Ten top comic books

Robin Etherington is a comic book creator. He tagged his top ten graphic titles for the Guardian, including:

Calvin and Hobbes

One of the greatest friendships ever depicted on the page. A boy and his imaginary/real tiger, more adventures than you can shake a stick at, gags piled on gags and big ideas perfectly captured in the simplest form. This is a comic that you will love forever. The complete collection in paperback contains every strip every created, which should keep even the most avid reader busy!

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

P.S. Duffy's "The Cartographer of No Man’s Land," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Cartographer of No Man’s Land by P. S. Duffy.

The entry begins:

The novel takes place on the Western Front in the First World War where Angus MacGrath, a reluctant lieutenant, searches for his brother-in-law Ebbin and for his own purpose, and in Nova Scotia where his son Simon Peter is coming of age and like all the characters in the book, struggles to navigate war’s uncertainties and lasting effects. People consistently comment on how visually evocative the book is and who should be in the movie and who should direct. I smile indulgently—a movie, ha ha—but okay, yes, of course. Absolutely!!

Director: Ron Howard

Cast:
Angus MacGrath, the main character: a younger (and maybe taller) Gabriel Byrne could portray Angus’s loneliness and strength, his poetic soul, his yearning, and his empathy-- without a trace of sentimentality. He’s sensuous, cerebral, and...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at P. S. Duffy's website.

Writers Read: P. S. Duffy.

The Page 69 Test: The Cartographer of No Man's Land.

My Book, The Movie: The Cartographer of No Man’s Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable books on gluttony

"Among the list of the Seven Deadly Sins," writes Nicole Hill at at The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, gluttony, alongside lust and well-performed greed, is the most fun." One title on Hill's reading list on gluttony:

A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin

The king is dead. Long live the king. Robert Baratheon, first of his name, was also first in line at the tavern, the local Golden Corral, and myriad King’s Landing brothels. The man never knew the word enough, and the capital’s coffers bled as a result. And then Robert bled, too, done in by too many Merlots near one too many sharp, pointy things and scheming in-laws. Let this be a lesson, future monarchs (cough Joffrey, you abject failure of a person cough): when you cannot fit into your armor anymore, it’s time to call Jenny Craig and drop the Jenny from the Block that Littlefinger hooked you up with.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Lannister family from A Game of Thrones is one of Jami Attenberg's top ten dysfunctional families in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark Greaney reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Mark Greaney, author of Dead Eye.

The entry begins:

Right now I am reading Midnight in Mexico, by Alfredo Corchado. He is a Mexican-born American journalist who has been reporting from Mexico for much of his career.

The book covers Mexico’s drug war, but it is more than a chronicle of the war itself, rather it is a first-hand account of what it is like to be a journalist in the crosshairs of the cartels. Corchado is luckier than many journalists in Mexico in that, as a U.S. citizen, he can head north into relative safety whenever things get too hot for him, but he often chooses to ignore his own safety in the pursuit of the story. There are instances in the book where he is flatly told he is on a hit list of one cartel or another, but he stays in country and does his best to soldier on as a reporter in one of the most dangerous environments for journalists in the world.

I picked the book up because...[read on]

About Dead Eye, from the publisher:

Ex-CIA master assassin Court Gentry has always prided himself on his ability to disappear at will, to fly below the radar and exist in the shadows—to survive as the near-mythical Gray Man. But when he takes revenge upon a former employer who betrayed him, he exposes himself to something he’s never had to face before.

A killer who is just like him.

Code-named Dead Eye, Russell Whitlock is a graduate of the same ultra-secret Autonomous Asset Program that trained and once controlled Gentry. But now, Whitlock is a free agent who has been directed to terminate his fellow student of death. He knows how his target thinks, how he moves, and how he kills. And he knows the best way to do the job is to make Gentry run for his life—right up until the moment Dead Eye finally ends it…

Learn more about the book and author at Mark Greaney's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Gray Man.

My Book, The Movie: The Gray Man.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Eye.

Writers Read: Mark Greaney.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three of the best new books for the digital citizen

Annie Coreno named three top books for the digital citizen for PWxyz, the news blog of Publishers Weekly, including:

Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian

National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian’s purpose is not necessarily to dissuade you from using technology but rather unveil how your personal information is being used and the various implications of its use. Michael German, a former FBI agent, says its best in his blurb: This book provides “the answer to the question, ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, why should you care if someone is watching you?’”

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alan Mikhail's "The Animal in Ottoman Egypt"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Animal in Ottoman Egypt by Alan Mikhail.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since humans first emerged as a distinct species, they have eaten, fought, prayed, and moved with other animals. In this stunningly original and conceptually rich book, historian Alan Mikhail puts the history of human-animal relations at the center of transformations in the Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Mikhail uses the history of the empire's most important province, Egypt, to explain how human interactions with livestock, dogs, and charismatic megafauna changed more in a few centuries than they had for millennia. The human world became one in which animals' social and economic functions were diminished. Without animals, humans had to remake the societies they had built around intimate and cooperative interactions between species. The political and even evolutionary consequences of this separation of people and animals were wrenching and often violent. This book's interspecies histories underscore continuities between the early modern period and the nineteenth century and help to reconcile Ottoman and Arab histories. Further, the book highlights the importance of integrating Ottoman history with issues in animal studies, economic history, early modern history, and environmental history.

Carefully crafted and compellingly argued, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt tells the story of the high price humans and animals paid as they entered the modern world.

Alan Mikhail is Professor of History at Yale University. He is a historian of the early modern Muslim world, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt whose research and teaching focus mostly on the nature of early modern imperial rule, peasant histories, environmental resource management, and science and medicine.

Mikhail is the author of Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History and editor of Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa.

Learn more about the book and author at Alan Mikhail's website and the Oxford University Press.

The Page 99 Test: The Animal in Ottoman Egypt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books for fans of "The Fault in Our Stars"

"What J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins started, John Green finished," writes The Barnes & Noble Book Blog's Melissa Albert: "The Fault in Our Stars made young adult readers of us all."

One book she recommends for fans of The Fault in Our Stars:

Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

This book is perfection, spinning a heart-lifting, nail-bitingly high stakes love story between two high school misfits in 1980s Omaha. They fall for each other via comic books, Smiths songs, a stolen phone call, and the most epic hand-holding scene you’ll ever read (top that, E.L. James). It seems cheesy to talk about the life-saving power of love in the context of a book starring two high-school kids, but you’ll understand after you’ve read it. Which you absolutely must.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: P. S. Duffy's "The Cartographer of No Man's Land"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Cartographer of No Man's Land by P. S. Duffy.

About the book, from the publisher:

From a hardscrabble village in Nova Scotia to the collapsing trenches of France, a debut novel about a family divided by World War I.

In the tradition of Robert Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife and Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn, P. S. Duffy’s astonishing debut showcases a rare and instinctive talent emerging in midlife. Her novel leaps across the Atlantic, between a father at war and a son coming of age at home without him.

When his beloved brother-in-law goes missing at the front in 1916, Angus defies his pacifist upbringing to join the war and find him. Assured a position as a cartographer in London, he is instead sent directly into the visceral shock of battle. Meanwhile, at home, his son Simon Peter must navigate escalating hostility in a fishing village torn by grief. With the intimacy of The Song of Achilles and the epic scope of The Invisible Bridge, The Cartographer of No Man’s Land offers a soulful portrayal of World War I and the lives that were forever changed by it, both on the battlefield and at home.

Learn more about the book and author at P. S. Duffy's website.

Writers Read: P. S. Duffy.

The Page 69 Test: The Cartographer of No Man's Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books on how the world’s political economy works

Mark Blyth is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University. He is the author of Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century.

His new book is Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea.

With Toby Ash at Five Books, Blyth discussed five top books on how the world’s political economy works, including:

The Rhetoric of Reaction by Albert O. Hirschman

The reason I ended with this is that my first four books really give you a great understanding of how the modern world emerged and its dynamics. What The Rhetoric of Reaction gives you is a warning – a warning to watch out for bullshit arguments.

Hirschman picks on conservative arguments but you could imagine that these arguments could come from the left as well, because it’s about a form of argument. He has a lovely line in the book when he says that when the same arguments have been used without much modification for 300 years regardless of the area in which they are deployed, we should be suspicious of them. And we should be suspicious of them. You hear this now in the austerity debate – "We all need to tighten our belts." What about the fact that we are all wearing massively different trousers? Who needs to tighten their belts? And why do we need to do this anyway? Here are another couple – "You can’t live beyond your means" or "It’s just a like a family – if a family spends too much, you reduce spending." The problem is that if every family stops spending simultaneously, every family would be unemployed. Again, it’s that paradox.

So what are these rhetorics of reaction? They are perversity, jeopardy and futility.

The classic perversity logic will say: "Look at the welfare state. It was meant to make people better off, and it just led to welfare dependents, druggies and drop outs." Really, is that the case? Well, I grew up on welfare, and I went to free schools and a subsidised university. I am now an Ivy League professor and will pay a load more tax over my lifetime than I ever would had I been brought up with no welfare state and ended up in the army or in jail.

The futility thesis is that you might think it is a good idea to spend money to alleviate the economic shock coming from the Great Recession that began in 2007. But really what you need to do, so the arguments goes, is let things bottom out and start again because if you don’t, the job is incompletely done. This sounds convincing, but if you actually look at the 1920s, countries cut spending all at once and produced a slump that got worse and worse and led to fascism and World War Two. Is that a question of bottoming out and getting to a better place?

So with wonderful examples, he takes us through these superficially convincing logics - perverse outcomes are bound to happen, don’t try that it’s futile or if you do that, you’ll risk everything. It’s a wonderfully written book and just reminds us that so much of what passes for political and economic analysis is rhetorical bullshit.

Read about another book Blyth tagged at Five Books.

The Page 99 Test: Austerity.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is E. J. Copperman reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: E. J. Copperman, author of The Thrill of the Haunt.

His entry begins:

E.J. Is not actually reading anything at the moment, but just finished Lisa Lutz’s The Last Word, the latest (and possibly last) in the Spellman series. I’m a fan of the series, wanted to check in on Izzy, Rae and the many characters in the books. I understand completely why Lisa might want to move on to something else, but...[read on]

About The Thrill of the Haunt, from the publisher:

Alison Kerby’s guesthouse is already crowded with spirits. The last thing she needs is a whole new batch of haunts settling in.

As Alison’s reputation as “the ghost lady” grows, so does her business—and not always in a way she’d like. Tourists may be flocking to her guesthouse for a chance to glimpse her resident spirits, but her special abilities are also bringing unwanted private investigation cases to her door. And she has no choice but to take a case when the local homeless man is found murdered under mysterious circumstances, just hours after asking for help in exorcising a specter.

If that weren’t enough to deal with, Alison’s other PI case soon turns fatal, as the mistress she was spying on for a jealous wife turns up dead as well. The cases seem like they couldn’t possibly be linked, but with a mountain of clues, motives and suspects—both living and dead—Alison will have to think fast before someone else checks out for good…

Visit E. J. Copperman's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.

Writers Read: E. J. Copperman.

--Marshal Zeringue

The five worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Jill Boyd tagged five of the worst fictional characters to invite to Thanksgiving. One entry on the list:

Ignatius J. Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces)

You may be able to forgive Ignatius for his bloviating, his condescension, even his gluttony. But his stance on canned food—that it is a perversion, damaging to the soul—is unforgivable. Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce that retains the shape of the can from whence it came.

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Confederacy of Dunces is among the Telegraph's critics' fifty best cult books, Melissa Albert's eight favorite fictional misfits, Ken Jennings's eight notable books about parents and kids, Sarah Stodol's top ten lost-then-found novels, Hallie Ephron's top ten books for a good laugh, Stephen Kelman's top 10 outsiders' stories, John Mullan's ten best moustaches in literature, Michael Lewis's five favorite books, and Cracked magazine's classic funny novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tea Krulos's "Heroes in the Night," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Heroes in the Night: Inside the Real Life Superhero Movement by Tea Krulos.

The entry begins:

My book Heroes in the Night: Inside the Real Life Superhero Movement is non-fiction, one of those stories that proves truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. The book chronicles average, everyday people that belong to a secretive sub-culture, a movement of people calling themselves Real Life Superheroes (or RLSH.) They invent their own superhero identities and do charity events, activism, even patrol the streets looking for crime.

The two RLSH I spent the most time with were my own hometown Milwaukee heroes, the Watchman and Blackbird. I think we should have Val Kilmer and Edward Norton, respectively, for their roles. Seasoned actors, both with superhero experience (Batman Forever and The Incredible Hulk.)

Minnesota RLSH also were met several times. Geist (of Rochester, MN), the “Emerald Cowboy” could easily be played by...[read on]

Visit the Heroes in the Night blog and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Heroes in the Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top sports books

John Gaustad started Sportspages in 1985, the UK's first bookshop devoted solely to sports books, and subsequently co-founded the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, now in its 25th year.

At the Guardian, Gustad named his top ten sports books. One title on the list:

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

I couldn't convince my colleagues on the panel [William Hill Sports Book of the Year award] of the merits of this one. "It's about baseball!" they exclaimed. Indeed it is, and you do need to know the game pretty well to really appreciate it. But I do know (and love) baseball, and I found it absolutely fascinating. It tells the story of how the Oakland Athletics, the paupers of the major leagues, adopted a new strategy on player recruitment based on a new way of analysing baseball statistics, which led them to pick up players none of the other franchises, using traditional evaluation methods, rated or wanted. The glory is that it worked; the Oakland As became a powerhouse, at least until all the other teams began to copy what they'd done. I loved the audacity of it all, and the wonderful intricacy of this account of it.

Read about another book on the list.

Moneyball also appears on Matthew Berry's 6 favorite books list, Will Dean's brief reading list on baseball and Richard J. Tofel's list of the five best books on baseball as a business, and among Sports Illustrated's five most influential sports books of the decade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mark Greaney's "Dead Eye"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Dead Eye by Mark Greaney.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ex-CIA master assassin Court Gentry has always prided himself on his ability to disappear at will, to fly below the radar and exist in the shadows—to survive as the near-mythical Gray Man. But when he takes revenge upon a former employer who betrayed him, he exposes himself to something he’s never had to face before.

A killer who is just like him.

Code-named Dead Eye, Russell Whitlock is a graduate of the same ultra-secret Autonomous Asset Program that trained and once controlled Gentry. But now, Whitlock is a free agent who has been directed to terminate his fellow student of death. He knows how his target thinks, how he moves, and how he kills. And he knows the best way to do the job is to make Gentry run for his life—right up until the moment Dead Eye finally ends it…

Learn more about the book and author at Mark Greaney's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Gray Man.

My Book, The Movie: The Gray Man.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Eye.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christopher M. Davidson's "After the Sheikhs"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies by Christopher Davidson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia and its five smaller neighbours: the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) have long been governed by highly autocratic and seemingly anachronistic regimes. Yet despite bloody conflicts on their doorsteps, fast-growing populations, and powerful modernising and globalising forces impacting on their largely conservative societies, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Obituaries for these traditional monarchies have frequently been penned, but even now these absolutist, almost medieval, entities still appear to pose the same conundrum as before: in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring and the fall of incumbent presidents in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the apparently steadfast Gulf monarchies have, at first glance, re-affirmed their status as the Middle East s only real bastions of stability. In this book, however, noted Gulf expert Christopher Davidson contends that the collapse of these kings, emirs, and sultans is going to happen, and was always going to. While the revolutionary movements in North Africa, Syria, and Yemen will undeniably serve as important, if indirect, catalysts for the coming upheaval, many of the same socio-economic pressures that were building up in the Arab republics are now also very much present in the Gulf monarchies. It is now no longer a matter of if but when the West s steadfast allies fall. This is a bold claim to make but Davidson, who accurately forecast the economic turmoil that afflicted Dubai in 2009, has an enviable record in diagnosing social and political changes afoot in the region.

Visit Christopher M. Davidson's website.

Davidson is reader in Government and International Affairs at Durham University. His previous books on the politics and international affairs of the Gulf states include Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, and The Persian Gulf and Pacific Asia: From Indifference to Interdependence.

The Page 99 Test: Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond.

Writers Read: Christopher M. Davidson.

The Page 99 Test: After the Sheikhs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Free book: "The Great Debate"

Basic Books and the Campaign for the American Reader are giving away two copies of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin.

HOW TO ENTER: (1) send an email to this address:

(2) In the subject line, type The Great Debate.

(3) Include your name (or alias or whatever you wish to be called if I email you to tell you you've won the book) in the body of the email.

[I will not sell or share your email address; nor will I be in touch with you unless it is to tell you you have won the book.  I promise.]

Contest closes on Monday, December 16th.

Only one entry per person, please.

Winner must have a US mailing address.

Yuval Levin is the editor of National Affairs. He is also the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a senior editor of The New Atlantis, and a contributing editor to National Review and the Weekly Standard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best comeuppances in literature

Having previously tagged seven favorite tales of revenge in literature at The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Becky Ferreira has now come up with the best comeuppances in literature. (Revenge and comeuppance "definitely overlap," Ferreira points out, yet "revenges are engineered by mere mortals. Comeuppances, however, read as if the universe itself stepped in to make sure that justice is doled out properly.")

One entry on the list:

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Ouch! Is there any romantic comeuppance that hits quite as hard as that? Rhett Butler has finally had enough of Scarlett O’Hara, and wipes his hands clean of her never-ending parade of drama. Though there are times where the reader can’t help but root for Scarlett, there’s no denying the pure joy of seeing her not get her way for once in her life.

Read about another entry on the list.

Gone With the Wind is among Emily Temple's ten greatest kisses in literature and Suzi Quatro's six best books, and was a book that made a difference to Pat Conroy. It is on the Christian Science Monitor's list of the ten best novels of the U.S. Civil War.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Stefan Bachmann reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Stefan Bachmann, author of The Whatnot.

One book he tagged:

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

This one's so great. A semi-murder mystery based on actual events in early 19th century Iceland. It's dark, chilling, atmospheric, and so terrifically written. Great characters, great setting, stark and haunting. When I think about it, it's actually a quiet book - it doesn't have any big set-pieces or chases - but it reads like a thriller, and the suspense is always high. It kind of reminds me of...[read on]

About The Whatnot, from the publisher:

Oh, the Sly King, the Sly King, in his towers of ash and wind.

Pikey Thomas doesn't know how or why he can see the changeling girl. But there she is. Not in the cold, muddy London neighborhood where Pikey lives. Instead, she's walking through the trees and snow of the enchanted Old Country or, later, racing through an opulent hall. She's pale and small, and she has branches growing out of her head. Her name is Henrietta Kettle.

Pikey's vision, it turns out, is worth something. Worth something to Hettie's brother—a brave adventurer named Bartholomew Kettle. Worth something to the nobleman who protects him. And Pikey is not above bartering—Pikey will do almost anything to escape his past; he'll do almost anything for a life worth living.

The faeries—save for a mysterious sylph and a mischievous cobble faery or two— have been chased out of London. They've all gone north. The army is heading north, too. So Pikey and Bartholomew follow, collecting information, piecing together clues, searching for the doorway that will lead them to Hettie.

The Whatnot is the enthralling, surprising, and unforgettable companion to Stefan Bachmann's internationally bestselling debut novel The Peculiar.

Learn more about the book and author at Stefan Bachmann's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: The Peculiar.

Writers Read: Stefan Bachmann (April 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Peculiar.

Writers Read: Stefan Bachmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Renée Rosen's "Dollface"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties by Renée Rosen.

About the book, from the publisher:

America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman—the flapper.

Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname “Dollface.”

As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicago’s infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.

The heady life she’s living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Learn more about Dollface at Renée Rosen's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Renée Rosen is a former advertising copywriter who always had a novel in her desk drawer. When she saw the chance to make the leap from writing ad copy to fiction, she jumped at it. A confirmed history and book nerd, Rosen loves all things old, all things Chicago and all things written. Her previous book is Every Crooked Pot.

The Page 99 Test: Every Crooked Pot.

My Book, The Movie: Dollface.

Writers Read: Renée Rosen.

The Page 69 Test: Dollface.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top crime novels of 2013

J. Kingston Pierce is both the editor of The Rap Sheet and the senior editor of January Magazine.

At Kirkus he shared his ten favorite crime novels published in 2013, including:

Norwegian by Night, by Derek B. Miller: At 82 years old, Sheldon “Donny” Horowitz is a retired, widowed and Jewish watch repairman living well out of his element. His beloved granddaughter, Rhea, has moved him from New York City to Oslo to be with her and her new Norwegian husband, Lars. She fears that Sheldon—congenitally insolent and cranky in often comic measures—is fast slipping into dementia, since he claims to have been a sniper in the Korean War, rather than a mere file clerk. But after a Kosovar war criminal murders Sheldon’s neighbor and tries to take her son, it falls to our octogenarian philosopher-hero to flee with that boy, dodging cops and killers and, if disaster doesn’t intervene, finally deliver himself from the guilt he’s borne for his own son’s death. Ripe with memories of wars long ago fought and regrets insurmountable, this is a remarkably moving, memorable debut thriller.

Read about another novel on Pierce's list.

Writers Read: Derek Miller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas Suddendorf's "The Gap"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals by Thomas Suddendorf.

About the book, from the publisher:

There exists an undeniable chasm between the capacities of humans and those of animals. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, whereas even our closest animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their dwindling habitats. Yet despite longstanding debates, the nature of this apparent gap has remained unclear. What exactly is the difference between our minds and theirs?

In The Gap, psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose. Drawing on two decades of research on apes, children, and human evolution, he surveys the abilities most often cited as uniquely human — language, intelligence, morality, culture, theory of mind, and mental time travel — and finds that two traits account for most of the ways in which our minds appear so distinct: Namely, our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios, and our insatiable drive to link our minds together. These two traits explain how our species was able to amplify qualities that we inherited in parallel with our animal counterparts; transforming animal communication into language, memory into mental time travel, sociality into mind reading, problem solving into abstract reasoning, traditions into culture, and empathy into morality.

Suddendorf concludes with the provocative suggestion that our unrivalled status may be our own creation — and that the gap is growing wider not so much because we are becoming smarter but because we are killing off our closest intelligent animal relatives.

Weaving together the latest findings in animal behavior, child development, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience, this book will change the way we think about our place in nature. A major argument for reconsidering what makes us human, The Gap is essential reading for anyone interested in our evolutionary origins and our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.

Learn more about the book and author at Thomas Suddendorf's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Gap.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven recommended books for "Game of Thrones" fans

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Nicole Hill tagged seven choice gift ideas for fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and its HBO adaptation, Game of Thrones.

One entry on the list:

The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker

One of the hallmarks of the [A Song of Ice and Fire] series is the interstitial magic. The magical elements are not the plot drivers; they are simply parts of the world. Here, Wecker uses elements of Yiddish and Middle Eastern folklore—the Golem and Jinni, respectively—for a story of romance and the immigrant experience. It’s mythic, reverent, and compulsively readable.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Golem and the Jinni is one of Chris Bohjalian's twenty notable books about troubled romances.

Writers Read: Helene Wecker.

The Page 69 Test: The Golem and the Jinni.

--Marshal Zeringue

E. J. Copperman's "The Thrill of the Haunt," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt by E. J. Copperman.

The entry begins:

I have absolutely no idea who should play any of the leads in any of my books. The Haunted Guesthouse series assiduously avoids detailed descriptions of the main characters, mostly because I’m not completely sure exactly what they look like, myself. So I can’t offer any suggestions, although any readers with ideas are free to indulge themselves. That’s sort of the deal with me: Think it’s anybody you like, and you’ll be right. The one character for whom I have an actor in mind, however—and I have no idea where this thought came from—is Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone, the local cop Alison Kerby sometimes goes to for advice or information. When I’m writing McElone, I’m always picturing—no, that’s not right; I’m actually hearing the voice of...[read on]

About The Thrill of the Haunt, from the publisher:

Alison Kerby’s guesthouse is already crowded with spirits. The last thing she needs is a whole new batch of haunts settling in.

As Alison’s reputation as “the ghost lady” grows, so does her business—and not always in a way she’d like. Tourists may be flocking to her guesthouse for a chance to glimpse her resident spirits, but her special abilities are also bringing unwanted private investigation cases to her door. And she has no choice but to take a case when the local homeless man is found murdered under mysterious circumstances, just hours after asking for help in exorcising a specter.

If that weren’t enough to deal with, Alison’s other PI case soon turns fatal, as the mistress she was spying on for a jealous wife turns up dead as well. The cases seem like they couldn’t possibly be linked, but with a mountain of clues, motives and suspects—both living and dead—Alison will have to think fast before someone else checks out for good…

Visit E. J. Copperman's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: The Thrill of the Haunt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three top books on Mexico

At the Guardian, Pushpinder Khaneka named three of the best books on Mexico. One title on the list:

The Years With Laura Díaz by Carlos Fuentes

Fuentes's epic novel uses one woman's life and loves to sweep through 100 years of Mexican history. Laura Díaz – daughter, sister, wife, mother, lover – comes of age during the long, bloody Mexican revolution (1910-20). The execution of her half-brother Santiago (from one of four generations of Santiagos in the novel) by firing squad at the start of the revolution launches her political journey.

Laura has hardly a dull moment as Mexico heads towards becoming a modern nation. She witnesses, chronicles, discusses or participates in all the country's seminal political and cultural events of the 20th century, through to the early 1970s. Real-life luminaries such as artists Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo are also woven into the rich tapestry of Laura's life.

Fuentes's grand project encompasses Mexico's political upheavals, its union movement, the Spanish civil war, the Holocaust, McCarthyism and the massacre of students in Mexico City on the eve of the 1968 Olympics (Laura's grandson, Santiago, is one of the victims).

Its intelligence, emotional power and bold ambition make this a memorable book.

Diplomat, Harvard professor and one of Mexico's most famous writers and polemicists, Fuentes was often mentioned as a Nobel contender, but never won. He died in 2012.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Erin Bow's "Sorrow's Knot"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Plain Kate, a new novel about what lurks in the shadows, and how to put it to rest...

In the world of Sorrow's Knot, the dead do not rest easy. Every patch of shadow might be home to something hungry, something deadly. Most of the people of this world live on the sunlit, treeless prairies. But a few carve out an uneasy living in the forest towns, keeping the dead at bay with wards made from magically knotted cords. The women who tie these knots are called binders. And Otter's mother, Willow, is one of the greatest binders her people have ever known.

But Willow does not wish for her daughter to lead the lonely, heavy life of a binder, so she chooses another as her apprentice. Otter is devastated by this choice, and what's more, it leaves her untrained when the village falls under attack. In a moment of desperation, Otter casts her first ward, and the results are disastrous. But now Otter may be her people's only hope against the shadows that threaten them. Will the challenge be too great for her? Or will she find a way to put the dead to rest once and for all?

Learn more about the book and author at Erin Bow's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Sorrow's Knot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lewis Perry's "Civil Disobedience"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition by Lewis Perry.

About the book, from the publisher:

The distinctive American tradition of civil disobedience stretches back to pre-Revolutionary War days and has served the purposes of determined protesters ever since. This stimulating book examines the causes that have inspired civil disobedience, the justifications used to defend it, disagreements among its practitioners, and the controversies it has aroused at every turn. Tracing the origins of the notion of civil disobedience to eighteenth-century evangelicalism and republicanism, Lewis Perry discusses how the tradition took shape in the actions of black and white abolitionists and antiwar protesters in the decades leading to the Civil War, then found new expression in post–Civil War campaigns for women’s equality, temperance, and labor reform. Gaining new strength and clarity from explorations of Thoreau’s essays and Gandhi’s teachings, the tradition persisted through World War II, grew stronger during the decades of civil rights protest and antiwar struggles, and has been adopted more recently by anti-abortion groups, advocates of same-sex marriage, opponents of nuclear power, and many others. Perry clarifies some of the central implications of civil disobedience that have become blurred in recent times—nonviolence, respect for law, commitment to democratic processes—and throughout the book highlights the dilemmas faced by those who choose to violate laws in the name of a higher morality.

Learn more about Civil Disobedience at the Yale University Press website.

Lewis Perry is John Francis Bannon, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Saint Louis University. His previous books have dealt with anarchism, antislavery movements, American intellectual life, and moral problems in history.

The Page 99 Test: Civil Disobedience.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nicholas Dawidoff reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Nicholas Dawidoff, author of Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football.

His entry begins:

My two books previous to Collision Low Crossers were companion biographical memoirs about family. You can’t get more interior than that, so this time I aspired to look out into the world and take on a big American subject that had real urgency for many people. Also, I’d long hoped to write about a group of committed people engaged in challenging, interesting work that completely absorbed them to the exclusion of everything else. Which is how I came to spend more than a year all but living on the field (and mostly in the office) with a group of professional football coaches.

In contrast to the American national pastime of baseball, football has always been a challenging subject for writers. That may be because baseball is timeless, leisurely enough in its rhythms that it lends itself to reflection. We’ve all played some version of baseball, and since the game’s proportions are our proportions, most of us can see it clear and understand it. Football, on the other hand, is the national passion. Games are always on the clock, and play moves so quickly that no spectator really knows what the hell is going on out there. (It can be the same for coaches; they reserve Sunday judgments until reviewing the game film on Monday.) If there is a deliberately unfolding epistolary pace and feel to baseball, football is frenzy punctuated by pauses--has the start-stop-start metabolism of texting. The players are often enormous, always armored and masked, and the ball is sometimes difficult to locate amid all that fast-twitching bulk. But what really sets football apart is that everything depends on a secret portfolio of plays that the coaches develop over the course of the week before games. Deepening the recondite qualities of the sport, these game plans are set down in obscure jargon—a thieves’ cant for fullbacks. Since the essence of the game is the plan, most of the football life takes place at a remove from the public--in the team “facilities” that are essentially athletic safe houses. It was a rare and necessary privilege to be allowed inside.

These are some of the reasons why the books that most informed Collision Low Crossers were not football books. Wait! One was. Published fifty years ago, George Plimpton’s Paper Lion remains the best book I’ve ever read about football. Plimpton, a gangly and not terribly athletic man, solved the problems of accessibility that I’ve just described by...[read on]

About Collision Low Crossers, from the publisher:

The definitive portrait of day-to-day life in the NFL, as told by the writer who was there

We watch football every Sunday, but we don't really see it. By spending a year with the New York Jets, Nicholas Dawidoff explored the game in such an intimate way that he can now put you right inside the NFL. Collision Low Crossers* is a story that is part Paper Lion and part Moneyball, part Friday Night Lights and part The Office. In this absorbing, funny, and vividly written narrative, he describes the Combine, the draft, the practices, the strategy meetings, all while thinking deeply about such fundamental truths and the nature of success and disappointment in a massive and stressful collective endeavor.

Most of what happens in today's NFL takes place at team facilities, walled off from fans and, until now, from writers. The New York Jets issued Dawidoff a security code, a locker, and a desk in the scouting department: for an entire year he lived with the team, from early-morning quarterback meetings to edgy late-night conversations. Dawidoff makes an emblematic NFL season come alive for fans and nonfans alike.

Here is football in many faces: the Jets' polarizing, brilliant, and hilarious head coach, Rex Ryan; the general manager, whose job is to support (and suppress) the irrepressible Ryan; the defensive coaches and their in-house rivals, the offensive coaches; players like the incomparable All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis and the young, erratic quarterback Mark Sanchez. Wise safeties, brooding linebackers, high-strung cornerbacks, enthusiastic rookies, and even a well-read nose tackle create a full portrait of obsessed men at work.

Dawidoff has written the book of depth and feeling that football has long deserved, one that will forever change the way people watch and think about the sport.

* "Collision low crossers" is a phrase defensive coaches use for the act of making legal contact with any potential pass receiver within five yards of the line of scrimmage. Beyond five yards, "collisioning" someone becomes a penalty. The term also evokes the most fundamental elements of the game--speed, aggression, the interplay between space and time, and meticulously planned events that likely will not come to fruition.

Learn more about Collision Low Crossers, and follow Nicholas Dawidoff on Facebook.

Check out Dawidoff's list of the five best baseball novels.

Writers Read: Nicholas Dawidoff (May 2008).

Writers Read: Nicholas Dawidoff.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Karen Rose Smith & Hope and Riley

Today's featured trio at Coffee with a Canine: Karen Rose Smith & Hope and Riley.

The author, on the dogs in her Caprice De Luca Mystery series and their real-life inspiration:

There are a few animals in my new novel Staged to Death since my sleuth takes in strays. Dylan, a mixed-breed canine, is black and white and fluffy-furred all over. My sleuth had been listening to Bob Dylan when her neighbor brought Dylan to her. He weighs about ten pounds and has a tail that could practically dust Caprice's mosaic-topped coffee table in one sweep.... Dylan was vaguely inspired by a dog we adopted when our son was small. Tamara was an Australian terrier with oodles of energy. In book 2 of this mystery series, Deadly Decor, a cocker spaniel is a prominent character! My dad had given my mom Buffer, a cocker spaniel pup [photo above right; click to enlarge], on their first anniversary. He was...[read on]

About Staged to Death, from the publisher:

Welcome to Kismet, PA, where home stager Caprice De Luca helps her clients shine in a lackluster real estate market--and where someone may only be in the market for murder...

Caprice De Luca has successfully parlayed her skills as an interior designer into a thriving home staging business. So when her old high school friend Roz Winslow asks her to spruce up her mess of a mansion to perk up a slow buyer's market, Caprice is more than happy to share her skills. But when Roz's husband Ted is found skewered by one of his sword room's prized possessions, it appears the Winslows may have a few skeletons in their palatial closets. With the stage set for murder, Caprice will discover she can track down an antique tapestry and a cold-blooded killer with equal aplomb--as long as she's not the next victim...

Visit Karen Rose Smith's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Karen Rose Smith & Hope and Riley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Randi Zuckerberg's 6 favorite books

Randi Zuckerberg is the CEO and founder of Zuckerberg Media, a tech savvy production company, and editor-in-chief of Dot Complicated, a modern lifestyle community and blog. She was an early employee of Facebook where she pioneered live streaming initiatives and struck groundbreaking deals with ABC and CNN. Her new book is Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives.

Zuckerberg shared her six favorite books with readers of The Week magazine. One title on the list:

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Tina Fey presents a balanced mix of personal memoir and insights into her industry. A trailblazer for other female comedians, she confronts the hard issues facing any woman in the spotlight, but with her signature brand of laugh-out-loud humor.

Read about another book on the list.

Deborah Netburn recommended Bossypants and four other books to Natalie Portman when the Oscar-winning actor became a new mother in 2011.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Trish J. MacGregor's "Apparition"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Apparition: The Hungry Ghosts by Trish J. MacGregor.

About the book, from the publisher:

Trish J. MacGregor returns to a mythic city high in the Ecuadorian Andes in Apparition.

Tess and Ian have been living in the high city of Esperanza for years, along with Tess’s niece, Maddie, and her partner, Nick Sanchez. They thought they could rest, that they had defeated the brujo threat to our plane of existence. But they were wrong.

A new and greater threat has formed, a new tribe of the hungry dead, seeking to possess the bodies of the living in order to experience the passions of physical life. This new tribe has found the door to the physical plane that is Esperanza, and they threaten all human life. Only the outnumbered Light Chasers and their human allies can stand against the evil brujos.

Learn more about the book and author at Trish J. MacGregor's website.

Apparition is the third book in the Hungry Ghost trilogy, and takes place in the mystical city of Esperanza, Ecuador, high in the Andes.

The Page 69 Test: Esperanza.

My Book, The Movie: Esperanza.

The Page 69 Test: Ghost Key.

My Book, The Movie: Apparition.

Writers Read: Trish J. MacGregor.

The Page 69 Test: Apparition.

--Marshal Zeringue

Richard Toye's "Churchill's Empire," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Churchill's Empire: The World that Made Him and the World He Made by Richard Toye.

The author's explanation of how he would turn book into film begins:

I would have Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame) play Bella and Philip Seymour Hoffman play Churchill.

Churchill's Empire

His greatest triumph was also his greatest tragedy.

Winston Churchill – a man of greatness who outlived his era. He vowed that he had ‘not become the King’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’. But it was on his watch that the imperial house of cards began its collapse. This film focuses on three crucial years, from the humiliation of the fall of Singapore in 1942, to Churchill’s dismissal by the British voters in 1945. It shows how a great power was humbled even as it achieved military victory over the forces of the Axis. And it shows the personal torment of an imperial hero as his beloved Empire crumbled to the ground. After the adulation of the crowds on VE Day cruelly followed by a crushing election defeat, he is caught by the ‘black dog’ of...[read on]

Richard Toye studied at the Universities of Birmingham and Cambridge, and is currently Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter. His other books include Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness, Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction, and The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill's World War II Speeches.

The Page 99 Test: Churchill's Empire.

Writers Read: Richard Toye.

My Book, The Movie: Churchill's Empire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top JFK assassination books

At The Daily Beast, Allen Barra shared his list of the only five books written about JFK’s death that count. One entry on the list:

Case Closed
by Gerald Posner

Conspiracy theorists have spent the last 19 years trying to nit-pick Case Closed, which was published on the 30th anniversary of Kennedy’s death, into insignificance. Whatever factual errors they may have found, the book nonetheless stands as the definitive debunker of Kennedy conspiracy theories.

If you still believe that Oswald didn’t act alone in killing JFK or that Jack Ruby didn’t act alone in killing Oswald, then you need to sit down quietly with Case Closed and hear Posner out.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see: Three essential books on the Kennedy assassination.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew Buchholz's "Alternate Histories of the World"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Alternate Histories of the World by Matthew Buchholz.

About the book, from the publisher:

This remarkable collection of maps, photographs, engravings and paintings from the early ages to modern day provides a stunning new look at the world as defined by our struggles and alliances with the monsters and supernatural creatures that have defined our existence. Learn how a mechanical man helped write America’s Declaration of Independence. Track the course of the Living Dead virus from Africa to Europe and on to the New World. View artifacts from our uneasy alliance with the Martian race, or simply delight in the vibrant colors and illustrations from a bygone age. More than 100 full-color images and insightful essays make this book an essential addition to the libraries of dedicated historians as well as casual fans of monsters and mayhem.

Visit Matthew Buchholz's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Matthew Buchholz and Otis.

The Page 99 Test: Alternate Histories of the World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top series for fans of "The Hunger Games"

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Joel Cunningham tagged six great young adult book series for fans of The Hunger Games, including:

The Giver Quartet, by Lois Lowry (The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, Son): The grandfather of modern YA dystopian lit offers a gentler take on the story of oppressive governments controlling your every thought and deed. The Giver, published 20 years ago, is a classic for a reason, the heart-rending story of a boy forced to choose between the world he knows and the freedom he realizes has been stolen from him. The first two sequels are only loosely connected, but the final book, 2012’s Son, brings all the story threads together.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Giver made Lauren Davis's top ten list of science fiction’s most depressing futuristic retirement scenarios.

Writers Read: Lois Lowry (July 2009).

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Lois Lowry & Alfie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sandra Balzo's "Murder on the Orient Espresso"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Murder on the Orient Espresso by Sandra Balzo.

About the book, from the publisher:

Maggy Thorsen and her beau Jake Pavlik find themselves plunged into a real-life mystery as baffling as any Agatha Christie classic.

It's November and Maggy Thorsen, co-owner of the Wisconsin gourmet coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds, is in South Florida at an annual crime-writers' conference with her beau, local sheriff Jake Pavlik, who is due to speak as a 'forensics expert'. Maggy's pledge to behave solely as a tourist becomes trickier than she anticipated when the conference's opening night event turns out to be a re-enactment of Agatha Christie's classic, Murder on the Orient Express. As Maggy and Jake reluctantly set off on the night train to the Everglades to solve the 'crime', it's clear that, as in the original novel, nothing is quite what it seems. And amidst rumours of careers taken, manuscripts stolen and vows broken, it seems that in the Everglades - as in life - the predator all too often becomes the prey.

Learn more about the book and author at Sandra Balzo's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Triple Shot.

The Page 69 Test: Murder on the Orient Espresso.

--Marshal Zeringue