Pg. 69: Lisa Black's "Unpunished"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Unpunished by Lisa Black.

About Unpunished, from the publisher:

Maggie Gardiner, a forensic expert who studies the dead, and Jack Renner, a homicide cop who stalks the living, form an uneasy partnership to solve a series of murders in this powerful new thriller by the bestselling author of That Darkness.

It begins with the kind of bizarre death that makes headlines—literally. A copy editor at the Cleveland Herald is found hanging above the grinding wheels of the newspaper assembly line, a wide strap wrapped around his throat. Forensic investigator Maggie Gardiner has her suspicions about this apparent suicide inside the tsunami of tensions that is the news industry today—and when the evidence suggests murder, Maggie has no choice but to place her trust in the one person she doesn’t trust at all...

Jack Renner is a killer with a conscience, a vigilante with his own code of honor. In the past, Jack has used his skills and connections as a homicide detective to take the law into his own hands, all in the name of justice. He has only one problem: Maggie knows his secret. She insists he enforce the law, not subvert it. But when more newspaper employees are slain, Jack may be the only person who can help Maggie unmask the killer-- even if Jack is still checking names off his own private murder list.

Learn more about the book and author at Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: That Darkness.

Writers Read: Lisa Black.

My Book, The Movie: Unpunished.

The Page 69 Test: Unpunished.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Emily Robbins reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Emily Robbins, author of A Word for Love: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

We Eat Our Own, by Kea Wilson.

It is stunning how beautifully Wilson writes men and violence. And, the lush life of the Amazonian river! I am literally in the middle of this book, so couldn’t give away the end even if I wanted to. Wilson writes from the perspectives of many different characters; right now, I am reading a chapter from the perspective of a young student-turned-kidnapper, who plays classical music for the man he has helped to kidnap, and who reminds me of the hostage-takers in Bel Canto – mostly because I’ve come to love this character, as I loved the ones in that book. I have heard others call this novel suspenseful, and it is, but...[read on]

About A Word for Love, from the publisher:

A mesmerizing debut set in Syria on the cusp of the unrest, A Word for Love is the spare and exquisitely told story of a young American woman transformed by language, risk, war, and a startling new understanding of love.

It is said there are ninety-nine Arabic words for love. Bea, an American exchange student, has learned them all: in search of deep feeling, she travels to a Middle Eastern country known to hold the “The Astonishing Text,” an ancient, original manuscript of a famous Arabic love story that is said to move its best readers to tears. But once in this foreign country, Bea finds that instead of intensely reading Arabic she is entwined in her host family’s complicated lives–as they lock the doors, and whisper anxiously about impending revolution. And suddenly, instead of the ancient love story she sought, it is her daily witness of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet-like romance–between a housemaid and policeman of different cultural and political backgrounds–that astonishes her, changes her, and makes her weep. But as the country drifts toward explosive unrest, Bea wonders how many secrets she can keep, and how long she can fight for a romance that does not belong to her. Ultimately, in a striking twist, Bea’s own story begins to mirror that of “The Astonishing Text” that drew her there in the first place–not in the role of one of the lovers, as she might once have imagined, but as the character who lives to tell the story long after the lovers have gone.

With melodic meditation on culture, language, and familial devotion. Robbins delivers a powerful novel that questions what it means to love from afar, to be an outsider within a love story, and to take someone else’s passion and cradle it until it becomes your own.

Learn more about A Word for Love.

My Book, The Movie: A Word for Love.

The Page 69 Test: A Word for Love.

Writers Read: Emily Robbins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the most memorable dogs from books

At the B&N Reads blog Brian Boone tagged six of the best fictional dogs, including:

Fang (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling)

You’ve got to be a pretty sweet dog to hang out with Hagrid, the also sweet gamekeeper at Hogwarts. Of course, because Hagrid is gigantic, so too is Fang—even for a bull mastiff. But like many dogs magical or non-magical, huge or not-huge, Fang is loyal and affectionate to the point where it’s overwhelming. In fact, he slobbers so much that you just might get wet reading J.K. Rowling’s very first Harry Potter book.

Read about another dog on the list.

The Harry Potter books made Anna Bradley's list of the ten best literary quotes in a crisis, Nicole Hill's list of seven of the best literary wedding themes, Tina Connolly's top five list of books where the girl saves the boy, Ginni Chen's list of the eight grinchiest characters in literature, Molly Schoemann-McCann's top five list of fictional workplaces more dysfunctional than yours, Sophie McKenzie's top ten list of mothers in children's books, Nicole Hill's list of five of the best fictional bookstores, Sara Jonsson's list of the six most memorable pets in fiction, Melissa Albert's list of more than eight top fictional misfits, Cressida Cowell's list of ten notable mythical creatures, and Alison Flood's list of the top 10 most frequently stolen books.

Professor Snape is among Sophie Cleverly's ten top terrifying teachers in children’s books.

Hermione Granger is among Brooke Johnson top five geeky heroes in literature, Nicole Hill's nine best witches in literature, and Melissa Albert's top six distractible book lovers in pop culture.

Neville Longbottom is one of Ellie Irving's top ten quiet heroes and heroines.

Mr. Weasley is one of Melissa Albert's five weirdest fictional crushes.

Hedwig (Harry's owl) is among Django Wexler's top ten animal companions in children's fiction.

Scabbers the rat is among Ross Welford's ten favorite rodents in children's fiction.

Butterbeer is among Leah Hyslop's six best fictional drinks.

Albus Dumbledore is one of Rachel Thompson's ten greatest deaths in fiction.

Lucius Malfoy is among Jeff Somers's five best evil lieutenants (or "dragons") in SF/F.

Dolores Umbridge is among Melissa Albert's six more notorious teachers in fiction, Emerald Fennell's top ten villainesses in literature, and Derek Landy's top 10 villains in children's books. The Burrow is one of Elizabeth Wilhide's nine most memorable manors in literature.

Remus Lupin is among Aimée Carter's top ten shapeshifters in fiction.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban appears on Amanda Yesilbas and Katharine Trendacosta's list ot twenty great insults from science fiction & fantasy and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest prison breaks in science fiction and fantasy.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also appears on Kenneth Oppel's top ten list of train stories, Jeff Somers's top five list of books written in very unlikely places, Phoebe Walker's list of eight mouthwatering quotes from the greatest literary feasts, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best owls in literature, ten of the best scars in fiction and ten of the best motorbikes in literature, and Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest personality tests in sci-fi & fantasy, Charlie Higson's top 10 list of fantasy books for children, Justin Scroggie's top ten list of books with secret signs as well as Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that publishers didn't want to touch. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made Chrissie Gruebel's list of six top fictional holiday parties and John Mullan's list of ten best graveyard scenes in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Samantha Barbas's "Newsworthy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Newsworthy: The Supreme Court Battle over Privacy and Press Freedom by Samantha Barbas.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1952, the Hill family was held hostage by escaped convicts in their suburban Pennsylvania home. The family of seven was trapped for nineteen hours by three fugitives who treated them politely, took their clothes and car, and left them unharmed. The Hills quickly became the subject of international media coverage. Public interest eventually died out, and the Hills went back to their ordinary, obscure lives. Until, a few years later, the Hills were once again unwillingly thrust into the spotlight by the media—with a best-selling novel loosely based on their ordeal, a play, a big-budget Hollywood adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart, and an article in Life magazine. Newsworthy is the story of their story, the media firestorm that ensued, and their legal fight to end unwanted, embarrassing, distorted public exposure that ended in personal tragedy. This story led to an important 1967 Supreme Court decision—Time, Inc. v. Hill—that still influences our approach to privacy and freedom of the press.

Newsworthy draws on personal interviews, unexplored legal records, and archival material, including the papers and correspondence of Richard Nixon (who, prior to his presidency, was a Wall Street lawyer and argued the Hill family's case before the Supreme Court), Leonard Garment, Joseph Hayes, Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William Douglas, and Abe Fortas. Samantha Barbas explores the legal, cultural, and political wars waged around this seminal privacy and First Amendment case. This is a story of how American law and culture struggled to define and reconcile the right of privacy and the rights of the press at a critical point in history—when the news media were at the peak of their authority and when cultural and political exigencies pushed free expression rights to the forefront of social debate. Newsworthy weaves together a fascinating account of the rise of big media in America and the public's complex, ongoing love-hate affair with the press.

Learn more about Newsworthy at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Laws of Image.

The Page 99 Test: Newsworthy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lisa Black's "Unpunished," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Unpunished by Lisa Black.

The entry begins:

In Unpunished, Cleveland forensic specialist Maggie Gardiner investigates a series of murders at the city’s newspaper, uncomfortably functioning beside erstwhile serial killer Jack Renner. Jack kills to make the world a safer place, and Maggie can’t expose him without exposing herself. Provided they both focus on the same goal of protecting Herald employees from further homicides, they can continue their awkward truce without bloodshed. Their own blood, that is. Herald employees have not been so lucky.

Having become addicted to the BBC show Orphan Black, I have always pictured Maggie as something like Tatiana Maslawny. Scary smart but not genius, stubborn but not unrealistic, tough but empathetic, youngish but not arrogant. Unwilling to slack off when something needs to be done. An unspoken but fierce commitment to sticking up for the little guy, or gal, or dog, or principle.

Casting Jack Renner is much more difficult. Jack is a complex character and the actor would have to portray someone who can be terrifyingly relentless, violent, and the teensiest bit unbalanced. But Jack...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: That Darkness.

Writers Read: Lisa Black.

My Book, The Movie: Unpunished.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Eric Tomlinson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Eric Tomlinson, author of The Midnight Man.

His entry begins:

My first novel is set in rural Oklahoma and revolved around a capital murder trial, so I was reading up on the death penalty, the Oklahoma criminal justice system, and the politics of America in the mid-1990s. The one I’m writing now is about a U.S. Army veteran who has returned home, and is struggling with that transition, so my reading has pivoted to fiction and non-fiction about violence, war, and recovery.

William T. Vollmann’s Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means is a thoughtful, comprehensive exploration of violence and its root causes, effects, and justifications. I’m reading the edited edition – all seven volumes distilled into a single book – and I find Vollmann’s moral calculi, which describe justifications for violence in certain forms, to be fascinating. You end up learning just as much about Vollmann as you do about his subject, which can only be understood, I’m learning, in its historical context. As I’m also studying PTSD, this line about both the usefulness of and lasting psychological effects done by true, blue fear really hit home: “In real danger, fear is...[read on]

About The Midnight Man, from the publisher:

Oklahoma, 1994. The Waco siege is over; the OJ trial isn’t.

Dean Goodnight, the first Choctaw Indian employed by the Oklahoma County public defender's office, pulls a new case—the brutal murder of a once-promising basketball star. The only witness is Caleb, the five-year-old son of the prime suspect. Investigating the murder, Dean draws four strangers into his client's orbit, each of whom becomes deeply involved in the case—and in Caleb's fate.

There's Aura Jefferson, the victim's sister, a proud black nurse struggling with the death of her brother; Aura's patient Cecil Porter, a bigoted paraplegic whose own dreams of playing professional basketball were shattered fifty years ago; Cecil's shady brother, the entrepreneur and political manipulator "Big" Ben Porter; and Ben's wife Becca, who uncovers a link between the young Caleb and her own traumatic past.

As the trial approaches, these five are forced to confront their deepest disappointments, hopes, and fears. And when tragedy strikes again, their lives are forever entwined.

THE MIDNIGHT MAN is filled with joyful, vividly drawn details from the basketball games serving as backbeat to the story. With great compassion and grace, author David Eric Tomlinson explores the issues underpinning one of the most dramatic events in our recent history.

Visit David Eric Tomlinson's website.

Writers Read: David Eric Tomlinson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books on war and rebellion

Elliot Ackerman is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Dark at the Crossing and Green on Blue. He is based out of Istanbul, where he has covered the Syrian Civil War since 2013. His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Repub­lic and The New York Times Magazine, among other pub­lications, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories. He is both a former White House Fellow and a Marine, and has served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.

One of Ackerman's six favorite books on war and rebellion, as shared at The Week magazine:

Embers by Sándor Márai

This 1942 novel takes place during the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as two old, estranged military school friends reunite for a once customary dinner. The dinner turns into a trial of sorts, as well as an examination of friendship, love, fidelity, and the fallout from the dissolution of old orders.

Read about another entry on the list.

Embers is among Anne Enright's five best books with love triangles and Arthur Phillips's five novels that make you feel like you might know something about life during the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire.

The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Teresa Messineo's "The Fire by Night"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Fire by Night: A Novel by Teresa Messineo.

About the book, from the publisher:

A powerful and evocative debut novel about two American military nurses during World War II that illuminates the unsung heroism of women who risked their lives in the fight—a riveting saga of friendship, valor, sacrifice, and survival combining the grit and selflessness of Band of Brothers with the emotional resonance of The Nightingale.

In war-torn France, Jo McMahon, an Italian-Irish girl from the tenements of Brooklyn, tends to six seriously wounded soldiers in a makeshift medical unit. Enemy bombs have destroyed her hospital convoy, and now Jo singlehandedly struggles to keep her patients and herself alive in a cramped and freezing tent close to German troops. There is a growing tenderness between her and one of her patients, a Scottish officer, but Jo’s heart is seared by the pain of all she has lost and seen. Nearing her breaking point, she fights to hold on to joyful memories of the past, to the times she shared with her best friend, Kay, whom she met in nursing school.

Half a world away in the Pacific, Kay is trapped in a squalid Japanese POW camp in Manila, one of thousands of Allied men, women, and children whose fates rest in the hands of a sadistic enemy. Far from the familiar safety of the small Pennsylvania coal town of her childhood, Kay clings to memories of her happy days posted in Hawaii, and the handsome flyer who swept her off her feet in the weeks before Pearl Harbor. Surrounded by cruelty and death, Kay battles to maintain her sanity and save lives as best she can . . . and live to see her beloved friend Jo once more.

When the conflict at last comes to an end, Jo and Kay discover that to achieve their own peace, they must find their place—and the hope of love—in a world that’s forever changed. With rich, superbly researched detail, Teresa Messineo’s thrilling novel brings to life the pain and uncertainty of war and the sustaining power of love and friendship, and illuminates the lives of the women who risked everything to save others during a horrifying time.

Follow Teresa Messineo on Facebook.

My Book, The Movie: The Fire by Night.

The Page 69 Test: The Fire by Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michelle Bentley's "Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo: Exploiting the Forbidden by Michelle Bentley.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book analyses the Syria crisis and the role of chemical weapons in relation to US foreign policy. The Syrian government's use of such weapons and their subsequent elimination has dominated the US response to the conflict, where these are viewed as particularly horrific arms - a repulsion known as the chemical taboo. On the surface, this would seem to be an appropriate reaction: these are nasty weapons and eradicating them would ostensibly comprise a 'good' move. But this book reveals two new aspects of the taboo that challenge this prevailing view. First, actors use the taboo strategically to advance their own self-interested policy objectives. Second, that applying the taboo to Syria has actually exacerbated the crisis. As such, this book not only provides a timely analysis of Syria, but also a major and original rethink of the chemical taboo, as well as international norms more widely.

Learn more about Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo at the Manchester University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fiona Shaw's 6 best books

Fiona Shaw is best known for playing Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

THE RINGS OF SATURN by WG Sebald

As you get older you realise how memory holds on to landscape. This is a walk around the east coast but you never know if it’s fiction or fact. A part of the landscape will suddenly have him remembering something. It’s about how time concertinas up.

Read about another book on the list.

The Rings of Saturn is on Simon Garfield's top ten list of books with maps and John Mullan's list of ten of the best long walks in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Lisa Black reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lisa Black, author of Unpunished.

Her entry begins:

True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo

While researching the state of print journalism in America today, after deciding to set the murders in Unpunished at a big-city paper, I became sidetracked by the topic of how the news as an industry has changed over the past half a century or so. Hence I read, among many other books, True Enough. In it the author explores reasons for the explosion of selective perception and splintering in our society.

Many will come as no surprise—for instance the simple tendency of human beings to believe what they want to believe, what they like to believe, what they feel comfortable believing. What has changed is that...[read on]

About Unpunished, from the publisher:

Maggie Gardiner, a forensic expert who studies the dead, and Jack Renner, a homicide cop who stalks the living, form an uneasy partnership to solve a series of murders in this powerful new thriller by the bestselling author of That Darkness.

It begins with the kind of bizarre death that makes headlines—literally. A copy editor at the Cleveland Herald is found hanging above the grinding wheels of the newspaper assembly line, a wide strap wrapped around his throat. Forensic investigator Maggie Gardiner has her suspicions about this apparent suicide inside the tsunami of tensions that is the news industry today—and when the evidence suggests murder, Maggie has no choice but to place her trust in the one person she doesn’t trust at all...

Jack Renner is a killer with a conscience, a vigilante with his own code of honor. In the past, Jack has used his skills and connections as a homicide detective to take the law into his own hands, all in the name of justice. He has only one problem: Maggie knows his secret. She insists he enforce the law, not subvert it. But when more newspaper employees are slain, Jack may be the only person who can help Maggie unmask the killer-- even if Jack is still checking names off his own private murder list.

Learn more about the book and author at Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: That Darkness.

Writers Read: Lisa Black.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top YA novels for politically aware teens

At the BN Teen Blog Elodie tagged five YA must-reads for politically aware teens, including:

A Mad, Wicked Folly, by Sharon Biggs Waller

I will never be done being excited about suffragette novels. If the Women’s March had you feeling extra thankful for people like Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger, check out this read featuring the fictional but no less formidable Vicky Darling, an aspiring artist in the early 20th century. She doesn’t want to become some wealthy man’s pretty wife. What she wants is to go to art school, and if she has to pose nude to do it, well, that’s a risk she’s willing to take. It’s a risk that gets her kicked out of boarding school and shipped back to London in disgrace, but it’s also one that puts her right in the middle of women’s suffrage. I spent 40% of this book being angry about things like how few rights women had (spoiler alert: it was zero), but it was the same kind of righteous fury that fueled the fires of a movement that’s no less crucial today than it was when it began.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elliot Ackerman's "Dark at the Crossing," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman.

The entry begins:

If Dark at the Crossing were turned into a movie, I think the only way that I could remain sane throughout the production would be by ceding all notions that I had any input into how the film would turn out. Publishing a book is, obviously, a joyous process. But what is less obvious is that it can also be a melancholy one. When you hold the first copy of your book in your hand, it can feel like a tiny death. This world you had once occupied with your characters is no more, or at least no longer one you can manipulate as its creator. If any of my works were turned into a film, I...[read on]

Visit Elliot Ackerman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.

Writers Read: Elliot Ackerman (February 2015).

My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Heather Graham and Jon Land's "The Rising"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Rising: A Novel by Heather Graham and Jon Land.

About the book, from the publisher:

From acclaimed thriller-suspense novelists Heather Graham and Jon Land comes a story of action, mystery, and the endurance of young love in The Rising.

Twenty-four hours. That's all it takes for the lives of two young people to be changed forever.

Alex Chin has the world on a plate. A football hero and homecoming king with plenty of scholarship offers, his future looks bright. His tutor, Samantha Dixon, is preparing to graduate high school at the top of her class. She plans to turn her NASA internship into a career.

When a football accident lands Alex in the hospital, his world is turned upside down. His doctor is murdered. Then, his parents. Death seems to follow him wherever he goes, and now it's after him.

Alex flees. He tells Samantha not to follow, but she became involved the moment she walked through his door and found Mr. and Mrs. Chin as they lay dying in their home. She cannot abandon the young man she loves. The two race desperately to stay ahead of Alex's attackers long enough to figure out why they are hunting him in the first place. The answer lies with a secret buried deep in his past, a secret his parents died to protect. Alex always knew he was adopted, but he never knew the real reason his birth parents abandoned him. He never knew where he truly came from. Until now.

Visit Heather Graham's website and Jon Land's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Rising.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Adelia Saunders reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Adelia Saunders, author of Indelible.

Her entry begins:

I have been reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation) since June, a few pages a day. I’m on page 989 now, with a half-inch of the book still to go, so it's almost like the Napoleonic wars are happening in real time.

For a while I was reading War and Peace aloud to my kids at bedtime to try to make them go to sleep, but lately they’ve opted for...[read on]

About Indelible, from the publisher:

A masterful, enthralling debut novel about fate, family secrets, and the stories our bodies tell.

Magdalena has an unsettling gift. She sees the truth about people written on their skin--names, dates, details both banal and profound--and her only relief from the onslaught of information is to take off her glasses and let the world recede. Mercifully, her own skin is blank.

When she meets Neil, she is intrigued to see her name on his cheek. He's in Paris for the summer, studying a medieval pilgrimage to the coast of Spain, where the body of Saint Jacques is said to have washed ashore, covered in scallop shells. Magdalena, desperate to make things right after her best friend dies--a tragedy she might have prevented--embarks on her own pilgrimage, but not before Neil falls for her, captivated by her pale eyes, charming Eastern European accent, and aura of heartbreak.

Neil's father, Richard, is also in Paris, searching for the truth about his late mother, a famous expatriate American novelist who abandoned him at birth. All his life Richard has clung to a single memory of his mother--her red shoes--which her biographers agree he never could have seen.

In Adelia Saunders' arresting debut, secrets are revealed among forgotten texts in the old archives of Paris, on a dusty cattle ranch in the American West, along ancient pilgrim paths, and in a run-down apartment in post-Soviet Lithuania. By chance, or perhaps by fate, the novel's unforgettable characters converge, and Magdalena's uncanny ability may be the key to their happiness.

Visit Adelia Saunders's website.

Writers Read: Adelia Saunders.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books that make living & working in space seem ordinary

Carrie Vaughn is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels and over eighty short stories. She's best known for the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series about a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural beings -- the series includes fourteen novels and a collection of short stories -- and the superhero novels in the Golden Age saga.

Vaughn's new novel is Martians Abroad.

At Tor.com she tagged five books that make living and working in space seem ordinary, including:

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Like the Merchanter series [by C.J. Cherryh], we might do well to consider the whole of the Expanse as one work. But Leviathan Wakes is the first. In Corey’s series, life in space has become common and comfortable enough that humanity has now brought politics into the black. This novel is concerned with labor movements, international relations, the fraught nature of the economics of scarcity, the tension of an arms race, and what happens when new technology and shocking events enter the mix. As something of a political thriller, the story seems familiar. But expanding that story throughout the solar systems makes it special.

Read about another entry on the list.

Writers Read: Carrie Vaughn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Susan B. Ridgely's "Practicing What the Doctor Preached"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Practicing What the Doctor Preached: At Home with Focus on the Family by Susan B. Ridgely.

About the book, from the publisher:

Dr. James Dobson, PhD., founder of the conservative Christian foundation Focus on the Family, is well-known to the secular world as a crusader for the Christian right. But within Christian circles he is known primarily as a childrearing expert. Millions of American children have been raised on his message, disseminated through books, videos, radio programs, magazines, and other media.

While evangelical Christians have always placed great importance on familial responsibilities, Dobson placed the family at the center of Christian life. Only by sticking to proper family roles, he argues, can we achieve salvation. Women, for instance, only come to know God fully by submitting to their husbands and nurturing their children. Such uniting of family life and religion has drawn people to the organization, just as it has forced them to wrestle with what it means to be a Christian wife, husband, mother, father, son, or daughter. Adapting theories from developmental psychology that melded parental modeling with a conservative Christian theology of sinfulness, salvation, and a living relationship with Jesus, Dobson created a new model for the Christian family.

But what does that model look like in real life? Drawing on interviews with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, Practicing What the Doctor Preached explores how actual families put Dobson's principles into practice. To what extent does Focus shape the practices of its audience to its own ends, and to what extent does Focus' understanding of its members' practices and needs shape the organization? Susan B. Ridgely shows that, while Dobson is known for being rigid and dogmatic, his followers show surprising flexibility in the way they actually use his materials. She examines Focus's listeners and their changing needs over the organization's first thirty years, a span that saw the organization expand from centering itself on childrearing to entrenching itself in public debates over sexuality, education, and national politics.

Learn more about Practicing What the Doctor Preached at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Practicing What the Doctor Preached.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susan Sherman's "If You Are There"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: If You Are There: A Novel by Susan Sherman.

About If You Are There, from the publisher:

Set in the early 1900s, the novel follows young Lucia Rutkowski who, thanks to the influence of her beloved grandmother, escapes the Warsaw ghetto to work as a kitchen maid in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the bustling city of Paris. Too talented for her lowly position, Lucia is thrown out on the street. Her only recourse is to take a job working for two disorganized, rather poor married scientists so distracted by their work that their house and young child are often neglected. Lucia soon bonds with her eccentric employers, watching as their work with radioactive materials grows increasing noticed by the world, then rising to fame as the great Marie and Pierre Curie.

Soon, all of Paris is alit with the news of an impending visit from Eusapia Palladino, the world’s most famous medium. It is through her now famous employers that Lucia attends Eusapia’s gatherings and eventually falls under the medium’s spell, leaving the Curie household to travel with her to Italy. Ultimately, Lucia is placed directly in the crosshairs of faith versus science –what is more real, the glowing substances of the Curie laboratory or the glowing visions that surround the medium during her séance?

Visit Susan Sherman's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Sherman & Henry and Bessie.

The Page 69 Test: The Little Russian.

My Book, The Movie: If You Are There.

Writers Read: Susan Sherman.

The Page 69 Test: If You Are There.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Thoraiya Dyer reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Thoraiya Dyer, author of Crossroads of Canopy: Book One in the Titan's Forest Trilogy.

Her entry begins:

The Hanging Tree, by Ben Aaronovich (Book #6 of Peter Grant/Rivers of London series). I hate comedy films. I never watch them. They never make me laugh. This series always makes me laugh, and though I've just started this one, it's no exception. Aside from the comedy, there's acute characterisation, fast paced crime-solving, an intriguing through-story and all the colours, sounds and smells of a lovingly treated setting, whether looking at London, its mythological underbelly or sneaking away for the rural delights of Herefordshire. Right before Aaronovich...[read on]

About Crossroads of Canopy, from the publisher:

The highly-anticipated fantasy debut from Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning author Thoraiya Dyer, set in a giant mythical rainforest controlled by living gods

At the highest level of a giant forest, thirteen kingdoms fit seamlessly together to form the great city of Canopy. Thirteen goddesses and gods rule this realm and are continuously reincarnated into human bodies. Canopy’s position in the sun, however, is not without its dark side. The nation’s opulence comes from the labor of slaves, and below its fruitful boughs are two other realms: Understorey and Floor, whose deprived citizens yearn for Canopy’s splendor.

Unar, a determined but destitute young woman, escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery by being selected to serve in the Garden under the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility. As a Gardener, she wishes to become Audblayin’s next Bodyguard while also growing sympathetic towards Canopy's slaves.

When Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory – at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance…or grant it by destroying the home she loves.

Visit Thoraiya Dyer's website.

Writers Read: Thoraiya Dyer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve sci-fi & fantasy books for the post-truth era

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Joel Cunningham tagged twelve science fiction & fantasy books for the post-truth era, including:

Infomocracy, by Malka Older

It’s right there in the title, y’all: this eerily timely novel, released in the buildup to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, examines how technology and the control of information sway the actions of people and governments in a near-future landscape in which the democracy we’ve known and (mostly) loved for more than two centuries is gone. Nations no longer exist. Instead, people belong to units of government known as “cetenals,” each 100,000 voters strong, that vote as one to elect a corporate-backed power for a term of global rule. The abolition of national borders in no way means a discontinuation of politics as usual, and indeed, the various political strategists, information-mongers, and dissidents that move the plot along exhibit skills at manipulating information and adding weights to their sides in the balance of power that would serve them well in 2017. At it’s core, this book is a clarion call to pay attention to what your government is doing—but that means doing the work, and figuring out what the information is, and what information you can trust.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Infomocracy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Steven Parfitt's "Knights Across the Atlantic," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Knights Across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland by Steven Parfitt.

The entry begins:

It pains me to say it, but the British and Irish Knights of Labor are not likely to get their own movie anytime soon. The problem is not finding interesting characters. Hadyn Sanders, for instance, became the first socialist town councillor in Britain, was often removed from his own meetings by the police, and referred to his fellow councillors as “bald-headed and pot-bellied… more fond of guzzling than justice.” The problem is that the British and Irish Knights were the offshoot of a much larger American organisation, and only lasted for ten years. They never led strikes and political campaigns on anything like the scale of their American brothers and sisters. Without those kinds of dramatic events our movie would have to take a lot of liberties with the historical record.

But the British and Irish Knights were also associated with one of the great upheavals in British labour and political history, the...[read on]

Learn more about Knights Across the Atlantic at the Liverpool University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: Knights Across the Atlantic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laurie Frankel's "This Is How It Always Is"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.

This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.

This is how children change…and then change the world.

This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.

When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.

Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.

Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.

Learn more about the book and author at Laurie Frankel's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Laurie Frankel and Calli.

The Page 69 Test: The Atlas of Love.

My Book, The Movie: Goodbye for Now.

The Page 69 Test: Goodbye for Now.

My Book, The Movie: This Is How It Always Is.

The Page 69 Test: This Is How It Always Is.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susan Sherman reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Susan Sherman, author of If You Are There: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

and telling myself it’s for research, although it’s such a pleasurable read that I can hardly say I’m working. The story is about the first flight and the eccentric brothers who made it possible. Reclusive, driven, these two builders of bicycles became a familiar sight on the shores of the outer banks in North Carolina, standing for hours on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk studying the flight of birds. Combining their observations of wings and lift with their knowledge of...[read on]

About If You Are There, from the publisher:

Set in the early 1900s, the novel follows young Lucia Rutkowski who, thanks to the influence of her beloved grandmother, escapes the Warsaw ghetto to work as a kitchen maid in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the bustling city of Paris. Too talented for her lowly position, Lucia is thrown out on the street. Her only recourse is to take a job working for two disorganized, rather poor married scientists so distracted by their work that their house and young child are often neglected. Lucia soon bonds with her eccentric employers, watching as their work with radioactive materials grows increasing noticed by the world, then rising to fame as the great Marie and Pierre Curie.

Soon, all of Paris is alit with the news of an impending visit from Eusapia Palladino, the world’s most famous medium. It is through her now famous employers that Lucia attends Eusapia’s gatherings and eventually falls under the medium’s spell, leaving the Curie household to travel with her to Italy. Ultimately, Lucia is placed directly in the crosshairs of faith versus science –what is more real, the glowing substances of the Curie laboratory or the glowing visions that surround the medium during her séance?

Visit Susan Sherman's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Sherman & Henry and Bessie.

The Page 69 Test: The Little Russian.

My Book, The Movie: If You Are There.

Writers Read: Susan Sherman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about voyeurs

Peter Swanson is the author of three novels: The Girl With a Clock For a Heart, a LA Times Book Award finalist; The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; and his most recent, Her Every Fear.

For the Guardian, he tagged ten top books about voyeurs, including:

You by Caroline Kepnes (2015)

Joe Goldberg, the lovelorn homicidal maniac who narrates You, is obsessed with Guinevere Beck from the moment she enters the bookstore where he works. Thus begins a courtship that involves an enormous amount of voyeurism, both the old-fashioned window-peeping kind, as well as its modern version – stalking on social media sites across the net. Funny, disturbing, timely, and just a little bit romantic.

Read about another entry on the list.

Visit Peter Swanson's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing.

The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing.

Writers Read: Peter Swanson (February 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stuart Banner's "Speculation"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Speculation:A History of the Fine Line between Gambling and Investing by Stuart Banner.

About the book, from the publisher:

What is the difference between gambling and speculation? This difficult question has posed a legal problem throughout American history. Many have argued that periodic failures by regulators to differentiate between the two have been the proximate causes of catastrophic economic downturns, including the Great Depression and the 2008 global financial crisis.

In Speculation, Stuart Banner provides a sweeping history of how the fine lines separating investment, speculation, and outright gambling have shaped America from the 1790s to the present. Advocates for risky investments have long argued that risk-taking is what defines America. On the other side, critics counter that unregulated speculation results in bubbles that draw in the most ill-informed investors, creating financial chaos. The debate has been a perennial feature of American history. The Panic of 1837, the speculative boom of the roaring twenties, and the real estate bubble of the early 2000s are all emblematic of the difficulty in differentiating sober from reckless speculation. Some, chastened by the most recent crash, argue that we need to prohibit certain risky transactions, but others respond by citing the benefits of loosely governed markets and the dangers of over-regulation. Economic crises have generated deep ambivalence, yet Americans' faith in investment and the stock market has always rebounded quickly after even the most savage downturns.

Speculation explores a suite of themes that sit at the heart of American history-the ability of courts and regulators to protect ordinary Americans from the ravages of capitalism; the periodic fallibility of the American economy; and the moral conundrum inherent in profiting from speculation while condemning speculators. Banner's engaging and accessible history is invaluable not only for understanding the fault lines beneath the American economy today, but American identity itself.

Learn more about Speculation at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Who Owns the Sky?.

The Page 99 Test: The Baseball Trust.

The Page 99 Test: Speculation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top quests in children’s books

David Cadji Newby is the author of The Little Boy Who Lost His Name and The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name. One of his top ten quests in children’s books, as shared at the Guardian:

The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

This book is a quest for the “Lost Thing” to find a place where it belongs. But perhaps even more, it is also a quest for meaning on the part of the reader. Ultimately it’s an allegory for conformity, and its dangers (I think), though since the point of the book is that we shouldn’t pigeonhole, looking for a definite meaning feels contrary to its spirit. So I suggest you just do what I did, and enjoy it. A lot.

Read about another entry on his list.

My Book, The Movie: The Lost Thing.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Carrie Vaughn reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Carrie Vaughn, author of Martians Abroad.

Her entry begins:

I don't have a to-be-read pile or shelf. I have an entire case. It's kind of nice, because no matter what I feel like reading next I can usually find something on that case to fit the bill, and books never go stale. Discovering a good book is always fun. Discovering one while also feeling the satisfaction of moving one more title off the to-be-read case is sublime. So, I've been playing catch up lately.

I'm trying to learn more about mystery -- it's a genre I just haven't read much of. So last week, my first read of the year, was Well-Schooled in Murder by Elizabeth George. I'm really enjoying George's Inspector Lynley series. I think it's a great demonstration of why so many mystery series are so popular: watching clever people solve difficult cases is all well and good, but the characters are really what keep us coming back. I worry about Lynley and Havers. I want to know more about them, and George is great ...[read on]

About Martians Abroad, from the publisher:

Well-known for her bestselling series Kitty Norville, Carrie Vaughn moves to science fiction with Martians Abroad, a novel with great crossover appeal. Polly Newton has one single-minded dream, to be a starship pilot and travel the galaxy. Her mother, the Director of the Mars Colony, derails Polly's plans when she sends Polly and her genius twin brother, Charles, to Galileo Academy on Earth.

Homesick and cut off from her plans for her future, Polly cannot seem to fit into life on Earth. Strange, unexplained, dangerous coincidences centered on their high-profile classmates begin piling up. Charles may be right—there's more going on than would appear, and the stakes are high. With the help of Charles, Polly is determined to find the truth, no matter the cost.

Learn more about the author and her work at Carrie Vaughn's website and Facebook page.

The Page 99 Test: Kitty and the Silver Bullet.

The Page 99 Test: Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand.

The Page 69 Test: Discord's Apple.

Writers Read: Carrie Vaughn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Emily Robbins's "A Word for Love"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Word for Love: A Novel by Emily Robbins.

About the book, from the publisher:

A mesmerizing debut set in Syria on the cusp of the unrest, A Word for Love is the spare and exquisitely told story of a young American woman transformed by language, risk, war, and a startling new understanding of love.

It is said there are ninety-nine Arabic words for love. Bea, an American exchange student, has learned them all: in search of deep feeling, she travels to a Middle Eastern country known to hold the “The Astonishing Text,” an ancient, original manuscript of a famous Arabic love story that is said to move its best readers to tears. But once in this foreign country, Bea finds that instead of intensely reading Arabic she is entwined in her host family’s complicated lives–as they lock the doors, and whisper anxiously about impending revolution. And suddenly, instead of the ancient love story she sought, it is her daily witness of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet-like romance–between a housemaid and policeman of different cultural and political backgrounds–that astonishes her, changes her, and makes her weep. But as the country drifts toward explosive unrest, Bea wonders how many secrets she can keep, and how long she can fight for a romance that does not belong to her. Ultimately, in a striking twist, Bea’s own story begins to mirror that of “The Astonishing Text” that drew her there in the first place–not in the role of one of the lovers, as she might once have imagined, but as the character who lives to tell the story long after the lovers have gone.

With melodic meditation on culture, language, and familial devotion. Robbins delivers a powerful novel that questions what it means to love from afar, to be an outsider within a love story, and to take someone else’s passion and cradle it until it becomes your own.

Learn more about A Word for Love.

My Book, The Movie: A Word for Love.

The Page 69 Test: A Word for Love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Teresa Messineo's "The Fire by Night," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Fire by Night: A Novel by Teresa Messineo.

The entry begins:

What a fun question! And there are so many great choices out there. Well, for the female leads, they would require versatile actresses who could take on the characters of Jo and Kay, showing their many facets - there are just so many layers to both of these incredible women. So, I would love to see Emily Blunt - I think she would be perfect, so beautiful and thoughtful and deep - and Honeysuckle Weeks, who can do happy-go-lucky like no one else and then turn serious at the drop of a hat. They are two of my favorites.

For Aaron, I would pick Matt Damon - he has that raw attraction that draws Kay (and the reader) into his world. Ewen McGregor or James...[read on]

Follow Teresa Messineo on Facebook.

My Book, The Movie: The Fire by Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Lisa Gardner & Annabelle and Bowie

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Lisa Gardner & Annabelle and Bowie.

The author, on the connection of actual dogs to her fictional canines:

My latest book, Right Behind You, features both a retired police dog, Luka, and a search dog, Molly. Luka is fictional, but Molly [photo right] is a real dog, a pit bull mix rescued by the Conway Area Humane Society. Abandoned and emaciated, Molly still managed to give birth to seven fat, healthy puppies and did an incredible job nursing them before finding her forever home with the shelter’s operations manager Deb Cameron. They are real heroes, deserving of a role tracking a spree killer in...[read on]

About Gardner's Right Behind You, from the publisher:

Is he a hero?

Eight years ago, Sharlah May Nash’s older brother beat their drunken father to death with a baseball bat in order to save both of their lives. Now thirteen years old, Sharlah has finally moved on. About to be adopted by retired FBI profiler Pierce Quincy and his partner, Rainie Conner, Sharlah loves one thing best about her new family: They are all experts on monsters.

Is he a killer?

Then the call comes in. A double murder at a local gas station, followed by reports of an armed suspect shooting his way through the wilds of Oregon. As Quincy and Rainie race to assist, they are forced to confront mounting evidence: The shooter may very well be Sharlah’s older brother, Telly Ray Nash, and it appears his killing spree has only just begun.

All she knows for sure: He’s back.

As the clock winds down on a massive hunt for Telly, Quincy and Rainie must answer two critical questions: Why after eight years has this young man started killing again? And what does this mean for Sharlah? Once upon a time, Sharlah’s big brother saved her life. Now, she has two questions of her own: Is her brother a hero or a killer? And how much will it cost her new family before they learn the final, shattering truth? Because as Sharlah knows all too well, the biggest danger is the one standing right behind you.

Visit Lisa Gardner's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Lisa Gardner & Annabelle and Bowie.

--Marshal Zeringue