What is David Drake reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Drake, author of The Spark.

His entry begins:

Grand Illusions by David M. Lubin

A brilliant study of how American art reacted to World War I. This wide-ranging book (it covers film and literature as well as paintings, sculpture, and propaganda posters) considers not only the works but the artists who made them. These are subjects I know something about, but Lubin...[read on]

About The Spark, from the publisher:

In the time of the Ancients the universe was united—but that was so far in the past that not even memory remains, only the broken artifacts that a few Makers can reshape into their original uses. What survives is shattered into enclaves—some tiny, some ruined, some wild.

Into the gaps between settlements, and onto the Road that connects all human reality and the reality that is not human and may never have been human, have crept monsters. Some creatures are men, twisted into inhuman evil; some of them are alien to Mankind—

And there are things which are hostile to all life, things which will raven and kill until they are stopped.

A Leader has arisen, welding the scattered human settlements together in peace and safety and smashing the enemies of order with an iron fist. In his capital, Dun Add, the Leader provides law and justice. In the universe beyond, his Champions advance—and enforce—the return of civilization.

Pal, a youth from the sticks, has come to Dun Add to become a Champion. Pal is a bit of a Maker, and in his rural home he's been able to think of himself as a warrior because he can wield the weapons of the Ancient civilization.

Pal has no idea of what he's really getting into in Dun Add. On the other hand, the Leader and Dun Add have no real idea of what might be inside this hayseed with high hopes.

THE SPARK: A story of hope and violence and courage. And especially, a story of determination.

Visit David Drake's website.

Writers Read: David Drake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten great books of Washington intrigue

CrimeReads senior editor Dwyer Murphy tagged ten "paranoid thrillers and conspiracy classics from the nation’s capital." One title on the list:

Susan Hasler, Intelligence

Hasler’s first novel is one of those DC satires in the style of Iannucci or Isherwood, where you hope none of it’s true but suspect it probably is. In this case there’s even more reason to believe, since Hasler, before launching her writing career, worked at the CIA for over 20 years as a linguist, analyst and speechwriter. In Intelligence, the President only wants to hear information that supports his own warped worldview and demands that the CIA toe the line. One agent goes rogue and assembles her own team to do what the leadership won’t. The story is told with a healthy portion of world-weary humor and inside baseball—more or less what you’d expect from a career spook.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Intelligence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Bryan Gruley's "Bleak Harbor"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor: A Novel by Bryan Gruley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Their son is gone. Deep down, they think they’re to blame.

Summertime in Bleak Harbor means tourists, overpriced restaurants, and the Dragonfly Festival. One day before the much-awaited and equally chaotic celebration, Danny Peters, the youngest member of the family that founded the town five generations ago, disappears.

When Danny’s mother, Carey, and stepfather, Pete, receive a photo of their brilliant, autistic, and socially withdrawn son tied to a chair, they fear the worst. But there’s also more to the story. Someone is sending them ominous texts and emails filled with information no one else should have. Could the secrets they’ve kept hidden—even from one another—have led to Danny’s abduction?

As pressure from the kidnapper mounts, Carey and Pete must face their own ugly mistakes to find their son before he’s taken from them forever.

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lena Dunham's ten favorite books

Lena Dunham is the creator of HBO's Camping and Girls.

One of her ten favorite books, as shared at Vulture.com:

Conversations With Friends, by Sally Rooney

I don’t respond well to being told what to do, so I slept on this for like six months, and when I finally read it, the emotions were so all-encompassing that I wept like a baby. Toxic female friendship? Check. Chronic illness? Check. Unbreakable pattern with unavailable man? CHECK! And written with a precision rarely credited to young female authors.

Learn about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rosemary Simpson reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Rosemary Simpson, author of Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets: A Gilded Age Mystery #3.

Her entry begins:

I just finished reading Feared: A Rosato & DiNunzio novel by Lisa Scottoline and The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Problem by Susan Witting Albert. I'm about halfway through both A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman and Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird. Since I...[read on]

About Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets, from the publisher:

In Gilded Age New York, heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter investigate crimes that take them from the slums of Five Points in lower Manhattan to the Fifth Avenue mansions of society's elite. In the late nineteenth century, women are particularly vulnerable...

Let The Dead Keep Their Secrets

Childbirth can be dangerous even for the wealthy. So when opera singer Claire Buchanan shows Prudence and Geoffrey a postmortem cabinet photograph of her deceased twin sister and newborn niece, they express sadness but not surprise. The popular black-bordered portraits are the era's way of coping with the devastating losses that plague every family. What makes this death different is that Claire is convinced Catherine and her child were murdered.

Prudence's friend is haunted by a sense of her sister's lingering presence, and by the conviction that her dead twin is demanding justice. Catherine's widower, Aaron Sorensen, is a cold, controlling man who swiftly remarried. Now his second wife is already pregnant and may be in terrible danger. In order to discover the truth and find evidence of Sorensen's guilt, Geoffrey will delve deep into his past while Prudence casts herself as his next victim—putting her own life at grave risk...

Visit Rosemary Simpson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets.

Writers Read: Rosemary Simpson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fran Hawthorne's "The Heirs," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Heirs by Fran Hawthorne.

The entry begins:

Four of the six main characters in The Heirs are women over 40; in fact, one is 72 years old. In an industry where women are ignored after age 30, I figure that my casting call would attract some attention.

I mean, how could Barbra Streisand turn down the juicy part of Rose Ritter, a no-nonsense Jewish grandmother who has refused for 50 years to discuss how she survived the Holocaust in Poland? Rose even lived in Streisand’s native Brooklyn for many years.

Angelina Jolie actually looks more like my vision of Natalie, the cousin -– tall, confident, stylish...[read on]

Visit Fran Hawthorne's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Heirs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Darius Ornston's "Good Governance Gone Bad"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Good Governance Gone Bad: How Nordic Adaptability Leads to Excess by Darius Ornston.

About the book, from the publisher:

If we believe that the small, open economies of Nordic Europe are paragons of good governance, why are they so prone to economic crisis? In Good Governance Gone Bad, Darius Ornston provides evidence that adapting flexibly to rapid, technological change and shifting patterns of economic competition may be a great virtue, but it does not prevent countries from making strikingly poor policy choices and suffering devastating results. Home to three of the "big five" financial crises in the twentieth century, Nordic Europe in the new millennium has witnessed a housing bubble in Denmark, the collapse of the Finnish ICT industry, and the Icelandic financial crisis.

Ornston argues that the reason for these two seemingly contradictory phenomena is one and the same. The dense, cohesive relationships that enable these countries to respond to crisis with radical reform render them vulnerable to policy overshooting and overinvestment. Good Governance Gone Bad tests this argument by examining the rise and decline of heavy industry in postwar Sweden, the emergence and disruption of the Finnish ICT industry, and Iceland’s impressive but short-lived reign as a financial powerhouse as well as ten similar and contrasting cases across Europe and North America. Ornston demonstrates how small and large states alike can learn from the Nordic experience, providing a valuable corrective to uncritical praise for the "Nordic model."

Learn more about Good Governance Gone Bad at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Good Governance Gone Bad.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten folk tales in fiction

Dan Coxon is the editor of the anthology, This Dreaming Isle. One of his top ten folk tales in fiction, a shared at the Guardian:

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

There’s an argument to be made for Gaiman’s American Gods, but this novel has always been a personal favourite and its focus on west African folklore still feels both refreshing and rich. Brothers Fat Charlie and Spider set about exploring and exploiting their shared heritage as the offspring of the trickster god Anansi. Fuelled by Gaiman’s vigorously inventive imagination, it shows how a story can be simultaneously rooted in tradition and shockingly new.

Read about another entry on the list.

Anansi Boys is among Nicole Hill's five top fantasies rooted in folklore.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kate Heartfield reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kate Heartfield, author of Alice Payne Arrives.

Her entry begins:

I'm just about to dig in to an advance reading copy of Mahimata by Rati Mehrotra. She's a very talented Toronto writer. Mahimata is the sequel to Markswoman, a fantasy novel about a sisterhood of elite, knife-wielding warriors. I'm looking forward to more of the nuanced character relationships and...[read on]

About Alice Payne Arrives, from the publisher:

Kate Heartfield's Alice Payne Arrives is the story of a time traveling thief turned reluctant hero in this science fiction adventure.

A disillusioned major, a highwaywoman, and a war raging across time.

It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse.

It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history—to save history—but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal.

It’s 2016 and ... well, the less said about 2016 the better!

But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new.

Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

Visit Kate Heartfield's website.

The Page 69 Test: Alice Payne Arrives.

Writers Read: Kate Heartfield.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten lesser known literary classics

Henry Eliot is an author and editor. He has written three books: The Penguin Classics Book (2018), Follow This Thread (2018) and Curiocity (2016). He is the Creative Editor of Penguin Classics.

One of ten lesser known literary classics you may not have read that he tagged at the Guardian:

Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World, 1666

A maverick and feminist who championed animal welfare, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle was the first female scientist to attend a meeting of the Royal Society. She is best remembered for this utopian romance, one of the earliest examples of science fiction. A beautiful young lady journeys to another world, accessed via the north pole, where animals talk and war is conducted with the aid of submarines and aerial bombardment. As empress of this strange world, she outlaws war, religious conflict and gender inequality, and learns how to teleport to parallel universes. In a metafictional twist, she also comes across the writings of “the Duchess of Newcastle; which although she is not one of the most learned, eloquent, witty and ingenious, yet she is a plain and rational Writer”.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Amanda Bridgeman's "The Subjugate"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Subjugate by Amanda Bridgeman.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a small religious community rocked by a spree of shocking murders, Detectives Salvi Brentt and Mitch Grenville find themselves surrounded by suspects. The Children of Christ have a tight grip on their people, and the Solme Complex neurally edit violent criminals – Subjugates – into placid servants called Serenes. In a town where purity and sin, temptation and repression live side by side, everyone has a motive. But as the bodies mount up, the frustrated detectives begin to crack under the pressure: their demons are coming to light, and who knows where that blurred line between man and monster truly lies.

Visit Amanda Bridgeman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Subjugate.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books helping George Saunders through the current political moment

George Saunders is the author of nine books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize, and the story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. For Vulture.com he tagged ten books that are helping him through the “current political moment,” including:

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi

This book should, in my view, be required reading for any white person in America who has felt that familiar combination of heartsickness and passivity when thinking about race. It is a valuable tool in the battle to wring all vestiges of racism out of oneself.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eric Rauchway's "Winter War," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal by Eric Rauchway.

The entry begins:

Winter War covers the conflict between Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover in the months between the 1932 election and Roosevelt's first inauguration in March 1933. It was an especially fraught period in US and world history: the depression worsened into a crippling bank panic, Hitler took power in Germany, and Japan rejected the League of Nations—all while the defeated Hoover still held the presidency and Roosevelt remained a private citizen.

If I were making it into a movie, I would write it from the point of view of the aides to the two men, as indeed for the book I relied largely on the diaries and correspondence of their aides. Making the staff the story helps us, I think, to understand what kind of people flocked to these leaders' political agendas—much as The West Wing sometimes did. Roosevelt's aides were, many of them, marginalized figures: Jews, Catholics, disabled people (like Roosevelt himself) and politically active women. Hoover, by contrast, tended to attract and employ middle-aged white men with firm views. Over the period of time the book covers, Roosevelt's people had to learn to move out of the margins, and to wield power; Hoover's men learned that while they had to give up power, they did not have to accept defeat.

So now the fun part: casting; just for fun, keeping myself to living actors. I'd like to see Alec Baldwin and Stephen Root as Roosevelt and Hoover, respectively. They both have great range, and about the right look, and I have tremendous respect for actors who have both comic and dramatic chops, as I think they do. But as I say, if I were writing a movie I'd put the two presidents into important, but not point-of-view, roles.

In the Hoover camp, I'd want to see...[read on]

Learn more about Winter War and follow Eric Rauchway on Twitter.

The Page 69 Test: Eric Rauchway's Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America.

My Book, The Movie: Winter War.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is James Alan Gardner reading?

Featured at Writers Read: James Alan Gardner, author of They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded.

His entry begins:

I aspire to write action-adventure stories that have both humor and heart. I therefore aspire to read such stories whenever I can find them.

So I’ve been reading the Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells. There are four of them: All Systems Red, Artificial Conditions, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy. They’re science fiction, taking place several centuries from now when humans are spread across the stars. The hero is Murderbot—a security unit, part machine, part organic, which has hacked its control chip so that it no longer has to obey human commands.

Despite its name, Murderbot doesn’t want to kill people. It just wants to...[read on]

About They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded, from the publisher:

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon.

But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys—and to figure out which side she truly belongs on.

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does....

Visit James Alan Gardner's website.

The Page 69 Test: They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded.

Writers Read: James Alan Gardner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top historical crime novels set during The Gilded Age

Rosemary Simpson is the author of two previous historical novels, The Seven Hills of Paradise and Dreams and Shadows, and two previous Gilded Age Mysteries, What the Dead Leave Behind and Lies that Comfort and Betray. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and the Historical Novel Society. Educated in France and the United States, she now lives near Tucson, Arizona.

Simpson's newest Gilded Age Mystery is Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets.

One of her six favorite historical crime novels set during The Gilded Age, as shared at CrimeReads:

The Gilded Hour, by Sara Donati

Set in 1883. Anna and Sophie Savard are doctors practicing in an era when women in medicine were both a rarity and often a subject of ridicule. Not surprisingly, their separate practices—Anna is a surgeon, mixed-race Sophie an obstetrician—expose them and the reader to a broad spectrum of the social ills that plagued the lives of rich and poor women alike in an age of Victorian prudery and relentless opposition to contraception and abortion. The crime thread is a serial killer who lures desperate pregnant women into submitting to procedures that end in death. Well researched and meticulously detailed, the author, who also wrote the Wilderness series, creates an extensive cast of characters whose private and professional lives intersect against a background of social injustices that range from orphaned children living in the streets to the plight of wretchedly poor immigrants in filthy, overcrowded tenements.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Gilded Hour.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Gary R. Bunt's "Hashtag Islam"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority by Gary R. Bunt.

About the book, from the publisher:

Gary R. Bunt is a twenty-year pioneer in the study of cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs). In his new book, Bunt explores the diverse and surprising ways digital technology is shaping how Muslims across vast territories relate to religious authorities in fulfilling spiritual, mystical, and legalistic agendas. From social networks to websites, essential elements of religious practices and authority now have representation online. Muslims, embracing the immediacy and general accessibility of the internet, are increasingly turning to cyberspace for advice and answers to important religious questions. Online environments often challenge traditional models of authority, however. One result is the rise of digitally literate religious scholars and authorities whose influence and impact go beyond traditional boundaries of imams, mullahs, and shaikhs.

Bunt shows how online rhetoric and social media are being used to articulate religious faith by many different kinds of Muslim organizations and individuals, from Muslim comedians and women’s rights advocates to jihad-oriented groups, such as the “Islamic State” and al-Qaeda, which now clearly rely on strategic digital media policies to augment and justify their authority and draw recruits. This book makes clear that understanding CIEs is crucial for the holistic interpretation of authority in contemporary Islam.

Learn more about Hashtag Islam at the publishers website, Gary Bunt's Virtually Islamic research website and Twitter perch.

The Page 99 Test: Hashtag Islam.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Karen Foxlee

Karen Foxlee writes for children and adults. Her latest novel, Lenny's Book of Everything, is about a young boy who has a rare form of gigantism and won't stop growing.

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

HOUSEKEEPING
Marilynne Robinson

The story of orphans Ruthie and Lucille, their Aunt Sylvie and a house falling to disrepair around them was so powerful that I can remember keeping the book beside my bed for nearly two years. I just didn't want to say goodbye to it. In this strange beautiful coming-of-age story Marilynne Robinson writes with such precision. I still carry imagery from this story around inside me. It made me think about all the ridiculous things women are meant to aspire to and all the freedoms associated with ruin and transience.

Read about another entry on the list.

Housekeeping is among Yiyun Li's six favorite novels, Claire Cameron's five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Sara Zarr's top ten family dramas, Philip Connors's top 10 wilderness books, Kate Walbert's best books, and Aryn Kyle's favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: P. J. Vernon & Chauncey and Mikko

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: P. J. Vernon & Chauncey and Mikko.

The author, on how he and his dogs were united:

Chauncey was a poorly-advised-but-totally-worth-it-and-no-one-can-tell-me-otherwise purchase. In grad school, I emptied my entire checking account to bring him home. The bank teller’s face as I withdrew everything to acquire a puppy? Priceless.

Bless her heart.

Mikko’s a rescue. He hails from the far north of Alberta. Brrr. He has a prison [shelter] tat on his left ear, bum hind leg, and a heart o’ pure gold.

He’s also in doggie therapy working on...[read on]

About Vernon's When You Find Me, from the publisher:

Her husband is missing.

Visiting her family’s South Carolina estate, socialite Gray Godfrey wakes from a night out to an empty bed. Her husband Paul is gone and a thrashing hangover has wiped her memory clean. At first, she’s relieved for the break from her tumultuous marriage; perhaps Paul just needed some space. But when his car is found abandoned on the highway, Gray must face the truth: Paul is gone. And Gray may not want him found.

Her life is unraveling.

When a stranger named Annie calls claiming to know Paul’s whereabouts, Gray reluctantly accepts her help. But this ally is not what she seems: soon Annie is sending frightening messages and revealing disturbing secrets only Gray could know. As Annie’s threats escalate and Gray’s grip on reality begins to slip, the life she thought she had and the dark truth she’s been living begin to merge, leaving an unsettling question: What does Annie want? And what will she do to get it?

A chilling look at marriage, madness, and the lives we think we lead, When You Find Me is a daring debut from a talented new voice in psychological suspense.

Visit P. J. Vernon's website.

The Page 69 Test: When You Find Me.

Writers Read: P. J. Vernon.

My Book, The Movie: When You Find Me.

Coffee with a Canine: P. J. Vernon & Chauncey and Mikko.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mark Duplass's six favorite books

Mark Duplass is an American film director, film producer, actor, musician, screenwriter, and author.

One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey (2018).

Do you know what a universal basic income is? I didn't. And in about 200 pages, I got a full-blown education on what it is, where it comes from, why it hasn't worked, why it could work, and how it could truly change our world for the better if we gave it a shot. This is a quick read that makes you feel smart and hopeful. And you'll look cool at a party when you can talk about UBI.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kate Heartfield's "Alice Payne Arrives"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Alice Payne Arrives: Alice Payne (Volume 1) by Kate Heartfield.

About the book, from the publisher:

Kate Heartfield's Alice Payne Arrives is the story of a time traveling thief turned reluctant hero in this science fiction adventure.

A disillusioned major, a highwaywoman, and a war raging across time.

It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse.

It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history—to save history—but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal.

It’s 2016 and . . . well, the less said about 2016 the better!

But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new.

Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

Visit Kate Heartfield's website.

The Page 69 Test: Alice Payne Arrives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books about divided government–and why we need it

David Runciman is a professor of politics at Cambridge University and the author of How Democracy Ends and other books. At the Guardian he tagged six books that explore political division – and why we need it. One title on the list:

Faction and division usually get a bad name, but Nancy Rosenblum’s On the Side of the Angels: In Defence of Parties and Partisanship shows that we need them: democratic politics would be meaningless if we all thought with one mind. Rosenblum points out that there will always be people who claim to stand for the Party of Reason, which is only interested in doing The Right Thing. Don’t trust those people: they are often the most duplicitous of all. Finally, when politics seems impossible, it is sometimes good to take the long view.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Erica Wright reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Erica Wright, author of The Blue Kingfisher (Kat Stone).

Her entry begins:

I started Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway on a Megabus from Atlanta to Knoxville. Twizzlers, Coke Zero, and multiple uninterrupted hours of reading time. Minus the questionable bathroom, it was pretty close to a perfect afternoon. Which is to say, I’ve been looking forward to the new Gran novel for five years, and The Infinite Blacktop was worth the wait. The novel follows the world’s best private investigator: the broken, irrepressible, unapologetically unlikable Claire DeWitt. There are three interlaced mysteries, and one gives readers a clearer view of DeWitt’s background, specifically her only...[read on]

About The Blue Kingfisher, from the publisher:

From one of the most acclaimed new mystery writers working today comes a riveting novel of suspense that will have you guessing until the last page is turned. When Kat Stone, master-of-disguise private investigator, spots a dead body atop the Jeffrey’s Point Lighthouse one morning, she recognizes the man as her apartment building’s maintenance man, Tambo Campion, a French expat. Police assume that he tried to kill himself by jumping off the GWB, but Kat’s not so sure – why would he miss the water?

Visit Erica Wright's website.

Writers Read: Erica Wright.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Anne Parsons's "From Asylum to Prison"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: From Asylum to Prison: Deinstitutionalization and the Rise of Mass Incarceration after 1945 by Anne E. Parsons.

About the book, from the publisher:

To many, asylums are a relic of a bygone era. State governments took steps between 1950 and 1990 to minimize the involuntary confinement of people in psychiatric hospitals, and many mental health facilities closed down. Yet, as Anne Parsons reveals, the asylum did not die during deinstitutionalization. Instead, it returned in the modern prison industrial complex as the government shifted to a more punitive, institutional approach to social deviance. Parsons shows how the lack of community-based services, a fear-based politics around mental illness, and the economics of institutions meant that closing mental hospitals fed a cycle of incarceration that became an epidemic.

This groundbreaking book recasts the political narrative of the late twentieth century, as Parsons charts how the politics of mass incarceration shaped the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals and mental health policy making. In doing so, she offers critical insight into how the prison took the place of the asylum in crucial ways, shaping the rise of the prison industrial complex.

Learn more about From Asylum to Prison at The University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: From Asylum to Prison.

--Marshal Zeringue

Simon R. Green's "Murder in the Dark," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Murder in the Dark: A paranormal mystery by Simon R. Green.

The entry begins:

I never create a character with any particular actor in mind. They tend to be based on people I know; a bit from one, another bit from another. When it comes to casting, I honestly don’t know. It would depend more on what the take on my material is, and who they’ve chosen as director. My work has been optioned repeatedly, but…[read on]

Visit Simon R. Green's website.

My Book, The Movie: Murder in the Dark.

--Marshal Zeringue

Liz Phair's ten favorite books

Liz Phair began her career in the early 1990s by self-releasing audio cassettes under the name Girly Sound, before signing with the independent record label Matador Records. Her 1993 debut studio album Exile in Guyville has been ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Phair has sold nearly three million records worldwide and had two Grammy nominations.

One of the musician's ten favorite books, as shared at Vulture.com:

Life by Keith Richards

The New York Times asked me to review Keith Richards’s rock and roll memoir, Life. Due to a printing delay, I was reading and writing my impression of his chronicle while I was out on tour myself. It was a delight to immerse myself in such a jaw-dropping account of the peripatetic lifestyle I was experiencing, albeit at a much shallower altitude. The Rolling Stones are iconic by any measure. Getting an all-access pass backstage through Richards’s eyes to the world beyond the bright lights and throbbing amplifiers is as thrilling as you might imagine. You will laugh out in parts, nod in recognition at the famous cultural touchstones, and feel proud to be a music fan. Rock and roll has a very specific ethos, and Life hits upon all of the sacred precepts. Plug it in and turn it up to 11.

Read about another entry on the list.

Life is among Dan Holmes's twenty best memoirs written by musicians, Ginni Chen's top six books that destroyed real life friendships, and Claire Zulkey's five top books "written by folks more famous for rocking out."

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Rosemary Simpson's "Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets: A Gilded Age Mystery #3 by Rosemary Simpson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Gilded Age New York, heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter investigate crimes that take them from the slums of Five Points in lower Manhattan to the Fifth Avenue mansions of society's elite. In the late nineteenth century, women are particularly vulnerable...

Let The Dead Keep Their Secrets

Childbirth can be dangerous even for the wealthy. So when opera singer Claire Buchanan shows Prudence and Geoffrey a postmortem cabinet photograph of her deceased twin sister and newborn niece, they express sadness but not surprise. The popular black-bordered portraits are the era's way of coping with the devastating losses that plague every family. What makes this death different is that Claire is convinced Catherine and her child were murdered.

Prudence's friend is haunted by a sense of her sister's lingering presence, and by the conviction that her dead twin is demanding justice. Catherine's widower, Aaron Sorensen, is a cold, controlling man who swiftly remarried. Now his second wife is already pregnant and may be in terrible danger. In order to discover the truth and find evidence of Sorensen's guilt, Geoffrey will delve deep into his past while Prudence casts herself as his next victim—putting her own life at grave risk...

Visit Rosemary Simpson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top crime novels and mysteries at the seashore

CrimeReads senior editor Dwyer Murphy tagged ten oceanfront crime stories and mysteries. One title on the list:

Elmore Leonard, LaBrava

LaBrava is South Beach in the final days of its seedy, crime-soaked 80s fame. The action moves from the hotel lobby to the beach to the diner and back again. It’s Newark by the Sea, Leonard’s forte. The usual trappings are there, too: chatty hustlers, washed-out law enforcement and aging gangsters, all caught in a maelstrom of fraud and murder, all told in Leonard’s signature style: a series of cool, wickedly clever dialogues and tightly packed scenes. The plot—a former secret service man tries to help an aging starlet out of a blackmail scam—is almost beside the point. The goal here is just to let the depravity and the ocean breeze wash over you.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is S. L. Huang reading?

Featured at Writers Read: S. L. Huang, author of Zero Sum Game (Cas Russell, Volume 1).

From her entry:

I write a lot of science fiction and fantasy. And my favorite inspiration books for that, hands down, are the popular science books of theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku has a fascinating, readable style, and he seems as excited about extrapolating into the future as we fiction writers are.

Two of my longtime favorites by Dr. Kaku are Physics of the Future and Physics of the Impossible. In the first, he talks about what's likely to come true in the coming century, including expansions of space travel, medicine, and artificial intelligence. But for those who want to dive even further into the realm of "what if," Physics of the Impossible speculates about technologies that currently feel far outside our realm. Just how impossible are these advancements, Dr. Kaku asks, and then provides the answer, splitting up science fiction staples like force fields, teleportation, and time travel into categories according to whether they actually violate the laws of physics or whether they're technically possible but we just don't see how to get to them yet. When I was reading Physics of the Impossible, I wanted to read—or write!—an entire library of stories based on Dr. Kaku's reality-based imaginings.

Now I've just started a third Kaku book, The Future of the Mind. Subtitled "The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind," it promises to...[read on]

About Zero Sum Game, from the publisher:

A blockbuster, near-future science fiction thriller, S.L. Huang's Zero Sum Game introduces a math-genius mercenary who finds herself being manipulated by someone possessing unimaginable power…

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price.

As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master.

Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem...

She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

Visit S. L. Huang's website.

The Page 69 Test: Zero Sum Game.

Writers Read: S. L. Huang.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ted Powell's "King Edward VIII: An American Life"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: King Edward VIII: An American Life by Ted Powell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Before he fell in love with Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII had fallen in love with America. As a young Prince of Wales, Edward witnessed the birth of the American century at the end of the First World War and, captivated by the energy, confidence, and raw power of the USA as it strode onto the world stage, he paid a number of subsequent visits: surfing in Hawaii; dancing with an American shop-girl in Panama; and partying with the cream of New York society on Long Island. Eventually, of course, he fell violently in love with Wallis, a Southern belle and latter-day Scarlett O'Hara. Forceful, irreverent, and sassy, she embodied everything that Edward admired about modern America.

But Edward's fascination with America was not unreciprocated. America was equally fascinated by the Prince, especially his love life, and he became an international media celebrity through newsreels, radio, and the press. Indeed, even in the decades after his abdication in 1936, Edward remained a celebrity in the US and a regular guest of Presidents and the elite of American society.

Learn more about King Edward VIII at the Oxford University Press website and follow Ted Powell on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: King Edward VIII.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven great books on female friendship

At Vulture.com Hillary Kelly tagged seven great books on female friendship not written by Elena Ferrante, including:

Eleven Hours, by Pamela Erens (2001)

Lore and Franckline’s relationship lasts only the titular 11 hours: Lore labors and delivers her baby, without a partner, in a New York City hospital; and Franckline, the maternity nurse, moves from enemy to confidant. Franckline brings with her the traumas of earlier deliveries (“her body once birthed a child, and ever since then it has ached to be a shelter again”) and worries over her own second-trimester pregnancy. Lore resolutely clings to her “multipage, many-bulleted” birth plan, but over the hours, as the two women face the agonies of childbirth and uprooted memories, they forge an unimaginable friendship. Eleven Hours is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the light-speed transformation that women undergo from labor to delivery.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Aliya Whiteley's "The Arrival of Missives"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the aftermath of the Great War, Shirley Fearn dreams of challenging the conventions of rural England, where life is as predictable as the changing of the seasons.

The scarred veteran Mr. Tiller, left disfigured by an impossible accident on the battlefields of France, brings with him a message: part prophecy, part warning. Will it prevent her mastering her own destiny?

As the village prepares for the annual May Day celebrations, where a new queen will be crowned and the future will be reborn again, Shirley must choose: change or renewal?

Visit Aliya Whiteley's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Arrival of Missives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about Japan

Christopher Harding is a cultural historian of modern Japan, India, and the UK, based at the University of Edinburgh and working also as a journalist for the BBC and a number of newspapers and magazines.

Harding's new book is Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 - the Present.

One entry on the author's list of the top ten books about Japan, as shared at the Guardian:

Shogun by James Clavell and The Shogun’s Queen by Lesley Downer

Two fabulous examples of a notoriously difficult genre, featuring as a joint entry here because they tell the story of Japan’s first Shogun and one of its last. Clavell traces the journey of an English sailor in late 16th-century Japan as he becomes part of a feudal lord’s bid for control of the whole country. It is based on the friendship of William Adams with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns. Downer explores the power of women in shaping the final years of the Shogunate, with her take on the story – enormously popular in Japan – of Atsuhime: a young samurai girl from south-western Japan who ends up at the very centre of the action in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in the 1850s, as foreigners start to crowd around and the world begins to fall in.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Abbi Waxman reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Abbi Waxman, author of Other People’s Houses.

Her entry begins:

Most of the time I'm reading crime fiction. I don't write crime fiction, but my mother did, and it's what I grew up on. I tend to favor Golden Age writers, ranging from Christie to Wentworth to Marsh, with a generous helping of Rex Stout, who isn't strictly speaking GA, but is probably my favorite. I think Nero and Archie knock Holmes and Watson off their pedestal with ease, and I've read every book in the series at least a dozen times, literally.

If I'm writing a book I can't read contemporary fiction, as either I become deeply depressed because I'll never write anything as good as what I'm reading, or I worry that I will steal the best bits without noticing (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). I also read a lot of non-fiction, because it feels like quality food for my brain, whereas the fiction is delicious but possibly less nutritious fare. Having said that, I tend to...[read on]

About Other People’s Houses, from the publisher:

The author of The Garden of Small Beginnings returns with a hilarious and poignant new novel about four families, their neighborhood carpool, and the affair that changes everything.

At any given moment in other people's houses, you can find...repressed hopes and dreams...moments of unexpected joy...someone making love on the floor to a man who is most definitely not her husband...

*record scratch*

As the longtime local carpool mom, Frances Bloom is sometimes an unwilling witness to her neighbors' private lives. She knows her cousin is hiding her desire for another baby from her spouse, Bill Horton's wife is mysteriously missing, and now this...

After the shock of seeing Anne Porter in all her extramarital glory, Frances vows to stay in her own lane. But that's a notion easier said than done when Anne's husband throws her out a couple of days later. The repercussions of the affair reverberate through the four carpool families--and Frances finds herself navigating a moral minefield that could make or break a marriage.

Visit Abbi Waxman's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Abbi Waxman & Daisy, Jasper, and Wilbur.

Writers Read: Abbi Waxman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top crime novels from Scandinavia

Martin Österdahl has studied Russian, East European studies, and economics. He worked with TV productions for twenty years and was simultaneously the program director at Swedish Television. His interest in Russia and its culture arose in the early 1980s. After studying Russian at university and having had the opportunity to go behind the Iron Curtain more than once, he decided to relocate and finish his master’s thesis there.

The 1990s were a very exciting time in Russia, and 1996, with its presidential election, was a particularly crucial year. Seeing history in the making inspired Österdahl to write the first novel in the Max Anger series, Ask No Mercy. The series has been sold to more than ten territories and is soon to be a major TV series.

At CrimeReads he tagged five crime novels from Scandinavia that show the breadth of the genre, including:

The Hermit, by Thomas Rydahl

Awarded with both the Danish Debutant Award and The Glass Key for best Nordic Crime novel, Rydahl should thank his brainwaves for inventing a highly unusual hero; Erhard, an elderly Danish expat. Living as a recluse with two goats, he is disillusioned with the ways of modern life and failed family relations, and he has nothing to lose. When he discovers an abandoned car, with the body of a young boy in a cardboard box in the trunk, on his Spanish island of Fuerteventura, the police want to cut investigations short not to harm tourism, and nobody believes that a hermit, with no knowledge of cell phones, internet or computers, could possibly solve the mystery. Off beat and different, highly compelling.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece's "The Optical Vacuum"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Optical Vacuum: Spectatorship and Modernized American Theater Architecture by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between the 1920s and the 1960s, American mainstream cinematic architecture underwent a seismic shift. From the massive movie palace to the intimate streamlined theater, movie theaters became neutralized spaces for calibrated, immersive watching. Leading this charge was New York architect Benjamin Schlanger, a fiery polemicist whose designs and essays reshaped how movies were watched. In its close examination of Schlanger's work and of changing patterns of spectatorship, this book reveals that the essence of film viewing lies not only in the text, but in the spaces where movies are shown. The Optical Vacuum demonstrates that our changing models of cinephilia are always determined by physical structure: from the decorations of the palace to the black box of the contemporary auditorium, variations in movie theater design are icons for how viewing has similarly transformed.

Learn more about The Optical Vacuum at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Optical Vacuum.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about deforestation

John Vidal was the Guardian's environment editor. He is the author of McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial. One of five of the best books about deforestation he tagged at the Guardian:

Veteran US entomologist EO Wilson, a world authority on biodiversity, offers the planetary view. Destroying rainforest for economic gain, he says, is like “burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal”. In his 2002 book The Future of Life, he asserts that the loss of forest over the last 50 years has been one of the most profound environmental changes in the history of Earth: “The forests are the abattoirs of extinction, shattered into fragments that are then being severed, adulterated or erased one by one. The last frontiers of the world are effectively gone, an Armageddon is approaching.”

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: James Alan Gardner's "They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded by James Alan Gardner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven’t even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius’s misplaced super-weapon.

But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys—and to figure out which side she truly belongs on.

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does....

Visit James Alan Gardner's website.

The Page 69 Test: They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded.

--Marshal Zeringue