Coffee with a canine: Tamara Ellis Smith & Winn-Dixie

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Tamara Ellis Smith and Winn-Dixie.

The author, on how she and Winn-Dixie were united:

Winn-Dixie came to me late one night off of a plane at airport in Burlington, Vermont. The flight attendant opened his crate and he walked over to me and put his head in my hands. Love at first touch.

I spent a long time before that on Petfinder.com. Boy, is that website addicting! I was looking for a very specific dog, modeled after my good friend, Kara's dog Cody, who was part border collie, part who knows what. (We used to say he was part Holstein cow, because he was this huge black and white guy!) When I saw Winn Dixie's picture I knew he was the one because of his eyes. They stared straight into the camera. Straight at me. I showed him to Kara and...[read on]

About Smith's Another Kind of Hurricane, from the publisher.

In this stunning debut novel, two very different characters—a black boy who loses his home in Hurricane Katrina and a white boy in Vermont who loses his best friend in a tragic accident—come together to find healing.

A hurricane, a tragic death, two boys, one marble. How they intertwine is at the heart of this beautiful, poignant book. When ten-year-old Zavion loses his home in Hurricane Katrina, he and his father are forced to flee to Baton Rouge. And when Henry, a ten-year-old boy in northern Vermont, tragically loses his best friend, Wayne, he flees to ravaged New Orleans to help with hurricane relief efforts—and to search for a marble that was in the pocket of a pair of jeans donated to the Red Cross.

Rich with imagery and crackling with hope, this is the unforgettable story of how lives connect in unexpected, even magical, ways.

Visit Tamara Ellis Smith's website.

My Book, The Movie: Another Kind of Hurricane.

Coffee with a Canine: Tamara Ellis Smith and Winn-Dixie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Emily Conroy-Krutz's "Christian Imperialism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic by Emily Conroy-Krutz.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1812, eight American missionaries, under the direction of the recently formed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sailed from the United States to South Asia. The plans that motivated their voyage were ano less grand than taking part in the Protestant conversion of the entire world. Over the next several decades, these men and women were joined by hundreds more American missionaries at stations all over the globe. Emily Conroy-Krutz shows the surprising extent of the early missionary impulse and demonstrates that American evangelical Protestants of the early nineteenth century were motivated by Christian imperialism—an understanding of international relations that asserted the duty of supposedly Christian nations, such as the United States and Britain, to use their colonial and commercial power to spread Christianity.

In describing how American missionaries interacted with a range of foreign locations (including India, Liberia, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, North America, and Singapore) and imperial contexts, Christian Imperialism provides a new perspective on how Americans thought of their country's role in the world. While in the early republican period many were engaged in territorial expansion in the west, missionary supporters looked east and across the seas toward Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Conroy-Krutz's history of the mission movement reveals that strong Anglo-American and global connections persisted through the early republic. Considering Britain and its empire to be models for their work, the missionaries of the American Board attempted to convert the globe into the image of Anglo-American civilization.

Visit Emily Conroy-Krutz's website.

The Page 99 Test: Christian Imperialism.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Chris Holm reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Chris Holm, author of The Killing Kind.

His entry begins:

At present, I’m reading Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Through the Evil Days. It’s the latest in her Clare Fergusson and Russ van Alstyne series. Thus far, it’s been a joy. Spencer-Fleming is at once a powerful and graceful writer, capable of thrilling action and gorgeous character moments. From sentence one, you know...[read on]

About The Killing Kind, from the publisher:

A hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up a target himself.

Michael Hendricks kills people for money. That aside, he's not so bad a guy.

Once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, Hendricks was presumed dead after a mission in Afghanistan went sideways. He left behind his old life--and beloved fiancée--and set out on a path of redemption...or perhaps one of willful self-destruction.

Now Hendricks makes his living as a hitman entrepreneur of sorts--he only hits other hitmen. For ten times the price on your head, he'll make sure whoever's coming to kill you winds up in the ground instead. Not a bad way for a guy with his skill-set to make a living--but a great way to make himself a target.

Visit Chris Holm's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Kind.

Writers Read: Chris Holm.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about magical families

Christopher Barzak's latest novel is Wonders of the Invisible World. One of five books about magical families he tagged at Tor.com:

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Morrison’s most famous novel is also perhaps her most magical. While easily reduced to being categorized as a ghost story, Morrison’s technique in this narrative moves beyond most ghost stories. Beloved is the ghost of a daughter murdered by an escaped slave, who does not wish her daughter to be returned to slavery when her former master finds them. In achingly beautiful descriptions, we see the ghost of Beloved come into being years later as her murderess mother expresses a physical manifestation of having her water break, despite not being pregnant. The haunting of the house, which figures into the narrative as the place where the former slave family has taken refuge over the Ohio border in Cincinnati, is painted in magical realist colors, including a swathe of red light that one has to pass through at times, which soaks those who penetrate it in sorrow and regret. The family who struggles with this ghost must overcome the past, which haunts them in various ways, and Morrison’s exploration of ghostliness and hauntings is both painful and beautiful in its rendering.

Read about another entry on the list.

Beloved also appears on Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's ten top list of wartime love stories, Judith Claire Mitchell's list of ten of the best (unconventional) ghosts in literature, Kelly Link's list of four books that changed her, a list of four books that changed Libby Gleeson, The Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Elif Shafak's top five list of fictional mothers, Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten great books you didn't know were science fiction or fantasy, Peter Dimock's top ten list of books that challenge what we think we know as "history", Stuart Evers's top ten list of homes in literature, David W. Blight's list of five outstanding novels on the Civil War era, John Mullan's list of ten of the best births in literature, Kit Whitfield's top ten list of genre-defying novels, and at the top of one list of contenders for the title of the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mitchell Hogan's "A Crucible of Souls"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Crucible of Souls: Book One of the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence by Mitchell Hogan.

About the book, from the publisher:

An imaginative new talent makes his debut with the acclaimed first installment in the epic Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, a mesmerizing tale of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery.

When young Caldan’s parents are brutally slain, the boy is raised by monks who initiate him into the arcane mysteries of sorcery.

Growing up plagued by questions about his past, Caldan vows to discover who his parents were, and why they were violently killed. The search will take him beyond the walls of the monastery, into the unfamiliar and dangerous chaos of city life. With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to become apprenticed to a guild of sorcerers.

But the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths he does not fully understand. As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that will bring the world to the edge of destruction.

Soon, he must choose a side, and face the true cost of uncovering his past.

Visit Mitchell Hogan's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Crucible of Souls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy-Ann Oberman's 6 best books

Tracy-Ann Oberman is an English actor best known for playing Chrissie Watts in EastEnders and for performances in Doctor Who and other television shows, films, and plays.

One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

After I was taken to Rome as a child Imperial Rome became a passion. Claudius, seen as a bumbling buffoon, manages to survive all the assassinations and coups to become a very good emperor.

It’s a bit like a salacious News Of The World story.

Read about another entry on the list.

I, Claudius also appears on the Telegraph's lists of the 21 greatest television adaptations of novels and the twenty best British and Irish novels of all time, Daisy Goodwin's list of six favorite historical fiction books, a list of the eleven best political books of all time, David Chase's six favorite books list, Andrew Miller's top ten list of historical novels, Mark Malloch-Brown's list of his six favorite novels of empire, Annabel Lyon's top ten list of books on the ancient world, Lindsey Davis' top ten list of Roman books, and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best emperors in literature and ten of the best poisonings in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Shelley Pearsall reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Shelley Pearsall, author of The Seventh Most Important Thing.

One book she tagged:

Guests on Earth by Lee Smith who is one is the very best at the art of creating characters. I was captivated by the voice of Evalina—a young girl who grows up in Asheville’s Highland Mental Hospital in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when Zelda Fitzgerald was a frequent patient...[read on]

About The Seventh Most Important Thing, from the publisher:

Shelley Pearsall’s story of anger and art, loss and redemption, is a transformative read that will appeal to fans of Lisa Graff’s Lost in the Sun and Vince Vawter’s Paperboy.

One kid. One crime. One chance to make things right.

It was a bitterly cold day when Arthur T. Owens grabbed a brick and hurled it at the trash picker. Arthur had his reasons, and the brick hit the Junk Man in the arm, not the head. But none of that matters to the judge—he is ready to send Arthur to juvie for the foreseeable future. Amazingly, it’s the Junk Man himself who offers an alternative: 120 hours of community service . . . working for him.

Arthur is given a rickety shopping cart and a list of the Seven Most Important Things: glass bottles, foil, cardboard, pieces of wood, lightbulbs, coffee cans, and mirrors. He can’t believe it—is he really supposed to rummage through people’s trash? But it isn’t long before Arthur realizes there’s more to the Junk Man than meets the eye, and the “trash” he’s collecting is being transformed into something more precious than anyone could imagine....

Inspired by the work of American folk artist James Hampton, award-winning author Shelley Pearsall has crafted an affecting and redemptive novel about discovering what shines within us all, even when life seems full of darkness.

Visit Shelley Pearsall's website.

Writers Read: Shelley Pearsall.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine thrilling YA stories sparked by natural disasters

Eric Smith is the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating and Inked. One of nine thrilling YA stories sparked by ecological disasters that he tagged at the B&N Teen blog:

Not a Drop to Drink, by Mindy McGinnis

You really can’t talk about YA novels where water is a resource to be fought over without discussing Mindy McGinnis’ debut and its companion. In Not a Drop to Drink and sequel In a Handful of Dust, the world has gone dry. It’s in this parched world that Lynn stands guard over the pond outside her home, struggling to stay alive despite the danger lurking everywhere. Stark and gripping, it’s one of my favorite YA reads ever, packed with drama and a brutal landscape where hope seems as dried up as the water.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Not a Drop to Drink.

The Page 69 Test: In a Handful of Dust.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter Jones's "Track Two Diplomacy"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Track Two Diplomacy in Theory and Practice by Peter Jones.

About the book, from the publisher:

Track Two Diplomacy consists of informal dialogues among actors such as academics, religious leaders, retired senior officials, and NGO officials that can bring new ideas and new relationships to the official process of diplomacy.

Sadly, those involved in official diplomacy often have little understanding of and appreciation for the complex and nuanced role that Track Two can play, or for its limitations. And many Track Two practitioners are often unaware of the realities and pressures of the policy and diplomatic worlds, and not particularly adept at framing their efforts to make them accessible to hard-pressed officials. At the same time, those interested in the academic study of Track Two sometimes fail to understand the realities faced by either set of practitioners.

A need therefore exists for a work to bridge the divides between these constituencies and between the different types of Track Two practice—and this book crosses disciplines and traditions in order to do just that. It explores the various dimensions and guises of Track Two, the theory and practice of how they work, and how both practitioners and academics could more profitably assess Track Two. Overall, it provides a comprehensive picture of the range of activities pursued under this title, to provoke new thinking about how these activities relate to each other, to official diplomacy, and to academe.

Learn more about Track Two Diplomacy at the Stanford University Press website.

Peter Jones is also the author of Open Skies: Transparency, Confidence-Building, and the End of the Cold War.

The Page 99 Test: Open Skies.

The Page 99 Test: Track Two Diplomacy in Theory and Practice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Chris Holm's "The Killing Kind"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Killing Kind by Chris Holm.

About the book, from the publisher:

A hitman who only kills other hitmen winds up a target himself.

Michael Hendricks kills people for money. That aside, he's not so bad a guy.

Once a covert operative for a false-flag unit of the US military, Hendricks was presumed dead after a mission in Afghanistan went sideways. He left behind his old life--and beloved fiancée--and set out on a path of redemption...or perhaps one of willful self-destruction.

Now Hendricks makes his living as a hitman entrepreneur of sorts--he only hits other hitmen. For ten times the price on your head, he'll make sure whoever's coming to kill you winds up in the ground instead. Not a bad way for a guy with his skill-set to make a living--but a great way to make himself a target.

Visit Chris Holm's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Kind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels that explore Stockholm Syndrome

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 B & N Reads Somers tagged six books that explore Stockholm Syndrome--wherein the victims of a kidnapping identify with, and even come to have affection for their captors--including:

The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica

With one of the most twisty plots of recent memory (think Gone Girl on steroids), The Good Girl is a lot more than a story of a victim falling in love with her captor. Mia is snatched by a career criminal and held in a remote cabin where the elements are a serious threat, but over the course of time the kidnapping turns into a shared struggle for survival. When Mia finally returns home she’s amnesiac and calls herself by a different name. Told in alternating points of view and switching between flashbacks and the present-day, the truth of what’s going on doesn’t become completely clear until the last few pages of this gripping story.

Read about another entry on the list.

Writers Read: Mary Kubica (July 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

What is George A. Gonzalez reading?

Featured at Writers Read: George A. Gonzalez, author of The Politics of Star Trek: Justice, War, and the Future.

His entry begins:

James Kreines, Reason in the World: Hegel’s Metaphysics and its Philosophical Appeal (Oxford University Press, 2015) – The Star Trek franchise has taught me that justice exists as a metaphysical entity. As a result, I’ve taken to reading continental philosophy – especially that related to Georg Hegel (1770 – 1831). Hegel argued that justice emanates from the Absolute. My view is that Star Trek reflects, conveys the justice of the Absolute – a classless society, free of...[read on]

About The Politics of Star Trek, from the publisher:

The Star Trek franchise reflects, conveys, and comments upon the key philosophical tensions of the modern era: pragmatism vs. justice; universalism vs. traditionalism; empire vs. consensual polity; environmentalism vs. modernity. George A. Gonzalez details the manner in which these tensions and controversies are manifested in Star Trek across its iterations, and in so doing argues that Star Trek offers an indispensable intellectual and analytical contribution to our understanding of the politics of the modern era.

George A. Gonzalez is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami.

Learn more about The Politics of Star Trek at the Palgrave Macmillan website.

Writers Read: George A. Gonzalez.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. E. Ireland's "Move Your Blooming Corpse," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Move Your Blooming Corpse: An Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins Mystery (Volume 2) by D. E. Ireland.

The entry begins:

Lights! Camera! Action! It’s time to cast Move Your Blooming Corpse, the second book in our Edwardian mystery series. We are quite lucky because our books are based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which later inspired the musical My Fair Lady. Since a number of people have taken on the roles of our main characters both onstage and onscreen, we already have a pool of actors to choose from. Photos of those we decide to cast as our characters are pinned onto our secret Pinterest board. This helps us “see” them while we’re writing a scene.

When it comes to our continuing troupe of characters – drawn from Shaw’s play and the musical – we can’t do better than the stars of the 1964 film My Fair Lady: Rex Harrison’s incomparable Henry Higgins and Audrey Hepburn’s charming Eliza Doolittle. We also wanted that movie’s Wilfred Hyde White to play our Colonel Pickering and Stanley Holloway to portray Eliza’s irrepressible father Alfred.

Unlike the 1964 film, our love-struck Freddy Eynsford Hill is played by Dan Stevens, otherwise known as Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey. The lovely star of The Princess Bride, Robin Wright, has been cast as his teenaged sister Clara, with Miranda...[read on]

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

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

My Book, The Movie: Move Your Blooming Corpse.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: M. Tara Crowl's "Eden's Wish"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Eden's Wish by M. Tara Crowl.

About the book, from the publisher:

All twelve years of Eden’s life have been spent in an antique oil lamp. She lives like a princess inside her tiny, luxurious home, but to Eden, the lamp is nothing but a prison.

She hates being a genie. All she wants, more than anything, is freedom. When Eden finds a gateway to Earth inside the lamp, she takes her chance. In a moment, she’s entered the world she loves. And this time, she won’t be sent back after three wishes.

Posing as the new kid at a California middle school, Eden revels in all of Earth’s pleasures-but quickly learns that this world isn’t as perfect as she always thought it was.

Eden soon finds herself in the middle of a centuries-old conflict between powerful immortals. A ruthless organization run by a former genie will stop at nothing to acquire the lamp and its power—including hurting Tyler and Sasha, the mortal friends who have given Eden a home. To save her friends—and protect the magic of the lamp—Eden will have to decide once and for all where she belongs.

Visit M. Tara Crowl's website.

Writers Read: M. Tara Crowl.

The Page 69 Test: Eden's Wish.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten literary biographies

Jay Parini, author of Every Time a Friend Succeeds Something Inside Me Dies: The Life of Gore Vidal, tagged his top ten literary biographies for the Guardian. One title on the list:

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (2004)

A vast shelf of biographies of the Bard exists, but this is the book I would take with me to a desert island along with Shakespeare’s plays. It has energy and a great deal of unassertive yet far-reaching scholarship.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kevin Myers's "Struggles for a Past"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Struggles for a Past: Irish and Afro-Caribbean Histories in England, 1951-2000 by Kevin Myers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Immigration and racism are amongst the most controversial topics in English society. This book provides an accessible account of post-war immigration but it also critiques the language of racial, ethnic and cultural difference that emerged to understand racism. Combining history and social theory, Struggles for a Past makes a genuine contribution to debates on English identity, historical memory and contemporary multiculturalism.

This book explores how Irish and Afro-Caribbean immigrants were represented in post-war English culture. Beginning with the 1951 Festival of Britain, Struggles for a Past illuminates how dominant perceptions of the national past helped to construct immigrants as outsiders. Those outsiders were understood to pose 'race' problems that required management and intervention. Race relations work had serious shortcomings but it also offered immigrant groups a space and a language to construct their heritage and to deploy historical narratives in pursuit of social justice. In cultural and educational projects, immigrants and their children struggled for their pasts and won recognition as ethnic groups. Yet, as they did so, they became trapped by an ethnic historicism that closed down the possibilities of social justice for all.

Written in an accessible manner, and combining history, sociology and education, this book will appeal to students and general readers interested in the history of race ideas, in historical memory and the future of social justice.

Learn more about Struggles for a Past at the Manchester University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Struggles for a Past.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Catherine Reef reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Catherine Reef, author of Noah Webster: Man of Many Words.

Her entry begins:

Recently I spent a season—more than a season, really—with David Foster Wallace’s astonishing masterpiece, Infinite Jest. In the final paragraphs, the character Don Gately, hospitalized for a gunshot wound and with a fever that has spiked dangerously, emerges from a hallucinatory nightmare to perceive that he is lying on a cold beach at low tide in the rain. The medical staff has plunged Gately’s massive body into an icy bath; this much is clear. But Wallace left me to decide whether Gately lives or dies. I’m still unsure, although I’m leaning toward life, in part because another great book had been tugging at my memory while I read Infinite Jest. I had to be optimistic after recalling its rapturous closing: “Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!”

I’m not the first person to notice that Infinite Jest and The Brothers Karamazov have a great deal in common. Three brothers whose alcoholic father dies in an ugly way; a father and son vying for the same woman; a safe place that represents a retreat from the surrounding culture, Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House in Wallace and the monastery in Dostoyevsky; a scene toward the end of Infinite Jest that pays homage to the parable of the Grand Inquisitor in the earlier novel—a thoughtful reader of both books will...[read on]

About Noah Webster: Man of Many Words, from the publisher:

Noah Webster may be best remembered the enormous and ambitious task of writing his famous dictionary, but for him, this accomplishment was a means to an end. His true goal was to streamline the language spoken in our newly formed country so that it could be used as a force to bring people together and be a source of national pride. Though people laughed at his ideas, Webster never doubted himself. In the end, his so-called foolish notions achieved just what he had hoped.

Here, in the only account of Noah Webster for teens, the seasoned biographer Catherine Reef guides us through Webster's remarkable life, from boyhood on a Connecticut farm through the fight for American independence to his days as a writer and political activist who greatly influenced our Founding Fathers and the direction of the young United States.

Visit Catherine Reef's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Catherine Reef & Nandi.

The Page 69 Test: Frida & Diego.

My Book, The Movie: Noah Webster.

Writers Read: Catherine Reef.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Cathie Pelletier's "The Summer Experiment"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Summer Experiment by Cathie Pelletier.

About the book, from the publisher:

Are There Aliens in Allagash?

Roberta is convinced she and her best friend Marilee can win the State Science Fair if only they can find an amazing project to showcase. And they've got the whole summer to work on it. But in order to win they'll need to defeat their chief competitor, "The Four Hs of the Apocalypse": Henry Horton Harris Helmsby.

When mysterious lights begin to appear over her hometown, Roberta has a brilliant idea: finding aliens in Allagash and proving they exist would win her first place for sure. Four Hs could never top that...or could he?

Visit Cathie Pelletier's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Summer Experiment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nose in a book: Lola

Who: Lola, age 6

What: The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig

When: September 14, 2015

Where: Chicago, IL

Learn more about the book at Jonathan Eig's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Birth of the Pill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top characters only getting better with age

In ongoing book series, Jeff Somers notes, "characters often seem to exist in a strange universe where nothing changes and no one ages." Yet some authors choose "the route of unexplained immortality and age their characters over the course of a series." One such character:

Kinsey Millhone

As opposed to her counterpart female detective in a series of sequentially-titled novels (Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum), Sue Grafton chose to age Kinsey Millhone in her Alphabet Series—just very, very slowly. Plum will be 31 years old forever, but Millhone has been slowly moving towards her 40th birthday according to a very precise equation—the big four-oh will happen in Grafton’s 26th and final entry in the series. This has allowed Millhone to grow older and wiser, but keeps the series firmly in the 1980s and the character in her thirties, which has proved to be a very smart way of handling the issue.

Read about another character on Somers's list.

--Marshal Zeringue