What is Cindy Jiban reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Cindy Jiban, author of The Probable Son: A Novel:

Her entry begins:

I’m currently drawn to debut novels. The path to publishing is a roller coaster ride, one that’s hard to convey to people not buckled into that terrifying front car. Reading a debut right now feels like making a new friend.

A fast and weird and delightful debut I loved is My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithewaite. You know that feeling when your sister calls to say oops, I did it again – and he’s dead? Yeah, me neither. I tore through this tale in one sitting, completely bemused by the style of storytelling. Sparse and dryly funny, it’s a line drawing that gradually reveals its...[read on]

About The Probable Son, from the publisher:

A mother secretly believes she’s raising the wrong son, mistakenly switched at birth. But secrets unravel in a gripping and affecting novel about parental love, impossible choices, and what it means to truly be there for someone.

For fourteen years, teacher Elsa Vargas has hidden her belief that she’s mothering the wrong child, accidentally switched at birth. Her beloved son Bird is not like the rest of the family. He’s the introvert among extroverts, the optimist among skeptics. But Elsa knows love is more important than truth, and the best way to keep Bird is to leave well enough alone.

Then the odds catch up with her. A student named Thomas in Elsa’s math class is suddenly uncannily familiar, an older version of Bird’s little brother. When she realizes Thomas shares a birthday with Bird, Elsa has a terrible realization: Thomas is probably her long-lost son.

Soon Elsa is on a clumsy journey to get to know Thomas―and to confirm the truth. Testing the bonds of family, friendship, and even community will surely all be worth it if she gains a son. But what if she loses Bird, the boy she has loved and mothered since his first days of life?

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son.

Q&A with Cindy Jiban.

Writers Read: Cindy Jiban.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Helen Fry's "The White Lady"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The White Lady: The Story of Two Key British Secret Service Networks Behind German Lines by Helen Fry.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major new history of the two most important British secret service networks in the First and Second World Wars

Intelligence gathering was essential to both sides in the First and Second World Wars. At the heart of MI6’s efforts were two key networks in Belgium. Agents in The White Lady acted as couriers, radio operators and spies to facilitate the end of German control. And, when war broke out again two decades later, the leaders of the network regrouped and established a successor: The Clarence Service.

Helen Fry charts the history of these pivotal intelligence networks. Drawing on recently declassified information, Fry examines who the agents were, how they were recruited, and how the intelligence they gathered directly impacted the outcome of both wars. Operators in the field sent over eight hundred radio messages to London and delivered more than a thousand reports, including groundbreaking information on Hitler’s secret weapon the V-1. This is a compelling account of the agents who risked their lives and found ingenious ways to smuggle intelligence out of occupied Belgium.

Visit Helen Fry's website.

The Page 99 Test: The London Cage.

The Page 99 Test: The Walls Have Ears.

The Page 99 Test: MI9.

The Page 99 Test: The White Lady.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight wickedly monstrous books like "The Witcher"

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone's love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. His cyberpunk series, The Jayu City Chronicles, is available everywhere books are sold.

His work can also be found in Adelaide Literary Magazine and FEED Lit Mag. You can find him writing more books, poetry, and acting in Kansas City.

At Book Riot Arnone tagged eight "books to bring The Witcher vibes into your reading life." One title on the list:

Witch King by Martha Wells

Morally gray characters? Big magic? Monsters? This book checks all The Witcher boxes. Kai-Enna was murdered. He did get better, but he’s mad about it. His consciousness sleeping, he’s suddenly awakened from his water trap when a lesser mage is trying to take Kai’s vast magic. Kai is the Witch King, after all. Now that Kai is awake, he’s trying to wrap his mind around the vastly changed world. He also wants to know who murdered him.

Read about another entry on the list.

Witch King is among K. Valentin's sven top novels featuring demons & possession.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Brionni Nwosu

From my Q&A with Brionni Nwosu, author of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel:

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

I think The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter does a lot of work right away. It signals that the book is a sweeping, emotional story, centered on one woman’s very long journey. “Wondrous” captures the feeling of seeing the world through Nella’s eyes as she moves through different eras. And “loves” lets readers know this book is not just about time travel—it’s about the relationships that shape her and the people she carries with her.

What’s in a name?

Nella was always her name—that part came baked into the idea. But her full name, Nella May Carter, is...[read on]

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

The Page 69 Test: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

My Book, The Movie: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

Q&A with Brionni Nwosu.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-three enemies-to-lovers books that turn rivalry to romance

Amanda Prahl is a freelance writer, playwright/lyricist, dramaturg, teacher, and copywriter/editor. At PopSugar she tagged twenty-three favorite enemies-to-lovers titles that turn rivalry to romance, including:

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

Diana and Jeremy, the bickering duo at the center of "To Love and to Loathe" by Martha Waters, aren't just enemies — they're enemies with benefits. Diana's much older (and much disliked) husband has died and left her a young widow, while Jeremy has just found out from an ex-mistress that his skills in the bedroom are disappointing. A wager soon turns into an unlikely alliance: they'll embark on a no-strings affair so Jeremy can hone his skills and Diana can signal her availability for a more long-term arrangement with discreet gentlemen. Of course, the spark between them in their banter carries over to the bedroom, and they might find less to hate about each other than they imagined.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Derek S. Burdette's "Miraculous Celebrity"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Miraculous Celebrity: The Christ of Ixmiquilpan and Colonial Piety in Mexico City by Derek S. Burdette.

About the book, from the publisher:

A study of the Christ of Ixmiquilpan, a historically beloved religious icon from sixteenth-century Mexico, and its evolving cultural importance.

The life-sized crucifix known as the Christ of Ixmiquilpan (also the Señor de Santa Teresa) was one of the most important artworks in colonial Mexico. The statue began as an ordinary devotional image, but in 1621 devotees witnessed it undergo a miraculous renovation that gave it a supernatural beauty. Over the next two and half centuries, its perceived power increased until it was surpassed in importance only by the Virgin of Guadalupe. Despite its historical significance, the Christ of Ixmiquilpan’s history has yet to be fully told.

Derek Burdette brings the miraculous crucifix out of the shadows and explores its instrumental role in shaping the devotional culture of New Spain. Following the arc of the statue’s life, he chronicles the story of the statue’s creation, miraculous renovation, and subsequent veneration at the heart of Mexico City. He also reveals how colonial politics were woven into the statue’s life from the very start. Reconstructing the history of a key artwork, Miraculous Celebrity sheds new light on the intersection of art, faith, and politics in the Spanish colonial world.

Learn more about Miraculous Celebrity at the University of Texas Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Miraculous Celebrity.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michael Kardos's "Fun City Heist"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fun City Heist by Michael Kardos.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A washed—up rockstar gets his old band back together for one final gig . . . and one daring robbery! A brilliantly funny, twisty heist caper from Pushcart Prize—winning author Michael Kardos.

Mo Melnick used to be a drummer in rock band Sunshine Apocalypse. He used to be someone. These days he rents beach umbrellas on the Jersey Shore.

The last thing he expects is for Johnny Clay, his old bandmate turned enemy, to ask him a favor. Johnny’s dying, and before he passes he wants Sunshine Apocalypse to reunite for one last gig at Fun City, the beachfront amusement park where their musical journey began.

Mo’s in—reluctantly. But then Johnny reveals his real plan: He doesn’t just want to play at Fun City on the fourth of July. He wants to rob it.

The plan is crazy. It has more holes than a golf course. But Mo’s sick of barely keeping his head above water, so he and his gang of middle—aged has—beens dive into what will be the most outrageous heist New Jersey’s ever seen—if, that is, they can pull it off alive . . .

Packed with astonishing twists and laugh—out—loud moments, Michael Kardos’ unique comedic thriller is perfect for fans of Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake.

Visit Michael Kardos's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Three Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: The Three-Day Affair.

My Book, The Movie: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Before He Finds Her.

The Page 69 Test: Bluff.

The Page 69 Test: Fun City Heist.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels featuring monstrous men

Heather Parry is a Glasgow-based writer and editor, originally from South Yorkshire. Her debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You, and the non-fiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism. Parry lives in Glasgow with her partner and their cats, Ernesto and Fidel. Her second novel, Carrion Crow, will be published in 2026.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "books that continue to inspire me for their bold, unflinching ways of looking at the monstrous man, both the real and fictionalized versions of him." One title on the list:

Patrick Süskind, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

The 1980s might have been the decade that Hannibal Lecter was introduced to the world by Thomas Harris, first in Red Dragon and then in The Silence of the Lambs, but on the other side of the Atlantic, German writer Patrick Süskind was dreaming up another killer with sharp senses: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan born in eighteenth-century France, whose preternatural sense of smell leads him first to the business of perfume and then onto somewhere darker.

Just as Lecter spends his time considering the perfect meal, Grenouille is obsessed with harnessing the perfect smell, one that he first smelled on the skin of a young woman, with which he has become dangerously preoccupied. His attempts to distill that essence into a liquid push him down a path of multiple murders as his singular goal overwhelms his respect for life, but despite being caught, he performs a trick at the end of the book which reveals the latent desires within the population in general, showing that he is not alone in having a streak of pure evil in him, bound up in sensory pleasure.

This is a novel that luxuriates in both filth and opulence, and says more about the nature of lust than we would like to admit.

Read about another novel on the list.

Perfume is among Liz Nugent's top ten first lines in fiction, Liz Boulter's ten best novels about France, Glenn Skwerer's top ten real-life monsters in fiction, four books that changed Meg Keneally, four books that changed Katrina Lawrence, Karen Runge's five (damn-near) perfect (dark) novels, and Lara Feigel's top ten smelly books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Brahim El Guabli's "Desert Imaginations"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences by Brahim El Guabli.

About the book, from the publisher:

Desert Imaginations traces the cultural and intellectual histories that have informed the prevalent ideas of deserts across the globe. The book argues that Saharanism—a globalizing imaginary that perceives desert spaces as empty, exploitable, and dangerous—has been at the center of all desert-focused enterprises. Encompassing spiritual practices, military thinking, sexual fantasies, experiential quests, extractive economies, and experimental schemes, among other projects, Saharanism has shaped the way deserts not only are constructed intellectually but are acted upon. From nuclear testing to border walls, and much more, Brahim El Guabli articulates some of Saharanism's consequential manifestations across different deserts. Desert Imaginations draws on the abundant historical literature and cultural output in multiple languages and across disciplines to delineate the parameters of Saharanism. Against Saharanism's powerful and reductive vision of deserts, the book rehabilitates a tradition of desert eco-care that has been at work in desert Indigenous people's literary, artistic, scholarly, and ritualistic practices.

Learn more about Desert Imaginations at the University of California Press website.

Read an interview with Brahim El Guabli about Desert Imaginations.

The Page 99 Test: Desert Imaginations.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Cindy Jiban

From my Q&A with Cindy Jiban, author of The Probable Son: A Novel:

The entry begins:

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

I love that my title is essentially a very-distilled elevator pitch. Someone is only probably the main character’s son. The title could refer to the boy Elsa has been mothering for thirteen years, or it could be about the familiar boy who just walked into her life and made her realize she can’t bury her secret suspicions forever.

The title is also a variation on a biblical story about a prodigal son. Elsa is firmly not religious – she teaches math and thinks about probability instead of faith – but the title activates the idea of a long-missing son re-entering a family. That this might occur brings a mixture of hope and dread, and it helps to...[read on]

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son.

Q&A with Cindy Jiban.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brionni Nwosu's "The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel by Brionni Nwosu.

The entry begins:

If The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter were ever adapted for the screen, I would love to see Laura Harrier play Nella. When I was drafting the book, I came across an image of her that immediately clicked for me — something about her poise, the directness of her gaze, and the period nature of her clothes that just felt like Nella. I kept that image nearby as I wrote, especially during the scenes where Nella steps into new eras and new identities.

The novel follows Nella, a woman who should have died young but instead gains immortality after making a bargain with Death, if she can continue to believe that life is worth saving. She moves through cities and centuries — from New Orleans to London to Paris — collecting evidence and writing stories to prove it, with Death testing her throughout time. Along the way, she finds love, community, and moments of wonder that she never imagined she would get to experience. Because the story spans so many eras and emotional tones, I think it would need a lead actress who can play both the grounded, everyday moments and the sweeping, epic ones. Harrier strikes that balance beautifully.

One thing I love about the idea of adapting this story is that Nella has several different loves...[read on]

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

The Page 69 Test: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

My Book, The Movie: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven festive mystery books for the holidays

Sabienna Bowman is a Digital News Editor at People magazine, where she has been working since 2023. She previously worked at PopSugar, Bustle and Scarymommy.

She tagged eleven festive mystery books that are to die for this holiday season, including:

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife by Martin Edwards

A small British village is on the verge of being cut off from the outside world due to a winter storm as this delightfully twisty novel begins. Enter six people with links to the world of crime writing, each with their own sad tale and in need of a reversal of fortunes. They each receive an invite from the mysterious Midwinter Trust to visit the town and solve a fictional murder in exchange for a prize, but there's more to this strange invitation than first meets the eye.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

Q&A with Martin Edwards.

The Page 69 Test: Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Patrick Adamson's "Projecting America"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Projecting America: The Epic Western and National Mythmaking in 1920s Hollywood by Patrick Adamson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the mid-1920s, the heyday of silent film, the epic Western swept Hollywood and the nation. Movie moguls sought to add gravitas to their output with the productions—films they argued offered American audiences authentic history and lessons in citizenship at a time when Hollywood faced criticism for its movies’ morals and star scandals. Initially extremely popular, these now nearly forgotten Westerns were hailed by the movie industry’s proponents and critics alike for their “authentic” reconstruction of America’s nineteenth-century frontier period and the social benefits in portraying historical episodes foundational to American identity to the melting pot of moviegoers. In Projecting America, the first-ever book on these silent epic Westerns, Patrick Adamson demonstrates how these films indelibly impacted the genre, historical filmmaking, and Hollywood, inviting audiences to accept uncritical visions of Manifest Destiny as accurate history.

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and punctuating his argument with film stills and intertitles, Adamson introduces readers to a variety of epic Westerns, with a particular emphasis on The Covered Wagon (1923), The Iron Horse (1924), and The Vanishing American (1925). These productions depict such key moments as pioneers on the Oregon Trail, the construction of the transcontinental railroad, and challenges faced by Indigenous peoples. Combining close analysis of these films’ historiography with exploration of their production and reception, Adamson investigates how the epic Western's emergence responded to and informed discourses far beyond those traditionally associated with the Western genre. He demonstrates that these movies not only represent an important chapter in film history but also collectively illustrate how American identity was formed and the motion picture medium was used as a vehicle for mass historical and cultural education.

In Projecting America, Adamson deftly shows how epic Westerns, at the heart of the 1920s’ pressing debates about cinema’s social influence, are integral to a broader understanding of the history of Western films and American identity.

Learn more about Projecting America at the University of Oklahoma Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Projecting America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman's "Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay: A Novel by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A widowed and grieving young novelist believes her words create realities―both tragic and charmed―in a hopeful and surprising novel about family, newfound love, and moving on.

Four years after her husband Sam’s tragic death mirrored a fatal plotline in her debut novel, Thea Packer hasn’t written another word, afraid that what she writes could come true again. Resigned to raising her young daughter in her in-laws’ guesthouse, Thea is on the verge of abandoning her literary career when inspiration strikes.

Her new book is a fairy-tale romance featuring a long-lost astronaut who miraculously returns home to his family, with the hero loosely drawn from Thea’s memories of Sam. Thea considers the fantasy a harmless way to process her grief.

That is, until a charismatic man walks into her life―and he’s an astronaut.

Thea can’t believe it’s happening again. Or is it? Her mother-in-law doesn’t think so―she sees only a woman increasingly detached from reality. Now, as coincidences between Thea’s writing and reality pile up, Thea must unravel the secrets of her past and tackle her grief head-on before she loses more than she ever imagined.

Visit Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Ruth Mancini

From my Q&A with Ruth Mancini, author of The Day I Lost You: A Novel:

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

The Day I Lost You is, at its core, a story about one very all-important day in the lives of each of the three central characters: Lauren, Hope and Drew. Clearly, someone loses a baby that day, so I think the title reflects that, but the question the reader will want answered is who? And why? What happened? Because it’s clear from the outset that both women are laying claim to the same child and he can’t belong to them both. My working title was ‘The Lost Child’ but I knew this was wrong for the genre. When the book was finished it went to my editor and to the sales and marketing teams at my publisher. We toyed with ‘You Belong to Me’ but this, again, was considered wrong for the genre. The cover needed to say, ‘this is a psychological thriller’ and I think...[read on]

Follow Ruth Mancini on Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A with Ruth Mancini.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert E.C. Davis's "Lieutenants and Light"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Lieutenants and Light: Mapping the US Army Heliograph Networks in Late Nineteenth-Century Arizona and New Mexico by Robert E.C. Davis.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lieutenants and Light provides an accurate, detailed historical study of the U.S. Army’s use of the heliograph as a tactical means of communication and command and control in the desert environment of Arizona and New Mexico in the late nineteenth century.

The heliograph network in the Southwest, which began development in 1882, used mirror-based signaling devices to facilitate communication across remote outposts, forts, and detachments. Heliographs enabled soldiers to send messages over long distances using Morse code transmitted through sunlight reflections. During and immediately following the campaign against Geronimo in 1886, General Nelson A. Miles implemented a heliograph network that connected key locations from Nogales, Arizona, to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, enhancing command and control. Additional tests and expansions solidified the heliograph’s role as an essential military communication tool.

Reports from the officers tasked with establishing these stations and modern geospatial analysis have identified almost ninety networked heliograph stations established between 1882 and 1893, culminating in the greatest heliograph network ever built.

Many of the officers who helmed these stations went on to distinguished careers in the military, business, or public service. Some had served in the Civil War, and most were veterans of the Indian Wars. Almost a third of these young officers would go on to become general officers, several serving in leadership roles during World War I. Thus, the heliograph not only connected points across the Southwest but also linked a group of officers whose experience and leadership spanned from the Civil War through World War I.

Visit Robert E.C. Davis's website.

The Page 99 Test: Lieutenants and Light.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best YA historical fantasy books

Susie Dumond is a queer writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She is the author of Queerly Beloved, Looking for a Sign, and Bed and Breakup, and she also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore. Dumond lives in Washington, D.C., with her spouse, Mickey, and her cat, Maple. When she’s not writing or reading, you can find her baking cupcakes or belting karaoke at the nearest gay bar.

At Book Riot Dumond tagged ten of the most enchanting YA historical fantasy books. One title on the list:

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Set in an alternate-history North America, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath beautifully blends Native American history and culture into an extraordinary tale of dragons. Teenager Anequs finds the first dragon egg seen on her island home in generations. But when the colonizers on the mainland hear of Anequs’s dragon, they make it clear that she must attend their school for dragon training or else her dragon will be killed. It’s a dragon fantasy unlike any you’ve read before, full of layered characters and powerful reckonings. This first book in the Nampeshiweisit series left me begging for the sequel, and it will finally hit shelves on January 27 with the title To Ride a Rising Storm. This is another title that wasn’t technically published as a YA read, but it has great appeal to fans of YA.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Brionni Nwosu's "The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel by Brionni Nwosu.

About the book, from the publisher:

A young woman at the crossroads of life and death embarks on an extraordinary journey across time in an epic novel about beauty, hope, endurance, and endless loves.

Most humans cower in the face of Death. Not Nella May Carter. She sees him. She doesn’t hide. Instead, she bargains.

Born enslaved in eighteenth-century Georgia, Nella still believes in the will to survive amid the most untenable of conditions, in the glory of life, and in the ultimate goodness of the human race. She asks that Death, doubtful and curious, allow her to live long enough to prove it. He’s giving Nella all the time in the world.

Challenged, Nella embarks on an epic journey across the globe and centuries. Each new incarnation records the joys and losses, and the friendships and heartbreaks, throughout her lifetimes. When she meets handsome and passionate professor Sebastian Moore―the first man to whom she has ever revealed her secrets―Nella yearns for the mortality that escapes her. She can’t bear to leave this love behind.

As Death keeps watch, has Nella’s journey come to an end? Or is a new one just beginning?

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

The Page 69 Test: The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Al Filreis's "The Classroom and the Crowd"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Classroom and the Crowd: Poetry and the Promise of Digital Community by Al Filreis.

About the book, from the publisher:

For more than a decade, Al Filreis has taught a free online course about experimental poetry, known as “ModPo,” that has drawn some 435,000 students from 179 countries. Online classes even a fraction of ModPo’s size have been criticized as impersonal and unengaging. But the citizens of ModPo have formed a generous and enduring intellectual community as together they read poems typically dismissed as difficult and inaccessible.

In The Classroom and the Crowd, Filreis reflects on his decades of experience as a founder of participatory literary communities and teacher of online courses, demonstrating that student-centered education offers new possibilities for humane social networking. Introducing readers to ModPo participants and their open-ended, round-the-clock conversations, he shows how online learning can not only be accessible and educational but also deepen our commitment to democracy. Filreis argues that the emphasis on collaborative learning, space for discussion, and the inherent openness of poetry allows for a sense of community, continuity, and even intimacy that often eludes other online educational endeavors. ModPo embodies principles underlying both modern poetics and cooperative education: Writers and readers, like teachers and learners, create meaning together; many voices are clearer than one; and democracy is a creative practice. Proposing an optimistic vision of mass learning, this book contends that asynchronous education has surprising advantages over the traditional classroom, that panics about a crisis of attention and the death of reading are overblown―and that instead of logging off, we should all start reading with a crowd.

Learn more about The Classroom and the Crowd at the Columbia University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Classroom and the Crowd.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books where women were pushed to the edge

L.M. Chilton is a journalist with fifteen years of experience working on a variety of television shows, such as This Morning, Loose Women, and more. His writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Metro (London), and The Mirror (London).

The author's novels include Swiped and Everyone in the Group Chat Dies.

In 2024 at The Strand Magazine Chilton tagged "ten books where women take their lives and (mostly men’s’) deaths into their own hands." One title on the list:

BAD MEN by Julie Mae Cohen

Saffy is a glamorous socialite who also just happens to be a rather proficient serial killer. For the past fifteen years, she’s hunted down and dispatched ‘bad men’ – rapists, murderers and domestic abusers. But her double life has left her lonely, after all, dating can be tricky when your boyfriend might turn out to be your next victim. With cocktails, romance, and a whole lot of stabbing, Bad Men is an irresistible mix of Sex and The City and Silence of the Lambs.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Bad Men.

Q&A with Julie Mae Cohen.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Brionni Nwosu reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu, author of The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I just finished Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby as part of one of my book clubs, The Virtual Book Club for Black Women, and it was a fantastic pick, enjoyed by our entire group. I even recommended it to my father, and he enjoyed it as well. I really liked seeing a story written by a Black male author with two male leads, especially how they handled fatherhood, grief, and their complicated feelings about their sons’ sexuality. The descriptions were so vivid, and there were several craft moments I highlighted because they were just that strong.

One moment that stayed with me was when...[read on]

About The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter, from the publisher:

A young woman at the crossroads of life and death embarks on an extraordinary journey across time in an epic novel about beauty, hope, endurance, and endless loves.

Most humans cower in the face of Death. Not Nella May Carter. She sees him. She doesn’t hide. Instead, she bargains.

Born enslaved in eighteenth-century Georgia, Nella still believes in the will to survive amid the most untenable of conditions, in the glory of life, and in the ultimate goodness of the human race. She asks that Death, doubtful and curious, allow her to live long enough to prove it. He’s giving Nella all the time in the world.

Challenged, Nella embarks on an epic journey across the globe and centuries. Each new incarnation records the joys and losses, and the friendships and heartbreaks, throughout her lifetimes. When she meets handsome and passionate professor Sebastian Moore―the first man to whom she has ever revealed her secrets―Nella yearns for the mortality that escapes her. She can’t bear to leave this love behind.

As Death keeps watch, has Nella’s journey come to an end? Or is a new one just beginning?

Visit Brionni Nwosu's website.

Writers Read: Brionni Nwosu.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top espionage novels with charmingly clueless protagonists

Jonathan Payne is a British-American writer based in New York City.

His first novel, Citizen Orlov, was named a Book of the Month by Apple Books. It won the 2024 IBPA Silver Medal for Mystery/Thriller and the 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal for Suspense/Thriller.

Payne previously worked in national security for the British government.

He holds a Master of Arts degree in Novel Writing from Middlesex University, London.

Payne's new novel is Hotel Melikov.

[Q&A with Jonathan Payne]

At CrimeReads the author tagged six favorite espionage novels with charmingly clueless protagonists, including:

Chris Pavone, The Travelers

Will Rhodes is a travel writer and a recently-married New Yorker with financial troubles who jets around the world writing articles about hotels and wine for ‘Travelers’ magazine. After a tryst with an Australian woman in Argentina, he is surprised to be propositioned by the CIA. Like James Wormold and Harry Pendel, Rhodes needs the money, so agrees to provide information about the rich and powerful folks he meets on his travels.

But soon Rhodes begins to suspect that the CIA is actually interested in information about something else. If so, what? And then he begins to suspect that the CIA officers who recruited him might be imposters. If so, who are they? This one has more twists than a plate of rotini.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Travelers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rebecca Jumper Matheson's "Artisans and Designers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Artisans and Designers by Rebecca Jumper Matheson.

About the book, from the publisher:

One couple's bold vision for American fashion

Long before the fashion industry formally addressed questions of sustainability and advocated for “slow fashion,” William and Elizabeth Phelps, a husband-and-wife design duo, were already working to create hand-crafted leathergoods and functional women’s sportswear that could be worn for decades. Active from the 1940s to the late 1960s, Phelps Associates quickly won acclaim and found commercial success, attracting a broad clientele and becoming known for quality, utility, and craftsmanship.

Using vintage metal insignia and hardware, often military surplus, the Phelpses designed bags and belts that answered the need for American-made luxury goods during and after World War II. In the post-war period, the Phelpses experimented with new methods of production and branched into ready-to-wear fashion. Meanwhile, the pair worked to revive artisan workshops, emphasized fostering positive work environments for their employees, and offered employment opportunities for injured veterans.

Artisans and Designers is the first in-depth analysis of the Phelpses’ partnership, their often overlooked contributions to the fashion industry, and their forward-thinking business practices. Rebecca Jumper Matheson draws on their pieces to connect their work to larger conversations about sustainable fashion, consumerism, industrialization practices, and the intersection of art with American identity during and after World War II. The result is an engagingly written, richly illustrated account of a brand committed to creating classic pieces that have stood the test of time.

Learn more about Artisans and Designers at the The Kent State University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Artisans and Designers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cindy Jiban's "The Probable Son," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son: A Novel by Cindy Jiban.

The entry begins:

Teacher Elsa Vargas has always suspected that the boy she is raising is the wrong child, accidentally switched at birth. But because of her deep love for Bird, Elsa has planned to keep her doubts buried forever.

Then one day, a student named Thomas in her middle school classroom is uncannily familiar. When she learns that he shares a birthday with Bird, she realizes: Thomas is probably her son.

If she’s right, what will that mean for Bird?

Here’s my dream cast for The Probable Son:

Elsa, the mother

Casting Elsa well is critical. She is a warm and inherently funny mother and teacher who has to navigate the possibility of terrible loss. Still, her sometimes-clumsy search for the truth becomes a bit cringeworthy, at turns. Her yearning drives her forward, but her penchant for rattling the school parent community fills her path with obstacles.

I need an actress who can portray a layered Elsa: hilarious eyerolls but also escaped tears; clever planning but also moments of love-fueled but unhinged judgment.

 To give us a complex and lovable Elsa we can’t look away from, I trust Emily Blunt.

Bird and Thomas, the possibly-switched sons

The son Elsa has been mothering, Bird, is a quiet and serious optimist within a family of extroverted skeptics. Meanwhile, Thomas is a charismatic questioner of the world, someone much more like the rest of Elsa’s family. Both are...[read on]

Visit Cindy Jiban's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Probable Son.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Marshall Karp's "NYPD Red #8"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: NYPD Red 8: The 11:59 Bomber (Book 8 in The NYPD Red Series) by Marshall Karp.

About the book, from the publisher:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Marshall Karp comes the next installment in the endlessly thrilling NYPD Red series.

It's 11:59.

And the city that never sleeps is afraid to get out of bed.

A bomb explodes in a crowded New York subway station at exactly 11:59 a.m. The next day, a second blast rips through a busy department store--again at 11:59.

As the bombs go off with clockwork precision, the death toll climbs and businesses shut their doors as the city hunkers down in fear.

NYPD Red Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan face their most twisted case ever, as they race against the clock in search of one man who has vowed "to destroy New York City the way it destroyed my family."

Visit Marshall Karp's website.

The Page 69 Test: NYPD Red 8: The 11:59 Bomber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top literary thrillers set in the artworld

Laura Leffler is a writer and art historian who builds stories within the gorgeous, strange, and sometimes terrifying art world. After receiving a master’s degree in post-war and contemporary art, she spent more than a decade working in commercial galleries, doing everything from art fair sales to condition reporting and logistics. Along the way, she witnessed more of that glittering world’s dark underbelly than she thought possible. Laura currently lives in Colorado with her family.

Tell Them You Lied is her first novel.

At Tertulia the author tagged ten favorite literary thrillers set in the artworld. One title on the list:

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

Reading Mouth to Mouth feels like eavesdropping. Two acquaintances meet by chance in the first-class lounge at JFK airport, one (Jeff) begins to tell the other (our unnamed narrator) a long, strange story—a confession of sorts–about saving a drowning man’s life on a Los Angeles beach. When the drowning man turns out to be a gallerist-to-the-stars, and not a totally moral one, Jeff decides to take advantage of the situation. Part Talented Mr. Ripley, part Great Gatsby, full of dread and foreboding.

Read about another entry on the list.

Mouth to Mouth is among Maris Kreizman's twenty-three wonderful short books.

Q&A with Antoine Wilson.

--Marshal Zeringue

Third reading: D.W. Buffa on Robert Graves's "I, Claudius"

The Dark Backward is among D.W. Buffa's more recent novels to be released. The story revolves around not just the strangest case William Darnell had ever tried;

it was the strangest case ever tried by any lawyer anywhere. It was impossible to explain; or rather, impossible to believe. The defendant, who did not speak English or any other language anyone could identify, had been found on an island no one knew existed, and charged with murder, rape and incest. He was given the name Adam, and Adam, as Darnell comes to learn, is more intelligent, quicker to learn, than anyone he has ever met. Adam, he learns to his astonishment, is a member of an ancient civilization that has remained undiscovered for more than three thousand years.

Buffa is also the author of ten legal thrillers involving the defense attorney Joseph Antonelli. He has also published a series that attempts to trace the movement of western thought from ancient Athens, in Helen; the end of the Roman Empire, in Julian's Laughter; the Renaissance, in The Autobiography of Niccolo Machiavelli; and America in the twentieth century, in Neumann's Last Concert.

Buffa's latest take in his "Third Reading" series is I, Claudius by Robert Graves. It begins:

In 1929, Robert Graves published Goodbye to All That, a memoir of his life as a British soldier who fought in the trenches in the First World War. In the prologue to the edition published almost thirty years later, he provided the reason why he wrote it and what happened because of it: “I partly wrote, partly dictated, this book twenty-eight years ago during a complicated domestic crisis, and with very little time for revisions. It was my bitter leave-taking of England where I had recently broken a good many conventions; quarreled with, or been disowned by, most of my friends; been grilled by the police on a suspicion of attempted murder; and ceased to care what anyone thought of me.”

The title of the book became “a catch-word,” his “sole contribution to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. More importantly, Goodbye to All That made him enough money that he could move to Majorca and spend all his time writing. Among the dozens of other things he wrote were the two volumes, or the two novels, I, Claudius, published in 1934, and Claudius the God, published two years later in 1936. In an Author’s Note to the second volume, Graves takes up a frequent criticism of the first volume, a criticism which betrayed a complete failure to understand the difference between books of history and historical fiction; a failure, that is to say, between the report of events that had happened at some point in the past, and the attempt to understand what those involved in those events thought they were doing; the difference between seeing things from a distance, the present looking back at the past, and seeing things as they unfold.

Some reviewers, according to Graves, “suggested that in writing it I had merely consulted Tacitus’s Annals, and Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars, run them together and expanded the result with my own vigorous fancy.” Insisting that this “was not so,” he proceeds to list, in addition to Tacitus and Suetonius, twenty-four Greek and Roman authors, including Plutarch, Pliny, Dio Cassius, Diodorus Siculus, Juvenal, Josephus, “and Claudius himself in his surviving letters and speeches.” He then explains that, “Few incidents…are wholly unsupported by historical authority of some sort or other. I hope none are historically incredible. No character is invented.” Graves knew what he was doing.

In what might easily have gone unnoticed, Graves...[read on]

Visit D.W. Buffa's website.

Buffa's previous third reading essays: The Great Gatsby; Brave New World; Lord Jim; Death in the Afternoon; Parade's End; The Idiot; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; The Scarlet Letter; Justine; Patriotic Gore; Anna Karenina; The Charterhouse of Parma; Emile; War and Peace; The Sorrows of Young Werther; Bread and Wine; “The Crisis of the Mind” and A Man Without Qualities; Eugene Onegin; The Collected Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay; The Europeans; The House of Mirth and The Writing of Fiction; Doctor Faustus; the reading list of John F. Kennedy; Jorge Luis Borges; History of the Peloponnesian War; Mansfield Park; To Each His Own; A Passage To India; Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Letters of T.E. Lawrence; All The King’s Men; The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus; Naguib Mahfouz’s novels of ancient Egypt; Main Street; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part I; Theodore H. White's The Making of the President series, part II; Thus Spoke Zarathustra; Fiction's Failure; Hermann Hesse's Demian; Frederick Douglass, Slavery, and The Fourth of July; Caesar’s Ghost; The American Constitution; A Tale of Two Cities; The Leopard; Madame Bovary; The Sheltering Sky; Tocqueville’s America and Ours; American Statesmen; Ancient and Modern Writers Reconsidered; Père Goriot; The Remarkable Edmund Burke; The Novels of W.H. Hudson; America Revised; The City And Man; "The Use And Abuse Of History"; I, Claudius.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: John Edward Huth's "A Sense of Space"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Sense of Space: A Local's Guide to a Flat Earth, the Edge of the Cosmos, and Other Curious Places by John Edward Huth.

About the book, from the publisher:

From global navigation to natal charts to memory palaces and beyond, a thrilling journey through humanity’s visualization of new spaces.

When you give directions, do you tell someone to go straight ahead and turn left? Or do you suggest that they head north before moving west? Your answer reveals more than you might think.

In A Sense of Space, writer and physicist John Edward Huth uses these two kinds of navigation—either centered on or independent of people—to help readers chart a path through evolving spatial models. In doing so, he offers an astonishing exploration of how changing scientific models of space alter our social perceptions, and vice versa. New visions of space can emanate from human considerations, he argues, and those new visions can in turn spawn new cultural phenomena. With accessible introductions to topics including mental maps, astrology, astronomy, particle physics, and Einstein’s relativity, Huth makes clear that, although our minds have evolved to comprehend space in terrestrial distances, we routinely extend this understanding to realms far removed from our everyday experiences, from cosmological to subatomic scales.

Taking us across the eons from the myth of a flat earth to the mysteries of the multiverse, A Sense of Space is an energetic, thoughtful guide to how we orient ourselves in our world—and beyond.

Learn more about A Sense of Space at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: A Sense of Space.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top speculative books for "Pluribus" fans

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged "five great speculative books, chosen for various similar aspects as Pluribus" [the sci-fi show that’s the brainchild of Vince Gilligan, the writer-producer-director behind shows like Breaking Bad and Better Caul Saul]. One title on the list:

The Seep by Chana Porter

Read this if your favorite aspect of Pluribus is the utopia-attaining virus that takes over the world. Trina is a trans woman who lives with her wife Deeba in a new world under the influence of an alien entity called The Seep. Since its arrival, mostly everything has become peaceful on Earth, with no more war or greed or classism. There’s even Seeptech that can make dreams a reality, which is where things start to go wrong for Trina. When Deeba decides she wants to be reborn as a baby and live life over, she leaves Trina behind. Hurt and lonely, Trina takes off on a road trip, where she meets a young man whom she decides she is going to save from the Seep while also trying to deal with the hole that Deeba has left in her heart.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Seep is among Allegra Hyde’s eight top utopian books for dystopian times.

My Book, The Movie: The Seep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Mia Sheridan

From my Q&A with Mia Sheridan, author of The Fix: A Novel:

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

The Fix not only references a "fix" in the sense of a problem-solver for hire (which is suggested might be the reason for the crime the reader steps into almost immediately), but it also references what unfolds at the end of the story. So the title felt perfect to me because right up front, it made sense to the reader, and then made even more sense at the conclusion. I love a title that ends up having a deeper meaning than it originally suggests.

What's in a name?

One of the characters in my book is a young, extremely rational, non-emotional, genius of a young woman who is referred to by some as...[read on]

Visit Mia Sheridan's website.

Q&A with Mia Sheridan.

--Marshal Zeringue