What is Nick Bostrom reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and a full professor in the Faculty of Philosophy.

His entry begins:

I happen at the moment to be reading A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, by James G. March. Judging by the title and the cover, it looks like yet another one of those decision-theory-for-managers books that clog the business section in most bookstores (you know the ones typically produced by business consultants who feel that they must publish one book to establish their credibility, whether or not they have anything new to say). And the undistinguished prose also bears the hallmarks of something composed in great haste. So much greater, then, my delight in discovering that this is actually...[read on]

Nick Bostrom has more than 140 publications to his name, including the books Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (OUP, 2008), and Enhancing Humans (OUP, 2008).

Briefly, Bostrum's research credo:

I see philosophy and science as overlapping parts of a continuum. Many of the questions that I am interested in lie in the intersection. I tend to think in terms of probability distributions rather than dichotomous epistemic categories. I guess that in the far future the human condition will have changed profoundly (for better or worse). I think there is a non-trivial chance that this "far" future will be reached in this century, within the lifespan of some currently existing people. Regarding many big picture questions, I think there is a very real possibility that our views are very wrong. Improving the ways in which we reason, act, and prioritize under uncertainty would have wide relevance to many of our biggest challenges.

Visit Nick Bostrom's website.

Writers Read: Nick Bostrom.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ad Hudler's "Man of the House"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Man of the House by Ad Hudler.

About the book, from the publisher:

For more than a decade, Linc Menner has raised the status of househusband to an art form....

While his wife, Jo, brings home the bacon, Linc Menner holds down the fort–his gourmet cooking is sublime, his cleaning unrivaled, and his devotion to his daughter, Violet, unparalleled.

But when the Menners relocate from upstate New York to the steamy beaches of Naples, Florida, life takes an unexpected turn. As the Menners renovate their new home Linc’s bliss turns into a war zone of contractors, dry wall dust, and chaos. And suddenly being surrounded by guys whose faces go blank as he expounds on the virtues of lump-free gravy makes Linc realize he has forgotten what it feels like to be a man.

So Linc trades his flip-flops for work boots, and his wild mop of hair for a barbershop buzz, and marches his flabby physique to the nearest gym–attracting the secret devotion of one of Violet’s teacher in the process. And his stunned family watches helplessly as they lose the man who keeps them all together. To make matters worse, it’s hurricane season and there’s a category 5 heading right for Naples. As life on the home front explodes into hilarity and catastrophe, Linc must chart his own delightfully crooked course to finally become the Man of the House.

Read an excerpt from Man of the House, and learn more about the author and his work at Ad Hudler's website and blog.

Ad Hudler is the author of All This Belongs To Me, Southern Living, and the best-selling Househusband.

The Page 69 Test: Man of the House.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ann Packer's five most important books

Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Songs Without Words, listed her five most important books for Newsweek. And addressed a couple of related issues:

A book you always return to:

Alice Munro's "Friend of My Youth." Hard to pick any one Munro title. Her stories let me see people and begin to understand them.

A book you hope parents read to their children:

Dr. Seuss's "The Sneetches and Other Stories." Star-bellied or plain-bellied, doesn't matter.

Read about Packer's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Asali Solomon reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Asali Solomon, author of Get Down.

From her entry:

I'm reading for the classes I teach, but it turns out to be serious pleasure reading. I just re-read Toni Morrison's Love, which disguises itself as a sort of playful riff on some of Morrison's other books, but turns out to be the history of everything: women, men, girls, black people, America, love, food, pettiness, class, cruelty, snitching, sex, Eden, social movements. It sounds daunting but it goes down easy and has about the most amazing final sequence I've read in any book.[read on]

Asali Solomon was born and raised in Philadelphia and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Trinity College.

Get Down, her first book, earned her a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, was chosen as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2007, and was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Read an excerpt from Get Down, and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and the Asali Solomon AALBC webpage.

Writers Read: Asali Solomon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Alexander & Nicholas Humez's "On the Dot"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: On the Dot: The Speck That Changed the World by Alexander Humez and Nicholas Humez.

About the book, from the publisher:

Despite the humble origins of its name (Anglo Saxon for "the speck at the head of a boil"), the dot has been one of the most versatile players in the history of written communication, to the point that it has become virtually indispensable. Now, in On the Dot, Alexander and Nicholas Humez offer a wide ranging, entertaining account of this much overlooked and miniscule linguistic sign.

The Humez brothers shed light on the dot in all its various forms. As a mark of punctuation, they show, it plays many roles--as sentence stopper, a constituent of the colon (a clause stopper), and the ellipsis (dot dot dot). In musical notation, it denotes "and a half." In computerese, it has several different functions (as in dot com, the marker between a file name and its extension, and in some slightly more arcane uses in programming languages). The dot also plays a number of roles in mathematics, including the notation of world currency (such as dollars dot cents), in Morse code (dots and dashes), and in the raised dots of Braille. And as the authors connect all these dots, they take readers on an engaging tour of the highways and byways of language, ranging from the history of the question mark and its lesser known offshoots the point d'ironie and the interrobang, to acronyms and backronyms, power point bullets and asterisks, emoticons and the "at-sign."

Playful, wide-ranging, and delightfully informative, On the Dot reveals how thoroughly the dot is embedded in our everyday world of words and ideas, acquiring a power inversely proportional to its diminutive size.

Read an excerpt from On the Dot, and learn more about the book at the Oxford University Press website.

Alexander Humez has authored or co-authored ten trade and reference books, including collaborations with his brother such as Latin for People, Alpha to Omega, A B C Et Cetera, and Zero to Lazy Eight (also with J. Maguire). Nicholas Humez is a freelance writer and silversmith. In addition to the above collaborations, he is the author of Silversmithing: A Basic Manual, plus four poetry chapbooks.

The Page 99 Test: On the Dot.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Craig McDonald's "Toros & Torsos"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Craig McDonald's Toros & Torsos.

About the book, from the publisher:

Hector Lassiter is a legendary crime novelist who writes what he lives and lives what he writes. But Hector frequently goes a step beyond, drawing friends and lovers into the tawdry and turbulent territory of his fiction. Now, the large-living pulp author has at last met his match in the ultimate performance artist: a phantom killer committed to the art of murder… a blood-thirsty provocateur who leaves a string of macabre tableaus modeled on famous works of surrealist painting and photography…

Against the vivid backdrops of a killer hurricane that nearly destroyed the Florida Keys in 1935, the Spanish Civil War, post-war Hollywood and the first days of the Castro regime in Cuba, Hector engages in a decades-long duel against a cabal of killer artists…

As in its Edgar®-nominated predecessor Head Games, history and myth merge, drawing on recent scholarship pointing to the existence of a dark underground of artists, photographers and art collectors that flourished in Europe and United States through most of the Twentieth Century.

In a blood-limned haze of love, deception, murderous metaphor and devastating betrayal, nothing is what it seems and obsession and creativity collide in a wicked and unexpected climax that will shake the art world to its foundations…

Read an excerpt from Toros & Torsos, and learn more about the author and his work at Craig McDonald's website and his Crimespace page.

Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and several online crime fiction sites. His nonfiction books include Art in the Blood, a collection of interviews with 20 major crime authors, and Rogue Males: Conversations and Confrontations About the Writing Life, from Bleak House Books.

McDonald's debut novel, Head Games, was selected as a 2008 Edgar® nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author.

The Page 69 Test: Toros & Torsos.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books on financial meltdowns

For the Wall Street Journal, Martin Mayer, a guest scholar in economic studies at the Brookings Institution and the author of many books about banking and finance, named a five best list of book on financial meltdowns.

One title on his list:

Bailout
by Irvine H. Sprague
Basic Books, 1986

"Bailout" is a superbly honest first-person account of the big bank traumas of the 1980s, written by a long-term director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Irvine H. Sprague lived through it all -- the collapse of Commonwealth Bank of Detroit, First Pennsylvania of Philadelphia, Penn Square of Oklahoma City, Seafirst of Seattle, Continental of Chicago. He responded by closing some banks, sustaining some and arranging the acquisition of others. Sprague knows all the theories, but they are not his business here; he has some stories to tell. And judgments to make: "In First Pennsylvania we put money in the bank and saved the holding company. In Continental we put money in the holding company and saved the bank. Either way, the stockholders received an outright gift from FDIC." He wrote the book, he says, to show how banking regulators make decisions, and after reading "Bailout" we do in fact know more about how the sausage got to be sausage. He leaves us with a question: "Should megabanks continue to receive favored treatment?" The past few weeks have found the wrong answer to that one.

Read about Number One on Mayer's list.

Related: Critic's chart: books on cash crashes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eric Stone's "Flight of the Hornbill," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Eric Stone's Flight of the Hornbill.

The entry begins:

I don’t expect a movie of any of my books to actually be much like my books. I’m not sure I’d want it to be. I want different things from movies and books. They’d be welcome to add action and plot elements if they wanted, so long as they stayed true to the characters, settings and basic ideas. So I’ve never given much thought as to who would play who, or who would direct.

Flight of the Hornbill is certainly no comedy, but I’d love to see it directed by Preston Sturges, my favorite comedy director of all time. He’d have a very nice feel for the social, cultural and political nuances of the books, as well as the way the characters interact with those elements. A modern director would be tougher. Maybe...[read on]

Read an excerpt from Flight of the Hornbill, and learn more about the book and author at Eric Stone's website.

Flight of the Hornbill is the third Ray Sharp novel. See the Page 69 Test for Grave Imports, the second book in the series.

My Book, The Movie: Flight of the Hornbill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: S. Squire's "I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire.

About the book, from the publisher:

A provocative survey of marriage and what it has meant for society, politics, religion, and the home.

For ten thousand years, marriage—and the idea of marriage—has been at the very foundation of human society. In this provocative and ambitious book, Susan Squire unravels the turbulent history and many implications of our most basic institution. Starting with the discovery, long before recorded time, that sex leads to paternity (and hence to couplehood), and leading up to the dawn of the modern “love marriage,” Squire delves into the many ways men and women have come together and what the state of their unions has meant for history, society, and politics — especially the politics of the home.

This book is the product of thirteen years of intense research, but even more than the intellectual scope, what sets it apart is Squire’s voice and contrarian boldness. Learned, acerbic, opinionated, and funny, she draws on everything from Sumerian mythology to Renaissance theater to Victorian housewives’ manuals (sometimes all at the same time) to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic view of the many things marriage has been and meant. The result is a book to provoke and fascinate readers of all ideological stripes: feminists, traditionalists, conservatives, and progressives alike.

Read an excerpt from I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage, and learn more about the author and her work at Susan Squire's website.

Susan Squire is the author of three books. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, New York, and The Washington Post, and in the best-selling essay collection, The Bitch in the House.

The Page 99 Test: I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Joe Abercrombie reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Joe Abercrombie, author of the First Law Trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings.

His entry begins:

Over the last couple of weeks - in an airport, on a flight, and standing on the stairs for an hour this evening - I have been reading an exciting first novel that has set its genre aflame, called The Blade Itself.

I know what you're thinking. "But isn't that your book? How dare you promote it in such a barefaced manner? You pompous arse!" And you'd be right. I am a pompous arse. But not for that reason. Because although I have been reading an exciting first novel entitled The Blade Itself, the genre it set aflame was not fantasy but crime, and the author was not me, but a very pleasant young man from Chicago called Marcus Sakey.

Allow me to explain.[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at Joe Abercrombie's website and blog.

Best Served Cold, a standalone book set in the same world as the First Law Trilogy, is due in June 2009.

Scott Lynch, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora, on Abercrombie's writing: "If you're fond of bloodless, turgid fantasy with characters as thin as newspaper and as boring as plaster saints, Joe Abercrombie is really going to ruin your day. A long career for this guy would be a gift to our genre."

Writers Read: Joe Abercrombie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Hooman Majd's "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran by Hooman Majd.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revealing look at Iran by an American journalist with an insider’s access behind Persian walls

The grandson of an eminent ayatollah and the son of an Iranian diplomat, now an American citizen, Hooman Majd is, in a way, both 100 percent Iranian and 100 percent American, combining an insider’s knowledge of how Iran works with a remarkable ability to explain its history and its quirks to Western readers. In The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, he paints a portrait of a country that is fiercely proud of its Persian heritage, mystified by its outsider status, and scornful of the idea that the United States can dictate how it should interact with the community of nations.

With wit, style, and an unusual ability to get past the typical sound bite on Iran, Majd reveals the paradoxes inherent in the Iranian character which have baffled Americans for more than thirty years. Meeting with sartorially challenged government officials in the presidential palace; smoking opium with an addicted cleric, his family, and friends; drinking fine whiskey at parties in fashionable North Tehran; and gingerly self-flagellating in a celebration of Ashura, Majd takes readers on a rare tour of Iran and shares insights shaped by his complex heritage. He considers Iran as a Muslim country, as a Shiite country, and, perhaps above all, as a Persian one. Majd shows that as Shiites marked by an inferiority complex, and Persians marked by a superiority complex, Iranians are fiercely devoted to protecting their rights, a factor that has contributed to their intransigence over their nuclear programs. He points to the importance of the Persian view of privacy, arguing that the stability of the current regime owes much to the freedom Iranians have to behave as they wish behind “Persian walls.” And with wry affection, Majd describes the Persian concept of ta’arouf, an exaggerated form of polite self-deprecation that may explain some of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s more bizarre public moments.

With unforgettable portraits of Iranians, from government figures to women cab drivers to reform-minded Ayatollahs, Majd brings to life a country that is deeply religious yet highly cosmopolitan, authoritarian yet with democratic and reformist traditions—an Iran that is a more nuanced nemesis to the United States than it is typically portrayed to be.

Read an excerpt from The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, and learn more about the book and author at Hooman Majd's website.

Hooman Majd was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1957, and educated in the West. He has written about Iran for GQ, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Observer, and was executive vice president at Island Records and head of film and music at Palm Pictures. He is a contributing editor at Interview magazine.

View the video trailer for the book, and watch Jon Stewart's interview with Hooman Majd on The Daily Show.

The Page 69 Test: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's chart: six books on Anglo-French conflict

Robert Tombs, the co-author (with Isabelle Tombs) of That Sweet Enemy, a book "about the long and sometimes fractious relationship between England and France," named a critic's chart of books on Anglo-French conflict for the Times (London).

One title on his list:

Churchill And De Gaulle by Francois Kersaudy

A French view of a formative, fraught relationship.

Read about another book on Tombs' chart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Peter Mansoor's "Baghdad at Sunrise"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Peter Mansoor's Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq.

About the book, from the publisher:

This compelling book presents an unparalleled record of what happened after U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Army Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, the on-the-ground commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division—the “Ready First Combat Team”—describes his brigade’s first year in Iraq, from the sweltering, chaotic summer after the Ba’athists’ defeat to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government a year later. Uniquely positioned to observe, record, and assess the events of that fateful year, Mansoor now explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency of unexpected strength and tenacity.

Drawing not only on his own daily combat journal but also on observations by embedded reporters, news reports, combat logs, archived e-mails, and many other sources, Mansoor offers a contemporary record of the valor, motivations, and resolve of the 1st Brigade and its attachments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet this book has a deeper significance than a personal memoir or unit history. Baghdad at Sunrise provides a detailed, nuanced analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, and along with it critically important lessons for America’s military and political leaders of the twenty-first century.

Read an excerpt from Baghdad at Sunrise, and learn more about the book at the Yale University Press website.

Peter Mansoor is the General Raymond Mason Chair of Military History, The Ohio State University. A recently retired U.S. Army colonel, he served as executive officer to Commanding General David H. Petraeus, Multi-National Force–Iraq (2007–8); as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategy Group that proposed the surge strategy in Iraq (2006); as founding director of the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center (2006); and as Commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, in Baghdad (2003–4).

Visit Peter Mansoor's faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Baghdad at Sunrise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Keir Graff's "One Nation, Under God"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: One Nation, Under God by Keir Graff.

About the book, from the publisher:

The United States is holding an election, and control of the country may be determined by a single seat in the ‘Buckle of the Bible Belt’: Tulsa, Oklahoma . . . In Tulsa, recovering methamphetamine addict Seth Stevens is trying to hold his fragile life together. But his decision to campaign for the church-supported candidate forces him to answer an age-old question: what do you do when following your faith means breaking the law?

Learn more about the book and author at Keir Graff's website.

Keir Graff is also the author of the novels Cold Lessons, under the pseudonym Michael McCulloch, and My Fellow Americans.

The Page 69 Test: One Nation, Under God.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Martin Millar reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Martin Millar, author of Love and Peace with Melody Paradise, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, Lux the Poet, The Good Fairies of New York, Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving, Ruby & The Stone Age Diet, Lonely Werewolf Girl, and Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me ... and other novels and plays and short stories and articles.

In the Los Angeles Times, Ed Park wrote of Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me: "despite the narrator's Zep obsession, the novel doesn't try to replicate the sprawling grandeur and virtuosic excess of the band's music. Instead, it unfolds in irresistibly short chapters ("Short enough for your limited attention span") and simple prose.... Even readers who last listened to "Houses of the Holy" during the Reagan administration will find much to enjoy here."

One part of his entry:

I like Japanese comics, or Manga. In the past few months I've worked my way through a large bundle of Naruto, by Masashi Kishimoto. Naruto features hordes of fighting Ninja, which is basically what I want from Manga. I've been reading some of Bleach, too, by Tite Kubo. Both Naruto and Bleach are very popular Manga but I've been reading a few other interesting titles too, such as Apothecarius Argentum by Tomomi Yamashita, an unusual tale about a Japanese apothecary.[read on]

Visit Martin Millar's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Writers Read: Martin Millar.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Ray Taras' "Europe Old and New"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Europe Old and New: Transnationalism, Belonging, Xenophobia by Ray Taras.

About the book, from the publisher:

Is Europe indeed uniting or instead falling apart as a result of anti-immigrant prejudices, a massive Islamic influx, and ancient intra-European hatreds? This innovative and engaging book explores this key question by examining the national and religious phobias and prejudices, antipathies and sympathies, stereotypes and heterotypes of Europe west and east. Considering the sources of Europe's culture-based divide, Ray Taras argues that the idea of two 'Europes' is grounded both in reality and myth. The accession process that brought a dozen new members into the European Union after 2004 highlighted the persisting gulf between "old" and "new" Europe. While many concrete borders between east and west were removed (commercial, legal, passport regimes), many remained (absence of a single Euro currency zone, labor market, and security community). Virtual borders too were invented or re-imagined: the postmaterialist, inclusionary, tolerant values supposedly found in old Europe versus the materialist, nationalistic, xenophobic ones of new Europe.

After reviewing the two Europes' contrasting historical legacies, Taras examines the EU institutions designed to overcome the historical European divide. He considers the treaties, political rhetoric, citizen attitudes, and literary narratives of belonging and separation that both bind and fray the fabric of Europe. Throughout, this interdisciplinary work provides a comprehensive, hard-hitting, and unabashed review of how enlarged Europe embraces contrasting understandings of its political home and of who belongs and who does not.

Read an excerpt from Europe Old and New, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

For more information on his research, teaching, and publications, visit Ray Taras' faculty webpage.

Ray Taras is professor of political science and director of the world literature program at Tulane University.

The Page 99 Test: Europe Old and New.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten: whale tales

Social historian and author Philip Hoare named a top ten list of books about whales for the Guardian.

One title on his list:

In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

A gripping account of the whale ship Essex, which was attacked by an enraged bull sperm whale and whose shipwrecked survivors resorted to cannibalism. The story inspired Moby-Dick, although the dialogue from the original 1821 account reads more like an outtake from In Which We Serve: "My God, Mr Chase, what is the matter?" "We have been stove by a whale."

Read about Number One on Hoare's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69 & 99: William G. Tapply's "Hell Bent"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Hell Bent by William G. Tapply.

About the book, from the publisher:

With his personal life at a bit of a cross-roads, Boston attorney Brady Coyne finds his own past coming back to haunt his professional life when his ex-girlfriend Alex Sinclair turns up looking for a lawyer to represent her brother. Augustine Sinclair was a notable photo-journalist, happily married to his high-school sweetheart with two small children – until he returned from a stint a freelancer photographer in Iraq missing a hand and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – now he’s lost his career, his peace of mind and his family. Brady is brought in to help him handle the divorce so that he does lose any more but before they get very far, the photographer is found dead in his rented apartment, an apparent suicide.

But something isn’t right about the suicide – the details are just a bit off – and Brady starts to think that his client has been murdered, the suicide staged. With very little to go on and with nearly everyone wanting to quickly close the books on a case that has all the classic indications of suicide, Brady soon finds himself in the midst of one of the most dangerous situations of his entire life, facing people who will stop at nothing to keep from being exposed.

Read an excerpt from Hell Bent, and learn more about the book and author at William G. Tapply's website.

William G. Tapply is a contributing editor to Field & Stream and the author of numerous books on fishing and wildlife, as well as more than twenty books of crime fiction.

The Page 69 Test: Hell Bent.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susan Reinhardt reading?

The latest featured contributor to Writers Read: Susan Reinhardt, an award-winning syndicated humor columnist and author of three books -- Not Tonight, Honey: Wait ‘til I’m a Size 6 (2005); Don’t Sleep With a Bubba Unless Your Eggs are in Wheelchairs (2007); and Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin (2008).

She has been called “the Southern Belle’s answer to David Sedaris” and “a modern-day, Southern-fried Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry.”

Part of her entry:

It's really crazy because I read three books at a time. Currently, I'm reading one I'd never choose on my own, but a friend said the writing was sharp and clever. It's called Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, and it's by Diablo Cody, who wrote Juno, the film, and won and Oscar for it. [read on]

Read Reinhardt's interview with Mary Ward Menke at January Magazine.

Visit Susan Reinhardt's website.

Writers Read: Susan Reinhardt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Michael Kimball's "Dear Everybody"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Michael Kimball's Dear Everybody.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jonathon Bender had something to say to the world, but the world wouldn’t listen. However, he left behind unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, employers, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the state of Michigan, and a weather satellite, among many others. These form the narrative of a remarkable life.

Dear Everybody maintains a tone of finely judged tension between laughter and tears in an involving and sympathetically written work of fiction.

Read an excerpt from Dear Everybody, and learn more about the book and author at Michael Kimball's website and blog.

Michael Kimball's first two novels are The Way the Family Got Away (2000) and How Much of Us There Was.

The Page 99 Test: Dear Everybody.

--Marshal Zeringue

Suzanne Kingsmill's "Forever Dead," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Suzanne Kingsmill's Forever Dead.

The entry begins:

I had no actors in mind when I wrote my murder mystery Forever Dead. However, while watching TV my characters have sometimes jumped out at me after their creation. I saw Cordi O'Callaghan, my lead character and a university zoology professor, in Julia Roberts as she grappled with The Pelican Brief. Cordi is continually faced with obstacles and life threatening situations and handles them as Julia Roberts's character does - with smarts.

Martha Bathgate, Cordi's overweight and humourous lab technician and best friend leapt out at me as....[read on]

Listen to the Prologue from Forever Dead and learn more about the book at Suzanne Kingsmill's website.

The Page 69 Test: Forever Dead.

My Book, The Movie: Forever Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Peterson's "First to Kill"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Andrew Peterson's First to Kill.

About the book, from the publisher:

When you’re the best at what you do, it’s not always easy to walk away. Nathan McBride was retired. The former Marine sniper and covert CIA operative had put the violence of his former life behind him. But not anymore. A deep-cover FBI agent has disappeared, along with one ton of powerful Semtex explosive, enough to unleash a disaster of international proportions. The U.S. government has no choice but to coax Nathan out of retirement. He’s the only man with the skills necessary to get the job done. But almost as soon as Nathan reluctantly accepts the assignment, he’ll find himself caught in the middle. On the one side is a ruthless adversary with a blood-chilling plan—and on the other are agents who will stop at nothing to see their own brand of justice done.

Read the first chapter of First to Kill, and learn more about the book and author at Andrew Peterson's website.

First to Kill is Andrew Peterson's debut thriller.

The Page 69 Test: First to Kill.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on the history of medicine

Stephanie J. Snow is a Research Associate at the Center for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine at the University of Manchester and the author of Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain and the newly released Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World.

She named a five best list of her favorite books on the history of medicine for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on her list:

The Social Transformation of American Medicine
by Paul Starr
Basic Books, 1982

"The dream of reason did not take power into account" -- so begins this Pulitzer Prize-winning portrait of the development of the American health-care system. Paul Starr, a sociology and public-affairs professor at Princeton University, tells the story in two parts. First, the rise of the medical profession through the 19th and early 20th centuries is shown to hinge on an unprecedented "cultural authority" derived from the legitimacy of science. It was this authority that enabled doctors to build a prosperous profession and to shape the medical system. In the second half of the book, Starr focuses on the ways in which for-profit corporations, such as insurance companies and hospitals, challenged the medical authority of doctors in the later decades of the 20th century, producing the health-care system -- much criticized yet much envied -- that the U.S. has today.

Read about Number One on Snow's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David S. Reynolds' "Waking Giant"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson by David S. Reynolds.

About the book, from the publisher:

America experienced unprecedented expansion and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. In Waking Giant, Bancroft Prize-winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds illuminates the period's exciting political story as well as the fascinating social and cultural movements that influenced it. He casts fresh light on Andrew Jackson, who redefined the presidency, along with John Quincy Adams and James K. Polk, who expanded the nation's territory and strengthened its position internationally.

Waking Giant captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. Reynolds reveals unknown dimensions of the Second Great Awakening with its sects, cults, and self-styled prophets. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America's worst social ills. He uncovers the political roots of some of America's greatest authors and artists, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: bloody duels and violent mobs, P. T. Barnum's freaks and all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets and wealthy prostitutes, table-lifting spiritualists and rabble-rousing feminists. All were crucial to the political and social ferment that led to the Civil War.

Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.

Among the praise for Waking Giant:

“A pleasure to read…. [Reynolds] does not confine himself to the staples of conventional narrative history…The result of his research is a happy mosaic of an era that may well be, just as the author suggests, "the richest" in American history.”
--Wall Street Journal

“A really good volume of history provides the reader with a keen sense of perspective and a genuine appreciation of the past. This is exactly what David S. Reynolds does in Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, which authoritatively describes the early to middle part of the American 19th Century and makes clear how important this period was to the nation’s growth in sociocultural, industrial and political terms.”
--BookPage

“A remarkable synthesis, impressive on many levels…. Award-winning historian Reynolds charts the political, cultural, economic, artistic, scientific and religious currents roiling America from the Era of Good Feelings to the verge of the Civil War.”
--Kirkus, starred review

“Offers a fine addition to the literature on pre-Civil War American history in this account of the years 1815-1848.”
--Publishers Weekly

“Highly recommended…. Bancroft Prize winner Reynolds has produced a thorough chronicle of America from 1815 to 1848.”
--Library Journal

Browse inside Waking Giant, and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and David S. Reynolds' faculty webpage.

David S. Reynolds is Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His books include John Brown, Abolitionist, winner of the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award; Walt Whitman's America, winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Beneath the American Renaissance, winner of the Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

The Page 99 Test: Waking Giant.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Dan Hooper reading?

The latest featured contributor to Writers Read: Dan Hooper, author of the newly released Nature's Blueprint: Supersymmetry and the Search for a Unified Theory of Matter and Force.

Part of his entry:

Within the last month or so, I finished reading Bill Clinton's autobiography My Life and The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis. I also read a book about the philosophy of Ayn Rand, but can't say that I found it very compelling.[read on]

Dan Hooper is also the author of Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy, a SEED magazine Notable Book.

He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago and an Associate Scientist in the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where he investigates dark matter, supersymmetry, neutrinos, extra dimensions, and cosmic rays.

Read more about Nature's Blueprint at the publisher's website.

Visit Dan Hooper's website.

Writers Read: Dan Hooper.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Betsy Thornton's "A Song for You"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Betsy Thornton's A Song for You.

About the book, from the publisher:

In A Song for You, Betsy Thornton returns to her dynamic character Chloe Newcombe, victim advocate at the Cochise County Attorney’s Office.

A heavy storm hits Dudley, Arizona, wreaking havoc. A local woman drowns in a flash flood. A heavy drinker falls into the draining system and is finally found a few days later. The Barnetts, who moved into town six months ago, are unhappy to learn that a retaining wall on their property will need immediate fixing. And they’re even more dismayed when the workers’ digging unearths a dead body.

The man’s body has obviously been there a long time. When Rachel Macabee reads about it in the local paper, she is convinced that the dead man was a member of the band that her mom sang with when Rachel was a little girl. He had disappeared just a few days before her mother was killed. The band members assumed that he had left in search of a better job, but Rachel had never believed that---and now she knows she was right.

She doesn’t trust the police---they were wrong the first time. So she approaches private detective Brian Flynn, a former police officer as well as Chloe Newcombe’s former lover. He agrees to try to discover what really happened. And after all these years, Rachel may finally find her mother’s killer.

Betsy Thornton pens the stories about the inhabitants of this very real-life mountain town with great style. A Song for You promises more atmosphere, likable characters, and another entertaining puzzle.

Read an excerpt from A Song for You, and learn more about the author and her work at Betsy Thornton's website.

Betsy Thornton, who works for the Cochise County Attorney’s Victim Witness Program as a victim compensation advocate and a victim advocate, is the author of the Chloe Newcombe Mystery series.

The Page 69 Test: A Song for You.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lisa Lutz's "The Spellman Files"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.

Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.

The Spellman Files is the first novel in a winning and hilarious new series featuring the Spellman family in all its lovable chaos.

Read an excerpt from The Spellman Files, and learn more about the book and author at Lisa Lutz's website.

Lisa Lutz wrote the screenplay for a mob comedy called Plan B; her other novels include Curse of the Spellmans.

The Page 99 Test: The Spellman Files.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten: Irish crime fiction

At The Rap Sheet, crime writer Declan Burke posted a recommended list of Irish crime fiction.

One title on the list:

The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe.

In its first-person evocation of a poignant, childish need to belong that sours into murderous obsession, The Butcher Boy is literary Ireland’s equivalent of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me.

Read about another title from Burke's list.

Check out an excerpt from Burke's The Big O and learn more about the book and author at the publisher's website and the Crime Always Pays blog.

The Page 99 Test:: The Big O (Irish edition).

The Page 99 Test: The Big O.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Fuller's "Sweetsmoke"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: David Fuller's Sweetsmoke.

About the book, from the publisher:

The year is 1862, and the Civil War rages through the South. On a Virginia tobacco plantation, another kind of battle soon begins. There, Cassius Howard, a skilled carpenter and slave, risks everything—punishment, sale to a cotton plantation, even his life—to learn the truth concerning the murder of Emoline, a freed black woman, a woman who secretly taught him to read and once saved his life. It is clear that no one cares about her death in the midst of a brutal and hellish war. No one but Cassius, who braves horrific dangers to escape the plantation and avenge her loss.

As Cassius seeks answers about Emoline’s murder, he finds an unexpected friend and ally in Quashee, a new woman brought over from another plantation; and a formidable adversary in Hoke Howard, the master he has always obeyed.

With subtlety and beauty, Sweetsmoke captures the daily indignities and harrowing losses suffered by slaves, the turmoil of a country waging countless wars within its own borders, and the lives of those people fighting for identity, for salvation, and for freedom.

Read an excerpt from Sweetsmoke, and learn more about the book and author at David Fuller's website and blog.

Screenwriter David Fuller spent eight years researching Sweetsmoke, his first novel, and along the way discovered that he had ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetsmoke.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Thomas P. Slaughter reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Thomas P. Slaughter, Professor of History at the University of Rochester and author, most recently, of The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition (Hill & Wang, September 2008).

One item from his entry:

the Library of America volume Zuckerman Bound, which collects Phillip Roth’s trilogy from the 1980s.[read on]

Among the praise for Slaughter's The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition:

“A masterful biography... Any understanding of the history of social reform in America begins with Woolman, and understanding Woolman begins here.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A “superb narrative. . . In our own age of conspicuous consumption, the complex soul Slaughter so ably and beautifully resurrects is full of contemporary relevance as an example of principled living.”
—Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

A “thoughtful, scrupulous, enlightening, and engrossing masterpiece.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Thomas Slaughter has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of rescuing a saint—here an Abolitionist Quaker saint—entombed merely in fame. This discerning, poetic biography discloses a Woolman far more powerful, both personally and morally, than even his famous Journal revealed. Few histories are more quietly riveting, more piercingly compelling. The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman is an amazing reconstruction of a daring human life.”
—Jon Butler, Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Yale University

Read more about The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition at the publisher's website.

Writers Read: Thomas P. Slaughter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Diana Spechler's "Who By Fire"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Diana Spechler's Who By Fire.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bits and Ash were children when the kidnapping of their younger sister, Alena—an incident for which Ash blames himself—caused an irreparable family rift. Thirteen years later, Ash is living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel, cutting himself off from his mother, Ellie, and his wild-child sister, Bits. But soon he may have to face them again; Alena's remains have finally been uncovered. Now Bits is traveling across the world in a bold and desperate attempt to bring her brother home and salvage what's left of their family.

Sharp and captivating, Who by Fire deftly explores what happens when people try to rescue one another.

Browse inside Who By Fire, and read more about the book and author at Diana Spechler's website.

Diana Spechler's fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, Moment, Lilith, and elsewhere. She received her MFA degree from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University.

The Page 99 Test: Who By Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joanne Rendell 's "The Professors' Wives' Club"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Joanne Rendell 's The Professors' Wives' Club.

About the book, from the publisher:

A debut novel about the intertwining lives of college faculty wives.

Nestled among Manhattan University's faculty housing, there is a garden where four women will meet—each with a scandalous secret that could upset their lives, destroy their families, and rock the prestigious university to its very core.

With its maple trees, iron gate, and fence laced with honeysuckle, Manhattan U's garden offers faculty wives Mary, Sofia, Ashleigh, and Hannah much needed refuge from their problems. But as Mary's husband, the power-hungry dean, plans to demolish their beloved garden, these four women will discover a surprising secret about a lost Edgar Allan Poe manuscript—and realize they must find the courage to stand up for their passions, dreams, and desires.

Learn more about the book and author at Joanne Rendell's website, blog, and MySpace page.

Joanne Rendell was born and raised in the UK. After completing a PhD in English Literature, she moved to the States to be with her husband, a professor at NYU. She now lives in a student dorm in New York City with her family.

The Page 69 Test: The Professors' Wives' Club.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about Horatio Nelson

Roy and Lesley Adkins are the authors of the newly released Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy and other books, including Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle (US title, Nelson's Trafalgar).

For the Guardian, they named a top ten list of books about Horatio Nelson.

One title on the list:

Nelson: A Dream of Glory by John Sugden

This is the book for those who want more about the hero. It covers his early life and career, from his birth in 1758 to the disastrous, failed attack on Tenerife in 1797, in which he lost his right arm. These years are presented in great detail in the 788 pages; publication of the second volume was expected this spring, and its delay is a huge disappointment to Nelson enthusiasts.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue