Five books on the rise and fall of German militarism

Peter H. Wilson is the author of Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire, an Economist and Sunday Times Best Book, and The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, winner of the Distinguished Book Award from the Society of Military History. He has appeared on BBC Radio and has written for Prospect, the Los Angeles Times, and Financial Times. President of the Society for the History of War and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Wilson is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford. His work has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish.

Wilson's new book is Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500.

[The Page 99 Test: The Thirty Years War; The Page 99 Test: Iron and Blood]

At Lit Hub he tagged five books that provide "insight into the diversity of the German experience of war, its conduct, societal impact, and human cost." One title on the list:

Michael Howard, The Franco-Prussian War

Campaign history has fallen somewhat out of fashion and is widely (if often unfairly) perceived as a “drums and trumpets” approach to the study of war. Michael Howard’s acclaimed account of the war of 1870-1 remains an example of how to do it well, even though it first appeared over sixty years ago.

The book makes no pretense of covering all issues with, for example, the causes and consequences covered only briefly, while the cultural dimensions disappear almost completely, as they do in much of the other scholarship of that era. Nonetheless, Howard was convinced that “military forces are shaped, not only by the weapons with which they are armed, but by the social backgrounds from which they emerge and the political function for which they are intended.” This broader context informs the entire book, as well as defining Howard’s approach to War Studies, an interdisciplinary line of enquiry which he did much to establish.

The conflict was central in establishing the belief that the German high command had a special “genius for war,” thanks to its spectacular initial victories over France’s regular army which, until then, had been considered the best in Europe. There are more recent accounts which correct Howard on some points, not least retitling the conflict as the Franco-German War to take more account of the contribution of Bavaria and the other (then still independent) southern states alongside Prussia. However, none can match the fluidity of his narrative or the balance in his assessments.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christopher C. Gorham's "The Confidante"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America by Christopher C. Gorham.

About the book, from the publisher:

Perfect for readers of A Woman of No Importance, Three Ordinary Girls, and Eleanor: A Life comes the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who became FDR’s closest advisor during World War II and, according to Life, “the most important official woman in the world” —a woman of many firsts, whose story, forgotten for too long, is extraordinary, inspiring, and uniquely American. Her life ran parallel to the front lines of history yet her influence on 20th century America, from the New Deal to the Cold War and beyond, has never before been told.

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s special envoy to Europe in World War II she went where the president couldn’t go. She was among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp, and stood in the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s mountain retreat, days after its capture. She guided the direction of the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Manhattan Project. Though Anna Rosenberg emerged from modest immigrant beginnings, equipped with only a high school education, she was the real power behind national policies critical to America winning the war and prospering afterward. Astonishingly, her story remains largely forgotten.

With a disarming mix of charm and Tammany-hewn toughness, Rosenberg began her career in public relations in 1920s Manhattan. She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, who recommended Anna to her husband, who was then running for Governor of New York. As FDR’s unofficial adviser, Rosenberg soon wielded enormous influence—no less potent for being subtle. Roosevelt dubbed her “my Mrs. Fix-It.” Her extraordinary career continued after his death.

By 1950, she was tapped to become the assistant secretary of defense—the highest position ever held by a woman in the US military—prompting Senator Joe McCarthy to wage an unsuccessful smear campaign against her. In 1962, she organized John F. Kennedy’s infamous birthday gala, sitting beside him while Marilyn Monroe sang. Until the end of her life, Rosenberg fought tirelessly for causes from racial integration to women’s equality to national health care.

More than the story of one remarkable woman, The Confidante explores who gets to be at the forefront of history, and why. Though she was not quite a hidden figure, Rosenberg’s position as “the power behind,” combined with her status as an immigrant and a Jewish woman, served to diminish her importance. In this inspiring, impeccably researched, and revelatory book, Christopher C. Gorham at last affords Anna Rosenberg the recognition she so richly deserves.

“Far and away the most important woman in the American government, and perhaps the most important official female in the world.” —LIFE magazine, 1952

Visit Christopher C. Gorham's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Confidante.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lucy Jane Bledsoe's "Tell the Rest"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Tell the Rest by Lucy Jane Bledsoe.

About the book, from the publisher:

DELIA BARNES AND ERNEST WRANGHAM met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person’s sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes.

They have no idea how each has fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast college, she’s forced to return to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon, to coach at her high school alma mater.

Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet with a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he’s most wanted to write—about his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp—remains stubbornly out of reach.

Both persist in the mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one’s truth, no matter how slippery that can be. Tell the Rest is a powerful novel about coming to terms, with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love.

Visit Lucy Jane Bledsoe's website.

Q&A with Lucy Jane Bledsoe.

The Page 69 Test: Tell the Rest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Frank Sennett's "Shadow State," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Shadow State: A Novel by Frank Sennett.

The entry begins:

If Shadow State scores a film adaptation--which would be a natural progression, given the propulsive, cinematic nature of the story--I'd be thrilled to see Michael B. Jordan cast as Rafe Hendrix.

I was blown away by Jordan's acting in the tragic Fruitvale Station (2013), and was then delighted to see him expand into a range of different film roles, including his excellent Creed franchise. There's a mix of toughness and humanity in Jordan's performances that would aid his portrayal of Rafe. Hendrix is white in the book, but Jordan could easily inhabit the character and make him his own.

One reason Jordan is well suited for the role is that...[read on]

Follow Frank Sennett on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Shadow State.

My Book, The Movie: Shadow State.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten retold fairytales

Idra Novey is the award-winning author of the novels Ways to Disappear and Those Who Knew. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages and she’s written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. She teaches fiction at Princeton University.

[The Page 69 Test: Ways to Disappear]

Novey's new novel is Take What You Need.

At the Guardian she tagged ten top retold fairytales that "upend readers’ expectations in wondrously subversive ways." One title on the list:

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

In this Alaskan novel, a childless couple create one – out of snow. For anyone who lives with children who are not made of snow, the quiet, pristine world of this novel will immediately transport you to an elsewhere beyond the often loud and chaotic realm of 21st-century parenthood.

Learn about another entry on the list.

The Snow Child is among Ashleigh Bell Pedersen's eight magical novels by women writers and M. A. Kuzniar's eight retellings with a bite of darkness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Philip C. Almond's "Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History by Philip C. Almond.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mary Magdalene is a key figure in the history of Christianity. After Mary, the mother of Jesus, she remains the most important female saint in her guise both as primary witness to the resurrection and 'apostle of the apostles'. This volume, the first major work on the Magdalene in more than thirty years, focuses on her 'lives' as these have been imagined and reimagined within Christian tradition. Philip Almond expertly disentangles the numerous narratives that have shaped the story of Mary over the past two millennia. Exploring the 'idea' of the Magdalene – her cult, her relics, her legacy – the author deftly peels back complex layers of history and myth to reveal many different Maries, including penitent prostitute; demoniac; miracle worker; wife and lover of Jesus; symbol of the erotic; and New Age goddess. By challenging uniform or homogenised readings of the Magdalene, this absorbing new book brings fascinating insights to its subject.

Follow Philip C. Almond on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Afterlife: A History of Life after Death.

The Page 99 Test: The Antichrist: A New Biography.

The Page 99 Test: Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Chris Nickson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Chris Nickson, author of The Dead Will Rise (A Simon Westow mystery, 5).

His entry begins:

I'm reading Blood Hollow, by William Kent Krueger. It's the second of his so far for me. My friend, Seattle writer Candace Robb, recommended him, so I started with Iron Lake, the first in this series, and loved it. Right now I'm out of order...[read on]

About The Dead Will Rise, from the publisher:

Thief-taker Simon Westow is used to finding stolen goods, not stolen bodies . . . Can he hunt down those committing crimes against the dead in Leeds?

Leeds. April, 1824. Wealthy engineer Joseph Clark employs thief-taker Simon Westow to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Catherine Jordan, his employee’s daughter.

Simon is stunned and horrified to realize there’s a gang of body snatchers in Leeds. He needs to discover who bought Catherine’s body and where it is now. As he hunts for answers, he learns that a number of corpses have vanished from graveyards in the town. Can Simon and his assistant Jane bring the brutal, violent Resurrection men who are selling the dead to medical schools to justice and give some peace to the bereft families?

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top thrillers with emotional depth

Sarah Lyu grew up outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. She loves a good hike and can often be found with a paintbrush in one hand and a cup of milky tea in the other. Lyu is the author of The Best Lies and I Will Find You Again.

[Q&A with Sarah Lyu; My Book, The Movie: I Will Find You Again]

At CrimeReads Lyu tagged eight favorite thrillers with emotional depth:

The Restless Dark by Erica Waters

Lucy just wants to stop being afraid. After a close encounter with a serial killer, she’s back at Cloudkiss Canyon, the killing ground she almost met her end to confront her fears once and for all. But the canyon—and malevolent fog that engulfs it—isn’t ready to release its grip on her. Can she let go of the past or will she let it consume her?

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Greta Lynn Uehling's "Everyday War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Everyday War: The Conflict over Donbas, Ukraine by Greta Lynn Uehling.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyday War provides an accessible lens through which to understand what noncombatant civilians go through in a country at war. What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete.

In Ukraine, landscapes filled with death and destruction prompted attentiveness to human vulnerabilities and the cultivation of everyday, interpersonal peace. Uehling explores a constellation of social practices where ethics of care were in operation. People were also drawn into the conflict in an everyday form of war that included provisioning fighters with military equipment they purchased themselves, smuggling insulin, and cutting ties to former friends. Each chapter considers a different site where care can produce interpersonal peace or its antipode, everyday war.

Bridging the fields of political geography, international relations, peace and conflict studies, and anthropology, Everyday War considers where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.

Learn more about Everyday War at Greta Uehling's website.

The Page 99 Test: Everyday War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Margaret Mizushima's "Standing Dead"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Standing Dead by Margaret Mizushima.

About the book, from the publisher:

From critically acclaimed, master thriller author Margaret Mizushima, comes the eighth installment of the award-winning Timber Creek K-9 mysteries.

Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.

The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery—a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother—or die trying.

Visit Margaret Mizushima's website, Twitter perch, and Facebook and Instagram pages.

Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah, Bertie, Lily and Tess.

Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah.

My Book, The Movie: Burning Ridge.

The Page 69 Test: Burning Ridge.

The Page 69 Test: Tracking Game.

My Book, The Movie: Hanging Falls.

The Page 69 Test: Hanging Falls.

Q&A with Margaret Mizushima.

The Page 69 Test: Striking Range.

The Page 69 Test: Standing Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top novels in academic settings

Rebecca Makkai is the author of the novels I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, and the story collection Music for Wartime. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Great Believers received an American Library Association Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors, and was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times. A 202 Guggenheim fellow, Makkai is on the MFA faculties of the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and Northwestern University, and is the artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago. She lives on the campus of the midwestern boarding school where her husband teaches, and in Vermont.

[My Book, The Movie: The Borrower; The Page 69 Test: The Hundred-Year House; My Book, The Movie: The Hundred-Year House; My Book, The Movie: The Great Believers]

At the Waterstones blog Makkai tagged five favorite novels that bring characters together in an educational setting, including:

The Devil and Webster by Jean Hanff Korelitz

A young man graduating from The Devon School [in A Separate Peace by John Knowles] and attending camp at [Meg] Wolitzer’s Spirit-in-the-Woods [in The Interestings] might then have found himself at small and selective Webster College, the fictional setting for Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 2017 novel The Devil and Webster. Rather than a student’s point of view, we get that of the new and beleaguered college president, Naomi Roth, as she navigates a scandal that ultimately involves her own daughter, a freshman at the school. It’s a thought-provoking novel, a page turner that challenges our notions of fairness and justice.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Lindsey's "Delegated Diplomacy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Delegated Diplomacy: How Ambassadors Establish Trust in International Relations by David Lindsey.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why do states still need diplomats? Despite instantaneous electronic communication and rapid global travel, the importance of ambassadors and embassies has in many ways grown since the middle of the nineteenth century. However, in theories of international relations, diplomats are often neglected in favor of states or leaders, or they are dismissed as old-fashioned.

David Lindsey develops a new theory of diplomacy that illuminates why states find ambassadors indispensable to effective intergovernmental interaction. He argues that the primary diplomatic challenge countries face is not simply communication―it is credibility. Diplomats can often communicate credibly with their host countries even when their superiors cannot because diplomats spend time building the trust that is vital to cooperation. Using a combination of history, game theory, and statistical analysis, Lindsey explores the logic of delegating authority to diplomats. He argues that countries tend to appoint diplomats who are sympathetic to their host countries and share common interests with them. Ideal diplomats hold political preferences that fall in between those of their home country and their host country, and they are capable of balancing both sets of interests without embracing either point of view fully.

Delegated Diplomacy is based on a comprehensive dataset of more than 1,300 diplomatic biographies drawn from declassified intelligence records, as well as detailed case studies of the U.S. ambassadors to the United Kingdom and Germany before and during World War I. It provides a rich and insightful account of the theory and practice of diplomacy in international relations.

Learn more about Delegated Diplomacy at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Delegated Diplomacy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Frank Sennett's "Shadow State"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Shadow State: A Novel by Frank Sennett.

About the book, from the publisher:

Perfect for fans of Matthew Quirk and Barry Eisler, in Frank Sennett’s hands, the world of a former military officer and Secret Service agent comes to harrowing life as a diabolical plot threatens everything he cherishes and believes.

Ex-Army Ranger sniper Rafe Hendrix leads the Secret Service detail of President Wyetta Johnson. Rafe and Wyetta became close when they served together in Afghanistan and he saved her life during a recon misadventure that cost her a leg.

The President’s wife visits a D.C. private-school classroom, and Hendrix is on sniper duty when a suicide bomber heads toward the First Lady. Hendrix disobeys a direct order and an unthinkable disaster unfolds. Though Hendrix may have saved the First Lady, he’s blamed for the carnage. And the violence hits harder than he ever could have imagined.

Rafe is cast adrift after the incident and he leaves D.C. for Fort Stockton, Texas. His prospects brighten when he meets veterinarian Melody Sanchez and their romance begins to bloom. But there’s still unfinished business waiting in the wings.

Someone from the past is bent on revenge—and he has Rafe firmly in his sights. His plan is as twisted as they come—grisly recreations of some of the most terrible events from the past. And now it’s up to Rafe to learn from history—or be doomed to repeat it.

Follow Frank Sennett on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Shadow State.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books for fans of "Daisy Jones & the Six"

Amazon Book Review editor Al Woodworth and colleagues tagged ten books for fans of Daisy Jones & the Six, including:

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

This Pulitzer-prize winning novel is one of my favorite of all time because it’s so unique—a collection of brilliantly dark and often troubled characters whose stories are told in separate chapters that all intertwine in unexpected ways. There’s music executive Bennie, trying to discover the next big thing while also struggling to connect to his young son and wife; his assistant, wild child kleptomaniac Sasha; a disgraced actress, Kitty, who basically sells her soul to return to fame, and so many more larger-than-life, interlocking characters that make this book somewhat of a mix between [Taylor Jenkins Reid's] Daisy Jones, [The Seven Husbands of] Evelyn Hugo, and something you’ve definitely never read before. And if you aren’t ready to give up those characters when you turn the last page, Egan wrote a follow-up that features many of them, Candy House, an Amazon Editors’ pick in which she takes her experimental writing style even further. Our colleague Erin called it, “imaginative, cerebral, and exhilarating.”

Read about another entry on the list.

A Visit From the Goon Squad is among Julian Gough's ten top books to help you survive the digital age, Marina Benjamin's ten top books about middle age, four books that changed Alison Lester, Jeff Somers's five top books that blur the line between the novel and short story, Gillian Anderson's six favorite books, and Julie Christie's seven favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ellen Hampton's "Doctors at War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Doctors at War: The Clandestine Battle against the Nazi Occupation of France by Ellen Hampton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Doctors at War tells the stories of physicians in France working to impede the German war effort and undermine French collaborators during the Occupation from 1940 to 1945. Determined to defeat the Third Reich’s incursion, one group of prominent Paris doctors founded a medical network to treat injured Resistance fighters who they then secretly transported to Allied countries to avoid forced labor in Germany. Another team of medics organized a cabal focused on intelligence gathering and sabotage that became one of the largest in wartime France, even after the Gestapo arrested and imprisoned its leaders. Deported to concentration camps, these physicians continued to frustrate Nazi efforts by rendering aid and keeping their fellow prisoners alive. Others joined rural guerrilla camps to care for the young conscripts fighting to block German reinforcements from reaching Normandy after the D-Day landing.

These stories, assembled here for the first time, add a crucial dimension to the history of Occupied France. Written for both historians and general readers of World War II history, Doctors at War stands as a dramatic, character-driven account of physicians’ courage and resilience in the face of evil. It serves as a window into life under a fascist regime and the travails of doctors who negotiated the terrifying moral labyrinth that was the German military’s occupation of France.

Visit Ellen Hampton's website.

The Page 99 Test: Doctors at War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Lucy Jane Bledsoe

From my Q&A with Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of Tell the Rest:

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

My novel is about two survivors of a conversion therapy camp, and how friendship, community, and creative expression are the roads to healing. I love the title Tell the Rest because it comes from an emotionally poignant moment in the novel. I usually find titles excruciatingly difficult to write. I was calling this novel Champion for a while, in a kind of ironic use of the word, but in the end it sounded too much like the title of a Young Adult novel. I was also—briefly—calling the novel The New Fugitives, but that was far too weighty and it emphasized the trauma when I wanted to emphasize the survivor aspects of my characters’ story. Tell the Rest opens up the question about what is not said, what secrets are being harbored, and even more importantly, states that the “rest,” the unspoken, will...[read on]

Visit Lucy Jane Bledsoe's website.

Q&A with Lucy Jane Bledsoe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven new crime novels centered around musicians

Molly Odintz is the Senior Editor for CrimeReads and the editor of Austin Noir, forthcoming from Akashic Books. She grew up in Austin and worked as a bookseller at BookPeople, and recently returned to Central Texas after five years in NYC. She likes cats, crime novels, and coffee.

At CrimeReads she tagged "seven [2023] novels exploring the intersection of creativity, celebrity, and crime, with a variety of musical genre inspirations, including pop stars, punk rockers, classical musicians, metalheads, aging folk singers, and even a tribute to grunge," including:

Laura Hankin, The Daydreams

Laura Hankin’s set-up makes me really wish this had been a real TV show: what if the Monkees were an early aughts Disney show? Or what if Miley Cyrus had been just one part of a whole high school rock band? The Daydreams are the stars of a children’s network show about high school kids in a band, and while child actors are at first deeply enthused to be playing their roles, a disastrous last episode leaves everyone reeling, unsure of why things unraveled so abruptly. The answer is found in toxic Hollywood culture, the pressures placed on young actors, and the ways in which we fail the most vulnerable.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jacob Bricca's "How Documentaries Work"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: How Documentaries Work by Jacob Bricca.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Documentaries Work breaks down the hidden conventions of documentaries in clear and accessible language for film students and documentary enthusiasts alike. Jacob Bricca, ACE, an award-winning documentary director, producer, and editor, provides a behind-the-scenes, under-the-hood view of what's really going on in the construction of nonfiction films and television shows. This book presents examples from contemporary documentaries and docuseries and delivers insights from some of the most exciting nonfiction filmmakers and craftspeople working today, including director Steve James (City So Real, Hoop Dreams), producer Amy Ziering (Allen v. Farrow, The Hunting Ground), editor Aaron Wickenden, ACE (Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, 20 Feet from Stardom), and composer Miriam Cutler (RBG, Lost in La Mancha). Chapters such as "Flow," "Narrative," and "Time" offer a new way of looking at documentary film language, while others like "Titles," "Music," and "Sound" deliver extraordinary insights on seemingly ordinary topics. A compact volume written in plain, easy-to-understand language, this book promises to change the way you think about nonfiction films and television shows forever.

Visit Jacob Bricca's website.

The Page 99 Test: How Documentaries Work.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Cara Black's "Night Flight to Paris"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Night Flight to Paris by Cara Black.

About the book, from the publisher:

It is once again up to American markswoman Kate Rees to take the shot that just might win—or lose—World War II, in the followup to national bestseller Three Hours in Paris.

Three missions. Two cities. One shot to win the war.

October 1942: it’s been two years since Kate Rees was sent to Paris on a British Secret Service mission to assassinate Hitler. Since then, she has left spycraft behind to take a training job as a sharpshooting instructor in the Scottish Highlands. But her quiet life is violently disrupted when Colonel Stepney, her former handler, drags her back into the fray for a risky three-pronged mission in Paris.

Each task is more dangerous than the next: Deliver a package of forbidden biological material. Assassinate a high-ranking German operative whose knowledge of invasion plans could turn the tide of the war against the Allies. Rescue a British agent who once saved Kate’s life—and get out.

Kate will encounter sheiks and spies, poets and partisans, as she races to keep up with the constantly shifting nature of her assignment, showing every ounce of her Oregonian grit in the process.

New York Times bestselling author Cara Black has crafted another heart-stopping thrill ride that reveals a portrait of Paris at the height of the Nazi occupation.

Visit Cara Black's website and follow her on Twitter.

The Page 69 Test: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

My Book, the Movie: Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

The Page 69 Test: Murder below Montparnasse.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Pigalle.

My Book, The Movie: Murder in Pigalle.

My Book, The Movie: Murder on the Champ de Mars.

Writers Read: Cara Black (June 2018).

The Page 69 Test: Three Hours in Paris.

The Page 69 Test: Night Flight to Paris.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sarah Lyu's "I Will Find You Again," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: I Will Find You Again by Sarah Lyu.

The entry begins:

I Will Find You Again, my upcoming YA thriller, sees driven overachiever Chase Ohara devastated when her ex-girlfriend Lia disappears. As she tries to piece together what happened to Lia, Chase’s life turns into a kaleidoscope of heartbreak and disaster: sleepless nights, pink pills in an Altoids tin, a cheating ring at school. She misses her best friend, her soulmate, and the happiness they once shared, and if she can’t work through the past, she may not get a future.

The cast:

Chase Ohara: Elizabeth Yu. It can be a little tricky when dreamcasting young actors of Asian descent given the limited roles available, so I based this choice on Yu’s role on the upcoming live-action adaption of Avatar the Last Airbender where she’ll be playing Azula. Known as one of the villains of the series, Azula is a fierce and calculating opponent, but she has a vulnerable side too, and Chase’s character treads that line carefully. Plus, both aspire to power and have control issues.

Lia: Lana Condor. There’s such an exuberance to Condor’s Lara Jean on To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and...[read on]

Visit Sarah Lyu's website.

Q&A with Sarah Lyu.

My Book, The Movie: I Will Find You Again.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels about immigrant mothers who defy societal expectations

Asale Angel-Ajani is a writer and Professor at The City College of New York. She's the author of the nonfiction books Strange Trade: The Story of Two Women Who Risked Everything in the International Drug Trade and Intimate: Essays on Racial Terror. She has held residencies at Millay, Djerassi, and Playa, and is an alum of VONA and Tin House.

A Country You Can Leave is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Angel-Ajani tagged seven novels about "women with children who pursue their own independence, dreams, and desires," including:

Mother Country by Irina Reyn

This novel focuses on the life of Nadia, a Ukrainian-Russian immigrant living in Brooklyn, who has made the difficult choice to leave her child behind in a country torn apart by war. Nadia had hoped to bring her daughter to the U.S., but once her papers come through, her daughter Lassika is no longer of legal age to go with her. This forces Nadia to make the decision to pursue her own future, despite leaving her mother and daughter in a war zone. What makes this novel unique is the ways it represents parenting adult children when the family is apart. While Nadia chips away at American immigration laws to reunite with her daughter, she also grapples with the reality of living far from home while loved ones endure Putin’s war of “reunification.”

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James Klise reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James Klise, author of I'll Take Everything You Have.

His entry begins:

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

At the high school where I work, I lead a student book club. We always read YA books, but for the first time in 20 years, I bent to popular demand and ordered copies of Madeline Miller’s bestseller The Song of Achilles. A colleague emailed one night: “Jim, have you started reading that book? Um… it’s SPICY.” I panicked, but then I read it. The book is fantastic. Youthful heroes, powerful villains, friendship that turns to love, and the suspense of knowing (for most readers) what destiny has in store. Every teen read it cover to cover. Thumbs up! As far as the “spicy” element...[read on]

About I'll Take Everything You Have, from the publisher:

From an Edgar Award-winning author, this historical noir novel follows the life-changing summer of sixteen-year-old Joe Garbe as he discovers queer community in 1930s Chicago and gets caught up in the city's crooked underbelly.

In the summer of 1934, Joe Garbe arrives in Chicago with one goal: Earn enough money to get out of debt and save the family farm. Joe’s cousin sets him up with a hotel job, then proposes a sketchy scheme to make a lot more money fast. While running his con, Joe finds himself splitting time between Eddie, a handsome flirt on a delivery truck, and Raymond, a carefree rich kid who shows Joe the eye-opening queer life around every corner of the big city.

Joe’s exposure to the surface of criminal Chicago pulls him into something darker than he could have imagined. When danger closes in—from gangsters, the police, and people he thought were friends—Joe needs to pack up and get lost. But before he can figure out where to go, he has to decide who he wants to be.

I’ll Take Everything You Have is a vivid portrayal of queer coming of age in Depression-era Chicago, and a timeless story of trying to make your future bright when the rest of the world is dead set on keeping it hidden in the dark.

Learn more about the book and author at James Klise's website and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Art of Secrets.

The Page 69 Test: I'll Take Everything You Have.

Writers Read: James Klise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top books on borders concrete & intangible

Fatin Abbas is the author of Ghost Season: A Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Freeman’s: The Best New Writing on Arrival, The Warwick Review, and Friction, amongst other places, and her journalism and non-fiction have appeared in The Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, Zeit Online, and Africa Is a Country, among other venues.

Abbas teaches fiction writing in the department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight "favorite books on borders, border towns and border crossings of all kinds: physical as well as social crossings, cosmic escapades, and gender-defying odysseys." One title on the list:

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997)

I’m one of those readers for whom reading this novel, when I was in my late teens, was akin to a religious awakening or spiritual conversion. Here the borders that are crossed are not so much physical but social: the taboo boundaries of caste and incest. Set in Kerala, South India, the novel tells the story of fraternal twins Rahel and Esthappen, sister and brother who, at seven years old, experience traumatic events involving their mother, Ammu, and her Dalit lover, Velutha. The violence that ensues destroys the family, sending the twins on different paths, until they’re finally reunited twenty-four years later. The most powerful works of fiction are often the messiest and most raw—which is why Roy’s novel often polarizes readers. But every time I read The God of Small Things, I’m entirely in awe of the bold soul that dreamt it up.

Read about another entry on the list.

The God of Small Things is among Rebecca Wait's top ten books about twins, Alex Hyde's top ten mirrored lives in fiction, Saumya Roy's seven unlikely love stories in literature, and Miranda Doyle's top ten books about lies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jennifer Greenburg's "At War with Women"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War by Jennifer Greenburg.

About the book, from the publisher:

At War with Women reveals how post-9/11 politics of gender and development have transformed US military power. In the mid-2000s, the US military used development as a weapon as it revived counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military assembled all-female teams to reach households and wage war through development projects in the battle for "hearts and minds." Despite women technically being banned from ground combat units, the all-female teams were drawn into combat nonetheless. Based on ethnographic fieldwork observing military trainings, this book challenges liberal feminist narratives that justified the Afghanistan War in the name of women's rights and celebrated women's integration into combat as a victory for gender equality.

Jennifer Greenburg critically interrogates a new imperial feminism and its central role in securing US hegemony. Women's incorporation into combat through emotional labor has reinforced gender stereotypes, with counterinsurgency framing female soldiers as global ambassadors for women's rights. This book provides an analysis of US imperialism that keeps the present in tension with the past, clarifying where colonial ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality have resurfaced and how they are changing today.

Visit Jennifer Greenburg's website.

The Page 99 Test: At War with Women.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Chris Nickson's "The Dead Will Rise"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise (A Simon Westow mystery, 5) by Chris Nickson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Thief-taker Simon Westow is used to finding stolen goods, not stolen bodies . . . Can he hunt down those committing crimes against the dead in Leeds?

Leeds. April, 1824. Wealthy engineer Joseph Clark employs thief-taker Simon Westow to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Catherine Jordan, his employee’s daughter.

Simon is stunned and horrified to realize there’s a gang of body snatchers in Leeds. He needs to discover who bought Catherine’s body and where it is now. As he hunts for answers, he learns that a number of corpses have vanished from graveyards in the town. Can Simon and his assistant Jane bring the brutal, violent Resurrection men who are selling the dead to medical schools to justice and give some peace to the bereft families?

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten criminal duos in fiction

Peter Swanson's novels include The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year; Before She Knew Him, and Eight Perfect Murders.

[My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing; The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing; Writers Read: Peter Swanson (February 2015)]

His new novel is The Kind Worth Saving.

At the Guardian Swanson tagged ten favorite criminal duos in fiction, including:

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock (2011)

I read a lot of crime fiction, which means I also forget a lot of crime fiction. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget Carl and Sandy Henderson, the two serial killers that are part of the tapestry of dead-end lives in Pollock’s dazzling and disturbing 1950s-set debut novel. Carl is a photographer who uses his wife to lure men (mostly drifters and hitchhikers) to their doom along the road. He calls his victims “models”, posing them in horrifying tableaux before and after their deaths. It’s a symbiotic relationship in the worst possible way.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Devil All the Time is among Louisa Ermelino's five top books of adventure and lust and Lauren Passell's ten must-read books that take place in the Midwest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Erica Berry's "Wolfish"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk and Mary Roach, Erica Berry’s WOLFISH blends science, history, and cultural criticism in a years-long journey to understand our myths about wolves, and track one legendary wolf, OR-7, from the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon

“This is one of those stories that begins with a female body. Hers was crumpled, roadside, in the ash-colored slush between asphalt and snowbank.”

So begins Erica Berry’s kaleidoscopic exploration of wolves, both real and symbolic. At the center of this lyrical inquiry is the legendary OR-7, who roams away from his familial pack in northeastern Oregon. While charting OR-7’s record-breaking journey out of the Wallowa Mountains, Erica simultaneously details her own coming-of-age as she moves away from home and wrestles with inherited beliefs about fear, danger, femininity, and the body.

As Erica chronicles her own migration—from crying wolf as a child on her grandfather’s sheep farm to accidentally eating mandrake in Sicily—she searches for new expressions for how to be a brave woman, human, and animal in our warming world. What do stories so long told about wolves tell us about our relationship to fear? How can our society peel back the layers of what scares us? By strategically unspooling the strands of our cultural constructions of predator and prey, and what it means to navigate a world in which we can be both, Erica bridges the gap between human fear and grief through the lens of a wrongfully misunderstood species.

Wolfish is for anybody trying to navigate a world that is often scary. A powerful, timeless, and necessary book for our current and future generations.

Visit Erica Berry's website.

The Page 99 Test: Wolfish.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Jumata Emill

From my Q&A with Jumata Emill, author of The Black Queen:

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

It gives the reader a direct answer to who this story is centered around. Even if you don’t know immediately that she’s being murdered, you at least know that girl, who is black and who is queen of something, is the nexus of whatever action unfolds. The title of this book came before I even knew who the characters were that would inhabit this story. I also think it does a great job of teasing the reader. You hear/see The Black Queen and you want to know more. Who is she? What is she the queen of? What does she do? Or what happens to her? And then...[read on]

Visit Jumata Emill's website.

Q&A with Jumata Emill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books showing the women in mythology in a new light

At B&N Reads Brittany Bunzey tagged ten top books centering women in mythology, including:

Stone Blind: A Novel
Natalie Haynes

Bringing an empathetic and nuanced eye to a woman long villainized, Natalie Haynes gives us Stone Blind, a look into Medusa’s story. Telling of a vulnerable woman who was exploited by a man in power and then blamed for his transgressions, Hayne’s book breathes new life into this monstrous tale, making Medusa’s story relatable in the present. Wonderfully modern and heartbreakingly relatable, Stone Blind will keep you statue-still from the first page to the last.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Stone Blind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Mary M. Burke's "Race, Politics, and Irish America"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History by Mary M. Burke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Figures from the Scots-Irish Andrew Jackson to the Caribbean-Irish Rihanna, as well as literature, film, caricature, and beauty discourse, convey how the Irish racially transformed multiple times: in the slave-holding Caribbean, on America's frontiers and antebellum plantations, and along its eastern seaboard. This cultural history of race and centuries of Irishness in the Americas examines the forcibly transported Irish, the eighteenth-century Presbyterian Ulster-Scots, and post-1845 Famine immigrants. Their racial transformations are indicated by the designations they acquired in the Americas: 'Redlegs,' 'Scots-Irish,' and 'black Irish.' In literature by Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Mitchell, Glasgow, and Yerby (an African-American author of Scots-Irish heritage), the Irish are both colluders and victims within America's racial structure. Depictions range from Irish encounters with Native and African Americans to competition within America's immigrant hierarchy between 'Saxon' Scots-Irish and 'Celtic' Irish Catholic. Irish-connected presidents feature, but attention to queer and multiracial authors, public women, beauty professionals, and performers complicates the 'Irish whitening' narrative. Thus, 'Irish Princess' Grace Kelly's globally-broadcast ascent to royalty paves the way for 'America's royals,' the Kennedys. The presidencies of the Scots-Irish Jackson and Catholic-Irish Kennedy signalled their respective cohorts' assimilation. Since Gothic literature particularly expresses the complicity that attaining power ('whiteness') entails, subgenres named 'Scots-Irish Gothic' and 'Kennedy Gothic' are identified: in Gothic by Brown, Poe, James, Faulkner, and Welty, the violence of the colonial Irish motherland is visited upon marginalized Americans, including, sometimes, other Irish groupings. History is Gothic in Irish-American narrative because the undead Irish past replays within America's contexts of race.

Follow Mary Burke on Twitter and listen to her podcast. Learn more about Race, Politics, and Irish America at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Race, Politics, and Irish America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James Klise's "I'll Take Everything You Have"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: I'll Take Everything You Have by James Klise.

About the book, from the publisher:

From an Edgar Award-winning author, this historical noir novel follows the life-changing summer of sixteen-year-old Joe Garbe as he discovers queer community in 1930s Chicago and gets caught up in the city's crooked underbelly.

In the summer of 1934, Joe Garbe arrives in Chicago with one goal: Earn enough money to get out of debt and save the family farm. Joe’s cousin sets him up with a hotel job, then proposes a sketchy scheme to make a lot more money fast. While running his con, Joe finds himself splitting time between Eddie, a handsome flirt on a delivery truck, and Raymond, a carefree rich kid who shows Joe the eye-opening queer life around every corner of the big city.

Joe’s exposure to the surface of criminal Chicago pulls him into something darker than he could have imagined. When danger closes in—from gangsters, the police, and people he thought were friends—Joe needs to pack up and get lost. But before he can figure out where to go, he has to decide who he wants to be.

I’ll Take Everything You Have is a vivid portrayal of queer coming of age in Depression-era Chicago, and a timeless story of trying to make your future bright when the rest of the world is dead set on keeping it hidden in the dark.

Learn more about the book and author at James Klise's website and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Art of Secrets.

The Page 69 Test: I'll Take Everything You Have.

--Marshal Zeringue