Pg. 69: Tony Peak's "Inherit the Stars"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Inherit the Stars by Tony Peak.

About the book, from the publisher:

An epic debut set on the edges of space, where one botched job could mean death—or so much worse…

Wanderlust runs in Kivita Vondir’s blood. She dreamed of salvaging like her father when she was young, and now it’s her addiction, getting her through pit stops filled with cheap alcohol and cheaper companionship and distracting her from her broken heart.

Her latest contract to hunt down a fabled gemstone is exactly the kind of adventure she craves. But this job is more than meets the eye. For one thing, her duplicitous employer has hired rebel Sar Redryll—Kivita’s former lover—to stop her at any cost. For another, Kivita’s recovery of the relic unleashes in her powerful new abilities. Abilities that everyone in the Cetturo Arm—human, alien, and in-between—desperately wishes to control…

As she avoids a massive galactic manhunt, Kivita teams up with two unlikely allies: Sar and his enigmatic new partner. Only, as the gem’s mysteries are revealed and danger draws near, Kivita begins to wonder if her ex has truly changed, or if he’s just waiting for the right moment to betray her once again…

Visit Tony Peak's website.

Writers Read: Tony Peak.

The Page 69 Test: Inherit the Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books that give heroines their apocalyptic due

Jackie Hatton is the author of Flesh and Wires, a post-apocalyptic, post-alien novel that imagines women as the agents of their own destiny. One of her five books that give women their apocalyptic due, as shared at Tor.com:

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale is the one that really got things rolling in the women-of-the-apocalypse literary stakes, a feminist classic that’s hard to see past both as a reader and a writer. However, it presents an older vision of women facing imminent doom, one born of 1970s feminism. We’ve changed—and so has Margaret Atwood. In The Year of the Flood, the groundbreaking author takes a new and admirable second run at her own theme. The female protagonists of The Year of the Flood are still the victims of the sexual derangement of men (always worse in end times) but in this new scenario they survive (mostly) by looking out for each other. There are no good men in vans coming to save the day: sisters are doing it for themselves. First they do a good job of simply surviving some kind of devastating man-made plague. Then, armed with little more than a foolhardy amount of grit and character, they go out of their apocalyptic way to find and save their friend from a couple of raging man-beasts. Female camaraderie and gender loyalty may not be the only themes of The Year of the Flood (environmental destruction, insatiable consumerism, quack religion and demeaning sexual politics all vie for our attention), but they are most certainly the lights in the dark that make this second book in the MaddAddam trilogy really shine.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Year of the Flood is among Diana Biller's top 22 great science fiction and fantasy stories that can help you make sense of economics and Annalee Newitz's top ten works of fiction that might change the way you look at nature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Donis Casey's "All Men Fear Me," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: All Men Fear Me: An Alafair Tucker Mystery by Donis Casey.

The entry begins:

Last year I dreamcast an adaptation of my seventh Alafair Tucker mystery, Hell with the Lid Blown Off. For that Oscar-winning movie, the part of my sleuth Alafair, a medium-sized, middle-aged woman with ten children, was played by Kathy Bates/Joan Allen/Sandra Bulloch/Meryl Streep, as suggested to me by readers of the series. I’m sure you can picture her now. Alafair’s husband Shaw, a tall, dark man with a floppy mustache was played by a forty-five year old Tom Selleck. Or in some minds’ eyes, he was Matthew McConaughey/George Clooney.

In this year’s adaptation of the eighth Alafair novel, All Men Fear Me, which is set at the beginning of America’s involvement in World War I, Shaw and Alafair are back, as are all ten of their lively children, their sons-in-law, and their grandchildren. Their two sons, Gee Dub and Charlie, are ready to do their duty; twenty-year-old Gee Dub, because he has to, and Charlie because he is sixteen and too full of patriotic ardor for his own good.

The problem with casting the boys is that I’m not up on today’s crop of young actors. I’m sure the perfect tall, lanky young man with a mop of dark curls is out there to tackle the role of Gee Dub, but I don’t know who he is. I like the head of hair on Graham...[read on]

Visit Donis Casey's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hell with the Lid Blown Off.

My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off.

The Page 69 Test: All Men Fear Me.

My Book, The Movie: All Men Fear Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Tony Peak reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Tony Peak, author of Inherit the Stars.

His entry begins:

I just started Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, the sequel to his Hugo Award-winning novel, The Three-Body Problem. The first book’s scientific detail, recollections of China’s turbulent past, and an ingenious first contact scenario ensured that I would...[read on]

About Inherit the Stars, from the publisher:

An epic debut set on the edges of space, where one botched job could mean death—or so much worse…

Wanderlust runs in Kivita Vondir’s blood. She dreamed of salvaging like her father when she was young, and now it’s her addiction, getting her through pit stops filled with cheap alcohol and cheaper companionship and distracting her from her broken heart.

Her latest contract to hunt down a fabled gemstone is exactly the kind of adventure she craves. But this job is more than meets the eye. For one thing, her duplicitous employer has hired rebel Sar Redryll—Kivita’s former lover—to stop her at any cost. For another, Kivita’s recovery of the relic unleashes in her powerful new abilities. Abilities that everyone in the Cetturo Arm—human, alien, and in-between—desperately wishes to control…

As she avoids a massive galactic manhunt, Kivita teams up with two unlikely allies: Sar and his enigmatic new partner. Only, as the gem’s mysteries are revealed and danger draws near, Kivita begins to wonder if her ex has truly changed, or if he’s just waiting for the right moment to betray her once again…

Visit Tony Peak's website.

Writers Read: Tony Peak.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Melinda Baldwin’s "Making 'Nature'"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Making Nature: The History of a Scientific Journal by Melinda Baldwin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Making "Nature" is the first book to chronicle the foundation and development of Nature, one of the world's most influential scientific institutions. Now nearing its hundred and fiftieth year of publication, Nature is the international benchmark for scientific publication. Its contributors include Charles Darwin, Ernest Rutherford, and Stephen Hawking, and it has published many of the most important discoveries in the history of science, including articles on the structure of DNA, the discovery of the neutron, the first cloning of a mammal, and the human genome.

But how did Nature become such an essential institution? In Making "Nature," Melinda Baldwin charts the rich history of this extraordinary publication from its foundation in 1869 to current debates about online publishing and open access. This pioneering study not only tells Nature's story but also sheds light on much larger questions about the history of science publishing, changes in scientific communication, and shifting notions of "scientific community." Nature, as Baldwin demonstrates, helped define what science is and what it means to be a scientist.

Visit Melinda Baldwin's website.

The Page 99 Test: Making Nature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top celebrity appearances in fiction

John O’Farrell's latest book is There’s Only Two David Beckhams. Among his top ten celebrity appearances in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Marilyn Monroe in Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (2000)

This is a reimagining of the life of Marilyn Monroe prior to her celebrity. The inspiration for the book wasn’t so much Monroe (whom, Joyce Carol Oates says, “I scarcely knew, and didn’t much admire because I didn’t know”) but a way of observing a lost America via a black and white picture of Norma Jean Baker aged 17. Obviously, this didn’t stop various publishers around the world putting a large picture of Monroe in her prime on the cover.

Read about another entry on the list.

Blonde also appears among Michel Schneider's top ten books on Marilyn Monroe, Ron Hansen's five best literary tales of real-life crimes, and Janet Fitch's book list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Elizabeth Lee's "Nuts and Buried"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Nuts and Buried by Elizabeth Lee.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lindy Blanchard has enough on her hands at her family’s Texas nut farm with her new strain of pecan trees dying. Trouble is, people are dying too. In a nutshell, it’s murder—from the author of Snoop to Nuts…

The Blanchards are invited to the gala event of the season. Lindy’s wealthy friend Eugene Wheatley—who’s just nuts about his new bride—is throwing a party to introduce his wife Jeannie to Riverville, Texas, society. The celebration is in full swing when Eugene is found shot dead.

Jeannie and her unscrupulous kin are the prime suspects, but the Blanchards aren’t convinced. Lindy and her meemaw Miss Amelia have heard just about enough from the local gossips gathering at the Nut House family store to realize that Jeannie needs their help. And when somebody shoots at Lindy during the investigation, things get real personal. Lindy and Miss Amelia are determined to unmask the killer party crasher and shell out some Texas-style justice…

Learn more about the author and her work at Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Nuts and Buried.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Vicki Delany reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Vicki Delany, author of Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

Her entry begins:

I’ve just put aside the book my book club is reading this month. I’ve read about a quarter of it, and can’t stand any more. It’s the first book the club has chosen that I didn’t like at all. I won’t mention it except to say that I’m surprised we’re reading such a standard lump of “women’s fiction” (and that’s a phrase I hate). I’ve more or less enjoyed every book the club has read so far, and one of the things I like best about being in the book club is the chance to read books of the sort I wouldn’t normally read.

After giving the club’s book up, I started The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman. I like Goodman’s psychological suspense novels very much and I don’t know why this one...[read on]

About Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen, from the publisher:

In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…

As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.

Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

Visit Vicki Delany's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Donald Malcolm Reid's "Contesting Antiquity in Egypt"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Contesting Antiquity in Egypt: Archaeologies, Museums, and the Struggle for Identities from World War I to Nasser by Donald Malcolm Reid.

About the book, from the publisher:

The sensational discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun's tomb, close on the heels of Britain's declaration of Egyptian independence, accelerated the growth in Egypt of both Egyptology as a formal discipline and of 'pharaonism'-popular interest in ancient Egypt-as an inspiration in the struggle for full independence. Emphasizing the three decades from 1922 until Nasser's revolution in 1952, this compelling follow-up to Whose Pharaohs? looks at the ways in which Egypt developed its own archaeologies-Islamic, Coptic, and Greco-Roman, as well as the more dominant ancient Egyptian. Each of these four archaeologies had given birth to, and grown up around, a major antiquities museum in Egypt. Later, Cairo, Alexandria, and Ain Shams universities joined in shaping these fields. Contesting Antiquity in Egypt brings all four disciples, as well as the closely related history of tourism, together in a single engaging framework.

Throughout this semi-colonial era, the British fought a prolonged rearguard action to retain control of the country while the French continued to dominate the Antiquities Service, as they had since 1858. Traditional accounts highlight the role of European and American archaeologists in discovering and interpreting Egypt's long past. Donald Reid redresses the balance by also paying close attention to the lives and careers of often-neglected Egyptian specialists. He draws attention not only to the contests between westerners and Egyptians over the control of antiquities, but also to passionate debates among Egyptians themselves over pharaonism in relation to Islam and Arabism during a critical period of nascent nationalism.

Drawing on rich archival and published sources, extensive interviews, and material objects ranging from statues and murals to photographs and postage stamps, this comprehensive study by one of the leading scholars in the field will make fascinating reading for scholars and students of Middle East history, archaeology, politics, and museum and heritage studies, as well as for the interested lay reader.

Learn more about Contesting Antiquity in Egypt at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Contesting Antiquity in Egypt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top airborne societies in fantasy fiction

David Dalglish's books include, Skyborn, the first installment of his all new fantasy series. One title on his list of eight favorite airborne societies in fantasy fiction, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift

No collection of skyborne fantasies would be complete without mentioning Jonathan Swift’s seminal masterpiece. Gulliver visits Laputa, a floating civilization that blindly pursues science without purpose, and the methods and results are at once amusing and slightly terrifying. Many readers cite the Laputian tactic of dropping rocks on rebellious earthbound cities as one of the first conceptualizations of airborne warfare. Like a lot of the elements in Swift’s novel, Laputa’s DNA is entwined with pretty much any modern piece of speculative fiction that features a flying city, castle, or society.

Read about another book on the list.

Gulliver's Travels appears on Lindsay Taylor and Suzanne Smith's list of ten favorite fantasy realms, Conn Iggulden's top ten list of books about tiny people, Antonio Carluccio's list of his six favorite books, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the top imaginary meetings in literature and ten of the best vegetables in literature; it is one of Neil deGrasse Tyson's 5 most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Terry Williams and Trevor B. Milton's "The Con Men," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Con Men: Hustling in New York City by Terry Williams and Trevor B. Milton.

The entry begins:

Whether it's selling bootleg goods, playing the numbers, squatting rent-free, scamming tourists with bogus stories, selling knockoffs on Canal Street, or crafting Ponzi schemes, con artists use verbal persuasion, physical misdirection, and sheer charm to convince others to do what they want. The Con Men examines this act of performance art and find meaning in its methods to exact bounty from unsuspecting tourists and ordinary New Yorkers alike. Through sophisticated exploration of the personal experiences and influences that create a successful hustler, this book offers a new take on structure and opportunity, showing how the city's unique urban and social architecture lends itself to the perfect con.

If there were a Hollywood adaptation of The Con Men, our ideal cast would include:

“Alibi”- The slick talking, rough-around-the-edges, master of the con game, and the philosophical front man for the book: Starring Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson would just need to grow out the hair and lean on his southern roots.

“Otis”- The well-known local hustler, public character, and pseudo-mayor of Fulton Street:...[read on]

Learn more about The Con Men at the Columbia University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: The Con Men.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tony Park's "Ivory"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Ivory by Tony Park.

About the book, from the publisher:

Alex Tremain is a pirate in trouble. All he really wants is to reopen his parents' five-star hotel on the Island of Dreams, off the coast of Mozambique. But instead he's facing a mounting tide of debt, his crew of modern-day buccaneers is getting restless, and he has just been dumped by not one, but two women.

As if he doesn't have enough on his plate, a chance raid on a ship then sets the Chinese triads after him and, to add insult to injury, corporate lawyer Jane Humphries lands, literally, in his lap…

Before he knows it, Alex is embroiled in two separate and equally risky pursuits—one takes him to South Africa's Kruger National Park and will pay enough for him to reopen his hotel, and the other involves the love of a lifetime. Can Alex pull off this one last heist and walk away with both prizes?

Visit Tony Park's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ivory.

The Page 69 Test: Ivory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew McCormack’s "Embodying the Militia in Georgian England"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Embodying the Militia in Georgian England by Matthew McCormack.

About the book, from the publisher:

The militia was a key institution in Georgian England, and arguably one that was very characteristic of its age. A 'militia' is an informal military organisation made up of part-time civilians rather than professionals. As an island, Britain had historically relied on forces of this type for home defence, but threats of a French invasion during the Seven Years War (1756-63) highlighted that the militia had fallen into disrepair and prompted calls for its revival.

In this important new study, Matthew McCormack re-examines the debates on the militia, and argues that this military reform was informed and driven by concerns about politics, nationalism, and gender. The militia tells us a great deal about the political culture of the eighteenth century, which was suspicious of professional armies and executive power, and which placed great emphasis on the liberties and masculine attributes of the ordinary citizen. Its advocates even suggested that mass military service would prompt a reinvigoration of English masculinity.

The Militia Act passed into law in 1757. From this date until the New Militia's slow demise after the Napoleonic Wars, Embodying the Militia in Georgian England considers civilian men's experience of military service. How was the militia 'embodied' - both in the contemporary sense of assembling for service, and also as a gendered bodily experience? Chapters explore questions such as physical training, masculine honour, material culture, self-identity, and citizenship. As such, the volume's interdisciplinary approaches offer new perspectives on the history of war.

Learn more about Embodying the Militia in Georgian England at the Oxford University Press website and Matthew McCormack’s website.

The Page 99 Test: Embodying the Militia in Georgian England.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six YA books with an unconventional approach to family ties

At the B&N Teen blog Alyssa Sheinmel tagged six YA books that explore an unconventional approach to family ties, including:

Imaginary Girls, by Nova Ren Suma

Chloe has always lived in the shadow of her big sister, Ruby. Everyone—including Chloe—thinks Ruby is charismatic and magnetic. The sisters are inseparable until the night Chloe lets Ruby convince her to swim across the reservoir, over the flooded town of Olive. But Chloe makes a dark discovery in the water: the dead body of her classmate, London Hayes. Afterward, she’s sent away to recover, but can still feel the tug of Ruby calling her home. When she finally returns two years later, she has begun to wonder what kind of secrets Ruby might be keeping. The novel uses magical realism and the straight-up supernatural to talk about the complicated and endlessly complex bonds that keep sisters together.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Juliet Marillier reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Juliet Marillier, author of Dreamer's Pool: A Blackthorn & Grim Novel.

Her entry begins:

Right now I am working towards a tight deadline for my current project, the third novel in the Blackthorn & Grim series, and that means I have to curtail my reading for pleasure as it gobbles up too much time. On my bedside table there’s a pile of reference material – books about trees, mythology, medieval building methods, all relevant to my current writing. But I have allowed myself time to read new novels by a couple of favourite authors.

I just finished Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, third installment in the Cormoran Strike series of mysteries featuring this unusual private detective and his sidekick, Robin Ellacott. Robert Galbraith is, of course, none other than J. K. Rowling under another name. While I didn’t enjoy her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, I’m impressed by the Cormoran Strike series, which I think is getting stronger with each book. I stayed up very late to finish Career of Evil.

The Comroran Strike novels are stand-alone mysteries. The volatile relationship between disabled war veteran turned private eye Strike and his assistant Robin, who has career ambitions and a needy fiancé, runs through the series. Both Strike and Robin are complex, damaged individuals whom...[read on]

About the book, from the publisher:

Award-winning author Juliet Marillier “weaves magic, mythology, and folklore into every sentence on the page” (The Book Smugglers). Now she begins an all-new and enchanting series that will transport readers to a magical vision of ancient Ireland….

In exchange for help escaping her long and wrongful imprisonment, embittered magical healer Blackthorn has vowed to set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once held dear. Followed by a former prison mate, a silent hulk of a man named Grim, she travels north to Dalriada. There she’ll live on the fringe of a mysterious forest, duty bound for seven years to assist anyone who asks for her help.

Oran, crown prince of Dalriada, has waited anxiously for the arrival of his future bride, Lady Flidais. He knows her only from a portrait and sweetly poetic correspondence that have convinced him Flidais is his destined true love. But Oran discovers letters can lie. For although his intended exactly resembles her portrait, her brutality upon arrival proves she is nothing like the sensitive woman of the letters.

With the strategic marriage imminent, Oran sees no way out of his dilemma. Word has spread that Blackthorn possesses a remarkable gift for solving knotty problems, so the prince asks her for help. To save Oran from his treacherous nuptials, Blackthorn and Grim will need all their resources: courage, ingenuity, leaps of deduction, and more than a little magic.

Learn more about the book and author at Juliet Marillier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

Writers Read: Juliet Marillier.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Donis Casey's "All Men Fear Me"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: All Men Fear Me: An Alafair Tucker Mystery by Donis Casey.

About the book, from the publisher:

The U.S. has finally entered the First World War and scheduled the first draft lottery. No one in Boynton, Oklahoma, is unaffected by the clash between rabid pro-war, anti-immigrant “patriots” and anti-conscription socialists, who are threatening an uprising rather than submit to the draft.

Alafair Tucker is caught in the middle when her brother, a union organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, pays her a visit. Rob Gunn is fresh out of an internment camp for participants in an Arizona miners’ strike. He assures Alafair that he’s only come to visit family, but she’s not so sure. More unsettling, Alafair’s eldest son enlists, and a group calling itself the “Knights of Liberty” vandalizes the farm of Alafair’s German-born son-in-law.

Alafair’s younger son, 16-year-old Charlie, is wildly patriotic and horrified by his socialist uncle. With his father’s permission Charlie takes a part-time war job at the Francis Vitric Brick Company. Soon several suspicious machine breakdowns delay production, and a couple of shift supervisors are murdered. Everyone in town suspects sabotage, some blaming German spies, others blaming the unionists and socialists. But Charlie Tucker is sure he knows who the culprit is and comes up with a plan to catch him red-handed.

And then there is old Nick—a mysterious guy in a bowler hat who’s been hanging around town.

Visit Donis Casey's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hell with the Lid Blown Off.

My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off.

The Page 69 Test: All Men Fear Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stephen L. Moore's "The Battle for Hell's Island"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Battle for Hell’s Island: How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal by Stephen L. Moore.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of Pacific Payback comes the gripping true story of the Cactus Air Force and how this rugged crew of Dive-Bombers helped save Guadalcanal and won the war.

November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan’s expansion through the South Pacific. Both sides have endured months of grueling battle under the worst circumstances: hellish jungles, meager rations, and tropical diseases, which have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the combatants. The Japanese call Guadalcanal Jigoku no Jima—Hell’s Island.

Amid a seeming stalemate, a small group of U.S. Navy dive bombers are called upon to help determine the island’s fate. The men have until recently been serving in their respective squadrons aboard the USS Lexington and the USS Yorktown, fighting in the thick of the Pacific War’s aerial battles. Their skills have been honed to a fine edge, even as injury and death inexorably have depleted their ranks. When their carriers are lost, many of the men end up on the USS Enterprise. Battle damage to that carrier then forces them from their home at sea to operating from Henderson Field, a small dirt-and-gravel airstrip on Guadalcanal.

With some Marine and Army Air Force planes, they help form the Cactus Air Force, a motley assemblage of fliers tasked with holding the line while making dangerous flights from their jungle airfield. Pounded by daily Japanese air assaults, nightly warship bombardments, and sniper attacks from the jungle, pilots and gunners rarely last more than a few weeks before succumbing to tropical ailments, injury, exhaustion, and death. But when the Japanese launch a final offensive to take the island once and for all, these dive-bomber jocks answer the call of duty—and try to perform miracles in turning back an enemy warship armada, a host of fighter planes, and a convoy of troop transports.

A remarkable story of grit, guts, and heroism, The Battle for Hell’s Island reveals how command of the South Pacific, and the outcome of the Pacific War, depended on control of a single dirt airstrip—and the small group of battle-weary aviators sent to protect it with their lives.

Visit Stephen L. Moore's website.

Writers Read: Stephen L. Moore.

The Page 99 Test: The Battle for Hell’s Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary-Louise Parker's 6 favorite contemporary books

In Dear Mr. You, actor-author Mary -Louise Parker composes letters "to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today." One of the author's six favorite contemporary books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Art of the Memoir by Mary Karr

In her latest book, the author of The Liars' Club proves that the truth is infinitely sexier and more gripping than anything we could invent. You'll cackle out loud reading this book and get the best required-memoir-reading list ever compiled. If you ever want to tell your story, this book may be the only tool you'll need other than Kleenex and an arsenal of apologies.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tony Park's "Ivory," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Ivory by Tony Park.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ivory is a tale of modern day piracy off the coast of Africa, but unlike the horrors of real life maritime crime my band of pirates hark back to the golden age of Hollywood.

My pirate king, Alex Tremain, is a half British, half Portuguese ex Special Forces soldier and veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

Born in Mozambique, he’s taken over a run-down hotel his parents once ran on an island off that country’s coast and is in the process of renovating it. To finance his fixer-upperer he’s turned to piracy, as one does.

He’s handsome, but he’s also physically and perhaps emotionally scarred by his time in Afghanistan so we can’t have a pretty boy play him in the movie.

Clive Owen springs to mind. I’ve most recently seen him in the TV series, The Knick where, like Alex, he plays a very flawed doctor and ladies’ man. I think he’d be perfect for the role.

Our leading Lady, Jane Humphries, is the corporate legal counsel for a big shipping company. She’s scared of flying so is hitching a lift on one of the company cargo ships, to Africa, where she will encounter...[read on]

Visit Tony Park's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ivory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great books that will expand your vocabulary

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's five top books that will expand your vocabulary and entertain, as shared at B & N Reads:

The Aubrey-Maturin series, by Patrick O’Brian

There’s a reason the companion to O’Brian’s classic Napoleonic War novels is called A Sea of Words: the author met very few of them he didn’t like. Following the adventures of British naval officer Jack Aubrey and physician and spy Stephen Maturin as they engage in espionage and sea warfare in the early 1800s, the books are filled with wonderfully obscure words, ranging from sailing-specific terms (you’ll be capable of being rated as a seaman after reading all 20 of them) to terms that have fallen into disuse (not to mention Aubrey’s famously terrible puns). In between the thrilling derring-do and intrigue, you’ll absorb one of the liveliest vocabularies in literary history.

Read about another book on the list.

The Aubrey/Maturin Series appears on Somers's top five list of books and series for old-fashioned adventure in the 19th century, the Telegraph's list of the ten best historical novels, Bella Bathurst's top ten list of books on the sea. Master & Commander is one of Peter Mayle's six best books. Dr Stephen Maturin is on John Mullan's list of ten of the best good doctors in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue