Ten top vampire books

Lauren Owen studied English Literature at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, before completing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2009 Curtis Brown prize for the best fiction dissertation. The Quick is her first novel.

One of her top ten vampire books, as shared at the Guardian:

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein (2002)

Set at an exclusive girls’ boarding school, this novel is reminiscent of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Part of the suspense comes from being trapped in the mind of the narrator, whose reliability is highly suspect. A cool, unsettling read, The Moth Diaries combines an original treatment of the vampire myth with classic features of the genre – adolescence and developing sexuality, loneliness, and private writing.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see the ten best vampire novels ever, the top ten vampires in fiction and popular culture, ten vampire stories more romantic than "Twilight", Kevin Jackson's top 10 vampire novels, and Lisa Tuttle's critic's chart of top vampire books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gary Krist's "Empire of Sin"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist.

About the book, from the publisher:

From bestselling author Gary Krist, a vibrant and immersive account of New Orleans’ other civil war, at a time when commercialized vice, jazz culture, and endemic crime defined the battlegrounds of the Crescent City

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans’ thirty-years war against itself, pitting the city’s elite “better half” against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides. Surrounding him are the stories of flamboyant prostitutes, crusading moral reformers, dissolute jazzmen, ruthless Mafiosi, venal politicians, and one extremely violent serial killer, all battling for primacy in a wild and wicked city unlike any other in the world.

Learn more about the book and author at Gary Krist's website.

Before turning to narrative nonfiction with The White Cascade and City of Scoundrels, Krist wrote three novels--Bad Chemistry, Chaos Theory, and Extravagance--and two short-story collections--The Garden State and Bone by Bone.

The Page 69 Test: The White Cascade.

Writers Read: Gary Krist (May 2012).

The Page 99 Test: City of Scoundrels.

The Page 99 Test: Empire of Sin.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lois Leveen reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lois Leveen, author of Juliet's Nurse: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Almost every book I read is somehow related to my writing. I'll save you the very long list of nonfiction books that are surrounding my writing area currently (literally: I sit in a comfy chair, laptop and cat in my lap, and about 15 or more books within arms reach to be consulted as needed). Here's the fiction list. It's driven in part by the fact that Juliet's Nurse and my first novel The Secrets of Mary Bowser are both written in first-person, and I am now working on something in third-person. So I'm looking at novels that are helping me think about narrators and narration, although this list contains novels with both 1st- and 3rd- person narrators.

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. I just re-read this cover to cover, and am now "reading around in it," meaning flipping open and reading a chapter, or just a few pages, at a time. Why? This is truly a gem of a novel, a weird, witty, poignant piece of literary historical fiction. It's one of the few books I not only love reading but wish I'd written, because Fitzgerald seems to have such control and style in it, with a third-person narrator who is gently teasing the characters but always loving them. I cannot understand why I find this book so compelling, even after many, many readings. It's like it's laced with some addictive but undetectable substance. I've read...[read on]

About Juliet's Nurse, from the publisher:

An enthralling new telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—told from the perspective of Juliet’s nurse.

In Verona, a city ravaged by plague and political rivalries, a mother mourning the death of her day-old infant enters the household of the powerful Cappelletti family to become the wet-nurse to their newborn baby. As she serves her beloved Juliet over the next fourteen years, the nurse learns the Cappellettis’ darkest secrets. Those secrets—and the nurse’s deep personal grief—erupt across five momentous days of love and loss that destroy a daughter, and a family.

By turns sensual, tragic, and comic, Juliet’s Nurse gives voice to one of literature’s most memorable and distinctive characters, a woman who was both insider and outsider among Verona’s wealthy ruling class. Exploring the romance and intrigue of interwoven loyalties, rivalries, jealousies, and losses only hinted at in Shakespeare’s play, this is a never-before-heard tale of the deepest love in Verona—the love between a grieving woman and the precious child of her heart.

In the tradition of Sarah Dunant, Philippa Gregory, and Geraldine Brooks, Juliet’s Nurse is a rich prequel that reimagines the world’s most cherished tale of love and loss, suffering and survival.

Visit Lois Leveen's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Juliet's Nurse.

Writers Read: Lois Leveen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary Elizabeth Summer's "Trust Me, I’m Lying," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Trust Me, I'm Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer.

The entry begins:

I would like to go on record as saying that I know next to nothing about celebrity actors, especially teen stars. But I have been putting some thought into this lately, as I just yesterday signed a contract granting ABC Family the option rights to  Trust Me, I'm Lying. Going based on still-photo-looks alone, (I have no idea if these kids have any acting ability), I would dream cast  Trust Me, I'm Lying as follows:

Natasha Calis for Julep. Natasha has the right overall look, plus (from her IMDb picture, at least), it looks like she has a caginess to her that she keeps on the down-low. Haley Pulos and Elizabeth Gillies might also work for Julep.

Tyler is a tougher one to conjure up a casting for. He's so all-American, with mahogany hair, an athletic physique, and a charismatic smile that screams future politician. David...[read on]

Visit Mary Elizabeth Summer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Trust Me, I'm Lying.

Writers Read: Mary Elizabeth Summer.

My Book, The Movie: Trust Me, I'm Lying.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top imaginary friends in fiction

A.F. Harrold is an English poet. He writes and performs for adults and children, in cabaret and in schools, in bars and in basements, in fields and indoors. His books include Fizzlebert Stump and the Bearded Boy. One of the author's top ten imaginary friends in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

The Policemen, from Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman

Another choice some people won’t agree with, but I let the post-death Elvira in, why be afraid to take the same step in the opposite direction? It’s a puzzle this book, and it would be a shame to attempt to unpick it for anyone who’s not yet had the joy of swimming in its paradoxical, philosophical, intoxicating waters. It’s sometimes been called a grown-up Alice In Wonderland and that seems close enough. It’s a great treat for the enquiring teenager (or any) mind, especially an enquiring mind not in search of anything specific. It’s a book that should be read twice, at least. And you’ll never look at a bicycle the same again.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Third Policeman is among William Fotheringham's top ten cycling novels and Michael Foley's top ten books that best express the absurdity of the human condition.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Cara Caddoo's "Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life by Cara Caddoo.

About the book, from the publisher:

Viewing turn-of-the century African American history through the lens of cinema, Envisioning Freedom examines the forgotten history of early black film exhibition during the era of mass migration and Jim Crow. By embracing the new medium of moving pictures at the turn of the twentieth century, black Americans forged a collective—if fraught—culture of freedom.

In Cara Caddoo’s perspective-changing study, African Americans emerge as pioneers of cinema from the 1890s to the 1920s. Across the South and Midwest, moving pictures presented in churches, lodges, and schools raised money and created shared social experiences for black urban communities. As migrants moved northward, bound for Chicago and New York, cinema moved with them. Along these routes, ministers and reformers, preaching messages of racial uplift, used moving pictures as an enticement to attract followers.

But as it gained popularity, black cinema also became controversial. Facing a losing competition with movie houses, once-supportive ministers denounced the evils of the “colored theater.” Onscreen images sparked arguments over black identity and the meaning of freedom. In 1910, when boxing champion Jack Johnson became the world’s first black movie star, representation in film vaulted to the center of black concerns about racial progress. Black leaders demanded self-representation and an end to cinematic mischaracterizations which, they charged, violated the civil rights of African Americans. In 1915, these ideas both led to the creation of an industry that produced “race films” by and for black audiences and sparked the first mass black protest movement of the twentieth century.

Learn more about Envisioning Freedom at the Harvard University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Envisioning Freedom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top southern gothic YA novels

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Dahlia Adler tagged five great southern gothic Young Adult novels, including:

Beware the Wild, by Natalie C. Parker

The idea of being so deeply immersed in a world you can practically taste the glowing swamp water might not sound particularly delicious, but trust me: in this case, it absolutely is. Parker’s debut is rife with gorgeous atmospheric detail that pairs perfectly with this twisted tale of a swamp that swallows those who get too close and spits out replacements, confusing the lives of the couple in the town of Sticks, Louisiana, who know the truth but may not be able to do anything to stop it.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Beware the Wild.

My Book, The Movie: Beware the Wild.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susan McBride's "Very Bad Things"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Very Bad Things by Susan McBride.

About the book, from the publisher:

A dark, moody, boarding-school murder mystery teens won’t be able to put down.

Katie never thought she’d be the girl with the popular boyfriend. She also never thought he would cheat on her—but the proof is in the photo that people at their boarding school can’t stop talking about. Mark swears he doesn’t remember anything. But Rose, the girl in the photo, is missing, and Mark is in big trouble. Because it looks like Rose isn’t just gone . . . she’s dead.

Maybe Mark was stupid, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.

Katie needs to find out what really happened, and her digging turns up more than she bargained for, not just about Mark but about someone she loves like a sister: Tessa, her best friend. At Whitney Prep, it’s easy to keep secrets . . . especially the cold-blooded kind.

Learn more about the book and author at Susan McBride's website.

The Page 69 Test: Little Black Dress.

Writers Read: Susan McBride.

The Page 69 Test: Very Bad Things.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve first-rate horror books for sleepless nights

At KQED Rick Kleffel tagged twelve high-quality horror books for sleepless nights, including:

Last Days
by Adam Nevill
St. Martin’s Griffin

Kyle Freeman is an indie filmmaker on his last legs, looking to make a breakthrough, and pay his bills, with The Temple of Last Days, a documentary about a cult that self-destructed in the Arizona desert in 1975. This proves to be a bad idea for Kyle, but a truly terrorizing experience for readers of Adam Nevill’s Last Days. If you’re looking for a big, beefy horror novel that is consummately well written and extremely creepy, look no further; Last Days will keep you awake through the night reading, and then for many thereafter, remembering.

As Kyle investigates the origins of the cult, he finds it reaches farther into the past than he imagined. But when he talks to survivors of that night, his life takes a turn for the worse as he begins to experience nights even less restful than readers can expect.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Barton A. Myers's "Rebels against the Confederacy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Rebels against the Confederacy: North Carolina's Unionists by Barton A. Myers.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this groundbreaking study, Barton A. Myers analyzes the secret world of hundreds of white and black Southern Unionists as they struggled for survival in a new Confederate world, resisted the imposition of Confederate military and civil authority, began a diffuse underground movement to destroy the Confederacy, joined the United States Army as soldiers, and waged a series of violent guerrilla battles at the local level against other Southerners. Myers also details the work of Confederates as they struggled to build a new nation at the local level and maintain control over manpower, labor, agricultural, and financial resources, which Southern Unionists possessed. The story is not solely one of triumph over adversity but also one of persecution and, ultimately, erasure of these dissidents by the postwar South's Lost Cause mythologizers.

Learn more about Rebels against the Confederacy at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Rebels against the Confederacy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Natalie C. Parker's "Beware the Wild," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker.

The entry begins:

One thing I have learned from this process is that I have no future as a casting agent. This was a true, capital ‘c,’ Challenge. I started off pondering which actors might capture the qualities and idiosyncrasies of each character. Actors must have nuance, after all. But it gathering a sense of nuance from photographs turns out to be a near impossible job, so I shifted tactics...

This dream cast was selected based on the following criteria:

Faces. They must have them!
See #1.

First up! The siblings.

The premise of Beware the Wild is this: there is a mysterious swamp in the middle of Sticks, Louisiana. One day, a boy goes in and doesn’t return. Instead, a girl climbs out of the swamp and takes his place. The only one to remember that the boy ever existed is his baby sister, Sterling.

For Sterling Saucier, I’ve chosen Georgie Henley of The Chronicles of Narnia fame. Not only are her eyes naturally blue-ish, but I think she has a stubborn jaw.

For her brother, Phineas, I’ve selected...[read on]

Visit Natalie C. Parker's website.

The Page 69 Test: Beware the Wild.

My Book, The Movie: Beware the Wild.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mary Elizabeth Summer reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mary Elizabeth Summer, author of Trust Me, I'm Lying.

Her entry begins:

Being a debut author, I've been gorging myself on other 2014 debut-author books this year. The one I'm currently (re)reading is Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones. Similarly to Trust Me, I'm Lying, it features a girl con artist as the protagonist, but there the similarity ends. Illusive takes place in a near future world where a virus has decimated the population, and the vaccine that saved the remainder has left a small percentage of people with supernatural abilities, like levitation, telepathy, and invisibility. There's so much to...[read on]

About Trust Me, I'm Lying, from the publisher:

Fans of Ally Carter's Heist Society novels will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.

Visit Mary Elizabeth Summer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Trust Me, I'm Lying.

Writers Read: Mary Elizabeth Summer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the trickiest Halloween books out this fall

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Dell Villa tagged ten new chilling children’s books to read on Halloween, including:

Bramble and Maggie Spooky Season, by Jessie Haas and Allison Friend (Illustrator)

Bramble, an affable, spirited horse, and Maggie, her steadfast owner, are the best of friends, and Spooky Season is their third adventure together. Fall is full of fun, but there are also some frights! Will they be able to work together to trick-or-treat safely through the night? Bramble and Maggie’s is a warm and wonderful tale of teamwork and courage.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Juliet Marillier's "The Caller"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Caller by Juliet Marillier.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the final book in this gripping, romantic fantasy trilogy perfect for fans of Robin McKinley, Kristin Cashore, and Shannon Hale, Neryn’s band of rebels reach their climactic confrontation with the king. The stunning conclusion to the story that began with Shadowfell and Raven Flight is full of romance, intrigue, magic, and adventure.

Just one year ago, Neryn had nothing but a canny skill she barely understood and a faint dream that the legendary rebel base of Shadowfell might be real. Now she is the rebels’ secret weapon, and their greatest hope for survival, in the fast-approaching ambush of King Keldec at Summerfort.

The fate of Alban itself is in her hands. But to be ready for the bloody battle that lies ahead, Neryn must first seek out two more fey Guardians to receive their tutelage. Meanwhile, her beloved, Flint, has been pushed to his breaking point as a spy in the king’s court—and is arousing suspicion in all the wrong quarters.

At stake lies freedom for the people of Alban, a life free from hiding for the Good Folk—and a chance for Flint and Neryn to finally be together.

Learn more about the book and author at Juliet Marillier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Juliet Marillier & Pippa, Gretel, and Sara.

The Page 69 Test: The Caller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top new thought-provoking nonfiction books

At TimeOut New York Tiffany Gibert tagged ten new thought-provoking nonfiction books, including:

No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal

A Taliban commander. A warlord. A village housewife. These are the three people whose lives journalist Gopal chronicles in his account of the Afghan war, weaving together the intimacy of their stories with a larger narrative of mistakes and misconduct during this ongoing international conflict.

Read about another book on the list.

Learn more about No Good Men Among the Living.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kurt Lampe's "The Birth of Hedonism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Birth of Hedonism: The Cyrenaic Philosophers and Pleasure as a Way of Life by Kurt Lampe.

About the book, from the publisher:

According to Xenophon, Socrates tried to persuade his associate Aristippus to moderate his excessive indulgence in wine, women, and food, arguing that only hard work can bring happiness. Aristippus wasn’t convinced. Instead, he and his followers espoused the most radical form of hedonism in ancient Western philosophy. Before the rise of the better known but comparatively ascetic Epicureans, the Cyrenaics pursued a way of life in which moments of pleasure, particularly bodily pleasure, held the highest value. In The Birth of Hedonism, Kurt Lampe provides the most comprehensive account in any language of Cyrenaic ideas and behavior, revolutionizing the understanding of this neglected but important school of philosophy.

The Birth of Hedonism thoroughly and sympathetically reconstructs the doctrines and practices of the Cyrenaics, who were active between the fourth and third centuries BCE. The book examines not only Aristippus and the mainstream Cyrenaics, but also Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus. Contrary to recent scholarship, the book shows that the Cyrenaics, despite giving primary value to discrete pleasurable experiences, accepted the dominant Greek philosophical belief that life-long happiness and the virtues that sustain it are the principal concerns of ethics. The book also offers the first in-depth effort to understand Theodorus’s atheism and Hegesias’s pessimism, both of which are extremely unusual in ancient Greek philosophy and which raise the interesting question of hedonism’s relationship to pessimism and atheism. Finally, the book explores the “new Cyrenaicism” of the nineteenth-century writer and classicist Walter Pater, who drew out the enduring philosophical interest of Cyrenaic hedonism more than any other modern thinker.

Learn more about The Birth of Hedonism at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Birth of Hedonism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten songs in YA novels

At the Guardian, Ema O'Connor tagged ten "of the most rockin’ songs mentioned in the most rockin’ books," including:

“Asleep” by The Smiths in The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

After experiencing two deaths very close to him, 15 year-old Charlie became a bit of a recluse. But when he meets wild-riding seniors Patrick and Sam, this begins to change. With music helping to draw the friends together, this song plays a large role when Charlie gives to to Patrick as a Christmas present. “Asleep” perfectly captures the melancholy feeling of this YA classic.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is on Lauren Passell's list of the best Manic Pixie Dream Girls in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susan McBride reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Susan McBride, author of Very Bad Things.

Her entry begins:

I normally don’t read two books at once, but I’m doing that now.

First, I’ve got Lisa Wingate’s The Prayer Box on my Android. So it goes with me to doctors’ appointments and anywhere I’ll be sitting for a while, twiddling my thumbs and waiting. It’s about a woman named Tandy whose life has come apart at the seams. She has two kids, and she’s recently run from an abusive marriage. So she’s trying to lie low, pick up some cash, and rebuild her messed-up life from scratch. In the process, she becomes the caretaker of a dead woman’s house. She finds scads of letters this woman wrote to God, asking all sorts of questions and trying to figure out her own confusing life. I’ve never really read Christian fiction before, but I met Lisa a few years back at the Southern Indie Booksellers convention and I figured it was about time I checked out her bestselling fiction. I’ve definitely been sucked into the story, which...[read on]

About Very Bad Things, from the publisher:

A dark, moody, boarding-school murder mystery teens won’t be able to put down.

Katie never thought she’d be the girl with the popular boyfriend. She also never thought he would cheat on her—but the proof is in the photo that people at their boarding school can’t stop talking about. Mark swears he doesn’t remember anything. But Rose, the girl in the photo, is missing, and Mark is in big trouble. Because it looks like Rose isn’t just gone . . . she’s dead.

Maybe Mark was stupid, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.

Katie needs to find out what really happened, and her digging turns up more than she bargained for, not just about Mark but about someone she loves like a sister: Tessa, her best friend. At Whitney Prep, it’s easy to keep secrets . . . especially the cold-blooded kind.

Learn more about the book and author at Susan McBride's website.

The Page 69 Test: Little Black Dress.

Writers Read: Susan McBride.

--Marshal Zeringue

Charlie Lovett's "First Impressions," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen by Charlie Lovett.

The entry begins:

OK, I have to be honest here. My wife, Janice, and I have been casting this movie ever since she read an early draft of my new novel First Impressions. The book is subtitled A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen, so it’s pretty clear where one of the casting challenges lies, but we first attacked the modern story, and I think we came up with some pretty exciting casting.

The book has two story lines, one involving a friendship between Jane Austen and an aging cleric in 1796 and the other set in the present day featuring young Sophie Collingwood. Sophie is freshly out of Oxford, dislikes her father, and loves her uncle Bertram, who has been her mentor in the world of old books. When he turns up dead, her world is turned upside down. What will excite moviegoers about the casting of Sophie’s family is that it will reunite three British actors who worked together as university students as Cambridge. Hugh Laurie will play the crotchety Mr. Collingwood, Emma...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Charlie Lovett's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bookman's Tale.

My Book, The Movie: The Bookman's Tale.

Writers Read: Charlie Lovett.

The Page 69 Test: First Impressions.

My Book, The Movie: First Impressions.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Yona Zeldis McDonough & Willa and Holden

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Yona Zeldis McDonough & Willa and Holden.

The author's response to a question about dogs in her new novel:

There is indeed a Pom in You Were Meant for Me. His name is Fluff and he’s a bit of a bad boy: snapping, snarling, chewing on slippers etc. The fiancé of the character who owns him wants to get rid of him but they manage to come to an understanding that accommodates both man and...[read on]

About You Were Meant For Me, from the publisher:

What do you do when you have to give up the person you love most?

Thirty-five-year-old Miranda is not an impulsive person. She’s been at Domestic Goddess magazine for eight years, she has great friends, and she’s finally moving on after a breakup. Having a baby isn’t even on her radar—until the day she discovers an abandoned newborn on the platform of a Brooklyn subway station. Rushing the little girl to the closest police station, Miranda hopes and prays she’ll be all right and that a loving family will step forward to take her.

Yet Miranda can’t seem to get the baby off her mind and keeps coming up with excuses to go check on her, until finally a family court judge asks whether she’d like to be the baby’s foster parent—maybe even adopt her. To her own surprise, Miranda jumps at the chance. But nothing could have prepared her for the ecstasy of new-mother love—or the heartbreak she faces when the baby’s father surfaces….

Learn more about the author and her work at Yona Zeldis McDonough's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Yona Zeldis McDonough & Queenie, Willa and Holden (October 2012).

Coffee with a Canine: Yona Zeldis McDonough & Willa and Holden (September 2013).

The Page 69 Test: You Were Meant For Me.

Writers Read: Yona Zeldis McDonough.

My Book, The Movie: You Were Meant for Me.

Coffee with a Canine: Yona Zeldis McDonough & Willa and Holden.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gillian Anderson's 6 favorite books

Gillian Anderson is an award-winning film, television, and theatre actress whose credits include the roles of Special Agent Dana Scully in FOX Television's long-running and critically-acclaimed drama series, The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies' masterpiece The House of Mirth (2000), and Lady Dedlock in the very successful BBC production of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.

Her first novel, with Jeff Rovin, is the science fiction thriller A Vision of Fire.

One of Anderson's six favorite books, as shared with The Week magazine:

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

A young Irish immigrant begins working in the kitchen of a Southern plantation. As an indentured servant, she straddles two worlds: the world of her white master and mistress, and that of her adoptive slave family. A unique and unforgettable novel.

Read about another book on the list.

Learn about the books that made a difference to Gillian Anderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Andrew Needham's "Power Lines"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest by Andrew Needham.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1940, Phoenix was a small, agricultural city of sixty-five thousand, and the Navajo Reservation was an open landscape of scattered sheepherders. Forty years later, Phoenix had blossomed into a metropolis of 1.5 million people and the territory of the Navajo Nation was home to two of the largest strip mines in the world. Five coal-burning power plants surrounded the reservation, generating electricity for export to Phoenix, Los Angeles, and other cities. Exploring the postwar developments of these two very different landscapes, Power Lines tells the story of the far-reaching environmental and social inequalities of metropolitan growth, and the roots of the contemporary coal-fueled climate change crisis.

Andrew Needham explains how inexpensive electricity became a requirement for modern life in Phoenix—driving assembly lines and cooling the oppressive heat. Navajo officials initially hoped energy development would improve their lands too, but as ash piles marked their landscape, air pollution filled the skies, and almost half of Navajo households remained without electricity, many Navajos came to view power lines as a sign of their subordination in the Southwest. Drawing together urban, environmental, and American Indian history, Needham demonstrates how power lines created unequal connections between distant landscapes and how environmental changes associated with suburbanization reached far beyond the metropolitan frontier. Needham also offers a new account of postwar inequality, arguing that residents of the metropolitan periphery suffered similar patterns of marginalization as those faced in America’s inner cities.

Telling how coal from Indian lands became the fuel of modernity in the Southwest, Power Lines explores the dramatic effects that this energy system has had on the people and environment of the region.

Learn more about Power Lines at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Power Lines.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mary Elizabeth Summer's "Trust Me, I’m Lying"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Trust Me, I'm Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Fans of Ally Carter's Heist Society novels will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.

Visit Mary Elizabeth Summer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Trust Me, I'm Lying.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top urban fantasy series

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Ella Cosmo tagged four urban fantasy series you should be reading, including:

The Jane Yellowrock series, by Faith Hunter

Set largely in a fictional version of New Orleans, Hunter’s series does an excellent job of making the city as important as the characters. Hunter’s New Orleans is one filled with spicy étouffée, the rhythmic beat of jazz music, the fragrant smell of night-blooming jasmine…and vampires. Lots and lots of sexy, bloodsucking vampires. Which is why New Orleans is the perfect place for Jane Yellowrock, a mercenary with a talent for hunting “vamps,” as she likes to call them. Jane is a skinwalker, a gift of her Native American heritage and a legacy she grapples with throughout the series. In the first book, Skinwalker, Hunter introduces readers to giant mountain lion “Beast,” with whom Jane uneasily shares her body and spirit. Beast has her own personality and beliefs, and the relationship between the two characters is one of the story’s most compelling aspects.

Learn about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Black Arts (Jane Yellowrock Series #7).

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Karen Miller reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Karen Miller, author of The Falcon Throne.

Part of her entry:

When it comes to new fiction (or at least fiction that's new to me!), [my] recent trip gave me a chance to enjoy books I've not read before. One of them was Joe Abercrombie's new novel, Half a King, which I enjoyed enormously. Abercrombie's work is always good, vivid and engaging, but I was particularly taken with this adventure. I was especially impressed with how he used our world's Viking history to inform his imaginary world. I believe there are more books to come in this tale, and I'm really...[read on]

About The Falcon Throne, from the publisher:

NO ONE IS INNOCENT. EVERY CROWN IS TARNISHED.

A royal child, believed dead, sets his eyes on regaining his father's stolen throne.

A bastard lord, uprising against his tyrant cousin, sheds more blood than he bargained for.

A duke's widow, defending her daughter, defies the ambitious lord who'd control them both.

And two brothers, divided by ambition, will learn the true meaning of treachery.

All of this will come to pass, and the only certainty is that nothing will remain as it once was. As royal houses rise and fall, empires are reborn and friends become enemies, it becomes clear that much will be demanded of those who follow the path to power.

Learn more about the author and her work at Karen Miller's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Falcon Throne.

The Page 69 Test: The Falcon Throne.

Writers Read: Karen Miller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kara Cooney's "The Woman Who Would Be King"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney.

About the book, from the publisher:

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.

Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty—was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of pharaoh in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king whose mother Hatshepsut out-maneuvered for a seat on the throne. Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut shrewdly operated the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods. Scholars have long speculated as to why her monuments were destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her unprecedented rule. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

Visit Kara Cooney's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Woman Who Would Be King.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bob Odenkirk's 6 favorite books

Actor, director, and comedy sketch writer Bob Odenkirk was a prominent co-star on AMC's Breaking Bad. His new book of comic essays is A Load of Hooey.

One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Dog of the South by Charles Portis

A hilarious narrator goes on a loony mission to catch up with his runaway wife, following the trail of credit card receipts she leaves from Arkansas to Belize. He's driven by resentment and pettiness — and yet he is also clearly entertained by the world around him. This is, to me, a very American voice.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Watts's "Echopraxia," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Echopraxia by Peter Watts.

The entry begins:

Let's start behind the camera. It's almost tempting to nominate Shane Carruth for Director— after Primer and Upstream Color, don't you want to see what he could do with a budget of more than $8.67?— but given that Echopraxia seems to have left about half its readers confused, we might not want a director whose claim to fame is that his first movie took three viewings to understand. I've got nothing against challenging one's audience, but there can be too much of a good thing.

David Fincher, maybe— the man has a real way with mood, he's received more than his fair share of rave reviews, and bad direction was definitely not one of Alien 3's many faults. Fight Club was brilliant. Also, after The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher could probably get Trent Reznor back on board for soundtrack duties, which would be a bonus. I'd green-light Fincher in a second. He'd be the safe choice.

But if I didn’t want to play it safe, I'd risk the whole wad on Steven Soderburgh. He's shown a deft and subtle hand at first-contact scenarios (yeah, Solaris tanked commercially, but I liked it better than Tarkovsky's version). Contagion proves that he knows how to do Science right, which is almost unheard-of in Hollywood. And he was executive producer on what was, if not the best movie based on a Philip K. Dick novel, certainly the most Dickish movie based on a Philip K. Dick novel. I'd be fascinated to see what Soderburgh could do with Echopraxia.

Prometheus alumni need not apply. Sorry Ridley.

Screenplay? That would be me. Not because I've...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Peter Watts's website.

Blindsight is one of Charlie Jane Anders's ten great science fiction novels, published since 2000, that raise huge, important questions.

My Book, The Movie: Peter Watts's Rifters trilogy.

The Page 69 Test: Echopraxia.

My Book, The Movie: Echopraxia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top scary stories for the Halloween season

At Time Out New York Tiffany Gibert tagged eight scary stories for the Halloween season, including:

The Boy Who Drew Monsters: A Novel by Keith Donohue

No one in Jack Peters's small coastal town is safe when the monsters he draws come alive. Dissolving notions of reality and fiction, this hypnotic read leaves behind an eerie narrative about what haunting aberrations might lurk just outside our peripheral vision.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Drew Monsters.

Writers Read: Keith Donohue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Natalie C. Parker's "Beware the Wild"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker.

About the book, from the publisher:

Southern Gothic gets a whole new twist in this debut novel, sure to appeal to fans of the New York Times bestselling Beautiful Creatures series.

The swamp in Sterling's small Louisiana town proves to have a power over its inhabitants when her brother disappears and no one but Sterling even remembers that he existed. Now Sterling, with the help of brooding loner Heath, who's had his own creepy experience with the swamp, must fight back and reclaim what—and who—the swamp has taken.

Beware the Wild is a riveting and atmospheric page-turner readers won't want to miss.

Visit Natalie C. Parker's website.

The Page 69 Test: Beware the Wild.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ran Zwigenberg's "Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture by Ran Zwigenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1962, a Hiroshima peace delegation and an Auschwitz survivor's organization exchanged relics and testimonies, including the bones and ashes of Auschwitz victims. This symbolic encounter, in which the dead were literally conscripted in the service of the politics of the living, serves as a cornerstone of this volume, capturing how memory was utilized to rebuild and redefine a shattered world. This is a powerful study of the contentious history of remembrance and the commemoration of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in the context of the global development of Holocaust and World War II memory. Emphasizing the importance of nuclear issues in the 1950s and 1960s, Zwigenberg traces the rise of global commemoration culture through the reconstruction of Hiroshima as a 'City of Bright Peace', memorials and museums, global tourism, developments in psychiatry, and the emergence of the figure of the survivor-witness and its consequences for global memory practices.

Learn more about Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top new thought-provoking novels

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and author. At Psychology Today she tagged six new memorable and thought-provoking novels, including:

All I Love and Know by Judith Frank begins simply enough. When Daniel’s twin brother and sister-in-law, Joel and Ilana, are killed in an explosion in Jerusalem, Daniel and his partner Matt fly to Israel. Matt passes the time listing the many thoughts he’d been having of which he was ashamed, including: "Will he ever get to just be a normal, young, shallow queen again, or would tragedy dog him for the rest of his born days?" Then:

But Matt knew these questions were bullshit, that he was evading the real issue: If Joel and Ilana had really done what they said they were going to do, he and Daniel would be returning home with their kids, and the life he knew would open up into dark seas he couldn’t even begin to chart.

Will the Israeli court give the two young orphaned children, as instructed in the will, to the gay couple, or to their Israeli grandparents or to Daniel’s parents who want them very much? Author Judith Frank does a masterful job of letting readers feel what the protagonists feel. Relationships are strained all around as the would-be fathers try to mesh their former dreams with this new kind of family life.

It all rings true, from the deeply psychological personal struggles and the ways children mourn, to the question of how to feel and respond to the terrorist act. This issue-packed novel repeatedly moved me.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: All I Love and Know.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Patrick Taylor reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Patrick Taylor, author of An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War: An Irish Country Novel.

The entry begins:

Ten Fighter Boys. Foreward by Jimmy Corbin: First published by Collins in 1942, reissued by Collins 2008

There are sentences from books indelibly etched in my mind from boyhood. “Call me Ishmael,” “I am born.” There is another. I’ll tell you about it later. My father served in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during WWII. When I was a boy he used my bedroom as his library. Two of my favourite books were Spitfire Pilot by David Crook, and Ten Fighter Boys. Reading them I began to appreciate the immense bravery of the young men who fought in the Battle of Britain in the sumer and autumn of 1940. My interest in military history sprang from those works. Ten Fighter Boys was an unedited collection of the stories of ten Spitfire pilots on 66 Squadron stationed at Biggin Hill.

To my intense delight while looking for something to read on a recent flight to England and Ireland in part to visit a naval hospital which...[read on]

About An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War, from the publisher:

Long before Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly became a fixture in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was a young M.B. with plans to marry midwife Dierdre Mawhinney. Those plans were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and the call of duty. Assigned to the HMS Warspite, a formidable 30,000-ton battleship, Surgeon Lieutenant O’Reilly soon found himself face-to-face with the hardships of war, tending to the dreadnought’s crew of 1,200 as well as to the many casualties brought aboard.

Life in Ballybuckebo is a far cry from the strife of war, but over two decades later O’Reilly and his younger colleagues still have plenty of challenges: an outbreak of German measles, the odd tropical disease, a hard-fought pie-baking contest, and a local man whose mule-headed adherence to tradition is standing in the way of his son’s future. Now older and wiser, O’Reilly has prescriptions for whatever ails…until a secret from the past threatens to unravel his own peace of mind.

Shifting deftly between two very different eras, Patrick Taylor’s latest Irish Country novel reveals more about O’Reilly’s tumultuous past, even as Ballybucklebo faces the future in its own singular fashion.

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

My Book, The Movie: An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War.

The Page 69 Test: An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War.

Writers Read: Patrick Taylor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Karen Miller's "The Falcon Throne"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Falcon Throne by Karen Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

NO ONE IS INNOCENT. EVERY CROWN IS TARNISHED.

A royal child, believed dead, sets his eyes on regaining his father's stolen throne.

A bastard lord, uprising against his tyrant cousin, sheds more blood than he bargained for.

A duke's widow, defending her daughter, defies the ambitious lord who'd control them both.

And two brothers, divided by ambition, will learn the true meaning of treachery.

All of this will come to pass, and the only certainty is that nothing will remain as it once was. As royal houses rise and fall, empires are reborn and friends become enemies, it becomes clear that much will be demanded of those who follow the path to power.

Learn more about the author and her work at Karen Miller's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Falcon Throne.

The Page 69 Test: The Falcon Throne.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ryan K. Smith's "Robert Morris's Folly"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder by Ryan K. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1798 Robert Morris—“financier of the American Revolution,” confidant of George Washington, former U.S. senator—plunged from the peaks of wealth and prestige into debtors' prison and public contempt. How could one of the richest men in the United States, one of only two founders who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, suffer such a downfall?

This book examines for the first time the extravagant Philadelphia town house Robert Morris built and its role in bringing about his ruin. Part biography, part architectural history, the book recounts Morris’s wild successes as a merchant, his recklessness as a land speculator, and his unrestrained passion in building his palatial, doomed mansion, once hailed as the most expensive private building in the United States but later known as “Morris’s Folly.” Setting Morris’s tale in the context of the nation’s founding, this volume refocuses attention on an essential yet nearly forgotten American figure while also illuminating the origins of America’s ongoing, ambivalent attitudes toward the superwealthy and their sensational excesses.

Learn more about Robert Morris's Folly at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Robert Morris's Folly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top civil war novels

Prize-winning author Robert Wilton worked in a number of British Government Departments, including a stint as Private Secretary to three successive UK Secretaries of State for Defence.

At the Guardian he named ten top civil war novels, including:

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

The divisions in Britain continued to fester, over the religion and thus the identity of the king. In Scotland, the effects were bitter and lasting, and they inspired two great novelists. Sir Walter Scott pretty much invented historical fiction and, indeed, historical Scotland; his masterstroke was getting the Prince Regent to wear tartan on a visit to Edinburgh, reconciling Hanoverian and Jacobite traditions with a healthy dose of pantomime. But arguably he’s lasted less well than Robert Louis Stevenson, now recognised as a writer of high literary skill and brilliant imagination, as well as a pioneering critic of colonialism. The Samoans, among whom he settled, called him “the teller of tales”, and readers who return to him as adults are still caught up in the engaging pace and clarity of those tales. Set against the lingering Jacobite tensions, and built around real individuals and incidents, Kidnapped is a simple, timeless adventure.

Read about another entry on the list.

Kidnapped also appears among Janis MacKay's top ten books set on the ocean, Joshua Glenn's top 32 adventure novels of the 19th century, Charlie Fletcher's top ten swashbuckling tales of derring-do, M. C. Beaton's five best cozy mysteries and on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best wicked uncles in literature, ten of the best misers in literature, ten of the best shipwrecks, and ten of the best towers in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dave Zeltserman's "The Boy Who Killed Demons," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Killed Demons by Dave Zeltserman.

The entry begins:

The Boy Who Killed Demons has a number of teenage leads, and since I'm not up on teenage actors, I'm going to cop out here and use some adult actors, but when they were teenagers.

Henry Dudlow: Tom Hanks at fifteen

Sally Freeman: Evangeline Lilly at fifteen

Henry's father: Ty Burrell

Henry's mother: Julie...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Dave Zeltserman's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Small Crimes.

The Page 69 Test: Pariah.

The Page 69 Test: Outsourced.

My Book, The Movie: Outsourced.

The Page 69 Test: A Killer's Essence.

My Book, The Movie: A Killer's Essence.

Writers Read: Dave Zeltserman.

The Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Killed Demons.

My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Killed Demons.

--Marshal Zeringue