Ten top books about the unconscious

John Bargh is a social psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on the unconscious mind. His research has appeared in over 170 publications, as well as in Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In 2014, he received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. He is currently the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology at Yale University and director of the ACME (Automaticity in Cognition, Motivation, and Evaluation) laboratory. Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do is his first book.

One of Bargh's top ten books on the variety of unconscious influences in everyday life, as shared at the Guardian:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1984)

In a quite different take on the existential question of personal control, Kundera explores the impact that chance events have on the courses of our lives. The central incident, how Teresa and Tomas first met in the Zurich train station, is a love story “born of six improbable fortuities” that could so easily not have happened at all. Kundera’s existential point reaches deeply – even into those mundane spheres of life where we feel free from other forms of control, by government or police, for example. Even here, he shows, our lives are still significantly shaped by chance factors equally out of our control.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is among Amor Towles's six favorite books, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's top ten wartime love stories, and Olen Steinhauer's six favorite books. Lee Child called The Unbearable Lightness of Being "his private pick for the 20th–century novel that will live the longest." John Mullan includes it among ten of the best visits to the lavatory in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Scott S. Reese's "Imperial Muslims"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Imperial Muslims: Islam, Community and Authority in the Indian Ocean, 1839-1937 by Scott S. Reese.

About the book, from the publisher:

The webs, nodes and networks created by Britain's Indian Ocean Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are here explored in the context of their personal and social impact. Using the British Settlement of Aden as its focus, the book examines the development of a local community within the spaces created by imperial rule. It explores how individuals from widely disparate backgrounds brought together by the networks of empire created a cohesive community utilizing the one commonality at their disposal: their faith. Specifically, it examines how religious institutions and spiritual ideas served as parameters for the creation of community and the kinds of symbolic and cultural capital an individual needed to attain communal membership and influence within the confines of imperial rule.

Learn more about Imperial Muslims at the Edinburgh University Press website.

Scott S. Reese is Professor of Islamic History at Northern Arizona University and author of Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir and The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa.

The Page 99 Test: Imperial Muslims.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Moody's "One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning: Hater series (Volume 4) by David Moody.

The entry begins:

It’s interesting - this is the first novel I’ve written where I wasn't thinking about a potential movie adaptation as I was writing. I think there are two reasons for this. First, this is an offshoot of my Hater series, and a film adaptation of the original novel should soon be entering production (it’s been on/ off for the last decade, frustratingly), so I’m still focused on a screen adaptation of book one. Second, the cast of characters in this book are people I work with. Or, at least, are inspired by people I work with. For that reason, it’s hard to visualise actors playing their roles. However, a reviewer got in touch yesterday and suggested that One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning would make a great stage play. Now that...[read on]

Visit David Moody's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hater.

The Page 69 Test: Dog Blood.

My Book, The Movie: Dog Blood.

The Page 69 Test: Autumn: Disintegration.

My Book, The Movie: One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five fake memoirs still worth reading

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Reads blog he tagged five hoax memoirs still worth reading, including:

A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey

The most famous hoax memoir of recent history, Frey’s hugely successful book started off life as a novel he couldn’t sell. The story of Frey’s supposed battles with addiction, time spent in rehab and jail, and his relationship with a girlfriend who eventually killed herself—it’s all fodder for a powerful story. Frey clearly had serious problems, and although he’s admitted to changing and exaggerating huge portions of the book (journalists have tried repeatedly to find any evidence for some of the most outlandish sections without success), the parts that illustrates the way addiction takes over and then destroys lives ring powerfully true. Frey didn’t suffer overmuch for his crimes; aside from a bit of public humiliation and a legendary Oprah shaming, his book still sells, and he still writes and runs his own publishing company.

Read about another entry on the list.

A Million Little Pieces is among Lauren Passell's seven books that seemed too good to be true...and were, and Benjamin Radford's top five faked memoirs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Mandy Mikulencak's "The Last Suppers"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Last Suppers by Mandy Mikulencak.

About the book, from the publisher:

Many children have grown up in the shadow of Louisiana’s Greenmount State Penitentiary. Most of them—sons and daughters of corrections officers and staff—left the place as soon as they could. Yet Ginny Polk chose to come back to work as a prison cook. She knows the harsh reality of life within those walls—the cries of men being beaten, the lines of shuffling inmates chained together. Yet she has never seen them as monsters, not even the ones sentenced to execution. That’s why, among her duties, Ginny has taken on a special responsibility: preparing their last meals.

Pot roast or red beans and rice, coconut cake with seven-minute frosting or pork neck stew ... whatever the men ask for Ginny prepares, even meeting with their heartbroken relatives to get each recipe just right. It’s her way of honoring their humanity, showing some compassion in their final hours. The prison board frowns upon the ritual, as does Roscoe Simms, Greenmount’s Warden. Her daddy’s best friend before he was murdered, Roscoe has always watched out for Ginny, and their friendship has evolved into something deep and unexpected. But when Ginny stumbles upon information about the man executed for killing her father, it leads to a series of dark and painful revelations.

Truth, justice, mercy—none of these are as simple as Ginny once believed. And the most shocking crimes may not be the ones committed out of anger or greed, but the sacrifices we make for love.

Visit Mandy Mikulencak's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Suppers.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Suppers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Natalie Carnes's "Image and Presence"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia by Natalie Carnes.

About the book, from the publisher:

Images increasingly saturate our world, making present to us what is distant or obscure. Yet the power of images also arises from what they do not make present—from a type of absence they do not dispel. Joining a growing multidisciplinary conversation that rejects an understanding of images as lifeless objects, this book offers a theological meditation on the ways images convey presence into our world. Just as Christ negates himself in order to manifest the invisible God, images, Natalie Carnes contends, negate themselves to give more than they literally or materially are. Her Christological reflections bring iconoclasm and iconophilia into productive relation, suggesting that they need not oppose one another.

Investigating such images as the biblical golden calf and paintings of the Virgin Mary, Carnes explores how to distinguish between iconoclasms that maintain fidelity to their theological intentions and those that lead to visual temptation. Offering ecumenical reflections on issues that have long divided Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, Image and Presence provokes a fundamental reconsideration of images and of the global image crises of our time.

Learn more about Image and Presence at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Image and Presence.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about Ireland

One of Marjorie Kehe's ten best books about Ireland, as shared at the Christian Science Monitor:

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle.

You could pick up any Roddy Doyle work and learn a good bit about life in Ireland, but this story of a group of working-class Irish kids who form a band and hope to bring soul to Dublin is particularly winning.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Commitments is among four books that changed Maureen McCarthy, Dorian Lynskey's ten best fictional musicians, and Tiffany Murray's top ten rock'n'roll novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Claire Douglas reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Claire Douglas, author of Local Girl Missing.

Her entry begins:

I have just finished reading a gothic horror called The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. I picked the book up because the cover is absolutely stunning – one of the best I have seen – and I loved the sound of the story. It’s set in the 1800s and follows recently widowed Elsie as she heads to her dead husband’s isolated family home. While there, she finds in the attic some life-sized wooden cut-outs of different people; a young girl, a gypsy boy, a washer woman and a cook, called Silent Companions and a diary of a woman who lived in the same house two-hundred years before. As she reads the diary she learns more about these Silent Companions, and her suspicions...[read on]

About Local Girl Missing, from the publisher:

Someone knows where she is…

The old Victorian pier was a thing of beauty until it was allowed to decay. It was where the youth of Oldcliffe-on-Sea would go to hang out. It’s also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier disappeared eighteen years ago.

Francesca Howe, known as Frankie, was Sophie’s best friend, and even now she is haunted by the mystery of what happened to her. When Frankie gets a call from Sophie’s brother, Daniel, informing her that human remains have been found washed up nearby, she immediately wonders if it could be Sophie, and returns to her old hometown to try and find closure. Now an editor at a local newspaper, Daniel believes that Sophie was terrified of someone and that her death was the result of foul play rather than “death by misadventure,” as the police claim.

Daniel arranges a holiday rental for Frankie that overlooks the pier where Sophie disappeared. In the middle of winter and out of season, Frankie feels isolated and unnerved, especially when she is out on the pier late one night and catches a glimpse of a woman who looks like Sophie. Is the pier really haunted, as they joked all those years ago? Could she really be seeing her friend’s ghost? And what actually happened to her best friend all those years ago?

Harrowing, electrifying, and thoroughly compelling, Local Girl Missing showcases once again bestselling author Claire Douglas’ extraordinary storytelling talent.

Learn more about Local Girl Missing.

Writers Read: Claire Douglas.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight juicy, heartbreaking, fascinating memoirs from Hollywood

At Flavorwire Alison Nastasi tagged eight juicy Hollywood memoirs, including:

Tallulah: My Autobiography

The screen and stage siren dishes about her collaboration with Hitchcock and more. Best quote: “I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water — I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.” From University Press of Mississippi:

In Tallulah, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller for twenty-six weeks, Bankhead’s literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London. Along with a searing defense of her lifestyle and rambunctious habits, she provides a fiercely opinionated, wildly funny account of American stage at a time when the movies were beginning to cast theater into eclipse. This is not only a memoir of an independent woman but also an insider look at American entertainment during a golden age.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

C. Courtney Joyner's "Nemo Rising," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Nemo Rising by C. Courtney Joyner.

The entry begins:

Nemo Rising actually started as a screenplay, and has a long history as a script behind it. At one point, Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey was to play Nemo, with Hailey Atwill as the female lead, but the film didn’t come together, and I ultimately used my script as the outline for the book. There’s actually a chapter in the book that details a bit of this saga, along with some pages of the screenplay. It’s on the development trail yet again, and I’m hoping the novel will push a TV version – always my focus – into production. My Nemo now? Sean...[read on]

Visit C. Courtney Joyner's website.

My Book, The Movie: Nemo Rising.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: J. Griffith Rollefson's "Flip the Script"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Flip the Script: European Hip Hop and the Politics of Postcoloniality by J. Griffith Rollefson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Hip hop has long been a vehicle for protest in the United States, used by its primarily African American creators to address issues of prejudice, repression, and exclusion. But the music is now a worldwide phenomenon, and outside the United States it has been taken up by those facing similar struggles. Flip the Script offers a close look at the role of hip hop in Europe, where it has become a politically powerful and commercially successful form of expression for the children and grandchildren of immigrants from former colonies.

Through analysis of recorded music and other media, as well as interviews and fieldwork with hip hop communities, J. Griffith Rollefson shows how this music created by black Americans is deployed by Senegalese Parisians, Turkish Berliners, and South Asian Londoners to both differentiate themselves from and relate themselves to the dominant culture. By listening closely to the ways these postcolonial citizens in Europe express their solidarity with African Americans through music, Rollefson shows, we can literally hear the hybrid realities of a global double consciousness.

Learn more about Flip the Script at the University of Chicago Press website, and check out the book’s companion website, which has audio, video, chapter summaries, more excerpts, other resources, and information on buying the book.

The Page 99 Test: Flip the Script.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven beautifully strange romance books

At Entertainment Weekly Sarah Weldon tagged eleven beautifully strange romance books to read if you loved the awards season frontrunning film, The Shape of Water. One title on the list:

Cassandra Rose Clarke, The Mad Scientist's Daughter

Finn, an android who looks and acts more human than he actually is, is tasked to tutor Cat and be her confidant as she grows up. But all the while, the government is cracking down on the increasing robot-population.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter is among Jeff Somers's ten highly unlikely SFF love stories.

My Book, The Movie: The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Steven Cooper's "Desert Remains"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Desert Remains by Steven Cooper.

About Desert Remains, from the publisher:

Someone is filling the desert caves around Phoenix with bodies—a madman who, in a taunting ritual, is leaving behind a record of his crimes etched into the stone.

With no leads and no suspects, Detective Alex Mills sees a case spinning out of control. City leaders want the case solved yesterday, and another detective wants to elbow Mills out of the way. As the body count rises, Mills turns to Gus Parker, an “intuitive medium” whose murky visions sometimes point to real clues. It’s an unorthodox approach, but Mills is desperate.

When Parker is brought to the crime scenes, he sees visions of a house on fire and a screaming child. But what does it mean? He struggles to interpret his psychic messages, knowing that the killer is one step ahead and that in this vast desert, the next murder could happen anywhere. Nor does it help that he’s always been unlucky in love and now finds himself the prey of a lovelorn stalker. She is throwing him off his game.

Someone will win this contest, and both Parker and Mills fear it will be the cunning, ruthless killer, who is able to use the trackless landscape as a cover for his brutal crimes.

Visit Steven Cooper's website.

My Book, The Movie: Desert Remains.

Writers Read: Steven Cooper.

The Page 69 Test: Desert Remains.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine Hollywood memoirs that reveal the industry's dark side

At Bustle, Sadie Trombetta tagged nine memoirs that reveal the dark side of Hollywood, including:

The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski by Samantha Geimer

Samantha Geimer was a 13-year-old aspiring model when, in 1977, Hollywood hotshot Roman Polanski drugged, assaulted, and raped her in the home of actor Jack Nicholson. In The Girl, Geimer reveals in stark detail the events of that night and, more importantly, what came after: a global media frenzy, a public trial and conviction that lead to Polanski fleeing the country. With stark emotion and clarity, Geimer recounts the years of pain and struggle she suffered from as a result of her attack, while Polanski continued to find success and acclaim in the industry. A powerful and important story that is as relevant today as it was when it happened 50 years ago.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jessica Brockmole reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jessica Brockmole, author of Woman Enters Left.

Her entry begins:

This fall there’s been a lot of nonfiction on my reading stack, some for research, some for pleasure. One that fascinated me was Lizabeth Cohen’s A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption, about the changing role of the American consumer from the Great Depression to the postwar era, and Virginia Scharff’s Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age, which traces the relationship between women and automobiles in the early twentieth century. Although I...[read on]

About Woman Enters Left, from the publisher:

In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone call: She has inherited the estate of Florence “Florrie” Daniels, a Hollywood screenwriter she barely recalls meeting. Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.

Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival.

In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our traveling companions than by our destinations.

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Brockmole's website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

The Page 69 Test: Letters from Skye.

My Book, The Movie: Letters from Skye.

My Book, The Movie: Woman Enters Left.

The Page 69 Test: Woman Enters Left.

Writers Read: Jessica Brockmole.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul Kix's "The Saboteur"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France's Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando by Paul Kix.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II—Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur—and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain’s Special Operations Executive.

A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent chateaux and educated in Europe's finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combat—cracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare hands—from the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies, beloved by Winston Churchill, who altered the war in Europe with tactics that earned it notoriety as the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germans’ war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, La Rochefoucald withstood months of torture without cracking, and escaped his own death, not once but twice.

The Saboteur recounts La Rochefoucauld’s enthralling adventures, from jumping from a moving truck on his way to his execution to stealing Nazi limos to dressing up in a nun’s habit—one of his many disguises and impersonations. Whatever the mission, whatever the dire circumstance, La Rochefoucauld acquitted himself nobly, with the straight-back aplomb of a man of aristocratic breeding: James Bond before Ian Fleming conjured him.

More than just a fast-paced, true thriller, The Saboteur is also a deep dive into an endlessly fascinating historical moment, telling the untold story of a network of commandos that battled evil, bravely worked to change the course of history, and inspired the creation of America’s own Central Intelligence Agency.

Visit Paul Kix's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Saboteur.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books with a Cincinnati-area connection

At Cincinnati Magazine Justin Williams tagged six great books with local or regional connection to Cincinnati. Two titles on the list:

The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash by Candace Ganger

The tragic, hilarious, complicated teenage love story of two southwest Ohio kids who meet briefly at a party and are brought back together by fate, loss, and the local roller skating rink. It’s like a Midwestern Billy Joel song on wheels.

My Book, The Movie: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash.

The Page 69 Test: The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash.

Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed by John Keyse-Walker

If the title isn’t enticing enough—it’s the sequel to Sun, Sand, Murder, btw—Ohio resident Keyse-Walker sends Constable Teddy Creque back to the British Virgin Islands to investigate a deadly shark attack that is, ahem, fishier than it initially appears.

My Book, The Movie: Beach, Breeze, Bloodshed.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Gavin Ehringer & Onda

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Gavin Ehringer & Onda.

The author, on how Onda got his name:

Onda means “wave” in Spanish. I first saw Aussies at the beach in California as a kid. I called them “surfer dogs,” because I didn’t know their breed! Later, I encountered them in ...[read on]

About Ehringer's Leaving the Wild: The Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows, and Horses, from the publisher:

A thought-provoking and surprising book that explores the ever-evolving relationship between humans and domesticated animals.

The domestication of animals changed the course of human history. But what about the animals who abandoned their wild existence in exchange for our care and protection? Domestication has proven to be a wildly successful survival strategy. But this success has not been without its drawbacks. A modern dairy cow’s daily energy output equals that of a Tour de France rider. Feral cats overpopulate urban areas. And our methods of breeding horses and dogs have resulted in debilitating and sometimes lethal genetic diseases. But these problems and more can be addressed, if we have the will and the compassion.

Human values and choices determine an animal’s lot in life even before he or she is born. Just as a sculptor’s hands shape clay, so human values shape our animals—for good and or ill. The little-examined, yet omnipresent act of breeding lies at the core of Gavin Ehringer's eye-opening book. You’ll meet cows cloned from steaks, a Quarter horse stallion valued at $7.5 million, Chinese dogs that glow in the dark, and visit a Denver cat show featuring naked cats and other cuddly mutants. Is this what the

Visit Gavin Ehringer's website.

The Page 99 Test: Leaving the Wild.

Coffee with a Canine: Gavin Ehringer & Onda.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five delicious food memoirs

At B&N Reads Madina Papadopoulos tagged five delicious food memoirs, including:

32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line, by Eric Ripert and Veronica Chambers

Foodies flock to NYC to taste Eric Ripert’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Bernardin. At the upscale eatery, the Chef Ripert spoils and enchants diners with an array of delectable seafood, every bite a taste of la dolce vita. But Ripert’s life wasn’t always easy, and it was in his at times challenging childhood he found solace in his innate gift: cooking. The story is at once a tale about food and coming of age in the kitchen. And the book is much more accessible (and affordable) than a dinner at Le Bernardin.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Kathryn Erskine's "The Incredible Magic of Being"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Incredible Magic of Being by Kathryn Erskine.

About the book, from the publisher:

A contemporary story about Julian's "uni-sense," his love of science and comets, and his mystical ways of seeing the world as he faces questions about what makes him special. Some might say Julian is sheltered. His sister Pookie certainly would. But he lives large, and his eternal optimism allows him to see infinite possibilities wherever he looks. He has to think positively since he believes he might only be on this earth for a few more years. As his family moves from Washington, DC to Maine, Julian feels the weight of the transition. His once strong "uni-sense" with his sister isn't working anymore, but if he can do something truly incredible, like discover a comet that he can name for himself, he'll be able to unite his family even after he's gone. As Julian searches the night sky, he discovers his neighbor, Mr. X, who on one hand can put an end to his parents' dream of opening their B&B by opposing the addition their house required, and on the other hand needs healing of his own. As an avid student of science, Julian understands that there is so much about the universe that we don't yet know. Who is to say what's possible and what's not?

Learn more about the book and author at Kathryn Erskine's website.

Check out Erskine's top 10 first person narratives.

Coffee with a Canine: Kathryn Erskine & Fletcher.

The Page 69 Test: The Badger Knight.

My Book, The Movie: The Badger Knight.

The Page 69 Test: The Incredible Magic of Being.

--Marshal Zeringue