Pg. 69: Alafair Burke's "The Ex"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Ex: A Novel by Alafair Burke.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this breakout standalone novel of suspense in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on a Train, a woman agrees to help an old boyfriend who has been framed for murder—but begins to suspect that she is the one being manipulated.

Twenty years ago she ruined his life. Now she has the chance to save it.

Widower Jack Harris has resisted the dating scene ever since the shooting of his wife Molly by a fifteen-year-old boy three years ago. An early morning run along the Hudson River changes that when he spots a woman in last night’s party dress, barefoot, enjoying a champagne picnic alone, reading his favorite novel. Everything about her reminds him of what he used to have with Molly. Eager to help Jack find love again, his best friend posts a message on a popular website after he mentions the encounter. Days later, that same beautiful stranger responds and invites Jack to meet her in person at the waterfront. That’s when Jack’s world falls apart.

Olivia Randall is one of New York City’s best criminal defense lawyers. When she hears that her former fiancé, Jack Harris, has been arrested for a triple homicide—and that one of the victims was connected to his wife’s murder—there is no doubt in her mind as to his innocence. The only question is who would go to such great lengths to frame him—and why?

For Olivia, representing Jack is a way to make up for past regrets, to absolve herself of guilt from a tragic decision, a secret she has held for twenty years. But as the evidence against him mounts, she is forced to confront her doubts. The man she knew could not have done this. But what if she never really knew him?

Learn about Alafair Burke's seven top novels that show the real lives of lawyers.

Visit Alafair Burke's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Connection.

The Page 69 Test: Angel’s Tip.

The Page 69 Test: 212.

The Page 69 Test: All Day and a Night.

The Page 69 Test: The Ex.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Carla Buckley reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Carla Buckley, author of The Good Goodbye.

Her entry begins:

Right now, I’m deeply engrossed in Erik Larson’s Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, the non-fiction account of the sinking of the Lusitania. I’m not one to read history, especially when I know the ending, but after my husband ploughed through it and decided it was so good he had to immediately reread it, I was intrigued. I stole his copy from his nightstand and I haven’t been able to put it down. Larson’s skill lies in his ability to...[read on]

About The Good Goodbye, from the publisher:

For fans of Jodi Picoult comes an enthralling domestic thriller about the lies we tell, and let ourselves believe, in the name of love.

The first thing you should know is that everyone lies. The second thing is that it matters.

How well do we know our children? Natalie Falcone would say she knows her daughter, Arden, very well. Despite the challenges of running a restaurant and raising six-year-old twin boys, she’s not too worried as she sends her daughter off to college—until she gets the call that Arden’s been in a terrible fire, along with her best friend and cousin, Rory. Both girls are critically injured and another student has died. The police suspect arson.

Arden and Rory have always been close, but they have secrets they’ve never shared, secrets that reel all the way back to their childhoods, and which led them to that tragic night. Who set the fire, and why? As the police dig deep into both the present and the past, Natalie realizes that in order to protect her daughter, she’ll first have to find out who Arden really is, even if it means risking everything—and everyone—she loves most.

Visit Carla Buckley's website.

Writers Read: Carla Buckley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about imaginary religions

Michael W. Clune is a professor of English at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of the scholarly books American Literature in the Free Market and Writing Against Time, and the memoirs titled White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin and Gamelife. One of his five favorite books about imaginary religions, as shared at Tor.com:

Neal Asher, Dark Intelligence

There are two basic ways to be against religion. You can think religion is bad because it holds humans back from fulfilling their great potential. Or you can think religion is bad because it shows how humans are bad, petty, deluded creatures, incorrigibly prone to doing very stupid things. Asher is the second kind of anti-religion writer. The utopian side of his Polity universe is ruled by benign A.I.’s. The dark side, explored by this novel, takes place in a demilitarized zone between the AI and human Polity, and a voracious, warmongering empire of giant alien insects known as the Prador. A kind of religion has sprung up among some of the human inhabitants of this zone, focused on worshipping and imitating the Prador. Adherents engage in incredibly costly and debilitating body modification surgery to look more like the beings they imitate, and flock to a world rumored to contain a buried Prador ship. The Prador themselves, meanwhile, absolutely loathe all humans, and delight in killing them. A subplot shows the benevolent AI’s trying to save some of the Prador worshippers from the murderous instincts of their gods. If you’ve always kind of thought that Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was a great sci fi premise, then Asher is the writer for you.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jason Gurley's "Eleanor," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Eleanor: A Novel by Jason Gurley.

The entry begins:

If I were in charge of casting a film adaptation of Eleanor, I’d have to take my cues from the nature of the book itself. The novel plays fast and loose with the concept of time, and I’d dive into that wholeheartedly, and select my cast mostly from years gone by—with a twist.

Eleanor, the novel’s protagonist, is seen at several ages, but predominantly as a teenager. She’s quiet, strong-willed, carrying her entire broken family upon her back. For this part, I’d leap back in time to the late 1970s, shortly after Taxi Driver, and cast Jodie Foster in the role.

Eleanor’s mother, Agnes, is a heartbroken, grieving woman who has forsaken her family to indulge her sadness. She’s drunk, angry, embittered; it all stems from the great losses she’s experienced. For this part, I’d rewind time a little less far, and cast...[read on]

Visit Jason Gurley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Eleanor.

My Book, The Movie: Eleanor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nicholas Searle's "The Good Liar"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Good Liar: A Novel by Nicholas Searle.

About the book, from the publisher:

Spinning a page-turning story of literary suspense that begins in the present and unwinds back more than half a century, this unforgettable debut channels the haunting allure of Atonement as its masterfully woven web of lies, secrets, and betrayals unravels to a shocking conclusion.

Veteran con artist Roy spots an obvious easy mark when he meets Betty, a wealthy widow, online. In no time at all, he’s moved into Betty’s lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty’s grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he’s doing.

As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy’s and Betty’s futures, it also unwinds their pasts. Dancing across almost a century, decades that encompass unthinkable cruelty, extraordinary resilience, and remarkable kindness, The Good Liar is an epic narrative of sin, salvation, and survival—and for Roy and Betty, there is a reckoning to be made when the endgame of Roy’s crooked plot plays out.

Follow Nicholas Searle on Twitter.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Liar.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Melanie Benjamin reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Melanie Benjamin, author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

Her entry begins:

I’m not going to talk about the books I’ve started and not finished; I think I’m like most people today in that there are so many books, so little time. So I may be not as patient a reader as I used to be. But I recently read Lucky Us by Amy Bloom, and thought it was breathtaking. I love reading authors whose writing makes me think, “Boy, am I a hack!” And it’s not false modesty; I love to be blown away by talent, and inspired to work harder myself. Amy Bloom is the kind of author who inspires me in this way. I have recommended Away to so many people and now I will be recommending Lucky Us, as well. From a historical perspective I always learn so much from her books; her research is impeccable. But it’s the characters, of course, that...[read on]

About The Swans of Fifth Avenue, from the publisher:

The New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York’s “Swans” of the 1950s—and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends—the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman—a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.

Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller—even when the stories aren’t his to tell.

Truman’s fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he’ll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America’s most sumptuous eras.

Learn more about the book and author at Melanie Benjamin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Alice I Have Been.

The Page 69 Test: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.

My Book, The Movie: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.

The Page 69 Test: The Aviator's Wife.

The Page 69 Test: The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

Writers Read: Melanie Benjamin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Phaedra Daipha's "Masters of Uncertainty"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Masters of Uncertainty: Weather Forecasters and the Quest for Ground Truth by Phaedra Daipha.

About the book, from the publisher:

Though we commonly make them the butt of our jokes, weather forecasters are in fact exceptionally good at managing uncertainty. They consistently do a better job calibrating their performance than stockbrokers, physicians, or other decision-making experts precisely because they receive feedback on their decisions in near real time. Following forecasters in their quest for truth and accuracy, therefore, holds the key to the analytically elusive process of decision making as it actually happens.

In Masters of Uncertainty, Phaedra Daipha develops a new conceptual framework for the process of decision making, after spending years immersed in the life of a northeastern office of the National Weather Service. Arguing that predicting the weather will always be more craft than science, Daipha shows how forecasters have made a virtue of the unpredictability of the weather. Impressive data infrastructures and powerful computer models are still only a substitute for the real thing outside, and so forecasters also enlist improvisational collage techniques and an omnivorous appetite for information to create a locally meaningful forecast on their computer screens. Intent on capturing decision making in action, Daipha takes the reader through engrossing firsthand accounts of several forecasting episodes (hits and misses) and offers a rare fly-on-the-wall insight into the process and challenges of producing meteorological predictions come rain or come shine. Combining rich detail with lucid argument, Masters of Uncertainty advances a theory of decision making that foregrounds the pragmatic and situated nature of expert cognition and casts into new light how we make decisions in the digital age.

Learn more about Masters of Uncertainty and read an excerpt from the book at The University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Masters of Uncertainty.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about gender identity

Lisa Williamson is the author of The Art of Being Normal.

One of her top ten books about gender identity, as shared at the Guardian:

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

How’s this for a hook? A group of teenage beauty queens find themselves stranded on a desert island following a plane crash. This is the irresistible set up of Bray’s bestselling 2012 novel. Chapter by chapter, we get to know the twelve survivors behind the sashes and perfect white smiles. Gender stereotypes are turned on their head as Bray employs razor sharp satire to explore the unique pressures teenage girls face. With a diverse cast of characters (including a transgender contestant) and some killer one-liners, the results are smart and hilarious.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jennifer Longo's "Up to This Pointe"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo.

About the book, from the publisher:

Harper had a plan. It went south. Hand this utterly unique contemporary YA to anyone a who loves ballet or is a little too wrapped up in their Plan A. (It’s okay to fail, people!)

Harper Scott is a dancer. She and her best friend, Kate, have one goal: becoming professional ballerinas. And Harper won’t let anything—or anyone—get in the way of The Plan, not even the boy she and Kate are both drawn to.

Harper is a Scott. She’s related to Robert Falcon Scott, the explorer who died racing Amundsen and Shackleton to the South Pole. Amundsen won because he had a plan, and Harper has always followed his model. So when Harper’s life takes an unexpected turn, she finagles (read: lies) her way to the icy dark of McMurdo Station . . . in Antarctica. Extreme, but somehow fitting—apparently she has always been in the dark, dancing on ice this whole time. And no one warned her. Not her family, not her best friend, not even the boy who has somehow found a way into her heart. It will take a visit from Shackleton’s ghost–the explorer who didn’t make it to the South Pole, but who got all of his men out alive–to teach Harper that success isn’t always what’s important, sometimes it’s more important to learn how to fail successfully.

Learn more about the book and author at Jennifer Longo's website.

The Page 69 Test: Six Feet Over It.

My Book, The Movie: Six Feet Over It.

The Page 69 Test: Up to This Pointe.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Adrian Magson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Adrian Magson, author of The Locker: A Novel of Suspense.

His entry begins:

I recently caught up with one of my favourite authors – Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park and others and his character Arkady Renko), and read Tatiana, which I’d been meaning to get hold of for a while.

This time the put-upon and world-weary Russian investigator is looking into the apparent suicide of a young reporter, Tatiana Petrovna, and the murder of a billionaire mob leader.

Renko senses there must be a connection, and his persistent digging, in spite of his boss’s seeming scepticism, leads him to Kaliningrad, where another death has taken place.

The cast of characters is, as always, fascinating. Apart from Renko himself, and the various villains...[read on]

About The Locker, from the publisher:

Hello, Nancy.

You’re at your usual locker at Fitness Plus. The time is 09:15.

Your cell phone is dead, your home phone won’t answer and your daughter, Beth, is home with the nanny.

It will take you 18 minutes to get home. If you drive fast.

Shame. You’re already 18 minutes late...

The kidnappers' only stipulation is that Nancy must tell her husband, Michael.

Her only problem is, she doesn’t know where he is. But she recalls him mentioning a number she should call if anything unusual happens. This triggers a Code Red at specialist security company Cruxys Solutions, who send investigators Ruth Gonzales and Andy Vaslik to track him down.

But they can't find a single trace of him.

What do you do when a child’s life depends on finding a man who doesn't seem to exist?

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

The Page 69 Test: Tracers.

The Page 69 Test: Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Locker.

Writers Read: Adrian Magson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter May's 6 best books

Glaswegian by birth, Peter May is a bestselling crime novelist. One of his six best books, as shared at The Daily Express:

11.22.63 by Stephen King

King is a fantastic writer and in this his character travels back in time to try to prevent the assassination of John F Kennedy. The tension builds and builds – I couldn’t put it down.

Read about another book on the list.

11/22/63 is one of Molly Driscoll's top six novels that explore a slightly alternate version of very familiar events.

--Marshal Zeringue

James D. Stein's "L.A. Math," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: L.A. Math: Romance, Crime, and Mathematics in the City of Angels by James D. Stein.

The entry begins:

There are three main characters in the book: Freddy Carmichael, Lisa Carmichael, and Pete Lennox. The narrator of the stories is Freddy, a private investigator recently separated from his wife Lisa, who decides to relocate to Los Angeles. He takes up residence in a guesthouse in Brentwood, which is owned by Pete, who has a surprising ability to apply mathematics to the situations Freddy encounters.

All of the characters are in their late 20s or early 30s. I don't pay as much attention to movies and TV as I used to, so I'm going to describe people who played in TV shows in the past, and ask the reader of this blog (or the director and producer of the movie) to “fill in” contemporary actors who would parallel the ones I suggest.

The easiest is Lisa Kudrow, who could play Lisa Carmichael in the same way that she played...[read on]

Learn more about L.A. Math at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 69 Test: L.A. Math.

Writers Read: James D. Stein.

My Book, The Movie: L.A. Math.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kyle Smith's "Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia: Martyrdom and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity by Kyle Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

It is widely believed that the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity politicized religious allegiances, dividing the Christian Roman Empire from the Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire and leading to the persecution of Christians in Persia. This account, however, is based on Greek ecclesiastical histories and Syriac martyrdom narratives that date to centuries after the fact. In this groundbreaking study, Kyle Smith analyzes diverse Greek, Latin, and Syriac sources to show that there was not a single history of fourth-century Mesopotamia. By examining the conflicting hagiographical and historical evidence, Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia presents an evocative and evolving portrait of the first Christian emperor, uncovering how Syriac Christians manipulated the image of their western Christian counterparts to fashion their own political and religious identities during this century of radical change.

Learn more about Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia at the University of California Press website.

Kyle Smith is Assistant Professor of Historical Studies and Religion at the University of Toronto and the translator of The Martyrdom and History of Blessed Simeon bar Sabba'e.

The Page 99 Test: Constantine and the Captive Christians of Persia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Reed Farrel Coleman's "Where It Hurts"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the critically acclaimed and award-winning author comes a gritty, atmospheric new series about the other side of Long Island, far from the wealth of the Hamptons, where real people live—and die.

Gus Murphy thought he had the world all figured out. A retired Suffolk County cop, Gus had everything a man could want: a great marriage, two kids, a nice house, and the rest of his life ahead of him. But when tragedy strikes, his life is thrown into complete disarray. In the course of a single deadly moment, his family is blown apart and he is transformed from a man who believes he understands everything into a man who understands nothing.

Divorced and working as a courtesy van driver for the run-down hotel in which he has a room, Gus has settled into a mindless, soulless routine that barely keeps his grief at arm’s length. But Gus’s comfortable waking trance comes to an end when ex-con Tommy Delcamino asks him for help. Four months earlier, Tommy’s son T.J.’s battered body was discovered in a wooded lot, yet the Suffolk County PD doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the killers. In desperation, Tommy seeks out the only cop he ever trusted—Gus Murphy.

Gus reluctantly agrees to see what he can uncover. As he begins to sweep away the layers of dust that have collected over the case during the intervening months, Gus finds that Tommy was telling the truth. It seems that everyone involved with the late T.J Delcamino—from his best friend, to a gang enforcer, to a mafia capo, and even the police—has something to hide, and all are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep it hidden. It’s a dangerous favor Gus has taken on as he claws his way back to take a place among the living, while searching through the sewers for a killer.

Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

Writers Read: Reed Farrel Coleman (May 2014).

The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.

The Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Elizabeth LaBan reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Elizabeth LaBan, author of The Restaurant Critic's Wife.

Her entry begins:

Right now I’m reading The Status of All Things by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. For those of you who haven’t read it, it is the story of Kate and what happens the month leading up to her wedding, though, as we know from the beginning, she is living that month for a second time. The first time around, which is where the book begins, Kate’s finance Max breaks up with her at their rehearsal dinner. Heartbroken, she finds her way home from Hawaii where the wedding was supposed to take place and, with the help of Facebook and what I think is a fairy godmother named Ruby (I am only halfway through, I can’t say for sure yet if Ruby really ends up in that role), she is able to go back in time and live that important month again. I am hooked, and actually didn’t begin writing this post until late this morning because...[read on]

About The Restaurant Critic's Wife, from the publisher:

Lila Soto has a master’s degree that’s gathering dust, a work-obsessed husband, two kids, and lots of questions about how exactly she ended up here.

In their new city of Philadelphia, Lila’s husband, Sam, takes his job as a restaurant critic a little too seriously. To protect his professional credibility, he’s determined to remain anonymous. Soon his preoccupation with anonymity takes over their lives as he tries to limit the family’s contact with anyone who might have ties to the foodie world. Meanwhile, Lila craves adult conversation and some relief from the constraints of her homemaker role. With her patience wearing thin, she begins to question everything: her decision to get pregnant again, her break from her career, her marriage—even if leaving her ex-boyfriend was the right thing to do. As Sam becomes more and more fixated on keeping his identity secret, Lila begins to wonder if her own identity has completely disappeared—and what it will take to get it back.

Visit Elizabeth LaBan's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Restaurant Critic's Wife.

Writers Read: Elizabeth LaBan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cover story: "Britannia's Embrace"

Caroline Shaw is Assistant Professor of History at Bates College. Her new book is Britannia's Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief.

Here Shaw explains the connection of the book's cover to the pages within:

In 1812 Benjamin West completed his portrait of John Eardley Wilmot. The portrait was two paintings in one: it depicted its subject, Wilmot, lawyer and former Chief Justice of Common Pleas, in the foreground; in the background was a painting within a painting, a scene of American loyalists, including Native Americans, African slaves, women, and children. The refugees were met with the judicious relief of British magistrates, a process overseen by the allegorical Britannia herself, accompanied by guardian angels and the Virgin Mary. It is this inset painting that appears on the cover of Britannia’s Embrace.

By 1812, when West finished his portrait, the British prided themselves on the welcome they had provided to refugees of all sorts. For the Wilmots, refugee relief was a family vocation. John Eardley Wilmot directed governmental relief efforts in the wake of the American Revolution. His son John Wilmot assisted with loyalist relief and went on to oversee official aid for French Catholic Clergy and Laity at the height of the Revolutionary Terror of the 1790s. British concern for the persecuted trumped divisions of race and of religion.

Few could have anticipated that the British would set aside deep-set confessional prejudices at this moment. Until the late eighteenth century, stridently Protestant Britain saw refugee relief as part of a confessional battle. The Huguenots, Protestants banished from France by Louis XIV, found shelter in Britain and other Protestant countries and introduced the term refugee into the English language around 1685. That the British would admit let alone celebrate the protection of French Catholics represented a fundamental shift. Refuge would no longer be about religion. Now, it centered around ideology and a shared liberal vision that transcended deep political divisions within Britain itself. At the time, Britain stood alone in her openness to foreign refugees. By the dawn of the twentieth century, humanitarians across the globe fought for the relief of refugees of all stripes.

The book examines these transformations in the emergence and universalization of the refugee as a category for humanitarian action. It argues that refuge became a powerful humanitarian norm because it helped Britons define what it meant to be liberal on a global stage. The resources of empire made such humanitarianism possible, providing officials and activists the means for securing shelter for these charitable subjects, often outside the British Isles. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the welcoming hospitality depicted in Benjamin West’s 1812 painting had come to symbolize British liberal humanitarianism. While this memory remains, British preeminence in the realm of refugee relief does not. And yet, although Britons can no longer claim to offer a refuge par excellence, the moral politics of refugee relief, pioneered in the context of the long-nineteenth-century, remain palpable today.

Learn more about Britannia's Embrace at the Oxford University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top clerics in fiction

Joanna Cannon is the author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep. One of her top ten clerics in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Robinson’s Pulitzer prize-winning, epistolary novel is written as the autobiography of Reverend John Ames, who is dying of a heart condition and hopes the words will be a legacy for his seven-year-old son. An exploration of faith and vocation, Ames is perhaps the most sympathetic of all our clerics, and, like all the best characters, he will settle in your mind and refuse to leave. Ames’s quiet wisdom offers a view of religion for the non-religious, but perhaps all our literary clerics could learn from him. There is magic hidden amongst the mundane, and God can truly be found in the most unlikely of places.

Read about another entry on the list.

Gilead is on The Telegraph's list of eight books every dad should read, Allegra Frazier's top five list of diary novels, Michael Arditti's ten best list of fictional clerics, Ayad Akhtar's list of three notable books on faith in the US, Michael Crummey's top ten list of literary feuds and Geraldine Brooks's five most important books list; it is a book Dalia Sofer would like to share with her children.

Also see: Top ten novels about priests; Top ten wicked priests in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Wellington's "The Cyclops Initiative," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative: A Jim Chapel Mission by David Wellington.

The entry begins:

“What would you like to have a director do with your book?” I have a stock answer whenever anybody asks me this question, which is that I don’t know but I’d be excited to see what they came up with. I’m not of the opinion that movies should scrupulously follow a book’s content. Where’s the fun in that? Any movie is going to be an interpretation of the source material, so why not make it an interesting interpretation?

Of course you’re going to run into fans who just want to see their favorite story made into some kind of visual artifact. Which is understandable, I suppose, but it just seems so boring. So if someone were to ask me “Who do you want to play Jim Chapel in the movie?” I think I would have to say: John...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at David Wellington's website.

The Page 69 Test: Chimera.

The Page 69 Test: The Hydra Protocol.

The Page 69 Test: Positive.

My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Katherine Catmull's "The Radiant Road"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Radiant Road by Katherine Catmull.

About the book, from the publisher:

And sometimes the Strange came to visit Clare, and dreams walked through her waking life.

After years of living in America, Clare Macleod and her father are returning to Ireland, where they’ll inhabit the house Clare was born in—a house built into a green hillside with a tree for a wall. For Clare, the house is not only full of memories of her mother, but also of a mysterious boy with raven-dark hair and dreamlike nights filled with stars and magic. Clare soon discovers that the boy is as real as the fairy-making magic, and that they’re both in great danger from an ancient foe.

Fast-paced adventure and spellbinding prose combine to weave a tale of love, loyalty, and the strength we carry within ourselves.

Visit Katherine Catmull's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Radiant Road.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James D. Stein reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James D. Stein, author of L.A. Math: Romance, Crime, and Mathematics in the City of Angels.

His entry begins:

I'd love to find a mystery writer who writes like either Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, or Agatha Christie – with classic mysteries – but the authors I've read recently have way too much gratuitous violence for my taste. When I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I came to the torture scene and skipped it – how does that improve the book? Beats me. The mystery, and the characters, were so good that this wasn't necessary.

I'm currently starting Our Mathematical Universe, by Max Tegmark, who has come up with some incredibly intriguing ideas in cosmology. He had a treatment of parallel universes in Scientific American a few years ago which was...[read on]

About the book, from the publisher:

Move over, Sherlock and Watson—the detective duo to be reckoned with. In the entertaining short-story collection L.A. Math, freelance investigator Freddy Carmichael and his sidekick, Pete Lennox, show how math smarts can crack even the most perplexing cases. Freddy meets colorful personalities throughout Los Angeles and encounters mysterious circumstances from embezzlement and robbery to murder. In each story, Freddy’s deductive instincts—and Pete's trusty math skills—solve the crime.

Featuring such glamorous locales as Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Malibu, and Santa Barbara, the fourteen short stories in L.A. Math take Freddy and Pete through various puzzles and challenges. In "A Change of Scene," Freddy has to figure out who is selling corporate secrets to a competitor—so he uses mathematical logic to uncover the culprit. In "The Winning Streak," conditional probability turns the tables on an unscrupulous bookie. And in "Message from a Corpse," the murderer of a wealthy widow is revealed through the rules of compound interest. It’s everything you expect from the City of Angels—A-listers and wannabes, lovers and lawyers, heroes and villains. Readers will not only be entertained, but also gain practical mathematics knowledge, ranging from percentages and probability to set theory, statistics, and the mathematics of elections. For those who want to delve into mathematical subjects further, the book includes a supplementary section with more material.

Filled with intriguing stories, L.A. Math is a treat for lovers of romance, crime, or mathematics.

Learn more about L.A. Math at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 69 Test: L.A. Math.

Writers Read: James D. Stein.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rebecca Mitchell's "Nietzsche’s Orphans"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Nietzsche's Orphans: Music, Metaphysics, and the Twilight of the Russian Empire by Rebecca Mitchell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A prevailing belief among Russia’s cultural elite in the early twentieth century was that the music of composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Nikolai Medtner could forge a shared identity for the Russian people across social and economic divides. In this illuminating study of competing artistic and ideological visions at the close of Russia’s “Silver Age,” author Rebecca Mitchell interweaves cultural history, music, and philosophy to explore how “Nietzsche’s orphans” strove to find in music a means to overcome the disunity of modern life in the final tumultuous years before World War I and the Communist Revolution.

Learn more about Nietzsche's Orphans at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Nietzsche's Orphans.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top YA novels for "Sherlock" fans

At the B & N Teen Blog, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick tagged five top YA novels for fans of Sherlock (starring Benedict Cumberbatch), including:

A Study in Charlotte, by Brittany Cavallaro

If you think Sherlock Holmes is moody and a bit volatile, just wait until you meet his great-great granddaughter. The Holmes and the Watsons are no longer on the closest terms, so Jamie Watson isn’t surprised he hasn’t met the youngest relative of his great-great grandfather’s famous partner. And when the two end up at the same Connecticut boarding school, Charlotte hardly seems interested in befriending Jamie. She also appears to have inherited some of her famous family’s characteristics: the cold logic, the bad temper, even the drug habit. After a boy with a violent history with Charlotte is murdered, however, the two find themselves framed for the crime. Looks like a new generation of Watson and Holmes will have to team up to solve the case.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith's Vampire Empire series, the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: the Vampire Empire series by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith.

The entry begins:

Our readers have debated a lot over who should play the characters in a Vampire Empire movie from the time the original trilogy was published. There are some perfect actors who are too old, or would be by the time a film project got off the ground. But here are suggestions for actors if the movie was going in front of the camera today. Some of these characters don’t actually appear in the newest book The Geomancer, but this is a cast for the series as a whole.

Greyfriar/Gareth: Tom Mison

Adele: Freida Pinto

General Anhalt: Oded Fehr

Mamoru: Ken Watanabe

Simon: Asa...[read on]

About The Geomancer, from the publisher:

The first Gareth and Adele Novel, The Geomancer is the start of an ongoing, character-based, urban fantasy series set in the same Vampire Empire universe as the authors’ previous trilogy!

The uneasy stalemate between vampires and humans is over. Adele and Gareth are bringing order to a free Britain, but bloody murders in London raise the specter that Adele’s geomancy is failing and the vampires might return. A new power could tilt the balance back to the vampire clans. A deranged human called the Witchfinder has surfaced on the Continent, serving new vampire lords. This geomancer has found a way to make vampires immune to geomancy and intends to give his masters the ability to kill humans on a massive scale.

The apocalyptic event in Edinburgh weakened Adele’s geomantic abilities. If the Witchfinder can use geomancy against humanity, she may not have the power to stop him. If she can’t, there is nowhere beyond his reach and no one he cannot kill.

From a Britain struggling to rebuild to the vampire capital of Paris, from the heart of the Equatorian Empire to a vampire monastery in far-away Tibet, old friends and past enemies return. Unexpected allies and terrible new villains arise. Adele and Gareth fight side-by-side as always, but they can never be the same if they hope to survive.

Learn more about the book and authors at Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Geomancer.

Writer's Read: Susan Griffith.

Writer's Read: Clay Griffith.

My Book, The Movie: the Vampire Empire series.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Melanie Benjamin's "The Swans of Fifth Avenue"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York’s “Swans” of the 1950s—and the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.

Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friends—the alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate woman—a woman desperately longing for true love and connection.

Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entrée into the enviable lives of Manhattan’s elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe’s powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls “True Heart,” Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storyteller—even when the stories aren’t his to tell.

Truman’s fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he’ll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America’s most sumptuous eras.

Learn more about the book and author at Melanie Benjamin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Alice I Have Been.

The Page 69 Test: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.

My Book, The Movie: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.

The Page 69 Test: The Aviator's Wife.

The Page 69 Test: The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Bruce E. Baker reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Bruce E. Baker, co-author, with Barbara Hahn, of The Cotton Kings: Capitalism and Corruption in Turn-of-the-Century New York and New Orleans.

Baker's entry begins:

I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that one of the things I am reading is about cotton: Sven Beckert’s prize-winning book Empire of Cotton. Barbara Hahn and I knew this book was on the way while we were writing The Cotton Kings, and we had read Beckert’s earlier articles, but as often happens, especially in academic publishing, his book came out after our manuscript had gone in to the publisher.

What we were doing was looking at one small but significant part of the story of cotton in a very narrow period of time at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, about twenty-five years, and trying to explain a particular thing about how the cotton trade worked. Beckert’s book is sort of the opposite. It takes the story of cotton from all over the world, starting literally thousands of years ago, and follows it to the present. More importantly, he uses that story to explain the development of capitalism in the West and also to provide a new interpretation of...[read on]

About The Cotton Kings, from the publisher:

The Cotton Kings relates a rip-roaring drama of competition in the marketplace and reveals the damage markets can cause when they do not work properly. It also explains how they can be fixed through careful regulation. At the turn of the twentieth century, cotton was still the major agricultural product of the American South and an important commodity for world industry. Key to marketing cotton were futures contracts, traded at exchanges in New York and New Orleans. Futures contracts had the potential to hedge risk and reduce price volatility, but only if the markets in which they were traded worked properly. Increasing corruption on the powerful New York Cotton Exchange pushed prices steadily downwards in the 1890s, impoverishing millions of cotton farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture tried to solve the problem with better crop predictions and market information, shared equally and simultaneously with all participants, but these efforts failed.

To fight the cotton market's corruption, cotton brokers in New Orleans, led by William P. Brown and Frank Hayne, began quietly to assemble resources. They triumphed in the summer of 1903, when they cornered the world market in cotton and raised its price to reflect the reality of increasing demand and struggling supply. The brokers' success pushed up the price of cotton for the next ten years. However, the structural problems of self-regulation by market participants still threatened the cotton trade. More corruption at the New York Cotton Exchange appeared, until eventually political pressure inspired the Cotton Futures Act of 1914, the federal government's first successful regulation of a financial derivative.

Learn more about The Cotton Kings at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Cotton Kings.

My Book, The Movie: The Cotton Kings.

Writers Read: Bruce E. Baker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Helen Dunmore's 6 best books

Helen Dunmore's books include the Orange prize-winning novel The Siege and the new novel, Exposure. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen

I’ve often taken this with me when I’ve travelled alone because it’s so re-readable and packed with wit. In a dismal airport lounge, it casts its spell immediately. You’re always seeing some new facet of character and Elizabeth Bennet has an appealing effervescence.

Read about another book on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on Jenny Kawecki's list of eight fictional characters who would make the best travel companions, Peter James's top ten list of works of fiction set in or around Brighton, Ellen McCarthy's list of six favorite books about weddings and marriage, the Telegraph's list of the ten greatest put-downs in literature, Rebecca Jane Stokes' list of ten fictional families you might enjoy more than the one you'll actually spend the holidays with, Melissa Albert's lists of five fictional characters who deserved better, [fifteen of the] romantic leads (and wannabes) of Austen’s brilliant books and recommended reading for eight villains, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance, Emma Donoghue's list of five favorite unconventional fictional families, Amelia Schonbek's list of five approachable must-read classics, Jane Stokes's top ten list of the hottest men in required reading, Gwyneth Rees's top ten list of books about siblings, the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Paula Byrne's list of the ten best Jane Austen characters, Robert McCrum's list of the top ten opening lines of novels in the English language, a top ten list of literary lessons in love, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Cathy Cassidy's top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best housekeepers in fiction, ten great novels with terrible original titles, and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alexandra Shepard's "Accounting for Oneself"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England by Alexandra Shepard.

About the book, from the publisher:

Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England is a major new study of the social order in early modern England, as viewed and articulated from the bottom up. Engaging with how people from across the social spectrum placed themselves within the social order, it pieces together the language of self-description deployed by over 13,500 witnesses in English courts when answering questions designed to assess their creditworthiness. Spanning the period between 1550 and 1728, and with a broad geographical coverage, this study explores how men and women accounted for their 'worth' and described what they did for a living at differing points in the life-cycle. A corrective to top-down, male-centric accounts of the social order penned by elite observers, the perspective from below testifies to an intricate hierarchy based on sophisticated forms of social reckoning that were articulated throughout the social scale. A culture of appraisal was central to the competitive processes whereby people judged their own and others' social positions. For the majority it was not land that was the yardstick of status but moveable property-the goods and chattels in people's possession ranging from livestock to linens, tools to trading goods, tables to tubs, clothes to cushions. Such items were repositories of wealth and the security for the credit on which the bulk of early modern exchange depended.

Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England also sheds new light on women's relationship to property, on gendered divisions of labour, and on early modern understandings of work which were linked as much to having as to getting a living. The view from below was not unchanging, but bears witness to the profound impact of widening social inequality that opened up a chasm between the middle ranks and the labouring poor between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. As a result, not only was the social hierarchy distorted beyond recognition, from the later-seventeenth century there was also a gradual yet fundamental reworking of the criteria informing the calculus of esteem.

Learn more about Accounting for Oneself at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Accounting for Oneself.

--Marshal Zeringue

Martine Bailey's "A Taste for Nightshade," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: A Taste for Nightshade by Martine Bailey.

The entry begins:

In my dream version I’d like to resurrect Alfred Hitchcock to direct my novel. I'm picturing the atmospheric sets he used for Rebecca and the way Hitch used food to drive his plots . I’ll never forget the illuminated glass of poisoned milk in Suspicion, or Marion Crane picking over her last sandwich in Psycho.

My flame-haired confidence trickster Mary is a talented cook, impersonator, and born survivor. I’d give her role to Myanna Buring, Edna in Downton Abbey and star of Banished and Ripper Street. Mary’s timid mistress is...[read on]

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

My Book, The Movie: An Appetite for Violets.

The Page 69 Test: An Appetite for Violets.

My Book, The Movie: A Taste for Nightshade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Abby Geni's "The Lightkeepers"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Lightkeepers: A Novel by Abby Geni.

About the book, from the publisher:

In The Lightkeepers, we follow Miranda, a nature photographer who travels to the Farallon Islands, an exotic and dangerous archipelago off the coast of California, for a one-year residency capturing the landscape. Her only companions are the scientists studying there, odd and quirky refugees from the mainland living in rustic conditions; they document the fish populations around the island, the bold trio of sharks called the Sisters that hunt the surrounding waters, and the overwhelming bird population who, at times, create the need to wear hard hats as protection from their attacks.

Shortly after her arrival, Miranda is assaulted by one of the inhabitants of the islands. A few days later, her assailant is found dead, perhaps the result of an accident. As the novel unfolds, Miranda gives witness to the natural wonders of this special place as she grapples with what has happened to her and deepens her connection (and her suspicions) to her companions, while falling under the thrall of the legends of the place nicknamed “the Islands of the Dead.” And when more violence occurs, each member of this strange community falls under suspicion.

The Lightkeepers upends the traditional structure of a mystery novel — an isolated environment, a limited group of characters who might not be trustworthy, a death that may or may not have been accidental, a balance of discovery and action — while also exploring wider themes of the natural world, the power of loss, and the nature of recovery. It is a luminous debut novel from a talented and provocative new writer.

Visit Abby Geni's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Lightkeepers.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Robin Epstein reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Robin Epstein, author of HEAR.

Her entry begins:

I’m currently reading Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica. Gaitskill’s new novel, The Mare, was published in November and I’d been embarrassed that I hadn’t read anything of hers before. I’m halfway through Veronica at this point and I’m stunned by the Gaitskill’s virtuosity. She seamlessly weaves story threads from various periods of the main character’s life paragraph by paragraph, and we voyeuristically follow our heroine through her youth and beauty, age and illness, restlessness and...[read on]

About HEAR, from the publisher:

Kassandra Black used to get away with things. She was her high school’s anonymous vigilante, exposing bullies and predators. But when she’s expelled for breaking into another student’s car just weeks before graduation, her acceptance to Columbia is revoked.

Now her future depends on behaving herself for the summer at Henley University under the watchful eye of her great-uncle Brian. If she successfully assists him in his HEAR program (Henley Engineering Anomalies Research), and if he puts in a good word for her, she can at least go to college somewhere.

As Kass gets to know the four other HEAR students, she realizes that she overlooked the “Anomalies” part of their acronym. They’ve all been recruited to help Brian run experiments that gauge Extrasensory Perception—including, to her astonishment, Kass herself. But Kass would know if she were psychic; right?

Visit Robin Epstein's website.

The Page 69 Test: HEAR.

My Book, The Movie: HEAR.

Writers Read: Robin Epstein.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best squirrels in literature

Elizabeth McKenzie's new novel is The Portable Veblen.

One of the author's ten top squirrels in literature, as shared at the Guardian:

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

As Professor Pnin bumbles about Waindell College, he is often shadowed by a squirrel, which, scholars agree, seems to serve as either psychic doppelganger or phantom of Pnin’s first love, murdered at Buchenwald, Mira Belochkin (whose name is close to the Russian for squirrel).

Read about another entry on the list.

Pnin is among W.B. Gooderham's ten favorite examples of book-giving in fiction and Matthew Kaminski's five best novels about immigrants in America, and Nabokov is on Ben Frederick's list of ten influential authors who came to the US as immigrants.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Lawrence M. Schoen & Gej

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Lawrence M. Schoen & Gej.

The author, on how he and Gej were united:

I went to a puppy rescue to check out the dogs they had. I was sitting with one pup, and he looked up at me with an expression that said, “You, you are the most important thing in the universe.” It was really striking. Then a butterfly went by, and the pup tracked its movement, all the while with an expression that seemed to cry out to the butterfly, “You, you are the most important thing in the universe.” Uh huh. I picked up a pebble and rolled it past his field of vision, and wouldn’t you know it? That pebble was also…

So I left that dog behind and went to look at some others. There was one, a tiny puppy that the older dogs had been picking on; he had...[read on]

About Schoen's new novel Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, from the publisher:

The Sixth Sense meets Planet of the Apes in a moving science fiction novel set so far in the future, humanity is gone and forgotten in Lawrence M. Schoen's Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

An historian who speaks with the dead is ensnared by the past. A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them are truths that will shake worlds.

In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity's genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.

To break the Fant's control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. Meanwhile, his dead friend's son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future.

Visit Lawrence M. Schoen's website and Twitter perch. 

Writers Read: Lawrence M. Schoen.

Coffee with a Canine: Lawrence M. Schoen & Gej.

--Marshal Zeringue