The ten hottest highbrow books for the beach

John Dugdale is the Guardian's associate media editor. One of his ten hottest highbrow books for the beach:

Tender Is the Night (1934) by F Scott Fitzgerald

The most full-on instance of classic beach fiction, as its main setting is the French Riviera, where a love triangle – psychiatrist Dick Diver, his Zelda-based wife Nicole, starlet Rosemary – plays out amid a set of American expats and tourists. Dick’s decline is marked by how well he performs such seaside stunts as aquaplaning behind a speedboat and headstands on a diving board.

Read about another book on the list.

Tender is the Night is among Gene Wilder's six all-time favorite books, DBC Pierre's top ten books writers should read, Olivia Laing's ten best books & stories on drinking and booze and Joni Rendon and Shannon McKenna Schmidt's top nine works inspired by writers’ love lives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mitch Kachun's "First Martyr of Liberty"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory by Mitch Kachun.

About the book, from the publisher:

First Martyr of Liberty explores how Crispus Attucks's death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in African Americans' struggle to incorporate their experiences and heroes into the mainstream of the American historical narrative. While the other victims of the Massacre have been largely ignored, Attucks is widely celebrated as the first to die in the cause of freedom during the era of the American Revolution. He became a symbolic embodiment of black patriotism and citizenship.

This book traces Attucks's career through both history and myth to understand how his public memory has been constructed through commemorations and monuments; institutions and organizations bearing his name; juvenile biographies; works of poetry, drama, and visual arts; popular and academic histories; and school textbooks. There will likely never be a definitive biography of Crispus Attucks since so little evidence exists about the man's actual life. While what can and cannot be known about Attucks is addressed here, the focus is on how he has been remembered--variously as either a hero or a villain--and why at times he has been forgotten by different groups and individuals from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Learn more about First Martyr of Liberty at the Oxford University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: First Martyr of Liberty.

The Page 99 Test: First Martyr of Liberty.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anna Stephens's "Godblind," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Godblind by Anna Stephens.

The entry begins:

Godblind is a gritty epic fantasy novel of rival factions and gods fighting for the soul of Rilpor and the wider world, Gilgoras. It has a large cast of central characters, so I won’t name all of them or we’ll be here all day!

Lord Galtas Morellis – the evil sidekick to Prince Rivil – is a lean, one-eyed psychopath and assassin, and when he can’t get his hands on his enemies, takes his revenge on their families instead. I think Idris Elba would be awesome as Galtas, because he does evil very, very well, and yet he retains his charisma and devilish charm throughout. Someone you hate to love, rather than love to hate.

Captain Tara Carter – Tara is the only woman in the West Rank, the elite branch of Rilpor’s army, and she’s there because she deserves to be. Despite her obvious ability, she’s spent years having to prove herself as good as the men, fending off inappropriate advances – often with her fists – and enduring the daily barrage of abuse from men angry at her captaincy. I think her sassy, competent and self-confident demeanour would be perfectly played by Hannah...[read on]

Visit Anna Stephens's website.

My Book, The Movie: Godblind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Katie Kennedy & Ernie

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Katie Kennedy & Ernie.

The author, on Ernie's best quality:

He’s incredibly loyal. He’s also incredibly brave. I was watching Jurassic Park with the kids once, and you know that scene where the T. Rex slowly turns its head and roars? Ernie stood between the kids and growled back. He weighed fifteen pounds. I’ll always love him for...[read on]

About Kennedy's latest novel, What Goes Up, from the publisher:

Rosa and Eddie are among hundreds of teens applying to NASA's mysterious Interworlds Agency. They're not exactly sure what the top-secret program entails, but they know they want in. Rosa has her brilliant parents' legacies to live up to, and Eddie has nowhere else to go--he's certainly not going to stick around and wait for his violent father to get out of jail. Even if they are selected, they have no idea what lies in store. But first they have to make it through round after round of crazy-competitive testing.

And then something happens that even NASA's scientists couldn't predict...

From the author of the acclaimed Learning to Swear in America comes another high-stakes adventure that's absolutely out of this world.

Visit Katie Kennedy's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Katie Kennedy & Ernie.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Candace Ganger reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Candace Ganger, author of The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash.

Her entry begins:

Though I was late to reading this, I've just recently finished When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore and I was left breathless by her gorgeous story-telling and prose. It's vivid and lush and put me right in the center of...[read on]

About The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash, from the publisher:

Sebastian Alvaréz is just trying to hold the pieces together, to not flunk out, to keep his sort-of-best friend Wild Kyle from doing something really bad. And to see his beloved Ma through chemo. But when he meets Birdie Paxton, a near-Valedictorian who doesn’t realize she’s smoking hot in her science pun T-shirt, at a party, an undeniable attraction sparks. And suddenly he’s not worried about anything. But before they are able to exchange numbers, they are pulled apart. A horrifying tragedy links Birdie and Bash together – yet neither knows it. When they finally reconnect, and are starting to fall – hard – the events of the tragedy unfold, changing both their lives in ways they can never undo. Told in alternating perspectives full of the best nerdy banter this side of Ohio, some seriously awesome skate moves, and the promise of a kiss destined to make the world stop turning, The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash will break your heart and put it back together again.

Visit Candace Ganger's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash.

Writers Read: Candace Ganger.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty top books that are absolute dorm room essentials

At the B&N Reads blog Brian Boone tagged twenty of the "books you’ll need to best understand, appreciate, and enhance the college-going experience," including:

White Noise, by Don DeLillo

Don DeLillo’s classic novel is told through the eyes of a contented professor and patriarch of a large, blended, technology-addicted family who leads a small northeastern college’s Hitler Studies program. While the themes of the novel deal with the omnipresence of chemicals in our food, air, and bodies, DeLillo also nails the day-to-day of college life, as well as how it feels to live in a university town, particularly how it’s both charmingly unchanging and always exciting due to the constant influx and outflux of new students and teachers.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Gin Phillips's "Fierce Kingdom"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips.

About the book, from the publisher:

An electrifying novel about the primal and unyielding bond between a mother and her son, and the lengths she’ll go to protect him.

The zoo is nearly empty as Joan and her four-year-old son soak up the last few moments of playtime. They are happy, and the day has been close to perfect. But what Joan sees as she hustles her son toward the exit gate minutes before closing time sends her sprinting back into the zoo, her child in her arms. And for the next three hours—the entire scope of the novel—she keeps on running.

Joan’s intimate knowledge of her son and of the zoo itself—the hidden pathways and under-renovation exhibits, the best spots on the carousel and overstocked snack machines—is all that keeps them a step ahead of danger.

A masterful thrill ride and an exploration of motherhood itself—from its tender moments of grace to its savage power—Fierce Kingdom asks where the boundary is between our animal instinct to survive and our human duty to protect one another. For whom should a mother risk her life?

Visit Gin Phillips's website.

Writers Read: Gin Phillips.

The Page 69 Test: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips.

--Marshal Zeringue

Naomi Klein's six favorite books

Naomi Klein's newest book is No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump's Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. One of her six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

In a sea of dystopian sci-fi, this 1971 novel is a rare example of successful utopian fiction. Set on the imaginary planets of Urras and Anarres — stand-ins for the United States and Soviet Union — The Dispossessed paints a hopeful and complex portrait of a society rooted in collectivism.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Dispossessed is among Luke Rhinehart's five favorite sci-fi satires.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sofia Grant reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sofia Grant, author of The Dress in the Window: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

The editor will accuse me (rightly) of nepotism, but I am thoroughly enthralled by The Downside, the latest novel from Mike Cooper, who happens to be my brother. It will be out in September and is already garnering smashing reviews.

Before The Downside won the inaugural Mysterious Press award my sister and I were privileged to read it in draft form. I’m a lazy, distractible reader, apt to wander away from books for days or weeks when they fall under my bed or disappear in my gym bag. I have shiny object disorder and can nearly always be lured away by another book with a pretty cover.

But I read The Downside in one day. Mike’s reviews always seem to contain words like “blistering pace” and “thrilling, non-stop action”—you’ll never find these sorts of observations in my own reviews, in which disgruntled readers sometimes accuse me of...[read on]

About The Dress in the Window, from the publisher:

World War II has ended and American women are shedding their old clothes for the gorgeous new styles. Voluminous layers of taffeta and tulle, wasp waists, and beautiful color—all so welcome after years of sensible styles and strict rationing.

Jeanne Brink and her sister Peggy both had to weather every tragedy the war had to offer—Peggy now a widowed mother, Jeanne without the fiancé she'd counted on, both living with Peggy's mother-in-law in a grim mill town. But despite their grey pasts they long for a bright future—Jeanne by creating stunning dresses for her clients with the help of her sister Peggy's brilliant sketches.

Together, they combine forces to create amazing fashions and a more prosperous life than they'd ever dreamed of before the war. But sisterly love can sometimes turn into sibling jealousy. Always playing second fiddle to her sister, Peggy yearns to make her own mark. But as they soon discover, the future is never without its surprises, ones that have the potential to make—or break—their dreams.

Visit Sofia Grant's website.

Writers Read: Sofia Grant.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mitch Kachun's "First Martyr of Liberty," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory by Mitch Kachun.

The entry begins:

It would be challenging to make a film based on the life of Crispus Attucks since we know almost nothing about the man’s life that can be confirmed with documentary evidence. This is a big part of what makes Attucks such a fascinating figure—he is pretty much a blank slate, so over the nearly 250 years since his death in the 1770 Boston Massacre various people or groups have constructed a wide range of versions of his life to suit their purposes—sometimes a hero who was the first to give his life for American independence; sometimes a good-for-nothing rowdy who was a threat to the social order; sometimes an irrelevant nobody who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would be doubly challenging to make a film based on my book because, while my analysis does suggest the most likely framework for Attucks’s life, family, and experiences, it is primarily an exploration of the stories and myths that have grown around him over the past quarter millennium.

There actually have been several efforts to make films based on Attucks’s life, and several playwrights have developed scripts as well. In the 1940s one African American writer claimed to have gotten Paul Robeson to agree to portray Attucks on the silver screen, and in the 1980s a playwright contacted the agent for James...[read on]

Learn more about First Martyr of Liberty at the Oxford University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: First Martyr of Liberty.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Noah Benezra Strote's "Lions and Lambs"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Lions and Lambs: Conflict in Weimar and the Creation of Post-Nazi Germany by Noah Benezra Strote.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold new interpretation of Germany’s democratic transformation in the twentieth century, focusing on the generation that shaped the post-Nazi reconstruction

Not long after the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, Germans rebuilt their shattered country and emerged as one of the leading nations of the Western liberal world. In his debut work, Noah Strote analyzes this remarkable turnaround and challenges the widely held perception that the Western Allies—particularly the United States—were responsible for Germany’s transformation. Instead, Strote draws from never-before-seen material to show how common opposition to Adolf Hitler united the fractious groups that had once vied for supremacy under the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first democracy (1918-1933). His character-driven narrative follows ten Germans of rival worldviews who experienced the breakdown of Weimar society, lived under the Nazi dictatorship, and together assumed founding roles in the democratic reconstruction.

While many have imagined postwar Germany as the product of foreign-led democratization, this study highlights the crucial role of indigenous ideas and institutions that stretched back decades before Hitler. Foregrounding the resolution of key conflicts that crippled the country’s first democracy, Strote presents a new model for understanding the origins of today’s Federal Republic.

Learn more about Lions and Lambs at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Lions and Lambs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Candace Ganger's "The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash: A Novel by Candace Ganger.

The entry begins:

When I wrote Birdie & Bash, I played the movie version in my mind already though, none of the actors I envisioned were famous. I see them as actual high school students — not adults playing teens — and a true Brazilian-American...[read on]

Visit Candace Ganger's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top books for kids excited about the total solar eclipse

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and semi-professional nerd.

At the BN Kids Blog she tagged nine "great books to keep your kids learning and talking about space," including:

Project Blastoff (Astrotwins Series #1), by Mark Kelly

For those young readers who’d prefer to start with fiction, the Astrotwins series is a great place to start. The series is based on the childhood adventures of real-life astronauts Mark Kelly and his twin brother Scott, making it perfect for any middle grade reader who’s taken an interest in space thanks to the solar eclipse. The story follows a group of friends as they attempt to build a real rocket capable of orbiting the Earth. Filled with aeronautical history and interesting science, this story will teach readers about rocket propulsion and space travel in a fun and compelling way. And if your child loves fiction, you might also want to check out Space Case, by Stuart Gibbs. It’s a fun and suspenseful adventure set on a moon base, perfect for reluctant readers.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sheena Kamal's "The Lost Ones"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Lost Ones: A Novel by Sheena Kamal.

About The Lost Ones, from the publisher:

A dark, compulsively readable psychological suspense debut, the first in a new series featuring the brilliant, fearless, chaotic, and deeply flawed Nora Watts—a character as heartbreakingly troubled, emotionally complex, and irresistibly compelling as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole.

It begins with a phone call that Nora Watts has dreaded for fifteen years—since the day she gave her newborn daughter up for adoption. Bonnie has vanished. The police consider her a chronic runaway and aren’t looking, leaving her desperate adoptive parents to reach out to her birth mother as a last hope.

A biracial product of the foster system, transient, homeless, scarred by a past filled with pain and violence, Nora knows intimately what happens to vulnerable girls on the streets. Caring despite herself, she sets out to find Bonnie with her only companion, her mutt Whisper, knowing she risks reopening wounds that have never really healed—and plunging into the darkness with little to protect her but her instincts and a freakish ability to detect truth from lies.

The search uncovers a puzzling conspiracy that leads Nora on a harrowing journey of deception and violence, from the gloomy rain-soaked streets of Vancouver, to the icy white mountains of the Canadian interior, to the beautiful and dangerous island where she will face her most terrifying demon. All to save a girl she wishes had never been born.

Visit Sheena Kamal's website.

Writers Read: Sheena Kamal.

The Page 69 Test: The Lost Ones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books set in the remains of a dead civilization

Daniel H. Wilson is the bestselling author of Robopocalypse, Robogenesis, and Amped, among others.

His new novel is The Clockwork Dynasty.

One of Wilson's five favorite books set in the remains of a dead civilization, as shared at Tor.com:

Pure by Julianna Baggott

Maybe a surprising addition to this list of classics, I love Pure because of how the beauty of the past is incorporated (literally) into the ruins of the present. After some kind of horrible weapon detonation, survivors are melded into whatever (or whoever) they happened to be near. The protagonist has a doll head melded into her hand, and that’s probably the least horrific mutation in the novel. Grotesquely satisfying.

Read about another book on the list.

Pure is among Ceridwen Christensen's top eleven books about domed cities.

The Page 69 Test: Pure.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jean Kazez's "The Philosophical Parent"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Philosophical Parent: Asking the Hard Questions About Having and Raising Children by Jean Kazez.

About the book, from the publisher:

Becoming parents draws us into philosophical quandaries before our children have even been born. Why do most of us want to have children? Should we make new people, despite life's travails and our crowded world? Is adoptive parenthood just the same as biological parenthood? Once children arrive, the questions start to be a mix of the profound and the practical. Should we share our lifestyle with our children, no matter how unusual? Should we vaccinate and may we circumcise? Should we encourage gender differences?

Tracing the arc of parenthood from the earliest days to the college years and beyond, Jean Kazez explores 18 questions for philosophical parents, applying the tools of philosophy and drawing on personal experience. The Philosophical Parent offers a novel account of the parent-child relationship and uses it to tackle a variety of parenting puzzles, but more than that, Kazez celebrates both having children and philosophical reflection. Her book provides a challenging but cheerful companion for thoughtful parents and parents-to-be.

Learn more about The Philosophical Parent at Jean Kazez's website and the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Philosophical Parent.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine SFF novels that imagine the future of healthcare

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog he tagged nine science fiction novels that imagine the future of healthcare, including:

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Conceptual spoilers for a decade-old novel to follow: Ishiguro’s somber, thoughtful novel centers on a messy future where clones are raised in special school where they are trained to accept their fates as organ farms for the “real” citizens they were bred to serve. The idea of growing replacement organs seems to be creeping closer and closer to a reality, but Ishiguro’s conception of a future where we treat human beings—clones, yes, but obviously sentient and capable of emotional connections and self-awareness—like cattle becomes more chilling and sinister every time you return to it. The book forces you to ask yourself—if you needed a heart and someone had been grown in a vat specifically to provide it, would you hesitate?

Read about another entry on the list.

Never Let Me Go is on Jeff Somers's lists of "five pairs of books that have nothing to do with each other—and yet have everything to do with each other" and eight tales of technology run amok and top seven speculative works for those who think they hate speculative fiction, a list of five books that shaped Jason Gurley's Eleanor, Anne Charnock's list of five favorite books with fictitious works of art, Esther Inglis-Arkell's list of nine great science fiction books for people who don't like science fiction, Sabrina Rojas Weiss's list of ten favorite boarding school novels, Allegra Frazier's top four list of great dystopian novels that made it to the big screen, James Browning's top ten list of boarding school books, Jason Allen Ashlock and Mink Choi's top ten list of tragic love stories, Allegra Frazier's list of seven characters whose jobs are worse than yours, Shani Boianjiu's list of five top novels about coming of age, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five top "What If?" books, Lloyd Shepherd's top ten list of weird histories, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best men writing as women in literature and ten of the best sentences as titles.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Gin Phillips reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Gin Phillips, author of Fierce Kingdom.

Her entry begins:

I have a habit of falling in love with a writer and then buying a pile of their books and binge reading them one after the other. This is a terrible way to read. I know it. It’s not the way to most fully appreciate an author… yet I get a bit obsessed and do it anyway. So I am nearly finished with my third Penelope Lively book in a row: Moon Tiger is a brilliant novel about a female historian who, as she’s dying, decides to write the history of the world, which just happens to overlap with her own personal history. I’m happy to say I’m more captivated by Lively now than I was after first...[read on]

About Fierce Kingdom, from the publisher:

An electrifying novel about the primal and unyielding bond between a mother and her son, and the lengths she’ll go to protect him.

The zoo is nearly empty as Joan and her four-year-old son soak up the last few moments of playtime. They are happy, and the day has been close to perfect. But what Joan sees as she hustles her son toward the exit gate minutes before closing time sends her sprinting back into the zoo, her child in her arms. And for the next three hours—the entire scope of the novel—she keeps on running.

Joan’s intimate knowledge of her son and of the zoo itself—the hidden pathways and under-renovation exhibits, the best spots on the carousel and overstocked snack machines—is all that keeps them a step ahead of danger.

A masterful thrill ride and an exploration of motherhood itself—from its tender moments of grace to its savage power—Fierce Kingdom asks where the boundary is between our animal instinct to survive and our human duty to protect one another. For whom should a mother risk her life?

Visit Gin Phillips's website.

Writers Read: Gin Phillips.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed David Free

Australian David Free, a critic and novelist, is the author of Get Poor Slow.

One of four books that changed him, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

THE BIG SLEEP
Raymond Chandler

When you begin to fancy your own chances as a writer, the shortcomings of your heroes can be as inspiring as their strengths. Much as I loved Chandler's novels, I thought they held too many things back. There were places they wouldn't go. Finally I stopped blaming Chandler for not writing the kind of novel I'd have liked to write myself, and started writing it. Would I be able to do it without offending a few people? I certainly hoped not.

Read about another book on the list.

The Big Sleep also appears on Jeff Somers's list of five famous books that contain huge mistakes, John Sweeney's top ten list of books on corruption, the Telegraph's top 23 list of amazing--and short--classic books, Lucy Worsley's ten best list of fictional detectives, Becky Ferreira's list of seven of the best books set in Los Angeles, Ian Rankin's list of five perfect mysteries, Kathryn Williams's reading list on greed, Gigi Levangie Grazer's list of six favorite books that became movies, Megan Wasson's list of five top books on Los Angeles, Greil Marcus's six recommended books list, Barry Forshaw's critic's chart of six American noir masters, David Nicholls' list of favorite film adaptations, and the Guardian's list of ten of the best smokes in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jardine Libaire's "White Fur"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: White Fur by Jardine Libaire.

About the book, from the publisher:

A stunning star-crossed love story set against the glitz and grit of 1980s New York City

When Elise Perez meets Jamey Hyde on a desolate winter afternoon, fate implodes, and neither of their lives will ever be the same. Although they are next-door neighbors in New Haven, they come from different worlds. Elise grew up in a housing project without a father and didn’t graduate from high school; Jamey is a junior at Yale, heir to a private investment bank fortune and beholden to high family expectations. Nevertheless, the attraction is instant, and what starts out as sexual obsession turns into something greater, stranger, and impossible to ignore.

The unlikely couple moves to Manhattan in hopes of forging an adult life together, but Jamey’s family intervenes in desperation, and the consequences of staying together are suddenly severe. And when a night out with old friends takes a shocking turn, Jamey and Elise find themselves fighting not just for their love, but also for their lives.

White Fur follows these indelible characters on their wild race through Newport mansions and downtown NYC nightspots, SoHo bars and WASP-establishment yacht clubs, through bedrooms and hospital rooms, as they explore, love, play, and suffer. Jardine Libaire combines the electricity of Less Than Zero with the timeless intensity of Romeo and Juliet in this searing, gorgeously written novel that perfectly captures the ferocity of young love.

Visit Jardine Libaire's website.

Writers Read: Jardine Libaire.

The Page 69 Test: White Fur.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael F. Haspil's "Graveyard Shift," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Graveyard Shift by Michael F. Haspil.

The entry begins:

I think Graveyard Shift is extremely cinematic. There's a reason for this; I started my writing career as a spec screenwriter and I still see the scenes I write through a camera's lens. I would love to see it turned into a limited episode show, something along the lines of HBO's True Detective. If they were shooting it right now and asked me whom I would recommend for the cast, here's what I would tell them.

Jacob Anderson would play Alex Romer, the main protagonist and reanimated immortal pharaoh. He currently plays Greyworm on Game of Thrones. He's a little on the young side, but that's okay. He definitely could bring the hotheadedness needed to play the pharaoh Menkaure.

For Marcus Scaevola, his Roman vampire partner, I imagine Adrian...[read on]

Visit Michael F. Haspil's website.

My Book, The Movie: Graveyard Shift.

--Marshal Zeringue

Forty-five 19th century novels that belong on the modern bookshelf

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged forty-five novels written in the 19th century that belong on the modern bookshelf, including:

King Solomon’s Mines, by H. Rider Haggard

Written in a time when Africa seemed infinite and largely unexplored, at least from a Western point of view, Haggard’s classic adventure novel created the template still followed today—the Indiana Jones films, for one, owe a huge debt to Haggard. Adventurer Allan Quatermain agrees to locate a man who went missing searching for the titular mines in exchange for a share of any treasure found, and encounters hidden kingdoms and terrible dangers on the way.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sheena Kamal reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sheena Kamal, author of The Lost Ones: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I devoured Hunger by Roxane Gay a few weeks ago. It was sublime. A tough read, but an immersive one, as well. Gay one of my favourite writers and I have a soft spot for her essays—so this memoir is exactly the kind of book I’d...[read on]

About The Lost Ones, from the publisher:

A dark, compulsively readable psychological suspense debut, the first in a new series featuring the brilliant, fearless, chaotic, and deeply flawed Nora Watts—a character as heartbreakingly troubled, emotionally complex, and irresistibly compelling as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole.

It begins with a phone call that Nora Watts has dreaded for fifteen years—since the day she gave her newborn daughter up for adoption. Bonnie has vanished. The police consider her a chronic runaway and aren’t looking, leaving her desperate adoptive parents to reach out to her birth mother as a last hope.

A biracial product of the foster system, transient, homeless, scarred by a past filled with pain and violence, Nora knows intimately what happens to vulnerable girls on the streets. Caring despite herself, she sets out to find Bonnie with her only companion, her mutt Whisper, knowing she risks reopening wounds that have never really healed—and plunging into the darkness with little to protect her but her instincts and a freakish ability to detect truth from lies.

The search uncovers a puzzling conspiracy that leads Nora on a harrowing journey of deception and violence, from the gloomy rain-soaked streets of Vancouver, to the icy white mountains of the Canadian interior, to the beautiful and dangerous island where she will face her most terrifying demon. All to save a girl she wishes had never been born.

Visit Sheena Kamal's website.

Writers Read: Sheena Kamal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Richard Lange's "The Smack"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Smack: A Novel by Richard Lange.

About the book, from the publisher:

Rowan Petty is a conman down on his luck. He's flat broke, living out of cheap hotels, and wondering how it all went wrong. His car quits on him in Reno, and he takes a job there on the bottom rung of a lousy phone scam. When he's not swindling lonely widows, he tries to turn nickels into dimes at the poker table. One snowy night, he crosses paths with a sweet-talking hooker who's tired of the streets, and sparks fly.

When an old friend of his turns up spreading a rumor about two million dollars in army money smuggled out of Afghanistan and stashed in an apartment in Los Angeles, it seems like a chance at the score of a lifetime. So Petty and the hooker head south, and straight into trouble. A wounded vet, a washed-up actor, and Petty's estranged daughter are all players in the dangerous game they find themselves caught up in. For the winner: a fortune. For the loser: a bullet to the head.

Learn more about the book and author at Richard Lange's website.

The Page 69 Test: This Wicked World.

The Page 69 Test: Angel Baby.

The Page 69 Test: The Smack.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top parties in fiction

Elizabeth Day's novels include Scissors, Paper, Stone, Home Fires, Paradise City, and The Party.

At the Guardian, Day tagged her ten favorite parties in fiction, including:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Oblonsky’s ball in Anna Karenina is perhaps not as famous as the scene in War and Peace when Andrei and Natasha waltz for the first time, but its impact is as quietly devastating. Kitty (the unwitting rival for Count Vronsky’s affections) has earlier urged Anna to wear a flashy lilac dress. But Tolstoy puts his heroine in a modest black velvet gown. Kitty notes sadly that Anna’s charm “consisted precisely in the fact that she always stood out from what she wore”. Vronsky notices it too and swiftly falls in love. The rest is (doomed) history.

Read about another entry on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on Grant Ginder's top ten list of the more loathsome people in literature, Louis De Berniéres's six best books list, Martin Seay's ten best long books list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten list of books about justice and redemption, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Hannah Jane Parkinson's list of the ten worst couples in literature, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature, and ten of the best balls in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sarah Stitzlein's "American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens: Supporting Democracy in the Age of Accountability by Sarah M. Stitzlein.

About the book, from the publisher:

Public school systems are central to a flourishing democracy, where children learn how to solve problems together, build shared identities, and come to value justice and liberty for all. However, as citizen support for public schools steadily declines, our democratic way of life is increasingly at risk.

Often, we hear about the poor performances of students and teachers in the public school system, but as author Sarah M. Stitzlein asserts in her compelling new volume, the current educational crisis is not about accountability, but rather citizen responsibility.

Now, more than ever, citizens increasingly do not feel as though public schools are our schools, forgetting that we have influence over their outcomes and are responsible for their success. In effect, accountability becomes more and more about finding failure and casting blame on our school administrators and teachers, rather than taking responsibility as citizens for shaping our expectations of the classroom, determining the criteria we use to measure its success, and supporting our public schools as they nurture our children for the future.

American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens sheds an important light on recent shifts in the link between education and citizenship, helping readers to understand not only how schools now work, but also how citizens can take an active and influential role in shaping them. Moving from philosophical critique of these changes to practical suggestions for action, Stitzlein provides readers with the tools, habits, practices, and knowledge necessary to support public education. Further, by sharing examples of citizens and successful communities that are effectively working with their school systems, Stitzlein offers a torch of hope to sustain citizens through this difficult work in order to keep our democracy strong.

Learn more about American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Papineau reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Papineau, author of Knowing the Score: What Sports Can Teach Us About Philosophy (And What Philosophy Can Teach Us About Sports).

His entry begins:

I’ve recently read quite a few much-hyped but disappointing books, but rather than name those names, let me instead praise two books I really enjoyed this year. The first is The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis, originally published in 1983. Tevis is much better known for The Hustler and The Man Who Fell to Earth, but I’m not sure this isn’t his best. It’s about a girl from a tough orphanage who becomes a chess champion. A number of writers have recently recognized the narrative possibilities offered by adolescent girls with steel in their hearts (think of...[read on]

About Knowing the Score, from the publisher:

In Knowing the Score, philosopher David Papineau uses sports to illuminate some of modern philosophy's most perplexing questions. As Papineau demonstrates, the study of sports clarifies, challenges, and sometimes confuses crucial issues in philosophy. The tactics of road bicycle racing shed new light on questions of altruism, while sporting family dynasties reorient the nature v. nurture debate. Why do sports competitors choke? Why do fans think God will favor their team over their rivals? How can it be moral to deceive the umpire by framing a pitch? From all of these questions, and many more, philosophy has a great deal to learn.

An entertaining and erudite book that ranges far and wide through the sporting world, Knowing the Score is perfect reading for armchair philosophers and Monday morning quarterbacks alike.

Visit David Papineau's website.

The Page 99 Test: Philosophical Devices.

The Page 99 Test: Knowing the Score.

Writers Read: David Papineau.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mike Brooks's "Dark Sky"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Dark Sky by Mike Brooks.

About Dark Sky, from the publisher:

In the sequel to the thrilling Dark Run, which Publishers Weekly called “a terrific debut,” Ichabod Drift and his crew sign on for a new smuggling job that soon goes south when they are separated and caught up in a dangerous civil war.

When Ichabod Drift and the Keiko crew sign on for a new smuggling job to a mining planet, they don’t realize what they are up against. The miners, badly treated for years by the corporation, are staging a rebellion. Split into two groups, one with the authorities and one with the rebels, Drift and his crew support their respective sides in the conflict. But when they are cut off from each other due to a communication blackout, both halves of the crew don’t realize that they have begun fighting themselves…

Visit Mike Brooks's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dark Run.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Run.

Writers Read: Mike Brooks.

The Page 69 Test: Dark Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Burr Gerrard's "The Epiphany Machine," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard.

The entry begins:

I’m always afraid when movies are books are made of movies I love. I’m afraid that the filmmakers will get the book “wrong.” (By which I mean, of course, I am afraid their vision of the book will be different from mine.) When I see a film version of a book I’ve read many times, when I get to see actors I admire speak lines I’ve underlined, I grab my popcorn, take my seat, and think: “Oh, this is going to suck.”

You might think that those feelings about a potential movie made from a book I wrote would be enhanced many times over, and that I would be utterly terrified that a film or television of adaptation would get my book “wrong.” But I feel nothing but giddy, earnest excitement over seeing how a filmmaker would interpret my work, if I’m lucky enough for that to ever happen. Maybe I should not speak too soon, but the more “wrong” any film or television adaptation gets the book, the better.

My new novel, The Epiphany Machine, is about a device that tattoos epiphanies on the forearms of its users. Everyone in the book has a different opinion about what their tattoos mean, and about where the tattoos come from—whether they are messages from some kind of god, or whether they are simply the ravings of the man who owns the epiphany machine, Adam Lyons. Over the...[read on]

Visit David Burr Gerrard's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Epiphany Machine.

My Book, The Movie: The Epiphany Machine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable autobiographical books by rebellious women

Jardine Libaire is a graduate of Skidmore College and the University of Michigan MFA program. She lives in Austin, Texas.

White Fur is her second novel.

One of Libaire's five favorite autobiographical books by rebellious women, as shared at the B&N Reads blog:

M Train, by Patti Smith

How do you funnel the drive and the heart that goes into being a young wild bohemian rock star into the years that follow? This book is a pocket guide on staying fierce, on creating rituals (like graveyard sessions in other countries, or having brown bread and coffee every single morning) that help a woman maintain a blueprint of untamed living.

Read about another entry on the list.

Visit Jardine Libaire's website.

Writers Read: Jardine Libaire.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Meg Mitchell Moore reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Meg Mitchell Moore, author of The Captain's Daughter.

Her entry begins:

I always have at least two books going at once, one on audio, which I listen to when I’m in the car (often) or doing mundane household tasks (also, alas, often). I started this practice not so long ago, maybe a couple of years, and I’m astounded and delighted by how many more books I get through in a given year. If I had my druthers, I’d be sitting around reading for hours every day, but three busy kids, a 10-month-old puppy and deadlines for my own work make that nearly impossible. Currently I’m listening to The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder. If the title wasn’t enough to make me cotton to this book, the multiple point-of-view narration (my favorite kind), in-depth characterization, dark humor and...[read on]

About The Captain's Daughter, from the publisher:

For fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Emma Straub comes an emotionally gripping novel about a woman who returns to her hometown in coastal Maine and finds herself pondering the age-old question of what could have been

Growing up in Little Harbor, Maine, the daughter of a widowed lobsterman, Eliza Barnes could haul a trap and row a skiff with the best of them. But she always knew she’d leave that life behind. Now that she’s married, with two kids and a cushy front-row seat to suburban country club gossip in an affluent Massachusetts town, she feels adrift.

When her father injures himself in a boating accident, Eliza pushes the pause button on her own life to come to his aid. But when she arrives in Maine, she discovers her father’s situation is more dire than he let on. Eliza’s homecoming is further complicated by the reemergence of her first love–and memories of their shared secret. Then Eliza meets Mary Brown, a seventeen-year-old local who is at her own crossroad, and Eliza can’t help but wonder what her life would have been like if she’d stayed.

Filled with humor, insight, summer cocktails, and gorgeous sunsets, THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER is a compassionate novel about the life-changing choices we make and the consequences we face in their aftermath.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Mitchell Moore's website.

Writers Read: Meg Mitchell Moore.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Burr Gerrard's "The Epiphany Machine"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone else knows the truth about you, now you can know it, too.

That’s the slogan. The product: a junky contraption that tattoos personalized revelations on its users’ forearms. It’s an old con, playing on the fear that we are obvious to everybody except ourselves. This particular one’s been circulating New York since the 1960s. The ad works. And, oddly enough, so might the device…

A small stream of city dwellers buy into this cult of the epiphany machine, including Venter Lowood’s parents. This stigma follows them when they move upstate, where Venter can’t avoid the whispers of teachers and neighbors any more than he can ignore the machine’s accurate predictions: his mother’s abandonment and his father’s disinterest. So when Venter’s grandmother finally asks him to confront the epiphany machine and inoculate himself against his family’s mistakes, he’s only too happy to oblige.

Like his parents before him, Venter is quick to fall under the spell of the device’s sweat-stained, profane, and surprisingly charming operator, Adam Lyons. But unlike them, Venter gets close enough to Adam to learn a dark secret. There’s an undeniable pattern between specific epiphanies and violent crimes. And Adam won’t jeopardize the privacy of his customers by alerting the police.

It may be a hoax, but that doesn’t mean what Adam is selling isn’t also spot-on. And in this sprawling, snarling tragicomedy about accountability in contemporary America, the greater danger is that Adam Lyon’s apparatus may just be right about us all.

Visit David Burr Gerrard's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Epiphany Machine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tom Perrotta's six favorite funny books

Tom Perrotta's new comic novel is Mrs. Fletcher. One of his six favorite funny books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Patricia Lockwood didn't just have a Catholic childhood; her father is an actual priest (he converted after starting a family), an eccentric who lounges around the house in his underwear and plays electric guitar when he's not administering the sacraments. Lockwood's a strikingly original stylist, combining a David Sedaris–like sense of humor with a poet's flair for imagery.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Yaniv Roznai's "Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments: The Limits of Amendment Powers by Yaniv Roznai.

About the book, from the publisher:

Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? The problem of 'unconstitutional constitutional amendments' has become one of the most widely debated issues in comparative constitutional theory, constitutional design, and constitutional adjudication. This book describes and analyses the increasing tendency in global constitutionalism substantively to limit formal changes to constitutions. The challenges of constitutional unamendability to constitutional theory become even more complex when constitutional courts enforce such limitations through substantive judicial review of amendments, often resulting in the declaration that these constitutional amendments are 'unconstitutional'.

Combining historical comparisons, constitutional theory, and a wide comparative study, Yaniv Roznai sets out to explain what the nature of amendment power is, what its limitations are, and what the role of constitutional courts is and should be when enforcing limitations on constitutional amendments.

Learn more about Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments.

--Marshal Zeringue