Pg. 99: Tanya Katerí Hernández's "Multiracials and Civil Rights"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination by Tanya Katerí Hernández.

About the book, from the publisher:

Narratives of mixed-race people bringing claims of racial discrimination in court, illuminating traditional understandings of civil rights law

As the mixed-race population in the United States grows, public fascination with multiracial identity has promoted the belief that racial mixture will destroy racism. However, multiracial people still face discrimination. Many legal scholars hold that this is distinct from the discrimination faced by people of other races, and traditional civil rights laws built on a strict black/white binary need to be reformed to account for cases of discrimination against those identifying as mixed-race.

In Multiracials and Civil Rights, Tanya Katerí Hernández debunks this idea, and draws on a plethora of court cases to demonstrate that multiracials face the same types of discrimination as other racial groups. Hernández argues that multiracial people are primarily targeted for discrimination due to their non-whiteness, and shows how the cases highlight the need to support the existing legal structures instead of a new understanding of civil rights law. The legal and political analysis is enriched with Hernández's own personal narrative as a mixed-race Afro-Latina.

Coming at a time when explicit racism is resurfacing, Hernández’s look at multiracial discrimination cases is essential for fortifying the focus of civil rights law on racial privilege and the lingering legacy of bias against non-whites, and has much to teach us about how to move towards a more egalitarian society.

Learn more about Multiracials and Civil Rights at the NYU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Racial Subordination in Latin America.

The Page 99 Test: Multiracials and Civil Rights.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Liese O'Halloran Schwarz reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Liese O'Halloran Schwarz, author of The Possible World: A Novel.

One title she tagged:

I have just finished The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, a very good book about the second "lost generation” (gay men in the eighties) and what the AIDS crisis stole from the world. She did a creditable job of depicting that time, which of course I remember quite well. It’s a bit of a milestone, isn't it, when an author needs to do massive research in order to write a story set in one’s own youth? Le sigh. However, one must consider the alternative to growing older — Makkai’s book certainly provides perspective about...[read on]

About The Possible World, from the publisher:

A richly compelling and deeply moving novel that traces the converging lives of a young boy who witnesses a brutal murder, the doctor who tends to him, and an elderly woman guarding her long buried past.

It seems like just another night shift for Lucy, an overworked ER physician in Providence, Rhode Island, until six-year-old Ben is brought in as the sole survivor from a horrifying crime scene. He’s traumatized and wordless; everything he knows has been taken from him in an afternoon. It’s not clear what he saw, or what he remembers.

Lucy, who’s grappling with a personal upheaval of her own, feels a profound, unexpected connection to the little boy. She wants to help him…but will recovering his memory heal him, or damage him further?

Across town, Clare will soon be turning one hundred years old. She has long believed that the lifetime of secrets she’s been keeping don’t matter to anyone anymore, but a surprising encounter makes her realize that the time has come to tell her story.

As Ben, Lucy, and Clare struggle to confront the events that shattered their lives, something stronger than fate is working to bring them together.

An expertly stitched story that spans nearly a century—from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War era and into the present—The Possible World is a captivating novel about the complicated ways our pasts shape our identities, the power of maternal love, the loneliness born out of loss, and how timeless bonds can help us triumph over grief.

Visit Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Possible World.

Writers Read: Liese O'Halloran Schwarz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Meg Waite Clayton's "Beautiful Exiles"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Beautiful Exiles by Meg Waite Clayton.

About the book, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author Meg Waite Clayton comes a riveting novel based on one of the most volatile and intoxicating real-life love affairs of the twentieth century.

Key West, 1936. Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship—forged over writing, talk, and family dinners—flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War.

Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha—her beauty, her ambition, and her fearless spirit. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. The risks are so much greater. They’re made for each other.

With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful Exiles is a stirring story of lovers and rivals, of the breathless attraction to power and fame, and of one woman—ahead of her time—claiming her own identity from the wreckage of love.

Learn more about the book and author at Meg Waite Clayton's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Ms. Bradwells.

The Page 69 Test: The Wednesday Daughters.

The Page 69 Test: Beautiful Exiles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tessa Arlen’s five top historical novels

Tessa Arlen is the author of the Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson historical mystery series set in England in the early nineteen-hundreds. Her latest mystery, Death of an Unsung Hero, takes place in 1916 in WW1 in a hospital for shell-shocked officers.

One of Arlen’s top five historical novels, as shared at Lit Lists:

Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins. I am never disappointed by this author, and her two books about the Todd family (spanning the first five decades of the 20th century) are extraordinarily atmospheric in time and place. A God in Ruins (Book #2) tells the story through Teddy Todd: would-be poet, heroic WW2 fighter pilot, husband, father, and grandfather, as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world that brought out some of the very best and worst of human kind.

Read about the other novels on Arlen's list.

Visit Tessa Arlen's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Tessa Arlen & Daphne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Georgia Clark's "The Bucket List," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Bucket List: A Novel by Georgia Clark.

The entry begins:

Lacey Whitman, main character: I love Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper in the teen noir melodrama, Riverdale): she’s an incredibly expressive and powerful performer. And this role would allow her to explore her more comedic side, channeling Lacey’s great sense of humor along with her strength and vulnerability.

Steph, Lacey’s best friend/former roommate: Naomi Scott could play Lacey’s empathetic (and slightly over involved) British Indian best friend.

Vivian, Lacey’s co-founder: Awkwafina is...[read on]

Visit Georgia Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bucket List.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Wallace Stroby reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Wallace Stroby, author of Some Die Nameless.

His entry begins:

Reading-wise, I’ve always got two or three books in progress, but as I’ve grown older I’m quicker to set aside books I’m not responding to (that point is usually somewhere between 50 and 75 pages). I used to feel obligated to finish every book I started, but I don’t anymore. Life is short, and there are too many good books out there.

That said, here’s what I’ve got in front of me at the moment, that I won’t be bailing on:

Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block and John K. Snyder III. Artist Snyder’s evocative adaptation of Block’s classic 1982 Matt Scudder novel. I’m not a big graphic novel enthusiast, but...[read on]

About Some Die Nameless, from the publisher:

An ex-mercenary and an embattled journalist find themselves unlikely allies against a corrupt defense contractor.

Ray Devlin is retired, living a simple life off the grid in Florida, when a visit from an old colleague stirs some bad memories–and ends with a gunshot. Soon Devlin is forced to again face a past he’d hoped to leave behind, as a member of a mercenary force that helped put a brutal South American dictator into power.

Tracy Quinn is an investigative reporter at a struggling Philadelphia newspaper decimated by layoffs and cutbacks. Then one day what appears to be a straightforward homicide–a body left in an abandoned rowhouse–draws her and Devlin together, and ultimately enmeshes both in a conspiracy that stretches over twenty years and reaches to the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Before long, they’re both the targets of a ruthless assassin haunted by his own wartime experiences. For Devlin, it could all mean a last shot at redemption. For Tracy, the biggest story of her career might just cost her life.

Learn more about the author and his novels at the official Wallace Stroby website and The Heartbreak Blog.

The Page 69 Test: Gone 'til November.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Shot to the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: Kings of Midnight.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil's Share.

Writers Read: Wallace Stroby.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Danielle Girard's "Expose"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Expose (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 3) by Danielle Girard.

About the book, from the publisher:

Examining the dead will help her solve present crimes and uncover past secrets in this page-turner thriller for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Rizzoli and Isles.

With her vindictive ex-husband out of prison, San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman is trying harder than ever to move on with her life—by focusing on her job to speak for the victims who can’t. Summoned to a homicide in Golden Gate Park, she realizes that she’d seen the victim just hours before, alive and well in a parked Jeep with a small boy. Now, the woman has been stabbed to death and stripped of her burka, and the child is nowhere to be found.

When an African American student is found dead, bearing knife wounds identical to those of the woman in the park, the press jumps on them as hate crimes. If only they were so easy to explain. There is a connection—but Schwartzman believes it’s something even worse. Her fears are confirmed with the discovery of the next victim.

Now, to stop a vicious killer whose work has only just begun, Schwartzman and Detective Hal Harris must untangle the twisted thread that links it all to the missing boy and a crime buried in the past.

Visit Danielle Girard's website.

My Book, The Movie: Expose.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard.

The Page 69 Test: Expose.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Anna Tuckett's "Rules, Paper, Status"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Rules, Paper, Status: Migrants and Precarious Bureaucracy in Contemporary Italy by Anna Tuckett.

About the book, from the publisher:

Whether motivated by humanitarianism or concern over "porous" borders, dominant commentary on migration in Europe has consistently focused on clandestine border crossings. Much less, however, is known about the everyday workings of immigration law inside borders. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Italy, one of Europe's biggest receiving countries, Rules, Paper, Status moves away from polarized depictions to reveal how migration processes actually play out on the ground. Anna Tuckett highlights the complex processes of inclusion and exclusion produced through encounters with immigration law.

The statuses of "legal" or "illegal," which media and political accounts use as synonyms for "good" and "bad," "worthy" and "unworthy," are not created by practices of border-crossing, but rather through legal and bureaucratic processes within borders devised by governing states. Taking migrants' interactions with immigration regimes as its starting point, this book sheds light on the productive nature of legal and bureaucratic encounters and the unintended consequences they produce. Rules, Paper, Status argues that successfully navigating Italian immigration bureaucracy, which is situated in an immigration regime that is both exclusionary and flexible, requires and induces culturally specific modes of behavior. Exclusionary laws, however, can transform this social and cultural learning into the very thing that endangers migrants' right to live in the country.

Learn more about Rules, Paper, Status at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Rules, Paper, Status.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about wizards with ungodly power

Jenn Lyons lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband, three cats and a nearly infinite number of opinions on anything from Sumerian mythology to the correct way to make a martini. She is a video game producer by day, and spends her evenings writing epic fantasy. A long-time devotee of storytelling, she traces her geek roots back to playing first edition Dungeons & Dragons in grade school and reading her way from A to Z in the school’s library.

Her debut epic fantasy novel, The Ruin of Kings (first in the five-book Godslayer Cycle,) is scheduled for release from Tor Books in Winter, 2019.

One of Lyons's "five favorite books (or series) with wizards, witches, and sorcerers who were not at all squeamish about opening a magical can of ungodly power on their enemies, deities, and the whole world, not necessarily in that order," as shared at Tor.com:

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Truthfully you could grab almost any book by Diana Wynne Jones and probably end up with a handful of screamingly powerful (if whimsical) wizards. However, Howl’s Moving Castle (which later found a wider audience as a Hayao Miyazaki animated film), with its story of Sophie, a young hatmaker’s daughter who is cursed to be an old woman, remains my favorite. The titular Howl, along with such worthies as the Witch of the Wastes and Sophie herself, think nothing of crafting some truly awesome spells, curses, and gates between cities, countries, and indeed entire dimensions (including ours). Howl’s universe is one where you’ll have no trouble at all believing that there’s little a wizard can’t do – except keep a clean house (oh, how I relate to that one). If you loved the movie, I recommend picking up the book, since Miyazaki changed the story in several significant ways (both versions are lovely). One thing is certain: movie or book, Calcifer is the most adorable fire demon ever.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Amber Brock reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Amber Brock, author of Lady Be Good: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I’m a voracious reader of non-fiction, since I tend not to read fiction while I’m writing (and I’ve been writing pretty continuously for two years now—thanks, deadlines!). Some are in the hopes of advancing my teaching, some are part of my novel research, but others are just personal interest. Here’s what I’m reading now:

Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy by Paul Thomas Murphy

This was a long but fascinating read, and I applaud any author who can sustain a narrative in such a captivating way over such a huge span of story. This book follows the eight assassination attempts on the life of Queen Victoria, but it’s so much more than that. Each tale of a would-be assassin includes...[read on]

About Lady Be Good, from the publisher:

Set in the 1950s, Lady Be Good marks Amber Brock's mesmerizing return, sweeping readers into the world of the mischievous, status-obsessed daughter of a hotel magnate and the electric nightlife of three iconic cities: New York, Miami, and Havana.

Kitty Tessler is the winsome and clever only child of self-made hotel and nightclub tycoon Nicolas Tessler. Kitty may not have the same pedigree as the tennis club set she admires, but she still sees herself as every inch the socialite--spending her days perfecting her "look" and her nights charming all the blue-blooded boys who frequent her father's clubs. It seems like the fun will never end until Kitty's father issues a terrible ultimatum: she may no longer date the idle rich. Instead, Kitty must marry Andre, her father's second-in-command, and take her place as the First Lady of his hotel empire. Kitty is forced to come up with a wily and elaborate plan to protect her own lofty ideas for the future, as well as to save her best friend, Henrietta Bancroft, from a doomed engagement; Kitty will steal Henrietta's fiancé, a fabulously wealthy but terribly unkind man from a powerful family--thereby delivering the one-two punch of securing her now-fragile place on the social ladder and keeping her friend from a miserable marriage.

Then Kitty meets Max, a member of a band visiting New York from her father's Miami club, and her plans take a turn. Smitten, but still eager to convince her father of her commitment to Andre, Kitty and Hen follow Max, Andre, and the rest of the band back down to Miami--and later to Cuba. As Kitty spends more time with Max, she begins waking up to the beauty--and the injustice--of the world beyond her small, privileged corner of Manhattan. And when her well-intended yet manipulative efforts backfire, Kitty is forced to reconsider her choices and her future before she loses everyone she loves.

Visit Amber Brock's website.

My Book, The Movie: Lady Be Good.

Coffee with a Canine: Amber Brock & Bitty, Fred and Vicki.

Writers Read: Amber Brock.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Miriam Parker & Leopold Bloom

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Miriam Parker & Leopold Bloom.

The author, on how she and Leo were united:

I had always wanted a dog and then one day at my last job, I got an unexpected promotion. I was living in an affordable apartment and with that promotion I finally had enough disposable income to pay a dog walker. I also was in a life moment where I needed some limits placed upon me and a dog was the perfect answer to that problem. Having a dog means you have to take care of a living being that needs you. I think I got him almost immediately after that promotion. Our first few weeks together were a little rocky--he...[read on]

About Miriam Parker's The Shortest Way Home, from the publisher:

How far would you got to find the place you belong?

Hannah is finally about to have everything she ever wanted. With a high-paying job, a Manhattan apartment, and a boyfriend about to propose, all she and Ethan have to do is make it through the last couple of weeks of grad school.

But when, on a romantic weekend trip to Sonoma, Hannah is spontaneously offered a marketing job at a family-run winery and doesn’t immediately refuse, their meticulously planned forever threatens to come crashing down. And then Hannah impulsively does the unthinkable – she takes a leap of faith.

Abandoning your dream job and life shouldn’t feel this good. But this new reality certainly seems like a dream come true–a picturesque cottage overlooking a vineyard; new friends with their own inspiring plans; and William, the handsome son of the winery owners who captures Hannah’s heart only to leave for the very city she let go.

Soon, the mission to rescue the failing winery becomes a mission to rescue Hannah from the life she thought she wanted. Crackling with humor and heart, The Shortest Way Home is the journey of one woman shedding expectations in order to claim her own happy ending.

Visit Miriam Parker's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Miriam Parker & Leopold Bloom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fiona Davis's "The Masterpiece," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis.

The entry begins:

I love this assignment because before I start writing a book, I come up with ideas of whom the characters resemble and post them on the bulletin board behind my computer. That way I can stare at their faces when I hit a wall, and that always seems to help. Half of my story takes place in the 1920s at the Grand Central School of Art, where a couple of faculty members - Clara Darden and Levon Zakarian - are fighting to rise in the art world, often butting heads themselves. The other half of the book takes place in the 1970s, when a clerk from the Terminal's info booth stumbles into an abandoned art school and starts tracking down the provenance of a painting. Grand Central Terminal itself is a character in the book, in a way. In the 20s it's still beautiful and gleaming, and by the 70s, it's fallen into disrepair and in danger of being destroyed.

Clara Darden: Tilda Swinton

I wanted this character, my heroine artist, to seem other-worldly, strong, and a little bit removed. Tilda Swinton in her 20s would be perfect for that. She's not your typical heroine, and I like that about her.

Levon Zakarian: Andy...[read on]

Visit Fiona Davis's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Address.

My Book, The Movie: The Masterpiece.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten graphic novels everyone should read

Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. He the author of Mangasia: The Definitive Guide to Asian Comics.

One title on his list of ten graphic novels everyone should read, as shared at the Guardian:

Not everyone has grown up reading comics and the demands of their various verbal and visual literacies can take some adjusting to, particularly if you’re used to the orderly typesetting of prose novels. It’s never too late, though, to try stretching your brain – both sides of it when it comes to graphic novels, where looking is as important as reading.

This experience comes through in the wordless migration parable The Arrival by Shaun Tan (2006), which follows a man who has gone on ahead of his wife and children to seek work abroad and struggles to navigate his alien surroundings and their indecipherable language. Unable to make himself understood, he resorts to making simple drawings to communicate his need for a room. The reader shares his bafflement and gradually grasps with him how his strange new homeland works. Tan’s genius in children’s picture books blossoms in this extended tale for all ages, illustrated in almost photographic sepia images.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Arrival is among Jeff Kinney's six best books, Julia Eccleshare' seven best children's books about New York, and Sita Brahmachari's top ten books that take you travelling.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Danielle Banas reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Danielle Banas, author of The Supervillain and Me.

Her entry begins:

I’ve always tended to gravitate toward fantasy, which started with my love of Harry Potter when I was a little kid. At the moment I’m finishing up War Storm by Victoria Aveyard. It’s the final book in the Red Queen series, about a world that is divided by blood. Those with common, red blood serve the silver-blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. It’s a beast of a book, and I’ve been working on finishing it for a while but life keeps getting in the way. I’m really enjoying it though. I’ve...[read on]

About The Supervillain and Me, from the publisher:

Never trust a guy in spandex.

In Abby Hamilton’s world, superheroes do more than just stop crime and save cats stuck in trees—they also drink milk straight from the carton and hog the television remote. Abby’s older brother moonlights as the famous Red Comet, but without powers of her own, following in his footsteps has never crossed her mind.

That is, until the city’s newest vigilante comes bursting into her life.

After saving Abby from an attempted mugging, Morriston’s fledgling supervillain Iron Phantom convinces her that he’s not as evil as everyone says, and that their city is under a vicious new threat. As Abby follows him deeper into their city’s darkest secrets, she comes to learn that heroes can’t always be trusted, and sometimes it’s the good guys who wear black.

Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, The Supervillain and Me is a hilarious, sweet, and action-packed novel by debut author Danielle Banas that proves no one is perfect, not even superheroes.

Visit Danielle Banas's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Danielle Banas & Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: The Supervillain and Me.

The Page 69 Test: The Supervillain and Me.

Writers Read: Danielle Banas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Gwen Florio's "Silent Hearts"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Silent Hearts: A Novel by Gwen Florio.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of A Thousand Splendid Suns comes a stirring novel set in Afghanistan​ about two women—an American aid worker and her local interpreter—who form an unexpected friendship despite their utterly different life experiences and the ever-increasing violence that surrounds them in Kabul.

In 2001, Kabul is suddenly a place of possibility as people fling off years of repressive Taliban rule. This hopeful chaos brings together American aid worker Liv Stoellner and Farida Basra, an educated Pakistani woman still adjusting to her arranged marriage to Gul, the son of an Afghan strongman whose family spent years of exile in Pakistan before returning to Kabul.

Both Liv and her husband take positions at an NGO that helps Afghan women recover from the Taliban years. They see the move as a reboot—Martin for his moribund academic career, Liv for their marriage. But for Farida and Gul, the move to Kabul is fraught, severing all ties with Farida’s family and her former world, and forcing Gul to confront a chapter in his life he’d desperately tried to erase.

The two women, brought together by Farida’s work as an interpreter, form a nascent friendship based on their growing mutual love for Afghanistan, though Liv remains unaware that Farida is reporting information about the Americans’ activities to Gul’s family, who have ties to the black market.

As the bond between Farida and Liv deepens, war-scarred Kabul acts in different ways upon them, as well as their husbands. Silent Hearts is an absorbing, complex portrayal of two very different but equally resilient women caught in the conflict of a war that will test them in ways they never imagined.

Visit Gwen Florio's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Gwen Florio & Nell.

My Book, the Movie: Silent Hearts.

Writers Read: Gwen Florio.

The Page 69 Test: Silent Hearts.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gabriela González's "Redeeming La Raza"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights by Gabriela González.

About the book, from the publisher:

The transborder modernization of Mexico and the American Southwest during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries transformed the lives of ethnic Mexicans across the political divide. While industrialization, urbanization, technology, privatization, and wealth concentration benefitted some, many more experienced dislocation, exploitative work relations, and discrimination based on race, gender, and class. The Mexican Revolution brought these issues to the fore within Mexican society, igniting a diaspora to el norte. Within the United States, similar economic and social power dynamics plagued Tejanos and awaited the war refugees. Political activism spearheaded by individuals and organizations such as the Idars, Leonor Villegas' de Magnón's White Cross, the Magonista movement, the Munguias, Emma Tenayuca, and LULAC emerged in the borderlands to address the needs of ethnic Mexicans whose lives were shaped by racism, patriarchy, and poverty.

As Gabriela Gonzalez shows in this book, economic modernization relied on social hierarchies that were used to justify economic inequities. Redeeming la raza was about saving ethnic Mexicans in Texas from a social hierarchy premised on false notions of white supremacy and Mexican inferiority. Activists used privileges of class, education, networks, and organizational skills to confront the many injustices that racism bred, but they used different strategies. Thus, the anarcho-syndicalist approach of Magónistas stands in contrast to the social and cultural redemption politics of the Idars who used the press to challenge a Jaime Crow world. Also, the family promoted the intellectual, material, and cultural uplift of la raza, working to combat negative stereotypes of ethnic Mexicans. Similar contrasts can be drawn between the labor activism of Emma Tenayuca and the Munguias, whose struggle for rights employed a politics of respectability that encouraged ethnic pride and unity. Finally, maternal feminist approaches and the politics of citizenship serve as reminders that gendered and nationalist rhetoric and practices foment hierarchies within civil and human rights organizations.

Redeeming La Raza examines efforts of activists to create a dignified place for ethnic Mexicans in American society by challenging white supremacy and the segregated world it spawned.

Learn more about Redeeming La Raza at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Redeeming La Raza.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine funny essay collections

Maeve Higgins is the host of the hit podcast Maeve In America: Immigration IRL. She has performed all over the world, including in her native Ireland, Edinburgh, Melbourne and, most recently, Erbil. Now based in New York, she's made a name for herself there too. In a good way! She co-hosts Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk on National Geographic and has appeared in Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer.

Higgins's new book is Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else.

One of the author's favorite funny essay collections, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

A classic for so many reasons, and a book that spawned a hundred imitators. The jokes are so strong, the stories so well-timed and the writing so sly and perfect, it’s impossible not to fall for the woman behind the mishaps of a life not working out as planned. I smile about the essay where Crosley gets locked out at least once a week, and I read this book ten years ago. Perfection.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Danielle Girard reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Danielle Girard, author of Expose (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 3).

Her entry begins:

To be a good writer, you must be a good reader. Someone really smart said that. (I think it was Stephen King.) I love to read and I do it as much as possible between my own writing and life with a family. So far this year, I’ve read about 50 books, almost exclusively fiction. (I find reality either utterly boring or truly terrifying.)

My taste in fiction runs across genres and styles. I’ve usually got a few books going at once—some I’ll read and others I’ll listen too. In suspense, I just finished AJ Finn’s The Woman in the Window and Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door. Both are...[read on]

About Expose, from the publisher:

Examining the dead will help her solve present crimes and uncover past secrets in this page-turner thriller for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Rizzoli and Isles.

With her vindictive ex-husband out of prison, San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman is trying harder than ever to move on with her life—by focusing on her job to speak for the victims who can’t. Summoned to a homicide in Golden Gate Park, she realizes that she’d seen the victim just hours before, alive and well in a parked Jeep with a small boy. Now, the woman has been stabbed to death and stripped of her burka, and the child is nowhere to be found.

When an African American student is found dead, bearing knife wounds identical to those of the woman in the park, the press jumps on them as hate crimes. If only they were so easy to explain. There is a connection—but Schwartzman believes it’s something even worse. Her fears are confirmed with the discovery of the next victim.

Now, to stop a vicious killer whose work has only just begun, Schwartzman and Detective Hal Harris must untangle the twisted thread that links it all to the missing boy and a crime buried in the past.

Visit Danielle Girard's website.

My Book, The Movie: Expose.

Writers Read: Danielle Girard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susan McBride's "Walk a Crooked Line"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Walk a Crooked Line by Susan McBride.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a teenager’s body is found at the base of the old water tower, Detective Jo Larsen is one of the first on the scene. Tragically, it appears to be a clear case of suicide.

But the more Jo learns about Kelly Amster, the more she finds herself needing to understand why the high school sophomore would take that fatal plunge. As they interview family and friends, Jo and her partner, Hank Phelps, begin to fit together the pieces of a dark puzzle. Something happened to Kelly in their small town of Plainfield, Texas—and it sent the young girl straight over the edge.

Haunted by the memories of her own childhood, Jo digs deep into the shadowy corners of a seemingly tight-knit community—to uncover a devastating secret…

Learn more about the book and author at Susan McBride's website.

The Page 69 Test: Little Black Dress.

The Page 69 Test: Very Bad Things.

My Book, The Movie: Very Bad Things.

My Book, The Movie: Walk Into Silence.

The Page 69 Test: Walk Into Silence.

My Book, The Movie: Walk a Crooked Line.

Writers Read: Susan McBride.

The Page 69 Test: Walk a Crooked Line.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels in which the internet helps destroy the world

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 Reads blog he tagged six books in which the internet helps destroy the world, including:

Adjustment Day, by Chuck Palahniuk

Palahniuk’s new novel harkens back to Fight Club, again profiling disaffected youths, a violent underground movement, and an absurd world that’s less absurd the more you think about it. The United States is moving towards war, re-instituting the draft as part of a plan to kill off Millennials before they rise up in anger. As an actor begins appearing on television and radio promising a new world order is coming, an underground movement distributes a book and whispers about a coming Adjustment Day, as an online site called The List begins compiling a database of people who threaten society. When Adjustment Day arrives, the people on The List are brutally murdered, and the world is remade in blood and chaos. The violent are elevated, everyone else is enslaved—and it all started on the internet.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Craig DiLouie's "One of Us," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: One of Us by Craig DiLouie.

The entry begins:

In One of Us, a disease has produced a generation of monsters who are now growing up in orphanages and must find a way to fit in—or fight for what’s theirs. It’s both a misunderstood monster story and a novel about prejudice.

As a Southern Gothic story, the characters are an ensemble and half of them are mutants, so it’s a tough cast for me. I’ll pick two.

Amy is a plague girl, but her mutation only appears under severe stress. As a result, while all the other plague children are growing up in ramshackle “Homes,” she is able to hide in plain sight. For her, I’d cast Emma Stone. She has the chops to give Amy the...[read on]

Visit Craig DiLouie's website.

My Book, The Movie: One of Us.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Gwen Florio reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Gwen Florio, author of Silent Hearts: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I'm reading The Eight Mountains, by Paolo Cognetti.

This book was a bit of a whim; I think it was a Simon & Schuster special ebook offer. Anyhow, I like mountains and books about adventure (Cognetti is an alpinist) so I clicked, and immediately was hooked—liking it so much, in fact, that I headed over to my local independent bookstore, Fact and Fiction, for a hardcover copy.

The comparison to Elena Ferrante’s books (which I loved) is inevitable, if not quite parallel. In this case, the story follows to adulthood two boys, Pietro and Bruno, who meet when Pietro’s parents rent a house in Bruno’s mountain village to escape Milan’s summer heat. Pietro is educated, worldly; Bruno is rustic, spending his summer herding cows. But the boys share a love of the mountains, along with Pietro’s father, who leads them in exploring the wild heights, where for the first time Pietro sees a world beyond the forested hills his mother prefers. Cognetti captures the awe and elation such places...[read on]

About Silent Hearts, from the publisher:

For fans of A Thousand Splendid Suns comes a stirring novel set in Afghanistan​ about two women—an American aid worker and her local interpreter—who form an unexpected friendship despite their utterly different life experiences and the ever-increasing violence that surrounds them in Kabul.

In 2001, Kabul is suddenly a place of possibility as people fling off years of repressive Taliban rule. This hopeful chaos brings together American aid worker Liv Stoellner and Farida Basra, an educated Pakistani woman still adjusting to her arranged marriage to Gul, the son of an Afghan strongman whose family spent years of exile in Pakistan before returning to Kabul.

Both Liv and her husband take positions at an NGO that helps Afghan women recover from the Taliban years. They see the move as a reboot—Martin for his moribund academic career, Liv for their marriage. But for Farida and Gul, the move to Kabul is fraught, severing all ties with Farida’s family and her former world, and forcing Gul to confront a chapter in his life he’d desperately tried to erase.

The two women, brought together by Farida’s work as an interpreter, form a nascent friendship based on their growing mutual love for Afghanistan, though Liv remains unaware that Farida is reporting information about the Americans’ activities to Gul’s family, who have ties to the black market.

As the bond between Farida and Liv deepens, war-scarred Kabul acts in different ways upon them, as well as their husbands. Silent Hearts is an absorbing, complex portrayal of two very different but equally resilient women caught in the conflict of a war that will test them in ways they never imagined.

Visit Gwen Florio's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Gwen Florio & Nell.

My Book, the Movie: Silent Hearts.

Writers Read: Gwen Florio.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrew Reynolds's "The Third Lens"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Third Lens: Metaphor and the Creation of Modern Cell Biology by Andrew S. Reynolds.

About the book, from the publisher:

Does science aim at providing an account of the world that is literally true or objectively true? Understanding the difference requires paying close attention to metaphor and its role in science. In The Third Lens, Andrew S. Reynolds argues that metaphors, like microscopes and other instruments, are a vital tool in the construction of scientific knowledge and explanations of how the world works. More than just rhetorical devices for conveying difficult ideas, metaphors provide the conceptual means with which scientists interpret and intervene in the world.

Reynolds here investigates the role of metaphors in the creation of scientific concepts, theories, and explanations, using cell theory as his primary case study. He explores the history of key metaphors that have informed the field and the experimental, philosophical, and social circumstances under which they have emerged, risen in popularity, and in some cases faded from view. How we think of cells—as chambers, organisms, or even machines—makes a difference to scientific practice. Consequently, an accurate picture of how scientific knowledge is made requires us to understand how the metaphors scientists use—and the social values that often surreptitiously accompany them—influence our understanding of the world, and, ultimately, of ourselves.

The influence of metaphor isn’t limited to how we think about cells or proteins: in some cases they can even lead to real material change in the very nature of the thing in question, as scientists use technology to alter the reality to fit the metaphor. Drawing out the implications of science’s reliance upon metaphor, The Third Lens will be of interest to anyone working in the areas of history and philosophy of science, science studies, cell and molecular biology, science education and communication, and metaphor in general.

Learn more about The Third Lens at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Third Lens.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Danielle Banas's "The Supervillain and Me"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas.

About the book, from the publisher:

Never trust a guy in spandex.

In Abby Hamilton’s world, superheroes do more than just stop crime and save cats stuck in trees—they also drink milk straight from the carton and hog the television remote. Abby’s older brother moonlights as the famous Red Comet, but without powers of her own, following in his footsteps has never crossed her mind.

That is, until the city’s newest vigilante comes bursting into her life.

After saving Abby from an attempted mugging, Morriston’s fledgling supervillain Iron Phantom convinces her that he’s not as evil as everyone says, and that their city is under a vicious new threat. As Abby follows him deeper into their city’s darkest secrets, she comes to learn that heroes can’t always be trusted, and sometimes it’s the good guys who wear black.

Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, The Supervillain and Me is a hilarious, sweet, and action-packed novel by debut author Danielle Banas that proves no one is perfect, not even superheroes.

Visit Danielle Banas's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Danielle Banas & Cooper.

My Book, The Movie: The Supervillain and Me.

The Page 69 Test: The Supervillain and Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top artificial humans in fiction

Born in Reykjavik in 1962, Sjón is a celebrated Icelandic novelist. He won the Nordic Council's Literary Prize for his novel The Blue Fox (the Nordic countries' equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) and the novel From The Mouth Of The Whale was shortlisted for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. His novel Moonstone – The Boy Who Never Was was awarded every Icelandic literature prize, among them the 2013 Icelandic Literary Prize. His latest published work is the definite edition of the trilogy CoDex 1962.

One of his top ten artificial humans in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Told in the past, the present and possible futures, Cloud Atlas’s most tragic and human character is Sonmi–451, a future clone designed to have no self-awareness – and thereby no survival instinct – so she can be worked to death in a diner only to end up reprocessed as food. As her name implies, she finds her strength through reading and her own story becomes a cornerstone of a civilisation even farther in the future.

Read about another entry on the list.

Cloud Atlas is among Naomi Klein's six favorite books, Jeff Somers's seven novels with chronologies that will break you, Christopher Priest’s top five science-fiction books that make use of music, Patrick Hemstreet's five top books for the psychonaut and the six books that changed Maile Meloy's idea of what’s possible in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Montgomery McFate's "Military Anthropology"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Military Anthropology: Soldiers, Scholars and Subjects at the Margins of Empire by Montgomery McFate.

About the book, from the publisher:

In almost every military intervention in its history, the US has made cultural mistakes that hindered attainment of its policy goals. From the strategic bombing of Vietnam to the accidental burning of the Koran in Afghanistan, it has blundered around with little consideration of local cultural beliefs and for the long-term effects on the host nation's society. Cultural anthropology--the so-called "handmaiden of colonialism"--has historically served as an intellectual bridge between Western powers and local nationals. What light can it shed on the intersection of the US military and foreign societies today?

This book tells the story of anthropologists who worked directly for the military, such as Ursula Graham Bower, the only woman to hold a British combat command during WWII. Each faced challenges including the negative outcomes of exporting Western political models and errors of perception.

Ranging from the British colonial era in Africa to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Military Anthropology illustrates the conceptual, cultural and practical barriers encountered by military organisations operating in societies vastly different from their own.

Visit Montgomery McFate's website.

The Page 99 Test: Military Anthropology.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susan McBride reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Susan McBride, author of Walk A Crooked Line.

Her entry begins:

What I’m reading right now is The Martian by Andy Weir. I’m a little behind the curve on this one, I know, but I caught the movie on TV and loved it. Thanks to Matt Damon bringing Mark Watney to life so brilliantly, I can easily envision him. Sometimes the writing is clunky, but Watney’s voice is so engaging that I don’t mind. I’m rooting for him, just as…[read on]

About Walk a Crooked Line, from the publisher:

When a teenager’s body is found at the base of the old water tower, Detective Jo Larsen is one of the first on the scene. Tragically, it appears to be a clear case of suicide.

But the more Jo learns about Kelly Amster, the more she finds herself needing to understand why the high school sophomore would take that fatal plunge. As they interview family and friends, Jo and her partner, Hank Phelps, begin to fit together the pieces of a dark puzzle. Something happened to Kelly in their small town of Plainfield, Texas—and it sent the young girl straight over the edge.

Haunted by the memories of her own childhood, Jo digs deep into the shadowy corners of a seemingly tight-knit community—to uncover a devastating secret…

Learn more about the book and author at Susan McBride's website.

The Page 69 Test: Little Black Dress.

The Page 69 Test: Very Bad Things.

My Book, The Movie: Very Bad Things.

My Book, The Movie: Walk Into Silence.

The Page 69 Test: Walk Into Silence.

My Book, The Movie: Walk a Crooked Line.

Writers Read: Susan McBride.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Libby Page's "The Lido"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Lido by Libby Page.

About The Lido, from the publisher:

WE'RE NEVER TOO OLD TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS—OR TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Rosemary Peterson has lived in Brixton, London, all her life but everything is changing.

The library where she used to work has closed. The family grocery store has become a trendy bar. And now the lido, an outdoor pool where she's swum daily since its opening, is threatened with closure by a local housing developer. It was at the lido that Rosemary escaped the devastation of World War II; here she fell in love with her husband, George; here she found community during her marriage and since George’s death.

Twentysomething Kate Matthews has moved to Brixton and feels desperately alone. A once promising writer, she now covers forgettable stories for her local paper. That is, until she’s assigned to write about the lido’s closing. Soon Kate’s portrait of the pool focuses on a singular woman: Rosemary. And as Rosemary slowly opens up to Kate, both women are nourished and transformed in ways they never thought possible.

In the tradition of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, The Lido is a charming, feel-good novel that captures the heart and spirit of a community across generations—an irresistible tale of love, loss, aging, and friendship.

Visit Libby Page's website.

Writers Read: Libby Page.

The Page 69 Test: The Lido.

--Marshal Zeringue

Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's "The Possible World," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Possible World: A Novel by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz.

The entry begins:

The Possible World is set in Rhode Island, and there is a significant historical aspect to the story, so a close adaptation would be constrained with regard to casting. A looser adaptation (a different setting, for example) would open up some roles with regard to type. I think I would learn a lot about my story and characters if they were set free in that way, but for a strict adaptation, set in Rhode Island with the characters as they are written, this is what I imagine for the main roles of Clare and Lucy and Ben and Leo and Gloria and Joe and James:

Clare is a 99 year old, French-Canadian immigrant to Providence, who tells her life story. So there are two roles: “Now Clare” (99 years old) and “Early Clare” (mid 30s to mid 40s); with great prosthetic/makeup work, one talented actress could play both! I envisioned Early Clare as tall, with an ethereal, seemingly-fragile quality, like Saffron Burrows or Charlotte Rampling or Madeline Stowe or Nicole Kidman or Keri Russell. Others with great talent and mobile, expressive faces to carry emotional scenes without much dialogue: Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Heigl, Julia Roberts (she is ageless!). For Now Clare (with aging prosthetics of course): Brooke...[read on]

Visit Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Possible World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best dogs in (contemporary) literature

Miriam Parker's new novel is The Shortest Way Home.

She lives in Brooklyn with her spaniel, Leopold Bloom.

One entry from Parker's list of the indisputably best dogs in (contemporary) literature, as shared at LitHub:

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

Nobody writes a dog like Kate Atkinson. Kate once said, “I’m quite a ruthless author. The only time I felt really bad about killing a character was in Behind the Scenes at the Museum, when the dog was sent to war and was killed. That broke my heart. That says more about me—that I’m more affected by dogs than people.” Life after Life is filled most particularly with great dogs, first there’s Bosun, then Lucky. The dogs are great friends of the characters and give them comfort in difficult times. I think dogs giving comfort to characters is a totally overlooked way to show a character being vulnerable. And Kate Atkinson does it so well. Plus, something about the way she describes dogs makes you just want to pet them.

Read about another entry on the list.

Life After Life is among Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's top ten books about self-reinvention, Caitlin Kleinschmidt tagged twelve moving novels of the Second World War, Jenny Shank's top five innovative novels that mess with chronology, Dell Villa's top twelve books from 2013 to give your mom, and Judith Mackrell's five best young fictional heroines in coming-of-age novels.

Visit Miriam Parker's website.

--Marshal Zeringue