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

Q&A with Rachel León

From my Q&A with Rachel León, author of How We See the Gray: A Novel:

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

I think my title does quite a bit of work: it brings in the Greek chorus so before even opening the novel, the “we’ is immediately present for the reader. And while the novel deals with the foster care system, it’s more about seeing the gray. What does it mean to see the gray?, you might be wondering. Well, to me, it’s understanding that we can only know so much about another person (and yet as a society, we’re so prone to judge). How We See the Gray is about how we’re all complicated and messy, so we should show each other grace and kindness.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would be...[read on]

Visit Rachel León's website.

Q&A with Rachel León.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best monsters in literature

McKayla Coyle (they/them) is a lesbian writer from Alaska currently living in Washington. They're the author of the cozy lifestyle guide Goblin Mode and the cryptid romance collection Mothman Is My Boyfriend. McKayla is the publishing coordinator for Lit Hub and they hold an MFA in fiction from The New School. In their free time, they read a lot of fantasy novels and make a lot of jam.

At Lit Hub Coyle tagged seven of her "favorite contemporary works of monster literature." One title on the list:

Sayaka Murata, tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori, Earthlings

Is Natsuki really an otherworldly creature, or is she a regular woman with a difficult past? Most, if not all, monsters deal in some level of ambiguity: not human but not wolf, not alive but not dead, not wholly real, but not completely imagined. That’s why Earthlings is actually an excellent example of monster literature. The book refuses any simple answers and instead allows us a chance to see the world through the eyes of someone who feels completely outside of the world. And that’s really the ultimate goal of all monster lit.

Read about another book on the list.

Earthlings is among Monika Kim's five top body horror novels and Katie Yee's eight fictional housewives who snapped (in a fun way).

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rachel Grace Newman's "The Future in Their Hands"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico's Foreign-Educated Elite by Rachel Grace Newman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Future in Their Hands is a deep history of the politics of foreign education in Mexico, where many influential figures have degrees from European or US institutions. Reconstructing the history of student mobility from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, Rachel Grace Newman unveils the social hierarchies, political languages, and institutional mechanisms that created Mexico’s foreign-educated elite. Study abroad began as a private phenomenon for young elites to acquire specific forms of knowledge and to preserve their status. But after the 1910 revolution, elites gradually convinced the Mexican state, under the guise of modernizing the nation, to underwrite their ambitions with merit-based scholarships. Student mobility naturalized the expectation that Mexico’s sovereignty and development required knowledge from elsehwere. For historians of Mexico and other countries with foreign-educated elites, this book reveals the subtle, insidious processes by which states reinforce privilege through education policy.

Visit Rachel Grace Newman's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Future in Their Hands.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Peter Colt's "The Driftwood Bones"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Driftwood Bones (Detective Tommy Kelly) by Peter Colt.

About the book, 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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great novels that read like bad trips, fever dreams, or reality warps

Lindsay Kent, a.k.a. The Hallucinarrator, is a multimedia storyteller whose work explores the luminous edges of consciousness and culture. Over the past decade, she's directed three international feature films, produced a Hulu documentary on LGBTQ+ families, and created branded films for nonprofits and Fortune 500s alike. Her 2014 documentary "Going Furthur" retraced the arc of America's counterculture through a psychedelic lens, and her docuseries, "Plant Medicine," follows an Ayahuasca retreat center in Costa Rica. A few years ago, Kent returned to her first love―fiction. Blending the vision of a filmmaker with the curiosity of a psychonaut, her stories blur the boundaries between science and spirit, cinema and literature. At the heart of her work lies a singular mission―to bridge the gap between reality and the beyond, welcoming more seekers into the mystery through stories anyone can access, and everyone can feel.

Kent's new novel is My Twin the Murderer.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "favorite trippy novels, where time distorts and nothing is what it seems." One title on the list:

Marisha Pessl, Night Film

When the daughter of a famous, deeply reclusive cult horror director is found dead under suspicious circumstances, investigative journalist Scott McGrath becomes consumed by the case. What starts as an attempt to uncover the truth pulls him into a shadowy world of underground art, buried histories, and escalating obsession, where myth and reality become increasingly difficult to separate.

What makes Night Film so absorbing is the way it draws you into a state of creeping paranoia. Pessl blends noir, investigative journalism, and psychological unraveling through multimedia elements, fake documents, and layered mysteries that make the story feel larger, stranger, and more unsettling with every chapter. The pacing feels like an all-night spiral, as though you’ve fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole and can’t stop clicking, with each new clue feeling darker and less trustworthy than the last.

Read about another novel on the list.

Night Film is among Jenny Elder Moke's five mystery novels with unique settings, Lauren Acampora's nine top novels of art and seduction, Kate Reed Petty's seven thrillers about filmmakers & subversive art, and Jeff Somers's ten creepy Halloween books and four huge books that will hurt your brain—but in a good way.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christian B. Miller's "The Honesty Crisis"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World by Christian B. Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Honesty is our most treasured virtue. Research has found that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them, and understanding them. But honesty is eroding at a frightening rate in many areas of society today, as we are confronted with a number of honesty crises. The frequency of deepfakes has skyrocketed, now that they are simple to make and untraceable. In our relationships, with the easy availability of online pornography, anonymous chatrooms, and infidelity websites like Ashley Madison, cheating in a relationship has never been easier. In education, many students are using AI to complete their writing assignments with little chance of detection. In politics, social media helps with the dissemination of fake news, and polarization reduces our tendency to condemn political dishonesty if it aligns with our own views. In public spaces, it is easier to become a celebrity than it has ever been in human history, and yet celebrity encourages greater dishonesty. In religion, religious leaders are increasingly confronted by temptations to plagiarize sermon material from the Internet and AI.

Christian Miller's The Honesty Crisis diagnoses this problem across a range of social phenomena, drawing on his years of research, and makes the case that the stakes are higher than we realize. Proposing concrete solutions, Miller's urgent and timely book will interest anyone concerned about the moral character of our world, and its future.

Visit Christian B. Miller's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Honesty Crisis.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Eva Gates reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Eva Gates, author of Whose Body in the Library: A Lighthouse Library Mystery.

Her entry begins:

It’s been a great spring so far for reading. Two of my favourite writers have new books out, one right after the other. And they did not disappoint.

Last One Out by Jane Harper:

Jane Harper’s books are set in different parts of Australia, and the sense of place is outstanding. This is not a thriller and it's certainly not a cozy. It's more about people and community and what happens when people lose that community than the details of the plot itself, although it is a good one....[read on]

About Whose Body in the Library, from the publisher:

A new librarian’s first day goes terribly wrong when she finds a dead body on the front steps of the library.

In the thirteenth installment of the beloved Lighthouse Library mysteries, a new character takes the reins.

While Lucy McNeil is enjoying her new job as the mother of twin boys and library director, new librarian Nichelle Gilchrest has just arrived at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, reporting for duty. But life throws a wrench on Nichelle’s first day when she finds a body on the steps—a body that bears a startling resemblance to her father, who disappeared on a fishing trip to the Outer Banks thirty-eight years ago.

Fingerprints confirm the dead body is indeed Nichelle’s father, now living in Nags Head under the name Brian Saunders. Brian had been befriending older lonely women in exchange for money, but was he working alone?

Detective Rhonda Thomas is on the case, and the suspect list is only getting longer. Sorting through the wronged women and their relatives, Detective Thomas discovers Nichelle’s own brother, Brad, had been in Nags Head a few days before the murder happened and has been lying about his whereabouts.

Hoping to clear her brother’s name, Nichelle decides to investigate what happened. With seasoned sleuth Lucy’s gentle encouragement for the amateur, Nichelle is in for an exciting and dangerous first week at the library.

Follow Eva Gates on Facebook, and visit Vicki Delany's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death By Beach Read.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Death Knells and Wedding Bells.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2023).

Writers Read: Eva Gates (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Stranger in the Library.

The Page 69 Test: Shot Through the Book.

The Page 69 Test: Whose Body in the Library.

Writers Read: Eva Gates.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books that bring back the magic of the ’80s

At Oprah Daily Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne tagged ten standout "books about the nightlife scene, late-night culture, and comedy of the ’80s." One title on their list:

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The name Taylor Jenkins Reid—or TJR, as her fans call her—has become synonymous with immersive, unforgettable historical fiction, and this ’80s surf saga is no exception. Set during the course of one night in a Malibu mansion that meets its end in a catastrophic fire, Malibu Rising primarily focuses on the Rivas, a dynastic surfer family of four very different adult siblings, each of whom has captured the public’s fascination and each of whom holds closely guarded secrets from the others. Featuring a captivating blend of partying actors, artists, athletes, and musicians, this juicy novel showcases the Hollywood side of the ’80s fame machine to spectacular, dishy effect.

Read about another entry on the list.

Malibu Rising is among Sara Ackerman's seven top books that feature surfing, Olivia Petter's five top novels that examine celebrity culture, Shilpi Somaya Gowda's ten novels with rotating perspectives, Laura Griffin's seven suspense titles in which paradise is not what it seems, and María Amparo Escandón's eight top books about living in Los Angeles.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Craig S. Simpson's "Television is Where You Find It"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Television Is Where You Find It: A History of Feature Filmmakers in TV by Craig S. Simpson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Television Is Where You Find It is a revelatory journey into the overlooked world of feature filmmakers who brought their cinematic vision to the small screen between 1955 and 1990―long before directing for television became trendy in the age of “Prestige TV.” With ten compelling case studies―from legends like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Orson Welles to trailblazers like Ida Lupino, Melvin Van Peebles, and Martin Scorsese―author Craig S. Simpson uncovers how these directors reshaped the language of television with style and imagination.

Far from simply dabbling in a “lesser” medium, these filmmakers pushed the boundaries of what TV could do, crafting bold, innovative work that challenges the old notion that television belongs solely to writers and producers. In this fresh, critical study, Television Is Where You Find It makes a case for rediscovering and reevaluating a rich chapter of television history―one in which cinematic artistry quietly flourished, often hidden in plain sight.

Learn more about Television Is Where You Find It at the Rutgers University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Television Is Where You Find It.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thirteen top mysteries and thrillers from 2025

NPR staff and critics tagged thirteen of the best mysteries and thrillers from 2025. One title on the list:

The Stalker, by Paula Bomer

The antihero of Paula Bomer's novel is Doughty, a liar, misogynist and dyed-in-the-wool sociopath who manages to fail upward by preying on women who fall for his deceit. The novel chronicles his time in New York City, where he hurts everyone he can, with no semblance of guilt or even basic humanity. This is, in part, a darkly funny novel, and Bomer walks a fine line brilliantly – the moments of humor don't detract from the book's important themes.
— Michael Schaub, book critic

Read about another novel on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Stalker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Eva Gates's "Whose Body in the Library"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Whose Body in the Library: A Lighthouse Library Mystery by Eva Gates.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A new librarian’s first day goes terribly wrong when she finds a dead body on the front steps of the library.

In the thirteenth installment of the beloved Lighthouse Library mysteries, a new character takes the reins.

While Lucy McNeil is enjoying her new job as the mother of twin boys and library director, new librarian Nichelle Gilchrest has just arrived at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, reporting for duty. But life throws a wrench on Nichelle’s first day when she finds a body on the steps—a body that bears a startling resemblance to her father, who disappeared on a fishing trip to the Outer Banks thirty-eight years ago.

Fingerprints confirm the dead body is indeed Nichelle’s father, now living in Nags Head under the name Brian Saunders. Brian had been befriending older lonely women in exchange for money, but was he working alone?

Detective Rhonda Thomas is on the case, and the suspect list is only getting longer. Sorting through the wronged women and their relatives, Detective Thomas discovers Nichelle’s own brother, Brad, had been in Nags Head a few days before the murder happened and has been lying about his whereabouts.

Hoping to clear her brother’s name, Nichelle decides to investigate what happened. With seasoned sleuth Lucy’s gentle encouragement for the amateur, Nichelle is in for an exciting and dangerous first week at the library.

Follow Eva Gates on Facebook, and visit Vicki Delany's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death By Beach Read.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2022).

The Page 69 Test: Death Knells and Wedding Bells.

Writers Read: Eva Gates (June 2023).

Writers Read: Eva Gates (May 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Stranger in the Library.

The Page 69 Test: Shot Through the Book.

The Page 69 Test: Whose Body in the Library.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five excellent near-future sci-fi novels

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five “great near-future novels that may be coming soon to a reality near you!" One entry on the list:

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

This recent novel is similar to 1984 and its Thought Police because it depicts a surveillance state in which people are locked up for their dreams. While going through airport security, Sara is pulled out of line by the Risk Assessment Administration. They tell her that according to data from her dreams, she is going to commit a crime against her husband. Sara is swiftly locked up in the Dream Hotel with other unfairly accused women, and months go by with no hope of leaving. That is, until a new resident arrives with ideas for fighting back.

Read about another title on the list.

The Dream Hotel is among the Christian Science Monitor's top twenty-five books for 2025 and Fred Lunzer's ten realist novels that integrate futuristic topics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Colt's "The Driftwood Bones," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Driftwood Bones (Detective Tommy Kelly) by Peter Colt.

The entry begins:

If my book were a movie there are several characters I would like to see cast.

The protagonist Tommy Kelly is State Police Detective, who is a hot mess. His marriage is over, his love life is a mess, his career is on the ropes and he's been exiled to Nantucket Island by the State Police. I want an actor who can portray Kelly and his problems without turning it into the cliched "divorced, alcoholic" cop performance. I can see two potential leading men playing Kelly, Alexander Skarsgård, who gives outstanding performances in Generation Kill and Murderbot. Or Milo Ventimiglia whose performance in the series This Is Us shows the range he is capable of. Both actors could convincingly play a troubled police detective without turning it into a cliche.

The second character I want to see cast is Detective Jo Harris. Jo is neither a sidekick nor a typical film love interest. She is...[read on]

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.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine queer books in which animals take on a mythical importance

Joseph Osmundson is a scientist and writer. His research has been published in leading scientific journals including Cell, PNAS, and most recently, Nature Communications. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His previous book Virology was a finalist for the NBCC and Lambda Literary Awards in Nonfiction. His latest book is Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood.

At Electric Lit Osmundson tagged nine "books by queer writers [in which] animals play an essential, mythical role, inextricable from the narrator or the story." One entry on the list:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

I only read Moby Dick recently, as a middle-aged bisexual man, and, wow, it’s the gayest book I’ve ever read. I’m glad I didn’t attempt it as a pre-queer high school kid, as so much of the queerness of the text—not the subtext, the text itself—might not have landed for me. I don’t know how to write a list about queer animal books without including Moby Dick, in which Melville details the ill-fated search for Ahab’s white whale, famously a fish. From the opening scene of Ishmael sharing a bed with Queequeg and waking as “his wife” to the orgasmic definitely-not-sex the whalers share as they extract spermaceti from the head of a sperm whale by sperm squeezing, not only does the white whale represent the hubris of man against nature, but the all-male ship becomes a space wherein the desire for touch becomes not just allowed but a part of the labor:

Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! All the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed the sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.

There are two wolves inside me, and they are both gay, and their names are Ishmael and Queequeg.

Read about another book on the list.

Moby-Dick appears among 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: Kieran J. O'Keefe's "Suffering for the Crown"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Suffering for the Crown: The Hudson Valley Loyalists and the Violence of Revolution by Kieran J. O'Keefe.

About the book, from the publisher:

A groundbreaking look at the chaos and carnage of the American Revolution at the local level

In many respects, the American Revolution was a civil war, pitting Americans loyal to the Crown against other Americans loyal to the vision of a new nation they sought to create. Neighbor fought against neighbor, brother against brother, father against son. One of the epicenters of this desperate struggle was New York’s Hudson Valley.

In Suffering for the Crown, Kieran O’Keefe offers an in-depth, long-term look at what many scholars consider the most fiercely contested region of the entire conflict, analyzing the effects of violence on Loyalist communities―which included white, Black, and Native peoples―in stunning detail. O’Keefe reveals the brutal reality of the war and examines its enduring psychological and social legacies, providing readers with a nuanced understanding of the Revolution’s human cost. Caught up in this crucible, he shows, suffering became central to how Loyalists came to define themselves and their ordeal, as the dark side of the nation’s birth fundamentally and permanently reshaped American civil society.

Learn more about Suffering for the Crown at the University of Virginia Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Suffering for the Crown.

--Marshal Zeringue