Q&A with Colin Mills

From my Q&A with Colin Mills, author of Bitter Passage: A Novel:

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

I hope it doesn’t pull any punches. It’s true what they say: coming up with a title was the hardest part of writing the book. I won’t share the original title if you don’t mind, but my publisher—quite correctly, I think—suggested it include the word ‘Passage’, alluding to the Northwest Passage. I thought long and hard about how to succinctly describe the Royal Navy’s nineteenth-century search for the Passage, and ‘Bitter’ was the most appropriate adjective. The British wanted to find the Passage, thought they needed to find it, but the search was arduous and dangerous. Men died trying to find it, even before Franklin’s expedition. For all that, the search for the Passage became almost like a kind of unpleasant medicine the Royal Navy felt it needed to consume. Why? Bitter Passage tries to explore some of the answers.

What's in a name?

The two main characters, Robinson and Adams, are loosely based on...[read on]

Visit Colin Mills's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bitter Passage.

The Page 69 Test: Bitter Passage.

Q&A with Colin Mills.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: William Plowright's "The War on Rescue"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The War on Rescue: The Obstruction of Humanitarian Assistance in the European Migration Crisis by William Plowright.

About the book, from the publisher:

The War on Rescue documents how governments block assistance to people in times of crisis. Focusing on the European Migration Crisis of 2015–2022 to address the reasons why governments do this, William Plowright discusses the strategies employed that prevent suffering people from receiving help.

The European Migration Crisis motivated people around the world to offer assistance to needy refugees and migrants across Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. Both large and small organizations rushed to bring food, medical care, and rescue to those stranded at sea. However, many European governments sought to prevent humanitarian assistance and deny safe haven to the desperate. Boats filled with those rescued were blocked from harbors, activists were arrested, and staff were threatened; some faced violence. The War on Rescue adds to social science understanding of and explanations for humanitarian assistance and the reasons why governments obstruct rescue efforts.

Visit William Plowright's website.

The Page 99 Test: The War on Rescue.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten most notable New Years in literature

In 2011 at the Guardian, John Mullan tagged the ten most notable New Years in literature. One title on the list:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Smith's novel begins on New Year's Day 1975, with Archie Jones trying to kill himself. He fails and ends up at a New Year's Eve party that is still going from the night before. There he meets Clara, a vision of eccentric perfection, and before long he has another wife.

Read about another entry on the list.

White Teeth is on Simon Han's list of eight books where things don't go that well, Panikos Panayi's top ten list of books about Londoners, Ellie Kemper's ten favorite books list, Jeff Somers's list of five notable books set on New Year’s Eve (and Day), Michael Gibney's top ten list of restaurants and bars in modern literature, Mary Beard's six best books list, Melissa Albert's list of five notable--and ambitious--debut novels and Nigel Williams's list of ten of the best books about suburbia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Meryl Gordon's "The Woman Who Knew Everyone," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington's Most Famous Hostess by Meryl Gordon.

The entry begins:

Perle Mesta’s rollicking life story has inspired an Irving Berlin musical, Call Me Madam, in which she was portrayed by Ethel Merman, as well as a movie version of the same, plus an CBS Playhouse 90 docudrama in which Shirley Booth did the honors.

But if a movie were made from my book, The Woman Who Knew Everyone, I think the themes and plot would be dramatically different. Perle was the consummate party-giver, and that’s what she’s known for, but she was also a pioneering diplomat (only the third woman to be named as a State Department foreign envoy), an enthusiastic supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and influential in Democratic politics.

I hope her substantive experiences would be amply covered in a movie, plus her close friendships with three presidents: Truman, Eisenhower and LBJ. But she also carried on entertaining feuds that would add drama: her ridiculous rift with Jackie Kennedy and a several decades-long white-gloved war with competing DC socialite Gwen Cafritz.

As for casting...[read on]

Visit Meryl Gordon's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Phantom of Fifth Avenue.

Writers Read: Meryl Gordon (October 2017).

The Page 99 Test: Bunny Mellon.

My Book, The Movie: Bunny Mellon.

My Book, The Movie: The Woman Who Knew Everyone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paolo Heywood's "Burying Mussolini"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Burying Mussolini: Ordinary Life in the Shadows of Fascism by Paolo Heywood.

About the book, from the publisher:

Burying Mussolini addresses the global resurgence in authoritarian and nationalist populism and its connection with valorizations of ordinary life. Predappio is the birthplace and burial site of Benito Mussolini and Italy's premier neo-fascist tourist site with hundreds of thousands of fascist sympathizers descending on the town annually. But, Paolo Heywood asks, what of the people who actually live there? What does 'ordinary life' look like in the shadow of Mussolini's grave?

As politicians, commentators, and social scientists seek to understand what lies behind new forms of political authoritarianism, and whether and how they resemble movements once thought consigned to the past, Burying Mussolini narrates how people in Predappio cope with the dark heritage of their home by carefully crafting a sense of 'ordinariness' that is itself inflected by ghosts of their fascist past.

Learn more about Burying Mussolini at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Burying Mussolini.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about Jimmy Carter

Robert Lieberman is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He studies American political development, race and American politics, and public policy. He has also written extensively about the development of American democracy and the links between American and comparative politics.

His most recent book is Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (2020), co-authored with Suzanne Mettler.

[The Page 99 Test: Four Threats]

At Five Books Eve Gerber interviewed Lieberman about five books helpful to understand Carter and the context in which he served and was elected. From their discussion of one of Lieberman's picks:

[Gerber] This brings us to another book you recommended: Meg Jacobs, Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s. Please tell us about it.

[Lieberman] Like [Jefferson Cowie’s Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class], Meg Jacobs’s book about the energy crisis of the 1970s does a great job of situating the politics of the era in the longer-run transformations taking place during the decade, particularly our relationship with the Middle East and with imported oil. That’s behind a lot of the inflation in the decade.

[Gerber] In 1977 Carter said, “The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.” Please help us understand the salience of the energy crisis that took place during Carter’s presidency and his much-criticized handling of it.

[Lieberman] One of the things that Carter doesn’t get enough credit for is thinking and speaking clearly about the energy crisis, energy challenges, and America’s dependence on the Middle East, which was an increasingly unstable region, for imported oil. He was forthright about the need to conserve energy both for economic reasons and security reasons. In a way, Carter was visionary about these things....[read on]

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Isa Arsén

From my Q&A with Isa Arsén, author of The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf:

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

This title reveals the entire conflict to the reader, if they know where to look. Unbecoming is lifted directly from a line of dialogue in Macbeth, a Shakespeare play with themes & character relationships woven into this novel. It comes from a scene in which Lady Macbeth is convincing a dinner crowd that her husband is fine, actually, despite his mental turmoil over the choices she has pushed him to make; holding up decorum, desperate to come across as normal. Margaret Wolf is our protagonist's name, and fitting to feature up front since the reader spends the entire book placed directly in her internal monologue. As a whole, the title speaks to strange, uncouth change -- when something is "unbecoming" it may be unsightly, disgusting, or unfit for civility. It's a book about rebirth through complete dissolution, and I think the title evokes...[read on]

Visit Isa Arsén's website.

Q&A with Isa Arsén.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Maron E. Greenleaf's "Forest Lost"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon by Maron E. Greenleaf.

About the book, from the publisher:

Forest Lost is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Unlike other forest commodities, forest carbon offsets do not involve resource extraction; instead, they require keeping carbon in place through forest protection. Maron E. Greenleaf explores forest carbon offsets to understand green capitalism—the use of capitalist logics and practices to mitigate environmental damage. She traces cultural, environmental, governmental, material, and multispecies relations involved in making forest carbon valuable as well as how forest carbon’s commodification in the Amazon turned it into a source of redistributable public environmental wealth. At the same time, Greenleaf shows how making forest carbon monetarily valuable created an unexpected set of uneven, contingent, and contested social and political relations. While forest carbon in the Amazon demonstrates that green capitalism can be socially inclusive, it also shows that green capitalism can reinforce the marginalization it purportedly seeks to combat. By outlining these complex relations and tensions, Greenleaf elucidates broader efforts to create a capitalism suited to the Anthropocene and those efforts’ alluring promises and vexing failures.

Visit Maron E. Greenleaf's website.

The Page 99 Test: Forest Lost.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best modern horror classics

At BookRiot Steph Auteri tagged ten modern horror classics keeping the genre alive. One title on the list:

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

Katsu has been churning out historical horror since 2011, but I was introduced to her work with 2018’s The Hunger. In it, she adds a supernatural bent to the true-life tale of the Donner party, a group of American pioneers who were trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the winter, succumbed to starvation and eventually turned to cannibalism. When one thinks of cannibalism, one’s mind automatically turns to The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. But I also can’t help thinking about Michael Crichton’s Congo, which features a whole other expedition gone horribly wrong.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Hunger is among Sharon Virts's twenty scary books for Halloween, C. J. Tudor's five top winter thrillers, Brittany Bunzey's twenty-five "must-read, truly bone-chilling" horror books, Deborah E. Kennedy's seven hot mysteries set in the Midwestern winter, Meagan Navarro top ten scary good horror novels, Jac Jemc's top ten haunting ghost stories and Mallory O'Meara's top thirteen spine-chilling books written by female authors.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ayo Onatade: favorite crime & thriller reads of 2024

At the Shots ezine blog Ayo Onatade tagged her favorite reads of 2024, including:

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

Alfred Smettle adores Hitchcock. And who better to become founder, owner and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a remote, sprawling Victorian house sitting atop a hill in the beautiful White Mountains, New England. There, guests can find movie props and memorabilia in every room, round-the-clock film screenings, and an aviary with fifty crows. For the hotel's first anniversary, Alfred invites the five college friends he studied film with. He hasn't spoken to any of them in sixteen years. Not after what happened. But who better to appreciate Alfred's creation? His guests arrive, and everything seems to go according to plan. Until one glimpses someone standing outside her shower curtain. Another is violently ill every time she eats the hotel food. Then their mobile phones go missing. You should always make the audience suffer as much as possible, right? The guests are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and things are about to get even worse. After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a dead body.

Read about another novel on the list.

The Hitchcock Hotel is among Isabelle McConville's nine top titles with deadly invitations.

The Page 69 Test: The Hitchcock Hotel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joe Street's "Black Revolutionaries"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Black Revolutionaries: A History of the Black Panther Party by Joe Street.

About the book, from the publisher:

Black Revolutionaries is an accessible yet rigorously argued history of the Black Panther Party (BPP), one of the emblematic organizations of the 1960s. Joe Street highlights the complexity of the BPP’s history through three key themes: the BPP’s intellectual history, its political and social activism, and the persecution its members endured. Together, these themes confirm the BPP’s importance in understanding Black America’s response to white oppression in the 1960s and 1970s.

Based on a wealth of archival material, Black Revolutionaries reveals the enduring importance of leftist political philosophy to 1960s and 1970s radicalism, and how the BPP helps us to understand more deeply the role of public space and public protest in the 1960s. Street shows how the BPP were key to the transformation of political activism in the post-civil rights era. As the BPP faced the psychological and organizational impacts of FBI surveillance, police repression, and imprisonment, Street examines how these negative forces helped to shape and destroy the BPP.

Most significantly, Black Revolutionaries demonstrates that an understanding of African American grassroots politics and protest, racial injustice, and police brutality in the post-civil rights era is only comprehensible through engagement with the BPP’s history.

Learn more about Black Revolutionaries at the University of Georgia Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Black Revolutionaries.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mystery Tribune" — eleven top crime & mystery books of 2024

One of Mystery Tribune's favorite crime and mystery books of 2024:

Blind to Midnight by Reed Farrel Coleman

When you’re in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan.

Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. He doesn’t wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who’s vanished. Or make a key witness disappear.

He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city.

Nearly three thousand New Yorkers died on 9/11. But in the entire city on that tragic day, only one murder actually took place. Now, over two decades later, Detective Nick Ryan must dig beneath the official report—and into his own past—to find the truth.

Working again for the mysterious power broker “Joe,” Nick finds a link between an airman, a billionaire, a trove of Nazi gold, and a crew of killers, but gets sidetracked when his dear “uncle” Tony and Tony’s wife are murdered in a professional hit.

Nick’s investigations uncover a tangled web of corruption and blood money, and as the horrifying truth emerges, he finds himself outgunned, on the run, and trusting no one.

With professional killers on his trail, will Nick Ryan be able to end the violence before he loses everything that matters to him—including his own life?

Read about another novel on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Blind to Midnight.

My Book, The Movie: Blind to Midnight.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lisa Jacobson's "Intoxicating Pleasures"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Intoxicating Pleasures: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey after Prohibition by Lisa Jacobson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In popular memory the repeal of US Prohibition in 1933 signaled alcohol’s decisive triumph in a decades-long culture war. But as Lisa Jacobson reveals, alcohol’s respectability and mass market success were neither sudden nor assured. It took a world war and a battalion of public relations experts and tastemakers to transform wine, beer, and whiskey into emblems of the American good life. Alcohol producers and their allies—a group that included scientists, trade associations, restaurateurs, home economists, cookbook authors, and New Deal planners—powered a publicity machine that linked alcohol to wartime food crusades and new ideas about the place of pleasure in modern American life. In this deeply researched and engagingly written book, Jacobson shows how the yearnings of ordinary consumers and military personnel shaped alcohol’s cultural reinvention and put intoxicating pleasures at the center of broader debates about the rights and obligations of citizens.

Learn more about Intoxicating Pleasures at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Intoxicating Pleasures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kevin Burton Smith's top crime fiction of 2024

At The Rap Sheet Kevin Burton Smith tagged his favorite crime fiction of 2024. One title on the list:

Hero, by Thomas Perry

In this standalone Perry yarn, the man behind the critically acclaimed Jane Whitfield series gives us another strong, resourceful female. But Justine Poole isn’t a “guide,” shepherding people into new lives under new identities.

Nope, Justine—we eventually find out—has already done that. To herself. Not that it matters—it’s her present life, as a personal security agent on the payroll of a high-priced and well-regarded Los Angeles firm, that lands her in trouble.

She's young, ambitious, attractive, quick on her feet, and very good at her job, protecting wealthy, high-profile Hollywood celebrities, attending lavish galas, and hobnobbing with Tinseltown’s rich and famous. So when she gets a call from her hands-on boss, who suspects a couple he’s been guarding—an elderly television producer and his wife—are possibly the targets of a home invasion, she doesn’t hesitate. She rushes to the couple’s swanky Beverly Hills home, and...[read on]

Read about another novel on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Hero.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Colin Mills's "Bitter Passage"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Bitter Passage: A Novel by Colin Mills.

About the book, from the publisher:

A nineteenth-century Arctic expedition descends into a chilling nightmare in a gripping and epic historical novel of discovery, rescue, deliverance, and survival by any means.

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin, commander of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departed England to seek a navigable route across the top of the Americas. He and his 128 men never returned.

Four years later, Royal Navy Lieutenant Frederick Robinson and Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams are determined to find the men missing in the Arctic. While they are united in purpose, they are divided in ambition. The pious and idealistic Adams strives to save his boyhood hero. Robinson hungers for promotion through the Admiralty ranks. Weathering a relationship as volatile as the icy, barren land upon which they trek, Robinson and Adams lead a team of seamen in search of the lost expedition. What awaits them is a struggle against not only the elements but each other as loneliness, starvation, and maddening isolation prove more chilling than the deadliest Arctic blast.

A harrowing novel set against the background of true events, Bitter Passage explores two men’s driving need for redemption and the lengths to which a desperate soul will go to survive.

Visit Colin Mills's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bitter Passage.

The Page 69 Test: Bitter Passage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about The Gilded Age’s wild women

Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister earned her MFA in creative writing from American University. Her historical novels, including The Magician’s Lie, Girl in Disguise, Woman 99, and The Arctic Fury, have been named Book of the Month, Indie Next, LibraryReads, Target Book Club, and Amazon Best Book of the Month picks and optioned for film and television.

Macallister's newest novel is The Thirteenth Husband.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged five "books starring real-life rebels of" the Gilded Age. One title on the list:

The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s name is well-known in Boston for her namesake museum that still stands today, but the choices she made during her lifetime set Gilded Age tongues wagging. After a series of tragic losses, she fled to Europe and discovered a new path to healing: the enjoyment of art. In the 1880s and 1890s she collected vast stores of fine art from Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, and after her husband’s death in 1898, she pursued their shared dream of building a museum to house and display these treasures. Franklin’s novel intimately describes Isabella’s grief and longing in her darkest days as well as her passion for life and fiery spirit.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Lioness of Boston.

Q&A with Emily Franklin.

My Book, The Movie: The Lioness of Boston.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jennie Lightweis-Goff's "Captive City"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Captive City: Meditations on Slavery in the Urban South by Jennie Lightweis-Goff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores the legacies of slavery in Southern cities along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts

Cities are fraught sites in the national imagination, turned into identity markers when “urban” and “rural” indicate tastes rather than places. Cities bring chaos, draining the lifeblood of the nation like a tick draws blood from its host, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson’s anti-urban polemics, which might have been written during any election year―centuries or months ago. Racism and anti-urbanism were born conjoined during the Revolution. Like their Atlantic coastal counterparts in the US North, Southern cities ―similarly polyglot and cosmopolitan―resist the dominant, mutually inclusive prejudices of the nation that fails to contain them on its eroding, flooding coasts.

Captive City explores the paths of slavery in coastal cities, arguing that captivity haunts the “hospitality” cultures of Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Baltimore. It is not a history of urban slavery, but a literary reflection that argues for coastal cities as a distinct region that scrambles time, resisting the “post” in postindustrial and the “neo” in neoliberalism. Jennie Lightweis-Goff offers a cultural exploration bound by American literature, especially life-writing by the enslaved, as well as compelling reassessments of works by canonical writers such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Hector St. John de Crevecoeur.

Lightweis-Goff reveals how the preserved yet fragile landscapes of these cities are haunted―not simply by the ghost tours that are signature stops for travelers in their historic districts―but by the echoes of slavery in their economies and built environments.

Follow Jennie Lightweis-Goff on Instagram and visit her Substack, The Butcher's Darling.

The Page 99 Test: Captive City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight notable Christmas novels

Skylar Miklus serves as Editorial Intern at Electric Literature and Poetry Editor at Barnstorm Journal. They obtained their B.A. in Philosophy from Dartmouth College and are pursuing their MFA in Poetry at the University of New Hampshire. Their writing has appeared in Rogue Agent Journal, Identity Theory, On the Seawall, and elsewhere. They live in Dover, NH, and are currently working on their first collection of poems.

At Electric Lit Miklus tagged eight top Christmas novels, including:

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

In 1920, Jack and Mabel move to Alaska to start a homestead farm and distract themselves from their childlessness. During the first snowfall, they build a girl out of snow; the next morning, they discover a real child running through the woods. The magic-soaked novel that follows kept me hooked the whole way through. Ivey’s writing is tender and gauzy, infused with affection for the natural world and the people who inhabit it.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Snow Child is among Joel H. Morris's seven novels featuring ghost children, Emily Burack's twenty-five of the best classic winter books, Idra Novey's top ten retold fairytales, Ashleigh Bell Pedersen's eight magical novels by women writers and M. A. Kuzniar's eight retellings with a bite of darkness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Orlando Murrin

From my Q&A with Orlando Murrin, author of Knife Skills for Beginners:

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

I come up with dozens and dozens of titles in order to find the best. It isn’t always obvious – you have to live with them for a while, go away and come back, change your mind.

Eventually we settled on Knife Skills For Beginners because it takes you straight in – it’s a story set in an upmarket cookery school. The only doubt was that some readers might mistake it for an instruction manual for wannabe chefs. Indeed, I’ve been to a few literary events where those attending have been expecting an actual cookery demonstration, and are bemused to find me talking instead about a sophisticated murder mystery, albeit with culinary flourishes.

What's in a name?

Equally, I spend hours dreaming up (and changing) the names of my characters. They’re...[read on]

Visit Orlando Murrin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Knife Skills for Beginners.

Q&A with Orlando Murrin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Vicente Valentim's "The Normalization of the Radical Right"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand by Vicente Valentim.

About the book, from the publisher:

Radical-right behavior is increasing across Western democracies, often very quickly. Previous research has shown, however, that political attitudes and preferences do not change as quickly. Vicente Valentim argues that the role of social norms as drivers of political behavior is crucial for understanding these patterns. Building on a norms-based theory of political supply and demand, he argues that growing radical-right behavior is driven by individuals who already had radical-right views, but who did not act on those views because they thought that they were socially unacceptable. If these voters do not express their preferences, politicians can underestimate how much latent support there is for radical-right policy. This leaves the radical right with less skilled leaders, who are unable to mobilize even radical-right voters to support them. However, if politicians realize that there is more private support for radical-right policy than is typically observable, they have an incentive to run for politics with a radical-right platform and to mobilize silent radical-right views. Their electoral success, in turn, leads to radical-right individuals becoming more comfortable in displaying their views, and impels more politicians to join the radical right. The book's argument makes us rethink how political preferences translate into behavior, shows how social norms affect the interaction of political supply and demand, and highlights how a political culture that promotes inclusion can be eroded.

Visit Vicente Valentim's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Normalization of the Radical Right.

--Marshal Zeringue

"ELLE" — The best mystery and thriller books of 2024

One of ELLE magazine's best mystery and thriller books of 2024:

Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch

A wry whodunnit with a hilariously unexpected protagonist, Pony Confidential sees Christina Lynch’s horse protagonist, Pony, on a mission to clear the name of his beloved one-time owner, Penny. When Penny is wrongfully accused of murder, Pony decides he is the best detective for the case: As an animal, he has an acute understanding of humanity’s unkindness. Told in the dual perspectives of Pony and Penny, this is a comic mystery that’s lighthearted but not lacking in thematic substance (or twists).

Read about another entry on the list.

Pony Confidential is among Katy James's five top horse girl books for adults.

The Page 69 Test: Pony Confidential.

My Book, The Movie: Pony Confidential.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels that challenge our notions of normal time

Shelley Wood is the author of The Leap Year Gene of Kit McKinley. Her short fiction, creative non-fiction, columns, and travel-writing have appeared in a range of literary magazines and mainstream media, and her work as a medical journalist has won a range of international prizes. Her debut novel, The Quintland Sisters, about the world’s first identical quintuplets, was a #1 bestseller in Canada.

At The Nerd Daily Wood tagged five favorite "books that directly challenge or subvert our notions of regular time as a central theme or plot device." One title on the list:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Atkinson’s novel begs the “what if” question of her principal characters and plot, then asks it over and over again. Time in this novel loops back then inches forwards, hitting one dead end (quite literally) before reforging a new path over familiar but subtly altered terrain. Initially, Ursula Todd dies the moment she is born, only to get some different chances at survival—a doctor arriving sooner, the timely provenance of scissors that can cut the cord that’s strangling her. As she grows older, Ursula comes to sense death’s imminent arrival and for the reader, the repeated sense of tumbling backwards becomes both soothing and fraught. As Ursula’s life is recast, again and again, happenstance meets agency pushing us to rethink the roads not travelled or the choices made that might have led to a different ending. Or, as often proves to be the case, a fresh start.

Read about another entry on the list.

Life After Life is among Holly Smale's five time travel stories that explore what it means to be human, Catriona Silvey's five top time-bending books, Clare Mackintosh's ten great books with “What if?” moments, Emily Temple's fifty best contemporary novels over 500 pages, Miriam Parker indisputably best dogs in (contemporary) literature, Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's top ten books about self-reinvention, Caitlin Kleinschmidt tagged twelve moving novels of the Second World War, Jenny Shank's top five innovative novels that mess with chronology, Dell Villa's top twelve books from 2013 to give your mom, and Judith Mackrell's five best young fictional heroines in coming-of-age novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ben Highmore's "Playgrounds"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Playgrounds: The Experimental Years by Ben Highmore.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of post-war playgrounds and their enduring legacy.

After World War II, a new kind of playground emerged in Northern Europe and North America. Rather than slides, swings, and roundabouts, these new playgrounds encouraged children to build shacks and invent their own entertainment. Playgrounds tells the story of how waste grounds and bombsites were transformed into hives of activity by children and progressive educators. It shows how a belief in the imaginative capacity of children shaped a new kind of playground and how designers reimagined what playgrounds could be. Ben Highmore tells a compelling story about pioneers, designers, and charities—and above all—about the value of play.

Learn more about Playgrounds at the Reaktion Books website.

The Page 99 Test: Playgrounds.

--Marshal Zeringue

Colin Mills's "Bitter Passage," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Bitter Passage: A Novel by Colin Mills.

The entry begins:

Set in 1849, Bitter Passage features two junior Royal Navy officers—Lieutenant Frederick Robinson and Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams—engaged in a search in the Arctic for the lost explorer, Sir John Franklin, and his 128 men. The two men have contrasting motivations but are forced to work together to seek the missing expedition.

I’ve never imagined either character as classically handsome, so when dreamcasting, I keep thinking of character actors rather than leading men.

Lieutenant Robinson: Robinson is someone who outwardly projects confidence, even arrogance, but privately battles with self-esteem. Cynical and self-interested, he thinks mostly of his own career prospects. He hates himself for it, but can’t escape an inner urge to please his aloof father, and pines for his terminally ill wife back in England. I once pictured Guy Pearce as Robinson, but Guy is getting a little old for the role now. Instead, Nicholas Hoult, Rupert Friend and Matt Smith could all pull it off successfully, I think.

Assistant Surgeon Adams: The younger of the two main characters, Adams projects naivete, piety and vulnerability, but when...[read on]

Visit Colin Mills's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bitter Passage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best animal books

The Zoomer Book Club's Nathalie Atkinson tagged ten "tales about our furry and feathered friends [that] give new meaning to creature comforts and prove the animal-human bond is mutually beneficial." One title on the list:

What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery

The American naturalist and author of the beloved non-fiction book Soul of an Octopus shares insight into the world’s most familiar bird, in part through the flock of personalities in her own backyard, detailing their long memories, for instance, and capacity for spatial learning. Based on a chapter from her 2010 Birdology, What the Chicken Knows has just been published in a charming gift-book format for the holidays.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Carrie M. Lane's "More Than Pretty Boxes"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: More Than Pretty Boxes: How the Rise of Professional Organizing Shows Us the Way We Work Isn’t Working by Carrie M. Lane.

About the book, from the publisher:

This study of organizing and decluttering professionals helps us understand—and perhaps alleviate—the overwhelming demands society places on our time and energy.

For a widely dreaded, often mundane task, organizing one’s possessions has taken a surprising hold on our cultural imagination. Today, those with the means can hire professionals to help sort and declutter their homes. In More Than Pretty Boxes, Carrie M. Lane introduces us to this world of professional organizers and offers new insight into the domains of work and home, which are forever entangled—especially for women.

The female-dominated organizing profession didn’t have a name until the 1980s, but it is now the subject of countless reality shows, podcasts, and magazines. Lane draws on interviews with organizers, including many of the field’s founders, to trace the profession’s history and uncover its enduring appeal to those seeking meaningful, flexible, self-directed work. Taking readers behind the scenes of real-life organizing sessions, More Than Pretty Boxes details the strategies organizers use to help people part with their belongings, and it also explores the intimate, empathetic relationships that can form between clients and organizers.

But perhaps most importantly, More Than Pretty Boxes helps us think through an interconnected set of questions around neoliberal work arrangements, overconsumption, emotional connection, and the deeply gendered nature of paid and unpaid work. Ultimately, Lane situates organizing at the center of contemporary conversations around how work isn’t working anymore and makes a case for organizing’s radical potential to push back against the overwhelming demands of work and the home, too often placed on women’s shoulders. Organizers aren’t the sole answer to this crisis, but their work can help us better understand both the nature of the problem and the sorts of solace, support, and solutions that might help ease it.

Visit Carrie M. Lane's website.

The Page 99 Test: More Than Pretty Boxes.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Vicki Delany reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Vicki Delany, author of The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime.

Her entry begins:

I’m not usually one for seasonal reading. I’ll read a book anytime, and not much care about the season. But, this year I’ve accidently found myself reading two Christmas set books.

First is Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson. This is a short book by the hugely popular author of Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone and Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, both of which I enjoyed enormously. The new book is in the same style as the earlier, with constant interruptions by the narrator, pointing the reader to important plot points, chatting about the rules of writing mysteries. It’s Christmas in Australia, which is...[read on]

About The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime, from the publisher:

Bookshop owner Gemma Doyle heads to London for a wedding, but when a body is found in connection with a rare book, Gemma sets out to sleuth the slaying in bestselling author Vicki Delany's tenth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery.

Gemma Doyle and her friends have packed their bags and headed to London for her sister Pippa’s wedding. Waiting for her in the hotel lobby is none other than Gemma’s ex-husband, Paul Erikson. Paul has a rare book he wants her to see—calling it “the real deal”—so Gemma agrees to meet him at their old shop, Trafalgar Fine Books, the following day. But when Gemma arrives, accompanied by Grant, a rare book dealer, they find Paul dead in his office.

Paul had been down on his luck, but Gemma never expected this. Had he borrowed money from people he shouldn’t have? And where is the valuable book he was so anxious for Gemma to see? It’s nowhere to be found in the shop. Because of their previous relationship, Gemma feels she owes something to Paul and vows to find his killer.

As Gemma and her best friend Jayne Wilson follow Paul’s trail of friends, enemies, clients, and ex-lovers through London to Yorkshire, she realizes the puzzle of Paul’s last days is more twisted than she originally thought.

This mystery is anything but elementary, and Gemma and Jayne have to use all their wit to get to the bottom of it before their time in London—or in life—is over.

Visit Vicki Delany's website, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

The Page 69 Test: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen.

The Page 69 Test: A Scandal in Scarlet.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in a Teacup.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (September 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Deadly Summer Nights.

The Page 69 Test: The Game is a Footnote.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2023).

Writers Read: Vicki Delany (January 2024).

The Page 69 Test: The Sign of Four Spirits.

The Page 69 Test: A Slay Ride Together With You.

Writers Read: Vicki Delany.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine thrillers & suspense books that turn on a hallmark event

Jen Marie Wiggins's first book, the gifty nonfiction title Married AF: A Funny Guide for the Newlywed or Bride, was published in 2022. She has a background in advertising and public relations, and her writing has appeared in Southern Coastal Weddings, Savannah Magazine, Savannah Homes, and elsewhere.

Wiggins's new novel is The Good Bride.

[My Book, The Movie: The Good Bride; Q&A with Jen Marie Wiggins]

At CrimeReads the author tagged nine psychological thrillers and suspense books in which the plot turns on a hallmark event. One title on the list:

The Engagement Party, Finley Turner

Kass Baptiste is newly engaged to her fiancé Murray Sedgemont. Before they even get to share the news, an invitation arrives via messenger – to an engagement party hosted by Murray’s parents. But their glittering engagement soiree goes horribly wrong when Kass’s own dark past gets intertwined with murder.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Engagement Party.

Q&A with Finley Turner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Matthew Fuhrmann's "Influence without Arms"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Influence without Arms: The New Logic of Nuclear Deterrence by Matthew Fuhrmann.

About the book, from the publisher:

How does nuclear technology influence international relations? While many books focus on countries armed with nuclear weapons, this volume puts the spotlight on those that have the technology to build nuclear bombs but choose not to. These weapons-capable countries, such as Brazil, Germany, and Japan, have what is known as nuclear latency, and they shape world politics in important ways. Offering a definitive account of nuclear latency, Matthew Fuhrmann navigates a critical yet poorly understood issue. He identifies global trends, explains why countries obtain nuclear latency, and analyzes its consequences for international security. Influence Without Arms presents new statistical and case evidence that nuclear latency enhances deterrence and provides greater influence but also triggers conflict and arms races. The book offers a framework to explain when nuclear latency increases security and when it incites instability, and generates far-reaching implications for deterrence, nuclear proliferation, arms races, preventive war, and disarmament.

Visit Matthew Fuhrmann's website.

The Page 99 Test: Atomic Assistance.

The Page 99 Test: Influence without Arms.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Kristi Jones

From my Q&A with Kristi Jones, author of Murder in the Ranks: A Novel:

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

I think Murder in the Ranks immediately tells the reader my book is a mystery and there is some military element to the story. Dottie Lincoln, my book’s sleuth, is a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in WWII. The word ‘ranks’ does some heavy lifting here to show that these pioneering women, serving in the first American women’s expeditionary force, were indeed soldiers. I hope the title brings up the question, who would want to kill one of these soldiers? And why?

What's in a name?

I wanted Dottie Lincoln’s name to be as American as apple pie. I wanted her to be relatable. At the same time, her name is...[read on]

Visit Kristi Jones's website.

Q&A with Kristi Jones.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight gripping novels based on real murders

Midge Raymond is the author of the novels Floreana and My Last Continent, the short-story collection Forgetting English, and, with coauthor John Yunker, the mystery novel Devils Island. Her writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Los Angeles Times magazine, Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, and many other publications. She has taught at Boston University, Boston’s Grub Street Writers, Seattle’s Hugo House, and San Diego Writers, Ink. Raymond lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is co-founder of the boutique publisher Ashland Creek Press.

[The Page 69 Test: My Last Continent; Writers Read: Midge Raymond (June 2016); The Page 69 Test: Floreana; Q&A with Midge Raymond]

At Electric Lit the author tagged eight novels "based on real murders, and, as fiction allows us to do, the books go beyond the tragic events to explore issues that often don’t make it into the news headlines: deeper insights into the lives of the victims, the survivors, and even the perpetrators." One title on the list:

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

This novel, which recalls Ted Bundy’s horrific murders without ever naming him, opens with the killings at a Florida sorority house in 1978 and is told from the points of view of a surviving sorority president and the friend of a victim from the other side of the country. As the sorority president connects with the Seattle victim’s friend, the two seek answers and justice. Readers familiar with Bundy’s infamy will appreciate that this chilling story focuses on the victims and survivors, the bright young women who persevere—not on the unnamed “Defendant,” as he is called in the novel.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: James Chappel's "Golden Years"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age by James Chappel.

About the book, from the publisher:

A “learned and lively” (Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains) account of the history of old age in modern America, showing how we created unprecedented security for some and painful uncertainty for others

On farms and in factories, Americans once had little choice but to work until death. As the nation prospered, a new idea was born: the right to a dignified and secure old age. That project has benefited millions, but it remains incomplete—and today it’s under siege.

In Golden Years, historian James Chappel shows how old age first emerged as a distinct stage of life and how it evolved over the last century, shaped by politicians’ choices, activists’ demands, medical advancements, and cultural models from utopian novels to The Golden Girls. Only after World War II did government subsidies and employer pensions allow people to retire en masse. Just one generation later, this model crumbled. Older people streamed back into the workforce, and free-market policymakers pushed the burdens of aging back onto older Americans and their families. We now confront an old age mired in contradictions: ever longer lifespans and spiraling health-care costs, 401(k)s and economic precarity, unprecedented opportunity and often disastrous instability.

As the population of older Americans grows, Golden Years urges us to look to the past to better understand old age today—and how it could be better tomorrow.

Learn more about Golden Years at the Basic Books website.

The Page 99 Test: Golden Years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Orlando Murrin's "Knife Skills For Beginners"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Knife Skills for Beginners by Orlando Murrin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Maid meets Knives Out with a dash of Top Chef in the debut locked room culinary mystery set in a London cooking school by MasterChef semi-finalist and cookbook writer Orlando Murrin.

“Some people are natural dancers, others marvelous in bed, but—not wishing to boast—I’m good with a knife. Most chefs are.”

The Chester Square Cookery School in the heart of London offers students a refined setting in which to master the fine art of choux pastry and hone their hollandaise. True, the ornate mansion doesn’t quite sparkle the way it used to—a feeling chef Paul Delamare is familiar with these days. Worn out and newly broke, he’d be tempted to turn down the request to fill in as teacher for a week-long residential course, if anyone other than Christian Wagner were asking.

Christian is one of Paul’s oldest friends, as well as the former recipient of two Michelin stars and host of Pass the Gravy! Thanks to a broken arm, he’s unable to teach the upcoming session himself, and recruits Paul as stand-in. The students are a motley crew, most of whom seem more interested in ogling the surroundings (including handsome Christian) than learning the best ways to temper chocolate.

Yet despite his misgivings, Paul starts to enjoy imparting his extensive knowledge to the recruits—until someone turns up dead, murdered with a cleaver Paul used earlier that day to prep a pair of squabs. Did one of his students take the lesson on knife techniques too much to heart, or was this the result of a long-simmering grudge? In between clearing his own name and teaching his class how to perfectly poach a chicken, he’ll have to figure out who’s the killer, and avoid being the next one to get butchered . . .

Visit Orlando Murrin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Knife Skills for Beginners.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books from the children of celebrities

Charley Burlock is the Associate Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes, edits, and assigns stories on all things literary. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from NYU, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review, Agni, and on the Apple News Today podcast. She is currently completing an MFA in creative nonfiction at NYU and working on a book about the intersection of grief, landscape, and urban design.

At Oprah Daily Burlock tagged five "books that make us see our celebrity heroes—and their gilded lives—from a totally new perspective." One title on the list:

Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

In 1985, Steve Jobs was one of the richest people in America, living in a sprawling 30-room mansion and frequently appearing beneath headlines and on magazine covers. Meanwhile, his only child was moving—thirteen times in the first seven years of her life— between illegal sublets and inconsistently furnished spare bedrooms, surviving off of her single mother’s ingenuity and her father’s meager court-mandated child support checks. Although Jobs denied his paternity for many years, telling Time magazine when Lisa was four that “Twenty-eight percent of the male population of the United States could be the father” (against the findings of a DNA test and a legal case), he eventually the two grew closer later in her childhood, with Lisa living with her father on-and-off and eventually taking his surname. But for Steve Jobs, love, like success, could only be chased, never caught. While the circumstances of Lisa’s childhood would have easily justified a scathing tell-all takedown, this book is not that. Infinitely wise, intensely curious, and exquisitely written, Small Fry is a nuanced portrait or both a man and an era, the legacies of which we are all still reckoning with.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue