Nine great titles about survival at sea

Kathleen Rooney is the nationally bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, as well as Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and From Dust to Stardust. She has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books. Rooney’s criticism can be found in The New York Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and beyond. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.

Rooney's new novel is Man Overboard!.

[The Page 99 Test: Live Nude Girl; The Page 99 Test: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs; My Book, The Movie: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs; My Book, The Movie: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk; The Page 69 Test: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey; My Book, The Movie: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (July 2022); The Page 69 Test: Where Are the Snows; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2022); The Page 69 Test: From Dust to Stardust; My Book, The Movie: From Dust to Stardust; Q&A with Kathleen Rooney; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2023); The Page 69 Test: Man Overboard!]

At Lit Hub the author tagged nine great "accounts of people lost at sea, struggling to be found." One title on the list:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Okay, okay, everybody knows this one is great, yet it still manages to be misunderstood and underrated. It took me three tries over a span of many years before I was able to lock in with this novel, but it was worth the repeated effort. In high school, I started it and could tell it was amazing, but didn’t connect; same in grad school. In 2019 on the occasion of Melville’s 200th birthday, the Newberry Library here in Chicago hosted a 25-hour marathon live reading of the book—a Dick-a-Thon, if you will—and invited local authors to participate. Moby-Dick is my spouse’s, the writer Martin Seay’s, favorite novel of all time, so naturally he wanted to join. So did I, but it felt wrong to do so if I hadn’t read the whole behemoth. That January I devoured the story over the course of 10 days and it remains a peak reading experience of my existence. Like Moby himself rising from the deep, the book crushed me:

“Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterrous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot length-wise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.”

Read about another book on Rooney's list.

Moby-Dick appears among Joseph Osmundson's nine queer books in which animals take on a mythical importance, Daniel Poppick's seven books about work, GQ's green flag books, Eiren Caffall's ten titles on maritime disasters and ecological collapse, Emily Temple's ten notorious literary slogs that are worth the effort, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce's top ten novels & stories about prophets, James Stavridis's five best books to know the sea, Robert McCrum's top ten Shakespearean books, Bridget Collins's top ten Quakers in fiction, John Boyne's six best books, Kate Christensen's best food scenes in fiction, Emily Temple's ten literary classics we're supposed to like...but don't, Sara Flannery Murphy ten top stories of obsession, Harold Bloom's six favorite books that helped shape "the American Sublime,"  Charlotte Seager's five well-known literary monomaniacs who take things too far, Ann Leary's top ten books set in New England, Martin Seay's ten best long books, Ian McGuire's ten best adventure novels, Jeff Somers's five top books that will expand your vocabulary and entertain, Four books that changed Mary Norris, Tim Dee's ten best nature books, the Telegraph's fifteen best North American novels of all time, Nicole Hill's top ten best names in literature to give your dog, Horatio Clare's five favorite maritime novels, the Telegraph's ten great meals in literature, Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books, Scott Greenstone's top seven allegorical novels, Paul Wilson's top ten books about disability, Lynn Shepherd's ten top fictional drownings, Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, Penn Jillette's six favorite books, Peter F. Stevens's top ten nautical books, Katharine Quarmby's top ten disability stories, Jonathan Evison's six favorite books, Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best nightmares in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, Susan Cheever's five best books about obsession, Christopher Buckley's best books, Jane Yolen's five most important books, Chris Dodd's best books, Augusten Burroughs' five most important books, Norman Mailer's top ten works of literature, David Wroblewski's five most important books, Russell Banks' five most important books, and Philip Hoare's top ten books about whales.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Laura Kalpakian's "Undesirable"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father's Battle for Justice by Laura Kalpakian.

About the book, from the publisher:

The powerful true story of a parent’s unflagging battle on behalf of a beloved son struggling with PTSD, mental illness, and addiction and a family who bore the burdens of war for decades.

In January 1969, angry after a fight with his father, nineteen-year-old Doug Johnson—in what will be a fateful choice—decides to enlist in the Army. Once in Vietnam as a point man, Doug becomes addicted to speed and heroin, goes AWOL multiple times, and is court martialed and imprisoned. In order to avoid a second court martial, he agrees to accept an “undesirable” discharge that denies him veterans’ benefits and any recognition of his wartime service. In late August 1970, drugged, malnourished, and clutching the sandal of a dead Viet Cong, Doug staggers off a plane into the arms of his father.

But Doug’s return home is only the beginning of this story. The core of Undesirable recounts another war: Doug’s father against the US Army. For three years, he fights to have his son’s “undesirable” discharge changed to “honorable.” Half a century later Laura Kalpakian—devoted daughter and sister—exhumes the evidence her father collected. From this trove of documents she assembles a heartbreaking story of a father’s love for his son and a son’s experience at war. Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father’s Battle for Justice demands that we ask what we—and our government—owe to our veterans for the physical, psychological, and emotional sacrifices they and their families make.

Visit Laura Kalpakian's website.

The Page 99 Test: Undesirable.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sixteen historical fiction titles to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary

At People magazine Shyla Watson and Lizz Schumer tagged sixteen "historical novels transport readers to pivotal moments in the nation’s past ... and illuminate the many stories woven into America’s history." One title on the list:

The Whisper Sister by Jennifer S. Brown

In Prohibition-era New York City, Jewish immigrant Minnie Soffer takes over her family’s speakeasy on a quest for the American Dream.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Whisper Sister.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kathleen Rooney's "Man Overboard!"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Man Overboard!: A Novel by Kathleen Rooney.

About the book, from the publisher:

Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle.

Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping? He can’t remember as the all-inclusive drinks on the cruise he was taking with his extended family were, well, inclusive) Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea.

As the waves crash over him, so too do the thoughts and memories of just how he got there. A Thanksgiving cruise with an obnoxious brother-in-law he has to bite his tongue to keep from screaming at. A father who gives the Great Santini a run for his money. And a mother who already left the family boat, so to speak, a long time ago. His family may be complicated, and the pains of life may seem unbearable—infuriating enough to leap from the deck—but maybe the will to survive is stronger.

Man Overboard! is an inventive, slyly hilarious, and inspiring novel about what it means to be alive and stay alive, and what keeps us going no matter how choppy the waves of our journey become. Hold on for dear life!

Visit Kathleen Rooney's website.

The Page 99 Test: Live Nude Girl.

The Page 99 Test: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs.

My Book, The Movie: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

The Page 69 Test: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

My Book, The Movie: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (July 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Where Are the Snows.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2022).

The Page 69 Test: From Dust to Stardust.

My Book, The Movie: From Dust to Stardust.

Q&A with Kathleen Rooney.

Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Man Overboard!.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that blur the boundary between fact and fiction

Meg Charlton is a writer based in New York City. Her debut novel Voyagers is now out from Harper. Other work has appeared in The Yale Review, Slate, Lux, Atlas Obscura, and Vice, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. Her writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and covered in Indiewire, Above the Law, and Australian National Radio's Future Tense. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College and teaches at Sackett Street Writers.

At Electric Lit Charleton tagged seven books that "live in that borderland of uncertainty, peering over the edge of consensus reality into the irresolvable." One title on the list:

Beings by Ilana Masad

A nesting doll of a book, concerned with the stories we tell about aliens and the moral responsibilities of storytelling itself. The three plotlines in Beings all circle questions of fact and fiction: The first follows Betty and Barney Hill, real American abductees, but speculates on their inner lives; the second concerns a fictional sci-fi writer, but presents her through the authority of letters and archival documentation; and the third takes us to the archivist themself, who is being hounded by an overeager documentary producer about a childhood UFO sighting. These three worlds overlap in ways I did not see coming, calling attention to the constructed nature of all stories. We try to document our lives, to fact check our own memories, to keep careful records we (or others) can come back to later. But there will always be a gap, some terra incognita, whether we are trying to remember our lives or imagine our way into the lives of others.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Bryan Gruley reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Bryan Gruley, author of River Deep.

His entry begins:

I’m a judge for the Edgar Awards this year and my favorite book so far is—sorry, if I told you I’d have to kill you.

Best book I’ve read in the past few years: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, a book published many years ago that resonates even now. Moving, funny, suspenseful, heartbreaking, with a perfect first-person voice inhabited by an autistic boy. (Almost as effective voice-wise is the autistic boy in Ken Jaworowski’s What About the Bodies).

Another book I love is my fellow Michiganian Sara Maurer’s debut novel, A Good Animal. A gorgeous rendering of a romance on a sheep farm in the Upper Peninsula. I haven’t...[read on]

About River Deep, from the publisher:

Attorney Devyn Payne is left navigating thin ice as her small-town community fractures in the wake of a shocking crime in River Deep, the second in the Bitterfrost thriller series from Edgar nominee and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bryan Gruley.

Fighting for the cold, hard truth

Attorney Devyn Payne expects a quieter life when she returns to her hometown of Bitterfrost. Until the bodies of two eight-month-old boys are pulled from the icy depths of the local river. Was it a tragic accident or something more disturbing?

The twins’ distraught parents survived the car crash, but their mother, Catriona Dulaney, was driving. Now she’s charged with killing her babies, and her admission of guilt has leaked online. It should be the most straightforward case Devyn prosecutes all year. And yet, to her, it doesn’t add up.

With time dwindling ahead of the trial, Detective Garth Klimmek questioning Cat’s role in the tragedy, and a suspicious outsider loitering around town, this crime might just be the tip of an iceberg. Devyn’s put two Dulaneys behind bars before. This time, whose side will she take—and what will it cost?

This suspense-drenched drama is perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane, the TV show Mayor of Kingstown, and small-town thrillers by Tim Johnston and John Sandford.

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

My Book, The Movie: Bitterfrost.

My Book, The Movie: River Deep.

The Page 69 Test: River Deep.

Writers Read: Bryan Gruley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top epic fantasy romances

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged six "swoon-worthy stories [that] take place in different worlds, include immersive fantasy world-building and epic plots, while also promising a strong romance." One title on the list:

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

This classic fantasy romance by Jacqueline Carey takes place in the land of Terre d’Ange, where angels and humans created a race that lives by the rule Love as thou wilt. The protagonist of the story, Phèdre nó Delaunay, has a scarlet mote in one of her eyes. When a nobleman buys her indentured servitude, he realizes she has the rare gift of being pricked by Kushiel’s Dart. As she gets trained as both a spy and a courtesan, Phèdre uncovers a plot that could jeopardize everything she holds dear.

Read about another epic fantasy romance on the list.

Kushiel’s Dart is among Emily Temple's six epic fantasy series for fans of Game of Thrones and Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders's ten great stories of epic power struggles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Marc A. VanOverbeke "Playing the Game"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Playing the Game: How State Colleges Used Athletics to Expand Educational Opportunity by Marc A. VanOverbeke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Playing the Game uncovers the history of state and regional colleges as engines of opportunity in postwar America. By 1970, these institutions enrolled more students than elite private or flagship public universities did, and yet they remained on the margins of public attention and scholarly research. Marc A. VanOverbeke shows how these colleges fought for recognition by turning to an unlikely ally: college sports.

Drawing on extensive archival research, VanOverbeke reveals how athletics boosted institutional legitimacy and public support, while students harnessed sports to push for greater inclusion and racial justice. Black and Mexican American students, in particular, challenged segregation and discrimination on and off the field, making athletics a powerful site of protest and change.

Playing the Game reframes the role of college sports, showing how athletics helped shape not only school identity but also the national struggle for equality and educational opportunity.

Learn more about Playing the Game at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Playing the Game.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bryan Gruley's "River Deep"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: River Deep by Bryan Gruley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Attorney Devyn Payne is left navigating thin ice as her small-town community fractures in the wake of a shocking crime in River Deep, the second in the Bitterfrost thriller series from Edgar nominee and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bryan Gruley.

Fighting for the cold, hard truth

Attorney Devyn Payne expects a quieter life when she returns to her hometown of Bitterfrost. Until the bodies of two eight-month-old boys are pulled from the icy depths of the local river. Was it a tragic accident or something more disturbing?

The twins’ distraught parents survived the car crash, but their mother, Catriona Dulaney, was driving. Now she’s charged with killing her babies, and her admission of guilt has leaked online. It should be the most straightforward case Devyn prosecutes all year. And yet, to her, it doesn’t add up.

With time dwindling ahead of the trial, Detective Garth Klimmek questioning Cat’s role in the tragedy, and a suspicious outsider loitering around town, this crime might just be the tip of an iceberg. Devyn’s put two Dulaneys behind bars before. This time, whose side will she take—and what will it cost?

This suspense-drenched drama is perfect for fans of Dennis Lehane, the TV show Mayor of Kingstown, and small-town thrillers by Tim Johnston and John Sandford.

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

My Book, The Movie: Bitterfrost.

My Book, The Movie: River Deep.

The Page 69 Test: River Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that make us question those closest to us

Lucy Ashe trained at The Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a Diploma in Dance Teaching with the British Ballet Organisation. Her first two novels, The Dance of the Dolls and The Sleeping Beauties, were inspired by her years immersed in the world of classical dance.

Ashe's new novel is The Model Patient.

At CrimeReads the author tagged "six novels that reveal how terrifying it is to have one’s sense of reality systematically dismantled by the person we are supposed to love and trust." One title on the list:

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Reporter Camille Preaker returns to the place where she grew up to investigate the unsolved murder of a teenage girl and the disappearance of another. Her own trauma and self-harm are triggered through this homecoming, particularly by facing her mother, Adora, who disguises control as care. It is in Adora’s treatment of her daughters, keeping them physically and emotionally sick, isolating them from the outside world, and feigning ignorance as a defense mechanism, that the horror resides. Gillian Flynn does not shy away from the darkest of human behaviors, and Sharp Objects is one of those books where you simply cannot look away.

Read about another entry on Ashe's list.

Sharp Objects is among Claire Douglas's ten top psychological thrillers with explosive family secrets, Allison Gunn's seven top horror novels set in small towns, Lucy Foley's six top stories of folk horror, Katherine Higgs-Coulthard's top six crime-in-the-family thrillers, Zach Vasquez's seven dark novels about motherhood, Christina Dalcher's seven crime books that challenge the idea of inherent female goodness, Nicole Trope's six domestic suspense novels where nothing is really ever what it seems, Heather Gudenkauf's ten great thrillers centered on psychology, and Peter Swanson's ten top thrillers that explore mental health.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock's "Stories of Raising Boys"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Stories of Raising Boys: Masculinity, Disability, Gender Expansiveness, and Anxiety by Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock.

About the book, from the publisher:

In her poignant, affecting autoethnography, Stories of Raising Boys, Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock investigates the meaning of disability, gender, race, and privilege in contemporary culture. Scott-Pollock is a white mother living with a physical disability raising four boys—Theo, a three-year-old risktaker; Tony, ten, who lives with seizures; Vinny, eight, who is gender expansive; and five-year-old Nico, who is also gender expansive and experiences anxiety. They live on the southeastern U.S. coast with their father, Evan, and their baby sister, Rosalie.

Through narrative analysis, Scott-Pollock compares and contrasts her circumstances to the ways in which adult interviewees manage the same lived experiences as her sons. She also includes their opinions about masculinity and identity, as well as parenting boys. In doing so, Stories of Raising Boys deepens the cultural complexity of parent–child relationships and expands our collective understanding of how they form and emerge. In addition, Scott-Pollock uses a metaphor of swimming through the ocean near her family’s home to illustrate resisting marginalization while also promoting strong cultural identities, especially in turbulent waters.

Stories of Raising Boys offers an absorbing cultural reflection on the intersectionality of identity, power, and privilege.

Learn more about Stories of Raising Boys at the Temple University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Stories of Raising Boys.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles that take you behind the scenes of Black Hollywood

Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, which was selected as a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “100 Notable Books of 2022” by The New York Times. He is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. He codeveloped Bel-Air and worked on The Chi, Animal Kingdom, and Narcos, among other drama series. Newson is a 2025–26 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. He currently lives with his husband and their two children in Pasadena.

Newson's new novel is There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood.

At Oprah Daily he tagged six books "that brilliantly capture the balancing act required of Black stars in Hollywood and give non–Hollywood insiders a peek behind the velvet curtain at a world that creates alluring idols for the masses." One title on the list:

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams by Donald Bogle

With admirable range and poignant details, this nonfiction book tracks the collective journey of Black creatives in Hollywood from the dawn of silent film into the 1950s. The Black stars in this constellation include ones who still shine in our collective memory—Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne—and others who have faded, like Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison and James Edwards.

Donald Bogle interweaves interviews he conducted with people who were close to the stars of that bygone era (his conversation with Dorothy Dandridge’s sister, Vivian Dandridge, is a standout) with commentary from archival research. The result feels like a vivid oral history. Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams captures an aspect of Black Hollywood that is often overlooked: Black stars are the result of a collective effort, not individual talent or ambition. From their family members to their professional entourages to their millions of fans, they are bound to represent ideals bigger than themselves. Bogle honors all sides of that inheritance.

Read about another title on Newson's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Peter Colt reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Peter Colt, author of The Driftwood Bones (Detective Tommy Kelly).

His entry begins:

The last several months have been a race against time with a deadline for my publisher. That really cut into my reading time. I don't read much fiction but have always liked military history, not odd given I was a commissioned Army Officer. I recently finished Christopher Goscha's outstanding, The Road to Dien Bien Phu . The book is an excellent look at the French Indochina war that spans from the end of the Japanese Occupation to the eponymous battle. What makes Goscha's book stand out is...[read on]

About The Driftwood Bones, from the publisher:

A compromised homicide detective must confront his professional and personal risks when a woman is murdered on Nantucket Island in a gripping novel by the author of Cold Island.

Detective Tommy Kelly has been exiled to Nantucket as the island’s lone state trooper―punishment for professional misconduct that left him isolated, bitter, and relegated to traffic violations. For a homicide detective, there isn’t much to do in a place others call paradise. Until a young woman is found floating in the harbor in Pocomo.

The case forces Tommy to partner again with NPD detective Jo Harris, reopening wounds from their shared past and reminding him of everything he destroyed. Keeping things professional and by the book, they quickly identify the victim―a house cleaner―and close in on their prime suspect. But the investigation takes an unexpected turn. So does Tommy’s judgment when he reignites an affair with a married college acquaintance.

As Tommy and Jo follow an unexpected twist in the case, they discover that beneath Nantucket’s pristine beaches and old-money elegance, something dark is festering. And it’s about to surface.

Visit Peter Colt's website.

My Book, The Movie: Back Bay Blues.

The Page 69 Test: Back Bay Blues.

Q&A with Peter Colt.

The Page 69 Test: Death at Fort Devens.

My Book, The Movie: Death at Fort Devens.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (June 2022).

My Book, The Movie: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Ambassador.

The Page 69 Test: The Judge.

My Book, The Movie: The Judge.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (May 2024).

Writers Read: Peter Colt (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: The Banker.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Island.

Writers Read: Peter Colt (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Cold Island.

My Book, The Movie: The Driftwood Bones.

The Page 69 Test: The Driftwood Bones.

Writers Read: Peter Colt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great books on the American Revolution

Thomas S. Kidd serves as Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern and the John and Sharon Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies. Kidd completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Notre Dame, where he worked with historian of religion George Marsden. He also earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at Clemson University in South Carolina.

His books include Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh, Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism, and Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis.

[The Page 99 Test: American Christians and Islam]

He tagged "five excellent books that would be a great start on learning about the Revolution and American independence." One title on the list:

Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991).

This is arguably the finest book on the Revolution and its consequences, and more readable than his equally brilliant Creation of the American Republic.

Read about another entry on Kidd's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Matt Harry's "Ash Land"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Ash Land by Matt Harry.

About the book, from the publisher:

No one knows how to destroy the Ash. Two years ago, the flesh-eating microbots escaped from a lab in France and quickly spread across the globe. Twenty percent of humanity was killed in under a month. The people who managed to seal themselves inside survived, but now they're only able to access the outside world through remote-controlled drones or hazmat suits. Kai Braddock is one of those survivors. He used to be a cop, but the machine plague and a bitter divorce led to him quitting the department. Now he tracks down bounties via drone, eats cricket burgers with his two sons online, and spends every waking hour in a 70 square-foot studio in downtown Los Angeles. But when his partner is murdered while helping him locate a missing scientist, Braddock realizes he'll have to do what almost no one has done in over twenty-six months: He'll have to go outside.

Visit Matt Harry's website.

The Page 69 Test: Ash Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels that explore the lives of wayward youth

Susan Wiggs is the author of more than fifty novels, including the beloved Lakeshore Chronicles series and the recent New York Times bestsellers The Lost and Found Bookshop, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, and Family Tree. Her award-winning books have been translated into two dozen languages. She lives with her husband on an island in Washington State’s Puget Sound.

Her newest novel is Wayward Girls.

At Lit Hub Wiggs tagged seven "books that offer a haunting, unsparing look at hidden histories and the enduring spirit of those who survived." One title on the list:

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Set during the Great Depression, this epic follows four orphans who escape the Lincoln School, a punitive boarding school for Native American children. As they canoe down the Mississippi River, the “wayward” group seeks a place to call home. The wild, addictively entertaining adventure is grounded in the grim reality of cultural genocide practiced at residential schools and the search for spiritual belonging.

Read about another novel on Wiggs's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joseph Turow's "The Problem with Personalization"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age by Joseph Turow.

About the book, from the publisher:

A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse.

Whether you’re intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media, something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income bracket, politics, age, location, medical conditions, and tastes in clothing, food, and romantic partners. As advertising firms use predictive AI to discover your hot buttons and generative AI to push them, your online world becomes an increasingly bespoke―and isolated―place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital marketing has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets, tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data while threatening the health of our media, discourse, and sense of community. In this urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here, and how to change direction.

The Problem with Personalization shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy.

A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we’re seen and what we see in return.

Learn more about The Problem with Personalization at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Problem with Personalization.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryan Gruley's "River Deep," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: River Deep by Bryan Gruley.

The entry begins:

If River Deep was a movie or, my preference, a streamed series, I would hope for Vince Gilligan, creator of my favorite series ever, Breaking Bad, to direct this cast:

Isa Briones, the prickly young doctor in TV’s The Pitt, as our courtroom hero, Devyn Payne. She’s attractive enough, tough enough, saucy enough. Different from my pick in Bitterfrost (the young agent from hit TV series Slow Horses), but I’d never seen Briones before.

Fiona Dourif, also from The Pitt, as the accused murderer Catriona Dulaney (OK, my wife and I love that series, but so does everybody else). Dourif's character in The Pitt wears an ankle monitor—just like...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

Q&A with Bryan Gruley.

My Book, The Movie: Bitterfrost.

My Book, The Movie: River Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best books on the World Cup

At the Waterstones blog, Mark Skinner tagged ten top books on the World Cup, including:

The Power and the Glory by Jonathan Wilson

There have been many histories of the World Cup over the years but it takes a writer of the calibre of Jonathan Wilson to broaden the scope of the traditional chronicle and place the tournament in its socio-political as well as sporting context. In The Power and the Glory, the celebrated author of Inverting the Pyramid, effectively tells the history of the world since 1930 through the lens of the World Cup and the result is both endlessly enlightening and wonderfully readable.

Read about another title on the list.

Also see ten soccer titles to read during World Cup 2026.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Xian Aubin Wang's "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024 by Xian Aubin Wang.

About the book, from the publisher:

Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan investigates decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examining the causes and legacies of the Shadian massacre, Xian Aubin Wang draws on an extensive review of internal official documents, original written testimonies, and firsthand interviews with Muslim villagers.

By exploring interactions among Beijing, the Yunnan provincial government, county officials, CCP Muslim cadres, and Shadian villagers against the backdrop of the CCP's nationwide political campaigns since the early 1950s, Wang shows how Islam and Maoism influenced the ways that local villagers and party cadres saw and dealt with each other―and how these encounters shaped the developing conflict and its aftermath. Providing an in-depth account of Chinese religious groups living under the CCP, Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan reveals how religion and politics shaped Muslim villagers' responses to the party-state's efforts to control and secularize them.

Learn more about Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan.

--Marshal Zeringue