Five top books about financial speculation

John Gapper is chief business commentator of the Financial Times, where he writes a weekly column. He co-authored All That Glitters, an account of the collapse of Barings bank in 1995.

One of his five top books on financial speculation, as told to Robert Cottrell at The Browser:

The Great Crash 1929
by John Kenneth Galbraith

Greed, vanity and weakness are also, to some extent, the themes of John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash 1929. Do you admire Galbraith as an economist?

The book shows his talent as a popular economist. It’s not chiefly a work of economics, though it does analyse the causes of the Great Depression. It’s more a work of history, almost of journalism. For an academic, Galbraith writes unusually well.

Does the book have predictive value? Could you have read it in 2005 and said “it looks like we’ve got another crash approaching”?

When you open this book, it starts with real estate speculation in Florida. Everybody is rushing down there because they believe Florida real estate is going to have an enormous boom. They are speculating in derivatives on it. The parallels could hardly be more precise.

Galbraith also draws out well the way in which one of the top bankers of the day, Charles Mitchell of National City Bank, together with Richard Whitney, head of the New York Stock Exchange, contrived to prolong the period of financial speculation. After the crash, these two became the symbols of the financial class’s malfeasance. They were prosecuted and reputationally ruined. Whitney was sent to Sing Sing [prison]. There, the parallel breaks down. No senior banker has faced such harsh justice this time.

Did the crash of 1929 fundamentally change American markets?

Galbraith didn’t go so far as to say that it could never happen again. But he did conclude that Wall Street would never be trusted in the same way. Instead, America would trust new institutions and regulations – first http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifand foremost the Securities and Exchange Commission. But if you fast-forward to the past decade, you find that the SEC had become ineffectual. And the Federal Reserve, at least under Alan Greenspan, was treating derivatives as though they were reducing and distributing risk, rather than creating it. So with benefit of hindsight, you have to say that Wall Street came through the Great Crash without being fundamentally changed.

Read about another book Gapper tagged for The Browser.

The Great Crash, 1929 also appears on Samuel Muston's list of ten of "the finest - and most readable - books about Big Money" and David Charters's top ten list of books about bankers.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nick Drake reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Nick Drake, author of Egypt: The Book of Chaos.

Part of his entry:

Climate Change holds a mirror up to us all, to how we live, and to our values; The New North by Laurence Smith and The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding are two impressive books that dare to look into the mirror of the future, and say honestly, cogently and thoughtfully what they see. The Arctic may seem remote, but what happens there because of what we do, or take from it, will always come back to haunt us. The Inuit say of us (that's to say, the industrial world) that we are the people who change nature; she is changing fast now; these two highly-informed books have the courage to think about what that's going to...[read on]

About Egypt: The Book of Chaos, from the publisher:

The future of Egypt lies in the hands of chief detective Rahotep in this final installment of Nick Drake’s acclaimed ancient Egyptian trilogy.

King Tutankhamun has died without an heir, and his young widow, Queen Ankhesenamun, last of her dynasty, struggles to maintain power and order. To defeat her enemies, she has but one hope: to forge an alliance with the Hittites, a powerful, militant new empire that threatens Egypt’s supremacy.

The loyal Rahotep, chief detective of the Thebes Medjay—the ancient capital’s elite police force—and his friend, the royal envoy Nakht, are sent on a clandestine mission to the Hittite homeland, to persuade the king to agree to a marriage between one of his sons and Ankhesenamun—a union that would bring peace to the region and consolidate the queen’s power.

Back in Egypt, the nefarious General Horemheb is poised to use his army to impose martial law and destroy the dynasty. But he is not the only enemy vying for control. A mysterious and brutal new opium cartel has emerged within the criminal underworld of Thebes, ready to take over the lucrative black market—and, ultimately, the very heart of the government.

In this epic quest to the dark heart of the ancient world, Rahotep must also confront his own demons if he is to prevent the gathering forces of chaos from destroying Egypt’s greatest dynasty, and to return home in time to save his own family from the terror that threatens them all.

Based on a true story and meticulously researched, Egypt: The Book of Chaos brings to life the ancient world and the cradle of civilization in a riveting, suspenseful finale to Nick Drake’s acclaimed trilogy.

Learn more about the book and author at Nick Drake's website.

The Page 69 Test: Egypt: The Book of Chaos.

My Book, The Movie: Egypt.

Writers Read: Nick Drake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Patrice Sarath's "The Unexpected Miss Bennet"

This weekend's feature at the Page 69 Test: The Unexpected Miss Bennet by Patrice Sarath.

About the book, from the publisher:

Pride and Prejudice's Mary Bennet gets her own story...

The third of five daughters, Miss Mary Bennet is a rather unremarkable girl. With her countenance being somewhere between plain and pretty and in possession of no great accomplishments, few expect the third Bennet daughter to attract a respectable man. But although she is shy and would much prefer to keep her nose stuck in a book, Mary is uncertain she wants to meekly follow the path to spinsterhood set before her.

Determined that Mary should have a chance at happiness, the elder Bennet sisters concoct a plan. Lizzy invites Mary to visit at Pemberley, hoping to give her sister a place to grow and make new acquaintances. But it is only when Mary strikes out independently that she can attempt to become accomplished in her own right. And in a family renowned for its remarkable Misses, Mary Bennet may turn out to be the most wholly unexpected of them all...

Learn more about the book and author at Patrice Sarath's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Unexpected Miss Bennet.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on Americans in Paris

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on Americans in Paris:

Le Divorce
by Diane Johnson

Alive with echoes of Henry James, this modern comedy of manners revolves around Isabel Walker, a film-school dropout newly arrived in Paris from California, there to help her pregnant step-sister Roxy cope with family matters after the infidelity and departure of her French husband. She experiences the gossipy currents of the American expatriate community, the charm -- but fundamental difference -- of her French semi-relations, and the beguiling reality of the city itself. As the families square off (with a valuable painting at the center), Isabel crosses a threshold into emotional maturity: an old story, but one that becomes completely fresh through Johnson's scintillating prose and keen eye for absurdity.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Patrick Lee's "Deep Sky," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Deep Sky by Patrick Lee.

The entry begins:

Strangely enough, the character I never have a visual sense of is my protagonist, Travis Chase. That's probably because I'm usually writing from his point of view, the story focusing on what he sees and, more importantly, what he thinks.

Other characters I do get a sense of, visually, but not specifically enough that any certain actor or actress comes to mind.

In the past, I've hinted that a great lead actor would be a CGI mix of Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Patrick Lee's website and blog.

Patrick Lee's first novel, The Breach, hit the world at the beginning of 2010. It was followed by a sequel, Ghost Country, and the final volume of the trilogy, Deep Sky, is out this week. The series tells the story of Travis Chase, a man who finds himself caught up in the chain of events surrounding the world's most violently kept secret.

My Book, The Movie: Deep Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's "Zoopolis"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka.

About the book, from the publisher:

Zoopolis offers a new agenda for the theory and practice of animal rights. Most animal rights theory focuses on the intrinsic capacities or interests of animals, and the moral status and moral rights that these intrinsic characteristics give rise to. This book shifts the debate from the realm of moral theory and applied ethics to the realm of political theory, focusing on the relational obligations that arise from the varied ways that animals relate to human societies and institutions. Building on recent developments in the political theory of group-differentiated citizenship, Zoopolis introduces us to the genuine "political animal". It argues that different types of animals stand in different relationships to human political communities. Domesticated animals should be seen as full members of human-animal mixed communities, participating in the cooperative project of shared citizenship. Wilderness animals, by contrast, form their own sovereign communities entitled to protection against colonization, invasion, domination and other threats to self-determination. `Liminal' animals who are wild but live in the midst of human settlement (such as crows or raccoons) should be seen as "denizens", resident of our societies, but not fully included in rights and responsibilities of citizenship. To all of these animals we owe respect for their basic inviolable rights. But we inevitably and appropriately have very different relations with them, with different types of obligations. Humans and animals are inextricably bound in a complex web of relationships, and Zoopolis offers an original and profoundly affirmative vision of how to ground this complex web of relations on principles of justice and compassion.

Learn more about Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights at the Oxford University Press and Will Kymlicka's website.

The Page 99 Test: Zoopolis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten best science fiction & fantasy books 2011

Kirkus Reviews named its ten best science fiction and fantasy titles of 2011.

One book on the list:

With Fate Conspire by Marie Brennan

Read about another book on the list.

About With Fate Conspire, from the publisher:

Marie Brennan returns to the Onyx Court, a fairy city hidden below Queen Victoria's London. Now the Onyx Court faces its greatest challenge.

Seven years ago, Eliza's childhood sweetheart vanished from the streets of Whitechapel. No one believed her when she told them that he was stolen away by the faeries.

But she hasn't given up the search. It will lead her across London and into the hidden palace that gives refuge to faeries in the mortal world. That refuge is now crumbling, broken by the iron of the underground railway, and the resulting chaos spills over to the streets above.

Three centuries of the Onyx Court are about to come to an end. Without the palace's protection, the fae have little choice but to flee. Those who stay have one goal: to find safety in a city that does not welcome them. But what price will the mortals of London pay for that safety?

Learn more about the book and author at Marie Brennan's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Onyx Court series.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is John Gribbin reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: John Gribbin, author of Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique.

His entry begins:

I have recently been reading two books inspired by the quest for a “theory of everything”, while waiting for news from CERN about the discovery of the Higgs particle. The books complement each other beautifully. The Infinity Puzzle, by Frank Close, is an erudite (but readable) history of particle physics in the twentieth century. As I said in a review for Focus magazine, it tells the story of the search for a unified field theory from the Second World War to the Large Hadron Collider, concentrating on the people involved and the sometimes tortuous path that led to what is now known as the Standard Model of physics. Along the way we get the true story (or as near as we are likely to get to the true story) of the “discovery” of quarks, find out why Peter Higgs is so embarrassed that his name is attached to a certain particle, and lays to rest the myth perpetrated by Thomas Kuhn that...[read on]

About Alone in the Universe, from the publisher:

The acclaimed author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat searches for life on other planets

Are we alone in the universe? Surely amidst the immensity of the cosmos there must be other intelligent life out there. Don't be so sure, says John Gribbin, one of today's best popular science writers. In this fascinating and intriguing new book, Gribbin argues that the very existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos is, from an astrophysicist's point of view, a miracle. So why is there life on Earth and (seemingly) nowhere else? What happened to make this planet special? Taking us back some 600 million years, Gribbin lets you experience the series of unique cosmic events that were responsible for our unique form of life within the Milky Way Galaxy.

• Written by one of our foremost popular science writers, author of the bestselling In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
• Offers a bold answer to the eternal question, "Are we alone in the universe?"
• Explores how the impact of a "supercomet" with Venus 600 million years ago created our moon, and along with it, the perfect conditions for life on Earth

From one of our most talented science writers, this book is a daring, fascinating exploration into the dawning of the universe, cosmic collisions and their consequences, and the uniqueness of life on Earth.

Learn more about Alone in the Universe and the author at John Gribbin's website.

The Page 69 Test: John Gribbin's The Fellowship.

The Page 99 Test: Alone in the Universe.

Writers Read: John Gribbin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books: economics is fun

Daniel S. Hamermesh is Sue Killam Professor in the Foundation of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin and Professor of Labor Economics at Maastricht University. His most recent book is Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful.

He shared five top books on "economics is fun" with Sophie Roell at The Browser, including:

Murder at the Margin
by Marshall Jevons

I haven’t read your next choice yet, which is a pity, as I love murder mysteries. It’s called Murder at the Margin by Marshall Jevons.

I chose this partly for personal reasons. First of all, as you probably guessed, the author’s name is not a real person. It’s two guys who were buddies in graduate school and got together and wrote this. I also like it because it takes place in St John, USVI, which is where I spent my honeymoon. In fact, it takes place at the same resort, which was the only place there at the time. Finally, I chose it because it set off a number of people writing economics murder mysteries. This is the first of a series, not just by them, but others did the same thing. Writing these murder mysteries was all the rage in the late 1970s and early 80s. In that sense it’s an innovator. It’s also quite a good mystery. I didn’t read mysteries at that time. Nowadays I read immense numbers of mysteries and as they go – it’s not The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, that’s for sure – it’s still a pretty good one. Coupling that with a chance to illustrate some economics.

Yes, the chief protagonist, I gather, is a distinguished Harvard economist called Harry Spearman?

On the dust jacket they have Henry Spearman standing between a pair of palm trees. He looks an awful lot like Milton Friedman. The face is not quite round enough, but it could be Milton.

I was going to ask, is it based on anyone?

No, I don’t think so. I mean, this person is extremely economic and thinks economics can be used for anything. In that sense it might be Gary Becker…

Read about another book Hamermesh tagged.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joyce Lamb's "True Shot"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: True Shot by Joyce Lamb.

About the book, from the publisher:

Special FBI operative Samantha Trudeau's unique psychic abilities help her catch the most elusive criminals. They also put her in the path of a sadistic adversary when she discovers she's actually working for a rogue cell-and into the confidence of a handsome journalist with his own potentially dangerous secrets.

Learn more about the book and author at Joyce Lamb's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: True Shot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six best historical fiction titles, 2011

Kirkus Reviews named its best historical fiction titles of 2011.

One novel on the list:

Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic Smith

Read about another title on the list.

About Bright and Distant Shores, from the publisher:

They were showing the savages on the rooftop—that was the word at the curbstone.

Dominic Smith’s third novel—Bright and Distant Shores—is set amid the skyscrapers of 1890s Chicago and the far-flung islands of the South Pacific.

Chicago First Equitable has won the race to construct the world’s tallest building and its president, Hale Gray, hits upon a surefire way to make it an enduring landmark: to establish on the roof an exhibition of real-life “savages.” He sponsors a South Seas voyage to collect not only weaponry and artefacts, but also “several natives related by blood” for the company’s rooftop spectacle. Caught up in this scheme are two orphans—Owen Graves, an itinerant trader from Chicago’s South Side, and Argus Niu, a mission houseboy in the New Hebrides. At the cusp of the twentieth century, the expedition forces a collision course between the tribal and the civilized, and between two young men plagued by their haunting pasts.

Learn more about Bright and Distant Shores at Dominic Smith's website.

The Page 69 Test: Bright and Distant Shores.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William Monter's "The Rise of Female Kings in Europe"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800 by William Monter.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this lively and pathbreaking book, William Monter sketches Europe's increasing acceptance of autonomous female rulers between the late Middle Ages and the French Revolution. Monter surveys the governmental records of Europe's thirty women monarchs—the famous (Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great) as well as the obscure (Charlotte of Cyprus, Isabel Clara Eugenia of the Netherlands)—describing how each of them achieved sovereign authority, wielded it, and (more often than men) abandoned it. Monter argues that Europe's female kings, who ruled by divine right, experienced no significant political opposition despite their gender.

Learn more about The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800 at the Yale University Press website.

William Monter is professor emeritus of history, Northwestern University.

The Page 99 Test: The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the most memorable cardinals in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best cardinals in literature.

One entry on the list:

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Our gallant warriors help save the Queen from public disgrace when the Machiavellian Cardinal Richelieu plots to reveal her affair of the heart with the Duke of Buckingham. After many scrapes and fights, the cardinal decides d'Artagnan is a game chap and offers him a commission in the Musketeers.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Garret Freymann-Weyr's "French Ducks in Venice," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: French Ducks in Venice by Garret Freymann-Weyr.

The entry begins:

This feels a little like Fantasy Football for book geeks, so I’m super thrilled to play. Writing a picture book is like being the groom at a wedding – you play a vital role, but you are also irrelevant.

So being an imaginary casting director is a job promotion....

Our story, such as it is, concerns two ducks, Georges and Cecile, who must cope with the fact that their parental figures (a magical dressmaker, Polina Panova, and an equally magical filmmaker, Sebastian Sterling) have split. Sebastian Sterling goes away one morning, never to return. Polina, as result, is sad, which enrages Georges, who wishes to comfort his beautiful mother figure. He goes on a quest for a perfect present and brings her some magical light.

I may have overdone the whole magical element in this description to the point that if you read this far, you want to throw up in your mouth a little, but it works as a story ... you will have to trust me on this.

On to the casting.

Because two of the main characters are ducks, this would probably involve some kind of animation or voice work but, given this is a game of pretend, I’m going to stick with actors whose face or personalities remind me of my characters. Since I based both Polina Panova and Sebastian Sterling on my beautiful, talented, and mysterious sister who is a 1st A.D. and a director, I have to pick Sandra...[read on]

Visit Garret Freymann-Weyr's website and view the video trailer for French Ducks in Venice.

My Book, The Movie: French Ducks in Venice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best fiction titles on love and family, 2011

Kirkus Reviews named its five best fiction titles about love and family for 2011.

One book on the list:

Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt

Read about another title on the list.

Learn more about the book and author at Caroline Leavitt's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Pictures of You.

My Book, the Movie: Pictures of You.

Writers Read: Caroline Leavitt.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Eric Anderson reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Eric Anderson, author of The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating.

His entry begins:

I’m currently re-reading Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman is one of my favoured sociologists, namely because unlike many sociologists who write in densely inaccessible post-structuralist style, Goffman merged some aspects of interpretative sociology with a bit of philosophy to be meaningful in a way that is engaging and accessible. I’m revisiting this work because...[read on]

About The Monogamy Gap, from the publisher:

Whether straight or gay, most men start their relationships desiring monogamy. This is rooted in the pervasive notion that monogamy exists as a sign of true love. Yet despite this deeply held cultural ideal, cheating remains rampant. In this accessible book, Eric Anderson investigates why 78% of men he interviewed have cheated despite their desire not to.

Combining 120 interviews with research from the fields of sociology, biology, and psychology, Anderson identifies cheating as a product of wanting emotional passion for one's partner, along with a steadily growing desire for emotionally-detached recreational sex with others. Anderson coins the term "the monogamy gap" to describe this phenomenon.

Anderson suggests that monogamy is an irrational ideal because it fails to fulfill a lifetime of sexual desires. Cheating therefore becomes the rational response to an irrational situation.

The Monogamy Gap draws on a range of concepts, theories, and disciplines to highlight the biological compulsion of our sexual urges, the social construction of the monogamous ideal, and the devastating chasm that lies between them. Whether single or married, monogamous or open, straight or gay, readers will find The Monogamy Gap to be an enlightening, intellectually compelling, and provocative book.

Learn more about The Monogamy Gap at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Monogamy Gap.

Writers Read: Eric Anderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on cities

Simon Jenkins's new book is A Short History of England: The Glorious Story of a Rowdy Nation.

He named a five best list of books about cities for the Wall Street Journal. One title on the list:

Cities and People
by Mark Girouard (1985)

To Mark Girouard, great cities are romantic places, aesthetic, promiscuous, gorgeous, "where something is always going on." They throb, roar and seduce. His "social and architectural history" of cities from the Middle Ages to the 20th century include Florence, Paris, London and New York. To Henry James, they might "sit on you, brood on you, stamp on you." To Girouard they were essential and glorious, the finest creations of civilization. Seen from aerial photographs in this amply illustrated book, many of Girouard's cities seem too vast for their workings to be comprehended. But the camera swoops down to reveal the richness within, whether found on Rome's Piazza Navona or Vienna's Ringstrasse. Girouard's eye is alert to drama, whether found in the dappled water of Venice's Grand Canal or a jungle of Tokyo advertising or San Francisco's contour-defying street grid. I know of no book that makes me so desperate to leap into a plane and visit.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see Pete Hamill's five best books about cities.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Gribbin's "Alone in the Universe"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique by John Gribbin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The acclaimed author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat searches for life on other planets

Are we alone in the universe? Surely amidst the immensity of the cosmos there must be other intelligent life out there. Don't be so sure, says John Gribbin, one of today's best popular science writers. In this fascinating and intriguing new book, Gribbin argues that the very existence of intelligent life anywhere in the cosmos is, from an astrophysicist's point of view, a miracle. So why is there life on Earth and (seemingly) nowhere else? What happened to make this planet special? Taking us back some 600 million years, Gribbin lets you experience the series of unique cosmic events that were responsible for our unique form of life within the Milky Way Galaxy.

• Written by one of our foremost popular science writers, author of the bestselling In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
• Offers a bold answer to the eternal question, "Are we alone in the universe?"
• Explores how the impact of a "supercomet" with Venus 600 million years ago created our moon, and along with it, the perfect conditions for life on Earth

From one of our most talented science writers, this book is a daring, fascinating exploration into the dawning of the universe, cosmic collisions and their consequences, and the uniqueness of life on Earth.

Learn more about Alone in the Universe and the author at John Gribbin's website.

The Page 69 Test: John Gribbin's The Fellowship.

The Page 99 Test: Alone in the Universe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Adrian Magson's "Tracers"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Tracers by Adrian Magson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In western Baghdad, a suicide bomber blows up a fortified house, killing everyone inside. In Norfolk, England, a runaway Libyan banker is assassinated. Different events, half a world apart, but closely linked. Former M15 agent Harry Tate has been hired by a government fixer to find two runaways, but then both are assassinated. Despite his misgivings, he is persuaded into a third assignment, but when he tracks down the supposed Israeli professor, things start to go very wrong...

Learn more about the book and author at Adrian Magson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tracers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve unusual Christmas reads

At The Daily Beast, Stefan Beck tagged twelve of the more unusual Christmas reads.

One title on the list:

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Father Christmas Letters.

Christmas has always been neck and neck with Halloween for the title of Best Time to Traumatize Your Kids. This year my cousin let one of her daughters torment one of her sons with fake threats from The Man Up North. The practice, whatever Child Protective Services may think of it, enjoys a distinguished pedigree. Tolkien used his Northern European imagination not to frighten but at least to compel belief in the corpulent, red-clad judge. His illustrated letters to his children, which feature a North Polar Bear, Ilbereth the elf, and goblins, are an invaluable template for those parents who find it funny to watch their kids’ eyes go wide and scared-shitless as Christmas approaches.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nick Drake's "Egypt," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Egypt: The Book of Chaos by Nick Drake.

The entry begins:

Rahotep, the detective at the heart of Egypt (and its two predecessors), is a man who feels at home in the rough backstreets of Thebes, but spend much of his time in the extraordinary elite world of the Palace and high government. As a detective, he's someone who just looks at a crime scene, to see what is there that should not be, and what is not there that should be. He's also someone who understands the labyrinth of the human heart. I'd love someone like Eric...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Nick Drake's website.

The Page 69 Test: Egypt: The Book of Chaos.

My Book, The Movie: Egypt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on winter

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on winter:

The Worst Journey in the World
by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

The author served as assistant zoologist on Scott's last, ill-starred expedition to the frozen wasteland that rings the South Pole. Written a decade after he narrowly escaped his leader's fate, Cherry-Garrard's account of Antarctic exploration is gripping, poignant, and not without a bracing humor.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rudy Rucker's "Nested Scrolls"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Nested Scrolls: The Autobiography of Rudolf von Bitter Rucker by Rudy Rucker.

About the book, from the publisher:

Nested Scrolls reveals the true life adventures of Rudolf von Bitter “Rudy” Rucker—mathematician, transrealist author, punk rocker, and computer hacker. It begins with a young boy growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a businessman father who becomes a clergyman, and a mother descended from the philosopher Hegel. His career goals? To explore infinity, popularize the fourth dimension, seek the gnarl, become a beatnik writer, and father a family.

All the while Rudy is reading science fiction and beat poetry, and beginning to write some pretty strange fiction of his own—a blend of Philip K. Dick and hard SF that qualifies him as part of the original circle of writers in the early 1980s that includes Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, John Shirley, and Lewis Shiner, who were the founders of cyberpunk.

At one level, Rucker’s genial and unfettered memoir brings us a first-hand account of how he and his contemporaries ushered in our postmodern world. At another, this is the wry and moving tale of a man making his way from one turbulent century to the next.

Nested Scrolls is like its author: sweet, gentle, honest, and intellectually fierce.

Visit Rudy Rucker's blog.

The Page 99 Test: Nested Scrolls.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is J.J. Murphy reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: J.J. Murphy, author of The Algonquin Round Table Mysteries.

Her entry begins:

I love Tina Fey. I love the show 30 Rock. So, I was over the moon when her book Bossypants came out. It’s not exactly an autobiography and it’s not exactly a book of essays. It’s something in between. Personal vignettes, maybe? I don’t care. I loved the book.

(To be perfectly honest, I listened to the audiobook on CD, which is read by Fey herself. That was great. If you could get Mark Twain to read Huckleberry Finn for you, you’d do it, right? That’s not to say that Bossypants is any Huckleberry Finn, but you get the idea.)

Fey talks about growing up being a not-blonde and having body hair like a werewolf. She talks about her early days in the comedy circuit and her battles as one of the few women writers (and the first woman head writer) on Saturday Night Live. She talks just a little about 30 Rock—but not enough about working with Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan. (I’d have liked more behind-the-scenes anecdotes about that. Maybe she’s saving it for a sequel.)

One of the things that draws me to Tina Fey is that she’s a lot like my real-life protagonist Dorothy Parker. Both are...[read on]

About You Might As Well Die: An Algonquin Round Table Mystery, from the publisher:

When second-rate illustrator Ernie MacGuffin's artistic works triple in value following his apparent suicide off the Brooklyn Bridge, Dorothy Parker smells something fishy. Enlisting the help of magician and skeptic Harry Houdini, she goes to a séance held by MacGuffin's mistress, where Ernie's ghostly voice seems hauntingly real...

Learn more about the book and author at J.J. Murphy's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: The Algonquin Round Table Mysteries.

Writers Read: J.J. Murphy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books on rock music

Greil Marcus's new book is The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years.

One of the five books on rock music he discussed with Eve Gerber at The Browser:

Chronicles
by Bob Dylan

We’re starting with Bob Dylan’s autobiography. Why did you select Chronicles?

Dylan has had a career of extraordinary richness and variety. Yet here he is writing a memoir that completely ignores everything which made him a world figure. It ignores all of his most famous songs, it ignores all the periods in which he was a great star. It's all about times when he was trying to learn, when he was confused and lost but absolutely alive with the thrill of discovering new ideas, new singers, new information.

It's a marvellous, eyes-wide-open partial-autobiography. It's also wonderfully written – the words are alive on the page. It clearly wasn't co-written or talked into a tape recorder. It's a great piece of writing.

You’ve written so sweepingly about Dylan that a collection of your thoughts on his work came out last year. Why is he a focus of such enduring interest for you?

His is probably the most complexly expressive voice that I’ve heard. There's just no end to the shades of meaning that come out of the way he shapes a word. The way he shapes a phrase can leave you hanging – he can take you so far with just a turn of a syllable. That's really it. It comes down to his singing.

You wrote that becoming a Bob Dylan fan made you a writer. How so?

He gave me something I wanted to write about.

Read about another book on the list.

Chronicles also appears among Samuel Muston's ten best music memoirs and Kitty Empire's best rock autobiographies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tony D'Souza's "Mule"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Mule by Tony D'Souza.

About the book, from the publisher:

From an award-winning “savvy storyteller” (Entertainment Weekly) comes a page-turning, zeitgeist-capturing novel of a young couple who turn to drug trafficking to make it through the recession.

James and Kate are golden children of the late twentieth century, flush with opportunity. But an economic downturn and an unexpected pregnancy send them searching for a way to make do.

A winter in the mountains of California’s Siskiyou County introduces a tempting opportunity. A friend grows prime-grade marijuana; if James transports just one load from Cali to Florida, he’ll pull down enough cash to survive for months.

James navigates life as a mule, then a boss—from moneyhungry friends to gun-toting drug lords, from Sacramento to Tallahassee, from just making the weight move cross-country to making thousands of dollars a day. The risks keep rising, forcing him to the next criminal level. A kidnapping, a shootout, a bank vault—it all culminates in a swirl of action.

Absorbing and timely, Mule perfectly captures the anxieties of plunging into the criminal world and of being a young person making do in a moment when the American Dream you never had to believe in—because it was handed to you, fully wrapped and ready to go at the takeout window— suddenly vanishes from the menu.

View the trailer for Mule, and learn more about the book and author at Tony D'Souza's website.

D'Souza's first novel, Whiteman, received the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His second novel, The Konkans, was called a "best novel of the year" by the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and Poets & Writers Magazine.

The Page 69 Test: Mule.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eric Anderson’s "The Monogamy Gap"

This weekend's feature at the Page 99 Test: The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating by Eric Anderson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Whether straight or gay, most men start their relationships desiring monogamy. This is rooted in the pervasive notion that monogamy exists as a sign of true love. Yet despite this deeply held cultural ideal, cheating remains rampant. In this accessible book, Eric Anderson investigates why 78% of men he interviewed have cheated despite their desire not to.

Combining 120 interviews with research from the fields of sociology, biology, and psychology, Anderson identifies cheating as a product of wanting emotional passion for one's partner, along with a steadily growing desire for emotionally-detached recreational sex with others. Anderson coins the term "the monogamy gap" to describe this phenomenon.

Anderson suggests that monogamy is an irrational ideal because it fails to fulfill a lifetime of sexual desires. Cheating therefore becomes the rational response to an irrational situation.

The Monogamy Gap draws on a range of concepts, theories, and disciplines to highlight the biological compulsion of our sexual urges, the social construction of the monogamous ideal, and the devastating chasm that lies between them. Whether single or married, monogamous or open, straight or gay, readers will find The Monogamy Gap to be an enlightening, intellectually compelling, and provocative book.

Learn more about The Monogamy Gap at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Monogamy Gap.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable books about the First World War

Wade Davis is a scientist, anthropologist, and writer who received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University and has spent twenty-five years studying the plants, psychotropic drugs, and ceremonial rituals of indigenous cultures around the world. His books include The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was later released as a feature motion picture, and One River.

His latest book is Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.

One of Davis's six favorite books about World War I, as told to The Week magazine:

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

Boyden's novel follows two Cree men recruited as snipers by the Canadian army. Spare in style, it reads as one long, haunted hallucination — the Western Front as seen through the eyes of the shaman.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kristine Louise Haugen's "Richard Bentley," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Richard Bentley: Poetry and Enlightenment by Kristine Haugen.

The entry begins:

Unfortunately for Bentley, his personality and persona resembled those of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (2007). The tone of his writings was aggressive and peremptory, not to say bullying, toward his readers. His treatment of his underlings in Cambridge University was so vile that he was repeatedly sued, eventually stripped of his degrees, and finally ejected from the mastership of Trinity College.

But it was in the actual contents of Bentley's literary scholarship that his violent disposition emerged most clearly. His greatest notoriety rests on his work as a textual critic — that is, deciding whether the traditional words in a text are correct. Here, Bentley slashed and burned gleefully, whether his target was the lyric poet Horace, the playwright Terence, or the very recently departed John Milton. Bentley attacked not only authors but the idea of authorship itself: he might accurately have said, with Day-Lewis' egregious oilman Daniel Plainview,

"I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people."

This ruthless and combative Bentley is what's revealed to us by a wide-ranging crane shot, if you will. But a close-up of Bentley in the act of working shows us a different character, less alarming but still wonderfully strange: someone like John...[read on]

Learn more about Richard Bentley at the Harvard University Press website.

Kristine Louise Haugen is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The California Institute of Technology.

My Book, The Movie: Richard Bentley: Poetry and Enlightenment.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Tim Riley reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Tim Riley, author of Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The Music.

His entry begins:

I'm a non-fiction obsessive. My favorite books from the past season include Adam Gopnik's Angels and Ages, a joyride comparing Lincoln with Darwin.

I also admired Peter...[read on]

About Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music, from the publisher:

In his commanding new book, the eminent NPR critic Tim Riley takes us on the remarkable journey that brought a Liverpool art student from a disastrous childhood to the highest realms of fame.

Riley portrays Lennon’s rise from Hamburg’s red light district to Britain’s Royal Variety Show; from the charmed naiveté of “Love Me Do” to the soaring ambivalence of “Don’t Let Me Down”; from his shotgun marriage to Cynthia Powell in 1962 to his epic media romance with Yoko Ono. Written with the critical insight and stylistic mastery readers have come to expect from Riley, this richly textured narrative draws on numerous new and exclusive interviews with Lennon’s friends, enemies, confidantes, and associates; lost memoirs written by relatives and friends; as well as previously undiscovered City of Liverpool records. Riley explores Lennon in all of his contradictions: the British art student who universalized an American style, the anarchic rock ’n’ roller with the moral spine, the anti-jazz snob who posed naked with his avant-garde lover, and the misogynist who became a househusband. What emerges is the enormous, seductive, and confounding personality that made Lennon a cultural touchstone.

In Lennon, Riley casts Lennon as a modernist hero in a sweeping epic, dramatizing rock history anew as Lennon himself might have experienced it.

Learn more about the book and author at Tim Riley's website.

Lennon: The Man, The Myth, The Music is on the Christian Science Monitor's list of the five best books on John Lennon.

My Book, The Movie: Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music.

Writers Read: Tim Riley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top photo books of 2011

At the Independent Sophie Batterbury picked the top photo books of the year.

One title to make the grade:

In The Photographer's Vision, Michael Freeman continues to give us his refreshing version of the "how to" photography genre, ignoring the technical in favour of the creative. He illustrates how pictures are viewed, and why some work and some don't, in a very intelligent and simple way. In this, his third book, he has turned to "translating" the work of other photographers....

Read about another book Batturbury selected.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Renée Thompson's "The Plume Hunter"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Plume Hunter by Renée Thompson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1885, more than five million birds were killed for the millinery trade in the United States. The Plume Hunter follows the life of young Fin McFaddin, an Oregon outdoorsman who takes to plume hunting to support his widowed mother. Vast loss of bird populations at the turn of the century prompted the creation of the nation’s first wildlife refuges in Florida and Oregon, and gave rise to the Audubon Society. This story predates their creation—a tale of one plumer who experiences a tragically late change of heart.

Learn more about the book and author at Renée Thompson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Plume Hunter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on Christmas history

Bruce Forbes is professor of religious studies at Morningside College in Iowa, and the author of Christmas: A Candid History, co-editor of Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times, and co-editor of Religion and Popular Culture in America.

One of five notable books on Christmas history he discussed with Alec Ash at The Browser:

The Origins of Christmas
by Joseph Kelly

This is another brief book accessible to general audiences, written by a Catholic religious studies professor in the US. He talks about what the limited Biblical evidence is for Christmas, and where we got some of the other traditions. Much of our Christmas story isn’t really in the Bible – in order to develop a big birthday celebration we’ve added all kinds of traditions. This book looks at the origins of St Nicholas, the Magi, and so on.

What does he say about St Nicholas?

He talks about how St Nicholas is really a legendary figure. It’s difficult to tell what is historical and what is legend, but the legends are I think marvellous. He was a bishop in the 4th century in what’s now Turkey, and gained a reputation for generosity, and for caring for young children and travellers. As a saint he almost became the equivalent of a guardian angel. He became very popular, and his saint’s day, December 6th, at least was in the month leading up to Christmas. So over time he became associated with Christmas celebrations. Then, when the legend got to the States, and especially to New York, St Nicholas morphed into Santa Claus.

Tell me more about how that happened.

Well, New York was founded as New Amsterdam, with Dutch beginnings. And the Dutch kept alive the tradition of St Nicholas where many other countries, influenced by Protestantism, had de-emphasised him. So St Nicholas hopped the waters with the Dutch to New York. Then, in a very complicated story in which you would have to trace five or six steps because of one person or another’s influence, he morphs and becomes de-frocked.

In Washington Irving’s writings, he is a Dutchman who rides a wagon pulled through the air by horses on St Nicholas’s day. Then later on, with the famous [1823] poem “Twas The Night Before Christmas”, he moves to Christmas day and gets reindeer.

In that poem, as you point out in your own book, St Nicholas is an elf.

Yes, which is a complete surprise for most people. If you buy a picture book of that poem, the illustrations are usually of the full-size, jolly, red and white Santa Claus. But if you read the words of the poem, he’s an elf – not just in the phrase “the jolly old elf”, but it talks about “a miniature sleigh”, “tiny reindeer” and his “little round belly”. He’s an elf. So he still has to morph more, through the art of [19th century American cartoonist] Thomas Nast and then the advertisements of Coca Cola, until he becomes our modern image of Santa Claus.

Read about another book Forbes tagged at The Browser.

Also see Penne Restad's five best list of books on Christmas traditions.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ruth Grant's "Strings Attached"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives by Ruth W. Grant.

About the book, from the publisher:

Incentives can be found everywhere--in schools, businesses, factories, and government--influencing people's choices about almost everything, from financial decisions and tobacco use to exercise and child rearing. So long as people have a choice, incentives seem innocuous. But Strings Attached demonstrates that when incentives are viewed as a kind of power rather than as a form of exchange, many ethical questions arise: How do incentives affect character and institutional culture? Can incentives be manipulative or exploitative, even if people are free to refuse them? What are the responsibilities of the powerful in using incentives? Ruth Grant shows that, like all other forms of power, incentives can be subject to abuse, and she identifies their legitimate and illegitimate uses.

Grant offers a history of the growth of incentives in early twentieth-century America, identifies standards for judging incentives, and examines incentives in four areas--plea bargaining, recruiting medical research subjects, International Monetary Fund loan conditions, and motivating students. In every case, the analysis of incentives in terms of power yields strikingly different and more complex judgments than an analysis that views incentives as trades, in which the desired behavior is freely exchanged for the incentives offered.

Challenging the role and function of incentives in a democracy, Strings Attached questions whether the penchant for constant incentivizing undermines active, autonomous citizenship. Readers of this book are sure to view the ethics of incentives in a new light.

Learn more about the book at the official Strings Attached Facebook page.

The Page 99 Test: Strings Attached.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 stories of reluctant revolutionaries

Selma Dabbagh is a British Palestinian writer of fiction based in London.

Her writing is mainly set in the contemporary Middle East. Recurring themes in her work are idealism (however futile), placelessness, political engagement (or lack thereof) and the impact of social conformity on individuals.

Dabbagh’s first novel, Out of It, is being published by Bloomsbury (UK) this month; the US edition is coming out with Bloomsbury USA in June 2012.

One of her ten favorite "novels depicting private struggles with public commitment," as told to the Guardian:

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A scientific, not a social or political, revolution drives Dr Lydgate in this classic novel. He is a man who is ultimately ground down by the materialistic ambitions of his wife and the reactionary stagnation of Middlemarch. His wife Rosamund, is a precursor to the suburban wives who were depicted as being the anchors of conformity and superficiality by the Beat Generation and other 1950s American writers. In the same way that the husbands in Mailer and Salinger are pulled back from realising their potential for personal freedom and social change, Dr Lydgate's idealistic momentum, forward-thinking plans and fervour for reform are ultimately laid waste by narrow domestic concerns.

Read about another entry on the list.

Middlemarch also made John Mullan's lists of ten of the best marital rows, ten of the best examples of unrequited love, ten of the best funerals in literature, and ten of the best deathbed scenes in literature, as well as Philip Pullman's six best books list, Rebecca Goldstein's five best list of novels of ideas and Tina Brown's five best list of books on reputation. It is one of Elizabeth Kostova favorite books. While it is one of Miss Manners' favorite novels, John Banville and Nick Hornby have not read it.

--Marshal Zeringue