What is R. Dwayne Betts reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: R. Dwayne Betts, author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison.

His entry begins:

A while back I listened to Victor LaValle read from his latest novel Big Machine. LaValle's reading left me wondering what happened to his unlikely narrator, Ricky Rice. After the reading, I waited almost a year for the book. There was no disappointment, as Big Machine brought to the page, with rare nuance, the lives of people on the outskirts of society. There was a group of them coming from every place you wouldn't expect the hero of a tale to come from: drug addicts, ladies of the night - men and women who had lived rough lives. They all found themselves amongst the Unlikely Scholars - and that is only where the story begins. Part...[read on]

About A Question of Freedom, from the publisher:

A powerful debut memoir from a published poet and emerging writer.

At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts-a good student from a lower-middle-class family-carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a "certifiable" offense, meaning that Dwayne would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, weighing only 126 pounds-not enough to fill out a medium T-shirt-he served his eight-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state.

A Question of Freedom is a coming-of-age story, with the unique twist that it takes place in prison. Utterly alone-and with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon-Dwayne confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity-one that guarantees Dwayne's survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.

R. Dwayne Betts' poetry has been widely published and he is the winner of the 2009 Beatrice Hawley Award. A Question of Freedom was published by Penguin last year.

Visit R. Dwayne Betts's website.

Writers Read: R. Dwayne Betts.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best books: Daniel H. Pink

Daniel H. Pink is the author of A Whole New Mind, Free Agent Nation, and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

For The Week magazine, he named his six favorite books about work.

One title on the list:

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (Back Bay, $14).

This darkly hilarious novel is a cautionary tale for white-collar workers. At a downward-spiraling ad agency, employees spend more time scarfing free doughnuts than doing work—all while fretting about “walking Spanish down the hall,” company lingo for being fired.

Read about another book on Pink's list.

Learn about Joshua Ferris's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lou Berney's "Gutshot Straight"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Gutshot Straight by Lou Berney.

About the book, from the publisher:

A crime caper in the tradition of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, this fast and funny debut is the story of "Shake" Bouchon, fresh out of prison and ready for life on the straight and narrow—well, maybe after *one* last job....

When Charles "Shake" Bouchon, professional wheel man, walks out of prison after a three-year stretch for grand theft auto, he's got only two problems: he's too nice a guy for the life he's led and not nice enough for any other.

So he says yes when he's asked to run a simple errand for his former boss and lover, Alexandra Ilandryan, the formidable pakhan of the Armenian mob in Los Angeles. All Shake has to do is deliver a package to Las Vegas and pick up a briefcase.

Only the package turns out to be a wholesome young housewife named Gina whose husband has run afoul of Dick Moby, aka "The Whale," an unpleasant four-hundred-pound Vegas strip-club owner. Shake hates to think what's going to happen to Gina when he delivers her to The Whale, so in a move that's as noble as it is boneheaded, he decides to set her free.

Now Shake and Gina are on the run to Panama, hoping to unload the very valuable—and highly unusual—contents of The Whale's briefcase. Shake could end up a rich man, but first he'll have to outmaneuver two angry crime bosses, a murderous Armenian thug plagued by erectile superfunction, a former pro football player who blames Shake for his romantic woes, and a billionaire swindler with a flair for the theatrical. Not to mention, and not the least, Shake will need to survive his own heart, since he's going to discover that wholesome housewife Gina is even more intriguing, and a lot more complicated, than he ever imagined.

Full of blindsided double-crosses and hard shots to the head, Gutshot Straight is a tale of love, luck, and larceny against the odds.

Read an excerpt from Gutshot Straight, and learn more about the book and author at Lou Berney's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Gutshot Straight.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Kyla Duffy & Bill

Today's featured duo at Coffee with a Canine: Kyla Duffy, founder of Happy Tails Books, & Bill the Boston Terrier.

Duffy, on who is in the photo at right:

My name is Kyla Duffy and among other things (flying trapeze artist, gymnast, editor, teacher, foster mom, etc), I'm the founder of Happy Tails Books, a publishing company on a mission to raise awareness of, and funding for, private dog rescue organizations. I started the company after realizing how many people weren't aware of the important work private dog rescue organizations do, and I'm hoping to reach out to people through our books and let them know that there are wonderful purebred and mixed-breed dogs (and puppies) available for adoption from rescue organizations all over the country other than local shelters (not that there is anything wrong with local shelters, it's just that some people are only interested in one breed and it's much easier to find that breed from a breed-specific rescue).

My Boston Terrier, Bill, was the inspiration for Happy Tails Books. He was my second and fifth foster... How? He came to me after being adopted and then returned to our rescue group. The family didn't want him because he was too scared to move after spending the first two years of his life in a 2'x2' chicken wire cage somewhere outdoors in MO. He just sat in his crate with a lifeless look in his eyes. Unfortunately, life didn't get much better for him after he came to "live" with me, because after only an hour he escaped my yard and got lost in the woods for three weeks. Luckily a jogger finally found him splayed out, trying to eat a carcass. He was down to 13 lbs (he's a 21 lb dog) and had a gash so deep on his leg that the muscle was exposed. After narrowly escaping euthanization, Bill came to live with me permanently. Healing his physical wounds were easy compared to the psychological ones, but a year and a half (and a lot of patience) later, Bill is the best companion I could ever imagine. His whole story is at...[read on]

Visit the Happy Tails Books website.

Read--Coffee with a canine: Kyla Duffy & Bill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Deborah Shlian & Linda Reid's "Dead Air," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Dead Air by Deborah Shlian & Linda Reid.

The entry begins:

If you live in Los Angeles, otherwise known as Hollywood, you quickly learn that everyone, from your dentist to your auto mechanic, has a screenplay ready and dreams of a star-studded, red carpet, IMAX theater launch. So, when in Rome…

When we wrote Dead Air, chosen as the Best Thriller/Adventure by USA Book News this year, we chose a fast-paced, action-filled, cinematic style that would give readers a “movie-in-their-heads” experience. Five foot tall, Yiddish spouting, red-haired investigative radio reporter Sammy Greene hunts down the killers of her college classmates and beloved professors at ultra-conservative Ivy League Ellsford University in New England. Like a gefilte fish out of water, Sammy quickly finds herself out of her depths and in mortal danger. The cast of potential villains is broad and diverse, and includes a rabble-rousing evangelist, a spurious senator, a confrontational police chief, and a distinguished researcher. Who among them is trying to make sure Sammy signs off the air for good?

Dead Air introduces readers to Sammy Greene, a gutsy, spunky spitfire raised in Brooklyn by her Bubbe Rose. Young redhead...[read on]

View trailers and learn more about the book and authors at the official Dead Air website.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Air.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books that expose presidential myths

Ronald Kessler is the author of In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect and the chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.

For the Wall Street Journal he named a five best list of books that explode presidential myths. One title on the list:

JFK: Reckless Youth
by Nigel Hamilton
Random House, 1992

In "Reckless Youth," Nigel Hamilton peels back myths about President John F. Kennedy, revealing his insatiable sexual appetite, his affair with pro-Nazi beauty Inga Arvad, and the importance of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, in financing and orchestrating his campaigns. "We're going to sell Jack like snow flakes," the former ambassador said before his son first ran for Congress. Later Joe lamented that "with the money I spent"—$250,000 according to Hamilton—"I could have elected my chauffeur."

Read about another book on Kessler's list.

Also see Elvin T. Lim's five best list of books on presidential rhetoric and Fred Siegel's five best list of books about presidential administrations.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Jerryson & Mark Juergensmeyer's "Buddhist Warfare"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Buddhist Warfare by Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though traditionally regarded as a peaceful religion, Buddhism has a dark side. On multiple occasions over the past fifteen centuries, Buddhist leaders have sanctioned violence, and even war. The eight essays in this book focus on a variety of Buddhist traditions, from antiquity to the present, and show that Buddhist organizations have used religious images and rhetoric to support military conquest throughout history.

Buddhist soldiers in sixth century China were given the illustrious status of Bodhisattva after killing their adversaries. In seventeenth century Tibet, the Fifth Dalai Lama endorsed a Mongol ruler's killing of his rivals. And in modern-day Thailand, Buddhist soldiers carry out their duties undercover, as fully ordained monks armed with guns.

Buddhist Warfare demonstrates that the discourse on religion and violence, usually applied to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, can no longer exclude Buddhist traditions. The book examines Buddhist military action in Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and shows that even the most unlikely and allegedly pacifist religious traditions are susceptible to the violent tendencies of man.

Learn more about Buddhist Warfare at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Buddhist Warfare.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jack Lynch reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Jack Lynch, author of 2009's The Lexicographer’s Dilemma: The Evolution of “Proper” English, from Shakespeare to “South Park” and many other publications.

One paragraph from his entry:

I recently finished Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, which charmed me; though I didn't have the reference book project in mind when I picked it up, I discovered all sorts of things I'm sure to work into that project. Those who don't know Manguel should track him down, since he's the ultimate bookish type, someone who really lives among, even inside, his books...[read on]

Jack Lynch is an Associate Professor in the English department of the Newark campus of Rutgers University, specializing in the English literature of the eighteenth century.

Among the praise for The Lexicographer’s Dilemma:

“An entertaining tour of the English language.”
—New York Times

“Memo to grammar cops: Back off! A new book on the history of "proper" English says you're just stuck up!”
—Laura Miller, Salon

“This delightful look at efforts through the centuries to define and control the English language turns out to be a history of human exasperation, frustration and free-floating angst.”
—Carolyn See, Washington Post

Visit Jack Lynch's website and blog.

Writers Read: Jack Lynch.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best: ice-skating episodes in literature

For the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature.

One ice-skating episode on the list:

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The Pickwickians take to the ice with varying degrees of skill. Bob Sawyer "described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice ... a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices". Sport is interrupted when Pickwick himself disappears through the ice, but he is rescued and hot punch is administered.

Read about another item on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Sherman & Dan Cragg's "Starfist: Double Jeopardy"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Starfist: Double Jeopardy by David Sherman and Dan Cragg.

About the book, from the publisher:

The thrilling pace of the Starfist space epic quickens as the explosive series rockets to dazzling new heights, packed with the hell-for-leather action only two battle-hardened and decorated combat vets like David Sherman and Dan Cragg can provide.

The Confederation has finally disclosed the existence of Skinks, fierce aliens bent on wiping out humankind, and announced its plan to find and destroy their home world. While the rest of the universe grapples with the news, the Skink-savvy Marines of the Confederation's Thirty-fourth Fleet Initial Strike Team (FIST) have their own take on the situation.

Though they're no longer in danger of being exiled to a ghastly netherworld for spilling the beans about the deadly aliens, the men still can't transfer out of the unit where they've been confined since they first laid eyes on the Skinks. The reason is obvious: Who else but the legendary Thirty-fourth FIST has the skills and experience to spearhead the invasion of the Skinks' home world?

Morale isn't improved by a report of Skinks on the uncolonized world of Ishtar near a mercenary force engaged in slave-driven mining operations there—which means that FIST must turn around and head right back into the jaws of hell with no downtime. But none of that matters to Lieutenant Charlie Bass and the third platoon of Company L. They're Marines, they're the best, and they've got a job to do.

The Marines will find a planet ripped apart by all-out war, with enemies on all sides. The only certainty is that the fighting will rage red-hot and relentless, and Charlie Bass and his men will be right in the thick of the action.

Learn more about the book at the publisher's website, and visit David Sherman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starfist: Double Jeopardy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Doranna Durgin & ConneryBeagle, Belle, Jean-Luc, and Kacey

The current featured pack at Coffee with a Canine: Doranna Durgin & ConneryBeagle, Belle, Jean-Luc, and Kacey.

Durgin, on how she was united with her dogs:

Kacey was my first Cardigan. She was pure pet quality (badly put together in ways that shortened her life), but pure genius. She was a companion for my then Blue-Tick/Beagle WonderHound, Strider.

Jean-Luc arrived after Strider passed and Kacey needed a companion, and a breeder friend had a brain-injured young dog in need of rehab. Jean-Luc was a tremendous project with body, coordination, sensory, and obsessive issues, but he went on to earn agility titles no one ever expected of him. He's retired now, but sometimes he comes out to gambol around.

Belle is Jean-Luc's niece, and she showed such talent for agility from the very start that her breeder gifted her to me with that in mind, and since then she's gone on to earn the highest AKC agility title available to her running class, as well as obedience and rally titles. She is a princess who tries very, very hard to be perfect.

ConneryBeagle is a force of nature. He earned his breed championship with four high-pointed majors and, in spite of several brutal attacks by giant breed dogs, has recovered enough confidence to rediscover his glee in the performance ring -- he has obedience and rally titles, and has earned the highest AKC agility title, the MACH -- the 20th Beagle to do so. I get an endless kick out of him. On the agility course he's known for his Song of Self at the start and finish line (not to mention the tipping point of the teeter). On occasion we get a spontaneous human sing-along...[read on]

Dun Lady's Jess, Doranna Durgin's first published fantasy novel, received the 1995 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall award for the best first book in the fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres.

Durgin now has over twenty novels on the shelves and more on the way.

When she's not writing, Durgin builds web pages, wanders around outside with a camera, and works with horses and dogs.

Visit Doranna Durgin's website and blog.

Writer's Read: Doranna Durgin.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Doranna Durgin & ConneryBeagle, Belle, Jean-Luc, and Kacey.

--Marshal Zeringue

January Magazine's best books of 2009, fiction

January Magazine’s writers and editors chose their favorite fiction books of 2009.

One title on the list:

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein (Algonquin Books) 304 pages

Not long ago, I reviewed this book in these pages with unbridled enthusiasm, and I'm mentioning it again to drive home the fact that this is truly among the best books of the year. A searing portrait of two families in crisis, Lauren Grodstein’s novel is filled with characters as real as you are and conflicts that both define and undermine them. Her writing is crisp, insightful, and heartbreaking, particularly as we watch Pete Dizinoff, her protagonist, go over the edge of sanity to project his son and his family. What might seem like an easy, quiet, even unassuming book is anything but. You won’t soon forget A Friend of the Family. --Tony Buchsbaum

Read about another novel on the list.

The Page 69 Test: A Friend of the Family.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Eric Goff's "Gold Medal Physics"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Gold Medal Physics: The Science of Sports by John Eric Goff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Nothing is quite as thrilling as watching superior athletes do the seemingly impossible. From Doug Flutie's "Hail Mary" pass to Lance Armstrong's record—breaking climb of Alp d'Huez to David Beckham's astounding ability to bend a soccer kick, we marvel and wonder, "How did they do that?" Well, physics professor John Eric Goff has the answers.

This tour of the wide world of sports uses some of the most exhilarating feats in recent athletic history to make basic physics concepts accessible and fun. Goff discusses the science behind American football, soccer, cycling, skating, diving, long jumping, and a host of other competitive sports. Using elite athletes such as Greg Louganis and Bob Beamon as starting points, he explains in clear, lively language the basic physical properties involved in amazing and everyday athletic endeavors. Accompanied by illustrations and mathematical equations, each chapter builds on knowledge imparted in earlier portions of the book to provide a firm understanding of the concepts involved.

Fun, witty, and imbued throughout with admiration for the simple beauty of physics, Gold Medal Physics is sure to inspire readers to think differently about the next sporting event they watch.

Learn more about the book and author at John Eric Goff's website.

John Eric Goff is an associate professor of physics and chair of the physics department at Lynchburg College.

The Page 99 Test: Gold Medal Physics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Wendy Clinch's "Double Black"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Double Black by Wendy Clinch.

About the book, from the publisher:

First in a very cool (literally) skiing series that introduces a sleuth who has ditched grad school, along with her cheating fiancée, to become a ski bum

Twenty-something Stacey Curtis is living the life she’s always dreamed about—until she finds a dead body in the ski chalet. And after her new landlord turns out to be the local sheriff, her life contains a whole lot more suspense than she bargained for. Populated with quirky characters, loaded with New England atmosphere, and co-starring a handsome young hunk with nerve, a sense of humor about it all, and an enormous trust fund, Double Black is an exciting run down some mysterious and treacherous trails.

Read an excerpt from Double Black, and learn more about the book and author at Wendy Clinch's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Double Black.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten Victorian detective stories

James McCreet is the author of The Incendiary's Trail, a Victorian detective thriller influenced by the early works of Edgar Allan Poe and drawing on detailed historical research.

For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of Victorian detective stories. One title on the list:

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Dickens was fascinated with the idea of detection and spent much time with real detectives to produce journalism including "The Modern Science of Thief-Taking" and "A Detective Police Party". In Bleak House, he is one of the first authors to feature such an investigator in the form of the sober and practical Inspector Bucket, very likely influenced by the real Inspector Field.

Read about another Victorian detective story on McCreet's list.

Bleak House is one of Rebecca Ford's favorite five fiction books and is on John Mortimer's list of the five best books about law and literature and among the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Elizabeth Ann Scarborough reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, winner of the Nebula Award for her novel The Healer's War, and the author of numerous fantasy novels. Her latest novel with co-author Anne McCaffrey is Catalyst.

Her entry begins:

Since my new book is about cats, can I tell you about some of my favorite cat books, fictional and non? I've revisited several of them while working on Catalyst. Some I've read fairly recently (like Dewey) and some are favorites from my childhood. My first favorite cat books were by Paul Gallico (Thomasina, made into a pretty good Disney movie, and The Abandoned (in the US.; in England it was called Jennie). While distracting the kittens from a tragedy in Catalyst, Chessie teaches them to the all-important cat skill of washing, drawing on lessons learned from "one of the classics of feline literature" (referring to Jennie, whose motto was "when in doubt, wash.") Having been imprinted by these books at any early age, I am of the opinion that abandoning a cat, or any other pet, is a hanging offense. I also loved the H. Allen Smith Rhubarb series about the gnarly old tomcat who owned a baseball team. Then there was the book upon which the Disney movie...[read on]

About Catalyst, from the publisher:

Pilot, navigator, engineer, doctor, scientist—ship's cat? All are essential to the well-staffed space vessel. Since the early days of interstellar travel, when Tuxedo Thomas, a Maine coon cat, showed what a cat could do for a ship and its crew, the so-called Barque Cats have become highly prized crew members. Thomas's carefully bred progeny, ably assisted by humans—Cat Persons—with whom they share a deep and loving bond, now travel the galaxy, responsible for keeping spacecraft free of vermin, for alerting human crews to potential environmental hazards, and for acting as morale officers.

Even among Barque Cats, Chessie is something special. Her pedigree, skills, and intelligence, as well as the close rapport she has with her human, Janina, make her the most valuable crew member aboard the Molly Daise. And the litter of kittens in her belly only adds to her value.

Then the unthinkable happens. Chessie is kidnapped—er, catnapped—from Dr. Jared Vlast's vet clinic at Hood Station by a grizzled spacer named Carl Poindexter. But Chessie's newborn kittens turn out to be even more extraordinary than their mother. For while Chessie's connection to Janina is close and intuitive, the bond that the kitten Chester forms with Carl's son, Jubal, is downright telepathic. And when Chester is sent into space to learn his trade, neither he nor Jubal will rest until they're reunited.

But the announcement of a widespread epidemic affecting livestock on numerous planets throws their future into doubt. Suddenly the galactic government announces a plan to impound and possibly destroy all exposed animals. Not even the Barque Cats will be spared.

With the clock racing against them, Janina, Jubal, Dr. Vlast, and a handful of very special kittens will join forces with the mysterious Pshaw-Ra—an alien-looking cat with a hidden agenda—to save the Barque Cats, other animals, and quite possibly the universe as they know it from total destruction.

Visit Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's website.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William Poundstone's "Priceless"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone.

About the book, from the publisher:

Prada stores carry a few obscenely expensive items in order to boost sales for everything else (which look like bargains in comparison). People used to download music for free, then Steve Jobs convinced them to pay. How? By charging 99 cents. That price has a hypnotic effect: the profit margin of the 99 Cents Only store is twice that of Wal-Mart. Why do text messages cost money, while e-mails are free? Why do jars of peanut butter keep getting smaller in order to keep the price the “same”? The answer is simple: prices are a collective hallucination.

In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate “fair” prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn’t taken long for marketers to apply these findings. “Price consultants” advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, “sale” ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.

Read an excerpt from Priceless, and view a brief video in which Poundstone discusses charm prices and the mysterious allure of "99 cents."

Visit William Poundstone's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Priceless.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books about travel

Laura Landro writes the Wall Street Journal's Finicky Traveler column and is the author of Survivor: Taking Control of Your Fight Against Cancer (1998). She named a five best list of travel books for her newspaper.

One book to make the list:

A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner, 1964

The young Ernest Hemingway hadn't yet published his first novel, "The Sun Also Rises," when he moved to Paris in 1921 as a correspondent for the Toronto Star. Soon he was mingling with the likes of Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and although he was barely earning enough to keep himself and his family fed and housed, "in Paris, then, you could live very well on almost nothing, and by skipping meals occasionally and never buying any new clothes, you could save and have luxuries." This heady memoir of the expatriate life doubtless lured many a young romantic to travel to the City of Light in pursuit of the moveable feast at its cafés, bookshops and salons. Hemingway and wife Hadley also journeyed by train through Switzerland to the Austrian frontier, where we glimpse an era before the modern ski resort: They climbed through the Alps aided by seal skins attached to their skis. Though the trip is the beginning of the end of their idyll, as he writes, "there is never any ending to Paris." A newer edition of "A Moveable Feast" published earlier this year has sparked controversy for changes made by Hemingway's grandson; for the full picture, read it side by side with the original, published after the author's suicide in 1964.

Read about another book on the list.

A Moveable Feast made Diana Souhami's top ten list of "books about Paris and London lesbians in the early 20th century" and is a book to which Russell Banks always returns.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Richardson's "Indian Summer," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Indian Summer by Tracy Richardson.

Her entry begins:

I wonder if every author imagines their book as a movie? When I write, I see the characters as fully formed people interacting in a very real world. I know the color of their hair and how they dress and what they would eat for lunch. That could partly be because I often use bits and pieces of real people and places to create my characters and settings. I usually combine several aspects of different people into a character, so no one is entirely based on a real person. The scenes begin in my imagination, but in some ways, the characters create the action themselves as the story evolves. It‘s exciting for me to see the book unfolding, almost like watching a movie.

Trying to imagine who would play the characters in Indian Summer – the movie proved to be difficult. I have such a definite picture in my mind of what the characters are like. The heroine is a twelve year old girl and there aren’t as many well known actresses that age. Then they grow up and become too old for the part. However, I think....[read on]

Read an excerpt from Indian Summer, and learn more about the book and author at Tracy Richardson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Indian Summer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Chuck Thompson's "To Hellholes and Back"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies, and the Art of Extreme Tourism by Chuck Thompson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The guru of extreme tourism sets out to face his worst fears in Africa, India, Mexico City, and—most terrifying of all—at Disney World

In the widely-acclaimed Smile When You’re Lying, Chuck Thompson laid bare the travel industry’s dirtiest secrets. Now he’s out to discover if some of the world’s most ill-reputed destinations live up to their bad raps, while confronting a few of his own travel anxieties in the process. Whether he’s traveling across the Congo with a former bodyguard from notorious dictator Joseph Mobutu’s retinue or diving into the heart of India’s monsoon season, To Hellholes and Back delivers Thompson’s trademark combination of hilarious stories and wildly provocative opinions, as well as some surprising observations about America’s evolving place in the world.

Read an excerpt from To Hellholes and Back, and learn more about the book and author at Chuck Thompson's website.

Writers Read: Chuck Thompson.

The Page 99 Test: To Hellholes and Back.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ciarán Hinds' best books

Ciarán Hinds is Aberforth Dumbledore in the forthcoming Harry Potter movies and has played many other film roles.

He named his six best books for the Daily Express. One title on his list:

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This book took me on an amazing mystery tour.

I just remember an extraordinary array of characters in a place landlocked by jungle and that I didn’t know quite what was real and what was fantasy.

He makes it seem like anything is possible.

Read about another book on Hinds' list.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of Walter Mosley's 5 favorite books, one of Eric Kraft's 5 most important books, one of James Patterson's five most important books, and is on Rebecca Stott's five best list of historical novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Courtney Summers' "Some Girls Are"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around. Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.

Read an excerpt from Some Girls Are, and learn more about the author and her work at Courtney Summers' website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Cracked Up to Be.

The Page 69 Test: Some Girls Are.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Laura van den Berg reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Laura van den Berg, author of the Dzanc Prize-winning collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us.

Her entry begins:

I’d been hearing great things about Madras Press — they publish individually bound short stories and novellas and distribute the proceeds to a charitable organization chosen by the author — and so when I stumbled upon one of their mini-books, Bobcat by Rebecca Lee, I decided to check it out. Bobcat is rooted in domestic realism, a mode of writing I sometimes find tedious, but the conflicts in Lee’s story are so precisely rendered and so deliciously layered that it completely transcends its thematic genre. The setting for Bobcat is a dinner party, hosted by the narrator, who is pregnant and has failed to make a proper terrine for the party, and her writer-husband, who is publishing his first novel. The guests — Lizbet, Frances, the husband’s too-close-for-comfort editor, the Donner-Nilsons, and Susan, who has written a book about a near fatal encounter with a Bobcat — inject a wonderful sense of texture and personality into the story, but, most importantly, each of them...[read on]

Among the praise for What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us:

"What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us is a lovely, remarkable book, full of people who strive mightily to believe in things—Bigfoot, the Lochness and Lake Michigan monsters, a tunnel leading to the other side of the world, husbands, wives, lovers, parents—they shouldn't. But Laura van den Berg lets her characters believe, and believes in them, and makes us believe, and care, too. Calm, wry, and compassionate, somehow all at once, this book is impossible to resist, and I'd bet big money that we'll be talking about Laura van den Berg and her fiction for years to come."
—Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

"There is a special kind of magic in the writing of Laura van den Berg, a damp-eyed sorceress who blends the mythological with the everyday, buoyant playfulness with lacerating sadness. Each sentence reads like a beautiful bruise smeared across pages as pale as the bodies that so often strip off their clothes and tangle together in these tender, elegant stories."
—Benjamin Percy, author of Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk

Visit Laura van den Berg's website and blog.

Writers Read: Laura van den Berg.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best bad lawyers in literature

For the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best bad lawyers in literature.

One lawyer on the list:

Guillaumin

Lawyers are predators in Madame Bovary. When Emma Bovary's debts catch up with her, she approaches the lawyer, Guillaumin, who appears to sympathise with her plight. His motives are naturally nastier than she first supposes. He agrees to advance the cash to her if she will grant him, in return, her sexual favours.

Read about another lawyer on the list.

Madame Bovary is on Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007.

See Mullan's list of ten of the best lawyers in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Diane Stuckart & Ranger, Delta, Oliver and Paprika

The current featured pack at Coffee with a Canine: Diane Stuckart & Ranger, Delta, Oliver and Paprika.

Stuckart, on how the dogs were united with her:

Ranger and his sister, Delta (also an Iggy), came from a breeder in Oklahoma. Ranger was supposed to be my dog after my sweet white German shepherd, Aspen, died, but Ranger bonded more with my husband, Gerry. We had to go get Delta so that I'd have my very own Iggy. Oliver, our Australian shepherd, is three years old and is a rescue dog. Our friend Shelby took home a mama Aussie and her four 2-week-old pups from some woman trying to sell the little guys in a garage sale! She raised them in her condo until they were old enough to be adopted out, and then we brought Ollie home with us. Since he didn't go through the usual tail bobbing, he's an "Aussie with a Tail" which makes him look almost like a different breed. Paprika--or Rika Red Rocket, as we call her--is another rescue dog also three years old. She originally was sold in a pet shop as a miniature pinscher, but we're pretty sure she's half dachshund. We're her third home, and she's with... [read on]

Diane A. S. Stuckart has put her degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma to use as a yoga teacher, biker chick, purchasing agent, farm girl, and martial artist.

She has published several critically acclaimed historical romances written as Alexa Smart and Anna Gerard, as well as numerous works of short fiction and fantasy under her own name.

Visit Diane A.S. Stuckart's website, and learn more about her latest novel, A Bolt from the Blue, the 3rd Leonardo da Vinci mystery.

View the video trailers for A Bolt from the Blue and Portrait of a Lady.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Diane Stuckart & Ranger, Delta, Oliver and Paprika.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Anthony F. D'Elia's "A Sudden Terror"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: A Sudden Terror: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome by Anthony F. D'Elia.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1468, on the final night of Carnival in Rome, Pope Paul II sat enthroned above the boisterous crowd, when a scuffle caught his eye. His guards had intercepted a mysterious stranger trying urgently to convey a warning—conspirators were lying in wait to slay the pontiff. Twenty humanist intellectuals were quickly arrested, tortured on the rack, and imprisoned in separate cells in the damp dungeon of Castel Sant’Angelo.

Anthony D’Elia offers a compelling, surprising story that reveals a Renaissance world that witnessed the rebirth of interest in the classics, a thriving homoerotic culture, the clash of Christian and pagan values, the contest between republicanism and a papal monarchy, and tensions separating Christian Europeans and Muslim Turks. Using newly discovered sources, he shows why the pope targeted the humanists, who were seen as dangerously pagan in their Epicurean morals and their Platonic beliefs about the soul and insurrectionist in their support of a more democratic Church. Their fascination with Sultan Mehmed II connected them to the Ottoman Turks, enemies of Christendom, and the love of the classical world tied them to recent rebellious attempts to replace papal rule with a republic harking back to the glorious days of Roman antiquity.

From the cosmetic-wearing, parrot-loving pontiff to the Turkish sultan, savage in war but obsessed with Italian culture, D’Elia brings to life a Renaissance world full of pageantry, mayhem, and conspiracy and offers a fresh interpretation of humanism as a dynamic communal movement.

Read an excerpt from A Sudden Terror, and learn more about the book at the Harvard University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: A Sudden Terror.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dan Brown's 6 favorite books

Dan Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol.

He named his six favorite books for The Week magazine. One title on the list.

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. For anyone interested in the interrelation of different sciences and art forms, this book can be used as an eye-opening appetizer, a main course, or a delicious desert. I’m the son of a mathematician and a musician, so the interrelations were right up my alley.

Read about another book on Brown's list.

The Wall Street Journal asked Brown if he suffers from writer's block. Check out his answer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Katharine Weber's "True Confections"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: True Confections by Katharine Weber.

About the book, from the publisher:

Take chocolate candy, add a family business at war with itself, and stir with an outsider’s perspective. This is the recipe for True Confections, the irresistible new novel by Katharine Weber, a writer whose work has won accolades from Iris Murdoch, Madeleine L’Engle, Wally Lamb, and Kate Atkinson, to name a few.

Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky’s marriage into the Ziplinsky family has not been unanimously celebrated. Her greatest ambition is to belong, to feel truly entitled to the heritage she has tried so hard to earn. Which is why Zip’s Candies is much more to her than just a candy factory, where she has worked for most of her life. In True Confections, Alice has her reasons for telling the multigenerational saga of the family-owned-and-operated candy company, now in crisis.

Nobody is more devoted than Alice to delving into the truth of Zip’s history, starting with the rags-to-riches story of how Hungarian immigrant Eli Czaplinsky developed his famous candy lines, and how each of his candies, from Little Sammies to Mumbo Jumbos, was inspired by an element in a stolen library copy of Little Black Sambo, from which he taught himself English. Within Alice’s vivid and persuasive account (is her unreliability a tactic or a condition?) are the stories of a runaway slave from the cacao plantations of Côte d’Ivoire and the Third Reich’s failed plan to establish a colony on Madagascar for European Jews.

Richly informed, deeply moving, and spiked with Weber’s trademark wit, True Confections is, at its heart, a timeless and universal story of love, betrayal, and chocolate.

Learn more about the book and author at Katharine Weber's website.

The Page 99 Test: Triangle.

Writers Read: Katharine Weber.

The Page 69 Test: True Confections.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books to share with your friends

For NPR, Gwen Weldon came up with a list of the best five books to share with your friends.

One title on the list:

Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr., hardcover, 302 pages, Viking/Penguin. List price: $25.95

While still in the womb, Junior Thibodeau is informed by a dispassionate and slightly officious voice that the world will end in 36 years, 168 days, 14 hours and 23 seconds. (Find out what else the voice tells Junior while he's in utero.) As the protagonist of Ron Currie's high-wire act of a novel grows to manhood, that fact, and that voice, remain his constant companions. The novel's driving question — can the young genius do anything to forestall or escape doomsday? — is the one that will keep you greedily turning pages. But it's the larger questions Currie poses — about how, or if, to live in a universe without meaning, and the place that love might play in it — that cause this book to linger in the memory.

Everything Matters! is a hugely imaginative novel loaded with narrative tricks and set pieces that let the author proudly show off his clever clockwork, but Currie keeps things thoroughly grounded in the messy, mysterious business of human interaction. A beautiful, sad and haunting book.

Read about another book on Weldon's list.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Matters!.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Bill Manhire reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Bill Manhire, a prize-winning poet and fiction writer who is the director of the International Institute of Modern Letters, Centre for Creative Writing at Victoria University of Wellington.

His entry begins:

Leafing the other day through the anthology Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets (edited by Andrew Johnston and Robyn Marsack), I was reminded just how remarkable is the poetry of Jenny Bornholdt. Her own most recent book is The Rocky Shore, made up of six long poems that are both ambitious and modest in their reach. Like Frank O'Hara she is an "I do this, I do that" poet - but the place where she registers the details of daily life is not Manhattan but a conventional suburban household subject to familiar extremes. On the one hand, we witness the death of a parent and a damaging illness; on the other, there are a range of small, redemptive domestic pleasures centred on family, garden, books. Bornholdt is one of the world's best kept poetry secrets, and her work makes you...[read on]

Bill Manhire has won several New Zealand Book Awards, a number of significant fellowships, and he was the 1997/1998 New Zealand Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate.

Manhire was also honored with the 2007 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. He is the director of the International Institute of Modern Letters, Centre for Creative Writing at Victoria University of Wellington. Manhire has coordinated several bestselling anthologies, and his poetry and fiction is published in New Zealand, the UK, and the USA.

Poems by Bill Manhire available online include "Love Poem," "Wulf," "The Polar Explorer's Love Song," "Death of a Poet," and "Hotel Emergencies."

Writers Read: Bill Manhire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jean Johnson's Sons of Destiny series, the miniseries

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Jean Johnson's Sons of Destiny series.

The entry begins:

Oh, dear... People have already asked me this question, you know. What would I do if my Sons of Destiny novels were turned into a movie, and who would play what roles? Oh, dear...

My only reply is that, for any of the eight books in the Sons of Destiny series, there is so much plot, smut, comedy, and magic, that the only way to successfully pull it off would be in an Anime mini-series. You can get away with a lot more in an Anime version than you could in live-action, even with today's high quality special effects ... mainly because so much of my books are indeed romantic, even passionate in nature, and a good portion of that passion is quite central to some of their plots. Not to mention it's eight whole books of plot. Each is an individual romance, yes, but they all tie together in a massive overall fantasy plot which is eight books long. So, yeah, an Anime mini-series would be the best way to go.

As for voice actors and art studios ... I haven't gotten that far. Except maybe...[read on]

Visit Jean Johnson's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Jean Johnson's Sons of Destiny series.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about the wild west

From the Barnes & Noble Review list of five books on the wild west:

Draw: The Greatest Gunfights of the American West
by James Reasoner

Novelist Reasoner (Appomatox) works in reverse and undertakes an extraction of all the legendary gunfighters of the Wild West -- Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Bat Masterson, to name just a few -- from the dime-store novels and cheap movies that obscure their true careers. Draw places these surprisingly complex figures back into history, holding each pistolero and shootout up to an unforgiving and mesmerizing light.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Lawrence Hill's "The Political Centrist"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Political Centrist by John Lawrence Hill.

About the book, from the publisher:

Today almost half of all Americans decline to define themselves as either "liberal" or "conservative." In fact, modern liberalism and conservatism seem hopelessly fragmented ideologies. Liberals claim to believe in individual freedom yet advocate a more collectivistic approach to government and an increasingly paternalistic role for the state. Conservatives are hopelessly divided between two incompatible ideals--the highly individualistic, limited-state philosophy of classical liberalism and an older, more collectivistic tradition of cultural conservatism that holds government responsible for shaping social morality. As a result, modern liberals are economic collectivists and moral individualists, while conservatives are economic individualists and moral collectivists.

Centrists reject each of these fragmented and polarized approaches to politics. We believe that government has a role to play in structuring social and economic opportunities and in reinforcing basic moral norms, yet we are deeply troubled by ever-expanding government. We reject libertarianism, left-liberalism, and the various schools of conservatism as a model for government.

Part I of The Political Centrist briefly traces the trajectory of the liberal and conservative traditions. It argues that modern liberalism is an unprincipled fusion of classical liberal and socialist ideals while modern conservatism is an untenable hybrid of economic liberalism and social conservatism. Part II offers a centrist approach to many of the most contentious contemporary political and social issues. Those include:

-- abortion
-- affirmative action
-- the death penalty
-- gay marriage
-- illegal immigration
-- judicial activism
-- the relationship of religion and politics
-- the role of government in the economy

Read the introduction to The Political Centrist, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Political Centrist.

--Marshal Zeringue