Q&A with David Wellington

From my Q&A with David Wellington, author of Erebus 13 (Red Space, 3):

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

I ended up not picking the titles for the Red Space trilogy books; in fact this book was just called “Red Space Volume Three” until I’d already finished the first draft! I had to retcon the title back into the book but fortunately I had the perfect place to use it. Now Erebus 13 is where the most important scenes in the book take place. I think it works pretty well, though—it’s certainly dark and mysterious and it references my (much) earlier book, 13 Bullets.

What's in a name?

Another interesting question, since I didn’t choose...[read on]

Visit David Wellington's website.

The Page 69 Test: Chimera.

The Page 69 Test: The Hydra Protocol.

The Page 69 Test: Positive.

My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Astronaut.

Q&A with David Wellington.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five mysteries set in grand, intricate residences

Louise Candlish is the internationally bestselling author of The Other Passenger and Our House, winner of the British Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year and adapted for TV as a limited series starring Martin Compston and Tuppence Middleton. She is the winner of a Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction in Australia and is a three-time nominee for the prestigious Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in the UK.

Candlish's new novel is A Neighbor's Guide to Murder.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five favorite mysteries set in grand, intricate residences. One title on the list:

Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island

While there is an iconic house in Shutter Island—the stone lodge on the lake, scene of the historic Laeddis family tragedy—it’s the hospital building on the island that is most strongly associated with Lehane’s masterpiece. Ashecliffe Hospital is home to the criminally insane, a nicely Gothic trope and yet, we are told, a handsome and “benign” structure that resembles nothing so much as a boarding school.

Be not deceived, however: the tension between how things look and how things are is precisely what propels Shutter Island to the very top of the thriller tree.

Read about another entry on the list.

Shutter Island is among Bonnie Kistler's five novels using hurricanes to heighten the drama, Alex Michaelides's five best island thrillers, and Michelle Adams's five top thrillers in which memory is unreliable, at best.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kathleen Barber reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kathleen Barber, author of, with Amayah Shaienne, Sisterhood Above All.

Barber's entry begins:

I am anxiously awaiting my copy of two books I cannot wait to read:

You First by Caroline Kepnes, which is a prequel to You, one of my favorite books of all-time. Joe Goldberg is my favorite fictional psychopath and I love Caroline’s sharp writing style, so I’m eager to read this one!

Man of My Dreams by Olivia Worley, which is about a romance writer who encounters her fictional hero … but things go dark. I recently read...[read on]

About Sisterhood Above All, from the publisher:

Any girl would kill to be a Gamma.

Being a Gamma at Southern State University means belonging to the most desirable, exclusive sisterhood there is. For Ava, it means even more―it’s the last connection she has to her beloved late mother, and she’ll do anything to wear the Gamma letters.

But the Gammas didn’t become the best house on campus by letting just anyone in, and every prospective pledge is expected to earn her spot. As president, Madison is the ultimate gatekeeper, and she has a special test for Ava.

Rival sorority Theta is nipping at the Gammas’ heels for the top spot on campus, and president Shay is proud they’ve gotten there by rising above the hyper-competitive gamesmanship that consumes other houses. She knows she’s made some enemies in her quest to change the Greek system from the inside, but she can’t imagine the depth of Madison’s resentment for her … or how far Ava will go to become a Gamma.

The sisterhood, the parties, the elite status―and the connection to her mother―are what Ava has always wanted, but she never guessed the cost of membership would be so high. Three women, two houses, one dead body: rush has never been this messy.

“Barber and Shaienne’s juicy, sexy, vicious collab is like America’s Next Top Model stitched with The Art of War. You’ll be equally riveted by the reality TV-level drama and the raw authenticity of the characters in this sure-to-go-viral sorority rush thriller.” ― Layne Fargo, bestselling author of The Favorites and They Never Learn

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All.

The Page 69 Test: Sisterhood Above All.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth H. Winthrop's "Conviction," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Conviction by Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

The entry begins:

I honestly didn’t have any cinematic notions in mind when I wrote Conviction, but in answering the question of who I’d want to star in a movie adaptation was fun, and when I stumbled across the “right” actor for each role, I knew it immediately.

Saoirse Ronan could play Maggie; she has that quality of fierce interiority, and she's believable as someone whose idealism could harden into something dangerous without ever losing your sympathy.

Ramy Youssef could play Ahmet. He has enormous charm, quiet intelligence, and a genuine spiritual seriousness.

As for Ann, I think Laura Linney. She has...[read on]

Visit Elizabeth H. Winthrop's website.

My Book, The Movie: Conviction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine splashy sea creature books

Tessa Yang is a reader, writer, and shark enthusiast from New York State. She received her MFA from Indiana University where she served as the Editor of Indiana Review.

Yang's story collection, The Runaway Restaurant, was published by 7.13 Books in 2022. Her stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Foglifter, and elsewhere, and her flash fiction has been featured in Best Small Fictions 2024, Flash Fiction America, and Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2018 and 2019.

Her debut novel is The Jellyfish Problem.

[Q&A with Tessa Yang]

At People magazine Yang tagged nine favorite sea creature books, including:

Sea Change by Gina Chung

Allow us to fully celebrate the cultural ascendance of the octopus! Sea Change by Gina Chung is one of several fabulous octopus reads to come out in the last few years. The novel’s protagonist, Ro, is an isolated Korean-American woman working a menial job at an aquarium. A giant Pacific octopus named Dolores serves as a final link to Ro’s marine biologist father, who disappeared when Ro was a child. Sea Change reads as an intimate character study, one that circumvents familiar narratives of Asian intergenerational trauma in favor of a more complicated reckoning.

Read about another title on the list.

Sea Change is among Julia Phillips's top ten books about women colliding with wild creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Leah Kalmanson's "Local Gods"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Local Gods: A Philosophy of Spiritual Diversity by Leah Kalmanson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Indigenous activism against telescope construction on Maunakea involves the deity of volcanoes and fire. In India, a village goddess is visited at her place of residence. Across Asia, ancestors are venerated at family shrines. In many places around the world, spiritual matters and practices are local and contextual. Yet philosophy of religion often takes universalizing monotheism as the norm and overlooks other traditions, which it categorizes with oversimplified terms such as polytheism and animism.

Leah Kalmanson offers a new approach to understanding the world’s varied religious traditions: a philosophy of spiritual diversity. Drawing on perspectives from Asian, Pacific, Indigenous American, and African traditions on engaging gods, ghosts, ancestors, and other types of spiritual agents and forces, Local Gods reimagines philosophy of religion from standpoints it typically neglects. A philosophy of spiritual diversity foregrounds the numinous, subtle, and supernormal factors that pervade many aspects of everyday life but slip through the cracks of discourse on religion. Instead of relying on theological frameworks, it turns to theories and methods that are internal to the traditions it considers. This radically plural philosophy highlights creativity and imagination while opening pathways for critique and political engagement. Exploring a vast range of approaches to spiritual matters, this book asks us to find ethical relations with not only the gods we might call our own but also the gods of others.

Learn more about Local Gods at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Local Gods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: "Sisterhood Above All" by Kathleen Barber with Amayah Shaienne.

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sisterhood Above All by Kathleen Barber with Amayah Shaienne.

About the book, from the publisher:

Any girl would kill to be a Gamma.

Being a Gamma at Southern State University means belonging to the most desirable, exclusive sisterhood there is. For Ava, it means even more―it’s the last connection she has to her beloved late mother, and she’ll do anything to wear the Gamma letters.

But the Gammas didn’t become the best house on campus by letting just anyone in, and every prospective pledge is expected to earn her spot. As president, Madison is the ultimate gatekeeper, and she has a special test for Ava.

Rival sorority Theta is nipping at the Gammas’ heels for the top spot on campus, and president Shay is proud they’ve gotten there by rising above the hyper-competitive gamesmanship that consumes other houses. She knows she’s made some enemies in her quest to change the Greek system from the inside, but she can’t imagine the depth of Madison’s resentment for her … or how far Ava will go to become a Gamma.

The sisterhood, the parties, the elite status―and the connection to her mother―are what Ava has always wanted, but she never guessed the cost of membership would be so high. Three women, two houses, one dead body: rush has never been this messy.

“Barber and Shaienne’s juicy, sexy, vicious collab is like America’s Next Top Model stitched with The Art of War. You’ll be equally riveted by the reality TV-level drama and the raw authenticity of the characters in this sure-to-go-viral sorority rush thriller.” ― Layne Fargo, bestselling author of The Favorites and They Never Learn

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All.

The Page 69 Test: Sisterhood Above All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten titles to help you understand America

NPR staff and critics tagged ten books to help you understand America as its 250th birthday. One title on the list:

Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, by Judith Giesberg

In 2017, historian Judith Giesberg and her team of graduate student researchers launched a website called the "Last Seen" project. It now contains over 5,000 ads placed in newspapers by formerly enslaved people hoping to find family members separated by slavery. The ads span the 1830s to the 1920s and serve as portals "into the lived experience of slavery." In Last Seen, her book drawn from that monumental website, Giesberg closely reads 10 of those ads placed in search of lost children, mothers, wives, siblings and comrades who served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War.
— Maureen Corrigan, book critic, Fresh Air

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Chad M. Topaz's "Unlocking Justice"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Unlocking Justice: The Power of Data to Confront Inequity and Create Change by Chad M. Topaz.

About the book, from the publisher:

How we can challenge social injustice—with data and humanity

The American legal system does not offer equal justice to all; we can see obvious racial disparities in sentencing, policing, and incarceration. In Unlocking Justice, Chad Topaz offers a concrete way forward, demonstrating how a candid dialogue between social justice and data science can empower communities, spark informed debate, and inspire advocacy. In addition to big ideas, Topaz brings the receipts—the data. Drawing on unedited police call logs, chaotic city websites, fragmented judicial records, and other overlooked sources, Topaz explains how social forces shape the data we collect, influencing whose voices are heard and whose remain unheard. From a rural New England town plagued by police misconduct to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail, the stories Topaz tells demonstrate how numbers can expose injustice—and how data can underpin activism.

Topaz shows readers how to interpret data in context and question underlying assumptions, providing even those who might be math-averse with practical tools to challenge inequities. He takes readers through his own data science activism, including an examination of public judicial data that revealed the identities of judges who imposed excessive bail; a data-driven investigation of racial disparities in policing, prompted by a police station’s openly displayed portrait of Hitler; and an analysis of Florida’s controversial risk algorithm, COMPAS, for racial bias. The book’s “Show Your Work” companion website connects readers to data sources and the studies behind the stories. When we are armed with the facts and the numbers, Topaz assures us, we can all be effective advocates for transparency, accountability, and justice.

Visit Chad M. Topaz's website.

The Page 99 Test: Unlocking Justice.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jackie McMahon reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jackie McMahon, author of The Cloak and Dagger Club (A Cloak and Dagger Club Mystery).

Her entry begins:

I recently read An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong, the latest installment in the Rip Through Time mystery series. This series follows Mallory Atkinson, a modern-day homicide detective, who finds herself transported back in time to Victorian-era Edinburgh. In the body of a housemaid, she helps her employer, medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, solve murders. Mallory’s evolution in the series has been interesting as she finds her footing in the 1800s. What I particularly love about these books is the vibrant cast of side characters. (Major Hugh and Isla fan here!) The series has two very lovable, will-they-won't-they romances at...[read on]

About The Cloak and Dagger Club, from the publisher:

Inspired by Agatha Christie's real-life Detection Club, a murder among a group of golden age mystery writers meets a second chance romance in this debut novel from author Jackie McMahon.

London, 1930. Lucy Hubbard is on the cusp of achieving her dreams. With her first mystery novel debuting with strong sales and glowing reviews, she's been invited by Horace Hazelmoor, the king of crime fiction, to join his elite group of writers—the Cloak and Dagger Club.

Thrilled at the opportunity, Lucy finds herself swept up into Horace's glamorous world at the Ritz hotel. She's even willing to put up with the inconvenient presence of her former fiancé, Frank Murray, the club's rising star who is on track to eclipse Horace as Britain's most popular crime writer.

But when Horace is found with a knife in his back, Frank is the police's prime suspect. Despite their complicated history, Lucy knows he's not capable of murder. With suspects galore and the danger rising, these two mystery writers must race to solve the crime—and fight their lingering feelings for each other—before the murderer strikes again.

Visit Jackie McMahon's website.

Writers Read: Jackie McMahon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that feel like a movie

Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (2019) and First Comes Love (1996; reissued with a new introduction in 2026). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011.

[Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (December 2009); Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (June 2013); Writers Read: Marion Winik (June 2013)]

A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.

At Oprah Daily Winik tagged seven books with fast-paced, visual storytelling, including:

Laws of Love and Logic, by Debra Curtis

If you're a sucker for star-crossed lovers whose destiny plays out over decades, if you don't mind shedding a tear over their fictional mistakes, heartbreaks, and joys, Debra Curtis's moving debut awaits your reading pleasure. The story revolves around the lifelong loves of Lily Webb: her mother, a charismatic force of nature who dies young; her sister Jill, a genius mathematician who falls prey to hard drugs; and "the boy —her sweet, utterly devoted first boyfriend, a high school quarterback and hometown hero. After their seemingly forever connection is cut short by a brutal incident at a drunken beach party, Lily finds a different version of happiness with her college ornithology professor. But her story isn't over yet. As it weaves through the years, this novel recalls The Notebook and Past Lives with the deep respect it extends to young love, its tender exploration of longing and forgiveness, and the haunting questions it poses about what is lost, what returns, what endures.

Read about another entry on the list.

-Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rod Phillips's "Cats: A History"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Cats: A History by Rod Phillips.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping and fascinating history of cat-human relationships.

For more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life. But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them became pets. In Cats, Rod Phillips shares a sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard rodent controllers to cherished internet icons.

Phillips illustrates how cats have always occupied spaces both familiar and mysterious and how their perceived independence and disruptive nature―and their associations with women, the supernatural, and outsiders―have shaped humans' attitudes toward these fascinating creatures. Cats have been lauded as companions and vermin-killers, reviled as threats to moral and ecological order, and cherished for the very qualities that make them hard to control. This richly textured portrait of cats explores their significance in religion, politics, gender, literature, warfare, and pop culture. It also provides profound insights into our relationships with other animals, especially dogs and rodents.

The many roles that cats have played throughout history illuminate a variety of contradictions in humans' perceptions of them: as affectionate yet aloof, adorable and evil, ordinary and exceptional. This book is the definitive story of the feline presence in human history―an elegant study of how we live with animals whom we see as living by their own rules.

Learn more about Cats: A History at the publisher's website, and visit the website for Phillips's books about wine.

The Page 99 Test: Cats: A History.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Rachel León's "How We See the Gray"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: How We See the Gray: A Novel by Rachel León.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riveting story about parenthood, substance abuse, and the strength it takes to come back from our mistakes

Foster care is a disaster in Rockford, Illinois. Meredith, a social worker and single mom, is stretched beyond thin but determined to protect her kids: not only her son, but those on her caseload too. When the stress of the job has her breaking her sobriety, the foundations of her life begin to tremble. After drinking too much, she makes a mistake that puts her preschooler in jeopardy, and Meredith finds herself in a situation that mirrors her clients’ as she loses custody of her son. In her fight to get him back, Meredith experiences the system from the outside―while still working for the kids inside of it. Set over the course of a year, this riveting documentary-esque novel is told from multiple perspectives, including those of case workers, birth parents, foster parents, and foster children. Written with the working-class humor and heart that defines the Midwest, How We See the Gray is a story about mistakes, second chances, and trying to do better in a system that seems doomed to fail.

Visit Rachel León's website.

Q&A with Rachel León.

Writers Read: Rachel León.

The Page 69 Test: How We See the Gray.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels that invert horror tropes

Michael J. Seidlinger is the Filipino-American author of On Submission, Anybody Home?, and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, The Believer, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference, and Sarah Lawrence.

Seidlinger's new novel is Brokeula.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six novels that spin horror tropes in interesting ways. One title on the list:

Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

We all know the zombie trope well, and more so the whole zombie apocalypse that so often goes hand-in-hand with our favorite, shuffling post-human creatures. Isaac Marion took the trope and spun it into an empathic tale where the zombie may still be dead but now, they have the capacity of experiencing human feeling and memory.

Protagonist R is shuffling around like a zombie does until he bites into the brains of someone who has memories of a first love, Julie. Soon R is falling for Julie too, and in continuing his interest in all-things human, he manages to regain some of the humanity thought long gone.

Warm Bodies is at once a tale of love and loss, but also a great use of the zombie trope to explore the philosophical plight of the living dead.

Read about another novel on Seidlinger's list.

Warm Bodies is among Lois Leveen's five notable novels that riff on—and rip off—Shakespeare, Rachel Aukes's five top books that take zombies in a new direction, Ceridwen Christensen's seven top books with thinking zombies, Jeff Somers's eight best speculative works with dead narrators, Sarah Skilton's six most unusual YA narrators, Rachel Paxton-Gillilan's five funniest YA zombie novels, Nick Harkaway's six favorite holiday books, and Nicole Hill's seven favorite literary oddballs.

The Page 69 Test: Warm Bodies.

My Book, The Movie: Warm Bodies.

--Marshal Zeringue

My Book, The Movie: "Sisterhood Above All" by Kathleen Barber with Amayah Shaienne

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All by Kathleen Barber with Amayah Shaienne.

The entry begins:

Like many authors, I love to imagine my work translated for the screen—but I always struggle with dreamcasting because I have such specific ideas of what my characters look like and how they behave. I’ve done my best, though, to dreamcast the three point-of-view characters in Sisterhood Above All:

Ava Nichols is a potential new member going through sorority rush who is desperate to join the Gammas. She’s blonde and conventionally pretty, but she’s anxious and unsure of herself. I’d cast Grace Van Patten as Ava based on appearance, but there’s a longing to fit in that reminds me of Maude Apatow’s performance as Lexi in Euphoria.

Madison Archer is the president of the Gammas. She’s intimidatingly beautiful—and intimidating, full stop. She’s cruel and calculating but knows how to put on a smile to get what she wants. If...[read on]

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

Q&A with Kathleen Barber.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (September 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Sisterhood Above All.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rachel León reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Rachel León, author of How We See the Gray: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I’m always reading multiple books, often in different genres. Right now, my fiction pick is Yasmin Zaher’s novel, The Coin, about a young Palestinian woman living in New York who gets involved in a scheme selling Birkin bags. Everyone in my writing group is working on novels, and we realized a while back that it would be more helpful to read each other’s entire manuscripts rather than just a chapter or two here and there. But novel writing takes a long time, so we began the practice of reading published novels together and discussing them. We don't exactly have a set reason for picking the books, though typically it’s something one of us has wanted to read. The Coin was my suggestion, as it had...[read on]

About How We See the Gray, from the publisher:

A riveting story about parenthood, substance abuse, and the strength it takes to come back from our mistakes

Foster care is a disaster in Rockford, Illinois. Meredith, a social worker and single mom, is stretched beyond thin but determined to protect her kids: not only her son, but those on her caseload too. When the stress of the job has her breaking her sobriety, the foundations of her life begin to tremble. After drinking too much, she makes a mistake that puts her preschooler in jeopardy, and Meredith finds herself in a situation that mirrors her clients’ as she loses custody of her son. In her fight to get him back, Meredith experiences the system from the outside―while still working for the kids inside of it. Set over the course of a year, this riveting documentary-esque novel is told from multiple perspectives, including those of case workers, birth parents, foster parents, and foster children. Written with the working-class humor and heart that defines the Midwest, How We See the Gray is a story about mistakes, second chances, and trying to do better in a system that seems doomed to fail.

Visit Rachel León's website.

Q&A with Rachel León.

Writers Read: Rachel León.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Adam Y. Liu's "Authoritarian Markets"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China's Banking Explosion by Adam Y. Liu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Authoritarian Markets explores the political foundations of China's banking boom and its far-reaching impact on the Chinese economy.

In 1978 China had no commercial banks. Today it commands the world's largest banking system, with assets equal to 40 percent of global GDP. Adam Y. Liu argues that this rise was not the product of market reforms but of political bargains and bureaucratic mobilization.

In the 1990s, Beijing issued bank licenses as bargaining chips―securing cooperation from local governments as it pushed through painful reforms. The result was a sprawling, competitive banking market built not in spite of authoritarian rule but because of it.

Drawing on interviews, spatial data, census records, surveys, and experiments, Liu reveals how local state banks became both engines of China's growth and incubators of its current economic risks. Eye-opening and persuasive, Authoritarian Markets offers fresh insight into the political logic of market development in China and authoritarian states worldwide.

Learn more about Authoritarian Markets at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Authoritarian Markets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books about fresh starts

Alex Luppens-Dale won the “Enthusiastic Reader Award” all four years of high school. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her favorite genres are memoir, witches, and anything with cults. She lives in New Jersey.

At Book Riot Luppens-Dale tagged seven "books in various genres that celebrate fresh starts and new lives in all of their forms." One title on the list:

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This buzzy novel follows Phoebe Stone, a young woman who crashes a Newport, Rhode Island, wedding. She is looking for a weekend getaway, a sort of last hurrah as she’s hit rock bottom. The bride has planned for every part of her wedding weekend, except for Phoebe, who becomes a bigger part of the event than either of them could have anticipated.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on "The Life of George Washington"

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Buffa's latest take in his "Third Reading" series covers The Life of George Washington by Washington Irving. It begins:

When George Washington died, just weeks before the end of the l8th century, an eminent British statesman, Lord Brougham, wrote: “The fame of Washington stands apart from every other in history.” He then added: “It will be the duty of the historian and the sage of all nations, to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man, and until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.”

This is the last sentence written in Washington Irving’s biography of George Washington, the first volume of which was published in l855. The fifth, and last volume, was published four years later in l859, sixty years after Washington’s death, and a year before the American Civil War. It was then still possible to entertain the hope that veneration for Washington would remain the measure for the progress made in the wisdom and virtue of Americans. The example of Abraham Lincoln, with his invocation of “our fathers,” seemed to prove the possibility.

For a long time Washington and Lincoln were seen as the models of what American greatness and nobility meant. More than what they had done, the kind of men they had been, was thought to be the standard by which to judge our own best efforts. Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday were both made national holidays, the only American statesmen to be so honored. Then, when our own early history became ancient, when the American Founding and the American Civil War began to recede further back in time and became part of a largely unremembered past...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius; The Closing of The American Mind; History of Rome; Before The Deluge; Herodotus's Histories; The Education of Henry Adams; Duff Cooper’s Talleyrand; The Golden Bowl; The Life of George Washington.

--Marshal Zeringue

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