Five best: books about the challenges of living with illness

Laura Landro, an assistant managing editor at the Wall Street Journal and its Informed Patient columnist, is the author of Survivor: Taking Control of Your Fight Against Cancer (1998). She named a five best list of "books about the challenges of living with illness" for her newspaper.

One book to make the list:

Love and Other Infectious Diseases
By Molly Haskell
Morrow, 1990

Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell were star film critics in New York in the 1980s -- husband and wife with a shared passion for movies and each other -- when Sarris was struck with a frightening and devastating illness that tore through his body and ripped up their lives. Initially diagnosed with a form of encephalitis, he was later found to have a viral infection and a neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. Sarris suffered every complication in the book, from pneumonia and a perforated colon to paralysis, bedsores, septicemia and hallucinations. His care and all the chores he had once taken care of, including paying bills, fell to Haskell, who soon faced her own medical crisis after months of reserving her strength for her spouse. Though the bonds of marriage and family in the face of illness sometimes stifle and enrage her, Haskell emerges "feeling deeply and continuously in the marrow of my bones a reason for staying alive."

Read about the book that tops Landro's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sandeep Jauhar's "Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Sandeep Jauhar's Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation.

About the book, from the author's website:

Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's story of his days and nights in residency at a prominent teaching hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question every conventional assumption about doctors and medicine — and that makes him an ideal figure to speak to our own misgivings about doctors and medicine today.

Residency — and especially its first year, called "internship" — is an apprenticeship legendary for its brutality. Working eighty or more hours per week and staying up "on call" every fourth night, most new doctors spend their first year in a state of perpetual exhaustion, shunning family, friends, food, sex, and other pleasures — and asking themselves why they ever wanted to be doctors in the first place.

Jauhar's internship was even more harrowing than most: The younger son in an intensely competitive family, he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane calling — only to find that medicine is often a "cookbook" craft with little regard for the patient. He struggled to find a place among the hospital's squadrons of cocky Type-A residents and doctors. A journalist on the side, he challenged the spirit-breaking practices of the internship in The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himself — an experience that gave him rare insight into the doctor-patient relationship, enabling him to see that today's high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.

Now a thriving cardiologist, Sandeep Jauhar has all the qualities you'd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common.

His beautifully written, deeply felt memoir explains how he and his fellow interns survived — and explains the inner workings of modern medicine as no guidebook or magazine article can.

Among the praise for Intern:

"Brutally frank... Rarely has a more conflicted or unpromising candidate entered the field of medicine, and this mismatch gives Intern its offbeat appeal. There are many accounts of American medical training, but none related by a narrator quite so wobbly, introspective, crisis prone and fumbling.... In a book filled with colorful medical anecdotes, Dr. Jauhar's own case stands out. Half the time it's not clear whether he should be treating others or others should be treating him, which does in fact happen when he develops a herniated disc midway through his training, complicated by a deep depression associated with a rolling existential crisis. The inside look at the workings of the medical internship system is fascinating, but it cannot compete with Dr. Jauhar's own psychological adventure, a quasireligious journey from agnosticism to robust faith, with occasional dips into outright atheism..."
—New York Times

"In Jauhar's wise memoir of his two-year ordeal of doubt and sleep deprivation at a New York hospital, he takes readers to the heart of every young physician's hardest test: to become a doctor yet remain a human being."
—Time

"Jauhar's candid account of his stressful journey is enlightening, educational and eye-opening. After ten successful years in the profession, the author dolefully admits that he is unfazed by the 'small injustices' in hospitals today. Required reading for anyone seriously considering a career in medicine."
—Kirkus Reviews

"What sets Jauhar's internship story apart from the norm is his candor."
—Booklist

"Honest and vivid... A well-written medical memoir."
—Library Journal

"Very few books can make you laugh and cry at the same time. This is one of them. Jauhar reveals himself in this book as he takes us on a wondrous journey through one of the most difficult years of his life. It is mandatory reading for anyone who has been even the slightest bit curious about how a doctor gets trained, and for physicians it is a valuable record of our initiation."
—Sanjay Gupta, CNN medical correspondent and author of Chasing Life

Read an excerpt from Intern and learn more about the author and his work at Sandeep Jauhar's website and blog.

Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He writes regularly for the New York Times and The New England Journal of Medicine.

The Page 69 Test: Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: "Microtrends" by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1982, readers discovered Megatrends.
In 2000, The Tipping Point entered the lexicon.

Now, in Microtrends, one of the most respected and sought-after analysts in the world articulates a new way of understanding how we live.

Mark Penn, the man who identified "Soccer Moms" as a crucial constituency in President Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign, is known for his ability to detect relatively small patterns of behavior in our culture-microtrends that are wielding great influence on business, politics, and our personal lives. Only one percent of the public, or three million people, is enough to launch a business or social movement.

Relying on some of the best data available, Penn identifies more than 70 microtrends in religion, leisure, politics, and family life that are changing the way we live. Among them:

* People are retiring but continuing to work.

* Teens are turning to knitting.

* Geeks are becoming the most sociable people around.

* Women are driving technology.

* Dads are older than ever and spending more time with their kids than in the past.

You have to look at and interpret data to know what's going on, and that conventional wisdom is almost always wrong and outdated. The nation is no longer a melting pot. We are a collection of communities with many individual tastes and lifestyles. Those who recognize these emerging groups will prosper.

Penn shows readers how to identify the microtrends that can transform a business enterprise, tip an election, spark a movement, or change your life. In today's world, small groups can have the biggest impact.

Among the praise for Microtrends:

"Penn has a keen mind, and a fascinating sense of what makes America and the world tick, and you see it on every page."
—Bill Gates

"The ideas in this book will help you see the world in a new way."
—Bill Clinton

"Brilliant!"
—Tony Blair

"Probably the most powerful man in Washington you've never heard of."
—Washington Post

"World-class marketing begins with cutting-edge consumer insights, and Mark Penn is a master at spotting them."
—Mary Dillion, global chief marketing officer, McDonald's

"The guru of small things…Mark Penn is more than a high-powered Democratic pollster: His ideas helped transform the Clinton presidency into a service provider for various niche voters."
—New York Times Magazine

Read an excerpt from Microtrends and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB). E. Kinney Zalesne is a former White House Fellow, counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno, and was president and executive vice president of two national social-change organizations, College Summit and Hillel.

The Page 99 Test: Microtrends.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Shira Nayman reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Shira Nayman, author of Awake in the Dark. She has a master's degree in comparative literature and a doctorate in clinical psychology, and has worked as a psychologist and a marketing consultant. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, New England Review, and Boulevard.

About Awake in the Dark, from the publisher:

Bold and deeply affecting, Awake in the Dark is a provocative and haunting work of fiction about who we are and how we are formed by history. These luminous stories portray the contemporary lives of the children of Holocaust victims and perpetrators as they struggle with the legacy of their parents -- their questions of identity, family, and faith. In "The House on Kronen-strasse," a woman returns to Germany to find her childhood home; in "The Porcelain Monkey," the shocking origins of an Orthodox Jewish woman's faith are revealed; in "The Lamp," the harrowing experiences of a young woman leave her with the perfect daughter and a strange light; and in "Dark Urgings of the Blood," a patient is convinced that she shares a disturbing history with her psychiatrist.

Rendered in powerful, unaffected prose, Awake in the Dark is an illuminating and startling book about the disguises we don, the secrets we keep, and the consequences of our silences.

Read an excerpt from Awake in the Dark and visit Shira Nayman's website.

Writers Read: Shira Nayman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Traci L. Slatton's "Immortal"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Traci L. Slatton's Immortal.

About the book, from the author's website:

Immortal is the fascinating story of a mysterious young orphan named Luca Bastardo who is swept by history through almost two hundred tumultuous years.

Luca rises from his poverty on the streets to wealth and power in Florence, meeting such figures as Giotto, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Cosimo and Lorenzo de Medici, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, and Ficino.

Luca meets and eventually marries the ravishing woman of his dreams, only to lose her, and everything, at the hands of the Roman Inquisition, when his deepest secrets are revealed.

Among the early praise for the novel:

"The tale Luca shares is riveting, and heartbreaking, and gutwrenching, and exquisite... Immortal elicits powerful emotion; read it if you can appreciate the beauty of unity in heartache, if you would like to prove that "every life has meaning," if you seek guidance in finding a meaning all your own."
--Front Street Reviews

"Immortal is one of the most outstanding novels this reviewer has read in years! There is so much more to be experienced beyond this review that is riveting, provocative, beautiful, passionate, and unforgettable in this well-research and well-written Florentine story."
--Crystal Reviews

"[A] wonderful work of historical fiction and an impressive first novel."
--BookLoons

Read an excerpt from Immortal and learn more about the author and her writing at Traci L. Slatton's website and her blog.

Traci L. Slatton is a graduate of Yale and Columbia, and she also attended the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, sculptor Sabin Howard, whose classical figures and love for Renaissance Italy inspired her to write a novel set during that time period. Immortal is her first novel.

The Page 69 Test: Immortal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Aimee Bender's "Willful Creatures"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Aimee Bender's Willful Creatures.

About the book, from the publisher:

Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures conjures a fantastical world in which authentic love blooms. This is a place where a boy with keys for fingers is a hero, a woman’s children are potatoes, and a little boy with an iron for a head is born to a family of pumpkin heads. With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotion, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition.

Among the praise for Willful Creatures:

"[Bender] is Hemingway on an acid trip; her choices are twisted, both ethereal and surprisingly weighty.... Terrifyingly lovely."
–Los Angeles Times

“New, exciting, harsh, rugged and unyielding.... Every sentence in [Willful Creatures] is a fresh surprise.”
–Washington Post

"Contemporary fairy tales, cushioned by goofy humor and a deep tenderness for her characters, that aren't always as dark or as sinister as they initially appear."
–New York Times Book Review

"To curl up with an Aimee Bender story is to thank heaven you ever learned to read in the first place.... What a treat to spend 15 stories in Bender's vast and wonderfully unhinged imagination.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“I am a long-standing, passionate fan of Aimee Bender’s stories. Her images explode, her words ignite. Watching her imagination catch fire remains a sustaining joy in my readerly life.”
–Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones

Read an excerpt from Willful Creatures and learn more about the author and her work at Aimee Bender's website.

Aimee Bender lives in Los Angeles. Her stories have appeared in Granta, GQ, Harper's, Fence, Tin House, Paris Review, and several other publications. She is the author of collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and An Invisible Sign of My Own, her first novel.

The Page 99 Test: Willful Creatures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michael Erard's "Um..."

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Michael Erard's Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.

About the book, from the publisher:

Um… is about how you really speak, and why it’s normal for your casual, everyday speech to be filled with verbal blunders — about one in every ten words. Why do they happen? Why can’t we control them? What can you tell about the people who make them?

In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some verbal blunders rises and falls. Why was the spoonerism named after Reverend Spooner, not some other absent-minded person? Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize "umlessness" in speaking? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal blundering?

You’ll have new ways to listen to yourself and others once you’ve met the people who work with verbal blunders every day — journalists, transcribers, interpreters, police officers, linguists, psychologists, among others — and when you’ve learned what verbal blunders tell about who we are and what we want.

A rich investigation of a fascinating subject, full of entertaining examples, Um. . . is essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes.

Among the praise for Um...:

“Some people are bird watchers and learn a great deal about the birds they watch. Michael Erard watches word botchers and, in the process, enriches our experience of what language is about and what makes us human. After reading Um…, you'll never hear the thud and blunder of everyday speech in the same way.”
–Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English

“Who'd have thought that a book called Um could be a page-turner? But Michael Erard's investigtions of "applied blunderology" come to something more than the familiar catalogues of verbal slips and gaffes from the high and the low. It's also a fascinating meditation on why blunders happen, and what they tell us about language and ourselves. At its deepest level, Um is an exercise in the zen of attention, which tunes us in to the revealing noises and pauses that we spend most of our time tuning out.”
–Geoffrey Nunberg, NPR commentator

“A lascinating fook at yet another revealing instance of human imperfection.”
–Kirkus (starred review)

“Included troughout are hilarious highlight reeks of bloopers, boners, spoonerisms, malapropisms, and 'eggcorns'... His work challenges the reader to think about his or her own speech in an entirely new way."
–Publishers Weekly

Read an excerpt from Um… and learn more about the author and his writing at Michael Erard's website and MySpace page.

Erard is a writer/journalist based in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, the New Republic, the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Foreign Policy, the New Scientist, Lingua Franca, Legal Affairs, the Texas Observer, and other publications.

The Page 69 Test: Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Harvard Sitkoff's "King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Harvard Sitkoff's King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Stunning Reappraisal of King and His Increased Relevance

Might Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest accomplishments have been ahead of him? His murder in April 1968 did far more than cut tragically short the life of one of America’s most remarkable civil rights leaders. In this concise biography, Harvard Sitkoff presents a stunningly relevant King. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, King’s 1963 soul-stirring address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the 1965 history-altering Selma march are all recounted. But these are not treated as predetermined high points in a life celebrated for its role in a civil rights struggle too many Americans have quickly relegated to the past. Carefully presented alongside King’s successes are his failures — as an organizer in Albany, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida; as a leader of ever more strident activists; as a husband. Together, high and low points are interwoven to capture King’s lifelong struggle, through disappointment and epiphany, with his own injunction: “Let us be Christian in all our actions.” By telling King’s life as one on the verge of reaching its fullest fulfillment, Sitkoff powerfully shows where King’s faith and activism were leading him — to a direct confrontation with a president over an immoral war and with an America blind to its complicity in economic injustice.

Among the early praise for the book:

“A marvelous read and striking achievement! This engrossing and perceptive biography offers a balanced yet critical analysis of both Martin Luther King Jr. and his epochal times in their full complexity.”
—Waldo Martin, U.C. Berkeley, author of No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America

“In this richly accessible and commanding study, Harvard Sitkoff provides a timely reminder of the enduring significance of Martin Luther King's spiritual strivings and quest for social justice. A welcome contribution to the King canon, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop brims with insights into the African American most emblematic of the modern Civil Rights Movement.”
—Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University

“Drawing on his expertise in the history of the civil rights movement, Harvard Sitkoff has produced the finest brief biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. The man who emerges is not the homogenized King celebrated every January, but a radical critic of military adventurism and economic and racial injustice, who speaks to the present as powerfully as to his own time.”
—Eric Foner, Columbia University

"King is a perfect combination of author and subject: one of the deans of civil rights history tracing the life of the movement’s towering figure. Harvard Sitkoff has performed a remarkable feat, giving us a biography of Martin Luther King that is simultaneously concise and complex, judicious and deeply moving. What a marvelous recounting of this most important of American stories."
—Kevin Boyle, Ohio State University, author of the National Book Award-winning Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age

"Sitkoff’s book on King reads like a dream. Packed with vibrant quotations from King himself, it becomes a living narrative of how this giant among American political leaders moved on his mission to serve his people and his God, undeterred by the fearsome obstacles strewn in his path by everyone from his own father to the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, to President Lyndon Johnson. A spellbinder, it brings all the good work of David Garrow and Taylor Branch to bear on understanding this critical figure of our time, and in less than 300 pages."
—William Chafe, Duke University

Learn more about King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop at the publisher's website.

Harvard Sitkoff is a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire and the author or editor of more than eight books, including A New Deal for Blacks; The Struggle for Black Equality, 1945–1992; and A History of Our Time.

The Page 99 Test: King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Marcus Sakey reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Marcus Sakey, author of The Blade Itself and, new in bookstores today, At the City's Edge.

One book mentioned in Sakey's entry:

The last book I read that really blew my hair back was probably Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood . Graceful, subtle, and astonishingly empathetic. I think Cunningham is one of the finest novelists working today. Better still, while all of his books are excellent -- and some are staggering -- I think his masterpiece is yet to come. [read on]

Sakey's first novel, The Blade Itself, was featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR, chosen a New York Times Editor's Pick and one of Esquire Magazine's "Top 5 Reads of 2007," and made January Magazine's "Best of 2007" list. Rachael Ray loved it, too.

David Morrell said At the City's Edge "Goes from zero to sixty in a blazing rush. Sakey knows how to thrill a reader. And the Kirkus reviewer wrote that it is "Intricate ... relentless ... Sakey's gritty Chicago is wonderfully evoked. [A] brutally effective action-heavy thriller, ready-made for film."

The Page 69 Test: The Blade Itself.

The Page 69 Test: At the City's Edge.

Writers Read: Marcus Sakey.

--Marshal Zeringue

Chris Mooney's "The Secret Friend," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Chris Mooney's The Secret Friend.

The forthcoming The Secret Friend follows The Missing and is the second novel in his Darby McCormick series.

There are two lead roles in the story, Darby McCormick and Malcolm Fletcher:

[F]or Darby McCormick, you would need a strong actress to play her - someone who has a lot of emotional depth. As long as Lindsay Lohan or Jennifer Lopez didn't play her, I'd be a happy camper. [read on]

Chris Mooney is the critically acclaimed author of Deviant Ways, World Without End, Remembering Sarah, which was nominated for the Barry Award and the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and The Missing.

The Page 69 Test: The Missing.

My Book, The Movie: The Secret Friend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: José Ramón Sánchez's "Boricua Power"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: José Ramón Sánchez's Boricua Power: A Political History of Puerto Ricans in the United States.

About the book, from the publisher:

Where does power come from? Why does it sometimes disappear? How do groups, like the Puerto Rican community, become impoverished, lose social influence, and become marginal to the rest of society? How do they turn things around, increase their wealth, and become better able to successfully influence and defend themselves?

Boricua Power explains the creation and loss of power as a product of human efforts to enter, keep or end relationships with others in an attempt to satisfy passions and interests, using a theoretical and historical case study of one community--Puerto Ricans in the United States. Using archival, historical and empirical data, Boricua Power demonstrates that power rose and fell for this community with fluctuations in the passions and interests that defined the relationship between Puerto Ricans and the larger U.S. society.

Among the praise for Boricua Power:

"This study fills an important gap by presenting a cogent and historically rich account of community empowerment in the intellectual tradition of political economy."
—Citylimits.org

"José Sánchez offers a fresh new way of thinking about Puerto Rican politics. Guided by a dynamic and suggestive concept of political power, the author navigates his way deftly through the thickets of volatile debates and controversy in tracking a century-long history of radical class and ethnic speaking-truth-to-power in the Latino vein. Taking us back to the cigar worker strikes before the 1920s, the story of Boricua Power goes on to probe the political scene in the post-World War II era, and then sheds new light on the Young Lords Party and the exciting political watershed of the Sixties and Seventies in New York City. To sidestep the pitfalls of blame-the-victim pathologizing on the one hand, and wishful triumphalism on the other, Sánchez's metaphor of the play of power as dance is fun, convincing, and thoroughly apropos."
—Juan Flores, author of From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity

"A well-written, historically informed, and original treatment of the Puerto Rican cultural and ethno-class struggle in America. Boricua Power is scholarly yet heartfelt and recommended to anyone interested in ethnicity and social power."
—Michael Parenti, author of The Culture Struggle

Read more about Boricua Power at the NYU Press website.

José Ramón Sánchez is Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of Urban Studies at Long Island University, Brooklyn. He is also the Chair of the National Institute for Latino Policy.

The Page 99 Test: Boricua Power.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Marcus Sakey's "At the City's Edge"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge.

About the book, from the publisher's website:

Jason Palmer loved being a soldier. But after returning home from Iraq with an "other than honorable" discharge, he's finding rebuilding his life the toughest battle yet.

Elena Cruz is a talented cop, the first woman to make Chicago's prestigious Gang Intelligence Unit. She's ready for anything the job can throw at her.

Until Jason's brother, a prominent community activist, is murdered in front of his own son.

Now, stalked by brutal men with a shadowy agenda, Jason and Elena must unravel a conspiracy stretching from the darkest alleys of the ghetto to the manicured lawns of the city's power brokers. In a world where corruption and violence are simply the cost of doing business, two damaged people are all that stand between an innocent child -- and the killers who will stop at nothing to find him.

Among the early praise for At the City's Edge:

"At the City's Edge crackles and sears like a rip-roaring fire."

--Tess Gerritsen, author of The Bone Garden

"Goes from zero to sixty in a blazing rush. Sakey knows how to thrill a reader."

--David Morrell, author of Creepers

"Sakey's conspiracy and corruption scenarios twist together in startling ways in this ambitious thriller. It's fast paced from the get-go and just as good as Sakey's stellar debut. Highly recommended."
--Library Journal

"High-tension action, intricate plotting and a Chicago setting that thrums and pulses with the feel of the city... Sakey, who draws disturbing and thought-provoking parallels between Baghdad and Chicago, provides enough narrow escapes, traps and obstacles to satisfy a Die Hard fan, but enough meat to please readers who demand more than pyrotechnics."
--Publishers Weekly

"Sakey is a name to watch for devotees of Pelecanos, Lehane, and other chroniclers of the urban jungle."
--Booklist

"Intricate...relentless...Sakey's gritty Chicago is wonderfully evoked. [A] brutally effective action-heavy thriller, ready-made for film."
--Kirkus

Read an excerpt from At the City's Edge and learn more about the author and his writing at Marcus Sakey's website.

Sakey's first novel, The Blade Itself, was featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR, and chosen a New York Times Editor's Pick, one of Esquire Magazine's "Top 5 Reads of 2007," and made January Magazine's "Best of 2007" list. Rachael Ray loved it, too. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's production company has bought film rights for Miramax.

The Page 69 Test: The Blade Itself.

The Page 69 Test: At the City's Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Amanda Eyre Ward's "Forgive Me"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Amanda Eyre Ward's Forgive Me.

About the book, from the publisher's website:

From the acclaimed author of How to Be Lost comes a gorgeous new novel about love, memory, and motherhood.

Nadine Morgan travels the world as a journalist, covering important events, following dangerous leads, and running from anything that might tie her down. Since an assignment in Cape Town ended in tragedy and regret, Nadine has not returned to South Africa, or opened her heart – until she hears the story of Jason Irving.

Jason, an American student, was beaten to death by angry local youths at the height of the apartheid era. Years later, his mother is told that Jason’s killers have applied for amnesty. Jason’s parents pack their bags and fly from Nantucket to Cape Town. Filled with rage, Jason’s mother resolves to fight the murderers’ pleas for forgiveness.

As Nadine follows the Irvings to beautiful, ghost-filled South Africa, she is flooded with memories of a time when the pull toward adventure and intrigue left her with a broken heart. Haunted by guilt and a sense of remorse, and hoping to lose herself in her coverage of the murder trial, Nadine grows closer to Jason’s mother as well as to the mother of one of Jason’s killers – with profound consequences. In a country both foreign and familiar, Nadine is forced to face long-buried demons, come to terms with the missing pieces of her own family past, and learn what it means to truly love and to forgive.

With her dazzling prose and resonant themes, Amanda Eyre Ward has joined the ranks of such beloved American novelists as Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett. Gripping, darkly humorous, and luminous, Forgive Me is an unforgettable story of dreams and longing, betrayal and redemption.

Among the praise for Forgive Me:

"Upon finishing Ward's tantalizingly spare yet precisely powerful novel, readers will want to start all over again, looking for the clues they missed the first time around when Ward, like a cunning magician, so deftly led them astray. So adroit is Ward at throwing readers off the track throughout this piercing tale of one emotionally wounded woman's attempt to reconcile the gut-wrenching decisions she makes in the name of professionalism with the heartbreaking choices she faces in her personal life, that its sinewy, often mysterious, subplot doesn't reveal itself until almost the very end. An aggressive foreign correspondent driven by her need to repudiate her provincial New England background through her headstrong pursuit of stories set in the world's most perilous locations, Nadine follows a local couple to post-apartheid South Africa, the site of their greatest tragedy and her greatest love. She is fleeing a new relationship, running headlong into her past, while they are about to face their son's killer, a young black girl who is begging for their mercy. Mercy is hard to come by in Ward's world, but when it is, finally, granted, its deliverance is sweet and sure."
--Booklist (starred review)

"As rendered through Amanda Eyre Ward¹s impeccable prose, two stories, past and present, join to create an engrossing, mature, devastating work about motherhood and remembrance. Forgive Me is an exceptional novel, infused with a deep emotional intelligence."
--Adrienne Miller, author of The Coast of Akron

"Amanda Eyre Ward tells a compelling story in Forgive Me -- full of hard truths, and no easy answers. This is a book readers will fly through -- but also one that will linger and haunt."
--Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

"Emotional distance and the price it extracts drive the thoughtful and compulsively readable "Forgive Me." Amanda Eyre Ward chronicles one woman's tenuous journey along a road of self-forgiveness to salvation, taking the reader along an unpredictable path. Ward's prose is clean, and the story moves efficiently forward, with enough detail and dialogue to make her points without unnecessary fluff. The resulting novel is a quick and impacting read. The characters and situations are resonantly drawn, so much so that this is a novel that is over much too soon."
--Robin Vidimos, The Denver Post

"Inspired by the true story of Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar who was, while in South Africa, viciously stoned to death while she drove her student home from class, "Forgive Me," the latest from author Amanda Eyre Ward ("How to Be Lost," "Sleep Toward Heaven"), is taut, powerful and deeply melancholy, a message of memory and responsibility. Ward's prose is elegant and dramatic without beating you over your head with sentimentality-this is a story, it seems, she needed to tell. Nadine Morgan, a world-traveling journalist, hasn't returned to South Africa since she suffered great loss, until she hears of Jason Irving, a young American student who was beaten to death (this all occurs during the height of apartheid). The boy's parents, years later, are devastated to find that their son's killers have now applied for amnesty. The three venture to a land of chaos and tortured remembrance. Ward's book, lovely and exhausting, should be devoured."
--Tom Lynch, NewCity Chicago

Read an excerpt from Forgive Me and learn more about the author and her writing at Amanda Eyre Ward's website.

Amanda Eyre Ward's other books include How to Be Lost and Sleep Toward Heaven.

The Page 99 Test: Forgive Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Most important books: David Rakoff

David Rakoff (born 1964) is an essayist, journalist, and actor. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, Outside, GQ, Vogue and Salon. He has also been a frequent contributor to the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International.

Rakoff's essays have been collected in the books Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable.

He recently told Newsweek about his five most important books. And addressed two related issues:

A certifiable classic you haven't read:

The question is more properly posed, "Which have I read?" and the answer is, sadly, not many. Huge gaps.

A book you keep returning to:

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Ideal essays: still so true and beautiful, even though I know them intimately.

Read more about David Rakoff's most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kathleen George's "Afterimage"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Kathleen George's Afterimage.

About the book, from the author's website:

A new thriller featuring Pittsburgh homicide detective Richard Christie and his new colleague, Colleen Greer...

In the humid dog days of a Pittsburgh summer weekend, Richard Christie, Head of Homicide, faces not one, but two mysterious murders. The victims — a polite woman and an angelic child — do not seem to be connected in any obvious way. Christie is short-handed, the clues don't stack up, and he's got a rookie detective, Colleen Greer, to look out for. These are his problems.

Colleen has problems, too. Her boyfriend is trying to break up with her, she's got a serious crush on her mentor, Christie, and it turns out she knew both victims slightly. Early in the investigation, she gets an alarming idea about the perpetrator's identity, but the man she suspects has no obvious connection to the victims. She has to move carefully with nothing but a gut feeling to go on — all the while disturbed by a series of memories of her own childhood.

Among the praise for Afterimage:

"[T]he skillfully rendered characters draw you into their lives. An excellent procedural."
—Kirkus Reviews

"A gripping, gritty police procedural."
—Booklist

"George's solid third Pittsburgh thriller (after 2004's Fallen) introduces rookie detective Colleen Greer to the homicide squad... George leaves enough balls in the air that fans will eagerly await Christie and Greer's next case."
—Publishers Weekly

"In her third crime novel (after Fallen; Taken), George showcases her ability to craft a good mystery with an in-depth understanding of police work and attention to detail."
—Library Journal

"Afterimage sizzles with irony, tension, and surprise.... Nearly flawless in its plot and execution, Kathleen George's Afterimage is — we can hope — just one of many Colleen Greer adventures waiting for us in the future."
—Tim Davis, Mystery News

"Dark and gripping, Colleen Greer's progress in this top-notch police procedural is further enhanced by the author's deftly deployed humor and irony. Written with a noteworthy flair for plotting and a sharp eye for psychological details in her characters, author Kathleen George's Afterimage is a well-crafted and entertaining novel."
—BookLoons

Read an excerpt from Afterimage and learn more about the author and her work at Kathleen George's website.

Kathleen George is a professor of theatre at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also the author of the acclaimed novels Taken and Fallen, the short story collection The Man in the Buick, scholarly theatrical books and articles, and many short stories.

The Page 99 Test: Afterimage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tim Dorsey's "Atomic Lobster"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why is everyone rushing to flee Tampa on a cruise ship to hell?

Serge is back with a bullet, torn between homicide and souvenirs. So is Coleman, torn between getting hammered and getting more hammered. Then there's good ol' Jim Davenport, the E-Team, the Diaz Brothers, and Johnny Vegas, the Accidental Virgin, cranking up the fevered action as the pot boils over on a street called Lobster Lane.

It's reunion time in the Sunshine State, and we're not just talking the family jamboree of that blood-soaked criminal clan, the McGraws, whose nastiest, meanest member is finally released from prison and heads south bent on revenge. On top of it all, the government is covering up a growing list of mysterious victims across Florida who may or may not be connected to a nefarious plot being hatched against national security.

But wait! There's more on the horizon! Who is the oddly familiar femme fatale named Rachael? Is Serge wrong that guns, drugs, and strippers don't mix? What sets the Non-Confrontationalists off on a rampage? What finally brings Coleman and Lenny together? Will they succeed in building the biggest bong ever? And can Serge surf a rogue wave to victory?

So batten the hatches, don the life jackets, and take cover as all these questions and more are answered in the latest adventure from the acclaimed author of Hurricane Punch.

Among the advance praise for the novel:

"Dorsey's 10th novel to feature Serge A. Storms and Coleman (after 2007's Hurricane Punch) offers sex, violence, more violence and Three Stooges-like action. After meeting up with Rachael, a stripper and drug addict, Serge and Coleman, bored and broke, take a Florida road trip. Meanwhile, several other characters, destined to converge, start their own treks: killer Tex McGraw, sprung from prison with revenge on his mind; empty-nesters Jim and Martha Davenport, seeking a little excitement; the "G-Unit," a group of investing grannies who like to cruise; three American drug dealers and three Mexican drug dealers, with a new smuggling operation; and two Davis Islands residents, one a famous ex-football player. Recurring fave Johnny Vegas pops up, too, along with several government agencies. While Dorsey's brand of comedy isn't for the faint of heart, this fast-moving, raucous tale delivers its usual punch while gleefully skewering everyone and everything along the way."
--Publishers Weekly

Learn more about Atomic Lobster and visit Tim Dorsey's website.

Tim Dorsey is a former editor at the Tampa Tribune; his previous novels include Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, Cadillac Beach, Torpedo Juice, The Big Bamboo, and Hurricane Punch.

The Page 69 Test: Atomic Lobster.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Michael Oriard reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Michael Oriard, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at Oregon State University.

His books include Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport (2007), King Football: Sport & Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies & Magazines, the Weekly & the Daily Press (2001), and Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (1993), all from University of North Carolina Press.

One book he mentions:

The best book on football that I've read this fall is Sally Jenkins's The Real All-Americans, which nicely balances a Hollywood-ready triumphal tale of college football's ultimate underdogs, the Carlisle Indians of the 1890s and early 20th century, with a nuanced portrait of the school's superintendent, Richard Henry Pratt, a genuinely altruistic and rightly beloved father figure who nonetheless believed that the best thing he could do for his Indian students was to exterminate their native languages and cultures. [read on]

Learn more about Michael Oriard and his more recent books.

Writers Read: Michael Oriard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Essential works about fanaticism

Alan Charles Kors, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and editor in chief of the recent Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (Oxford), named a five best list of "essential works about fanaticism" for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on the list:

Malleus Maleficarum
By Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger
1487

The great Enlightenment "Encyclopedia," edited by Denis Diderot (1713-84), defined "fanaticism" as "a blind and impassioned zeal, born of superstitious opinions, which makes men commit absurd, unjust, and cruel acts, not only without shame and without remorse, but, indeed, with a kind of joy and consolation." For Enlightenment minds, the European witchcraft crazes and prosecutions of the 15th through the 17th centuries stood as the most striking symbol of such fanaticism. We use the term "witch hunt" still. No work expressed beliefs about witchcraft more deeply or influenced more zealous behavior than the "Malleus Maleficarum," or "The Hammer of Witches." (A superb critical edition and translation by Christopher S. Mackay was published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press.) Written by two Dominican inquisitors, the "Malleus" never enjoyed the high, official church approval it claimed, but it was used for centuries by both Catholic and Protestant witch-hunters and judges. They relied on its explanations of the unspeakable supernatural horrors that witches performed and on its advice for identifying witches, for torturing or tricking them into confessions, and, finally, for convicting and killing them. The "Malleus" reflected -- and, above all, spread -- a terror of witches, mostly women, who slept with the devil and set about to produce evils that ranged from afflicting men with impotence to causing catastrophic harm and destruction.

Read more about Kors' list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Charlotte Brewer's "Treasure-House of the Language"

The latest feature at the Page 99 Test: Charlotte Brewer's Treasure-House of the Language: The Living OED.

About the book, from the Yale University Press website:

The legendary Oxford English Dictionary today contains over 600,000 words and a staggering 2,500,000 quotations to illuminate the meaning and history of those words. A glorious, bursting treasure-house, the OED serves as a guardian of the literary jewels of the past, a testament to the richness of the English language today, and a guarantor of future understanding of the language. In this book, Charlotte Brewer begins her account of the OED at the point where others have stopped — the publication of the final installment of the first edition in 1928 — and carries it through to the metamorphosis of the dictionary into a twenty-first-century electronic medium.

Brewer describes the difficulties of keeping the OED up to date over time and recounts the recurring debates over finances, treatment of contentious words, public vs. scholarly expectations, proper sources of quotations, and changing editorial practices. With humor and empathy, she portrays the predilections and personalities of the editors, publishers, and assistants who undertook the Sisyphean task of keeping apace with the modern explosion of vocabulary. Utilizing rich archives in Oxford as well as new electronic resources, the author uncovers a history no less complex and fascinating than the Oxford English Dictionary itself.

Among the praise for Treasure-House of the Language:

"This is an enthralling account of the personalities and events that shaped the history of the OED. Charlotte Brewer illuminates the commercial realities of dictionary-making as well as the hopes, worries, and working practices of those who compiled and administered the project. This sympathetic yet judicious 'biography of a book' is a major contribution to lexical historiography, and a delight to read."
—Professor David Crystal

"Charlotte Brewer is a scholar of formidable learning, and she has produced the most searching study yet of the greatest dictionary ever."
—Randolph Quirk, Past President of the British Academy

"The English-speaking world has undergone a fundamental change in the 120 years from the publication of the first part of OED; Charlotte Brewer shows how such change is reflected in the Dictionary itself. She presents the endeavours of the editors, their triumphs, their errors, and their inconsistencies, much of it revealed here for the first time. This is a highly readable account."
—E G Stanley, University of Oxford

"Intrepid dictionary lovers will eat it up."
—Booklist

Read more about Treasure-House of the Language at the Yale University Press website and learn more about Charlotte Brewer and "Examining the OED."

Charlotte Brewer is a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and CUF lecturer in English at Oxford University. She has published extensively on topics related to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Page 99 Test: Treasure-House of the Language.

--Marshal Zeringue

2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees

The Rap Sheet has posted the list of 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominees.

Several of the nominated authors have popped up on CftAR sites.

Reed Farrel Coleman, whose Soul Patch is nominated for Best Novel, recently applied the Page 69 Test to his Redemption Street.

Christopher Goffard's Snitch Jacket is nominated for Best First Novel by an American Author. Read:

• The Page 99 Test: Snitch Jacket
• Author Interviews: Christopher Goffard

Craig McDonald's Head Games is nominated for Best First Novel by an American Author. See: The Page 69 Test: Head Games.

Vicki Hendricks' Cruel Poetry earned a Best Paperback Original nomination. She applied the Page 99 Test to Cruel Poetry last November.

Who Is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall is also nominated for Best Paperback Original. Check out the Page 69 Test: Kevin Wignall's Who is Conrad Hirst?.

Stanley Alpert's The Birthday Party is nominated for Best Fact Crime. See: The Page 69 Test: The Birthday Party.

In the Best Critical/Biographical category, The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction by Patrick Anderson earned a nomination. See the Page 69 Test: The Triumph of the Thriller.

The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh earned a Best Juvenile nomination. Marsh applied the Page 99 Test to The Night Tourist in November.

The First Stone by Judith Kelman is nominated for The Simon & Schuster/Mary Higgins Clark Award. Kelman's The First Stone is featured on three CftAR sites:

• The Page 69 Test
• The Page 99 Test
• My Book, The Movie

Read about all of the nominees at The Rap Sheet.

--Marshal Zeringue