What is Michael Gebert reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Michael Gebert, creator of the Chicago-based food video podcast and blog Sky Full of Bacon, and writer about food and media for various publications.

His entry begins:

After 9/11 I found it hard to read fiction. There were two reasons for this. One was a conviction that today's fiction writers simply weren't up to the task-- look at Updike's book about a terrorist in which he imagines him to be pretty much exactly like every other Updike protagonist, or John LeCarre's last ten unreadable anti-US screeds. The world was so much richer as revealed by non-fiction writers, from Bernard Lewis with his polymath understanding of the Arab world to books like Rise of the Vulcans or The Looming Tower, so full of complex real-life characters. Honestly, what novelist in the last 30 years has conjured up characters as compelling as The Looming Tower's main figures-- the philandering FBI goodfella John O'Neill, his should-be ally but bureaucratic archenemy the CIA terror geek Michael Scheuer, the pitiless intellectual Dr. Zawahiri, the aimless rich kid turned terror celebrity Osama Bin Laden? What a wonderful movie it would make, if Hollywood had the balls.[read on]

Visit Michael Gebert's website to learn more about Sky Full of Bacon and links to his writing about food and media.

Writers Read: Michael Gebert.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Victor LaValle's "Big Machine"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Big Machine by Victor LaValle.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fiendishly imaginative comic novel about doubt, faith, and the monsters we carry within us.

Ricky Rice was as good as invisible: a middling hustler, recovering dope fiend, and traumatized suicide cult survivor running out the string of his life as a porter at a bus depot in Utica, New York. Until one day a letter appears, summoning him to the frozen woods of Vermont. There, Ricky is inducted into a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard The Voice: a mysterious murmur on the wind, a disembodied shout, or a whisper in an empty room that may or may not be from God.

Evoking the disorienting wonder of writers like Haruki Murakami and Kevin Brockmeier, but driven by Victor LaValle’s perfectly pitched comic sensibility Big Machine is a mind-rattling literary adventure about sex, race, and the eternal struggle between faith and doubt.

Read an excerpt from Big Machine and learn more about the book and author at Victor LaValle's website.

The Page 69 Test: Big Machine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's chart: six books featuring medical breakthroughs

Last year Thomas Stuttaford, The Times (London) doctor, named a critic's chart of six books featuring medical breakthroughs.

One title on the list:

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind by Roy Porter

Chronicles medical history in a readable but accurate and detailed way.

Read about another book on Stuttaford's list.

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind also appears on Stephanie J. Snow's five best list of books on the history of medicine.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lev Grossman's "The Magicians"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thrilling and original coming-of- age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.

Read an excerpt from The Magicians, and learn more about the book and author at Lev Grossman's website and The Magicians website.

The Page 69 Test: The Magicians.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Hart Johnson & Joel

This weekend's featured duo at Coffee with a Canine: Hart Johnson & Joel.

Hart Johnson is a writer on the journey to publication and the blogger at Confessions of a Watery Tart.

As for Joel's story:

Do you have a tissue ready? He can be really skittish, jumping back if someone reaches too fast, and extremely slow to warm up to new people. We think he was probably abused, maybe not with abusive intent, but in the end, abuse is abuse. Looking at him, and knowing his quirks, we suspect somebody adopted or bought him because he was so CUTE, but when he is reprimanded he growls, and if you take something from him, he’ll bite. He also sleepwalks, and can be downright mean if he wakes suddenly because he is disoriented. We think the first owners didn’t have the patience or skills to learn that he needs to be treated more like a two-year-old--distraction, coaxing, bribery. Yelling or sternness doesn’t work.

Learn more about Hart Johnson and her writing at her blog, Confessions of a Watery Tart, and her Facebook page.

Read: Coffee with a Canine: Hart Johnson & Joel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jim Noles' "Mighty by Sacrifice"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Mighty by Sacrifice: The Destruction of an American Bomber Squadron, August 29, 1944 by James L. Noles, Sr and James L. Noles Jr.

About the book, from the publisher:

The high cost of the Allied air offensive during World War II.

On August 29, 1944, the 15th U.S. Army Air Force unleashed 500 bombers against oil and rail targets throughout central Europe. It dispatched the 20th Squadron of the 2nd Bombardment Group on what they regarded as an easy assignment: attack the Privoser Oil Refinery and associated railroad yards at Moravska Ostrava, Czechoslovakia. This "milk run" deteriorated into the bloodiest day in the 2nd Bombardment Group's history: not a single one of the 20th Squadron's B-17 Flying Fortress bombers returned from the mission. Forty airmen were killed, another 46 spent the rest of the war as POWs, and only four, with the aid of the OSS and anti-German partisans, and sympathetic Czech civilians managed to evade capture.

The ninety airmen on the mission to Moravska Ostrava provide a remarkable personal window into the Allies' Combined Bomber Offensive at its height during WWII. In a microcosm, their stories encapsulate how the U.S. Army Air Forces built, trained, and employed one of the mightiest war machines ever seen. Their stories also illustrate, however, the terrible cost in lives demanded by that same machine.

Learn more about the book and author at Jim Noles' website.

The Page 99 Test: Mighty by Sacrifice.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Steven Strogatz reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Steven Strogatz, author of Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order and the newly released The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math.

His entry begins:

At the moment I'm reading Panic In Level 4, the latest page turner by Richard Preston. Ever since The Hot Zone -- the scariest book I've ever read -- I've been a big fan of Preston's. He's one of our best science writers. I love his cinematic style, eye for detail, dry humor and understated language, especially when he discusses something really freaky or macabre.[read on]

Visit Steven Strogatz's website.

Among the early praise for The Calculus of Friendship:

"Steven Strogatz has written an unpretentious, charming, original, and inspiring book. In a disarmingly personal depiction, Strogatz leads us through a story of friendship between understated mentor and virtuosic student. The mathematical excursions are as much a pleasure to read as the moving narrative of the unusual friendship that the mathematics inspires."
--Janna Levin, author of A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

"The gentle but unremittingly honest account of this friendship utterly absorbed me. Also, some of the calculus is hilarious."
--John Cleese

Writers Read: Steven Strogatz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kate Walbert: best books

Kate Walbert, author of the new novel A Short History of Women, named a best books list of her favorite (unlikely) heroines for The Week magazine.

One novel on her list:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping would also be on my list of all-time best books. Sylvie, the eccentric, dreamy aunt to Ruth and Lucille, arrives to take care of the children, but her “housekeeping” leads to disaster. With its lyrical, deeply resonant prose, Robinson’s first novel is heart-rending, and her Sylvie unforgettable.

Read about another novel on Walbert's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sheila Lowe's "Dead Write"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Dead Write by Sheila Lowe.

About the book, from the publisher:

When it comes to solving murder, sometimes the pen can be mightier than the sword ...

Handwriting expert Claudia Rose heads to the Big Apple at the behest of Grusha Olinetsky, the notorious founder of an elite dating service whose members are mysteriously dying. Drawn into the feckless lives of the rich and single, Claudia finds herself in a twisted world of love and lies fueled by desperation. But is one among them desperate enough to kill?

Claudia must find clues in the suspects’ handwriting before more victims are scribbled into the killer’s black book...

Read an excerpt from Dead Write, and learn more about the book and author at the Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting Mysteries series website.

My Book, The Movie: Sheila Lowe's Written in Blood and Poison Pen.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Write.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brett Battles interviews Timothy Hallinan

Timothy Hallinan and Brett Battles both have new books out in their acclaimed series.

Hallinan's Breathing Water, the third installment of his Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers, was released on Tuesday. Battles' Shadow of Betrayal, the third novel in the Jonathan Quinn series, was published last month.

At Author Interviews today: the second installment of a two-part Q&A in which the writers query each other about their series and their process. (Read the first installment: Tim Hallinan interviews Brett Battles.)

Visit Timothy Hallinan's website and blog, and Brett Battles' website and blog.

Read: Brett Battles interviews Timothy Hallinan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joseph Bergin's "Church, Society, and Religious Change in France"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Church, Society, and Religious Change in France, 1580-1730 by Joseph Bergin.

About the book, from the publisher:

This readable and engaging book by an acclaimed historian is the only wide-ranging synthesis devoted to the French experience of religious change during the period after the wars of religion up to the early Enlightenment. Joseph Bergin provides a clear, up-to-date, and thorough account of the religious history of France in the context of social, institutional, and cultural developments during the so-called long seventeenth century.

Bergin argues that the French version of the Catholic Reformation showed a dynamism unrivaled elsewhere in Europe. The traumatic experiences of the wars of religion, the continuing search within France for heresy, and the challenge of Augustinian thought successively energized its attempts at religious change. Bergin highlights the continuing interaction of church and society and shows that while the French experience was clearly allied to its European context, its path was a distinctive one.

Learn more about the book at the Yale University Press website.

Read about Joseph Bergin's teaching and research at his University of Manchester faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Church, Society, and Religious Change in France, 1580-1730.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten graphic novels for teenagers

Malorie Blackman's has written more than 50 books, including Pig-Heart Boy, Hacker and Whizziwig. She also writes for theatre and TV. Her latest book, Double Cross, the fourth in the award-winning Noughts and Crosses series, has just been published in paperback in the UK.

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of graphic novels for teenagers.

One book on the list:

Maus by Art Spiegelman

This is the story of Art Spiegelman's father Vladek, a Polish Jew who managed to survive Auschwitz. Vladek's story is intertwined with Art's present day story as Art tries to understand more about his father and therefore more about himself. In this story, Jews are portrayed as mice and Nazis are portrayed as cats, which works brilliantly as a metaphor. I'd recommend this to any teenager.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joe Abercrombie's "Best Served Cold"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.

About the book, from the publisher:

Springtime in Styria. And that means war.

There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. Armies march, heads roll and cities burn, while behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

Read an excerpt from Best Served Cold, and learn more about the author and his work at Joe Abercrombie's website and blog.

Writers Read: Joe Abercrombie.

The Page 69 Test: Best Served Cold.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennie Bentley's "Spackled and Spooked," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Spackled and Spooked by Jennie Bentley.

The entry begins:

My offer of a three book contract to write an in-house series of home renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime came with a two page outline for what my editor envisioned the books would be like. That included the names and thumbnail sketches of the major and secondary characters, the setting, and the basic set-up for the first book as well as the series.

The only character that had an actual description attached was the love interest and hot handyman, Mike Ellis. He was supposed to look like Bill Pullman, I remember.

Nothing against Bill Pullman, but the image wasn’t working for me. Nor was the name, which hit too close to home for comfort. Literally. My husband’s name is Mike. So when Mike’s name changed to Derek, Bill Pullman changed to... something more like...[read on]

Read more about the book and author at Jennie Bentley's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Spackled and Spooked.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rebecca Makkai reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Rebecca Makkai, a writer whose fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2008, edited by Salman Rushdie, and has been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009.

Makkai's work has also been featured in magazines such as New England Review, The Threepenny Review, Shenandoah, and The Iowa Review.

One book from her entry is State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (eds. Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey):

By far my favorite entry [from the book] – and the one I’ve gone back to reread at least ten times – is Alison Bechdel’s graphic essay on Vermont [detail at right]. This was a surprise for me. I’d never felt drawn to graphic novels or comics, mentally filing them under the vague rubric of “manga,” something very not me, some sort of pornography for the Dungeons and Dragons set. I stand corrected.

I loved Bechdel’s entry so much that I ran out and bought Fun Home, her graphic memoir. Bechdel’s closeted father died in what may or may not have been a suicide only a few days after Bechdel herself came out of the closet, and Fun Home is the story of their relationship and its aftermath. It’s funny and extremely intelligent, and – as a graphic novel – it does things that writing alone simply cannot do. In one early set of panels, the pictures show a preadolescent Bechdel running out of the house after one of her father’s rages, while the captions tell the story of Daedalus and Icarus. In fiction, this could only have been a heavy-handed simile or a labored metaphor. In a graphic novel, it’s delicate and effortless.[read on]

Read Makkai's story "The Worst You Ever Feel," from The Best American Short Stories 2008, and "The Briefcase," her story from the forthcoming The Best American Short Stories 2009.

Learn more about the author and her work at Rebecca Makkai's website.

Writers Read: Rebecca Makkai.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best lady detectives

Adrian McKinty is the critically acclaimed author of Dead I Well May Be, the award-winning The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead, and Hidden River. McKinty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University. His latest novel is Fifty Grand.

For the (London) Times, he named a top ten list of the best lady detectives.

A little background for the list, followed by #6 in the rankings:

As much as any hairy, beer drinking male can be I believe that I am in touch with my feminine side. I ride a girl’s bicycle, I went to a women’s college at Oxford and I have seen several episodes of Sex and the City (though I am not willing to admit the exact number for fear of damaging my hard-boiled crime writing credentials). As a kid in Northern Ireland I had two older sisters who kept me out of trouble and now I have two young daughters whose agenda is precisely the opposite. I grew up in an era of impressive female role models (Charlie’s Angels, The Bionic Woman, Mrs Thatcher) so I have never had a problem enjoying female protagonists in fiction, especially in detective fiction which became my go-to genre. Now that I have written a XX chromosomed detective in my book Fifty Grand, I thought I would share my own idiosyncratic list of 10 favourite female gumshoes....

* * *
6. Nancy Drew: Heroine of more than 200 ghost-written novels from the 1930's onwards Nancy Drew has evolved from a teenage flapper to a bobby soxer to a pseudo hippie to a modern career girl. Rich, 18, clever, with a conveniently dead mother, Nancy is an amateur sleuth with the time and money to solve crimes both frivolous and often surprisingly serious, aided sometimes by her attorney father or her cadre of friends. For a brief ante-Potterian period the playgrounds of the western world were divided into boys reading Hardy Boys books and girls reading Nancy Drew. Unable to bear the insufferably smug Hardy Boys I much preferred the slightly caustic, manipulative and invincible Drew. Nancy Drew’s influence cannot be underestimated, inspiring legions of American female cops, judges and politicians and crime writers like Laura Lipmann, Sara Paretsky and Linda Fairstein. Drew uses the tools of observation, persistence and her own gut instinct for a wrong ‘un - which is usually right on the money.

Read about another lady detective on the list.

Visit Adrian McKinty's blog.

The Page 69 Test: Fifty Grand.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Timothy Hallinan's "Breathing Water"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Breathing Water by Timothy Hallinan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Behind every great fortune is a great crime...

For American ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty, a late-night poker game delivers an unexpected prize: an "opportunity" to write the biography of Khun Pan, a flamboyant, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a criminal past and far-reaching political ambitions. The win seems like a stroke of luck, but as with so many things in vibrant, seductive, contradictory Bangkok—a city of innocence and evil, power and poverty—the allure of appearances masks something much darker. Within a few hours of folding his cards, Rafferty, his wife, Rose, beloved ­adopted daughter, Miaow, and best friend, Arthit, an honest Bangkok cop, have become pawns in a political struggle among some of Thailand's richest, most powerful, and most ruthless people.

A hero to the poor and dispossessed, Pan is like a bone in the throats of the beautiful, sophisticated "good" people who own and control every facet of Thailand and want more. There are many who would prefer that a book, especially a sympathetic book, stay unwritten. And there are others who want to expose Pan's darker secrets, information useful in a preemptive strike against this profligate billionaire who can threaten their hold on power—a situation they will go to murderous lengths to prevent.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, Rafferty is breathing water and sinking deeper in a sea of intrigue with each passing hour. The trouble multiplies when a missing young street friend of Miaow's reappears, needing Rafferty's help to protect an innocent village girl trapped in a baby-selling ring. Pushed ever closer to the abyss, Rafferty has one chance to get them all out alive. But to succeed, this foreigner must do the impossible—keep a cool Thai heart.

Set in the Thailand of today's headlines—a nation of unrest, political uncertainty, corruption, and tradition, where the future looks dangerously precarious—Breathing Water is the story of a deadly game in which the stakes are enormous and life is literally cheap. The most compelling Poke Rafferty thriller yet, it is a journey that goes beyond the illusion of order and stability into a world where a wrong turn can lead to chaos, and where love and courage may not be enough to hold back the darkness.

Read an excerpt from Breathing Water, and learn more about the book and author at Timothy Hallinan's website and blog. Breathing Water is the third Poke Rafferty thriller.

Hallinan has lived off and on in Southeast Asia for more than twenty years. The Fourth Watcher is the second of the Poke Rafferty novel of Bangkok that began in 2007 with A Nail Through the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: A Nail Through the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: The Fourth Watcher.

My Book, The Movie: The Fourth Watcher.

The Page 69 Test: Breathing Water.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David B. Williams' "Stories in Stone"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Stories in Stone: Travels through Urban Geology by David B. Williams.

About the book, from the publisher:

Within the fabric of every stone building is a wondrous story of geological origins, architectural aesthetics, and cultural history.

You probably don’t expect to make geological finds along the sidewalks of a major city, but when natural history writer David B. Williams looks at the stone masonry, façades, and ornamentations of buildings, he sees a range of rocks equal to any assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he introduces us to a three-and-a-half-billion-year-old rock called Morton gneiss that is the color of swirled pink-and-black taffy; a 1935 gas station made of petrified wood; and a fort in St. Augustine, Florida, that has withstood three hundred years of attacks and hurricanes, despite being made of a stone (coquina) that has the consistency of a granola bar.

Williams shows us why a white, fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone to be used in all fifty states; how the construction of the granite Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 led to America’s first commercial railroad; and why Carrara marble—the favorite sculpting material of Michelangelo— warped so much after only nineteen years on a Chicago skyscraper that all forty-four thousand panels of the stone had to be replaced. From Brooklyn to Philadephia, from limestone to travertine, Stories in Stone will inspire readers to realize that, even in the most modern metropolis, evidence of our planet’s natural wonders can be found all around us in building stones that are far less ordinary than we might think at first glance.

Read descriptions of Stories in Stone's ten chapters, and learn more about the author and his work at David B. Williams' website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Stories in Stone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Martin Meredith's ten books to read on Africa

Martin Meredith is a journalist, biographer, and historian who has written extensively on Africa and its recent history. His books include Mugabe and The Fate of Africa (UK title: The State of Africa).

Brian Schofield calls the latter "an epic survey of a continent gone wrong, starting from colonial independence after World War 2, to the present day. I cannot recommend it too highly - to be part of humanity in 2009, you have to try to understand Africa, and this book offers a tremendous guide to the whole tragic saga."

One book from Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Published in 1958, Achebe's portrait of traditional village culture in Nigeria during the colonial era is venerated as one of the great African novels of all time. Achebe's purpose here is not only to inform the outside world of Ibo culture, but to remind his own people of the value of their traditions.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sophie Littlefield's "A Bad Day for Sorry"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield.

About the book, from the publisher:

Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light bondage or old-fashioned whuppin' can’t fix. Since Stella works outside of the law, she’s free to do whatever it takes to get the job done---as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty.

Sophie Littlefield possesses all the verve and confidence of a seasoned pro. This debut novel rings true at every heart-stopping turn, utterly bewitching us with its gutsy, compassionate voice and boasting some of the most captivating, complex characters in crime fiction today.

Read an excerpt from A Bad Day for Sorry and watch the video trailer.

Learn more about the book and author at Sophie Littlefield's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: A Bad Day for Sorry.

--Marshal Zeringue