What is Wallace Stroby reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Wallace Stroby, author of The Devil's Share.

His entry begins:

I’d been meandering back and forth between four different books lately – including two short story collections – without any of them capturing my undivided attention. That ended when I started Gene Kerrigan’s 2011 Dublin-set crime novel The Rage (Europa/World Noir). The novel, Kerrigan’s fourth, follows a just-released ex-con who’s in over his head with an ambitious heist, and a slightly tarnished cop who’s doggedly pursuing a cold case murder. Their trajectories intersect, of course, but...[read on]

About The Devil's Share, from the publisher:

It's been a year since professional thief Crissa Stone last pulled a job, and she's spent that time under the radar, very carefully not drawing attention to herself. That kind of life is safe, but it's boring, and it's lonely, and it's not very lucrative. So when Crissa starts to get antsy--and low on funds--she agrees to act as a thief-for-hire, partnering with a wealthy art collector to steal a truckload of plundered Iraqi artifacts before they're repatriated to their native country. But what's supposed to be a "give-up" robbery with few complications quickly turns deadly. Soon Crissa is on the run again, with both an ex-military hit squad and her own partners-in-crime in pursuit. And what should be the easiest job of her career--robbing a man who wants to be robbed--might just turn out to be the most dangerous.

Learn more about the author and his novels at the official Wallace Stroby website and The Heartbreak Blog.

The Page 69 Test: Gone 'til November.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Shot to the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: Kings of Midnight.

Writers Read: Wallace Stroby.

--Marshal Zeringue

Frankie Y. Bailey's "What the Fly Saw," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: What the Fly Saw by Frankie Y. Bailey.

The entry begins:

I have no one in mind for the role of my protagonist, Hannah McCabe. Even though we have been together for two books (The Red Queen Dies and What the Fly Saw), I have only a general idea of what she looks like. She is tall (around 5’8”), pale brown (biracial, black mother, white father) with brown eyes, curly, somewhat unruly, dark hair with a hint of red (her father had red hair in his youth). She is in excellent physical condition because she’s a cop and works out. But...[read on]

Visit Frankie Y. Bailey's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: What the Fly Saw.

My Book, The Movie: What the Fly Saw.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top YA novels featuring cross-cultural friendships

Sarah Skilton is the author of Bruised, a martial arts drama for young adults; and High and Dry, a hardboiled teen mystery. At the B&N Teen blog she tagged six top YA books featuring cross-cultural friendships, including:

Burning Man, by Elana K. Arnold

Athletic Ben, a recent high school grad who hails from a small, crumbling mining town in Nevada, is one of the few teens in his area planning to attend college. Torn between leaving home on a college scholarship and abandoning everyone he knows, he is further thrown into turmoil when he meets Lala, a Romani girl who works as a fortune teller at the annual Burning Man festival. Lala is devoted to her family and her culture, and has accepted the fact that her parents have arranged her upcoming marriage. When her life collides with Ben’s, however, she begins to wonder whether a different future is hers to claim.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Burning.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Benjamin Johncock's "The Last Pilot"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Last Pilot: A Novel by Benjamin Johncock.

About the book, from the publisher:

"Harrison sat very still. On the screen was the surface of the moon."

Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days cheating death in the skies above the Mojave Desert and his nights at his friend Pancho's bar, often with his wife, Grace. She and Harrison are secretly desperate for a child-and when, against all odds, Grace learns that she is pregnant, the two are overcome with joy.

While America becomes swept up in the fervor of the Space Race, Harrison turns his attention home, passing up the chance to become an astronaut to welcome his daughter, Florence, into the world. Together, he and Grace confront the thrills and challenges of raising a child head-on. Fatherhood is different than flying planes-less controlled, more anxious-however the pleasures of watching Florence grow are incomparable. But when his family is faced with a sudden and inexplicable tragedy, Harrison's instincts as a father and a pilot are put to test. As a pilot, he feels compelled to lead them through it-and as a father, he fears that he has fallen short.

The aftermath will haunt the Harrisons and strain their marriage as Jim struggles under the weight of his decisions. Beginning when the dust of the Second World War has only just begun to settle and rushing onward into the Sixties, Benjamin Johncock traces the path of this young couple as they are uprooted by events much larger than themselves. The turns the Harrisons take together are at once astonishing and recognizable; their journey, both frightening and full of hope. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot is a mesmerizing debut novel of loss and finding courage in the face of it from an extraordinary new talent.

Visit Benjamin Johncock's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Pilot.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Margaret Fortune reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Margaret Fortune, author of Nova.

Her entry begins:

My tastes in reading are quite eclectic and can probably be best described as “whatever happens to catch my fancy.” Fiction, non-fiction, children’s—I’ll read anything that looks interesting. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of genre fiction. When I signed a deal with DAW Books in 2014 for my science fiction series, I decided I wanted to get to know my publishing house better by reading some DAW books. As such, I usually have at least one DAW book on hand these days, among other things.

Right now, I’m in the middle of Seanan McGuire’s Sparrow Hill Road. While I’m only partway through this ghost story, already I’m drawn in by the writing and atmosphere. The prose is truly lovely and used with great effect to build this fascinating twilight world where the living and dead...[read on]

About Nova, from the publisher:

*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

Visit Margaret Fortune's website.

The Page 69 Test: Nova.

Writers Read: Margaret Fortune.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul Moses's "An Unlikely Union"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians by Paul Moses.

About the book, from the publisher:

They came from the poorest parts of Ireland and Italy, and met as rivals on the sidewalks of New York. In the nineteenth century and for long after, the Irish and Italians fought in the Catholic Church, on the waterfront, at construction sites, and in the streets. Then they made peace through romance, marrying each other on a large scale in the years after World War II. An Unlikely Union unfolds the dramatic story of how two of America’s largest ethnic groups learned to love and laugh with each other in the wake of decades of animosity.

The vibrant cast of characters features saints such as Mother Frances X. Cabrini, who stood up to the Irish American archbishop of New York when he tried to send her back to Italy, and sinners like Al Capone, who left his Irish wife home the night he shot it out with Brooklyn’s Irish mob. Also highlighted are the love affair between radical labor organizers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca; Italian American gangster Paul Kelly’s alliance with Tammany’s “Big Tim” Sullivan; hero detective Joseph Petrosino’s struggle to be accepted in the Irish-run NYPD; and Frank Sinatra’s competition with Bing Crosby to be the country’s top male vocalist.

In this engaging history of the Irish and Italians, veteran New York City journalist and professor Paul Moses offers an archetypal American story. At a time of renewed fear of immigrants, it demonstrates that Americans are able to absorb tremendous social change and conflict—and come out the better for it.

Learn more about An Unlikely Union at the NYU Press website.

Writers Read: Paul Moses.

The Page 99 Test: An Unlikely Union.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top wartime love stories

Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is the author of One Night, Markovitch. One of her top ten wartime love stories, as shared at the Guardian:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being takes place, partly, during the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact nations in 1968. Historically, the invasion was not considered “a war”. But for the novel’s protagonists, it was a declaration of war on the freedom to think, to act, to love. Kundera interweaves his characters’ love lives with their reaction to the brutal invasion, and presents a philosophical yet erotic tapestry.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of Olen Steinhauer's six favorite books. Lee Child called The Unbearable Lightness of Being "his private pick for the 20th–century novel that will live the longest." John Mullan includes it among ten of the best visits to the lavatory in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Sara Nickerson & Pico

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Sara Nickerson & Pico.

The author, on how she and Pico were united:

My husband and youngest son were walking back from the park. They passed our local pet store, where an adoption event was taking place – mostly Chihuahuas sent up from California. The sign on Pico’s crate said, “Four year old Chihuahua mix – crate and house trained, good with cats and kids.” And there was just something sweet about him. My husband called me and said, “There’s a nice Chihuahua here.” My husband is more of a Retriever type, but I’d been talking Chihuahuas since we’d met and I guess I wore him down. And for my son it was love at first sight. I walked up to the pet store and sat with Pico for about an hour. Then I signed some papers and walked him home. He’s...[read on]

About Nickerson's new middle grade novel The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me, from the publisher:

Determined to make some extra money, twelve-year-old Missy and her older brother Patrick get summer jobs picking blueberries at a local farm. For Missy, though, blueberry picking quickly becomes about more than just money— it’s the perfect distraction from the fact that her two best friends have gone off to summer camp without her and that her dad is getting remarried. Why can’t everything go back to the way it used to be? Back to normal? But, Missy soon discovers that the summer is full of secrets: the secrets to making her family feel whole again; the secrets to keeping her two best friends from changing and leaving her behind; the secrets of a local farm’s blood feud; and most importantly, the secrets of blueberries.

Author Sara Nickerson infuses warmth and emotion into this relatable story about finding something special within yourself and a place to call your own in even the most tumultuous of times.

Visit Sara Nickerson's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sara Nickerson & Pico.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jane Lindskold's "Artemis Invaded," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Artemis Invaded by Jane Lindskold.

The entry begins:

Several times in the past, I’ve cheerfully participated in the The Page 69 Test and discussed what I’m reading for Writers Read. However, I’ve always dodged the My Book, The Movie.

There’s a reason for this... I don’t know the names of very many actors. If I’ve liked an actor in a role, I fall for the role, not the actor…

So when people say “Who would you like to play…” I can never think of anyone. My characters look like themselves, not like Humphrey Bogart or Audrey Hepburn.

There’s an added complication to playing the casting game. Artemis Invaded, like many of my works, has animal characters. The two primary ones are Sand Shadow the puma and Honeychild the bear. Even with the increased use of CGI...[read on]

Visit Jane Lindskold's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Thirteen Orphans.

The Page 69 Test: Five Odd Honors.

The Page 69 Test: Artemis Awakening.

Writers Read: Jane Lindskold.

The Page 69 Test: Artemis Invaded.

My Book, The Movie: Artemis Invaded.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lee Robinson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lee Robinson, author of Lawyer for the Dog.

Her entry begins:

I’ve just finished two books which dazzled me for different reasons. Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is so vividly rendered, so tactile, as we feel the world through the sensibility of the blind girl at its center. This is a book...[read on]

About Lawyer for the Dog, from the publisher:

One of the sharpest attorneys in Charleston, S.C., Sally Baynard isn't your typical southern belle. She's certainly not what her mother hoped she'd grow up to be, especially since she divorced her husband, Family Court Judge Joe Baynard, and his historic family with their historic wealth and historic houses. Maybe Sally was never going to be a proper society lady, but her success as a public defender and family lawyer have been enough for her. She's represented murderers, burglars, drug dealers and lately has taken on some of the thorniest divorces, all cases closed with her Sally Bright Baynard wit, charm and brains.

Or have they? One case she's never successfully closed is her marriage. And when Judge Joe assigns her to one of his divorce cases by appointing her as the Lawyer for the Dog -- Sherman, a miniature schnauzer-- she's forced into close quarters with him again. Juggling the needs of the dog, the angry owners, her amorous but uncommunicative ex-husband, her aging, Alzheimer's-ridden mother, and the expectations of the court is more than Sally could have imagined. And as rascally Sherman digs his way into Sally's heart, he brings along his charming vet Tony, a man who makes Sally question her views on love and marriage.

Visit Lee Robinson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Lawyer for the Dog.

Writers Read: Lee Robinson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Frankie Y. Bailey's "What the Fly Saw"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: What the Fly Saw by Frankie Y. Bailey.

About the book, from the publisher:

Frankie Bailey introduced readers to an exciting new protagonist in The Red Queen Dies, the first book in the Detective Hannah McCabe mystery series. Now in What the Fly Saw, Hannah and her partner Mike Baxter are back with an even more puzzling case.

Albany, New York, January 2020

The morning after a blizzard that shut down the city, funeral director Kevin Novak is found dead in the basement of his funeral home. The arrow sticking out of his chest came from his own hunting bow.

A loving husband and father and an active member of a local megachurch, Novak has no known enemies. His family and friends say he was depressed because his best friend died suddenly of a heart attack and Novak blamed himself. But what does his guilt have to do with his death? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. The minister of the megachurch and the psychiatrist who provides counseling to church members--do either of them know more than they are saying?

Detective Hannah McCabe and her partner, Mike Baxter, sort through lies and evasions to solve the riddle of Novak's death, while unanswered questions from another high-profile case, and McCabe's own suspicions make for a dynamite crime novel.

Visit Frankie Y. Bailey's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: What the Fly Saw.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top nine unconventional love stories

Laura Barnett is an author and journalist. Her first novel, The Versions of Us, is now out in the UK and will be published in the US in May 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. One of her top nine unconventional love stories, as shared at the Daily Express:

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Like [Anne] Tyler, Elizabeth Strout is interested in ordinary people, living apparently ordinary lives. And, also like Tyler, she manages to uncover all the transient joy and sorrow that such lives contain.

Olive Kitteridge won Strout the Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and was recently turned into a gorgeous HBO mini-series, starring Frances McDormand as Olive, Strout’s cantankerous antihero. Olive’s troubled relationship with her pharmacist husband Henry is the fulcrum around which the book turns, elapsing in a series of loosely connected stories.

It’s not a conventional love story, by any means - not least because the central characters dip in and out of the narrative. But it is a courageous, and wonderfully poignant, examination of a tricky marriage, and the layers of love and resentment and shared experience that underpin it. And there are many other kinds of love, too, to be found among the diverse inhabitants of this small Maine town. Just beautiful.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Monique Laney's "German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: Making Sense of the Nazi Past during the Civil Rights Era by Monique Laney.

About the book, from the publisher:

This thought-provoking study by historian Monique Laney focuses on the U.S. government–assisted integration of German rocket specialists and their families into a small southern community soon after World War II. In 1950, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket experts relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, a town that would celebrate the team, despite their essential role in the recent Nazi war effort, for their contributions to the U.S. Army missile program and later to NASA’s space program. Based on oral histories, provided by members of the African American and Jewish communities, and by the rocketeers’ families, co-workers, friends, and neighbors, Laney’s book demonstrates how the histories of German Nazism and Jim Crow in the American South intertwine in narratives about the past. This is a critical reassessment of a singular time that links the Cold War, the Space Race, and the Civil Rights era while addressing important issues of transnational science and technology, and asking Americans to consider their country’s own history of racism when reflecting on the Nazi past.

Visit Monique Laney's website, and learn more about German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten Emily Dickinson poems

Nuala O'Connor's latest novel is Miss Emily. One of her ten best Emily Dickinson poems, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

"A Bird, came down the Walk"

This is a poem I studied at school at about the age of ten. It is not as cryptic as many of Dickinson’s poems so it’s perfect for younger poetry readers. Dickinson valued the musicality of words and she loved a hymnal beat. The bird’s ‘frightened Beads’ for eyes and its ‘Velvet Head’ are the sort of recognisable, tactile images that children love. As a child who loved words, ‘plashless’ sang to me and gave me an understanding of the power of originality. I distinctly remember reciting this poem to my four sisters while acting out the part of the bird: hopping sidewise, glancing ‘with rapid eyes’ and finally unrolling my feathers to row away. Read this one to your young friends.

Read about another poem on the list.

Emily Dickinson is one of Ruth Padel's top ten women poets.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Morgan reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Morgan, author of The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity.

His entry begins:

At the moment I am reading three deeply suggestive books, classics in their own right: Friedrich Schiller’s Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1950), and Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment (1976). The three work together very well because at the heart of each is a rich appreciation of the nature of play. This is directly relevant for my current book project, whose title is Images at Work: The Material Culture of Enchantment. Schiller argued that human beings are...[read on]

About The Forge of Vision, from the publisher:

Religions teach their adherents how to see and feel at the same time; learning to see is not a disembodied process but one hammered from the forge of human need, social relations, and material practice. David Morgan argues that the history of religions may therefore be studied through the lens of their salient visual themes. The Forge of Vision tells the history of Christianity from the sixteenth century through the present by selecting the visual themes of faith that have profoundly influenced its development. After exploring how distinctive Catholic and Protestant visual cultures emerged in the early modern period, Morgan examines a variety of Christian visual practices, ranging from the imagination, visions of nationhood, the likeness of Jesus, the material life of words, and the role of modern art as a spiritual quest, to the importance of images for education, devotion, worship, and domestic life. An insightful, informed presentation of how Christianity has shaped and continues to shape the modern world, this work is a must-read for scholars and students across fields of religious studies, history, and art history.

Learn more about The Forge of Vision at the University of California Press website.

Writers Read: David Morgan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Margaret Fortune's "Nova"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Nova by Margaret Fortune.

About the book, from the publisher:

*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

Visit Margaret Fortune's website.

The Page 69 Test: Nova.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lee Robinson's "Lawyer for the Dog," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Lawyer for the Dog by Lee Robinson.

The entry begins:

There was a movie playing in my head while I wrote this book. (I go to movies all the time. I’m a movie nut. I’ll watch almost anything. If the movie’s really good, I learn something about dialogue, pacing, scene-setting. If it’s really bad, I learn something about what not to do.) Sally Baynard, the main character and narrator of Lawyer for the Dog, is almost-fifty, single, a smart and spunky lawyer. Sandra Bullock has the right combination of emotional depth, tenderness and toughness for this role. And if not Sandra, Julianne Moore. Sally’s mother, Margaret, is near eighty, a southern-belle-wannabe who’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but she’s still got plenty to teach her daughter. What about Ellen...[read on]

Visit Lee Robinson's website.

My Book, The Movie: Lawyer for the Dog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen top books about the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan

Jesse Goolsby is an Air Force officer and the author of the novel I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them. At The Daily Beast he tagged fifteen great books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including:

GREEN ON BLUE BY ELLIOT ACKERMAN (2015)

Opening:

“Many would call me a dishonest man, but I’ve always kept faith with myself.”

Ackerman’s Green on Blue is a fully realized accomplishment of radical empathy combined with brilliant storytelling. Not since Robert Olen Butler’s A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain have we encountered war literature that convincingly pulls off such an imaginative risk.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.

Writers Read: Elliot Ackerman.

My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Philip T. Hoffman's "Why Did Europe Conquer the World?"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Why Did Europe Conquer the World? by Philip T. Hoffman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe rise to the top, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? Why didn’t these powers establish global dominance? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, distinguished economic historian Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if variables had been at all different, Europe would not have achieved critical military innovations, and another power could have become master of the world.

In vivid detail, Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development and military rivalry. Compared to their counterparts in China, Japan, South Asia, and the Middle East, European leaders—whether chiefs, lords, kings, emperors, or prime ministers—had radically different incentives, which drove them to make war. These incentives, which Hoffman explores using an economic model of political costs and financial resources, resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe’s military sector from the Middle Ages on, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize.

Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe’s historic global supremacy.

Learn more about Why Did Europe Conquer the World? at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Why Did Europe Conquer the World?.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mary Kubica reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mary Kubica, author of Pretty Baby.

Her entry begins:

I’m in the middle of two books right now, which are both quite different. Pam Jenoff’s The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach is the first one, a historical fiction novel about World War II, which releases this July. This is the second novel of Jenoff’s that I’ve read and I’m absolutely enamored with her authentic characters and riveting writing. She has this lush, evocative way of creating beautiful love stories within the ravages of war, juxtaposing the misery and deprivation of wartime Europe with...[read on]

About Pretty Baby, from the publisher:

A chance encounter sparks an unrelenting web of lies in this stunning new psychological thriller from the national bestselling author of The Good Girl, Mary Kubica

She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can't get the girl out of her head…

Heidi Wood has always been a charitable woman: she works for a nonprofit, takes in stray cats. Still, her husband and daughter are horrified when Heidi returns home one day with a young woman named Willow and her four-month-old baby in tow. Disheveled and apparently homeless, this girl could be a criminal—or worse. But despite her family's objections, Heidi invites Willow and the baby to take refuge in their home.

Heidi spends the next few days helping Willow get back on her feet, but as clues into Willow's past begin to surface, Heidi is forced to decide how far she's willing to go to help a stranger. What starts as an act of kindness quickly spirals into a story far more twisted than anyone could have anticipated.

Don't miss this thrilling follow-up to The Good Girl by master of suspense, Mary Kubica.

Visit Mary Kubica's website.

Writers Read: Mary Kubica.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Spencer Quinn's "Scents and Sensibility"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Scents and Sensibility (Book #8 of The Chet and Bernie Mystery Series) by Spencer Quinn.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a mysterious case of illegal cactus smuggling comes to their attention, Chet and his human P.I. companion, Bernie Little, find themselves in a prickly situation in this eighth book in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.

In the latest entry in the immensely popular Chet and Bernie mystery series, Private Investigator Bernie Little and his canine companion Chet return home to encounter some alarming developments. First off, Bernie’s wall safe—normally hidden behind the waterfall picture in the office—is gone, and with it Bernie’s grandfather’s watch, their most valuable possession. And next door, old Mr. Parsons is under investigation for being in possession of a saguaro cactus illegally transplanted from the desert. Bernie and Chet go deep into the desert to investigate. Is it possible that such a lovely old couple have a terrible secret in their past?

Chet and Bernie discover bad things going on in the wilderness, far worse that cactus smuggling, and all connected to a strange but innocent-seeming desert festival called Arrow Bright. They unearth leads that take them back to a long-ago kidnapping that may not have been a kidnapping and threaten a ruthless and charismatic criminal with a cult following, a criminal who sees at once what Chet and Bernie mean to each other and knows how to exploit it.

Every bit as “insightful” (Booklist), “humorous” (Library Journal), and “deliciously addictive” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as Quinn’s previous books, Scents and Sensibility is a drool-worthy mystery that will have readers everywhere begging for more.

Visit Chet the Dog's blog and Facebook page, and Spencer Quinn's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.

Writers Read: Spencer Quinn.

The Page 69 Test: Scents and Sensibility.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top YA thrillers with sisters

At the Guardian, author Laura Jarratt tagged her ten favorite Young Adult thrillers featuring strong relationships between sisters, including:

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Technically this is adult fiction but it’s a good read for teens wanting a tense psychological thriller with a chilling twist. I love Rosamund Lupton’s writing and the relationship between the two sisters is skilfully drawn. The book is written in the form of a letter. Beatrice’s sister Tess has gone missing and everyone but Beatrice thinks she is dead. As Beatrice investigates, she discovers how little she really knew Tess. The ending took me completely by surprise.

Read about another book on the list.

Sister is one of Sophie McKenzie's top ten teen thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bridget Foley's "Hugo & Rose," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley.

The entry begins:

I lived in Hollywood for 13 years.

That means I know first hand that the correct answer to the question, “Who do you want to star in the movie of your book?” is “Whoever the hell gets it made.”

That sounds jaded.

And I guess it is… a little.

But here’s what’s likely to happen if you ask anyone who has had a front row seat to the making of a film if they still believe in the “magic” of movies.

They will tell you that the magic died the day they realized that all filmmaking is a series of devastating compromises, budget considerations and jurassic egos.

Watch enough movies get made and you stop believing in the magic of movies and you start believing in the miracle of movies.

Movies are gargantuan efforts put forth by hundreds of people. Even the tight ships are a mess.

And good movies? Movies like The Godfather or...[read on]

Visit Bridget Foley's website.

My Book, The Movie: Hugo & Rose.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Peter A. Shulman reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Peter A. Shulman, author of Coal and Empire: The Birth of Energy Security in Industrial America.

His entry begins:

As a historian, I'm fortunate that I get to read a lot of books for my research and teaching. Having just finished my first book, I'm starting a new project about the history of ideas about intelligence in America. For that, I'm reading Jamie Cohen-Cole's recent The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature, a fascinating look at the intersection of cognitive science and American culture and politics after World War II. In the academy, in school curricula, and among public intellectuals, the idea of the open mind played a key role in how Americans thought about themselves, the practice of science, and human nature. It's...[read on]

About Coal and Empire, from the publisher:

Since the early twentieth century, Americans have associated oil with national security. From World War I to American involvement in the Middle East, this connection has seemed a self-evident truth. But as Peter A. Shulman argues, Americans had to learn to think about the geopolitics of energy in terms of security, and they did so beginning in the nineteenth century: the age of coal. Coal and Empire insightfully weaves together pivotal moments in the history of science and technology by linking coal and steam to the realms of foreign relations, navy logistics, and American politics. Long before oil, coal allowed Americans to rethink the place of the United States in the world.

Shulman explores how the development of coal-fired, ocean-going steam power in the 1840s created new questions, opportunities, and problems for U.S. foreign relations and naval strategy. The search for coal, for example, helped take Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in the 1850s. It facilitated Abraham Lincoln’s pursuit of black colonization in 1860s Panama. After the Civil War, it led Americans to debate whether a need for coaling stations required the construction of a global island empire. Until 1898, however, Americans preferred to answer the questions posed by coal with new technologies rather than new territories. Afterward, the establishment of America’s island empire created an entirely different demand for coal to secure the country’s new colonial borders, a process that paved the way for how Americans incorporated oil into their strategic thought.

By exploring how the security dimensions of energy were not intrinsically linked to a particular source of power but rather to political choices about America’s role in the world, Shulman ultimately suggests that contemporary global struggles over energy will never disappear, even if oil is someday displaced by alternative sources of power.

Learn more about Coal and Empire at the Johns Hopkins University Press website.

Writers Read: Peter A. Shulman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David McCarthy's "American Artists Against War 1935—2010"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: American Artists against War, 1935-2010 by David McCarthy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beginning with responses to fascism in the 1930s and ending with protests against the Iraq wars, David McCarthy shows how American artists—including Philip Evergood, David Smith, H. C. Westermann, Ed Kienholz, Nancy Spero, Leon Golub, Chris Burden, Robert Arneson, Martha Rosler, and Coco Fusco—have borne witness, registered dissent, and asserted the enduring ability of imagination to uncover truths about individuals and nations. During what has been called the American Century, the United States engaged in frequent combat overseas while developing technologies of unprecedented lethality. Many artists, working collectively or individually, produced antiwar art to protest the use or threat of military violence in the service of an expansionist state. In so doing, they understood themselves to be fighting on behalf of two liberal beliefs: that their country was the guarantor of liberty against empire, and that modern art was a viable means of addressing the most compelling events and issues of the moment. For many artists, creative work was a way to participate in democratic exchange by challenging and clarifying government and media perspectives on armed conflict. Charting a seventy-five-year history of antiwar art and activism, American Artists against War, 1935–2010 lucidly tracks the continuities, preoccupations, and strategies of several generations.

Learn more about American Artists against War, 1935-2010 at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: American Artists against War, 1935-2010.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kim Stanley Robinson’s 10 favorite SF novels

Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels include the landmark Mars trilogy to the award-winning 2312. One of his ten favorite science fiction novels, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Sarah Canary, by Karen Joy Fowler

“Did I already mention a greatest first contact novel? Well, this is the other one, but this time located on Earth. Historical novel, detective novel, science fiction novel: just a plain great novel.”

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Kim Stanley Robinson's ten favorite Mars novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jane Lindskold's "Artemis Invaded"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Artemis Invaded by Jane Lindskold.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Artemis Invaded, Jane Lindskold returns to the world of Artemis, a pleasure planet that was lost for millennia, a place that holds secrets that could give mankind back unimaginable powers.

Stranded archaeologist Griffin is determined to make his way back to his home world with news of the Artemis discovery. He and his gene-modified native companion, the huntress Adara, and her psyche-linked puma Sand Shadow, set out to find another repository of the ancient technology in the hope that somehow Griffin will be able to contact his orbiting ship.

In the midst of this, Adara wrestles with her complex feelings for Griffin-and with the consequences of her and Sand Shadow's new bond with the planet Artemis. Focused on his own goals, Griffin is unaware that his arrival on Artemis has created unexpected consequences for those he is coming to hold dear. Unwittingly, he has left a trail-and Artemis is about to be invaded.

Visit Jane Lindskold's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Thirteen Orphans.

The Page 69 Test: Five Odd Honors.

The Page 69 Test: Artemis Awakening.

Writers Read: Jane Lindskold.

The Page 69 Test: Artemis Invaded.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Mary Norris

Mary Norris is a senior copy editor at The New Yorker magazine and the author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen.

One of four books that changed her, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

Moby-Dick
Herman Melville

Moby-Dick gave me my mantra when I first read it, on moving back to my parents' house after graduating from college: "Oh Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!" The motto did not quite last me through graduate school (the bastards wore me down), but I read the book again on a trip to Nantucket and was again caught up in the suspense. When I'm in the grip of it, I can never remember who wins, Ahab or the whale.

Read about another book on the list.

Moby-Dick appears among Tim Dee's ten best nature books, the Telegraph's fifteen best North American novels of all time, Nicole Hill's top ten best names in literature to give your dog, Horatio Clare's five favorite maritime novels, the Telegraph's ten great meals in literature, Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books, Scott Greenstone's top seven allegorical novels, Paul Wilson's top ten books about disability, Lynn Shepherd's ten top fictional drownings, Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, Penn Jillette's six favorite books, Peter F. Stevens's top ten nautical books, Katharine Quarmby's top ten disability stories, Jonathan Evison's six favorite books, Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best nightmares in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, Susan Cheever's five best books about obsession, Christopher Buckley's best books, Jane Yolen's five most important books, Chris Dodd's best books, Augusten Burroughs' five most important books, Norman Mailer's top ten works of literature, David Wroblewski's five most important books, Russell Banks' five most important books, and Philip Hoare's top ten books about whales.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Paul Moses reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Paul Moses, author of An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians.

His entry begins:

In June, I traveled to southern Italy to see the tiny villages where my two Italian grandparents were born. Carlo Levi’s classic Christ Stopped at Eboli was the perfect book to read. The idea behind the title is that the south of Italy was so marginalized that Christ never got there, having stopped further north in Eboli. Levi gives a vivid picture of the poverty in rural Basilicata in the 1930s, but what comes through even more so is...[read on]

About An Unlikely Union, from the publisher:

They came from the poorest parts of Ireland and Italy, and met as rivals on the sidewalks of New York. In the nineteenth century and for long after, the Irish and Italians fought in the Catholic Church, on the waterfront, at construction sites, and in the streets. Then they made peace through romance, marrying each other on a large scale in the years after World War II. An Unlikely Union unfolds the dramatic story of how two of America’s largest ethnic groups learned to love and laugh with each other in the wake of decades of animosity.

The vibrant cast of characters features saints such as Mother Frances X. Cabrini, who stood up to the Irish American archbishop of New York when he tried to send her back to Italy, and sinners like Al Capone, who left his Irish wife home the night he shot it out with Brooklyn’s Irish mob. Also highlighted are the love affair between radical labor organizers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca; Italian American gangster Paul Kelly’s alliance with Tammany’s “Big Tim” Sullivan; hero detective Joseph Petrosino’s struggle to be accepted in the Irish-run NYPD; and Frank Sinatra’s competition with Bing Crosby to be the country’s top male vocalist.

In this engaging history of the Irish and Italians, veteran New York City journalist and professor Paul Moses offers an archetypal American story. At a time of renewed fear of immigrants, it demonstrates that Americans are able to absorb tremendous social change and conflict—and come out the better for it.

Learn more about An Unlikely Union at the NYU Press website.

Writers Read: Paul Moses.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Olivia Weisser's "Ill Composed"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Ill Composed: Sickness, Gender, and Belief in Early Modern England by Olivia Weisser.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the first in-depth study of how gender determined perceptions and experiences of illness in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, Olivia Weisser invites readers into the lives and imaginations of ordinary men and women. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including personal diaries, medical texts, and devotional literature, the author enters the sickrooms of a diverse sampling of early modern Britons. The resulting stories of sickness reveal how men and women of the era viewed and managed their health both similarly and differently, as well as the ways prevailing religious practices, medical knowledge, writing conventions, and everyday life created and supported those varying perceptions.

A unique cultural history of illness, Weisser’s groundbreaking study bridges the fields of patient history and gender history. Based on the detailed examination of over fifty firsthand accounts, this fascinating volume offers unprecedented insight into what it was like to live, suffer, and inhabit a body more than three centuries ago.

Follow Olivia Weisser on Twitter and learn more about Ill Composed at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Ill Composed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Taylor Stevens's "The Mask," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Mask by Taylor Stevens.

The entry begins:

Vanessa Michael Munroe is a quasi-psychotic, knife-wielding, butt-kicking, mercenary information hunter cut from the same cloth as characters like Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher. She’s tall, lithe, and androgynous and, because she spends most of her time working in developing and despot run countries, she sometimes spends more time under the guise of a male than she does as a female. This makes her a difficult character to cast.

Also at issue is the way Hollywood typically presents female action heroes—not so much as characters or people who own their choices or bodies, but as fantasy objects sewn up in tight, pleasing and teasing outfits, put there for eye candy. A phrase I once heard that accurately summed up this type of character was “Fighting F_ck Toy.” And Vanessa Michael Munroe is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an FFT—unless, of course, you’re...[read on]

Visit Taylor Stevens's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Mask.

--Marshal Zeringue

The twelve best fictional detectives (who aren't Sherlock Holmes)

At io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell tagged the twelve greatest fictional detectives (who aren't Sherlock Holmes), including:

Precious Ramotswe

Founder of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana, Ramotswe may be this list’s only real extrovert. For a while her optimism, energy, and kindness blind the perpetrators, and even the reader, to how well she can work out confusing situations. Her books might be too light for people who expect their detectives to constantly find themselves in the middle of sordid, simmering family feuds or become the target of fiendish and well-connected criminal masterminds, but Ramotswe lacks drama, not brains, courage, or talent.

Read about another entry on the list.

Precious Ramotswe appears among Ellen Wehle's top eight fresh fictional female detectives, Ian Holding's top ten books that teach us something about southern Africa, and Adrian McKinty's ten best lady detectives.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Spencer Quinn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Spencer Quinn, author of Scents and Sensibility.

His entry begins:

I just finished Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough. It's the story of six domestic terrorist groups - which is what we'd call them now - of the 1960's and 1970's. This is a fascinating, dumbfounding, and very well-reported book. It's telling to compare the history of the Weather Underground, led by upper-middle-class whites like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, with that of the other self-proclaimed revolutionary bands, who came from less-privileged backgrounds. Most of the latter ended up...[read on]

About Scents and Sensibility, from the publisher:

When a mysterious case of illegal cactus smuggling comes to their attention, Chet and his human P.I. companion, Bernie Little, find themselves in a prickly situation in this eighth book in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.

In the latest entry in the immensely popular Chet and Bernie mystery series, Private Investigator Bernie Little and his canine companion Chet return home to encounter some alarming developments. First off, Bernie’s wall safe—normally hidden behind the waterfall picture in the office—is gone, and with it Bernie’s grandfather’s watch, their most valuable possession. And next door, old Mr. Parsons is under investigation for being in possession of a saguaro cactus illegally transplanted from the desert. Bernie and Chet go deep into the desert to investigate. Is it possible that such a lovely old couple have a terrible secret in their past?

Chet and Bernie discover bad things going on in the wilderness, far worse that cactus smuggling, and all connected to a strange but innocent-seeming desert festival called Arrow Bright. They unearth leads that take them back to a long-ago kidnapping that may not have been a kidnapping and threaten a ruthless and charismatic criminal with a cult following, a criminal who sees at once what Chet and Bernie mean to each other and knows how to exploit it.

Every bit as “insightful” (Booklist), “humorous” (Library Journal), and “deliciously addictive” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as Quinn’s previous books, Scents and Sensibility is a drool-worthy mystery that will have readers everywhere begging for more.

Visit Chet the Dog's blog and Facebook page, and Spencer Quinn's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Audrey (September 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Peter Abrahams and Pearl (August 2012).

The Page 69 Test: The Dog Who Knew Too Much.

The Page 69 Test: Paw and Order.

Writers Read: Spencer Quinn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Negar Mottahedeh's "#iranelection"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: #iranelection: Hashtag Solidarity and the Transformation of Online Life by Negar Mottahedeh.

About the book, from the publisher:

The protests following Iran's fraudulent 2009 Presidential election took the world by storm. As the Green Revolution gained protestors in the Iranian streets, #iranelection became the first long-trending international hashtag. Texts, images, videos, audio recordings, and links connected protestors on the ground and netizens online, all simultaneously transmitting and living a shared international experience.

#iranelection follows the protest movement, on the ground and online, to investigate how emerging social media platforms developed international solidarity. The 2009 protests in Iran were the first revolts to be catapulted onto the global stage by social media, just as the 1979 Iranian Revolution was agitated by cassette tapes. And as the world turned to social media platforms to understand the events on the ground, social media platforms also adapted and developed to accommodate this global activism. Provocative and eye-opening, #iranelection reveals the new online ecology of social protest and offers a prehistory, of sorts, of the uses of hashtags and trending topics, selfies and avatar activism, and citizen journalism and YouTube mashups.

Learn more about #iranelection at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: #iranelection.

--Marshal Zeringue