Pg. 69: Brian Doyle's "Chicago"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Chicago: A Novel by Brian Doyle.

About the book, from the publisher:

On the last day of summer, some years ago, a young college graduate moves to Chicago and rents a small apartment on the north side of the city, by the vast and muscular lake. This is the story of the five seasons he lives there, during which he meets gangsters, gamblers, policemen, a brave and garrulous bus driver, a cricket player, a librettist, his first girlfriend, a shy apartment manager, and many other riveting souls, not to mention a wise and personable dog of indeterminate breed.

A love letter to Chicago, the Great American City, and a wry account of a young man's coming-of-age during the one summer in White Sox history when they had the best outfield in baseball, Brian Doyle's Chicago is a novel that will plunge you into a city you will never forget, and may well wish to visit for the rest of your days.

My Book, The Movie: Doyle's Bin Laden’s Bald Spot.

The Page 69 Test: Mink River.

My Book, The Movie: The Plover.

The Page 69 Test: Chicago.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Glen Weldon's "The Caped Crusade"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon.

About The Caped Crusade, from the publisher:

A witty, intelligent cultural history from NPR book critic Glen Weldon explains Batman’s rises and falls throughout the ages—and what his story tells us about ourselves.

Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he’s a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him. How we perceive Batman’s character, whether he’s delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double-entendres with partner Robin on the comics page, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It’s this endlessly mutable quality that has made him so enduring.

And it’s Batman’s fundamental nerdiness—his gadgets, his obsession, his oath, even his lack of superpowers—that uniquely resonates with his fans who feel a fiercely protective love for the character. Today, fueled by the internet, that breed of passion for elements of popular culture is everywhere. Which is what makes Batman the perfect lens through which to understand geek culture, its current popularity, and social significance.

In The Caped Crusade, with humor and insight, Glen Weldon, book critic for NPR and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, lays out Batman’s seventy-eight-year cultural history and shows how he has helped make us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong.

Learn more about the book and author at Glen Weldon's website and follow him on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.

Writers Read: Glen Weldon.

The Page 99 Test: The Caped Crusade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books on 1960s America

Stuart Cosgrove is the author of Detroit 67: the Year that Changed Soul. One of his top ten books on 1960s America, as shared at the Guardian:

Dispatches by Michael Herr

John le Carré described Dispatches as “the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time”. Although written in the 1970s, it flashes back to the height of the Vietnam war in the late 1960s, crafting characters that in turn influenced Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. It is war reportage, battlefield drama and intense tragedy and remains one of the great war books even today.

Read about another book on the list.

Dispatches appears on Andrew Sharples's top ten list of war memoirs, George Saunders' six favorite books list, Lawrence F. Kaplan's list of five books on American intervention abroad, Gail Caldwell's five best list of memoirs, and Judith Paterson's list of the 10 best books of social concern by journalists.

--Marshal Zeringue

J.T. Ellison's "No One Knows," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: No One Knows by J.T. Ellison.

The entry begins:

No One Knows has already had some interest, so I hope this isn’t a purely hypothetical exercise. This one was very hard, because I haven’t had anyone in mind for any of these roles outside of Chloë Grace Moretz, who has always been Aubrey Hamilton to me. That innocent face hides so much! I can absolutely envision her in this role as the young widow who’s lost her entire world and is trying to put herself back together again.

Finn Wittrock, who was in Unbroken, could totally pull off...[read on]

Visit J.T. Ellison's website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James Gunn's "Transgalactic"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Transgalactic by James Gunn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Transgalactic: the latest novel in Hugo Award Winner James Gunn's SF Grandmaster Career!

When Riley and Asha finally reached the planet Terminal and found the Transcendental Machine, a matter transmission device built by an ancient race, they chose to be "translated." Now in possession of intellectual and physical powers that set them above human limitations, the machine has transported them to two, separate, unknown planets among a possibility of billions.

Riley and Asha know that together they can change the galaxy, so they attempt to do the impossible--find each other.

Learn more about Transgalactic at the publisher's website.

The Page 69 Test: Transgalactic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: D. Peter MacLeod's "Northern Armageddon"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution by D. Peter MacLeod.

About the book, from the publisher:

A huge, ambitious re-creation of the eighteenth-century Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the pivotal battle in the Seven Years’ War (1754–1763) to win control of the trans-Appalachian region of North America, a battle consisting of the British and American colonists on one side and the French and the Iroquois Confederacy on the other, and leading directly to the colonial War of Independence and the creation of Canada.

It took five years of warfare fought on three continents—Europe, Asia, and North America—to bring the forces arrayed against one another—Britain, Prussia, and Hanover against France, Austria, Sweden, Saxony, Russia, and Spain (Churchill called it “the first world war”)—to the plateau outside Quebec City, on September 13, 1759, on fields owned a century before by a fisherman named Abraham Martin . . . It was the final battle of a three-month siege by the British Army and Navy of Quebec, the walled city that controlled access to the St. Lawrence River and the continent’s entire network of waterways; a battle with the British utilizing 15,000 soldiers, employing 186 ships, with hundreds of colonists aboard British warships and transports from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with France sending in a mere 400 reinforcements in addition to its 3,500 soldiers.

The battle on the Plains of Abraham lasted twenty minutes, and at its finish the course of a continent was changed forever . . . New military tactics were used for the first time against standard European formations . . . Generals Wolfe and Montcalm each died of gunshot wounds . . . France surrendered Quebec to the British, setting the course for the future of Canada, paving the way for the signing of the Treaty of Paris that gave the British control of North America east of the Mississippi, and forcing France to relinquish its claims on New Orleans and to give the lands west of the Mississippi to Spain for surrendering Florida to the British.

After the decisive battle, Britain’s maritime and colonial supremacy was assured, its hold on the thirteen American colonies tightened. The American participation in ousting the French as a North American power spurred the confidence of the people of New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, who began to agitate for independence from Great Britain. Sixteen years later, France, still bitter over the loss of most of its colonial empire, intervened on behalf of the patriots in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

In Northern Armageddon, Peter MacLeod, using original research—diaries, journals, letters, and firsthand accounts—and bringing to bear all of his extensive knowledge and grasp of warfare and colonial North American history, tells the epic story on a human scale. He writes of the British at Quebec through the eyes of a master’s mate on one of the ships embroiled in the battle. And from the French perspective, as the British bombarded Quebec, of four residents of the city—a priest, a clerk, a nun, and a notary—caught in the crossfire.

MacLeod gives us as well the large-scale ramifications of this clash of armies, not only on the shape of North America, but on the history of Europe itself.

Learn more about Northern Armageddon at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: Northern Armageddon.

The Page 99 Test: Northern Armageddon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best adventure novels

Ian McGuire's new novel is The North Water.

One of the author's ten top adventure novels, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is a hero of mine. Most of his novels are broadly picaresque–the characters travel through a landscape (always described with extraordinary vividness and originality) and have a series of typically violent or frightening encounters with other people. The Road certainly fits that pattern. It’s a grim post-apocalyptic adventure story complete with cannibals and babies on spits. The home is destroyed and the mother is dead well before the novel begins, but there is a definite glimmer of hope at the end when the dying father entrusts his son to a new family.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Road appears on Alastair Bruce's top ten list of books about forgetting, Jeff Somers's list of eight good, bad, and weird dad/child pairs in science fiction and fantasy, Amelia Gray's ten best dark books list, Weston Williams's top fifteen list of books with memorable dads, ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels, Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James Anderson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James Anderson, author of The Never-Open Desert Diner.

His entry begins:

I am constantly reading and my choices are varied, not only authors, but fiction and nonfiction, poetry, sciences. Recently I was pleased to read that Andre Dubus, a truly fine writer, begins his writing sessions by reading poetry. The depth of an image and a truly original metaphor, along with syntactical invention and attention to rhythm (musicality) of language is something I appreciate and informs my prose.

Recently I read Tijuana Book of the Dead, poems by Luis Alberto Urrea, who is a triple threat in that he writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry equally well. In this new collection of poems the conversational can suddenly bloom into a lyrical rose where even plain language, everyday speech, is marshaled into service of a metaphor. Urrea leads the reader into dangerous human territory with humor and...[read on]

About The Never-Open Desert Diner, from the publisher:

A singularly compelling debut novel, about a desert where people go to escape their past, and a truck driver who finds himself at risk when he falls in love with a mysterious woman.

Ben Jones lives a quiet, hardscrabble life, working as a trucker on Route 117, a little-travelled road in a remote region of the Utah desert which serves as a haven for fugitives and others looking to hide from the world. For many of the desert’s inhabitants, Ben’s visits are their only contact with the outside world, and the only landmark worth noting is a once-famous roadside diner that hasn’t opened in years.

Ben’s routine is turned upside down when he stumbles across a beautiful woman named Claire playing a cello in an abandoned housing development. He can tell that she’s fleeing something in her past—a dark secret that pushed her to the end of the earth—but despite his better judgment he is inexorably drawn to her.

As Ben and Claire fall in love, specters from her past begin to resurface, with serious and life-threatening consequences not only for them both, but for others who have made this desert their sanctuary. Dangerous men come looking for her, and as they turn Route 117 upside down in their search, the long-buried secrets of those who’ve laid claim to this desert come to light, bringing Ben and the other locals into deadly conflict with Claire’s pursuers. Ultimately, the answers they all seek are connected to the desert’s greatest mystery—what really happened all those years ago at the never-open desert diner?

In this unforgettable story of love and loss, Ben learns the enduring truth that some violent crimes renew themselves across generations. At turns funny, heartbreaking and thrilling, The Never-Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.

Visit James Anderson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Never-Open Desert Diner.

Writers Read: James Anderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tessa Arlen's "Death Sits Down to Dinner"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Death Sits Down to Dinner: A Mystery by Tessa Arlen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Filled with deceptions both real and imagined, Death Sits Down to Dinner is a delightful Edwardian mystery set in London.

Lady Montfort is thrilled to receive an invitation to a dinner party hosted by her close friend Hermione Kingsley, the patroness of England's largest charity. Hermione has pulled together a select gathering to celebrate Winston Churchill's 39th birthday. Some of the oldest families in the country have gathered to toast the dangerously ambitious and utterly charming First Lord of the Admiralty. But when the dinner ends, one of the gentlemen remains seated at the table, head down among the walnut shells littering the cloth and a knife between his ribs.

Summoned from Iyntwood, Mrs. Jackson helps her mistress trace the steps of suspects both upstairs and downstairs as Hermione's household prepares to host a highly anticipated charity event. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson unravel the web of secrecy surrounding the bright whirlwind of London society, investigating the rich, well-connected and seeming do-gooders in a race against time to stop the murderer from striking again.

Visit Tessa Arlen's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Tessa Arlen & Daphne.

The Page 69 Test: Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman.

My Book, The Movie: Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman.

The Page 69 Test: Death Sits Down to Dinner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Iain Overton's "The Way of the Gun"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of Firearms by Iain Overton.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this compelling and revelatory book, an investigative journalist explores the lifecycle of the gun—following those who make firearms, sell them, use them, and die by them—with a special emphasis on the United States, to make sense of our complex relationship with these weapons.

We live in the Age of the Gun. Around the globe, firearms are ubiquitous and define countless lives; in some places, it’s even easier to get a gun than a glass of clean water. In others, it’s legal to carry concealed firearms into bars and schools. In The Way of the Gun, Iain Overton embarks on a remarkable journey to understand how these weapons have become an integral part of twenty-first century life, beyond the economics of supply and demand.

Overton travels through more than twenty-five countries around the world and meets with ER doctors dealing with gun trauma, SWAT team leaders, gang members, and weapons smugglers. From visiting the most dangerous city in the world outside a war zone to the largest gun show on earth, his journey crosses paths with safari hunters and gun-makers, paralyzed victims and smooth-talking lobbyists. Weaving together their stories, Overton offers a portrait of distinct yet deeply connected cultures affected by the gun and from them draws out powerful insights into our weaponized world. Ultimately, he unearths some hard truths about the terrible realities of war and gun crime, and what can be done to stop it.

Eloquent and accessible, infused with compassion and humor, The Way of the Gun is a riveting expose about guns and human beings that offers an eye-opening portrait of our time.

Learn more about The Way of the Gun at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Way of the Gun.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books featuring marriages with dark secrets

Fiona Barton, author of The Widow, tagged her ten favorite books centering on marriages that hold dark secrets, at the B&N Reads blog:

Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow

I remember reading this legal thriller about an unfaithful husband accused of murdering his former mistress back in the late 1980s and literally gasping at the twist. I was reading it so fast, dragged headlong by the plot, wrongfooted by the red herrings and the unreliable characters, that I almost missed it the first time. When my brain caught up seconds later, I flipped back a page and reread it. I could not believe what Turow had done. It was brilliant then and still is now.

Read about another entry on the list.

Presumed Innocent is among Alafair Burke's favorite "Lawyers are People Too" books. Sandy Stern in Presumed Innocent is one of Simon Lelic's top ten lawyers in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kristi Abbott's "Kernel of Truth," the movie

Featured at My Book, the Movie: Kernel of Truth by Kristi Abbott.

The entry begins:

Well, the movie rights haven’t sold yet so this is pure fantasy, right? Since it’s fantasy, I don’t have to be bound by people being the right age or even actually alive, right? Super. I’m good to go, then.

I’d cast Jenna Elfman as Rebecca Anderson, my protagonist. She has the kind of natural beauty and grace I’d like for Rebecca as well as a bit of playfulness about her that would totally be perfect for my sassy heroine.

For Garrett, local lawyer and Rebecca’s love interest, I’d choose Matthew...[read on]

Visit Kristi Abbott's website.

The Page 69 Test: Kernel of Truth.

My Book, the Movie: Kernel of Truth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: J.T. Ellison's "No One Knows"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: No One Knows by J.T. Ellison.

About the book, from the publisher:

In an obsessive mystery as thrilling as The Girl on the Train and The Husband’s Secret, New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison will make you question every twist in her page-turning novel—and wonder which of her vividly drawn characters you should trust.

The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?

In No One Knows, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.

Visit J.T. Ellison's website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Glen Weldon reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Glen Weldon, author of The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.

His entry begins:

Right now I'm blissfully sternum-deep in Helene Wecker's debut novel, 2013's The Golem and the Jinni. And let's go ahead and slap a big ol' asterisk on the end of that last sentence right now, because technically I'm re-reading it.

That's not something I do a lot, but I'm doing it for this book, because the damn thing works so well, so unshowily, and with such assured grace that I wanted to go back, get a look under its hood and root around a bit.

To back up: The Golem and the Jinni is set in the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. A golem -- the legendary creature of Jewish folklore -- arrives in America from the old country utterly lost. She's been made in the shape of a woman, see, and like any golem, she is imbued with the driving need to serve a master. That master died in passage, however, and...[read on]

About The Caped Crusade, from the publisher:

A witty, intelligent cultural history from NPR book critic Glen Weldon explains Batman’s rises and falls throughout the ages—and what his story tells us about ourselves.

Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy Pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he’s a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him. How we perceive Batman’s character, whether he’s delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double-entendres with partner Robin on the comics page, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It’s this endlessly mutable quality that has made him so enduring.

And it’s Batman’s fundamental nerdiness—his gadgets, his obsession, his oath, even his lack of superpowers—that uniquely resonates with his fans who feel a fiercely protective love for the character. Today, fueled by the internet, that breed of passion for elements of popular culture is everywhere. Which is what makes Batman the perfect lens through which to understand geek culture, its current popularity, and social significance.

In The Caped Crusade, with humor and insight, Glen Weldon, book critic for NPR and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, lays out Batman’s seventy-eight-year cultural history and shows how he has helped make us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong.

Learn more about the book and author at Glen Weldon's website and follow him on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.

Writers Read: Glen Weldon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best books about big ideas

Douglas Rushkoff's latest book is Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity. One of his six favorite books about big ideas, as shared at The Week magazine:

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by Buckminster Fuller

This is the biggest little book I know, jamming the grandest ideas of the 20th century's greatest designer into just 120 pages of conversational text. In brief, our problems are not laws of nature, but artifacts of bad design decisions. And we can change them.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Harriet F. Senie's "Memorials to Shattered Myths"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 by Harriet F. Senie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 traces the evolution and consequences of a new hybrid paradigm, which grants a heroic status to victims of national tragedies, and by extension to their families, thereby creating a class of privileged participants in the permanent memorial process. Harriet F. Senie suggests that instead the victims' families be able to determine the nature of an interim memorial, one that addresses their needs in the critical time between the murder of their loved ones and the completion of the permanent memorial. She also observes that the memorials discussed herein are inadvertently based on strategies of diversion and denial that direct our attention away from actual events, and reframe tragedy as secular or religious triumph. In doing so, they camouflage history, and seen as an aggregate, they define a nation of victims, exactly the concept they and their accompanying celebratory narratives were apparently created to obscure.

Visit Harriet F. Senie's website.

The Page 99 Test: Memorials to Shattered Myths.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kristi Abbott's "Kernel of Truth"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Kernel of Truth by Kristi Abbott.

About the book, from the publisher:

An all-new Popcorn Shop Mystery bursts on the scene, featuring gourmet popcorn entrepreneur Rebecca Anderson and her poodle Sprocket.

Opening a gourmet popcorn shop was never on Rebecca Anderson’s bucket list. But after a failed marriage to a celebrity chef, she’s ready for her life to open up and expand. She has returned to her hometown of Grand Lake, Ohio, with her popcorn-loving poodle Sprocket to start a new business—naturally called POPS. As a delicious bonus, Cordelia “Coco” Bittles, a close family friend who has always been like a grandmother to Rebecca, owns the chocolate shop next door, and the two are thinking of combining their businesses.

But when Coco’s niece, Alice, discovers her on the floor of her chocolate shop, those dreams go up in smoke. The local sheriff thinks Coco was the victim of a robbery gone wrong, but Rebecca isn’t so sure. As suspects start popping up all over, Rebecca is determined to turn up the heat and bring the killer to justice in a jiffy!

Visit Kristi Abbott's website.

The Page 69 Test: Kernel of Truth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the creepiest rabbits in fiction

Diana Biller is a writer and dinosaur enthusiast.

At B & N Reads Biller tagged five of the creepiest rabbits in fiction, including:

The Seeing Hare, from The Magician King, by Lev Grossman

I’m pretty sure pencils could be rendered creepy in Grossman’s Magicians series, which casts a heavy layer of unsettling darkness over everything it touches, but the Seeing Hare is a particularly upsetting entry on this list. We’ve already discussed the inherent terror of the clairvoyant rabbit; well, here we have a clairvoyant rabbit who sets traps for those who seek it and responds to questions about the future with answers like “death” and “despair.” Sometimes followed immediately by someone dying. So…Happy Easter?

Read about another entry on the list.

The Magicians is among Jenny Kawecki's seven fictional schools that couldn't pass a safety inspection, Entertainment Weekly's top ten wickedly great books about witches, Jason Diamond's top fifty books that define the past five years in literature, and Joel Cunningham's eight great books for fans of Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

The Page 69 Test: The Magicians.

--Marshal Zeringue

James Anderson's "The Never-Open Desert Diner," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson.

The entry begins:

I like movies very much, but where adaptations are considered, I regard them as a sort of translation. If a novel, for instance, is a cranberry, when it becomes a movie it will be something else. A pear, perhaps. It is unreasonable to expect your cranberry to remain a cranberry in something as collaborative and primarily visual as a film. In this respect I regard the director as being as important as the actors. The choice of director will determine, along with the screenwriter, how the story is told, with the director taking the lead from beginning to end.

As a novelist, if you’re lucky, a director will share your vision, though go about realizing that vision in his or her own way. The idea of putting my novel in the hands of a great director is quite exciting because it opens it up to all kinds of possibilities that I cannot begin to imagine. Unlike some novelists, I welcome that imaginative release.

My dream list of directors begins with the Coen brothers, Ang Lee, Frank Darabont, David Cronenberg, Robert Redford, Kathryn Bigelow, Debra Granik, Sofia Coppola, Kelly Reichardt. All of these directors have certain qualities that I believe would result in a creative vision that I would find both different and yet in tune with...[read on]

Visit James Anderson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Never-Open Desert Diner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that shaped Jason Gurley's "Eleanor"

Jason Gurley is the author of the novels Greatfall, The Man Who Ended the World, and the ongoing Movement series. His bestselling self-published novel Eleanor was acquired by Crown Publishing in the U.S., HarperCollins in the U.K., Editora Rocco in Brazil, Arunas in Turkey, and Heyne Verlag in Germany. His short fiction has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine and numerous anthologies, among them Loosed Upon the World and Help Fund My Robot Army!!! from editor John Joseph Adams. Gurley lives and writes in Oregon.

One of five books that shaped him and Eleanor, as shared at the Harper Voyager blog:

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

... Ishiguro’s schoolchildren are shepherded into the world to serve a gruesome purpose. It wasn’t until 2013, when I tossed out a decade’s worth of work on Eleanor—and realized that her story would blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy—that these novels’ influence over my story became apparent.

Read about another entry on the list.

Never Let Me Go is on Anne Charnock's list of five favorite books with fictitious works of art, Jeff Somers's top seven list of speculative works for those who think they hate speculative fiction, Esther Inglis-Arkell's list of nine great science fiction books for people who don't like science fiction, Sabrina Rojas Weiss's list of ten favorite boarding school novels, Allegra Frazier's top four list of great dystopian novels that made it to the big screen, James Browning's top ten list of boarding school books, Jason Allen Ashlock and Mink Choi's top ten list of tragic love stories, Allegra Frazier's list of seven characters whose jobs are worse than yours, Shani Boianjiu's list of five top novels about coming of age, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five top "What If?" books, Lloyd Shepherd's top ten list of weird histories, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best men writing as women in literature and ten of the best sentences as titles.

The Page 69 Test: Eleanor.

My Book, The Movie: Eleanor.

Writers Read: Jason Gurley.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is J.T. Ellison reading?

Featured at Writers Read: J.T. Ellison, author of No One Knows.

Her entry begins:

I have a few books going on right now. I’m finishing the divine Lisa Gardner’s latest, Find Her, which continued to surprise me, page and page, revelation after revelation. I think I know what’s going on, but every scene brings something new. Gardner is one of my favorites—she had a unique voice, a unique style, and a...[read on]

About No One Knows, from the publisher:

In an obsessive mystery as thrilling as The Girl on the Train and The Husband’s Secret, New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison will make you question every twist in her page-turning novel—and wonder which of her vividly drawn characters you should trust.

The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?

In No One Knows, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.

Visit J.T. Ellison's website, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best cycling books

Rob Penn is the author of The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees and It’s All About the Bike. One of his ten best cycling books, as shared at the Guardian:

The Rider

Tim Krabbé (1978; English translation 2002)

This fictional account of a professional bicycle race by the Dutch journalist, author and former racing cyclist, is a cult classic. Finely written and full of rhetorical flourishes, it captures the peculiar dynamic of the peloton beautifully, from the point of view of one rider. At just 150 pages, it is a book you simply have to put down, in order to savour it. It is also a meditation on pain, for armchair enthusiasts who don’t fancy it much themselves. For bike-racing fans, it’s essential reading.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Rider is among Jon Day's ten best books about cycling, Marjorie Kehe's ten great books about cycling, and Matt Seaton's top ten books about cycling.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alex J. Kay's "The Making of an SS Killer"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Making of an SS Killer: The Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 1905–1990 by Alex J. Kay.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this pioneering biography of a frontline Holocaust perpetrator, Alex J. Kay uncovers the life of SS Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Filbert, responsible as the first head of SS Task Force 9, a mobile killing squad, for the murder of more than 18,000 Soviet Jews - men, women and children - on the Eastern Front. He reveals how Filbert, following the political imprisonment of his older brother, set out to prove his own ideological allegiance by displaying particular radicalism in implementing the orders issued by Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich. He also examines Filbert's post-war experiences, first in hiding and then being captured, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. Released early, Filbert went on to feature in a controversial film in the lead role of an SS mass murderer. The book provides compelling new insights into the mindset and motivations of the men, like Filbert, who rose through the ranks of the Nazi regime.

Learn more about The Making of an SS Killer at the Cambridge University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Making of an SS Killer.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Marilynn Richtarik reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Marilynn Richtarik, author of Stewart Parker: A Life.

Her entry begins:

This spring, as Ireland commemorates the centenary of its 1916 Easter Rising, an event comparable in national importance to the U.S. Bicentennial, I am reading and thinking about the periods of cultural ferment and struggle that precede milestone events like the Rising or the social revolution represented by last May’s marriage equality referendum, when Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage by popular vote.

Certainly no one could have predicted such a result in 1995, when Emma Donoghue first published Hood, a novel about a young lesbian woman in Dublin who loses her partner suddenly and must learn to negotiate widowhood without ever having enjoyed the privileges of a wife. Set in 1992, the novel depicts an Ireland before the Celtic Tiger boom and later economic crash, and most definitely before sexual liberation...[read on]

About Stewart Parker: A Life, from the publisher:

Born in Belfast during World War II, raised in a working-class Protestant family, and educated on scholarship at Queen's University, writer Stewart Parker's story is in many ways the story of his generation. Other aspects of his personal history, though, such as the amputation of his left leg at age 19, helped to create an extraordinarily perceptive observer and commentator. Steeped in American popular culture as a child and young adult, he spent five years teaching in the United States before returning to Belfast in August 1969, the same week British troops responded to sectarian disturbances there. Parker had developed a sense of writing as a form of political action in the highly charged atmosphere of the US in the late 1960s, which he applied in many and varied capacities throughout the worst years of the Troubles to express his own socialist and secular vision of Northern Irish potential. As a young aspiring poet and novelist, he supported himself with free-lance work that brought him into contact with institutions ranging from BBC Northern Ireland to the Irish Times (for which he wrote personal columns and the music review feature High Pop) and from the Queen's University Extramural Department to Long Kesh internment camp (where his creative writing students included Gerry Adams). It is as a playwright, however, that Parker earned a permanent spot in the literary canon with drama that encapsulates his experience of Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Marilynn Richtarik's Stewart Parker: A Life illuminates the genesis, development, and meaning of such classic plays as Spokesong, Northern Star, and Pentecost--works that continue to shed light on the North's past, present, and future--in the context of Parker's life and times. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, this critical biography rewards general readers and specialists alike.

Learn more about Stewart Parker: A Life at the Oxford University Press website.

Writers Read: Marilynn Richtarik.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Judy Sheehan's "I Woke Up Dead at the Mall"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Sarah wakes up dead at the Mall of America, she learns that not only was she murdered, her killer is still on the loose. I WOKE UP DEAD AT THE MALL is a terrifically fun & voicey YA novel that tackles some of life’s – and the afterlife’s – biggest questions.

When you’re sixteen, you have your whole life ahead of you. Unless you’re Sarah. Not to give anything away, but . . . she’s dead. Murdered, in fact. Sarah’s murder is shocking because she couldn’t be any more average. No enemies. No risky behavior. She’s just the girl on the sidelines.

It looks like her afterlife, on the other hand, will be pretty exciting. Sarah has woken up dead at the Mall of America—where the universe sends teens who are murdered—and with the help of her death coach, she must learn to move on or she could meet a fate totally worse than death: becoming a mall walker.

As she tries to finish her unfinished business alongside her fellow dead teens, Sarah falls hard for a cute boy named Nick. And she discovers an uncanny ability to haunt the living. While she has no idea who killed her, or why, someone she loves is in grave danger. Sarah can’t lose focus or she’ll be doomed to relive her final moments again and again forever. But can she live with herself if she doesn’t make her death matter?

Visit Judy Sheehan's website.

Writers Read: Judy Sheehan.

My Book, The Movie: I Woke Up Dead at the Mall.

The Page 69 Test: I Woke Up Dead at the Mall.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the more embarrassing parents in books

Anna Wilson's newest book is The Parent Problem. At the Guardian, Wilson tagged her top ten embarrassing parents in books, including:

My So-Called Life by Joanna Nadin

Rachel Riley is most definitely of the same opinion as Clarice Bean when it comes to wishing she had someone else’s parents; her best friend Scarlet’s, to be precise. Whereas Scarlet’s parents are cool and relaxed and talk openly about sex with their daughter, Rachel’s are repressed, mean and will not let her even have a mobile phone as it will “fry her brain” and thinks that children should “not be exposed to karaoke or E-numbers”. Rachel yearns to break free from the tyranny of her boring annoying parents. And I have to say, the way she paints them, I don’t blame her!

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. Peter MacLeod's "Northern Armageddon," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Northern Armageddon: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham and the Making of the American Revolution by D. Peter MacLeod.

The entry begins:

If Northern Armageddon were a movie, it would be an action-adventure—landing craft hurtling down the St. Lawrence River in the dark, propelled by a falling tide; an elite assault force climbing a 200-foot cliff; the advance through hostile territory to the Plains of Abraham; forming a mile-long thin red line composed of a mix of British and American soldiers; and a decisive battle that shapes the history of North America and the world.

But it would also be a psychological thriller, following James Wolfe as he falls from resolute optimism to complete collapse, confined to bed convinced that his expedition to capture Quebec is doomed to fail, his career is over, and his death from illness is imminent. Then he bounces back. Resolute, decisive, and aggressive, letting nothing stand in his way, Wolfe leads his troops to success at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and dies at the moment of victory.

So who plays Wolfe?...[read on]

Learn more about Northern Armageddon at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: Northern Armageddon.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kathi Appelt reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kathi Appelt, co-author of Maybe a Fox.

Her entry begins:

I recently blew through The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield. I say “blew through” because it’s a quick read. However, my intention is to re-read it in a more deliberative way.

This book was recommended to me by my sister Patti who is a painter. We recently lost our mother, and ever since I’ve had a difficult time facing my work. I’ve had to figure out who I am again, as a person, and how I fit into the world in this new way.

So, here is Steven Pressfield’s book. He takes a very...[read on]

About Maybe a Fox, from the publisher:

Worlds collide in a spectacular way when Newbery and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt and Pulitzer Prize nominee and #1 New York Times bestseller Alison McGhee team up to create a fantastical, heartbreaking, and gorgeous tale about two sisters, a fox cub, and what happens when one of the sisters disappears forever.

Sylvie and Jules, Jules and Sylvie. Better than just sisters, better than best friends, they’d be identical twins if only they’d been born in the same year. And if only Sylvie wasn’t such a fast—faster than fast—runner. But Sylvie is too fast, and when she runs to the river they’re not supposed to go anywhere near to throw a wish rock just before the school bus comes on a snowy morning, she runs so fast that no one sees what happens…and no one ever sees her again. Jules is devastated, but she refuses to believe what all the others believe, that—like their mother—her sister is gone forever.

At the very same time, in the shadow world, a shadow fox is born—half of the spirit world, half of the animal world. She too is fast—faster than fast—and she senses danger. She’s too young to know exactly what she senses, but she knows something is very wrong. And when Jules believes one last wish rock for Sylvie needs to be thrown into the river, the human and shadow worlds collide.

Writing in alternate voices—one Jules’s, the other the fox’s—Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee tell the searingly beautiful tale of one small family’s moment of heartbreak, a moment that unfolds into one that is epic, mythic, shimmering, and most of all, hopeful.

Visit Kathi Appelt's website and Alison McGhee's website.

The Page 69 Test: Maybe a Fox.

Writers Read: Kathi Appelt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Viola Shipman's "The Charm Bracelet"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Charm Bracelet: A Novel by Viola Shipman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lose yourself to the magic of The Charm Bracelet.

Through an heirloom charm bracelet, three women will rediscover the importance of family and a passion for living as each charm changes their lives.

On her birthday each year, Lolly’s mother gave her a charm, along with the advice that there is nothing more important than keeping family memories alive, and so Lolly’s charm bracelet would be a constant reminder of that love.

Now seventy and starting to forget things, Lolly knows time is running out to reconnect with a daughter and granddaughter whose lives have become too busy for Lolly or her family stories.

But when Arden, Lolly’s daughter, receives an unexpected phone call about her mother, she and granddaughter Lauren rush home. Over the course of their visit, Lolly reveals the story behind each charm on her bracelet, and one by one the family stories help Lolly, Arden, and Lauren reconnect in a way that brings each woman closer to finding joy, love, and faith.

A compelling story of three women and a beautiful reminder of the preciousness of family Viola Shipman's The Charm Bracelet is a keepsake you’ll cherish long after the final page.

Visit Viola Shipman's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Charm Bracelet.

Writers Read: Wade Rouse.

The Page 69 Test: The Charm Bracelet.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stephen Singular & Joyce Singular's "Shadow on the Mountain"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Shadow on the Mountain: Nancy Pfister, Dr. William Styler, and the Murder of Aspen's Golden Girl by Stephen Singular and Joyce Singular.

About the book, from the publisher:

Nancy Pfister, heir to Buttermilk Mountain, the world-renowned site of the Winter X Games, was Aspen royalty, its ambassador to the world. She lived among the rich and famous: she partied with Hunter S. Thompson, dated Jack Nicholson, had a joint baby shower with Goldie Hawn, and globetrotted with Angelica Houston. She was also a philanthropist, admired for her generosity. But behind the warm façade, she could be selfish, manipulative, and careless. Pfister enjoyed bragging about her wealth and celebrity connections, but those closest to her, like Kathy Carpenter, Pfister's personal assistant, drinking companion, and on one occasion lover, knew better.

In 2013, after a long fall from grace, Dr. William Styler and his wife, Nancy, relocated to Aspen to reinvent themselves. They'd lived the high life before a misguided lawsuit left them near poverty, and Nancy Pfister was their answered prayer. She took them in, gave them a place to live, and allowed them to launch their new spa business. Everything seemed perfect until Pfister turned on them, making increasingly irrational demands and threatening to throw them out on the street.

When Nancy was found beaten to death in her own home, the Stylers and Carpenter were all under suspicion for the gruesome murder. But in this close-knit, wealthy town set on keeping its reputation and secrets safe from the public eye, the police struggled to solve the mystery of what really happened.

Visit Stephen Singular's website.

The Page 99 Test: Shadow on the Mountain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about revolutionaries

Alexei Sayle is an English stand-up comedian, actor, author and former recording artist. His new book is Thatcher Stole My Trousers. One of Sayle's ten top books about revolutionaries, as shared at the Guardian:

Animal Farm by George Orwell

A while ago I reviewed for [the Guardian] David Aaronovitch’s memoir Party Animals. Like mine, Aaronovitch’s parents were members of the Communist party of Great Britain (CPGB) and it was astonishing how similar his household was to mine, even down to sadistic “party” dentists. A lot of the characters who featured in Aaronovitch’s childhood also appeared in mine. Betty Ambatielos (formerly Betty Bartlett), communist wife of imprisoned Greek trade unionist Tony Ambatielos for example, or Lin Qui, the elegant Vietnamese journalist and spokeswoman for the Viet Cong, who sometimes sat in our front room in Anfield looking a bit confused over what she was doing there. In his house as in ours, George Orwell was hated; he was hated because he told the truth about the terrible things communists did. We studied Animal Farm in my early years at grammar school and I was both appalled and fascinated by what it revealed about the founding of the Soviet Union. I decided if I was going to be any animal at the farm I’d be the supreme opportunist that is the cat.

Read about another entry on the list.

Animal Farm is among Lindsey Lewis Smithson's six essential books that were almost never published, Alex Clark's ten best quotable novels, Piers Torday's top ten books with animal villains, Robson Green's six best books, Heather Brooke's five books on holding power to account, Chuck Klosterman's most important books; it appears on John Mullan's list of ten of the best pigs in literature and Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that were rejected over and over.

Also see: Neel Mukherjee's top ten books about revolutionaries.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Elizabeth Marro reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Elizabeth Marro, author of Casualties.

Her entry begins:

After years of reading about Kelly Link, I’m finally reading her stories. I’m deep into her collection, Get In Trouble and I don’t want to come out. Right now I’m half way through the story, “Secret Identity.” At the end of a paragraph which gives us a young woman waking up hungover, urine-soaked and utterly humiliated who seeks at least some relief shower. She goes for the scalding hot shower but quickly turns the faucet back to tepid which is “Better than she deserves.” The last line “What you deserve and what you can stand aren’t necessarily the same thing” struck me as so true on so many levels that I had to...[read on]

About Casualties, from the publisher:

A heartbreaking and insightful debut novel about the wars we fight overseas, at home, and within our own hearts.

Some come back whole. Some come back broken. Some just never come back…

As an executive for one of the most successful military defense contractors in the country, Ruth Nolan should have been thrilled when her troubled son, Robbie, chose to join the marines. But she wasn’t. She was terrified.

So, when he returns home to San Diego after his second tour in Iraq, apparently unscathed, it feels like a chance to start over and make things right—until a scandal at work tears her away from their reunion. By the next morning, Robbie is gone. A note arrives for Ruth in the mail a few days later saying, “I’m sorry for everything. It’s not your fault. I love you.”

Without a backward glance, Ruth packs up Robbie’s ashes and drives east, heading away from her guilt and regret. But the closer she gets to the coast she was born on, the more evident it becomes that she won’t outrun her demons—eventually, she’ll have to face them and confront the painful truth about her past, her choices, the war, and her son.

Visit Elizabeth Marro's website.

My Book, The Movie: Casualties.

The Page 69 Test: Casualties.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Marro.

--Marshal Zeringue