Q&A with Christine Gunderson

From my Q&A with Christine Gunderson, author of Friends with Secrets: A Novel:

About the book, from the publisher:

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Such a great question. I am basically Nikki, one of the main characters in Friends with Secrets. I struggle to stay organized, to keep track of my phone, to keep track of the 7,412 things I need to keep track of as the mother of three kids. And I dread school supply shopping every year.

Like Nikki, I left a job I loved to stay home with my kids. That transition from working person to stay-at-home mom was really hard, and I tackle that in Friends with Secrets.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My kids are a huge influence on my writing because...[read on]

Visit Christine Gunderson's website.

Q&A with Christine Gunderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top books about Americans in Italy

Juliet Grames is the national and international bestselling author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna and The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. Her debut novel was shortlisted for the New England Book Award and the Connecticut Book Award, and received Italy’s Premio Cetraro for contribution to Southern Italian literature.

At Electric Lit Grames tagged eight favorite books about Americans in Italy. One title on her list:

The Everlasting by Katy Simpson Smith

One of my favorite novels of the last decade is Katy Simpson Smith’s The Everlasting, a novel set in one neighborhood in Rome over four different epochs over two thousand years. One of these threads is a modern American microbiologist on a research stay in the Eternal City. Smith’s poetry and research come together into a singular Roman reading experience.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Everlasting.

The Page 69 Test: The Everlasting.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: j. Siguru Wahutu's "In the Shadow of the Global North"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: In the Shadow of the Global North: Journalism in Postcolonial Africa by j. Siguru Wahutu.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the Shadow of the Global North unpacks the historical, cultural, and institutional forces that organize and circulate journalistic narratives in Africa to show that something complex is unfolding in the postcolonial context of global journalistic landscapes, especially the relationships between cosmopolitan and national journalistic fields. Departing from the typical discourse about journalistic depictions of Africa, j. Siguru Wahutu turns our focus to the underexplored journalistic representations created by African journalists reporting on African countries. In assessing news narratives and the social context within which journalists construct these narratives, Wahutu captures not only the marginalization of African narratives by African journalists but opens up an important conversation about what it means to be an African journalist, an African news organization, and African in the postcolony.

Learn more about In the Shadow of the Global North at the Cambridge University Press.

The Page 99 Test: In the Shadow of the Global North.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sara Driscoll's "Echoes of Memory"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Echoes of Memory by Sara Driscoll.

About the book, from the publisher:

The only witness to a murder she can’t remember, a woman with post-traumatic amnesia races to piece together the puzzle of her fragmented memories…before it’s too late. A twisty, new standalone thriller for readers of S.J. Watson, Megan Goldin, and Jennifer Hillier.

Some memories are stolen by time.

Others are stolen by violence.

After surviving a terrible attack, Quinn Fleming has recovered in every way but one—her ability to retain new memories. Now, months later, it appears to the outside world as if the San Diego florist’s life is back to normal. But Quinn is barely holding on, relying on a notebook she carries with her at all times, a record of her entire existence since the assault. So when she witnesses a murder in the shadowy alley behind the florist shop, Quinn immediately writes down every terrifying detail of the incident before her amnesia wipes it away.

By the time the police arrive, there’s no body, no crime scene, and no clues. The killing seems as erased from reality as it is from Quinn’s mind . . . until the flashbacks begin. Suddenly, fragments of memories are surfacing—mere glimpses of that horrible night, but enough to convince Quinn that somewhere, locked in her subconscious, is the key to solving the case . . . and she’s not the only one who knows. Somebody else has realized Quinn is a threat that needs to be eliminated. Now, with her life on the line and only her notes to guide her, Quinn sets out to find a killer she doesn’t remember, but can’t forget . . .

Visit Sara Driscoll's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lone Wolf.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Rising.

The Page 69 Test: No Man's Land.

The Page 69 Test: Leave No Trace.

The Page 69 Test: That Others May Live.

The Page 69 Test: Echoes of Memory.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best crime titles set in Denver

Robert Justice is a Denver native. His first novel, They Can't Take Your Name, was named a runner-up for the 2020 Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award.

He believes that together, we can right wrongful convictions.

Justice's new novel is A Dream in the Dark.

At CrimeReads he tagged five favorite books that feature the Mile High City, including:

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

The accolades for David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s breakout novel are abundant. Time magazine named Winter Counts one of the 100 best thriller, crime and suspense novels of all time. Virgil Wounded Horse is a local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When the local authorities fail to protect victims, Virgil is the one people hire to deliver needed justice.

Winter Counts takes place primarily outside of Colorado on the Rosebud Indian Reservation; however, Wanbli Weiden’s story finds its way to his hometown as his protagonist follows a lead to Denver. Not only does Virgil find that the drug cartels are booming in the Mile High City, he also discovers the caves, cliff divers, Mariachi bands and sopapillas of the iconic Casa Bonita restaurant.

Read about another book on the list.

Winter Countsis among Brittany Bunzey's ten best Indigenous suspense novels, Tracy Clark's top ten crime books by writers of color, Erin E. Adams's seven novels that use mystery to examine race, S.F. Kosa's top ten psychological thrillers, Stephen Miller's favorite crime fiction of 2020, Molly Odintz's six favorite titles from the "new wave of thrillers where the oppressed get some well-earned revenge," and Jennifer Baker's top twelve mystery novels featuring BIPOC protagonists.

The Page 69 Test: Winter Counts.

My Book, The Movie: Winter Counts.

Q&A with David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Dan Honig's "Mission Driven Bureaucrats"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Mission Driven Bureaucrats: Empowering People To Help Government Do Better by Dan Honig.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book argues that the performance of our governments can be transformed by managing bureaucrats for their empowerment rather than compliance. Aimed at public sector workers, leaders, academics, and citizens alike, it contends that public sectors too often rely on a managerial approach which seeks to tightly monitor and control employees, and thus demotivates and repels the mission motivated. Mission Driven Bureaucrats suggests that better performance can in many cases come from a more empowerment-oriented managerial approach, which allows autonomy, cultivates feelings of competence, and creates connection to peers and purpose. This enables the mission motivated to thrive.

Arguing against conventional wisdom, Honig asserts that compliance often thwarts public value and that we can often get less corruption and malfeasance with less monitoring. He provides a handbook of strategies for managers to introduce empowerment-oriented strategies into their agency and describes what everyday citizens can do to support the empowerment of bureaucrats in their governments. Interspersed throughout this book are featured profiles of real-life mission driven bureaucrats, who exemplify the dedication and motivation which is typical of many civil servants. Drawing on original empirical data from several countries and the prior work of other scholars from around the globe, Mission Driven Bureaucrats argues that empowerment-oriented management will cultivate, support, attract, and retain mission driven bureaucrats and should have a larger place in our thinking and practice.

Visit Dan Honig's website.

The Page 99 Test: Mission Driven Bureaucrats.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thirteen top books featuring cats

At the Waterstones blog Mark Skinner tagged thirteen of the best books featuring cats, including:

The Ghost Cat: 12 decades, 9 lives, 1 cat by Alex Howard

A heartwarming and engaging story for all fans of Matt Haig and Toshikazu Kawaguchi, The Ghost Cat views over a century of life in an Edinburgh tenement through the eyes of a feline spectre.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Jessie Burton's list of eleven of the best books about/with cats and Lynne Truss's top ten cats in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books in which swimming says something about life

Katherine Brabon is the award-winning author of The Memory Artist and The Shut Ins. Her writing has been supported by Art Omi New York and the UNESCO Cities of Literature International Residency. She lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.

Body Friend is Brabon's U.S. debut.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven

books in which local pools or other bodies of water are a kind of character, where swimming says something about life. These aspects aren’t necessarily the driving force of a book—while sometimes swimming is a constant thread through a person’s life or at a challenging time, in other books they make up incidental moments that nevertheless speak to something about bodies, relationships, or life.

One title on the list:

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Otsuka’s novel is one that best captures the community and liveliness of the pool changing room. Tellingly, the novel opens with a beautiful set piece describing the pool and its occupants in the first person plural: “Most days, at the pool, we are able to leave our troubles on land behind.” There is a sense of ritual, almost of religiosity, in how this collective chorus approaches the pool. Otsuka’s characters are proud of their devotion: “There are those who would call our devotion to the pool excessive, if not pathological.” The pool then becomes a potent metaphor as cracks develop in its foundation, and the focus turns to the character Alice, one of the swimmers, who has dementia. This honing in on one swimmer made me consider all the many different lives of the swimmers I encounter each time I visit the pool.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Oz Frankel's "Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets: Israel in the American Orbit, 1967-1973 by Oz Frankel.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the late 1960s, Israel became more closely entwined with the United States not just as a strategic ally but also through its intensifying intimacy with American culture, society, and technology. Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets shows how transatlantic exchanges shaped national sentiments and private experiences in a time of great transition, forming a consumerist order, accentuating social cleavages, and transforming Jewish identities. Nevertheless, there remained lingering ambivalence about, and resistance to, American influences. Rather than growing profoundly "Americanized," Israelis forged unique paths into the American orbit. As supporters and immigrants, American Jews assumed an ambiguous role, expediting but also complicating the Israeli-American exchange.

Taking an expansive view of Israeli–American encounters, historian Oz Frankel reveals their often unexpected consequences, including the ripple effects that the rise of Black Power had on both extremes of Israeli politics, the adoption of American technology that fed the budding Israeli military-industrial complex, the consumerist ideologies that ensnared even IDF soldiers and Palestinians in the newly occupied territories, and the cultural performances that lured Israelis to embrace previously shunned diasporic culture. What made the racial strife in the US and the tensions between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews in Israel commensurable? How did an American military jet emerge as a national fixation? Why was the US considered a paragon of both spectacular consumption and restrained, rational consumerism? In ten topical chapters, this book demonstrates that the American presence in Israel back then, as it is today, was multifaceted and contradictory.

Learn more about Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sarah Easter Collins's "Things Don't Break on Their Own," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Things Don't Break on Their Own: A Novel by Sarah Easter Collins.

The entry begins:

Things Don’t Break On Their Own is a story about sisters, hidden histories and the unreliability of memory. Female friendships are at the heart of the novel, as is a girl who goes missing on her way to school at the age of thirteen. The entire novel spans a period of some thirty years, with one character in particular being seen in one scene as a six-year-old but in other scenes in her late thirties, but in terms of thinking about who might play these characters in a movie, I’m going to think about each character as their adult selves, at the age where they gather together for a supper in London.

Robyn as a character is generous, straightforward, warm, loyal and loving. She carries into adulthood a deep wisdom that comes from having grown up in a home environment that is safe and loving, where broken things are mended, and where generosity and kindness are the order of the day. She’s described as sporty and having a wonderful smile with dimples, but there is great depth to her character too. I think Carey Mulligan would be amazing in that role. I once had the privilege of seeing her on stage in David Hare’s brilliant play Skylight, in which she was stunningly good. I think she’s a phenomenal actor and she also has a perfect impish smile. She was also brilliant in the film adaptation of Never Let me Go, one of my favourite ever books.

In Skylight, Carey Mulligan played opposite...[read on]

Visit Sarah Easter Collins's website.

The Page 69 Test: Things Don't Break on Their Own.

Q&A with Sarah Easter Collins.

My Book, The Movie: Things Don't Break on Their Own.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Marin Kosut's "Art Monster"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Art Monster: On the Impossibility of New York by Marin Kosut.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why do people choose the life of an artist, and what happens when they find themselves barely scraping by? Why does New York City, even in an era of hypergentrification, still beckon to aspiring artists as a place to make art and remake yourself?

Art Monster takes readers to the margins of the professional art world, populated by unseen artists who make a living working behind the scenes in galleries and museums while making their own art to little acclaim. Writing in a style that is by turns direct and poetic, personal and lyrical, Marin Kosut reflects on the experience of dedicating your life to art and how the art world can crush you. She examines the push toward professionalization, the devaluing of artistic labor, and the devastating effects of gentrification on cultural life. Her nonlinear essays are linked by central themes―community, nostalgia, precarity, alienation, estrangement―that punctuate working artists’ lives. The book draws from ten years of fieldwork among artists and Kosut’s own experiences curating and cofounding artist-run spaces in Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Chinatown. At once ethnography, memoir, tirade, and love letter, Art Monster is a street-level meditation on the predicament of artists in the late capitalist metropolis.

Visit Marin Kosut's website.

The Page 99 Test: Art Monster.

--Marshal Zeringue

The thirty greatest dystopian books

One title on Forbes's list of the thirty greatest dystopian books of all time:

The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)

The book that introduced the concept of dystopian societies to many Young Adult readers, The Giver is a treasured, timeless classic. Set in a “utopian” society that has no color or emotion, readers are plunged into a sterile world with no pain—but also, no joy. Protagonist Jonas is eager to learn what his role in his Community will be before learning he will be the sole keeper of all memory from before society was rendered “perfect.” Reeling from the forbidden knowledge, Jonas soon learns there is a price to pay for perfection. This book is recommended for young adult readers and those seeking to be introduced to Dystopian fiction.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Giver made Boutayna Chokrane's ten top YA books list, J.S. Dewes's list of five great books that do just fine without traditional villains, Carolyn Quimby's list of the 38 best dystopian novels everyone should read, W.L. Goodwater's top five list of books with manipulated memories, the Tor Teen blog's list of eleven top YA dystopian novels, Jeff Somers's top five list of science fiction novels that really should be considered literary classics, Jen Harper's top ten list of kids' books from the ’90s that have proven to be utterly timeless, John Corey Whaley's top ten list of coming of age books for teens, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of thirteen top, occasionally-banned YA novels, Guy Lodge's list of ten of the best dystopias in fiction, film, art, and television, Joel Cunningham's list of six great young adult book series for fans of The Hunger Games, and Lauren Davis's top ten list of science fiction’s most depressing futuristic retirement scenarios.

Coffee with a Canine: Lois Lowry & Alfie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about conspiracy theories

James Ball is the Global Editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Previously special projects editor at The Guardian and special projects editor at BuzzFeed UK, James played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, as well as the offshore leaks, HSBC Files, Reading the Riots and Keep it in the Ground projects.

At WikiLeaks he was closely involved in Cablegate - the publication of 250,000 classified US embassy cables in 2010 - as well as working on two documentaries based on the Iraq War Logs.

Ball is the author of The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World.

At the Guardian he tagged five of the best books about conspiracy theories, including:

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

Most people who write about conspiracy theories do so because they’ve been drawn to that world through their own curiosity. That wasn’t the case for Naomi Klein, who was largely dragged in against her will.

Through her career, Klein had often been confused with her fellow writer Naomi Wolf. But while once this was harmless (if annoying), when Wolf went down the Covid rabbit hole, it was anything but. Suddenly, Wolf was spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid vaccines – and people were still mixing up the two women. This book is Klein’s story of following her titular double into conspiracy-land.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see Colin Dickey's ten brilliant books to understand conspiracy thinking and Anna Merlan's five of the best books on conspiracy theories in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kevin Padraic Donnelly's "The Descent of Artificial Intelligence"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Descent of Artificial Intelligence: A Deep History of an Idea 400 Years in the Making by Kevin Padraic Donnelly.

About the book, from the publisher:

The idea that a new technology could challenge human intelligence is as old as the warning from Socrates and Plato that written language eroded memory. With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence programs, we find ourselves once again debating how a new technology might influence human thought and behavior. Researchers, software developers, and “visionary” tech writers even imagine an AI that will equal or surpass human intelligence, adding to a sense of technological determinism where humanity is inexorably shaped by powerful new machines. But among the hundreds of essays, books, and movies that approach the question of AI, few have asked how exactly scientists and philosophers have codified human thought and behavior. Rather than focusing on technical contributions in machine building, The Descent of Artificial Intelligence explores a more diverse cast of thinkers who helped to imagine the very kind of human being that might be challenged by a machine. Kevin Padraic Donnelly argues that what we often think of as the “goal” of AI has in fact been shaped by forgotten and discredited theories about people and human nature as much as it has been by scientific discoveries, mathematical advances, and novel technologies. By looking at the development of artificial intelligence through the lens of social thought, Donnelly deflates the image of artificial intelligence as a technological monolith and reminds readers that we can control the narratives about ourselves.

Learn more about The Descent of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Pittsburgh Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Descent of Artificial Intelligence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Sarah Easter Collins

From my Q&A with Sarah Easter Collins, author of Things Don't Break on Their Own: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

As a title, Things Don’t Break On Their Own implies the involvement of outside forces: things can break, and more significantly, so can people, but none of that happens by itself, and this is certainly a true reflection of the nature of the story. A reader will discover two distinct families in Things Don’t Break On Their Own. Laika and Willa’s family is all about appearances, to the point that they are obsessed with not having any of their cracks showing, whereas in Robyn’s family, everything can always be fixed, mended, saved for later and made better. They are loud, messy and their cracks are visible and worn with love.

When a bowl breaks at Robyn’s house, her father shows the two girls how they can use the Japanese art of Kintsugi to mend it. I love the idea behind Kintsugi, that something can be made more beautiful by the very act of mending it. Robyn comes from a family where things break all the time, but vitally things – and people – are treasured. So healing is a big theme of the novel, and...[read on]

Visit Sarah Easter Collins's website.

The Page 69 Test: Things Don't Break on Their Own.

Q&A with Sarah Easter Collins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sheila Curran Bernard's "Bring Judgment Day"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies by Sheila Curran Bernard.

About the book, from the publisher:

Known worldwide as Lead Belly, Huddie Ledbetter (1889–1949) is an American icon whose influence on modern music was tremendous – as was, according to legend, the temper that landed him in two of the South's most brutal prisons, while his immense talent twice won him pardons. But, as this deeply researched book shows, these stories were shaped by the white folklorists who 'discovered' Lead Belly and, along with reporters, recording executives, and radio and film producers, introduced him to audiences beyond the South. Through a revelatory examination of arrest, trial, and prison records; sharecropping reports; oral histories; newspaper articles; and more, author Sheila Curran Bernard replaces myth with fact, offering a stunning indictment of systemic racism in the Jim Crow era of the United States and the power of narrative to erase and distort the past.

Visit Sheila Curran Bernard's website.

The Page 99 Test: Bring Judgment Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven sports novels about more than athleticism

Adrian Markle is the author of the novel Bruise and many short stories. Originally from Canada, he now lives with his partner in Cornwall, UK, where he teaches English and Creative Writing at Falmouth University.

"[S]port novels are never only about sport," Markle claims.

As sport exists as a product of our political and politicized cultures, so then do explorations and depictions of it. Stories about sport are also stories about class, gender, race, identity, mental health, disability, or collective vs individual identity (though probably not all of them all at once).

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven contemporary novels about sport. One title on the list:

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Straightforward and punchy, Carrie Soto Is Back is about the titular Carrie, the winningest Grand Slam champion in tennis history. She retires on top. And then, five years later, the younger Nicki Chan dominates the tour and closes in on Carrie’s records. But all the spiky, unpopular Carrie Soto really has is her records, so she laces up her signature shoes for one last season to keep what records she can and reclaim the rest. Along the way, she tries to rebuild her relationships with her father—who had been her coach once, until she fired him—with her exes and opponents, with the sport of tennis, with the concept of winning, and with herself. Who will she be when, eventually, she’s no longer the best in the world?

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sarah Easter Collins's "Things Don’t Break On Their Own"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Things Don't Break on Their Own: A Novel by Sarah Easter Collins.

About the book, from the publisher:

A heart-wrenching mystery about sisters, lovers, and a dinner party gone wrong.

Twenty-five years ago, a young girl left home to walk to school. Her younger sister soon followed. But one of them arrived, and one of them didn’t.

Her sister’s disappearance has defined Willa’s life. Everyone thinks her sister is dead, but Willa knows she isn’t. Because there are some things that only sisters know about each other—and some bonds only sisters can break.

Willa sees fragments of her sister everywhere — the way that woman on the train turns her head, the gait of that woman in Paris. If there’s the slightest resemblance, Willa drops everything, and everyone, and tries to see if it is her.

When Willa is invited to a dinner party thrown by her first love, she has no reason to expect it will be anything other than an ordinary evening. Both of them have moved on, ancient history. But nothing about Willa’s life has been ordinary since the day her sister disappeared, and that’s not about to change tonight.

Sarah Easter Collins has written an extraordinary novel about memory, lost love, and long-buried secrets that sometimes see the light of day.

Visit Sarah Easter Collins's website.

The Page 69 Test: Things Don't Break on Their Own.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tracy L. Steffes's "Structuring Inequality"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Structuring Inequality: How Schooling, Housing, and Tax Policies Shaped Metropolitan Development and Education by Tracy L. Steffes.

About the book, from the publisher:

How inequality was forged, fought over, and forgotten through public policy in metropolitan Chicago.

As in many American metropolitan areas, inequality in Chicagoland is visible in its neighborhoods. These inequalities are not inevitable, however. They have been constructed and deepened by public policies around housing, schooling, taxation, and local governance, including hidden state government policies.

In Structuring Inequality, historian Tracy L. Steffes shows how metropolitan inequality in Chicagoland was structured, contested, and naturalized over time even as reformers tried to change it through school desegregation, affordable housing, and property tax reform. While these efforts had modest successes in the city and the suburbs, reformers faced significant resistance and counter-mobilization from affluent suburbanites, real estate developers, and other defenders of the status quo who defended inequality and reshaped the policy conversation about it. Grounded in comprehensive archival research and policy analysis, Structuring Inequality examines the history of Chicagoland’s established systems of inequality and provides perspective on the inequality we live with today.

Learn more about Structuring Inequality at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Structuring Inequality.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top thrillers set in Italy

Tom Hindle hails from Leeds and lives in Oxfordshire with his wife, a cat and two surprisingly cunning tortoises.

He is the author of A Fatal Crossing, The Murder Game, and Murder on Lake Garda – which were inspired by masters of the crime genre such as Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz.

At the Waterstones blog Hindle tagged six favorite thrillers set in Italy, as is of course Murder on Lake Garda. One title on the list:

Imperium by Robert Harris

For those partial to a historical thriller, the first entry in Robert Harris’s Cicero trilogy transports us to ancient Rome, where we follow a promising young lawyer as he embarks on one of the most dramatic courtroom battles ever fought. If he wins, Cicero may seize control of Rome itself. Lose, however, and he’ll be finished. An all-round masterclass in historical fiction-writing, this story of an epic struggle for power is one for the ages.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see John Hooper's top ten books about Italy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Menika B. Dirkson's "Hope and Struggle in the Policed City"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hope and Struggle in the Policed City: Black Criminalization and Resistance in Philadelphia by Menika B. Dirkson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores how concerns about poverty-induced Black crime cultivated by police, journalists, and city officials sparked a rise in tough-on-crime policing in Philadelphia

During the Great Migration of African Americans to the North, Philadelphia’s police department, journalists, and city officials used news media to create and reinforce narratives that criminalized Black people and led to police brutality, segregation, and other dehumanizing consequences for Black communities. Over time, city officials developed a system of racial capitalism in which City Council financially divested from social welfare programs and instead invested in the police department, promoting a “tough on crime” policing program that generated wealth for Philadelphia’s tax base in an attempt to halt white flight from the city.

Drawing from newspapers, census records, oral histories, interviews, police investigation reports, housing project pamphlets, maps, and more, Hope and Struggle in the Policed City draws the connective line between the racial bias African Americans faced as they sought opportunity in the North and the over-policing of their communities, of which the effects are still visible today. Menika B. Dirkson posits that the tough-on-crime framework of this time embedded itself within every aspect of society, leading to enduring systemic issues of hyper-surveillance, the use of excessive force, and mass incarceration.

Hope and Struggle in the Policed City makes important contributions to our understanding of how a city government’s budgetary strategy can function as racial capitalism that relies on criminal scapegoating. Most cogently, it illustrates how this perpetuates the cycle of poverty-induced crime, inflates rates of incarceration and police brutality, and marginalizes poor people of color.

Learn more about Hope and Struggle in the Policed City at the NYU Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Hope and Struggle in the Policed City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top feminist caper stories

Tess Amy was born in Johannesburg but now enjoys a nomadic lifestyle, living between Europe and South Africa. She holds a master’s degree from The Durban University of Technology, is an outdoor enthusiast, animal lover and unfaltering optimist.

The Confidence Games is her debut contemporary fiction novel. She also writes historical fiction as T.A. Willberg.

At CrimeReads Amy tagged five "favorite feisty feminist caper stories," including:

The Heist by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg

Although Janet Evanovich started out writing romance, she is, in my opinion, the Queen of contemporary crime fiction. The Heist, which is co-written by bestselling author and television writer, Lee Goldberg, is the first in her long running and tremendously popular Fox and O’Hare series.

The Heist introduces us to FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare as she sets out on the trail of the world’s greatest con man: the charming Nicholas Fox. But when Fox is eventually captured, he pulls off his finest con yet by cajoling the FBI into releasing him on the condition that he joins forces with Kate and works alongside her to hunt down other criminals. This book has all the dazzling action and sharp wit Evanovich is known for, plus a dash of romantic tension. What more could anyone want?

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ellen Won Steil’s “Becoming Marlow Fin,” the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Becoming Marlow Fin: A Novel by Ellen Won Steil.

The entry begins:

Becoming Marlow Fin is a suspense, family drama that centers around the sudden appearance of a little girl at the Baek Family’s Lake Superior cabin, and how her absorption into the family disrupts their seemingly perfect lives. Isla watches on as her adopted sister Marlow, grows up into a famous model and actress, their lives continually intwining with both moments of closeness and tension. Told through Isla’s reflections and Marlow’s perspective in a sensationalized “tell all” interview format, the twists and turns all culminate into a deadly incident at the lake where it all began.

As an author, I’m very visual in my process and tend to picture “scenes” playing out in my mind as I write them. Even with dialogue, I find it helps to envision the characters and their facial expressions. Especially with this story, I wanted characters who were diverse and uniquely beautiful, showcasing how our physical differences are truly our gifts.

For Marlow: The absolute dream, ideal casting for this multi-layered character is Zendaya. Unique in her loveliness both inside and out, she personifies how the standard for what we consider “beautiful” has changed. There’s something enigmatic about her and it’s hard to...[read on]

Visit Ellen Won Steil's website.

My Book, The Movie: Becoming Marlow Fin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Grundy's "Never By Itself Alone"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Never By Itself Alone: Queer Poetry, Queer Communities in Boston and the Bay Area, 1944―Present by David Grundy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Providing an unprecedented exploration of key moments in queer literary history, Never By Itself Alone changes our sense of both the American literary and political landscapes from the late 1940s through the 21st century. Grundy presents the first comprehensive history of post-war queer writing in Boston and San Francisco, intertwining analysis of lesbian, gay, and queer writing, and insisting on the link between activism and literature.

The book centers a host of underrepresented writers, especially writers of color and those with gender non-conforming identities, and challenges the Stonewall exceptionalism of queer historiography. Starting with Robert Duncan's 1944 essay, 'The Homosexual in Society', one of the first significant public defenses of homosexuality in the US, Grundy takes the reader through pioneering works by queer voices of the era, including Adrian Stanford's Black and Queer, the first published book by an out, Black gay poet in the US; the Boston collective Fag Rag and their radical reconsideration of family, private property and the State; the Combahee River Collective, whose Black Feminist analysis drew together race, class, and sexuality; the anthology This Bridge Called My Back, in which women of color spoke truth to power, together; and New Narrative writing, which audaciously mixed Marxism, porn and gossip while uniting against the New Right. Linking these works to the context which produced them, Grundy uncovers the communities formed around activism and small press publishing during this era and elevates neglected voices to narrate a history that before now has never been told in its entirety.

Drawing on extensive archival research, Never By Itself Alone is a rigorous and unmatched work of both literary criticism and queer scholarship which underscores the vital importance of radical accounts of race, class, and gender in any queer studies worthy of the name.

Learn more about Never By Itself Alone at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Never By Itself Alone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about women colliding with wild creatures

Julia Phillips is the author of the bestselling novels Bear and Disappearing Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year. A 2024 Guggenheim fellow, she lives with her family in Brooklyn.

[Writers Read: Julia Phillips (June 2019)]

At Electric Lit Phillips tagged ten books in which

the women who meet wild creatures, both animal and mythical, are often trapped in their own lives. Domestic drudgery rules. They’re homemakers, caretakers, wives and mothers and daughters and sisters who are struggling against the limitations imposed on them. When they meet a beast, though, they are able to get to a previously inaccessible wildness. They break away from human rules, a strictly human world, and into something other—something extraordinary, something free. The beast outside provokes the transformation within.

One title on the list:

Sea Change by Gina Chung

Sticking with the sea but scaling back the sex, this tender, gorgeous debut novel is about a grieving young woman’s bond with a giant Pacific octopus. The octopus, Dolores, is the main character’s last link to her lost father—but their connection is threatened when Dolores is threatened with a sale to a private aquarium. In interviews, Chung has said, “This is a story about love, loss, and cephalopods; things that everyone can relate to.” How true! So wrap your tentacles around this one and enjoy.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael D. Hattem's "The Memory of '76"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Memory of '76: The Revolution in American History by Michael D. Hattem.

About the book, from the publisher:

The surprising history of how Americans have fought over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution for nearly two and a half centuries

Americans agree that their nation’s origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas.

In this sweeping take on American history, Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—have influenced the most important events and tumultuous periods in the nation’s history; how African Americans, women, and other oppressed groups have shaped the popular memory of the Revolution; and how much of our contemporary memory of the Revolution is a product of Cold War–era propaganda.

By exploring the Revolution’s unique role in American history as a national origin myth, The Memory of ’76 shows how remembering the nation’s founding has often done far more to divide Americans than to unite them, and how revising the past is an important and long-standing American political tradition.

Visit Michael D. Hattem's website.

The Page 99 Test: Past and Prologue.

The Page 99 Test: The Memory of '76.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen top books about Appalachia

In 2020 at Book Riot Kendra Winchester tagged fifteen books in "the rich tradition of Appalachian literature," including:

The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg

Part true crime, part history, and part memoir, The Third Rainbow Girl follows author Emma Copley Eisenberg as she moves to West Virginia and makes a home for herself. She eventually learns that decades ago in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two girls were murdered. As she follows that case, she weaves in stories from her own experience in Appalachia, skillfully tying together the many threads of this genre-defying book.

Read about another title on the list.

The Third Rainbow Girl is among James Polchin's seven top queer true crime books.

The Page 99 Test: The Third Rainbow Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Frances Kolb Turnbell's "Spanish Louisiana"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Spanish Louisiana: Contest for Borderlands, 1763–1803 by Frances Kolb Turnbell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Frances Kolb Turnbell’s study of Spanish colonial Louisiana is the first comprehensive history of the colony. It emphasizes the Lower Mississippi valley’s status as a borderland contested by empires and the region’s diverse inhabitants in the era of volatility that followed the Seven Years’ War. As Turnbell demonstrates, the Spanish era was characterized by tremendous transition as the colony emerged from the neglect of the French period and became slowly but increasingly centered on plantation agriculture. The transformations of this critical period grew out of the struggles between Spain and Louisiana’s colonists, enslaved people, and Indians over issues related to space and mobility. Many borderland peoples, networks, and alliances sought to preserve Louisiana as a flexible and fluid zone as the colonial government attempted to control and contain the region’s inhabitants for its own purposes through policy and efforts to secure loyalty and its own advantageous alliances.

Turnbell first examines the period from 1763 through the American Revolution, when the Mississippi River was a boundary between empires. The river’s designation as an imperial border ran counter to the topography of North America and counter to the practices of the valley’s inhabitants, who employed its waterways to trade, communicate, migrate, and survive. Turnbell pays special attention to the Revolt of 1768, the burgeoning trade along the Mississippi prior to the American Revolution that involved British and American merchants, Spanish preparation for war, and the crucial involvement of the borderland’s diverse inhabitants as the war played out on the Lower Mississippi.

Turnbell then explains how the activity of borderland peoples evolved after the Revolutionary War when the Lower Mississippi was no longer an imperial boundary. She considers the instability and fluidity of postwar years in Louisiana, American trade and migration, Louisiana’s experience of the Age of Revolutions—from pro-French sentiments to plans for rebellion among the enslaved—and ultimately, Spain’s political demise in the Mississippi River valley.

Learn more about Spanish Louisiana at the LSU Press website.

The Page 99 Test:Spanish Louisiana.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers and horror novels set at terrible summer camps

Molly Odintz is the managing editor for CrimeReads and the editor of Austin Noir, now available from Akashic Books. She grew up in Austin and worked as a bookseller before becoming a Very Professional Internet Person. She lives in central Texas with her cat, Fritz Lang.

At CrimeReads Odintz tagged eight top thrillers and horror novels set at terrible summer camps, including:

Sami Ellis, Dead Girls Walking

Sapphic romance and serial killers at summer camp! Sami Ellis seems to have included every trope I have on my checklist, and they all work together seamlessly for an irrepressibly entertaining horror experience.

Read about another book on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Girls Walking.

Q&A with Sami Ellis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top novels about brilliant freaks

Jane Flett is a Scottish writer who lives in Berlin. Her debut novel is Freakslaw.

Flett's fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4 and features in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading. She is a recipient of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award, the New Orleans Writing Residency and the Berlin Senate Stipend for non-German literature. Her work has also been Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

At Electric Lit Flett tagged seven favorite novels about brilliant freaks, including:

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

The mother at the center of Nightbitch has given up her art career and much of her identity for the past two years to stay home and care for her child. But things are beginning to change. Her canines are growing and sharpening, and there’s a thick new patch of hair on the back of her neck—signs of the essentially feral and freakish self she’s tried to repress. Everything becomes more interesting as she increasingly gives space to her gleeful dog impulses, casting off the woman the patriarchy says she should be, and making room for her alter ego Nightbitch instead. This book is a celebration of living unapologetically—a deranged manual for subverting the pressures and expectations of motherhood, and coming back to yourself.

Read about another novel on the list.

Nightbitch is among Erin Swan's five books about fragile worlds.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rena Steinzor's "American Apocalypse"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: American Apocalypse: The Six Far-Right Groups Waging War on Democracy by Rena Steinzor.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thorough analysis of the right-wing interests contributing to the downfall of American democracy

The war on American democracy is at a fever pitch. Such a corrosive state of affairs did not arise spontaneously up from the people but instead was pushed, top-down, by six private sector special interest groups―big business, the House Freedom Caucus, the Federalist Society, Fox News, white evangelicals, and armed militias. In American Apocalypse Rena Steinzor argues that these groups are nothing more than well-financed armies fighting a battle of attrition against the national government, with power, money, and fame as their central motivations.

The book begins at the end of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, when the modern regulatory state was born. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration ensured that everything from our air to our medicine was safe. But efforts to thwart this "big government" agenda began swiftly, albeit in the shadows. Business leaders built a multi-billion dollar presence in the Capitol, and the rest of the six interest groups soon followed.

While the groups do not coordinate their attacks, and sometimes their short-term goals even conflict, their priorities fall within a surprisingly tight bullseye: the size and power of the administrative state. In the near-term, their campaigns will bring the crucial functions of government to a halt, which will lead to immediate suffering by the working classes, and a rapid deterioration of race relations. Over the long-term, as the prevalence of global pandemics and climate crises increase, an incapacitated national government will usher in unimaginable harm.

This book is the first to conceptualize these groups together, as one deconstructive and awe-inspiring force. Steinzor delves into each of their histories, mapping the strategies, tactics, and characteristics that make them so powerful. She offers the most comprehensive story available about the downfall of American democracy, reminding us that only by recognizing what we are up against can we hope to bring about change.

Learn more about American Apocalypse at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: American Apocalypse.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top body horror novels

Monika Kim is a second-generation Korean-American living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.

In her first novel, The Eyes are the Best Part, she writes:

Ji-won is a seemingly normal college student whose life unravels after her father’s departure and the arrival of her mother’s creepy new Caucasian boyfriend, George. After eating a fish eye for luck during a traditional Korean meal, Ji-won develops a morbid obsession with George’s blue eyes, culminating in acts of violence that confront the white male gaze in a very literal fashion.

At the Guardian Kim tagged five favorite titles for readers who "have the intestinal fortitude for body horror tales." One novel on the list:

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Murata’s novel is compulsively readable in spite of the many disturbing themes it covers. Natsuki, who is neglected by her family, seeks meaning in her existence after a series of traumatic events cause her to question gender norms and societal expectations. Bizarre and unpredictable, Earthlings features plenty of unsettling moments and will stay fixed in your mind long after you turn the last page.

Read about another entry on the list.

Earthlings is among Katie Yee's eight fictional housewives who snapped (in a fun way).

--Marshal Zeringue

Six creepy novels about stalking and obsession

Born and raised in North London, S.B. Caves is the international bestselling author of A Killer Came Knocking and I Know Where She Is, which The Sun described as "sinister, unsettling and gripping."

His new high concept thriller is Honeycomb.

Caves now lives in South London with his wife and two sons.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six creepy novel about stalking and obsesson "with some of the most twisted plots and even more twisted antagonists." One titele on the list:

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

This masterfully layered, epic autofiction thriller recounts the author’s final years at a prestigious high school in the early eighties. The arrival of Robert Mallory, a gorgeous new boy who inserts himself into Ellis’s elite circle of friends, kickstarts the novel’s central mystery. After a few acute observations, Ellis almost intuitively feels that something is deeply amiss with Mallory, though Ellis is seemingly the only one picking up on all his apparent lies and contradictions. At the same time, there is a sadistic serial killer known as The Trawler stalking LA, and a strange, Manson-like satanic cult running wild through the city. While dealing with the complexities of his deteriorating social life, Ellis is unable to shake the idea that Robert is in fact The Trawler, and this unwavering conviction eventually leads to a violent confrontation.

The depiction of The Trawler’s atrocities is beyond horrific and genuinely unnerving. Though, what might not be apparent upon a first read is just how clever this novel really is. There is so much going on beneath the surface here. The Shards almost demands a second and third readthrough so we can more closely analyze our narrator’s intentions and behavior toward this attractive ‘God’ that appears to throw Ellis’s life into flux. It is then that we collate clues that might have been missed originally. Is Mallory really the problem, or is Ellis’s paranoid fascination with him blowing things out of proportion? Could Mallory really be the maniacal murderer on the rampage, or is our narrator’s unhealthy fixation a symptom of something darker?

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue