Pg. 69: Carolyn Jess-Cooke's "The Boy Who Could See Demons"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bestselling author Carolyn Jess-Cooke has written a brilliant novel of suspense that delves into the recesses of the human mind and soul—perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn and Lisa Unger. The Boy Who Could See Demons follows a child psychologist who comes up against a career-defining case—one that threatens to unravel her own painful past and jeopardizes the life of a boy who can see the impossible.

Dr. Anya Molokova, a child psychiatrist, is called in to work at MacNeice House, an adolescent mental health treatment center. There she is told to observe and assess Alex Connolly, a keenly intelligent, sensitive ten-year-old coping with his mother’s latest suicide attempt. Alex is in need of serious counseling: He has been harming himself and others, often during blackouts. At the root of his destructive behavior, Alex claims, is his imaginary “friend” Ruen, a cunning demon who urges Alex to bend to his often violent will.

But Anya has seen this kind of behavior before—with her own daughter, Poppy, who suffered from early-onset schizophrenia. Determined to help Alex out of his darkness, Anya begins to treat the child. But soon strange and alarming coincidences compel Anya to wonder: Is Alex’s condition a cruel trick of the mind? Or is Ruen not so make-believe after all? The reality, it turns out, is more terrifying than anything she has ever encountered.

A rich and deeply moving page-turner, The Boy Who Could See Demons sets out to challenge the imagination and capture the way life takes unexpected turns. In the best storytelling tradition, it leaves the reader changed.

Learn more about the book and author at Carolyn Jess-Cooke's website and blog, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Writers Read: Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Could See Demons.

The Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Could See Demons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best Elmore Leonard books

Tony Parsons's books include the international bestsellers, Man and Boy and Man and Wife. A former music journalist and television personality, he lives in England.

For the U.K. edition of GQ he named five of his favorite Elmore Leonard books, including:

Raylan (2012)

The late flowering that produced Rayland Givens, inspiration of the TV series, Justified. Raylan is Elmore digging deep at the very bottom of the American nightmare - Nazis with bazookas, mining executives who want to suck the juice from a land and its people and Raylan himself, the last of the great western heroes. He doesn't pull his gun unless he is planning to kill you.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jacob N. Shapiro's "The Terrorist's Dilemma"

This weekend's feature at the Page 99 Test: The Terrorist's Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations by Jacob N. Shapiro.

About the book, from the publisher:

How do terrorist groups control their members? Do the tools groups use to monitor their operatives and enforce discipline create security vulnerabilities that governments can exploit? The Terrorist's Dilemma is the first book to systematically examine the great variation in how terrorist groups are structured. Employing a broad range of agency theory, historical case studies, and terrorists' own internal documents, Jacob Shapiro provocatively discusses the core managerial challenges that terrorists face and illustrates how their political goals interact with the operational environment to push them to organize in particular ways.

Shapiro provides a historically informed explanation for why some groups have little hierarchy, while others resemble miniature firms, complete with line charts and written disciplinary codes. Looking at groups in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, he highlights how consistent and widespread the terrorist's dilemma--balancing the desire to maintain control with the need for secrecy--has been since the 1880s. Through an analysis of more than a hundred terrorist autobiographies he shows how prevalent bureaucracy has been, and he utilizes a cache of internal documents from al-Qa'ida in Iraq to outline why this deadly group used so much paperwork to handle its people. Tracing the strategic interaction between terrorist leaders and their operatives, Shapiro closes with a series of comparative case studies, indicating that the differences in how groups in the same conflict approach their dilemmas are consistent with an agency theory perspective.

The Terrorist's Dilemma demonstrates the management constraints inherent to terrorist groups and sheds light on specific organizational details that can be exploited to more efficiently combat terrorist activity.

Learn more about The Terrorist's Dilemma at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Terrorist's Dilemma.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of nonfiction's bad boys

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Alexandra Silverman tagged seven of nonfiction's bad boys, including:

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

It’s hard to imagine a more dedicated iconoclast than evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. With zest or (even badder) nonchalance, he rejects the idea that religion has anything to contribute to our understanding. He’s also your typical brooding, black-clad bad boy. His latest book, The Magic of Reality, seems to be intended for young adults, and it attacks magic—magic! In this reality, good scientist, we still want a glass of something cool and supernatural to go with our empiricism sandwiches.

Read about another bad boy on the list.

The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins is one of Nick Crane's top 10 books about the planet. Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth is one of A.C. Grayling's top 5 list of non-religious books on living a good life. The Blind Watchmaker by Dawkins is one of Steven Pinker's five most important books. David Wroblewski hopes parents will read The God Delusion to their kids.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Dennis Bock reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Dennis Bock, author of Going Home Again.

His entry begins:

One of the pleasures of living in a city like Toronto is meeting someone, quite by chance, who’s written a good novel or two. This happened to me not long ago, and so what I did was pick up a copy of Louisa McCormack’s second novel, The Catch, narrated by a perfectly drawn 40 year old TV producer who takes time out from the big city and heads back east to deal with some family business. McCormack’s first-person voice is a high-wire performance, superb dialogue and detail. You can tell this writer really gets off on language, really understands it as a tool, as a play-thing, and a means of getting closer to a character’s thinking. Her focus on the interior landscapes of the heart, and the sea and landscapes of Prince Edward Island, is...[read on]

About Going Home Again, from the publisher:

After two acclaimed historical novels, one of Canada’s most celebrated young writers now gives us the vibrant, contemporary story of a man studying the suddenly confusing shape his life has taken, and why, and what his responsibilities—as a husband, a father, a brother, and an uncle—truly are.

Charlie Bellerose leads a seminomadic existence, traveling widely to manage the language academies he has established in different countries. After separating, somewhat amicably, from his wife, he moves from Madrid back to his native Canada to set up a new school, and for the first time he forges a meaningful relationship with his brother, who’s going through a vicious divorce. Charlie’s able to make a fresh start in Toronto but longs for his twelve-year-old daughter, whom he sees only via Skype and the occasional overseas visit. After a chance encounter with a girlfriend from his university days, a woman now happily married and with children of her own, he works through a series of memories-including a particularly painful one they share-as he reflects on questions of family, home, fatherhood, and love. But two tragic events (one long past, the other very much in the present) finally threaten to destroy everything he's ever believed in.

Learn more about the book and author at Dennis Bock's website.

The Page 69 Test: Going Home Again.

Writers Read: Dennis Bock.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Douglas Corleone's "Good as Gone"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Good as Gone by Douglas Corleone.

About the book, from the publisher:

Former U.S. Marshal Simon Fisk now works as a private contractor, tracking down and recovering children who were kidnapped by their own estranged parents. He only has one rule: he won’t touch stranger abduction cases. He’s still haunted by the disappearance of his own daughter years ago when she was just a child, still unsolved, and stranger kidnappings hit too close to home.

Until, that is, six-year-old Lindsay Sorkin disappears from her parents’ hotel room in Paris, and the French police deliver Simon an ultimatum: he can spend years in a French jail for his actions during a past case, or he can work with them now to find Lindsay Sorkin. So, Simon sets out in pursuit of the missing child and the truth behind her disappearance. But Lindsay’s captors did not leave an easy trail, and following it will take Simon across the continent, through the ritziest nightclubs and the seediest back alleys, into a terrifying world of international intrigue and dark corners of his past he’d rather never face again.

With lightning-fast pacing and a twist behind every turn, Douglas Corleone's Good as Gone is a gripping race against the clock for a young girl with her life on the line and a man who has nothing left to lose.

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: One Man's Paradise.

The Page 69 Test: Night on Fire.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (May 2011).

My Book, The Movie: Night on Fire.

The Page 69 Test: Last Lawyer Standing.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2012).

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books to get you through a breakup

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Bailey Swilley tagged five books to get you through a breakup and back in the game, including:

The Day I Shot Cupid, by Jennifer Love Hewitt

Actress and all-around sexpot Jennifer Love Hewitt knows a thing or two about the dating game. In her lighthearted, illustrated book full of quips and the ups and downs of dating, she’ll make you feel a little better about the whole process and give you some perspective. After all, if she’s had a hard time in the love department, maybe we should all start going easier on ourselves. Also of note: this is the book that JLH explains “vajazzling.” Oh, dear.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: Three of the best breakup books and 8 books to read with a broken heart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul D. Miller's "Armed State Building"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure, 1898–2012 by Paul D. Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since 1898, the United States and the United Nations have deployed military force more than three dozen times in attempts to rebuild failed states. Currently there are more state-building campaigns in progress than at any time in the past century—including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Lebanon—and the number of candidate nations for such campaigns in the future is substantial. Even with a broad definition of success, earlier campaigns failed more than half the time. In this book, Paul D. Miller brings his decade in the U.S. military, intelligence community, and policy worlds to bear on the question of what causes armed, international state-building campaigns by liberal powers to succeed or fail.

The United States successfully rebuilt the West German and Japanese states after World War II but failed to build a functioning state in South Vietnam. After the Cold War the United Nations oversaw relatively successful campaigns to restore order, hold elections, and organize post-conflict reconstruction in Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, but those successes were overshadowed by catastrophes in Angola, Liberia, and Somalia. The recent effort in Iraq and the ongoing one in Afghanistan—where Miller had firsthand military, intelligence, and policymaking experience—are yielding mixed results, despite the high levels of resources dedicated and the long duration of the missions there. Miller outlines different types of state failure, analyzes various levels of intervention that liberal states have tried in the state-building process, and distinguishes among the various failures and successes those efforts have provoked.

Learn more about Armed State Building at the Cornell University Press website.

Writers Read: Paul D. Miller.

The Page 99 Test: Armed State Building.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books by comedians

Whitney Collins is the author of The Hamster Won't Die: A Treasury of Feral Humor and the creator and editor of two humor sites -- errant parent and The Yellow Ham.

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog she tagged five books to read when you need a good laugh, including:

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris

I’ve read most of David Sedaris’s books, and this one just stunned me, in that it completely stands alone in its subject matter and approach. This is Sedaris on his head. In Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, all of the essays are written from the point of view of an animal that’s in a very human situation: a cat at the salon getting its hair done by a baboon. An Irish setter dealing with his cheating wife. A grieving owl who’s hounded by his family members. This book is outrageously odd and funny. It’s like Aesop’s Fables on acid. And that is saying something. (Bonus: It’s illustrated by Ian Falconer of the Olivia series.)

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carolyn Jess-Cooke's "The Boy Who Could See Demons," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

The entry begins:

There’s been some interest in making the film of The Boy Who Could See Demons and as a former filmmaker, I would just love to see it happen. I see all my books as films.

For Anya, I think it’s a toss up between Carrie-Anne Moss (yep, from The Matrix) or Jennifer Connelly. For Alex, Asa Butterfield (of Hugo and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas fame) has my vote, though he’s already 16… (come on Hollywood, get cracking!) For me, Michael was always Sean...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Carolyn Jess-Cooke's website and blog, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Writers Read: Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Could See Demons.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Handler reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: David Handler, author of Runaway Man.

His entry begins:

It never fails. Whenever I start to get all tangled up in the maddening little plot threads and character details of one of my own books I find myself reaching for The Hunter. I’m reading a dog-eared paperback copy of it right now for what must be the tenth time. The Hunter was the very first of the lean, mean, hard-boiled Parker novels that the masterful Donald Westlake took to writing in 1962 under the name of Richard Stark. He wrote 16 Parker novels in quick succession before he took 23 years off and then started up again with eight more.

The Parker series is one of the most remarkable in all of crime fiction. I think of the books as no frills police procedurals that just happen to be told from the point of the view of the criminal. Parker is not your typical hero. He’s a professional heist artist who is amoral, asocial, ruthless and downright brutal. He is also a man who is so devoid of personality that...[read on]

About Runaway Man, from the publisher:

Benji Golden works in his family’s struggling mom-and-pop business above a twenty-four-hour diner on Broadway and West 103rd Street. Golden Legal Services, a private detective agency, was started by Benji’s hero-cop father. The business is now run by Benji’s mother, who used to be the only Jewish pole dancer in New York City, and is staffed by Lovely Rita, an eye-popping computer wizard and a former lap dancer.

Baby-faced Benji—who is exactly one-quarter inch shy of five-foot-six, weighs a buck thirty-seven, and answers to the nickname “Bunny”—specializes in tracking down teen runaways. One day, when a lawyer in fancy shoes arrives from Park Avenue’s classiest law firm offering a job and lots of money, Benji and his mother can’t say no.

Bruce Weiner is a senior at prestigious Canterbury College. A client of the firm has bestowed a considerable inheritance on Bruce, but Bruce has gone missing, and it’s up to Benji to find him. One murder later, Benji finds himself on a dangerous investigation that will take him to the highly secretive core of the most powerful city on earth.

Runaway Man delivers all that a David Handler novel promises: smart humor, a thrilling and sexy story, and characters you won’t soon forget.

Learn more about the book and author at David Handler's website and blog.

Writers Read: David Handler (October 2011).

Writers Read: David Handler (October 2012).

Writers Read: David Handler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Dennis Bock's "Going Home Again"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Going Home Again by Dennis Bock.

About the book, from the publisher:

After two acclaimed historical novels, one of Canada’s most celebrated young writers now gives us the vibrant, contemporary story of a man studying the suddenly confusing shape his life has taken, and why, and what his responsibilities—as a husband, a father, a brother, and an uncle—truly are.

Charlie Bellerose leads a seminomadic existence, traveling widely to manage the language academies he has established in different countries. After separating, somewhat amicably, from his wife, he moves from Madrid back to his native Canada to set up a new school, and for the first time he forges a meaningful relationship with his brother, who’s going through a vicious divorce. Charlie’s able to make a fresh start in Toronto but longs for his twelve-year-old daughter, whom he sees only via Skype and the occasional overseas visit. After a chance encounter with a girlfriend from his university days, a woman now happily married and with children of her own, he works through a series of memories-including a particularly painful one they share-as he reflects on questions of family, home, fatherhood, and love. But two tragic events (one long past, the other very much in the present) finally threaten to destroy everything he's ever believed in.

Learn more about the book and author at Dennis Bock's website.

The Page 69 Test: Going Home Again.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top Elmore Leonard film adaptations

One of the Telegraph's top ten Elmore Leonard film adaptations:

Jackie Brown (1997)

Quentin Tarantino was inspired by Leonard’s work. Originally, he planned to adapt Freaky Deaky or Killshot, but fell in love with Rum Punch when he read it. Changing the title he cast Pam Grier, the goddess of 1970s tough girl pictures, as the air-stewardess and con-artist Jackie Brown.

Read about another entry on the list.

Rum Punch is one of Ben Mankiewicz's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matthew Berry's 6 favorite books

Matthew Berry is the host of ESPN's Emmy Award–winning show Fantasy Football Now. His first book, Fantasy Life, profiles several hard-core devotees of fantasy sports.

One of Berry's six favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

With sports, you've got to look at statistics all the time. But what's so brilliant about Moneyball is the way Michael Lewis tells the stories behind the stats. It's not a numbers book; it's a book about the people who use those numbers. It resonated with me in a big way.

Read about another book on Berry's list.

Moneyball also appears on Will Dean's brief reading list on baseball and Richard J. Tofel's list of the five best books on baseball as a business, and among Sports Illustrated's five most influential sports books of the decade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brad Smith's "Shoot the Dog," the movie

The current feature at My Book, The Movie: Shoot the Dog by Brad Smith.

The entry begins:

Let’s make this movie in the 1940s. That way we get John Ford to direct it, and we get Henry Fonda to play Virgil. Fonda has that perfect laid-back demeanor, coupled with wry humor. I’m thinking Barbara Stanwyck would make a cool and sexy Claire – she’s so good at playing smart, caustic women; her fire would make a great contrast to Fonda’s taciturn Virgil. Claire Trevor, volatile and beautiful, would be Kari. Who else? Well, if Ford’s directing, we have to cast...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Brad Smith's website and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Brad Smith.

The Page 69 Test: Shoot the Dog.

My Book, The Movie: Shoot the Dog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Schmidli's "The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere: Human Rights and U.S. Cold War Policy toward Argentina by William Michael Schmidli.

About the book, from the publisher:

During the first quarter-century of the Cold War, upholding human rights was rarely a priority in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Seeking to protect U.S. national security, American policymakers quietly cultivated relations with politically ambitious Latin American militaries—a strategy clearly evident in the Ford administration’s tacit support of state-sanctioned terror in Argentina following the 1976 military coup d’état. By the mid-1970s, however, the blossoming human rights movement in the United States posed a serious threat to the maintenance of close U.S. ties to anticommunist, right-wing military regimes.

The competition between cold warriors and human rights advocates culminated in a fierce struggle to define U.S. policy during the Jimmy Carter presidency. In The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, William Michael Schmidli argues that Argentina emerged as the defining test case of Carter’s promise to bring human rights to the center of his administration’s foreign policy. Entering the Oval Office at the height of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of Argentines by the military government, Carter set out to dramatically shift U.S. policy from subtle support to public condemnation of human rights violation. But could the administration elicit human rights improvements in the face of a zealous military dictatorship, rising Cold War tension, and domestic political opposition? By grappling with the disparate actors engaged in the struggle over human rights, including civil rights activists, second-wave feminists, chicano/a activists, religious progressives, members of the New Right, conservative cold warriors, and business leaders, Schmidli utilizes unique interviews with U.S. and Argentine actors as well as newly declassified archives to offer a telling analysis of the rise, efficacy, and limits of human rights in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War.

Learn more about The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about women in trouble…who fought back

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Rebecca Jane Stokes tagged ten top books about women in peril…who fought back, including:

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

Sometimes it takes tattoos, piercings, technological prowess, and a history of violence to solve a murder. In this first novel in Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, we meet the gruff and troubled Lisbeth Salander, who, with journalist Mikael Blomkvist, tries to solve a crime committed over 40 years ago.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Millennium Trilogy is one of Ken Follett's five best trilogies, and Lisbeth Salander is one of Anne Holt's top ten female detectives. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo made Maureen Corrigan's top five list of crime & mystery novels of 2008, Camilla Läckberg's top ten list of Swedish crime novels, and is one of Lynda Bellingham's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Dayna Lorentz's "No Easy Way Out"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: No Easy Way Out by Dayna Lorentz.

About the book, from the publisher:

It's Day 7 in the quarantined mall. The riot is over and the senator trapped inside is determined to end the chaos. Even with new rules, assigned jobs, and heightened security, she still needs to get the teen population under control. So she enlists Marco's help--allowing him to keep his stolen universal card key in exchange for spying on the very football players who are protecting him.

But someone is working against the new systems, targeting the teens, and putting the entire mall in even more danger. Lexi, Marco, Ryan, and Shay believe their new alliances are sound.

They are wrong. Who can be trusted? And who will be left to trust?

The virus was just the beginning.

Fans of Life As We Knew It and those who love apocalyptic plots will love this modern Lord of the Flies. The sequel to No Safety in Numbers is a pounding, relentless rush that will break your heart and keep you guessing until the end.

Learn more about the book and author at Dayna Lorentz's website and blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Dayna Lorentz & Peter and Kerry.

My Book, The Movie: No Safety in Numbers.

Writers Read: Dayna Lorentz.

The Page 69 Test: No Easy Way Out.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Bill Crider reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Bill Crider, author of Compound Murder.

The entry begins:

I'm currently reading The Kill, a 1985 private-eye novel by Douglas Heyes. If you do a search for Heyes on the Internet, you'll find mostly references to his TV and movie work. He was a writer, producer, and occasionally an actor. He worked on some well-known movies and some obscure ones. The Wikipedia article on Heyes doesn't even mention his fiction writing, though your search might have turned up my review of The Kiss-Off, his first crime novel, and a review by J. Kingston Pierce of The Kill. By coincidence, both reviews appeared the same week in 2011.

The Kill is set in Los Angeles in 1938, and the setting is...[read on]

About Compound Murder, from the publisher:

Small-town Texas sheriff Dan Rhodes is in for another puzzling mystery in this next in the entertaining, award-winning series

Before classes start one morning, the body of English instructor Earl Wellington is found outside the building of the community college. Wellington was clearly involved in a struggle with someone and has died as a result. Sheriff Dan Rhodes pursues and arrests Ike Terrell, a student who was fleeing the campus. Ike's father is Able Terrell, a survivalist who has withdrawn from society and lives in a gated compound. He’s not happy that his son has chosen to attend the college, and he's even less happy with the arrest.

Rhodes discovers that Wellington and Ike had had a confrontation over a paper that Wellington insisted Ike plagiarized. Wellington also had had a confrontation with the dean and was generally disliked by the students. As the number of suspects increases, it’s up to Rhodes to solve the murder while also dealing with an amusing but frustrating staff, a professor who wants to be a cop, and all the other normal occurrences that can wreak havoc in a small town.

Bill Crider's Compound Murder is an enjoyable police procedural filled with surprises, chuckles, and a quirky cast that will captivate mystery readers.

Learn more about the book and author at Bill Crider's website and blog.

Read the Page 69 Test entries for Crider's A Mammoth Murder, Murder Among the OWLS, Of All Sad Words, Murder in Four Parts, Murder in the Air, The Wild Hog Murders, and Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen.

Learn about Crider's choice of actors to portray Dan Rhodes on the big screen.

Writers Read: Bill Crider (August 2012).

Writers Read: Bill Crider.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Jim Noles & Pinot

Today's featured duo at Coffee with a Canine: Jim Noles and Pinot.

The author, on Pinot's best quality:

She is absolutely delighted to see us every single time we walk through the door. A wise man once said, if you are ever curious about who loves you more – your wife or your dog – then lock them both in the trunk of your car, drive around for an hour, and, when you finally open the trunk, see which one is happy to see you. That...[read on]

James L. “Jim” Noles, Jr., is a partner in the Environmental & Natural Resources Section of Balch & Bingham, LLP, in Birmingham, Alabama.  An Army brat and former Army officer, he is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the University of Texas School of Law.  To date, his books have covered a variety of non-fiction subjects and his articles have appeared in such diverse publications as the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Smithsonian Air & Space, Preservation, Urban Land, Continental, Thicket, Portico, Executive Traveler, Alabama Heritage, Mental Floss, America’s Civil War, and the Birmingham News.

His latest book is Dog Days: A Life in a Year of a Dog Named Pinot.

The Page 99 Test: Mighty by Sacrifice.

Writers Read: Jim Noles (May 2008).

Writers Read: Jim Noles (August 2009).

Writers Read: Jim Noles (August 2013).

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Jim Noles and Pinot.

--Marshal Zeringue