this lost history. In doing so, she demonstrates how this legal battle also undermined efforts by formerly enslaved people to receive reparations for themselves and their descendants—a debate that persists in today’s national dialogue.

Learn more about Counting the Cost of Freedom at the University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Counting the Cost of Freedom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top historical novels that capture the 18th century

Laura Shepherd-Robinson is the award-winning, Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of four historical novels including the newly released The Art of a Lie.

At CrimeReads Shepherd-Robinson tagged six "works of fiction [that] explore the vast contradictions and extreme hypocrisies of our so-called Age of Enlightenment." (She also included one title from 1782, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos.) One title on the list:

A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss

Set in early 18th century London, this is a bawdy, picaresque romp, with a colorful array of rogues and wenches populating its pages. However, in between the intricate crime plot and the humor, the novel tackles some serious subjects: the anti-Semitism and legal oppressions faced by Jews in London at that time, as well as the world of the early money markets and joint stock companies. The story is narrated by Benjamin Weaver, a Jew and former boxer turned thieftaker. Weaver is told by a client that his estranged father, lately deceased, was in truth murdered. Unable to ignore this information, Weaver hunts for the killer, drawn back into the family he tried to escape, and the company of his beautiful cousin, Miriam. His inquiry brings him up against many enemies, notably the powerful Bank of England, their rival, the South Sea Company and the famous underworld villain, Jonathan Wild. Weaver is a brilliant protagonist, flawed, fun, but also complex and conflicted about his heritage.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Conspiracy of Paper is among Samantha Greene Woodruff's five books that explore the complexities of the stock market.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jessica Bryant Klagmann reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann, author of North of the Sunlit River: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Right now, I’m reading Weyward by Emilia Hart and Dear Writer by Maggie Smith, and listening to Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. I’m branching out a little on the first two, because I don’t read a lot of historical fiction or fantasy, and I haven’t read a book of writing advice in a long time, but I’m enjoying both a lot so far. I’ve read Arctic Dreams before, but it’s such a gorgeous book, it felt like a good way to head into the launch of North of the Sunlit River, which takes place in...[read on]

About North of the Sunlit River, from the publisher:

From the author of This Impossible Brightness comes a heartrending trek through grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness as a young woman seeks the truth that will heal her.

Eila Jacobsen is adrift, reeling from her father’s recent death and still suffering from the loss of her best friend. When invited to join a research trip to a remote part of Alaska, she takes the chance to refocus her life and perhaps unravel the mystery behind the dwindling caribou population.

But as Eila buries herself in data, she stumbles across something remarkable. Concealed in the pages of her father’s journal is a discovery with life-changing possibilities. So why was it abandoned?

Unable to ignore its potential, Eila ventures deeper into the Alaskan tundra in search of healing and answers. But she’s not the only one in need of a new beginning, and she’s not the only one looking.

Pursued across the landscape and haunted by secrets, Eila presses on, unearthing the regrets of those closest to her, and revealing the joy and forgiveness that bind them together.

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top books that celebrate Black performance

Lauren Morrow studied dance and creative writing at Connecticut College and earned an MFA in fiction from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She was a Kimbilio Fellow and an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow and is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards, among other prizes. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares and the South Carolina Review. She worked in publicity at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is now a senior publicist at Dutton, Plume, and Tiny Reparations Books. Originally from St. Louis, she lives in Brooklyn.

Morrow's new novel is Little Movements.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight books that "explore performance in various ways—its power and pressures—beautifully exposing the talent and vulnerability of the characters, and turning the reader into an audience member, eager to give a standing ovation." One title on the list:

Zadie Smith, Swing Time

Two young biracial women meet in a London dance class as girls—Tracey is the more technically talented, while the unnamed narrator has an emotive voice and big ideas about race and the world. While performance is a major part of their lives individually—Tracey becoming a chorus line dancer, the narrator becoming an assistant to a pop star—a performance element that is particularly striking here is the way Smith traces dance from past to present, from Africa through the diaspora. Readers are given a taste of everyone from Michael Jackson (an ongoing motif throughout the novel and self-described “slave to the rhythm”) to the Nicholas Brothers to a Kankurang dancers of West Africa (“the greatest dancer I ever saw”). I could go on forever about the layers of Black performance here—it’s, unsurprisingly, a stunner.

Read about another novel on Morrow's list.

Swing Time is among Amanda Brainerd's eight books to take you back to the 1980s and Robert Haller's six top novels that reference pop music.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark LeBar's "Just People"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Just People: Virtue, Equality, and Respect by Mark LeBar.

About the book, from the publisher:

We often think of justice as a virtue that belong to states, societies, and institutions. It has not always been that way. Justice began as something between individual people, and only recently has its application to larger groups become predominant. In Just People, Mark LeBar makes a case for recovering the original priority of justice in and between individual people, as a virtue of character.

The model for this virtue comes from Aristotle, whose own notion of the virtue of justice has notable shortcomings. Just People argues that we should understand justice in people as a matter of recognition of and respect for equal authority to obligate one another. That is, we should see one another as having equal capacity to obligate others through our persons and choices. This is a form of equality that is usually overlooked in discussions of equality, but here it is the cornerstone of justice, vindicating Aristotle's thought that justice is itself a matter of a kind of equality.

LeBar rethinks a number of popular assumptions, including that we can make sense of justice in societies or institutions without thinking of the implications for our aspirations to be just people -- a thought that is long overdue. His book is a reformulation of justice, with the potential to fundamentally change the way we treat one another.

Learn more about Just People at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Just People.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Colt's "Cold Island," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Peter Colt's Cold Island: A Novel.

The entry begins:

I have to confess something dear readers. This concept is brilliant because since the first movie was made, every author pictures their book as a movie. I don't care what you write, how you write, we all do.

My novel Cold Island, returns to my roots, both literally and literary. My first novel The Off Islander was set on Nantucket Island and I lived there until I was 13. Even after I moved away I went back regularly until my father passed away in 2014. I mention all of this because I not only picture actors but also a director for the book to movie sequence.

Cold Island is set on Nantucket Island, in both 1981 and 2016. When I was writing the book I was concerned about casting two characters, Massachusetts State Police Detective Tommy Kelly and Nantucket Police Detective Jo Harris. There are lots of other characters but those were the two that carry the story. There is a roughly ten year age difference between them.

My first choice to play MSP Detective Tommy Kelly is Ben Affleck. He is also the person whom I would want to direct the movie as well. My protagonist Tommy Kelly is a lifelong resident of Massachusetts. He is fit and complex. Ben Affleck is a solid actor but would have a huge advantage in that none of the regional nuance would have to be explained to him. He knows it because he's lived it. And for the Boston/Massachusetts accent...[read on]

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

Writers Read: Peter Colt.

My Book, The Movie: Cold Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that make good companions when you need emotional support

An avid bibliophile with a degree in chemistry, Karnam Vashisht spends most of her time trying to juggle all of her hobbies. She has a penchant for assigning Taylor Swift songs to people and characters. On most days, she can be found lounging with her cat, Aslan, and cozying up with her current read.

At The Nerd Daily Vashisht tagged "five books that are like a warm coffee on a rainy day." One title on the list:

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney is a book about friendships and trying to find your place in the world.

The book centres around two friends, Alice and Eileen, who found each other in college and quickly developed a deep friendship. The story is set a few years later, when Alice has moved away from Dublin. The two still communicated via emails, where they ruminate about the condition of the world, how all art is now commodified, and basically everything that is wrong with the world.

At the core of the novel is their love for each other and despite the characters being almost 30, it is still a coming-of-age story of sorts. It is Eileen trying to find a place in this world when all her life she has been treated as an inferior. It is Alice slowly getting back on her feet, finding her solace somewhere far from her friends. It is Simon, his unwavering faith and his desire to do better in this world. And it is Felix, with his callous attitude, yet a softness for the people around him. The characters are raw, flawed, and beautifully fleshed out. It is comfortable to read about these characters who are just as human, diffident, and in search of affection as us. In a world that is chaotic, tiring, and often lonesome, reading about these relationships brings forth a comfort that maybe we are not all truly alone.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast's "Wheat at War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War by Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast.

About the book, from the publisher:

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers of France, Britain, and Italy faced a fundamental problem: keeping their soldier and civilian populations safe from starvation.

Wheat at War describes how, faced with this immense challenge, the Allies devised a multilateral institution--the Wheat Executive--to do what no state could do alone. Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast examine the difficult considerations made by the allied powers when ceding authority to an international body that would make decisions for them. Beyond successfully managing wheat shipping and distribution, they argue, the Wheat Executive proved to have significant influence in the evolving landscape of interstate cooperation. As a case study, the Wheat Executive improves our understanding of international institutional design, the importance of commodities during wartime, economic coordination amongst wartime coalition members, and the legacies of international cooperation during the First World War. As one of the first great experiments in supranationalism, the Allies' management of wheat while at war provides lessons about the emergence of international organizations and their contours.

Learn more about Wheat at War at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: How States Pay for Wars.

The Page 99 Test: Wheat at War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ronlyn Domingue's "The Mercy of Thin Air"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue.

About the book, from the publisher:

New Orleans, 1920s. Raziela Nolan is in the throes of a magnificent love affair when she dies in a tragic accident. In an instant, she leaves behind her one true love and her dream of becoming a doctor—but somehow, she still remains. Immediately after her death, Razi chooses to stay between—a realm that exists after life and before whatever lies beyond it.

From this remarkable vantage point, Razi narrates the stories of her lost love, Andrew, and the relationship of Amy and Scott, a couple whose house she haunts almost seventy-five years later. The Mercy of Thin Air entwines these two fateful and redemptive love stories that echo across three generations. From ambitious, forward-thinking Razi, who illegally slips birth control guides into library books; to hip Web designer Amy, who begins to fall off the edge of grief; to Eugenia, caught between since the Civil War, the characters in this wondrous novel sing with life. Evoking the power of love, memory, and time, The Mercy of Thin Air culminates in a startling finish that will leave readers breathless.

Visit Ronlyn Domingue's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Mercy of Thin Air.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with David McGlynn

From my Q&A with David McGlynn, author of Everything We Could Do: A Novel:

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

The novel's title, Everything We Could Do, is meant to call to mind the phrase often used by physicians & healthcare providers after a patient dies -- "we did everything we could." The phrase is often of little comfort to families, but it's also absolutely necessary. People need to know the doctors and nurses did everything imaginable to save a life. Everything We Could Do is set not only in a hospital, but in a neonatal intensive care unit, where the smallest, most fragile humans cling to life. In the novel's second plot line, one of the NICU nurses struggles to care for her disabled, nearly adult son, even though she has fought and advocated for him throughout his life. In both cases, characters try "everything" to hold onto the ones they love. But everything...[read on]

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

Q&A with David McGlynn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books that explore the love letters of literary icons

Christine Estima is an Arab woman of mixed ethnicity (Lebanese, Syrian, and Portuguese) and the author of the short story collection The Syrian Ladies Benevolent Society, which the CBC called one of the Best Fiction Books of 2023. She has written for The New York Times, The Walrus, VICE, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Maisonneuve, the Toronto Star, and the CBC. Her story “Your Hands Are Blessed” was included in Best Canadian Stories 2023. She was a finalist for the 2023 Lee Smith Novel Prize and was shortlisted for the 2018 Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism. Estima has a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies from York University and lives in Toronto.

Her new novel is Letters to Kafka.

At Electric Lit Estima tagged eight favorite books that explore the love letters of literary icons. One title on the list:

Furious Love by Nancy Schoenberger and Sam Kashner

In the weeks leading up to her death, Elizabeth Taylor granted access to the love letters she exchanged with Richard Burton for this book. The two had famously caused an adulterous scandal on the set of Cleopatra as co-stars, and ultimately married, and divorced, twice. Although neither were writers, their love letters are second to none. Burton wrote to Taylor, “I am forever punished by the Gods for being given fire and trying to put it out. The fire, of course, is you.” And later, “My blind eyes are desperately waiting for the sight of you.” Taylor wrote in return that Burton “was magnificent at making love… at least to me.”

Read about another entry on the list.

Furious Love is among Amanda Bennett's five best tales about stormy couples.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Devoney Looser's "Wild for Austen"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane by Devoney Looser.

About the book, from the publisher:

Incisive, funny, and deeply-researched insights into the life, writing, and legacy of Jane Austen, by the preeminent scholar Devoney Looser.

Thieves! Spies! Abolitionists! Ghosts! If we ever truly believed Jane Austen to be a quiet spinster, scholar Devoney Looser puts that myth to rest at last in Wild for Austen. These, and many other events and characters, come to life throughout this rollicking book. Austen, we learn, was far wilder in her time than we’ve given her credit for, and Looser traces the fascinating and fantastical journey her legacy has taken over the past 250 years.

All six of Austen’s completed novels are examined here, and Looser uncovers striking new gems therein, as well as in Austen’s juvenilia, unfinished fiction, and even essays and poetry. Looser also takes on entirely new scholarship, writing about Austen’s relationship to the abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage. In examining the legacy of Austen’s works, Looser reveals the film adaptations that might have changed Hollywood history had they come to fruition, and tells extraordinary stories of ghost-sightings, Austen novels cited in courts of law, and the eclectic members of the Austen extended family whose own outrageous lives seem wilder than fiction.

Written with warmth, humor, and remarkable details never before published, Wild for Austen is the ultimate tribute to Jane Austen.

Visit Devoney Looser's website.

The Page 99 Test: Sister Novelists.

The Page 99 Test: Wild for Austen.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Peter Colt reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Peter Colt, author of Cold Island: A Novel.

His entry begins:

I just finished Mark Bowden's excellent Hue 1968. It is an excellent history of the Battle for Hue City during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. Bowden, a journalist, not a historian does a fantastic job of telling the history of what was one of, if not the bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The advantage that Bowden brings to the book is his having interviewed numerous people, Marines, soldiers, Vietcong, North Vietnamese Army soldiers, Vietnamese and American civilians who were all directly involved in the battle. In doing so he creates a very balanced and nuanced portrait of the battle. I have been reading books about the Vietnam war for the last thirty-five + years and this is...[read on]

About Cold Island, from the publisher:

When the remains of a young murder victim on Nantucket Island are discovered after thirty-five years, a detective begins to unearth the dark secrets of a community gone silent.

Massachusetts State Police detective Tommy Kelly is called to Nantucket Island, where a boy’s skeletal remains have been discovered at a construction site―interred for thirty-five years. The crime is especially gutting for Tommy, the father of two boys. It’s also the beginning of a grim mystery. Because no child during that period was even reported missing.

Tommy is partnered with Nantucket PD’s best detective, Jo Harris, who first chafes at the idea of a mainlander encroaching on her territory. And their work together is only raising more troubling questions. Then a possible link is found to the decades-old case of a serial killer―a vigilantly hidden part of the past that this tight-knit community would prefer to forget and never speak of again.

The secrets in their silence are so shocking they soon pull Tommy into a very dark place. Suddenly, offseason on Nantucket has never felt so cold, so isolating, or so dangerous.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

Writers Read: Peter Colt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top subtly paranormal mysteries

Amanda Chapman is a lifelong mystery lover and wordsmith. An enthusiastic fan of traditional mysteries and of New York City, she found herself wondering, “What if someone recreated Agatha Christie’s personal library—even to the furnishings and architecture—in New York City? What would happen in that space?” And thus Mrs. Christie at the Mystery Guild Library—the first in a new series—was born.

At CrimeReads Chapman tagged five "subtly paranormal myster[ies], in which little more is asked of the skeptical reader except a certain suspension of disbelief." One title on the list:

Still Life by Louise Penny

In this first of Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries, the town of Three Pines is as much a character as any of the players in the drama. “Like Narnia,” Penny writes, “it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise… Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back.” And many of us have been doing exactly that for some twenty years.

In Still Life, Gamache is called to the suspicious death in the village of Jane Neal, a much-loved retired schoolteacher who has been found dead in the woods. The locals want desperately to believe it’s a tragic hunting accident, but Gamache suspects that she has died at the hands of someone, or something, much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

In the course of the investigation, we and Gamache come to know the renowned artist Clara Morrow, the wonderfully foul-mouthed poet Ruth Zardo, a former psychologist turned bookstore owner Myrna Landers, and bistro hosts, Gabri Dubeau and Olivier Brulé. But we also come to know Gamache – empathetic but clear-sighted, intuitive but empirical. Gamache is not in any way a supernatural force. What he is, is a man charged with bringing a mysterious peace back to Three Pines.

Read about another title on Chapman's list.

Still Life is among Brittany Bunzey's ten sinister small town thrillers.

The Page 69 Test: Still Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mark Vellend's "Everything Evolves"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics by Mark Vellend.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence

Everything Evolves reveals how evolutionary dynamics shape the world as we know it and how we are harnessing the principles of evolution in pursuit of many goals, such as increasing the global food supply and creating artificial intelligence capable of evolving its own solutions to thorny problems.

Taking readers on an astonishing journey, Mark Vellend describes how all observable phenomena in the universe can be understood through two sciences. The first is physics. The second is the science of evolvable systems. Vellend shows how this Second Science unifies biology and culture and how evolution gives rise to everything from viruses and giraffes to nation-states, technology, and us. He discusses how the idea of evolution had precedents in areas such as language and economics long before it was made famous by Darwin, and how only by freeing ourselves of the notion that the study of evolution must start with biology can we appreciate the true breadth of evolutionary processes.

A sweeping tour of the natural and social sciences, Everything Evolves is an essential introduction to one of the two key pillars to the scientific enterprise and an indispensable guide to understanding some of the most difficult challenges of the Anthropocene.

Visit Mark Vellend's website.

The Page 99 Test: Everything Evolves.

--Marshal Zeringue