Pg. 99: Jim Cullen's "Bridge and Tunnel Boys"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Bridge and Tunnel Boys: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and the Metropolitan Sound of the American Century by Jim Cullen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Born four months apart, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel both released their debut albums in the early 1970s, quickly becoming two of the most successful rock stars of their generation. While their critical receptions have been very different, surprising parallels emerge when we look at the arcs of their careers and the musical influences that have inspired them.

Bridge and Tunnel Boys compares the life and work of Long Islander Joel and Asbury Park, New Jersey, native Springsteen, considering how each man forged a distinctive sound that derived from his unique position on the periphery of the Big Apple. Locating their music within a longer tradition of the New York metropolitan sound, dating back to the early 1900s, cultural historian Jim Cullen explores how each man drew from the city’s diverse racial and ethnic influences. His study explains how, despite frequently releasing songs that questioned the American dream, Springsteen and Joel were able to appeal to wide audiences during both the national uncertainty of the 1970s and the triumphalism of the Reagan era. By placing these two New York–area icons in a new context, Bridge and Tunnel Boys allows us to hear their most beloved songs with new appreciation.

Visit Jim Cullen's website.

The Page 99 Test: Sensing the Past.

Writers Read: Jim Cullen (February 2013).

The Page 99 Test: From Memory to History.

The Page 99 Test: Martin Scorsese and the American Dream.

The Page 69 Test: Best Class You Never Had.

The Page 99 Test: Bridge and Tunnel Boys.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Diane Barnes

From my Q&A with Diane Barnes, author of All We Could Still Have:

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

I struggled to think of a title for All We Could Still Have. My working title was Life, Unplanned, but I didn’t love it. When I gave a draft to beta readers, I asked them to suggest an alternative. Fortunately, someone suggested All We Could Still Have. It’s a line from the novel and it perfectly captures the meaning of the book. To me it conveys that even when you don’t get what you want or when things don’t go as planned, you can pivot and still be happy. I hope my book leaves readers with that sentiment.

What's in a name?

The protagonist of All We Could Still Have is Nikki...[read on]

Visit Diane Barnes's website.

Q&A with Diane Barnes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight new books about trailblazing women

At Publishers Weekly the staff shared a list of eight new books about trailblazing women, including:

Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science by Catherine McNeur

Historian McNeur (Taming Manhattan) paints a vibrant portrait of botanist Elizabeth Carrington Morris and her younger sister, entomologist Margaretta Hare Morris, restoring the women to their rightful place in the history of science. Born in the 1790s to a well-to-do family, the sisters grew up in Philadelphia, where they conducted scientific observations and wrote up the findings from their family home. Margaretta made a name for herself by publishing her research into how the Hessian fly destroyed wheat crops, then went on to study, among other subjects, the cicada’s 17-year cycle and the possible role of beetles in causing potato blight. Elizabeth named and categorized plants, drew illustrations of local flora for plant journals, and assisted Harvard botanist Asa Gray. The sisters regularly contributed to popular scientific publications, and Margaretta gained membership to several scientific associations. Yet the Morris sisters and other women scientists of the era were increasingly marginalized by men in the field who viewed them as subordinate helpers and cast doubt on their findings—as Charles Darwin did with Margaretta’s water beetle study. Age and ill-health slowed the sisters’ output; Elizabeth died in 1865 and Margaretta in 1867. With deep insight into the gendered power dynamics that shaped the first half of the 19th century, McNeur serves up an incisive study of institutional bias. It’s a vital account.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Mischievous Creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Helmut Puff's "The Antechamber"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Antechamber: Toward a History of Waiting by Helmut Puff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Helmut Puff invites readers to visit societies and spaces of the past through the lens of a particular temporal modality: waiting. From literature, memoirs, manuals, chronicles, visuals, and other documents, Puff presents a history of waiting anchored in antechambers—interior rooms designated and designed for people to linger. In early modern continental Western Europe, antechambers became standard in the residences of the elites. As a time-space infrastructure these rooms shaped encounters between unequals. By imposing spatial distance and temporal delays, antechambers constituted authority, rank, and power. Puff explores both the logic and the experience of waiting in such formative spaces, showing that time divides as much as it unites, and that far from what people have said about early moderns, they approached living in time with apprehensiveness. Unlike how contemporary society primarily views the temporal dimension, to early modern Europeans time was not an objective force external to the self but something that was tied to acting in time. Divided only by walls and doors, waiters sought out occasions to improve their lot. At other times, they disrupted the scripts accorded them. Situated at the intersection of history, literature, and the history of art and architecture, this wide-ranging study demonstrates that waiting has a history that has much to tell us about social and power relations in the past and present.

Learn more about The Antechamber at Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Antechamber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Finley Turner's "The Engagement Party"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party: A Novel by Finley Turner.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lavish engagement party turns deadly and the bride-to-be is the primary suspect in this heart-stopping thriller exploring the dark underbelly of the uber wealthy and just how far people will go for revenge, in the vein of Sarah Pinborough and Ruth Ware.

Kass Baptiste is newly engaged to her fiancé Murray Sedgemont after a whirlwind romance. Before they even get to share the news, an invitation arrives via messenger - to an engagement party hosted by Murray’s parents. When Kass and Murray arrive at the Sedgemont Estate, she is astonished to learn that Murray’s family is one of the most powerful families in North Carolina. As Kass’s future mother-in-law, Beatrice, whips herself into a frenzy over the perfect party for the state’s elite, Kass begins to receive anonymous threatening social media messages.

On the night of the event, as champagne is popped and the celebrations begin, a body is found in the lavish home. All eyes are on Kass, the interloper amongst the rich and powerful guests. Over the course of the party, Kass’s dark past unexpectedly becomes intertwined with the murder, and in order to prove her innocence, she must finally come to terms with her secrets.

As Murray’s family secrets are revealed, Kass must prove herself innocent while evading the anonymous threats that haunt her every move.

Visit Finley Turner's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five thrillers featuring the dead/surviving girl trope

Emily Smith is a New Jersey native, who pursued her BFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU and her MFA in Creative Writing at American University.

In her spare time, she enjoys writing novels, gardening, reading, and caring for her rambunctious Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.

Smith's new novel is You Always Come Back.

At CrimeReads she tagged five top thrillers featuring the dead girl and the survivor trope. One title on the list:

Local Woman Missing, by Mary Kubica

Local Woman Missing opens with the rapid disappearances of Shelby Tebow and Meredith Dickey, along with Meredith’s six-year-old daughter Delilah.

Eleven years later, Delilah escapes a couple that has been keeping her locked up in their cellar and is reunited with her father Josh and brother Leo. Only Delilah can barely communicate, let alone tell anyone where her mother or Shelby went.

Through a series of odd occurrences, Leo begins to suspect that the girl sleeping in his sister’s room might not be Delilah at all. So unweaves the tale of two missing presumed dead women, a survivor who may not be a survivor at all, and two families scrambling to connect all of the pieces.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marsahl Zeringue

Pg. 99: Catherine McNeur's "Mischievous Creatures"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science by Catherine McNeur.

About the book, from the publisher:

The untold story of two sisters whose discoveries sped the growth of American science in the nineteenth century, combining "meticulous research and sensitive storytelling" (Janice P. Nimura, New York Times-bestselling author of The Doctors Blackwell)

In Mischievous Creatures, historian Catherine McNeur uncovers the lives and work of Margaretta Hare Morris and Elizabeth Carrington Morris, sisters and scientists in early America. Margaretta, an entomologist, was famous among her peers and the public for her research on seventeen-year cicadas and other troublesome insects. Elizabeth, a botanist, was a prolific illustrator and a trusted supplier of specimens to the country’s leading experts. Together, their discoveries helped fuel the growth and professionalization of science in antebellum America. But these very developments confined women in science to underpaid and underappreciated roles for generations to follow, erasing the Morris sisters’ contributions along the way.

Mischievous Creatures is an indelible portrait of two unsung pioneers, one that places women firmly at the center of the birth of American science.

Visit Catherine McNeur's website.

The Page 99 Test: Mischievous Creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth Topp's "City People," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: City People: A Novel by Elizabeth Topp.

The entry begins:

I always cast the television show or film of my novel as I’m writing it, which is especially helpful when I am inspired by my lived experience but the book itself is completely fictitious. It’s also great to have a cast of three-dimensional actual humans for reference when you’re working, as I was, in multiple points of view. City People brings us inside the lives of six Manhattan Moms grappling with the unexpected loss of one of their own in the midst of private school admissions season.

In my fantasy network television adaptation, the central character, Vic, would be played by Alicia Silverstone: well-meaning but a little bit ditsy, pretty without trying, alternating between sincere empathy and self-involvement. Mindy Kaling would bring a lighter energy and depth to Bhavna, the intense, ambitious, social climber. Sandra Oh was my pick for...[read on]

Visit Elizabeth Topp's website.

The Page 69 Test: City People.

My Book, The Movie: City People.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books about modern witchcraft

Diana Helmuth writes about urges: to travel, to be in nature, and to feel understood. Her first book, How to Suffer Outside, was a National Outdoor Book Award winner, and her freelance work can be found in various anthologies, travel guides, and humor magazines. She studied anthropology and Arabic at UC Berkeley, and can often be caught moonlighting in Silicon Valley’s start-up land, or producing the occasional podcast. She was born and raised in Northern California.

Helmuth's new book is The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft.

At LitHub she tagged seven notable books on modern witchcraft, including:

Madeline Miller, Circe

Although this book is fiction, Madeline Miller’s novel truly captures the sensation of being alone in your room, feeling ostracized from your community, stirring up a bunch of herbs in the hopes that it will finally help you figure out your life. Circe is often called as the first Witch in Greek history, but she is not born complete and confident. Her journey to her own power (written with intoxicating grace by Miller) is the journey any one of us might take, nervously thrown into a life stage that demands we come to terms with what we are capable of.

Anyone who begins a Witchcraft journey can probably relate to Circe feeling as though “I had been a stranger to myself, turned to stone for no reason I could name.” Circe’s story serves as inspiration that despite trial after trial, enduring disrespectful lovers and unkind family members, there can be a discovery of power—and, more importantly, a discovery of peace.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Circe is among Megan Barnard's eleven books about misunderstood women in history & mythology, Rita Chang-Eppig's ten top books with irresistible anti-heroines, Emilia Hart's five novels featuring witchcraft, Brittany Bunzey's top ten books centering women in mythology, Mark Skinner's twenty top books in witch lit, Hannah Kaner's five best novels featuring gods, the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings, Ashleigh Bell Pedersen's eight novels of wonder and darkness by women writers, Kelly Barnhill's eight books about women's rage, Sascha Rothchild's most captivating literary antiheroes, Rachel Kapelke-Dale's eleven top unexpected thrillers about female rage, Kat Sarfas's thirteen enchanted reads for spooky season, Fire Lyte's nine current classics in magic and covens and spells, Elodie Harper's six top novels set in the ancient world, Kiran Millwood Hargrave's seven best books about islands, Zen Cho's six SFF titles about gods and pantheons, Jennifer Saint's ten top books inspired by Greek myth, Adrienne Westenfeld's fifteen feminist books that will inspire, enrage, & educate you, Ali Benjamin's top ten classic stories retold, Lucile Scott's eight books about hexing the patriarchy, E. Foley and B. Coates's top ten goddesses in fiction, Jordan Ifueko's five fantasy titles driven by traumatic family bonds, Eleanor Porter's top ten books about witch-hunts, Emily B. Martin's six stunning fantasies for nature lovers, Allison Pataki's top six books that feature strong female voices, Pam Grossman's thirteen stories about strong women with magical powers, Kris Waldherr's nine top books inspired by mythology, Katharine Duckett's eight novels that reexamine literature from the margins, and Steph Posts's thirteen top novels set in the world of myth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Hunter's "Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment: The English and Scottish Experience by Michael Hunter.

About the book, from the publisher:

Anxiety about the threat of atheism was rampant in the early modern period, yet fully documented examples of openly expressed irreligious opinion are surprisingly rare. England and Scotland saw only a handful of such cases before 1750, and this book offers a detailed analysis of three of them. Thomas Aikenhead was executed for his atheistic opinions at Edinburgh in 1697; Tinkler Ducket was convicted of atheism by the Vice-Chancellor's court at the University of Cambridge in 1739; whereas Archibald Pitcairne's overtly atheist tract, Pitcairneana, though evidently compiled very early in the eighteenth century, was first published only in 2016. Drawing on these, and on the better-known apostacy of Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Rochester, Michael Hunter argues that such atheists showed real 'assurance' in publicly promoting their views. This contrasts with the private doubts of Christian believers, and this book demonstrates that the two phenomena are quite distinct, even though they have sometimes been wrongly conflated.

Learn more about Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Decline of Magic.

The Page 99 Test: Atheists and Atheism before the Enlightenment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elizabeth Topp's "City People"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: City People: A Novel by Elizabeth Topp.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Perfectly Impossible author Elizabeth Topp comes an unforgettably searing novel about a band of mothers who are forced to reckon with themselves after the unexpected loss of one of their own.

When beautiful and successful Susan Harris jumps from the roof of her apartment building, she sets a tremor through her New York City mothers’ group that forces them all to look at one another with new cynicism: How could this have happened right under their noses? To one of them? Between her death and the harrowing private school admission season on the horizon, these women are forced to explore the hard truths about themselves.

Vic, a single mom with literary aspirations, is shocked and confused by the unexpected death of her best friend.

Bhavna, a makeup executive, tries to process Susan’s death while sacrificing everything to get her son into the school of his dreams.

Kara’s sister died by suicide years earlier, so she’s been down this road before—or so it seems.

Penelope and Amy are navigating a business deal when Susan dies, but is it worth the toll on their families?

And how will Chandice, battling cancer, come to terms with Susan’s death?

For these women, the loss of a fellow mother forces them to reexamine who they really are while the futures of their children hang in the balance.

Visit Elizabeth Topp's website.

The Page 69 Test: City People.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven top hip-hop books

At Vulture.com Paul Thompson tagged eleven "books on hip-hop that are essential for any fan of the genre, though many of them are just as gripping for someone who couldn’t pick Puff out of a lineup." One title on the list:

Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity From the Lyrical Genius by Rakim (2019)

When he was barely 20 years old, Rakim was widely considered the most technically inventive MC in hip-hop; soon, he and Eric B. would become the first rap act to sign a million-dollar record contract. Yet he still felt like an outsider: caught between generations of artists, the city and his home on Long Island, the spiritual world and the corporeal. In Sweat the Technique, Rakim recounts his formative experiences in rap (like arguing with Marley Marl about whether he should be allowed to record while lounging on a couch), explaining the way he used to subdivide the pages in his notebook to make each syllable in every verse land perfectly, and finally shedding some light on one of the most tantalizing unrealized collaborations ever, his ill-fated deal with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Simon Devereaux's "Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900 by Simon Devereaux.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book provides the first comprehensive account of execution practices in England and their extraordinary transformation from 1660 to 1900. Agonizing execution rituals were once common. Male traitors were hanged, disembowelled while still alive, then decapitated and quartered. Female traitors were burned alive. And common criminals slowly choked to death beneath wooden crossbeams erected at the margins of towns. Some of their bodies were either left to rot on roadside gibbets or dissected by anatomy instructors. Two centuries later, only murderers and traitors were executed – both by hanging – and they died alone, usually quickly, and behind prison walls. In this major contribution to the history of crime and punishment in England, Simon Devereaux reveals how urban growth, and the unique public culture it produced, challenged and largely displaced those traditional elites who valued the old 'Bloody Code' as an instrument of their rule.

Learn more about Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900 at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Execution, State and Society in England, 1660–1900.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness

From my Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness, author of Lights Out:

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

I’m a bit obsessed with my title and I feel like I can say that because I didn’t come up with it. After bagging my original title, my husband suggested Lights Out. What I love about Lights Out is that it works really well for a domestic thriller. But it also has a sports reference. If someone plays “lights out” it means that they can’t miss. I thought the connection to basketball was really cool because the murder victim is an NBA player.

What's in a name?

At first my main character was named...[read on]

Visit Elise Hart Kipness's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lights Out.

Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that explore the drawbacks of a superpowered life

Tobias Carroll is the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn. He is the author of the short story collection Transitory and the novel Reel.

At Tor.com he writes:

operating as a superhero or supervillain would, in fact, be incredibly hard. Some of that has to do with the logistics of, say, maintaining a secret identity or operating a mysterious island base. And some involve the challenges of living in harsher world than the shared universes depicted in comics from Marvel and DC.

Carroll tagged five "very different books that might make you reconsider the whole 'power fantasy' aspects of superheroing or supervillainy." One title on the list:

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

The story of John Scalzi’s Starter Villain opens in an unexpected place: the small town where former reporter Charlie is working as a substitute teacher and hoping to buy the local bar. It isn’t long before Charlie learns that his now-deceased uncle was, for lack of a better world, a supervillain — complete with volcano lair and genetically enhanced animal employees. Turns out the world of villainy in Scalzi’s novel has different gradations, and Charlie having something of an ethical backbone proves to be both a liability and an asset, depending on the situation.

For all that Starter Villain riffs on countless pulp tropes, from secret hideaways to secret societies, Scalzi has also spent some time thinking about how these things would work in a world reasonably close to our own — including the financial advantages of having a base of operations on a volcanic island and the challenges of negotiating a labor dispute with a group of profane dolphins with enhanced intelligence. Lex Luthor and Ernst Stavro Blofeld likely never had to wrangle with similar issues — but they might have missed out as a result.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Lusztig's "The Republican Hero"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Republican Hero: From Homer to Batman by Michael Lusztig.

About the book, from the publisher:

Politically speaking, do heroes matter? Are we living in a post-heroic age? The Republican Hero addresses both these questions. The general tenor of modern thinking is that heroes do matter but that the modern age is characterized by a narrowing of moral horizons once illuminated by heroes, secular and spiritual. Michael Lusztig argues that the modern world is not post-heroic. He makes the case that the modern age is the most heroic age, if measured in terms of the Aristotelian currency of balance and completeness. To this end, he identifies four main hero-types—the epic, magnanimous, Romantic, and common. Each can rightfully be called a republican hero: each contributes to the promotion or protection or provision of republican values. Each exemplifies the heroic virtues of their age. However, taken conjunctively, each contributes to what Lusztig conceives as the complete republican hero of the modern age.

Learn more about The Republican Hero at the State University of New York Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Republican Hero.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elise Hart Kipness's "Lights Out"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Lights Out by Elise Hart Kipness.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this exciting debut novel comes a fast-paced thriller that follows a sports reporter’s journey off the court…and into a world of murder and deception.

Former Olympic athlete and sports reporter Kate Green isn’t sure how much more tumultuous her life can get. She’s been put on temporary leave from her job, then NBA superstar Kurt Robbins is killed and the prime suspect in his murder is none other than his wife…and Kate’s best friend.

Kate knows that Yvette’s marriage wasn’t exactly stable, but her friend is no murderer, and Kate is determined to prove it with her own investigation. While she tries to salvage Yvette’s life, Kate’s own continues to unravel. Her career is in limbo. Gossip columns speculate about her future. Her children are battling their own demons. And her estranged father suddenly reenters her life as a detective assigned to Kurt’s homicide case.

As her worlds collide―exposing secrets, lies, and ulterior motives―Kate may have to choose between the games she can play and the one she might lose.

Visit Elise Hart Kipness's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lights Out.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven great mystery novels set in academe

Stephanie Barron is a graduate of Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history. A former intelligence analyst at the CIA, she is the author of thirty novels, including the critically acclaimed Merry Folger series, which she writes under the name Francine Mathews.

Barron's latest novel is Jane and the Final Mystery.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven favorite mystery novels set in academe, including:

The Secret Place, by Tana French

An entrant in French’s Dublin Murder Squad series, this remarkable novel is perfectly possible to read as a standalone, as is true of all French’s work, a feat she deserves greater recognition for sustaining, book after series book. Four teenaged girls boarding at a Catholic high school form a spiritual pact under the moonlight in their favorite spot on campus, and unleash a chain of events that sunders their perfect friendship forever. That theme of a precious cloistered world—and of group solidarity unsustainable amidst the ugliness of a broader society—is essential to the academic mystery; violence in the form of murder upsets the balance of Arcadia, and only Justice can reverse the destructive power of evil. Laced with the humiliations of sexual harassment at the hands of doltish neighboring schoolboys, with the power of feminist resolve, and with the courage of personal sacrifice, French’s story is complex enough to leave the reader sorrowing for the waste of any number of lives; neither the charmed circle of schoolgirls nor their victim emerges free of taint.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Secret Place is among Davida G. Breier's nine titles featuring teens behaving badly, C. J. Cooke's eight thrillers & mysteries with underlying supernatural elements, Cambria Brockman's five thrillers featuring a small group of friends, Adele Parks's eight crime novels featuring intense female friendship, Kristen Lepionka's ten top female detectives in fiction, the B&N Reads editors' five favorite fun, fearless femmes fatales in fiction, and Kelly Anderson's seven amazing female friendships in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alan Bollard's "Economists in the Cold War"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Economists in the Cold War: How a Handful of Economists Fought the Battle of Ideas by Alan Bollard.

About the book, from the publisher:

Economists in the Cold War is an account of the economic drivers and outcomes of the Cold War, told through the stories of seven international economists, who were all closely involved in theory and policy in the period 1945-73. For them, the Cold War was a battle of economic ideas, a fight between central planning and market allocation, exploring economic thinking derived from the battle between Marxist and Capitalist ideologies, a fundamental difference but with many intricacies.

The book recounts how economic theory advanced, how new economic tools were developed, and how policies were tested. Each chapter is based on the involvement of one of the selected economists. It was a challenging but dangerous time in economics: a time of economic recovery post-war, with industrial rebuilding, economic growth, and rising incomes. But it was also a time of ideological warfare, nuclear rivalry, military expansion, and personal conflict.

The narrative is approximately chronological, ranging from the Potsdam Conference in Germany to the Pinochet Coup in Chile. The selected economists include an American, a Pole, a Hungarian, a German, a British, a Japanese, and an Argentinian, all very different economists, but with interconnections among them. Each chapter also features a dissenting economist who held a contrasting view, and recounts the subsequent economic arguments that played out.

Learn more about Economists in the Cold War at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Economists in the Cold War.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is R.W.W. Greene reading?

Featured at Writers Read: R.W.W. Greene, author of Earth Retrograde: Book II of the First Planets.

His entry begins:

I read a lot. This year I tried to keep track of it all, and according to GoodReads, I’ve put 96 books in my brain since Jan. 1. I read mostly for pleasure, sometimes for education, occasionally seeking a model for my own writing.

The day before yesterday, I finished Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars. It’s a wonderfully strange mashup of sci-fi and fantasy, doughnuts, competitive-violin playing, online sex work, and found family. I loved it.

Right before that...[read on]

About Earth Retrograde, from the publisher:

Becoming the planet's most (in)famous human has not changed Brooklyn Lamontagne one bit, but the time has come for him to choose where his allegiances really lie.

The United Nations is working to get everyone off Earth by the deadline – set by the planet’s true owners, the aliens known as the First. It’s a task made somewhat easier by a mysterious virus that rendered at least fifty percent of humanity unable to have children. Meanwhile, the USA and the USSR have set their sights on Mars, claiming half a planet each.

Brooklyn Lamontagne doesn’t remember saving the world eight years ago, but he’s been paying for it ever since. The conquered Earth governments don’t trust him, the Average Joe can’t make up their mind, but they all agree that Brooklyn should stay in space. Now, he’s just about covering his bills with junk-food runs to Venus and transporting horny honeymooners to Tycho aboard his aging spaceship, the Victory.

When a pal asks for a ride to Mars, Brooklyn lands in a solar system’s worth of espionage, backroom alliances, ancient treasures and secret plots while encountering a navigation system that just wants to be loved…

Visit R.W.W. Greene's website.

The Page 69 Test: Mercury Rising.

Q&A with R.W.W. Greene.

Writers Read: R.W.W. Greene.

--Marshal Zeringue