Pg. 69: James R. Benn's "A Bitter Wind"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind (A Billy Boyle WWII Mystery) by James R. Benn.

About the book, from the publisher:

To solve a murder at an English airbase, US Army Captain Billy Boyle must immerse himself in the fascinating and secretive world of WWII radio espionage.

Christmas Day 1944: After his last mission put him in the tailspin of the Battle of the Bulge, Captain Billy Boyle travels to southeast England to visit his girlfriend, Diana Seaton, for a brief holiday respite. Diana is engaged in classified work at RAF Hawkinge, including Operation Corona, which recruits German-speaking Women’s Auxiliary Air Force members—many of them Jewish refugees from the Kindertransport rescue—to countermand German orders and direct night fighters away from Allied bombers.

It’s fascinating and critical espionage work, but it’s laced with peril, as Billy finds out. On a scenic Christmas walk along the White Cliffs of Dover, Billy and Diana stumble upon the dead body of a US Air Force officer. In the dead man’s pocket are papers with highly confidential information about radio interception operations. Information worth killing over.

As Billy digs into the secret world of codebreakers and radio jammers stationed at Hawkinge, another body turns up. Now Billy must find out what connects these two men—and who was so hell-bent on silencing them. Enlisting the help of his long-time associates, Billy undertakes another thrilling investigation that brings him to war-torn Yugoslavia, where he must rescue an escaped POW who may be the only person who knows the truth.

Learn more about the Billy Boyle WWII Mystery Series at James R. Benn's website.

The Page 99 Test: The First Wave.

The Page 69 Test: Evil for Evil.

The Page 69 Test: Rag and Bone.

My Book, The Movie: Death's Door.

The Page 69 Test: The White Ghost.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Madonna.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2016).

Q&A with James R. Benn.

The Page 69 Test: Proud Sorrows.

The Page 69 Test: The Phantom Patrol.

Writers Read: James R. Benn (September 2024).

The Page 69 Test: A Bitter Wind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Juyeon Park's "Families for Mobility"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Families for Mobility: Elite Korean Students Abroad and Their Parents' Reproduction of Privilege by Juyeon Park.

About the book, from the publisher:

Families for Mobility documents elite Korean transnational families, focusing on how they use elite education abroad as a tool for class reproduction. Drawing on over 100 interviews with both parents and children at elite U.S. colleges, the book explores the desires, aspirations, and expectations that shape these education-driven transnational family arrangements. By triangulating the perspectives of children, mothers, and fathers, Families for Mobility argues that gendered transnational parenting—by both mothers and fathers—plays a crucial role in the intergenerational transmission of mobility and cosmopolitan lifestyles. The analysis shows how class and gender shape both parents’ and children’s approaches to their transnational ‘family projects,’ with fathers and sons appearing more resourceful and ambitious than mothers and daughters, reflecting the gender achievement gap even among the elite. The book challenges stereotypes of Asian high achievers and ‘tiger’ parenting, providing a more nuanced understanding of who thrives in the hierarchical realms of global education and business, as well as the familial support systems behind their success.

Visit Juyeon Park's website.

The Page 99 Test: Families for Mobility.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top Kiwi and Australian crime writers

Zoë Rankin grew up in a village in Scotland. She studied international relations and Arabic before going on to qualify as a primary school teacher. She spent many years traveling in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and eventually settled in New Zealand. She has always been passionate about writing as well as spending time outdoors and exploring by bike, often with her two small children, who are equally adventurous.

Rankin's new novel is The Vanishing Place.

[Q&A with Zoë Rankin]

At CrimeReads the author tagged five favorite Kiwi and Australian crime writers, including:

Michael Robotham (Australia)
My favorite of the author’s books: Good Girl, Bad Girl

Robotham is one of my go-to reads when I want a page-turner. His books are addictive and his characters are spot-on.

Good Girl, Bad Girl is the first book in a phenomenal crime series. The two, equally damaged, main characters, Evie and Cyrus, have the most wonderfully dynamic chemistry, and the plot is dark and wickedly addictive. The characters are three-dimensional in every sense of the word, and I cared about Evie and Cyrus more than is probably normal. This is the type of book that you want to sit down and devour from cover to cover, then head to the shop to get the next one in the series. It is a propulsive series that follows the story of Evie, a young woman with a dark and traumatic past, and her evolving relationship with Cyrus, a forensic psychologist.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jerome Charyn's "Maria La Divina," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Maria La Divina by Jerome Charyn.

The entry begins:

I’ve had one of my books turned into a movie and it was not a great experience. I handed over my crime novel The Good Policeman to a showrunner and lost all my power. The film played in Europe but not in the United States and frankly, I was at peace with that outcome.

But with my Maria La Divina film I would not make the same mistakes. I want my Maria to sing, to act, to be a strong powerful woman worthy of the name Greatest Diva of All Time.

So, the first star I want my producers to talk to is – The Lady herself, Lady Gaga. I’ve watched every film she’s made and every performance I could get to. Lady Gaga is everything Maria was in her prime – the greatest singer, a talented actress, an exotic beauty and fashion icon, with a genius understanding of her times.

Lady Gaga is the Maria Callas of the 21st Century.

Maria gave it all up for love, for the love of Aristotle Onassis, a strange sort of...[read on]

Visit Jerome Charyn's website.

The Page 69 Test: Under the Eye of God.

My Book, The Movie: Big Red.

Q&A with Jerome Charyn.

The Page 69 Test: Ravage & Son.

Writers Read: Jerome Charyn (August 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Maria La Divina.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven complicated books about complicated family histories

Jeremy B. Jones is the author of the new nonfiction book Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries (2025) as well as the memoir Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland (2014). Bearwallow was named the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year in nonfiction and was awarded gold in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Awards in memoir. His essays have been published in Oxford American, Garden and Gun, The Bitter Southerner, and Brevity, among others. He also writes frequently for Our State Magazine. Jones earned his MFA from the University of Iowa and is a professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, in his native North Carolina. He also serves as the series co-editor for In Place: a literary nonfiction book series from WVU Press.

At Lit Hub the author tagged seven "beautifully complicated books about complicated family histories," including:

Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, Maud Newton

Newton’s heavily researched journey into her family’s past doesn’t shy away from dark secrets. Like the above books, the stakes are personal. Her obsession (her words) into genealogy starts close, with her estranged father, and she unspools the family past from there, in part to understand what led to the dysfunction of her childhood. She finds plenty in her research to account for the anxieties of today, and in a book that is organized like a patchwork quilt (as the cover prompts us to notice), she continually steps back from her own family to explore larger questions of inheritance and epigenetics and regional identities. The book is a marvel in its intensity, thoroughness, and honesty.

Read about another entry on the list.

Ancestor Trouble is among Juliet Patterson's eight books that tackle the subject of ancestral legacy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jeffrey H. Cohen's "Eating Grasshoppers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Eating Grasshoppers: Chapulines and the Women Who Sell Them by Jeffrey H. Cohen.

About the book, from the publisher:

An approachable ethnography of how grasshoppers are harvested, sold, and consumed in Oaxaca.

Chapulines (toasted grasshoppers) are not a delicacy in Oaxaca. They are just food—good food—and a protein-rich seasonal snack that is the product of a long-standing industry based overwhelmingly on the labor of women. Jeffrey Cohen has interviewed dozens of these chapulineras, who harvest insects from corn and alfalfa fields, prepare them, and sell them in urban and rural marketplaces. An accessible ethnography, Eating Grasshoppers tells their story alongside the broader history of chapulines.

For tourists, chapulines are an experience—a gateway to the “real” Oaxaca. For locals, they are ordinary fare, but also a reminder of Indigenous stability and rural survival. In a sense, eating chapulines is a declaration of independence from a government that has condemned eating insects as backward. Yet, while chapulines are a generations-old favorite, eating them is not an act of preservation. Cohen shows that the business of this traditional food is thoroughly modern and ever evolving, with entrepreneurial chapulineras responding nimbly to complex and dynamic markets. From alfalfa fields to online markets, Eating Grasshoppers takes readers inside one of the world’s most fascinating food cultures.

Visit Jeffrey H. Cohen's website.

The Page 99 Test: Eating Grasshoppers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susan Coll's "The Literati"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Literati: A Novel by Susan Coll.

About the book, from the publisher:

An unexpected catastrophe of literary proportions...

Aspirant, bookish, and close to broke, 26-year-old Clemi steps into her dream job at a prestigious literary nonprofit and finds herself in the bull's eye of a financial, legal, and existential calamity. The executive director has disappeared, leaving behind an inscrutable cat to which she is highly allergic. Meanwhile, the bank accounts have been overdrawn, the FBI is asking questions, and she has three days to pull off the annual fundraising gala, a glamorous affair filled with famous writers and local literati.

On the upside, she will get to meet her all-time favorite writer, who has won the award. Clemi has read and reread her novels, pouring over her every word. But her interactions with the author and her eight-year-old son, as well as with the nonprofit's Board Members, leave her wondering whether certain writers are better on the page than in person.

All the while, Clemi is trying to sort out her own life: her current boyfriend is, like every boyfriend before him, a pompous poseur, and the clock is running on her apartment-sitting gig. She finds herself wondering what all the goings-on in this dysfunctional, scandal-plagued nonprofit have to do with literature. And if it's time to let go of her literary aspirations and apply to law school.

In the week in which this madcap story unfolds, USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Coll weaves together a charmingly witty and warm comedy of manners that offers a peek behind the literary curtain--one that anyone who's ever been a little bit uncertain of what the future might hold can relate to.

Visit Susan Coll's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe.

The Page 69 Test: Acceptance.

The Page 69 Test: Beach Week.

The Page 69 Test: The Stager.

The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions.

The Page 69 Test: The Literati.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that reckon with larger-than-life mothers

Karleigh Frisbie Brogan is a writer from Sonoma County, California. She is the author of Holding: A Memoir About Mothers, Drugs, and Other Comforts. She was a 2024 Oregon Literary Fellow. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, Washington Post, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Huffington Post, Lit Hub, and forthcoming in Poets & Writers. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven

fiction and nonfiction books that engage with the symbolic mother. These works push her away and pull her in, stare into her harsh reflections. They acknowledge the gifts she bears as well as the scars she’s left. They attempt to scale her outsize dimensions, to remember, in the end, that she is human.

One title on the list:

Mother as Ghost

Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt

British writer Susie Boyt’s first American offering is a study of quiet grief, gentle affection, and steady, watchful hope. In gorgeous, somehow autumnal prose, Boyt tells the story of three generations of women. Ruth’s adult daughter, Eleanor, is a semi-estranged heroin addict whose infant daughter, Lily, is not only exposed to the drug and its hazards at home, but was in the womb as well—spending her first weeks in the neonatal unit on a morphine infusion. To keep her granddaughter safe, Ruth assumes custody of Lily and raises her from the preternaturally wise child she is to the sensible, mature, and caring teenager she becomes.

Throughout the novel, Eleanor rebuffs Ruth’s attempts at family. She flakes out, pulls away, recoils at any hint of intimacy. Ruth chastises her own “forced mildness” around her seldom-seen daughter, which she suspects may be the reason for Eleanor’s feral-cat temperament. “I wished she would hand me a script, a set of instructions, what to say what to do what to feel…. Sometimes I thought the more Eleanor evaded and erased me the more I needed her.” For Lily, her mother’s absence—or worse, avoidance—eventually surfaces as tidy, self-aware rage that she allows herself to feel. It is precisely Eleanor’s occasional resurfacing, her near proximity, that are so difficult for both Lily and Ruth. Not a complete severance, Eleanor haunts the edges of her mother’s and daughter’s lives, reminding them that they are not worth her time or effort. Yet despite the bleak acceptance of this, the story is limned in the soft glow of resilience and beauty.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Catherine Chidgey

From my Q&A with Catherine Chidgey, author of The Book of Guilt:

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

I knew from very early on that The Book of Guilt was the right title for the book because of the way it works with the three-part structure. The novel tells the story of thirteen-year-old triplet brothers living in a shadowy boys’ home in the New Forest, England, in a skewed version of 1979. Their three carers – Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night – record the boys’ wrongdoings in a ledger called The Book of Guilt, so the title refers to an actual book within the book. It’s mentioned early in the story, on page 14, and signals to the reader that these are children who are closely monitored. It also speaks to the emotional atmosphere of the novel; almost every character is culpable in some way – or believes that they are, which is possibly more corrosive. The title is also the name of the last of three sections in the novel: The Book of Dreams, The Book of Knowledge, and The Book of Guilt. While all referencing specific texts, these titles also trace the main characters’ journeys from dreamy unawareness, through dawning knowledge, and on into...[read on]

Follow Catherine Chidgey on Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A with Catherine Chidgey.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Heidi R. Lewis's "Make Rappers Rap Again"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap "Crisis" by Heidi R. Lewis.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap “Crisis,” author Heidi R. Lewis interrogates the ways Mumble Rap has been subjugated within real Hip Hop. Many critics claim mumble rappers are ignorant about Hip Hop history, disrespectful toward their Hip Hop elders, too similar, unskilled, prone to rapping about nonsense, and too feminine. In contrast, Lewis argues Mumble Rap is real Hip Hop. To do so, she examines Mumble Rap's congruence with oft forgotten or subjugated Hip Hop cornerstones like illegibility, melody, the DJ, and the subgenre, as well as the ways most mumble rappers practice citational and collaborative politics congruent with real Hip Hop. Following an analysis of the Mumble Rap sound, Lewis explains the subgenre's subjugation by situating it as southern and examining the ways it challenges real Hip Hop masculinity norms.

Visit Heidi R. Lewis's website, and check out the companion site for Make Rappers Rap Again.

The Page 99 Test: Make Rappers Rap Again.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that tackle the realities of domestic violence

Stephanie DeCarolis is a USA Today bestselling author of thriller and suspense novels. She is a graduate of Binghamton University and St. John's University School of Law, and currently lives in New York with her husband and their two daughters.

Her new novel is The Wives of Hawthorne Lane.

At CrimeReads DeCarolis tagged five books that take on domestic violence in a realistic and respectful way. One title on the list:

The Drowning Woman, by Robyn Harding

This story centers around two women who seem very different on the outside—one is wealthy and living in a mansion, and the other is unhoused and living in her car—but they soon find that they have more in common then it might appear. They form an unlikely bond, which eventually has them both forced to answer the same question: how far would you go to help a friend? What I found most realistic about the domestic violence depicted in this book was the themes of control and isolation. Both are common experiences for victims of domestic violence, and shows that not all abuse comes in the physical injuries. In addition, Harding takes on the difficult subject matter of suicide and its prevalence in victims of abuse, particularly those who experience social isolation, which can exacerbate feelings of despair or make it more difficult to ask for help.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sonora Reyes reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sonora Reyes, author of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar.

Their entry begins:

I've gotten to read a few books from my favorite authors recently! I keep adding new authors to my list of auto-buys, and I'm not mad about it!

I adored Nav's Foolproof Guide to Falling in Love by Jessica Lewis. It was the perfect rom com to get me out of my head in a dark time. Sometimes I just want to forget about my own problems and scream about two fictional characters who couldn't be more clueless about their feelings for each other. I can't wait for the spinoff, Hallie's Rules for a Recovering Romantic, which comes out next year! I will read anything Jessica Lewis writes, from horror to rom coms, she hasn't let me down...[read on]

About The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar, from the publisher:

From bestselling author Sonora Reyes comes a poignant and searingly honest companion novel to the multi-award-winning The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School, following beloved character Cesar Flores as he comes to terms with his sexuality, his new bipolar diagnosis, and more mistakes than he can count.

Seventeen-year-old Cesar Flores is finally ready to win back his ex-boyfriend. Since breaking up with Jamal in a last-ditch effort to stay in the closet, he’s come out to Mami, his sister, Yami, and their friends, taken his meds faithfully, and gotten his therapist’s blessing to reunite with Jamal.

Everything would be perfect if it weren’t for The Thoughts—the ones that won’t let all his Catholic guilt and internalizations stay buried where he wants them. The louder they become, the more Cesar is once again convinced that he doesn't deserve someone like Jamal—or anyone really.

Cesar can hide a fair amount of shame behind jokes and his “gifted” reputation, but when a manic episode makes his inner turmoil impossible to hide, he’s faced with a stark choice: burn every bridge he has left or, worse—ask for help. But is the mortifying vulnerability of being loved by the people he’s hurt the most a risk he’s willing to take?

Visit Sonora Reyes's website.

Writers Read: Sonora Reyes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books about books & bookstores

USA Today bestselling author Susan Coll is the author of eight novels, including The Literati, Real Life & Other Fictions, and Bookish People. Her other books include The Stager, Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and Karlmarx.com.

[Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe; The Page 69 Test: Acceptance; The Page 69 Test: Beach Week; The Page 69 Test: The Stager; The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions]

At Lit Hub Coll tagged six favorite books about books and bookstores, including:

Jenna Blum, Murder Your Darlings

This fun, twisty thriller about two successful writers who fall in love—or at least what passes for love in the case of one of the protagonists—is not about bookstores, per se, and yet indies feature prominently throughout as we follow these authors on tour. And among the three alternating points of view is one possibly unhinged bookseller.

Beneath the surface of this glossy novel is a heartfelt depiction of the obstacles aspirant writers face in trying to both produce and publish. Also, a lot is said about their all-too-easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities.

Blum—a successful novelist and co-founder of the popular Mighty Blaze podcast, knows of what she writes. In its observations about the pressures of publishing and its inverse—the heartbreak of not publishing—the novel is at times so close to the bone that it makes one wonder why anyone would want to engage in the business of books at any level. But don’t let that dissuade you—this book is not only good fun, but it ends with a homage to the business: “We writers, all of us, need booksellers. And readers! What would we do without you? You save our lives.”

Read about another book on Coll's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Katherine Fusco's "Hollywood's Others"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Hollywood's Others: Love and Limitation in the Star System by Katherine Fusco.

About the book, from the publisher:

We tend to think about movie stars as either glamorous or relatable. But in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Hollywood star system was taking shape, a number of unusual stars appeared on the silver screen, representing groups from which the American mainstream typically sought to avert its eyes. What did it mean for a white entertainment columnist to empathize with an ambiguously gendered Black child star? Or for boys to idolize Lon Chaney, famous for portraying characters with disabilities?

Hollywood’s Others explores the affective ties between white, non-disabled audiences and the fascinatingly different stars with whom they identified—but only up to a point. Katherine Fusco argues that stardom in this era at once offered ways for viewers to connect across group boundaries while also policing the limits of empathy. Examining fan magazines alongside film performances, she traces the intense audience attachment to atypical celebrities and the ways the film industry sought to manage it. Fusco considers Shirley Temple’s career in light of child labor laws and changing notions of childhood; shows how white viewers responded to Black music in depictions of the antebellum South; and analyzes the gender politics of conspiracy theories around celebrity suicides. Shedding light on marginalized stardoms and the anxieties they provoked, Hollywood’s Others challenges common notions about film’s capacity to build empathy.

Visit Katherine Fusco's website.

The Page 99 Test: Hollywood's Others.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Simon Tolkien's "The Room of Lost Steps"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Room of Lost Steps: A Novel (Theo Sterling, book 2) by Simon Tolkien.

About the book, from the publisher:

An American boy with impossible dreams is thrust into the cauldron of the Spanish Civil War in this arresting and thrilling historical coming-of-age epic and sequel to The Palace at the End of the Sea.

Barcelona 1936. Theo helps the Anarchist workers defeat the army that is trying to overthrow the democratically elected government, and he is reunited with his true love, Maria. But all too soon, his joy turns to terror as the Anarchists turn on him, led by a rival for Maria’s affection.

Lucky to escape with his life, Theo returns to England to study at Oxford. But his heart is in Spain, now torn apart by a bloody civil war, and he is quick to abandon his new life when his old schoolmate Esmond offers him the chance to fight the Fascists. He is unprepared for the nightmare of war that crushes his spirit and his hope until, back in Barcelona, Theo is confronted with a final terrible choice that will define his life forever.

As Theo’s tumultuous coming-of-age journey reaches its end, can his dream to change the world―so far from home―still hold true?

Visit Simon Tolkien's website.

Q&A with Simon Tolkien.

The Page 69 Test: The Room of Lost Steps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann

From my Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann, author of North of the Sunlit River: A Novel:

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

I hope the title North of the Sunlit River is compelling and original, but also relatable enough that people don’t ask, what the heck could this book possibly be about? I think the word “north” is fitting because it’s not just about a specific place in Alaska, but about the idea and feel of living in the North. “Sunlit” is a reference to the extended daylight hours of summer in Alaska, and it also describes the river as not a specific one, but one that means something to these characters in this story. Every river is sunlit at some point, but this one belongs to them and the particular memories they made there. I also think the themes suggested by the title are present throughout the novel, but they don’t come fully together until the very end, so my hope is the title is a thread that can be followed to...[read on]

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

Q&A with Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alma Katsu's "Fiend," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Fiend by Alma Katsu.

The entry begins:

In the case of Fiend, this isn’t a hypothetical. We optioned Fiend for a TV series shortly after we buttoned up the final version of the manuscript, literally days after the Los Angeles wildfires. As an aside, when my film agent said we were going to go on submission, I thought she must be crazy but she was right. There was a lot of interest and despite everything going on in Hollywood at the time, we got a great offer.

There are four main characters in the novel. First is Zef, the father and patriarch of the Berisha family, one of the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties in the world. The Berishas are known for being ruthless, but they’re also dogged by rumors that they’ve benefitted from an ancient power that’s somehow been gifted to them. They call it “the family blessing,” a power that sees things fall in their favor and that their enemies are punished. I could see Oscar Isaac as Zef: handsome but hard and ruthless. He’s got the strong facial characteristics needed for this character: the piercing eyes, strong jaw, prominent nose.

Even though there are multiple narrators, Maris is ostensibly the book’s protagonist. She’s the middle of Zef’s three children. She thinks she’s the obvious choice to take over as head of the family and the business empire, but...[read on]

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Fiend.

My Book, The Movie: Fiend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas J. Main's "Reforming Social Services in New York City"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Reforming Social Services in New York City: How Major Change Happens in Urban Welfare Policies by Thomas J. Main.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reforming Social Services in New York City examines efforts across six decades to respond to poverty, joblessness, and homelessness through the establishment and periodic restructuring of the city's Human Resources Administration (HRA) and related social welfare agencies.

As Thomas J. Main shows through archival research and interviews with key figures, the HRA has been the focus of several mayoralties. The John Lindsay administration's creation of the HRA in 1966 was a classic liberal effort to fight poverty; Rudy Giuliani brought dramatic change by implementing work-oriented welfare reform; and the Bill de Blasio administration attempted to install a progressive social welfare agenda within the city's social service agencies to reduce inequality. Reforming Social Services in New York City tells the story of these efforts, assessing the strategies employed and the success of their outcomes, concluding that major nonincremental change in urban welfare policy is not only possible but has been effective.

Thomas J. Main is Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of The Rise of Illiberalism, The Rise of the Alt-Right, and Homelessness in New York City.

Learn more about Reforming Social Services in New York City at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Reforming Social Services in New York City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books about the transformative power of live music

M. L. Rio has been an actor, a bookseller, an academic, and a music writer. She holds an MA in Shakespeare studies and a PhD in English literature. She is the author of the internationally bestselling novel If We Were Villains and the USA Today bestselling novella Graveyard Shift. Her new novel is Hot Wax.

At Electric Lit she tagged "eight books [that] showcase how triumphant and transformative live music can be." One title on the list:

Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti

Durastanti’s semi-autobiographical novel follows the daughter of two deaf parents as she navigates a chaotic upbringing divided between a small town in Southern Italy and New York City. Her early life is defined by her parents’ shared disability, the unique sonic landscape she and her brother—who are both hearing—occupy. Her mother loves to watch live concerts on TV, moved by the performances she cannot hear, prompted to ask the young Claudia, “What is music like?”

Their extended Italian family is inherently musical. Claudia’s grandfather and his friends try to share the experience with her mother by dancing tarantellas and stomping on the floor, “hoping the vibrations would sail up her calves, ripple in her hips, crash against her ribs.” Claudia’s mother eventually sours on music, while Claudia herself becomes a devotee, moving to London as a young adult in a doomed effort to join the fading punk scene. She too is disappointed, realizing she has arrived too late and moved there for the wrong reasons. But music still has enormous influence and becomes a defining feature of her identity outside of a family where there was little room for her.

Read about another entry on Rio's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kitty Zeldis reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis, author of One of Them: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I’ve just finished with When Women Ruled Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow. It’s a portrait of three major department stores in New York City—Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor and Bendel’s—and the women responsible for their respective successes. The glory days of the American department store are, alas, over, but this book makes them live again. I enjoyed it so much that...[read on]

About One of Them, from the publisher:

The beloved author of Not Our Kind and The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights returns with a story of secrets, friendship, and betrayal about two young women at Vassar in the years after World War II, a powerful and moving tale of prejudice and pride that echoes the cultural and social issues of today.

Anne Bishop seems like a typical Vassar sophomore—one of a popular group of privileged WASP friends. None of the girls in her circle has any idea that she’s Jewish, or that her real name is or that her real first name is Miriam. Pretending to be a Gentile has made life easier—as Anne, she no longer suffers the snubs, snide remarks, and daily restrictions Jews face. She enjoys her college life of teas, late-night conversations, and mixers. She turns a blind eye to the casual anti-Semitism that flourishes among her friends and classmates—after all, it's no longer directed at her.

But her secret life is threatened when she becomes fascinated by a girl not in her crowd. Delia Goldhush is sophisticated, stylish, brilliant, and unashamedly Jewish—and seems not to care that she’s an outcast among the other students. Knowing that her growing closeness with Delia would be social suicide if it were discovered, Anne keeps their friendship quiet. Delia seems to understand—until a cruelty on Anne’s part drives them apart and sends them scattering to other corners of the world, alone and together.

Visit Kitty Zeldis's website

My Book, The Movie: Not Our Kind.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis (December 2018).

Coffee with a Canine: Kitty Zeldis & Dottie.

The Page 69 Test: Not Our Kind.

The Page 69 Test: The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights.

My Book, The Movie: One of Them.

Q&A with Kitty Zeldis.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight dark tales from Spanish-speaking authors

Natalie Sierra is a Latina poet, author, and editor whose work explores themes of desire, identity, and the supernatural. She is the author of the poetry collection Medusa (2020), and the novel Charlie, Forever and Ever (2021). Sierra currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Pomona, California, and is the President of Cafe Con Libros Press, a nonprofit bookstore and literary hub. Her writing has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Westwind Journal of the Arts, and other literary outlets. She specializes in dark, genre-bending narratives with strong emotional and psychological undercurrents.

Sierra's new book is Beyond the Grace of God: A Story of Desire.

At B&N Reads the author tagged eight "chilling works by Spanish-speaking authors prove that horror transcends borders." One title on the list:

The Devil Takes You Home: A Novel
By Gabino Iglesias


A father, drowning in debt and grief, takes one last job hijacking a cartel shipment—only to be pulled into a nightmarish journey of violence and the supernatural across Texas and Mexico. Brutal, poetic and unforgettable, Iglesia’s story cements him as one of today’s most boundary-breaking voices in horror.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Devil Takes You Home is among Elizabeth Gonzalez James's eleven weird and wild books of Texas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Obst's "Saving Ourselves from Big Car"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Saving Ourselves from Big Car by David Obst.

About the book, from the publisher:

Cars are killing people and making the planet uninhabitable. Crashes take the lives of more than a million people around the world each year. Air pollution linked to motor vehicles contributes to even more untimely deaths. Highways and unsafe streets have devastated cities, yet traffic congestion still swallows up countless hours. And carbon emissions from transportation are a key driver of climate change, which now threatens to make the world unlivable. Why do we still worship at the altar of the car? How can we find alternatives that are healthier for the planet and ourselves?

This book exposes how “Big Car”―the complex of companies in the automobile, oil, insurance, media, and concrete industries that promote and entrench car dependence―has pursued profit at the expense of the common good. David Obst explores how Big Car gained almost immeasurable influence over our lives, weighing the benefits and the costs of reliance on private automobiles. He details how industry covered up the harms of lead additives, fought against seatbelts, and continues to fund climate-change denialism. Obst considers the future of mobility, surveying how cities―from Taipei to Tempe, Copenhagen to Chicago―are experimenting with forms of transportation that offer alternatives to the dominance of cars. Provocative and comprehensive, Saving Ourselves from Big Car is a powerful wake-up call for us to change how we use cars before it’s too late.

Visit David Obst's website.

The Page 99 Test: Saving Ourselves from Big Car.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alma Katsu's "Fiend"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Fiend by Alma Katsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.

Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.

The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.

At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Fiend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books marrying climate fiction with technology

Carolina Ciucci is a teacher, writer and reviewer based in the south of Argentina. She hoards books like they’re going out of style. In case of emergency, you can summon her by talking about Ireland, fictional witches, and the Brontë family. At Book Riot she tagged eight titles marrying climate fiction with technology.

One title on the list:

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

It takes impressive technology to build a floating city in the Arctic Circle, from geothermal heating to sustainable energy. But people are people everywhere, and soon crime and corruption join the inhabitants in this supposedly miraculous place. But when a woman arrives (riding an orca and accompanied by a polar bear, no less), she begins to put together a resistance.

Read about another entry on the list.

Blackfish City is among Vanessa Armstrong's five nautical SFF books to read when you’re far from shore and Amy Brady's seven books that provocatively tackle climate change.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ayoush Lazikani's "The Medieval Moon"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing by Ayoush Lazikani.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vivid new history of how medieval people around the world perceived the moon

When they gazed at the moon, medieval people around the globe saw an object that was at once powerful and fragile, distant and intimate—and sometimes all this at once. The moon could convey love, beauty, and gentleness; but it could also be about pain, hatred, and violence. In its circularity the moon was associated with fullness and fertility. Yet in its crescent and other shifting forms, the moon could seem broken, even wounded.

In this beautifully illustrated history, Ayoush Lazikani reveals the many ways medieval people felt and wrote about the moon. Ranging across the world, from China to South America, Korea to Wales, Lazikani explores how different cultures interacted with the moon. From the idea that the Black Death was caused by a lunar eclipse to the wealth of Persian love poetry inspired by the moon’s beauty, this is a truly global account of our closest celestial neighbour.

Learn more about The Medieval Moon at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Medieval Moon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Zoë Rankin

From my Q&A with Zoë Rankin, author of The Vanishing Place:

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

When my manuscript was still in working draft form on my computer, it was titled The Wilder Child. This first title idea was inspired by the opening hook of an unkempt child appearing from the bush (vast areas of dense New Zealand forest). But something about it didn’t hit quite right. My New Zealand publisher and I went back and forth, over a few months, until we settled on The Vanishing Place. At one point, a character in the novel says, ‘this is the vanishing place,’ a statement which holds true on a number of levels. The New Zealand bush has this ability to swallow you up, to hold tight and never let go. It is a place where secrets and people can truly disappear. I think, as a title, The Vanishing Place evokes questions and intrigue and creates a sense of...[read on]

Follow Zoë Rankin on Facebook and Instagram.

Q&A with Zoë Rankin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David McGlynn's "Everything We Could Do"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Everything We Could Do: A Novel by David McGlynn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of a small-town Wisconsin NICU, a sweeping story of parenthood, family, and redemption

After a decade of miscarriages, Brooke Jensen is finally pregnant—with quadruplets. When she goes into labor after twenty-three weeks, Brooke and her husband rush to the hospital in the small town of Hanover, Wisconsin. For the 203 days that follow, they’re plunged into the terrifying and mysterious netherworld of the neonatal intensive care unit.

As the babies grow and struggle, fall turns to stark upper-Midwest winter. Brooke bonds with Dash, a senior nurse whose son, Landon, had been a patient in the NICU years earlier and is now straining his parents’ abilities to care for him. Both families bend and edge closer to breaking, and the questions mount: What does love look like? What does it mean to save a life?

A fiercely honest portrait of American parenthood, the American healthcare system, and Rust Belt communities, Everything We Could Do lays bare the ways that families are formed and remade in times of crisis.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

Q&A with David McGlynn.

The Page 69 Test: Everything We Could Do.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Amanda Laury Kleintop's "Counting the Cost of Freedom"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Counting the Cost of Freedom: The Fight Over Compensated Emancipation after the Civil War by Amanda Laury Kleintop.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the Civil War, the US government abolished slavery without reimbursing enslavers, diminishing the white South’s wealth by nearly 50 percent. After the Confederacy’s defeat, white Southerners demanded federal compensation for the financial value of formerly enslaved people and fought for other policies that would recognize abolition’s costs during Reconstruction. As Amanda Laury Kleintop shows, their persistence eventually led to the creation of Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which abolished the right to profit from property in people. Surprisingly, former Confederates responded by using Lost Cause history-making to obscure the fact that they had demanded financial redress in the first place. The largely successful efforts of white southerners to erase this history continues to generate false understandings today.

Kleintop draws from an impressive array of archival sources to uncover this lost history. In doing so, she demonstrates how this legal battle also undermined efforts by formerly enslaved people to receive reparations for themselves and their descendants—a debate that persists in today’s national dialogue.

Learn more about Counting the Cost of Freedom at the University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Counting the Cost of Freedom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top historical novels that capture the 18th century

Laura Shepherd-Robinson is the award-winning, Sunday Times and USA Today bestselling author of four historical novels including the newly released The Art of a Lie.

At CrimeReads Shepherd-Robinson tagged six "works of fiction [that] explore the vast contradictions and extreme hypocrisies of our so-called Age of Enlightenment." (She also included one title from 1782, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos.) One title on the list:

A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss

Set in early 18th century London, this is a bawdy, picaresque romp, with a colorful array of rogues and wenches populating its pages. However, in between the intricate crime plot and the humor, the novel tackles some serious subjects: the anti-Semitism and legal oppressions faced by Jews in London at that time, as well as the world of the early money markets and joint stock companies. The story is narrated by Benjamin Weaver, a Jew and former boxer turned thieftaker. Weaver is told by a client that his estranged father, lately deceased, was in truth murdered. Unable to ignore this information, Weaver hunts for the killer, drawn back into the family he tried to escape, and the company of his beautiful cousin, Miriam. His inquiry brings him up against many enemies, notably the powerful Bank of England, their rival, the South Sea Company and the famous underworld villain, Jonathan Wild. Weaver is a brilliant protagonist, flawed, fun, but also complex and conflicted about his heritage.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Conspiracy of Paper is among Samantha Greene Woodruff's five books that explore the complexities of the stock market.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jessica Bryant Klagmann reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann, author of North of the Sunlit River: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

Right now, I’m reading Weyward by Emilia Hart and Dear Writer by Maggie Smith, and listening to Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. I’m branching out a little on the first two, because I don’t read a lot of historical fiction or fantasy, and I haven’t read a book of writing advice in a long time, but I’m enjoying both a lot so far. I’ve read Arctic Dreams before, but it’s such a gorgeous book, it felt like a good way to head into the launch of North of the Sunlit River, which takes place in...[read on]

About North of the Sunlit River, from the publisher:

From the author of This Impossible Brightness comes a heartrending trek through grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness as a young woman seeks the truth that will heal her.

Eila Jacobsen is adrift, reeling from her father’s recent death and still suffering from the loss of her best friend. When invited to join a research trip to a remote part of Alaska, she takes the chance to refocus her life and perhaps unravel the mystery behind the dwindling caribou population.

But as Eila buries herself in data, she stumbles across something remarkable. Concealed in the pages of her father’s journal is a discovery with life-changing possibilities. So why was it abandoned?

Unable to ignore its potential, Eila ventures deeper into the Alaskan tundra in search of healing and answers. But she’s not the only one in need of a new beginning, and she’s not the only one looking.

Pursued across the landscape and haunted by secrets, Eila presses on, unearthing the regrets of those closest to her, and revealing the joy and forgiveness that bind them together.

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top books that celebrate Black performance

Lauren Morrow studied dance and creative writing at Connecticut College and earned an MFA in fiction from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She was a Kimbilio Fellow and an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow and is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards, among other prizes. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares and the South Carolina Review. She worked in publicity at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is now a senior publicist at Dutton, Plume, and Tiny Reparations Books. Originally from St. Louis, she lives in Brooklyn.

Morrow's new novel is Little Movements.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight books that "explore performance in various ways—its power and pressures—beautifully exposing the talent and vulnerability of the characters, and turning the reader into an audience member, eager to give a standing ovation." One title on the list:

Zadie Smith, Swing Time

Two young biracial women meet in a London dance class as girls—Tracey is the more technically talented, while the unnamed narrator has an emotive voice and big ideas about race and the world. While performance is a major part of their lives individually—Tracey becoming a chorus line dancer, the narrator becoming an assistant to a pop star—a performance element that is particularly striking here is the way Smith traces dance from past to present, from Africa through the diaspora. Readers are given a taste of everyone from Michael Jackson (an ongoing motif throughout the novel and self-described “slave to the rhythm”) to the Nicholas Brothers to a Kankurang dancers of West Africa (“the greatest dancer I ever saw”). I could go on forever about the layers of Black performance here—it’s, unsurprisingly, a stunner.

Read about another novel on Morrow's list.

Swing Time is among Amanda Brainerd's eight books to take you back to the 1980s and Robert Haller's six top novels that reference pop music.

--Marshal Zeringue