Pg. 99: Adrienne Mayor's "The Amazons"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor.

About the book, from the publisher:

Amazons--fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world--were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.

But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.

Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons--Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.

Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

Learn more about The Amazons at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Amazons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top adaptations

One of ten top adaptations tagged by Guardian and Observer critics:

The Long Goodbye

Robert Altman developed his version of The Long Goodbye as the story of "Rip van Marlowe" – what happens when the 1940s private dick is dropped into a 1970s Los Angeles he would barely recognize as home. Instead of Humphrey Bogart of The Big Sleep, he's now the unbuttoned, floppy-haired Elliott Gould. Instead of dealing with sharp-tongued women in pin curls and shoulder pads, he's working for a Malibu housewife in a big sun-dress and bare feet. By updating Marlowe's environment but not his personality, Altman reinvents the man for the 1970s, a detective whose wit and skills can't be diminished by a world far more corrupt than he.

Altman and screenwriter Leigh Brackett take immense liberties with Raymond Chandler's source novel, inventing entire characters (like the vicious Marty Augustine) and eliminating major ones, like Sylvia Lennox's billionaire father. Though Altman and Brackett borrow the basic structure of the novel, The Long Goodbye is essentially a riff on Chandler's entire work and his influence on film. It's a revisionist noir that manages to bring one of the genre's biggest icons in on its scheme, both thumbing its nose at and revering the beloved private detective.

Marlowe is hilariously out of step with his surroundings here, shuffling around his space-age apartment building and muttering at the hippie chicks doing yoga next door. But he's still the hero, the only man who cares enough to give Terry Lennox the justice he deserves, the guy who shrugs off a violent gangster to keep looking for his missing cat. The world has gone madder than Chandler ever imagined, but Marlowe proves he can stand the most difficult test of time – and he never has to give up his cigarettes or his 1948 Lincoln Continental to do it.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Long Goodbye is among Benjamin Black's five favorite works of noir, Melissa Albert's top four books that will drive all but the staunchest teetotaler to the nearest cocktail shaker, some Guardian readers' ten best writers in novels, David Nobbs's top five faked deaths in fiction, Malcolm Jones's ten favorite crime novels, David Nicholls' ten favorite film adaptations, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best fake deaths in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennifer Longo's "Six Feet Over It," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Six Feet Over It by Jennifer Longo.

The entry begins:

Six Feet Over It is a contemporary story set in a cemetery in Northern California. The story is fiction with a bunch of my own childhood memories mixed in (as so many debuts are) so the characters are mostly composites of fictional characters and people I grew up with. I’m a playwright first, and Six Feet Over It began as a grad school play script, so I imagine it as a play with fabulous stage actors no one knows. My daughter is helping me cast the movie, she’s eleven and has the best taste!

Leigh, the pained main character: A 15 year-old Ellen Page
Dario, the gravedigger: Jay Hernandez (from that jacked movie Hostel)
Emily, the Best Friend: A thirteen year old Lily...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Jennifer Longo's website.

The Page 69 Test: Six Feet Over It.

My Book, The Movie: Six Feet Over It.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five lovable misfits from YA-lit

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Dahlia Adler tagged five lovable misfits from Young Adult literature, including:

Gabe (Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, by Kirstin Cronn-Mills)

A teenage boy born into a girl’s body, it’s impossible for Gabe to feel like he fits in when the way he appears to everyone else feels like a lie. But he manages to translate that outsider feeling into a radio show for others who feel like they don’t fit in, and creates a beautiful fan club of misfits, united by the very things that make them different. One of my favorite must-read LGBT YA titles, and winner of the 2014 Stonewall Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: D.E. Ireland's "Wouldn't It Be Deadly"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Wouldn't It Be Deadly: An Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins Mystery by D.E. Ireland.

About the book, from the publisher:

Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins make an incomparable pair of sleuths in the start of a delightful new series

Following her successful appearance at an Embassy Ball—where Eliza Doolittle won Professor Henry Higgins’ bet that he could pass off a Cockney flower girl as a duchess—Eliza becomes an assistant to his chief rival Emil Nepommuck. After Nepommuck publicly takes credit for transforming Eliza into a lady, an enraged Higgins submits proof to a London newspaper that Nepommuck is a fraud. When Nepommuck is found with a dagger in his back, Henry Higgins becomes Scotland Yard’s prime suspect. However, Eliza learns that most of Nepommuck’s pupils had a reason to murder their blackmailing teacher. As another suspect turns up dead and evidence goes missing, Eliza and Higgins realize the only way to clear the Professor’s name is to discover which of Nepommuck’s many enemies is the real killer. When all the suspects attend a performance of Hamlet at Drury Lane, Eliza and Higgins don their theatre best and race to upstage a murderer.

This reimagining of George Bernard Shaw’s beloved characters is sheer pleasure. Wouldn’t It Be Deadly transports readers to Edwardian London, from the aristocratic environs of Mayfair to the dangerous back alleys of the East End. Eliza and Henry steal the show in this charming traditional mystery.

Learn more about the book and author at D. E. Ireland's website.

The Page 69 Test: Wouldn't It Be Deadly.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five 19th century adventure books & series

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog he tagged five books and series for old-fashioned adventure in the 19th century, including:

The Sharpe Novels, by Bernard Cornwell

Ideal For: Anyone who gets sick and tired, sometimes, of every hero in a historical adventure being of the officer or aristocratic class.

Richard Sharpe is, at the beginning of his lengthy story, a hardscrabble survivor in a rough army serving in an even rougher time period. From a poor orphan to the sort of desperate soldier wearing a threadbare uniform and constantly at the mercy of superiors who purchased their commissions and know much less about war than he does, he approaches all of his adventures with the sincerity of the desperate, and you kind of love him for it.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Mary Miley reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mary Miley, author of Silent Murders: A Roaring Twenties Mystery.

Her entry begins:

The books I read for fun are quite different from the ones I read for work-related research. During the day, I’m generally reading for work—not that that’s torture, mind you; I usually enjoy those books very much. But I’m also usually taking notes, so it feels like homework. After dinner, I like to go early to bed and read for pleasure, mostly historical novels. I probably average two books a week.

So, in the past month, my bedtime reading has included Endless Night, a book that a friend told me was her favorite Agatha Christie. I enjoy Christie’s books and found this one quite different from her usual Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot fare. Any comment I make will spoil the ending, so I won’t. After that, I read The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard, a gripping historical mystery set at the military academy at West Point, where I was born...[read on]

About Silent Murders, from the publisher:

Vaudeville actress Leah Randall took on her most daring role ever when she impersonated missing heiress Jessie Carr in order to claim Jessie’s inheritance in The Impersonator. Now that the dust has settled around that tumultuous time in her life, Leah has adopted Jessie’s name as her own and moved to Hollywood, where she's taken a modest but steady job in the silent film industry.

Jessie’s thrilled when Bruno Heilmann, a movie studio bigwig, invites her to a party. She’s even more delighted to run into a face from her past at that party. But the following day, Jessie learns that sometime in the wee hours of the morning both her old friend and Bruno Heilmann were brutally murdered. She’s devastated, but with her skill as an actress, access to the wardrobes and resources of a film studio, and a face not yet famous enough to be recognized, Jessie is uniquely positioned to dig into the circumstances surrounding these deaths. But will doing so put her own life directly in the path of a murderer?

With Silent Murders, MB/MWA First Crime Novel Competition winner Mary Miley has crafted another terrifically fun mystery, this time set in the dizzying, dazzling heart of jazz-age Hollywood.

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Miley's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Mary Miley (September 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Impersonator.

Writers Read: Mary Miley.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Emily Liebert's "When We Fall"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: When We Fall by Emily Liebert.

About the book, from the publisher:

LOVE LOST, LOVE FOUND

Ready for a fresh start, Allison Parker moves back to her hometown in the suburbs of New York. While she’d once savored the dynamic pace of city life, sadly, it lost its allure after her husband’s untimely death. Now, ready to focus on her art career accompanied by her ten-year-old son, Logan, Allison doesn’t anticipate that her past will resurface. When the wife of her husband’s best friend from summer camp takes her under her wing, things begin to spin out of control.

At one time, Charlotte Crane thought she had it all—a devoted husband, a beautiful little girl, and enough financial security to never have to worry. But behind her “perfect” facade lie a strained marriage and a fractured relationship with her sister. When “new girl” Allison arrives in Wincourt, Charlotte welcomes the chance to build a friendship. Before long, Charlotte begins to see her life through Allison’s eyes, and the cracks in her seemingly flawless existence become impossible to ignore.

As Allison heals from the loss of her husband—even wondering if she might be ready to date again—Charlotte feels more distant from her loved ones than ever before. The emerging friendship between the two women appears to be just the antidote both of them so desperately need…until everything falls apart.

Learn more about the book and author at Emily Liebert's website.

The Page 69 Test: When We Fall.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mark Powell's "The Sheltering," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Sheltering by Mark Powell.

The entry begins:

Few things expose one’s utter ignorance of pop culture like being asked who might play the movie roles from your novel, in my case, The Sheltering. The good news, for me, at least, is that the novel is sprawling, with a large cast of characters so perhaps any mistakes in casting can be overcome with sheer volume. The novel follows two plot lines that slowly intersect until each can only be understood in the light of the other. In the first, Luther Redding flies a drone over Afghanistan from deep within a Tampa Air Force Base. When he dies in a sudden flash of light, erased as quickly and irrevocably as any target, his wife Pamela and daughters Lucy and Katie are left to deal with the aftershocks. In the second plot line, two brothers, Bobby and Donny Rosen, set off on a nihilistic road trip, eight kilos of coke in tow.

At least casting Luther’s part allows me another opportunity to lament the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman, without question, at least to my mind, the finest actor of his generation. But with Hoffman out of the question, I think I’ll turn to...[read on]

Learn more about The Sheltering at the University of South Carolina Press website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sheltering.

My Book, The Movie: The Sheltering.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve top authors' beards

One entry on the Telegraph's top twelve list of authors' beards:

Joseph Conrad was a Polish sailor who became one of our finest novelists.

Learn about another entry on the list.

Also see: John Mullan's list of ten of the best beards in literature.

Conrad's Heart of Darkness is on Michael Palin's six favorite books list, Robert Twigger's list of five of the best books about rivers, Robert McCrum's list of ten of the best closing lines of books, Mark Malloch-Brown's lis of six favorite novels of empire, John Mullan's list of ten of the best fogs in literature, Tim Butcher's list of the top 10 books about Congo, Martin Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa, Thomas Perry's best books list, and is #9 on the 100 best last lines from novels list.

Nostromo is among Juan Gabriel Vásquez's five favorite novels about South America and Ben Ryder Howe's top ten novels featuring mythical countries.

Typhoon made a top ten list of books about hurricanes, and The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' is one of Herman Wouk's five top nautical yarns.

The Secret Agent is among Jason Burke's five books on Islamic militancy, Iain Sinclair's five novels on the spirit and history of London, Dan Vyleta's top ten books in second languages, Jessica Stern's five best books on who terrorists are, Adam Thorpe's top ten satires, and on John Mullan's list of ten of the best professors in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: James Grehan's "Twilight of the Saints"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine by James Grehan.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this study of everyday religious culture in early modern Syria and Palestine, James Grehan offers a social history that looks beyond conventional ways of thinking about religion in the Middle East. The most common narratives about the region introduce us to the separate traditions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, highlighting how each one has created its own distinctive traditions and communities. Twilight of the Saints offers a reinterpretation of religious and cultural history in a region which is today associated with division and violence. Exploring the religious habits of ordinary people, from the late seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century, when the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, Grehan shows that members of different religious groups participated in a common, overarching religious culture that was still visible at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Most evident in the countryside, though present everywhere, this religious mainstream thrived in a society in which few people had access to formal religious teachings. This older, folk religious culture was steeped in notions and rituals that the modern world, with its mainly theological conception of religion, has utterly repudiated. Indeed, the people of Syria and Palestine today would hardly recognize religion as it was experienced in the not-so-distant past. Only by uncovering this lost lived religion, argues Grehan, can we appreciate the largely unacknowledged revolution in religion that has taken place in the region over the last century.

Learn more about Twilight of the Saints at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Twilight of the Saints.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Wayne Harrison reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Wayne Harrison, author of The Spark and the Drive.

His entry begins:

Like many authors, or at least authors I know, I'm reading a couple of books at once. I like to juxtapose first person and third person point of views, as voice is what I pay most attention to in my own writing. I'm currently reading my friend and former fiction teacher Tim Parrish's evocative memoir Fear and What Follows, which describes his hardscrabble upbringing in working class Louisiana in the 1970s. It's a powerful and fascinating book that intelligently captures the persisting violence and racism of the south at that time. I love memoirs that...[read on]

About The Spark and the Drive, from the publisher:

By an award-winning writer of short fiction, a devastatingly powerful debut novel of hero-worship, first love, and betrayal

Justin Bailey is seventeen when he arrives at the shop of legendary muscle car mechanic Nick Campbell. Anguished and out of place among the students at his rural Connecticut high school, Justin finds in Nick, his captivating wife Mary Ann, and their world of miraculous machines the sense of family he has struggled to find at home.

But when Nick and Mary Ann’s lives are struck by tragedy, Justin’s own world is upended. Suddenly Nick, once celebrated for his mechanical genius, has lost his touch. Mary Ann, once tender and compassionate to her husband, has turned distant. As Justin tries to support his suffering mentor, he finds himself drawn toward the man’s grieving wife. Torn apart by feelings of betrayal, Justin must choose between the man he admires more than his own father and the woman he yearns for.

A poignant and fiercely original debut, with moments of fast-paced suspense, Wayne Harrison's The Spark and The Drive is the unforgettable story of a young man forced to make an impossible decision—no matter the consequences.

Visit Wayne Harrison's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Spark and the Drive.

Writers Read: Wayne Harrison.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joe Gannon's "Night of the Jaguar"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Night of the Jaguar: A Novel by Joe Gannon.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sandinista Police Captain Ajax Montoya is six days sober and losing his mind. How else to explain his nights waking in bed, his hand wrapped around that bloody-minded stiletto from the old days, or the presence outside his window, a face with no eyes watching him?

How far the heroic have fallen. Ajax was once the gallant comandante guerrillero. A hero of the Nicaraguan revolutionaries in their long uprising against the Ogre and his hated National Guard. Back then he’d been the guy who got the bloody missions -- as a lowly grunt with that blade, or the commander of an entire front. Back then he knew what was what and who to trust. But as the clarity of war gave way to the hazy reality of peace, Ajax fared less well. And after he took the fall for an assassination he had no part of, he tumbled into a bottle, and maybe out of his mind.

Now he's a homicide investigator in Managua solving murders and sweating through the nightmares from his guerilla days. When he's called to investigate a robbery turned gruesome murder, Ajax recognizes the marks of a surprising enemy - the CIA mercenary army known as The Contra. This isn't just a random murder; this is an execution, a call to war. Or is it? And why does no one want to know but Ajax? As the bodies pile up and a red-headed gringa who should be his enemy enchants his thoughts, Ajax questions whether he can stay sober, sane, and alive long enough to figure it all out.

Visit Joe Gannon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Night of the Jaguar.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michelle Gagnon's "Don't Let Go," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Don't Let Go by Michelle Gagnon.

The entry begins:

NOA: There’s an amazing Australian film called, Tomorrow, When the War Began, (if you haven’t seen it yet, put it on your to-be-watched list immediately!) The lead actress in it was incredible; the whole time I was watching the movie, all I could think was that if you chopped her hair short and dyed it black, she’d be a perfect Noa. Her name is Caitlin Stasey, and I’d be shocked if we didn’t end up seeing a lot more of her in the future.

PETER: I really love Dylan Minnette, the actor who played the son in the (sadly) short-lived series Awake. He didn’t have much of a chance to display humor in that role, but he’s such a...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Michelle Gagnon's website.

The Page 69 Test: Don't Turn Around.

My Book, The Movie: Don't Turn Around.

The Page 69 Test: Don't Let Go.

My Book, The Movie: Don't Let Go.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top stories of mothers and daughters

Meike Ziervogel is the author of the novellas Magda and Clara's Daughter.

One of her top ten stories of mother-daughter relationships, as shared at the Guardian:

A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe

A medieval Italian castle, two beautiful young women held captive by their authoritarian father and, from the vault underneath the floorboards, a mysterious knocking. A fantastic mother-daughter tale complete with a handsome lover and a happy end.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Holly Menino & Keel

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Holly Menino & Keel.

The author, on how Keel got her name:

Keel was named short and sweet by her breeder, who was under the impression the pup had...[read on]

About Menino's new novel, A Distance to Death, from the publisher:

Tink Elledge is back in the saddle—and in more danger than ever. The race is a hundred miles through the Sierra Nevada against a backdrop of Darwin, evolution, and intelligent design. Smart, deftly plotted, and tuned to ongoing debate, this mystery is perfect for fans of Dick Francis.

Tink Elledge is a woman who doesn’t take well to sitting still—not when it comes to husbands, not when it comes to looking after her stepson Stephen, and certainly not when it comes to horses. So when she gets the chance to ride in a competition again—even on a trail as grueling as the steep twists and turns of the legendary Tevis endurance trail ride—she jumps at it. In the Sierra mountain wilderness, she and her friend Isabel—an avid horsewoman and Darwin devotee--will race across one hundred miles of spectacular gorges and cross heart-stopping fords.


Meanwhile, Stephen and Tink’s husband, Charlie, are nearby working on a new partnership with the brilliant but secretive scientist James Grant-Worthington. When Grant-Worthington suddenly dies of not-so-natural causes, the entire deal is thrown into question. Eager to help, Tink begins searching for clues, starting with Josh Untemeyer, the PR manager for the institute Grant-Worthington founded to promote the theory of intelligent design, who has also been pursuing Isabel. As Tink and Isabel join the pack of elite riders and their horses scramble up the vertiginous, narrow trail, Josh goes missing. Tink must sort through the secrets and lies in a race against time to cross the finish line and save the two people she cares for most in this lively, page-turning novel from acclaimed author Holly Menino.

Visit Holly Menino's website.

Writers Read: Holly Menino.

The Page 69 Test: A Distance to Death.

My Book, The Movie: A Distance to Death.

Coffee with a Canine: Holly Menino & Keel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Joseph E. Uscinski & Joseph M. Parent's "American Conspiracy Theories"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: American Conspiracy Theories by Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent.

About the book, from the publisher:

We are living in an age of conspiracy theories, whether it's enduring, widely held beliefs such as government involvement in the Kennedy assassination or alien activity at Roswell, fears of a powerful infiltrating group such as the Illuminati, Jews, Catholics, or communists, or modern fringe movements of varying popularity such as birtherism and trutherism. What is it in American culture that makes conspiracy theories proliferate? Who is targeted, and why? Are we in the heyday of the conspiracy theory, or is it in decline?

Though there is significant scholarly literature on the topic in psychology, sociology, philosophy, and more, American Conspiracy Theories is the first to use broad, long-term empirical data to analyze this popular American tendency. Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent draw on three sources of original data: 120,000 letters to the editor of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune from between 1890 and 2010; a two-wave survey from before and after the 2012 presidential election; and discussions of conspiracy theories culled from online news sources, blogs, and other Web sites, also from before and after the election. Through these sources, they are able to address crucial questions, such as similarities and differences in the nature of conspiracy theories over time, the role of the Internet and communications technologies in spreading modern conspiracy theories, and whether politics, economics, media, war, or other factors are most important in popularizing conspiratorial beliefs. Ultimately, they conclude that power asymmetries, both foreign and domestic, are the main drivers behind conspiracy theories, and that those at the bottom of power hierarchies have a strategic interest in blaming those at the top-in other words, "conspiracy theories are for losers." But these "losers" can end up having tremendous influence on the course of history, and American Conspiracy Theories is an unprecedented examination of one of the defining features of American political life.

Learn more about American Conspiracy Theories at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: American Conspiracy Theories.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Celine Kiernan's "Into the Grey"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a heart-pounding, atmospheric ghost story, a teenage boy must find the resources within himself to save his haunted twin brother.

After their nan accidentally burns their home down, twin brothers Pat and Dom must move with their parents and baby sister to the seaside cottage they’ve summered in, now made desolate by the winter wind. It’s there that the ghost appears — a strange boy who cries black tears and fears a bad man, a soldier, who is chasing him. Soon Dom has become not-Dom, and Pat can sense that his brother is going to die — while their overwhelmed parents can’t even see what’s happening. Isolated and terrified, Pat needs to keep his brother’s cover while figuring out how to save him, drawing clues from his own dreams and Nan’s long-ago memories, confronting a mystery that lies between this world and the next — within the Grey. With white-knuckle pacing and a deft portrayal of family relationships, Celine Kiernan offers a taut psychological thriller that is sure to haunt readers long after the last page is turned.

Visit Celine Kiernan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Into the Grey.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Barnett's "Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon by David Barnett.

The entry begins:

It feels a little too much like tempting fate to think too deeply about a movie adaptation of the Gideon Smith series of books, either the first one Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl or the current follow-up, Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon. But what a joy it would be to behold! Hopefully, if it ever happens, money will be no object and no expense will be spared in terms of the casting and the locations and effects. The Gideon Smith series is set in an alternate 1890s, where London is a huge city of towering spires and ziggurats (following a brief architectural flirtation with South American design), where airships ply the skies and the perpetual fogs are fed by the hunger for steam-driven technology.

I tend to picture, in my idle moments, a trailer rather than a whole movie. It would open with a panoramic shot of Gideon’s London, dirigibles nosing through the smog, our hero gazing in wonder at the marvels of the capital, on his first visit from the tiny fishing village in the far north where he has spent all his life. Who would play Gideon? A newcomer, hopefully, one with an athletic build and curly dark hair falling over his collars. A young Johnny...[read on]

Visit David Barnett's website.

The Page 69 Test: Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon.

Writers Read: David Barnett.

My Book, The Movie: Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Julia Keller reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Julia Keller, author of Summer of the Dead (Bell Elkins Series #3).

Her entry begins:

It’s a sickness. Really, it is. I can’t seem to read only one book at a time. I well know how philandering spouses feel: What’s right in front of me just can’t measure up to what’s across the room, batting its eyelashes and giving me a lascivious, come-hither glance. I’ve tried, but I simply can’t be a one-book woman.

Spying the motley stack of reading matter that follows me from room to room—almost of its own volition, I swear—friends often ask, “How do you decide which book to read at which time?” I have no rational answer. I am guided by some mysterious, ineffable force that wills the hand toward one book and not another, and later, toward yet another. My religious-minded friends often attest to hearing a “still, small voice within” that directs their moral choices; I hear it, too, only the voice says, “No, you chucklehead! Not the mystery right now—the Tennyson biography!”

And speaking of Tennyson biographies, I’m reading a dandy: Tennyson (1993) by Peter Levi. It’s not new, but I so love the late Levi’s voice as he undertakes the daunting task of writing about an oft-written-about writer: “I think having written this book that I do now understand this great poet,” he says in the introduction. “The long series of problems solved has left him much clearer, and yet...[read on]

About Summer of the Dead, from the publisher:

High summer in Acker's Gap, West Virginia—but no one's enjoying the rugged natural landscape. Not while a killer stalks the small town and its hard-luck inhabitants. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and Sheriff Nick Fogelsong are stymied by a murderer who seems to come and go like smoke on the mountain. At the same time, Bell must deal with the return from prison of her sister, Shirley—who, like Bell, carries the indelible scars of a savage past.

In Summer of the Dead, the third Julia Keller mystery chronicling the journey of Bell Elkins and her return to her Appalachian hometown, we also meet Lindy Crabtree—a coal miner's daughter with dark secrets of her own, secrets that threaten to explode into even more violence.

Acker's Gap is a place of loveliness and brutality, of isolation and fierce attachments—a place where the dead rub shoulders with the living, and demand their due.

Learn more about the book and author at Julia Keller's website.

Writers Read: Julia Keller (September 2012).

Writers Read: Julia Keller (September 2013).

Writers Read: Julia Keller.

--Marshal Zeringue