What is Blanche McCrary Boyd reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Blanche McCrary Boyd, author of Tomb of the Unknown Racist.

Her entry begins:

I want to stop strangers on the street to say how good Jesmyn Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing is. Ward’s novel is so good I feel something past admiration, more like relief, that a voice this strong has entered American literature. I’m getting old (73 this summer) and it’s good to leave the future of American literature in the hands of writers like Ward or...[read on]

About Tomb of the Unknown Racist, from the publisher:

The award-winning author of The Revolution of Little Girls and Terminal Velocity concludes her grand survey of political activism twenty years later with her provocative new novel

Blanche McCrary Boyd’s first novel in twenty years continues the story of her protagonist Ellen Burns. When Tomb of the Unknown Racist opens in 1999, Ellen—now sober, haunted by her activist past, her failed relationships—is peacefully taking care of her demented mother in South Carolina.

Ellen’s brother, Royce, was a celebrated novelist who, a decade earlier, saw his work adopted by racists and fell under the sway of white supremacy. Ellen thought him dead from a botched FBI raid on his compound. But when his estranged daughter turns up on the news claiming he might be responsible for kidnapping her two mixed-race children, Ellen travels to New Mexico to help her newfound niece. The book chronicles Ellen’s search for Royce, her descent into the dark abyss of the simmering race war in the country, and the confrontation that occurs when she learns the truth about her family’s past.

Tomb of the Unknown Racist is a thrilling novel set in the shadow of the Oklahoma City bombing, the subculture of white supremacy, and deep state government. A family drama set against political and racial struggle, it is a tour de force end to a trilogy by a stunning writer whose work has offered a resonant survey of politics and activism across the American experience.

Visit Blanche McCrary Boyd's website.

Writers Read: Blanche McCrary Boyd.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Sejal Badani & Skyler

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Sejal Badani & Skyler.

The author, on Skler's connection to a fictional creature:

Rokie's loyalty in The Storyteller's Secret was definitely based off of Skyler. Though barely ten pounds she'll stand nose to nose with anyone out of a desire to...[read on]

About Badani's novel The Storyteller's Secret, from the publisher:

From the bestselling author of Trail of Broken Wings comes an epic story of the unrelenting force of love, the power of healing, and the invincible desire to dream.

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past.

Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation. Through her courageous grandmother’s arrestingly romantic and heart-wrenching story, Jaya discovers the legacy bequeathed to her and a strength that, until now, she never knew was possible.

Visit Sejal Badani's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sejal Badani & Skyler.

--Marshal Zeringue

William Boyle's "Gravesend" & "The Lonely Witness," the movies

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness by William Boyle.

The entry begins:

The Lonely Witness is a follow up to Gravesend, set almost seven years later but in the same neighborhood and with a couple of the same characters. If they make my books into films, here's who I'd like to play the lead roles. (I sometimes imagine actors into roles as I’m writing, though often faces shift and blend. For the purposes of this, I’ll just settle on dream casts.)

Gravesend: Alessandra Biagini (Anna Kendrick); Conway D’Innocenzio (Ben Foster); Ray Boy Calabrese (Jake Gyllenhaal); Eugene Calabrese (Gaten Matarazzo); Pop (Robert De Niro); Stephanie Dirello (Kate...[read on]

Visit William Boyle's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gravesend and The Lonely Witness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten notable recent witchy novels

Zoraida Córdova is the award-winning author of The Vicious Deep trilogy and the Brooklyn Brujas series. At the BN Teen blog she tagged ten top recent witchy novels, including:

Wicked Like Wildfire, by Lana Popović

The women in Iris and Malina’s family have the magical ability to manipulate beauty, something they call their “gleam.” But the sisters are under strict orders to keep their beautiful gifts a secret, even though they live in a secluded seaside town—and they’re also forbidden from falling in love.

A mysterious attack on their mother sets the girls on a path to discovering family secrets that could bring them closer together or break them apart. Perfect for fans of Roshani Chokshi and Melissa de la Cruz, and concluding this month with Fierce Like a Fire Storm, so readers don’t have to wait for Iris and Malina’s grand finale.

Learn about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kit Frick reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kit Frick, author of See All the Stars.

Her entry begins:

As a writer of young adult suspense, I am an avid reader of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense for both teen and adult audiences. I find myself reading to keep up with the market, but also for pleasure, as I have a long-standing love for a great mystery and thrilling psychological suspense.

I’ll highlight three recent YA reads that had me entirely riveted.

I tore through The Window by Amelia Brunskill. Following her twin's sudden death, everyone wants Jess to grieve, and then move on. But it's not that simple. While her parents, the police, and her community readily accept the easiest explanation for Anna's death, Jess alone can see that all the pieces don't quite fit, and she is driven by a hunger to solve the mystery behind why her twin really died. I'm such a sucker for sibling relationships, teens who take control when the adults in their lives don't step up, lovely writing, and dark twists, and...[read on]

About See All the Stars, from the publisher:

It’s hard to find the truth beneath the lies you tell yourself.

Then: They were four—Bex, Jenni, Ellory, Ret. (Venus. Earth. Moon. Sun.) Electric, headstrong young women; Ellory’s whole solar system.

Now: Ellory is alone, her once inseparable group of friends torn apart by secrets, deception, and a shocking incident that changed their lives forever.

Then: Lazy summer days. A party. A beautiful boy. Ellory met Matthias and fell into the beginning of a spectacular, bright love.

Now: Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away—no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere.

The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies—the lies Ellory has been telling herself.

Visit Kit Frick's website.

The Page 69 Test: See All the Stars.

Writers Read: Kit Frick.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Laura Tunbridge's "Singing in the Age of Anxiety"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars by Laura Tunbridge.

About the book, from the publisher:

In New York and London during World War I, the performance of lieder—German art songs—was roundly prohibited, representing as they did the music and language of the enemy. But as German musicians returned to the transatlantic circuit in the 1920s, so too did the songs of Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, and Richard Strauss. Lieder were encountered in a variety of venues and media—at luxury hotels and on ocean liners, in vaudeville productions and at Carnegie Hall, and on gramophone recordings, radio broadcasts, and films.

Laura Tunbridge explores the renewed vitality of this refugee musical form between the world wars, offering a fresh perspective on a period that was pervaded by anxieties of displacement. Through richly varied case studies, Singing in the Age of Anxiety traces how lieder were circulated, presented, and consumed in metropolitan contexts, shedding new light on how music facilitated unlikely crossings of nationalist and internationalist ideologies during the interwar period.

Learn more about Singing in the Age of Anxiety at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Singing in the Age of Anxiety.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Colin Cotterill's "Don't Eat Me"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Don't Eat Me by Colin Cotterill.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between getting into a tangle with a corrupt local judge, and discovering a disturbing black-market business, Dr. Siri and his friend Inspector Phosy have their hands full in the thirteenth installment of Colin Cotterill’s quirky, critically acclaimed series.

Dr. Siri Paiboun, the 75-year-old ex-national coroner of Laos, may have more experience dissecting bodies than making art, but now that he’s managed to smuggle a fancy movie camera into the country, he devises a plan to shoot a Lao adaptation of War and Peace with his friend Civilai. The only problem? The Ministry of Culture must approve the script before they can get rolling. That, and they can’t figure out how to turn on the camera.

Meanwhile, the skeleton of a woman has appeared under the Anusawari Arch in the middle of the night. Siri puts his directorial debut on hold and assists his friend Phosy, the newly promoted Senior Police Inspector, with the ensuing investigation. Though the death of the unknown woman seems to be recent, the flesh on her corpse has been picked off in places as if something—or someone—has been gnawing on the bones. The plot Siri and his friends uncover involves much more than a single set of skeletal remains.

Learn more about the book and author at Colin Cotterill's website.

The Page 69 Test: Killed at the Whim of a Hat.

My Book, The Movie: Killed at the Whim of a Hat.

The Page 69 Test: The Axe Factor.

The Page 69 Test: I Shot the Buddha.

The Page 69 Test: The Rat Catchers' Olympics.

The Page 69 Test: Don't Eat Me by Colin Cotterill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top cliques in fiction

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott's debut novel is Swan Song.

One of her top ten cliques in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood

Asked what Cat’s Eye was about, Margaret Atwood said: “Little girls are not made of sugar and spice … Even in books for little girls, you usually have the best friend and the worst enemy. In real life these are often the same person.” Returning to Toronto for a retrospective of her paintings, adult Elaine Risley confronts memories of her childhood adversary, Cordelia. She remembers when Cordelia usurped her best friends Grace and Carol, irrevocably altering their group dynamic. The three bullied Elaine, abuse escalating to physical jeopardy. In adolescence, Elaine re-establishes contact with Cordelia, taunting her former tormenter. The novel moves between past and present, where Elaine still bears the scars.

Read about another entry on the list.

Cat's Eye is among Jessica Winter's six favorite novels on girl power.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Janice Erlbaum reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Janice Erlbaum, author of Lucky Little Things.

Her entry begins:

I’m currently reading Megan Abbott’s newest thriller, Give Me Your Hand, about a frenemy-ship between two female lab researchers that leads to some dead bodies. Like the other books of hers I’ve read, this one centers around a screwed-up dynamic between women, which is a subject I adore. Abbott’s plots aren’t about women fighting over men – her women (and her girls) fight each other for reasons I recognize from my own fraught relationships with women – reasons like power, envy, resentment, or boredom.

In Give Me Your Hand, there’s a professional rivalry at play, and one woman wants to...[read on]

About Lucky Little Things, from the publisher:

A funny and heartfelt realistic middle-grade novel about friendship, family, and the meaning of luck, from author Janice Erlbaum.

Eighth-grader Emma Macintyre could use some good luck. The popular kids at her school ignore her, the boy she likes is out of her league, and her best friend has been ditching her for the mean girls. Worst of all, her beloved Aunt Jenny died recently, leaving Emma and her single mom reeling with grief.

Then Emma receives a mysterious letter with no return address. The letter promises that ten lucky little things will happen to her over the next thirty days—she just has to make a list of what she wants. When the things on her list start coming true, she races to understand what’s happening. How does this lucky letter work? Who sent it? And what’s going to happen when the thirty days are done?

Visit Janice Erlbaum's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lucky Little Things.

Writers Read: Janice Erlbaum.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books about family dynamics

Salley Vickers's newest novel is The Librarian.

One of the author's favorite books about family dynamics, as shared at the Guardian:

William Maxwell is a monstrously underrated American writer whose Time Will Darken It describes with excruciating psychological deftness the disintegration of a marriage brought about by a man’s unquenchable need to please and be seen as amiable to a set of distant relatives who once helped his father. The arrival of the relations for an extended visit brings nemesis in the shape of an ardent young woman who falls for her host, causing a lasting rupture in a formerly happy marriage.

The irony is that the object of her affections by no means falls for her but his fear of being disobliging overrides his care for his own and his wife’s happiness. A stark reminder that charity begins at home.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alexandra Gheciu's "Security Entrepreneurs"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Security Entrepreneurs: Performing Protection in Post-Cold War Europe by Alexandra Gheciu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Focusing on four East European polities-Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania--this book examines the dynamics and implications of processes of commercialization of security that have occurred following the collapse of communist regimes. These processes have been central to post-communist liberalization, and have profoundly shaped those states and their integration into European institutional structures and global economic and political circuits. They have also affected -- and been shaped by-- the behaviour and power of regional and global actors (e.g. European institutions, regional, and global corporations) in Eastern Europe. By virtue of the fact that they combine in complex ways local, national, regional, and global dynamics and actors, processes of security commercialization in the former Eastern bloc can be seen as instances of 'glocalization'. Several aspects of security commercialization are particularly important. To begin with, private actors --specifically private security companies (PSCs)-- have been reconstituted as partial agents of public power. As such, they have come to be systematically involved in performing security practices traditionally associated with the state. In addition, a potent commercial logic has come to permeate public security institutions. This has led to redefinition of the relationship between the state and its population in ways that defy conventional wisdom about the role of the state, and pose difficult normative challenges. More broadly, processes of security commercialization in Eastern Europe, which involve important performative dimensions, have led to the emergence of complex, hybrid networks of security providers that transcend domestic/international, public/private boundaries and behave, in many ways, as entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Security Entrepreneurs at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Security Entrepreneurs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chad Zunker's "Hunt The Lion," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Hunt The Lion by Chad Zunker.

The entry begins:

My protoganist, Sam Callahan, has been described as Good Will Hunting meets The Bourne Identity, both movies which starred the talented Matt Damon. I think that’s a...[read on]

Visit Chad Zunker's website.

My Book, The Movie: Hunt The Lion.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mark R. Cheathem reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mark R. Cheathem, author of  The Coming of Democracy: Presidential Campaigning in the Age of Jackson.

His entry begins:

I am currently reading John Fea’s Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. As someone who grew up in the fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity, I have struggled to understand Trump’s appeal to people in my faith community. I still can’t say that I truly understand the appeal, but...[read on]

About The Coming of Democracy, from the publisher:

After the "corrupt bargain" that awarded John Quincy Adams the presidency in 1825, American politics underwent a fundamental shift from deference to participation. This changing tide eventually propelled Andrew Jackson into the White House—twice. But the presidential race that best demonstrated the extent of the changes was that of Martin Van Buren and war hero William Henry Harrison in 1840. Harrison’s campaign was famously marked by sloganeering and spirited rallies.

In The Coming of Democracy, Mark R. Cheathem examines the evolution of presidential campaigning from 1824 to 1840. Addressing the roots of early republic cultural politics—from campaign biographies to songs, political cartoons, and public correspondence between candidates and voters—Cheathem asks the reader to consider why such informal political expressions increased so dramatically during the Jacksonian period. What sounded and looked like mere entertainment, he argues, held important political meaning. The extraordinary voter participation rate—over 80 percent—in the 1840 presidential election indicated that both substantive issues and cultural politics drew Americans into the presidential selection process.

Drawing on period newspapers, diaries, memoirs, and public and private correspondence, The Coming of Democracy is the first book-length treatment to reveal how presidents and presidential candidates used both old and new forms of cultural politics to woo voters and win elections in the Jacksonian era. This book will appeal to anyone interested in US politics, the Jacksonian/antebellum era, or the presidency.

Learn more about The Coming of Democracy at the Johns Hopkins University Press website.

Writers Read: Mark R. Cheathem.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve books about the sparkle of first love

Zoraida Córdova is the award-winning author of The Vicious Deep trilogy and the Brooklyn Brujas series. At the BN Teen blog she tagged twelve books for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, including:

American Panda, by Gloria Chao

Gloria Chao’s debut follows seventeen-year-old Mei Lu, a freshman at MIT. Mei is Taiwanese American, she skipped the fourth grade, and she absolutely detests germs. And, most importantly, her life has been entirely pre-planned by her parents: she will become a doctor, marry a parent-approved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, and have as many children as possible. There are quite a few things that could go wrong with this plan—after all, Mei hates germs, which makes studying to become a doctor mildly problematic at best. Plus, her crush is most definitely not Taiwanese, and she hasn’t even begun thinking of babies. It’s hard enough starting college without having to worry that every choice could lead to your family’s epic disappointment. Mei certainly has her hands full.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: American Panda.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lisa Black's "Suffer the Children"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Suffer the Children: A Gardiner and Renner Novel #4 by Lisa Black.

About the book, from the publisher:

Maggie Gardiner, forensics expert for the Cleveland police department, and Jack Renner, a homicide detective with a killer secret, return in bestselling author Lisa Black’s new thriller as they confront the darkest threat yet to their careers—and their lives.

The body of fifteen-year-old Rachael Donahue—abandoned by society, raised in foster homes, and violently unapproachable—has been discovered at the bottom of a stairwell at Firebird, the secure facility for juvenile offenders in Cleveland. For Maggie and Jack, Rachael’s death comes with a disturbing twist—the girl may have been involved with a much older man.

But Rachael’s not the only resident at the center to come to a dead end. Firebird’s ten-year-old “wild child” has overdosed in the infirmary—back-to-back tragedies that appear to be terrible accidents. As a forensic investigator, Maggie knows appearances can be deceiving. And Jack knows all about deceit. That’s why they both suspect a cold-blooded murderer is carrying out a deadly agenda.

As Maggie’s ex-husband gets nearer to uncovering the secrets that Maggie and Jack must hide, it becomes increasingly harder for them to protect a new and vulnerable victim from a killer with unfathomable demons.

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

The Page 69 Test: That Darkness.

My Book, The Movie: Unpunished.

The Page 69 Test: Unpunished.

My Book, The Movie: Perish.

The Page 69 Test: Perish.

The Page 69 Test: Suffer the Children.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books about the medical field

Mimi Swartz's new book is Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart. One of her six favorite books about the medical field, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart by Stephen and Thomas Amidon

Written by a cardiologist and his novelist brother, this provocative history acknowledges the heart's ages-old spiritual significance while also examining its awesome, unrelenting physical function. It's an extremely accessible, welcoming read.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is J.B. Shank reading?

Featured at Writers Read: J.B. Shank, author of Before Voltaire: The French Origins of “Newtonian” Mechanics, 1680-1715.

His entry begins:

Ten years have passed since Marshal last asked me to do this because that’s how long it has taken me to publish a second book. The delay was not entirely my fault. I had to fight for years with the anonymous philosophers of science chosen to approve my book for publication, readers who simply could not fathom publishing a completely contingent cultural history of calculus-based mathematical physics. This delayed publication in frustrating ways, but I persisted, and in the end my editor and the press allowed me to publish the book I wanted to write. Seeing it in print now after all those struggles is extra sweet, and I am looking forward to my sabbatical, which began on June 15, for some much needed post-publication refreshment and rejuvenation.

I have said everything that I have to say about Isaac Newton’s mathematical physics, but the history of mathematics continues to attract my interest. Lately I have been reading in the meta-literature about mathematics as a science and its relationship to human thought overall. Ian Hacking’s Why is there philosophy of mathematics at all? (Cambridge University Press, 2014) was the perfect antidote to my peer-review struggles with the philosophers of the “exact sciences” since, like many of Hacking’s books, it is a very smart, wry, and often irreverent interrogation of the unthought thoughts guiding...[read on]

About Before Voltaire, from the publisher:

We have grown accustomed to the idea that scientific theories are embedded in their place and time. But in the case of the development of mathematical physics in eighteenth-century France, the relationship was extremely close. In Before Voltaire, J.B. Shank shows that although the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia in 1687 exerted strong influence, the development of calculus-based physics is better understood as an outcome that grew from French culture in general.

Before Voltaire explores how Newton’s ideas made their way not just through the realm of French science, but into the larger world of society and culture of which Principia was an intertwined part. Shank also details a history of the beginnings of calculus-based mathematical physics that integrates it into the larger intellectual currents in France at the time, including the Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns, the emergence of wider audiences for science, and the role of the newly reorganized Royal Academy of Sciences. The resulting book offers an unprecedented cultural history of one the most important and influential elements of Enlightenment science.

Learn more about Before Voltaire at the University of Chicago Press website.

Writers Read: J.B. Shank.

--Marshal Zeringue

Julia Buckley's "A Dark and Twisting Path," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: A Dark and Twisting Path by Julia Buckley.

The entry begins:

Casting the residents of Blue Lake, Indiana was harder than I expected. When you picture people a certain way in your head and then try to match them to already-existing people, you find a certain dissonance.

However, these can certainly get readers thinking about who they themselves would cast as the main characters of my Writer's Apprentice series: Lena London, her employer, Camilla Graham, their neighbor, Sam West, the police chief, Doug Heller, Lena's best friend, Allison Branch, and her research librarian friend, Belinda Frailey.

Here are the people I came up with for my casting call.

For Lena: I needed a young woman under thirty who has dark hair and brown eyes, and Zoey Deutch fits the bill, not only in loveliness but in spunk and personality.

For Camilla: Several women were possible, but of course I had to go with...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Julia Buckley's website and her blog, Mysterious Musings.

My Book, The Movie: The Big Chili.

The Page 69 Test: The Big Chili.

My Book, The Movie: A Dark and Twisting Path.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Magda Konieczna's "Journalism Without Profit"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Journalism Without Profit: Making News When the Market Fails by Magda Konieczna.

About the book, from the publisher:

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic decline in the presence and influence of legacy news organizations. This decline has led to tremendous growth in news startups, which have attempted to fill the gap left by their legacy counterparts by producing the quality public service journalism upon which the health of U.S. democracy depends. If legacy news organizations, with their existing infrastructure, are failing, can these startups do any better? This question lies at the heart of Journalism Without Profit.

Magda Konieczna explores three prominent news nonprofits: the Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest and largest of its kind; the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a university-based watchdog news organization that relies on others to publish its work; and MinnPost, an online news website. Through in-depth study of the practices of each newsroom, Konieczna isolates one common behavior that will contribute to their success: the way these organizations collaborate and share stories. Though this emergent behavior differentiates news nonprofits from the mainstream journalism from which they arose, it also ties the two forms of journalism together, as news nonprofits attempt to share stories with mainstream publications. In other words, the very behavior that may enable these organizations to do better than their mainstream counterparts also limits their ability to evolve much beyond them.

In one of the first major books to focus on nonprofit journalism, Konieczna investigates the major questions that will open the field up to further study. Where did nonprofit news come from, and where is it going? Who funds it, and why? Ultimately, Konieczna offers a new way to think about the seismic changes in journalism that are defining the 21st-century.

Learn more about Journalism Without Profit at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Journalism Without Profit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen books to read on a Spanish holiday

At the Waterstones blog Martha Greengrass tagged fifteen books to take on a Spanish vacation. One title on the list:

Guernica
Dave Boling

An extraordinary epic of love, family, and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. Rich in the history of the region, the Red Baron, the Luftwaffe and even Picasso make appearances in Guernica as the fate of one family is traced through the early decades of the twentieth century.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Gina Wohlsdorf reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Gina Wohlsdorf, author of Blood Highway: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

The other day I finished The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. I was recently saying to my friend Keiko that I found the Tao Te Ching frustrating, since all its assertions seemed to proudly negate themselves. She said, “You should read The Tao of Pooh. Then the Tao Te Ching will make total sense.” She was...[read on]

About Blood Highway, from the publisher:

Meet Rainy Cain, a tough, smart seventeen-year-old whose primary instinct is survival. That instinct is tested when her life is upended by the sudden appearance of her father, Sam, who she thought was long dead, but instead had been in prison for his part in an armored truck robbery gone murderously wrong. Now escaped and on the run, he kidnaps Rainy, who he is convinced knows where the money from the robbery, never recovered, is hidden.

Accompanied by a henchman with secret motives of his own, they set off on a cross-country dash to Big Sur, where Sam suspects his late wife stashed the cash. On their heels is a Minneapolis cop intent on bringing Rainy safely home.

It is an odyssey that will push Rainy to the limits of endurance, and that will keep readers guessing until the very end. What does Rainy really know—and what is she willing to sacrifice in order to live?

Visit Gina Wohlsdorf's website.

The Page 69 Test: Security.

My Book, The Movie: Security.

My Book, The Movie: Blood Highway.

The Page 69 Test: Blood Highway.

Writers Read: Gina Wohlsdorf.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kit Frick's "See All the Stars"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: See All the Stars by Kit Frick.

About the book, from the publisher:

It’s hard to find the truth beneath the lies you tell yourself.

Then: They were four—Bex, Jenni, Ellory, Ret. (Venus. Earth. Moon. Sun.) Electric, headstrong young women; Ellory’s whole solar system.

Now: Ellory is alone, her once inseparable group of friends torn apart by secrets, deception, and a shocking incident that changed their lives forever.

Then: Lazy summer days. A party. A beautiful boy. Ellory met Matthias and fell into the beginning of a spectacular, bright love.

Now: Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away—no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere.

The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies—the lies Ellory has been telling herself.

Visit Kit Frick's website.

The Page 69 Test: See All the Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kate Williams's six best books

Kate Williams is a British novelist and historian. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

MARIE ANTOINETTE by Antonia Fraser

A brilliant exploration of a tragic queen, of queenship and the French Revolution.

Antonia sets the gold standard for biographers in everything but she’s particularly good at showing the faults. I like writing about women and queens are fascinating because as women they are seen as secondary but they’re royal so are put above a lot of people.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jay Schiffman reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jay Schiffman, author of Game of the Gods.

His entry begins:

The last book I read—actually reread—was Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a classic dystopian novel, up there with George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Ray Bradury’s Fahrenheit 451. The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of woman who is forced by a near-future government to bear children for powerful leaders. Atwood masterfully addresses complex issues of gender, sexuality, and oppression, while weaving a simply written, yet elaborately told tale. Because of the unpretentious, but riveting prose, and the piercing moral questions it yields, The Handmaid’s Tale is...[read on]

About Game of the Gods, from the publisher:

Jay Schiffman's Game of the Gods is a debut sci-fi/fantasy thriller of political intrigue and Speilberg-worthy action sequences in the vein of Pierce Brown's Red Rising.

Max Cone wants to be an ordinary citizen of the Federacy and leave war and politics behind. He wants the leaders of the world to leave him alone. But he’s too good a military commander, and too powerful a judge, to be left alone. War breaks out, and Max becomes the ultimate prize for the nation that can convince him to fight again.

When one leader gives the Judge a powerful device that predicts the future, the Judge doesn’t want to believe its chilling prophecy: The world will soon end, and he’s to blame. But bad things start to happen. His wife and children are taken. His friends are falsely imprisoned. His closest allies are killed. Worst of all, the world descends into a cataclysmic global war.

In order to find his family, free his friends, and save the world, the Judge must become a lethal killer willing to destroy anyone who stands in his way. He leads a ragtag band of warriors—a 13-year old girl with special powers, a mathematical genius, a religious zealot blinded by faith, and a former revolutionary turned drug addict. Together, they are the only hope of saving the world.

Visit Jay Schiffman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Game of the Gods.

The Page 69 Test: Game of the Gods.

Writers Read: Jay Schiffman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rea Frey's "Not Her Daughter," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Not Her Daughter: A Novel by Rea Frey.

The entry begins:

When I wrote Not Her Daughter, I saw it as a film first. (And how trippy that it was optioned for film by Argent Pictures before publication!) My hubby, who happens to be a graphic designer, rigged up a casting board for me to look at while I wrote the book.

While I think Sarah could be played by a variety of actors, I’d love to see Anne Hathaway or Alison Brie from Glow.

Amy has always been one actor and one actor only to me: Melissa...[read on]

Visit Rea Frey's website.

My Book, The Movie: Not Her Daughter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lisandro Pérez's "Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York by Lisandro Pérez.

About the book, from the publisher:

The dramatic story of the origins of the Cuban community in nineteenth-century New York.

More than one hundred years before the Cuban Revolution of 1959 sparked an exodus that created today’s prominent Cuban American presence, Cubans were settling in New York City in what became largest community of Latin Americans in the nineteenth-century Northeast. This bookbrings this community to vivid life, tracing its formation and how it was shaped by both the sugar trade and the long struggle for independence from Spain. New York City’s refineries bought vast quantities of raw sugar from Cuba, ultimately creating an important center of commerce for Cuban émigrés as the island tumbled into the tumultuous decades that would close out the century and define Cuban nationhood and identity.

New York became the primary destination for Cuban émigrés in search of an education, opportunity, wealth, to start a new life or forget an old one, to evade royal authority, plot a revolution, experience freedom, or to buy and sell goods. While many of their stories ended tragically, others were steeped in heroism and sacrifice, and still others in opportunism and mendacity. Lisandro Pérez beautifully weaves together all these stories, showing the rise of a vibrant and influential community.

Historically rich and engrossing, Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution immerses the reader in the riveting drama of Cuban New York. Lisandro Pérez analyzes the major forces that shaped the community, but also tells the stories of individuals and families that made up the fabric of a little-known immigrant world that represents the origins of New York City's dynamic Latino presence.

Learn more about Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution at the NYU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books in the history & future of the Western

John Larison is the author of Whiskey When We’re Dry.

At Publishers Weekly he tagged ten books that represent the evolution of the Western, including:

The Son by Philipp Meyer (2012)

Maybe the most ambitious Western since Lonesome Dove, Meyer’s multigenerational saga follows a Texas family from their settlement of the state through the oil boom and to their eventual ascension to the top a global oil empire. The book returns to Proulx-like realism, but to ask urgent questions about contemporary American power, wealth, and the legacy of historic injustice. The sections set when the Comanche still roamed the state will strike some readers as throwbacks to an earlier era of cowboy glamorization, but the insistence on authentic grit and gore make even those scenes feel like new contributions to the literature.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Callan Wink's ten best books set in the American West and Clive Sinclair's top ten westerns.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Carrie Jones reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Carrie Jones, author of Escape from the Badlands (Time Stoppers).

Her entry begins:

I am currently at a campground on the coast of Maine and the campground has no Wi-Fi and barely any data, which is causing a lot of gasping among the other campers.

But there are three tiny bookcases in the campground’s laundry room. All the books are old, musty-smelling. The pages have yellowed and smell as if they’ve been in the woods for a long time. Some of the covers are curling back from humid days. Almost all of the books are paperbacks with curling fonts and are romances or thrillers. They are books you’d buy at the library book sale for 25 cents and still sort of wonder about why you bought them. Was it just to support the library?

They are all the over-the-top romance and thriller and pulp that my Aunt Rosie used to read in her bedroom after her kids were asleep. And I’ve got to tell you, they are like...[read on]

About Escape from the Badlands, from the publisher:

In the exhilarating conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Carrie Jones's sweeping middle-grade fantasy trilogy, Time Stopper Annie and her friends venture into the Badlands to stop the wicked Raiff once and for all.

Visit Carrie Jones's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Carrie Jones & Tala.

My Book, The Movie: Enhanced.

The Page 69 Test: Enhanced.

Writers Read: Carrie Jones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Robert Fieseler & Chompers

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Robert Fieseler & Chompers.

The author, on how he and Chompers were united:

It’s a long story that involves a sad breakup, but I’ll condense the drama and just say that Chompers became my sole responsibility in 2006 at the end of an acrimonious yet unofficial gay divorce. My ex, a good person who spearheaded our getting a puppy from an online breeder somewhere in Arkansas, was unable to care for the animal when we separated.

Thus, I got Chompers in the divvying up of emotional belongings. I still feel bad when I look back on that time, but the reality of most gay breakups is that one person gets the dog or that packs of dogs get separated. Visitation, or co-ownership, doesn’t really work, as it’s best for everyone to take the breakup seriously and make a clean start.

So, at age 24, I became another one of those overgrown Peter Pans with an untrained dog counting on me for everything. Like the movie Three Men and a Baby but instead called One Man and a Poochie. Predictably, this small, stubborn little creature somehow trained me in adulthood—teaching me responsibility, forcing me to set a schedule for walks and feedings, compelling me to plan for his daily happiness and my future. He became...[read on]

About Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation, from the publisher:

An essential work of American civil rights history, Tinderbox mesmerizingly reconstructs the 1973 fire that devastated New Orleans’ subterranean gay community.

Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of thirty-one men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue- collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community. The aftermath was no less traumatic—families ashamed to claim loved ones, the Catholic Church refusing proper burial rights, the city impervious to the survivors’ needs—revealing a world of toxic prejudice that thrived well past Stonewall. Yet the impassioned activism that followed proved essential to the emergence of a fledgling gay movement. Tinderbox restores honor to a forgotten generation of civil-rights martyrs.

Visit Robert W. Fieseler's website.

The Page 99 Test: Tinderbox.

Coffee with a Canine: Robert Fieseler & Chompers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Janice Erlbaum's "Lucky Little Things"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Lucky Little Things by Janice Erlbaum.

About the book, from the publisher:

A funny and heartfelt realistic middle-grade novel about friendship, family, and the meaning of luck, from author Janice Erlbaum.

Eighth-grader Emma Macintyre could use some good luck. The popular kids at her school ignore her, the boy she likes is out of her league, and her best friend has been ditching her for the mean girls. Worst of all, her beloved Aunt Jenny died recently, leaving Emma and her single mom reeling with grief.

Then Emma receives a mysterious letter with no return address. The letter promises that ten lucky little things will happen to her over the next thirty days—she just has to make a list of what she wants. When the things on her list start coming true, she races to understand what’s happening. How does this lucky letter work? Who sent it? And what’s going to happen when the thirty days are done?

Visit Janice Erlbaum's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lucky Little Things.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that explore the secret lives of robots

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog T.W. O'Brien tagged five recent books that explore the secret lives of robots, including:

The first two books in Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire series, Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, were between them nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards. The trilogy (which concluded with this year’s Revenant Gun) is high level science fiction, with ships and weapons running on math and science so advanced they border on magic.

In the series, servitors—mobile machine intelligences—are almost beneath notice in a society whose rulers see even humans as little more than cogs in the machinery. Captain Kel Cheris seems to be the only human who views servitors as people, mourning their loss as much as her human soldiers, and asking, not ordering, servitors to take an unaccustomed role in an upcoming battle. The servitors value her consideration and respect, and debate how much they should help her. But they worry that revealing Cheris’ connection with them could endanger her, and themselves—since the servitors’ safety “[relies] on the humans thinking of them as well-trained furniture.”

The servitors’ loyalty to Cheris saves her in the climax of Ninefox Gambit, during which her enemy greatly underestimates the “furniture.” The servitors play a crucial role in Raven Stratagem as well. I have yet to read Revenant Gun, but in an interview on this blog, Lee discusses the role of the servitors across the trilogy, and discusses the decision to make a servitor a viewpoint character in the last book, which has definitely moved it higher in my to-be-read pile—I would really like to see what a servitor’s life looks like from the inside.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Revenant Gun.

My Book, The Movie: Ninefox Gambit.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Amy Mason Doan reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Amy Mason Doan, author of The Summer List.

Her entry begins:

I haven’t had a lot of reading time this year because I’ve been working on my summer 2019 book, Summer Hours. My TBR stacks are tall, teetering, and in nearly every room of my house. But luckily, the books I’ve made time for this year have been phenomenal. I read Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage and it just shattered me. It’s a beautiful, powerful love...[read on]

About The Summer List, from the publisher:

In the tradition of Judy Blume's Summer Sisters, The Summer List is a tender yet tantalising novel about two friends, the summer night they fell apart, and the scavenger hunt that reunites them decades later – until the clues expose a breathtaking secret that just might shatter them once and for all.

Laura and Casey were once inseparable: as they floated on their backs in the sunlit lake, as they dreamed about the future under starry skies, and as they teamed up for the wild scavenger hunts in their small California lakeside town. Until one summer night, when a shocking betrayal sent Laura running through the pines, down the dock, and into a new life, leaving Casey and a first love in her wake.

But the past is impossible to escape, and now, after seventeen years away, Laura is pulled home and into a reunion with Casey she can't resist – one last scavenger hunt. With a twist: this time, the list of clues leads to the settings of their most cherished summer memories. From glistening Jade Cove to the vintage skating rink, each step they take becomes a bittersweet reminder of the friendship they once shared. But just as the game brings Laura and Casey back together, the clues unravel a stunning secret that threatens to tear them apart…

Mesmerising and unforgettable, Amy Mason Doan's The Summer List is about losing and recapturing the person who understands you best – and the unbreakable bonds of girlhood.

Visit Amy Mason Doan's website.

Writers Read: Amy Mason Doan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alanna O'Malley's "The Diplomacy of Decolonisation"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Diplomacy of Decolonisation: America, Britain and the United Nations during the Congo Crisis 1960-64 by Alanna O'Malley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The book reinterprets the role of the UN during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1964, presenting a multidimensional view of the organisation. Through an examination of the Anglo-American relationship, the book reveals how the UN helped position this event as a lightning rod in debates about how decolonisation interacted with the Cold War. By examining the ways in which the various dimensions of the UN came into play in Anglo-American considerations of how to handle the Congo crisis, the book reveals how the Congo debate reverberated in wider ideological struggles about how decolonisation evolved and what the role of the UN would be in managing this process. The UN became a central battle ground for ideas and visions of world order; as the newly-independent African and Asian states sought to redress the inequalities created by colonialism, the US and UK sought to maintain the status quo, while the Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld tried to reconcile these two contrasting views.

Learn more about The Diplomacy of Decolonisation at the Manchester University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Diplomacy of Decolonisation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katharine Weber's "Still Life With Monkey," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Still Life With Monkey by Katharine Weber.

The entry begins:

Still Life With Monkey stars a very successful architect, Duncan Wheeler, 37, who has recently become a quadriplegic as the consequence of a car accident. He has an identical twin, Gordon, who has a very different personality and life. The able-bodied twin presents a dilemma for casting, because in principle I would dearly love to envisage an actor in the Duncan role who in real life uses a wheelchair. In nearly every film with a disabled character, able-bodied actors are cast in those roles. But if the same actor were also to play the part of the twin brother, which would be the obvious double-role casting for this movie, this presents a practical dilemma. However, I have the perfect solution in mind—if varieties of time travel are permitted. My dream casting for these two roles would in fact be the same actor: quadriplegic Christopher Reeve for Duncan Wheeler, and pre-accident Christopher Reeve for Gordon Wheeler. The spirit of Christopher Reeve definitely hovers over my novel. In 1981 I saw Christopher Reeve on Broadway when he starred in the Lanford Wilson play The Fifth of July in the role of a gay, paraplegic Vietnam veteran. (The riding accident that paralyzed him lay fourteen years in the future.) In the play there is a running reference to a plan for sprinkling someone’s ashes in the penstemon.

For Duncan’s wife Laura, the third (human) star of this movie, I would cast...[read on]

Visit Katharine Weber's website.

The Page 99 Test: Triangle.

The Page 69 Test: True Confections.

The Page 99 Test: The Memory of All That.

Writers Read: Katharine Weber.

My Book, The Movie: Still Life With Monkey.

--Marshal Zeringue