What is Dara Horn reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Dara Horn, author of A Guide for the Perplexed.

Her entry begins:

I just finished a marvelous book that I completely expected to loathe: The Liar’s Gospel by Naomi Alderman.

Why did I think I’d hate it? Well, it’s a historical novel about Jesus. I’ve got nothing against Jesus, but the likelihood of there being anything new to say about him seemed rather low—and the fictionalization of massively-mythologized historical figures almost always disappoints me. (The movie Lincoln may have been a brilliant piece of filmmaking, but it still bored me to tears.) On top of that, like many people with a decent Jewish education, I already know more about Roman-occupied Judea than any normal person should—and I suspected this alone would disqualify me from enjoying the book. But when I heard a brilliant interview on Tablet magazine’s podcast with Alderman—who, like me, had the kind of education that encourages absurd levels of knowledge about Roman-occupied Judea—I decided to give it a try.

Wow. For starters, Alderman is a beautifully subtle and elegant writer. She could...[read on]

About A Guide for the Perplexed, from the publisher:

The incomparable Dara Horn returns with a spellbinding novel of how technology changes memory and how memory shapes the soul.

Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go. But in Egypt’s postrevolutionary chaos, Josie is abducted—leaving Judith free to take over Josie’s life at home, including her husband and daughter, while Josie’s talent for preserving memories becomes a surprising test of her empathy and her only means of escape.

A century earlier, another traveler arrives in Egypt: Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor hunting for a medieval archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. Both he and Josie are haunted by the work of the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, a doctor and rationalist who sought to reconcile faith and science, destiny and free will. But what Schechter finds, as he tracks down the remnants of a thousand-year-old community’s once-vibrant life, will reveal the power and perils of what Josie’s ingenious work brings into being: a world where nothing is ever forgotten.

An engrossing adventure that intertwines stories from Genesis, medieval philosophy, and the digital frontier, A Guide for the Perplexed is a novel of profound inner meaning and astonishing imagination.

Learn more about the author and her work at Dara Horn's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Horn is also the author of the novels All Other Nights, The World to Come, and In the Image.

The Page 99 Test: The World to Come.

The Page 99 Test: All Other Nights.

The Page 69 Test: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Writers Read: Dara Horn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top debut novels

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Melissa Albert tagged five notable--and ambitious--debut novels, including:

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith.

Intertwining two generations, three families, and a mass of cultural and historical influences, Smith’s book was begun when she was an undergrad, and released when she was just 24. It focuses primarily on Irie, the awkward offspring of a May-December marriage between a once-suicidal World War II vet and a young Jamaican woman. It’s funny, rangy, and crowded with characters, all of them with assured, distinctly rendered voices.

Read about another debut on the list.

White Teeth is on Nigel Williams's list of ten of the best books about suburbia and John Mullan's list of ten of the most notable New Years in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

April Genevieve Tucholke's "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke.

The entry begins:

I haven’t actually done this yet. Cast my characters. Not even in my mind, during an idle moment while waiting in line or staring out a car window. But there’s no time like the present…

Violet: Hailee Steinfeld. She isn’t blond and blue-eyed like my main character, but who cares. She has Violet’s wide-eyed, quiet depth. I loved this girl in True Grit. She just blew me away.

Neely. The laughing brother with the temper and the heart of gold: Anton Yelchin. He rocked his role in both J. J. Abrams’s Star Trek movies, but it was his riveting gravitas in...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at April Genevieve Tucholke's website.

My Book, The Movie: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 10 most unbelievable alien races in science fiction

Charlie Jane Anders, news editor for io9, compiled a list of the ten most unbelievable alien races in science fiction. Entries come from comic books, movies and television, and this one from the fiction shelves:

Vogons, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

These are the bureaucratic, poetry-writing aliens who demolish the Earth. As Matt Leach notes: "So much paper work just to have intercourse. They would have died out quickly." (Plus, also from Hitchhiker's Guide, the Hoovooloo, a hyper-intelligent shade of blue. Which, yeah, not really that likely.)

Read about another entry on the list.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy appears on Charlie Jane Anders's lists of eleven books that every aspiring television writer should read and ten satirical novels that could teach you to survive the future, Saci Lloyd's top ten list of political books for teenagers, Rob Reid's list of 6 favorite books, Esther Inglis-Arkell's list of ten of the best bars in science fiction, Don Calame's top ten list of funny teen boy books, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best instances of invisibility in literature.

Also see: Alice-Azania Jarvis's reading list on aliens and John Mullan's list of ten of the best aliens in science fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Eric Gansworth's "If I Ever Get Out of Here"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth.

About the book, from the publisher:

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him -- people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan's side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis's home -- will he still be his friend?

Acclaimed adult author Eric Gansworth makes his YA debut with this wry and powerful novel about friendship, memory, and the joy of rock 'n' roll.

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Gansworth's website.

My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

Writers Read: Eric Gansworth.

The Page 69 Test: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sixteen top books for city-hopping through Europe

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Jess Dukes tagged 16 of the best books for city-hopping through Europe, including:

England, England, by Julian Barnes

Sir Jack Pitman, tycoon, invests big in an amusement-park version of England on the Isle of Wight, where tourists can shop at Harrod’s in the Tower of London and visit Princess Di’s grave site. Inevitably, Pitman finds this harder to build than he imagined. Barnes’ novel reminds us that there are two Englands: the one we think we know, where you can sit in a pub overlooking the white cliffs of Dover…and then there’s the actual England.

Read about another book on the list.

England, England is one of John Sutherland's five top books about the decline of England.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tom Kizzia's "Pilgrim's Wilderness"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier by Tom Kizzia.

About the book, from the publisher:

Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness – and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.

When Papa Pilgrim appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy with his wife and fifteen children in tow, his new neighbors had little idea of the trouble to come. The Pilgrim Family presented themselves as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal, with their proud piety and beautiful old-timey music, but their true story ran dark and deep. Within weeks, Papa had bulldozed a road through the mountains to the new family home at an abandoned copper mine, sparking a tense confrontation with the National Park Service and forcing his ghost town neighbors to take sides in an ever-more volatile battle over where a citizen’s rights end and the government’s power begins.

In Pilgrim’s Wilderness, veteran Alaska journalist Tom Kizzia unfolds the remarkable, at times harrowing, story of a charismatic spinner of American myths who was not what he seemed, the townspeople caught in his thrall, and the family he brought to the brink of ruin. As Kizzia discovered, Papa Pilgrim was in fact the son of a rich Texas family with ties to Hoover’s FBI and strange, oblique connections to the Kennedy assassination and the movie stars of Easy Rider. And as his fight with the government in Alaska grew more intense, the turmoil in his brood made it increasingly difficult to tell whether his children were messianic followers or hostages in desperate need of rescue. In this powerful piece of Americana, written with uncommon grace and high drama, Kizzia uses his unparalleled access to capture an era-defining clash between environmentalists and pioneers ignited by a mesmerizing sociopath who held a town and a family captive.

Learn more about the book and author at Tom Kizzia's website.

The Page 99 Test: Pilgrim's Wilderness.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Julia Keller reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Julia Keller, author of Bitter River.

Her entry begins:

Last year I read an excerpt from The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (Viking Penguin) by Robert Macfarlane in Granta magazine, and was knocked sideways by its beauty, its erudition, its rousing challenge to the sedentary. I'm ashamed to say that it took me a very long time to go get the book itself. I finally did, and am now embarked upon it once more, and am -- once more -- mesmerized, besotted, exhilarated, intrigued, startled, and charmed. The book is a sort of travel journal that recounts Macfarlane's excursions from his home in Cambridge, England, to various points on the compass -- but it's so much more than that as well. It's a poetic but information-rich meditation on...[read on]

About Bitter River, from the publisher:

In the next stunning novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Julia Keller, following the popular A Killing in the Hills, a pregnant teenager is found murdered at the bottom of a river.

Phone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you’re the county’s prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either. So when Bell Elkins picks up the phone she already knows she won’t like what she’s about to hear, but she’s still not prepared for this: 16-year-old Lucinda Trimble’s body has been found at the bottom of Bitter River. And Lucinda didn't drown—she was dead before her body ever hit the water.

With a case like that, Bell knows the coming weeks are going to be tough. But that’s not all Bell is coping with these days. Her daughter is now living with Bell’s ex-husband, hours away. Sheriff Nick Fogelsong, one of Bell’s closest friends, is behaving oddly. Furthermore, a face from her past has resurfaced for reasons Bell can’t quite figure. Searching for the truth, both behind Lucinda’s murder and behind her own complicated relationships, will lead Bell down a path that might put her very life at risk.

In Bitter River, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller once again weaves a compelling, haunting mystery against the stark beauty and extreme poverty of a small West Virginia mountain town.

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

Writers Read: Julia Keller (September 2012).

Writers Read: Julia Keller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven stellar novels of 1998

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Nicole Hill tagged seven top novels of 1998, including:

About a Boy, by Nick Hornby

And they say the the aughts were the domain of overgrown man-children. Here, the man-child is a well-off bachelor (so, in essence, Hugh Grant). In his quest to woo sexy single mothers, he joins a single-parent support group, ends up meeting a schoolboy, Marcus, whose grasp on all things social is somewhat tenuous, and bada bing bada boom—you’ve got yourself an infinitely readable, disarmingly witty good time.

Read about the other books on the list.

About a Boy is one of Kay S. Hymowitz's five best books on the won't-grow-up modern male.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top writer/illustrators

Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator who was born in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. He currently lives in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the novels Observatory Mansions and Alva and Irva: the Twins Who Saved a City, which have been translated into thirteen different languages, and both of which he illustrated. His latest book is Heap House, book one of The Iremonger Trilogy.

One of Carey's top ten writer/illustrators, as told to the Guardian:

The Tales of Beatrix Potter

Potter was of course a dazzling illustrator. Her watercolours are extremely pretty but that doesn't mean there's no edge to her: see The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, those rats can terrify. Samuel a "dreadful 'normous big rat" and his scrawny wife Anna Maria roll Tom Kitten in pastry and it's marvellously unsettling, as are the dolls who are strange bit parts in a couple of the books, Lucinda and Jane Doll and the lanky policeman, their faces never changing expression. Almost everyone in Potter's books is hungry.

Read about another writer/illustrator on Carey's list.

The Tale of Samuel Whiskers (or Roly Poly Pudding) by Beatrix Potter made Alice-Azania Jarvis's reading list on rats.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Dara Horn's "A Guide for the Perplexed"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn.

About the book, from the publisher:

The incomparable Dara Horn returns with a spellbinding novel of how technology changes memory and how memory shapes the soul.

Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go. But in Egypt’s postrevolutionary chaos, Josie is abducted—leaving Judith free to take over Josie’s life at home, including her husband and daughter, while Josie’s talent for preserving memories becomes a surprising test of her empathy and her only means of escape.

A century earlier, another traveler arrives in Egypt: Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor hunting for a medieval archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. Both he and Josie are haunted by the work of the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, a doctor and rationalist who sought to reconcile faith and science, destiny and free will. But what Schechter finds, as he tracks down the remnants of a thousand-year-old community’s once-vibrant life, will reveal the power and perils of what Josie’s ingenious work brings into being: a world where nothing is ever forgotten.

An engrossing adventure that intertwines stories from Genesis, medieval philosophy, and the digital frontier, A Guide for the Perplexed is a novel of profound inner meaning and astonishing imagination.

Learn more about the author and her work at Dara Horn's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Horn is the author of the novels All Other Nights, The World to Come, and In the Image.

The Page 99 Test: The World to Come.

The Page 99 Test: All Other Nights.

The Page 69 Test: A Guide for the Perplexed.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Stacey L. Smith's "Freedom’s Frontier"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Freedom's Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction by Stacey L. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

Most histories of the Civil War era portray the struggle over slavery as a conflict that exclusively pitted North against South, free labor against slave labor, and black against white. In Freedom's Frontier, Stacey L. Smith examines the battle over slavery as it unfolded on the multiracial Pacific Coast. Despite its antislavery constitution, California was home to a dizzying array of bound and semibound labor systems: African American slavery, American Indian indenture, Latino and Chinese contract labor, and a brutal sex traffic in bound Indian and Chinese women. Using untapped legislative and court records, Smith reconstructs the lives of California's unfree workers and documents the political and legal struggles over their destiny as the nation moved through the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction.

Smith reveals that the state's anti-Chinese movement, forged in its struggle over unfree labor, reached eastward to transform federal Reconstruction policy and national race relations for decades to come. Throughout, she illuminates the startling ways in which the contest over slavery's fate included a western struggle that encompassed diverse labor systems and workers not easily classified as free or slave, black or white.

Learn more about Freedom's Frontier at the University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Freedom's Frontier.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Tim Finch reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Tim Finch, author of The House of Journalists.

His entry begins:

Whatever happened to one book at a time? I ask myself this question constantly as over the years I have moved from near monogamy to outrageous promiscuity in my reading habits. Ridiculously large towers of books sit by my desk and by my side of the bed, all in some sense ‘on the go’. That said, having dipped into new books – which I am acquiring constantly - I tend to put them aside and only return to them intensely later. And, mercifully for this entry, the list of books in that latter stage at this moment is much briefer.

John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946 - by Robert Skidelsky

I’m only fifty or so pages into this third and final volume of Skidelsky’s monumental biography of Keynes, having greatly enjoyed the previous two volumes. Fighting for Freedom was published in 2001 at a time when Keynes could hardly have been more out of fashion: neo-liberal market capitalism was at its Fukuyamian zenith, not least among the mainstream Left. Then came the financial crash and with it renewed interest in Keynesianism. Indeed...[read on]

About The House of Journalists, from the publisher:

Welcome to the House of Journalists. Who are you and what is your story?

These are the questions that confront newcomers to the House of Journalists, the internationally renowned refuge for writers in exile at the center of this haunting Orwellian novel. Home to a select group of fellows, the House is located in a fashionable London terrace. But just how stable is this hallowed institution? Julian Snowman, the obsessive founder and chair, sees the threat of dissolution at every turn. Perhaps this explains why petty rules and restrictions abide: men live in one wing, women in the other; smoking is restricted to the central courtyard; tea is optional, but everyone attends.

As the fellows strive to remake their lives, they are urged to share their tales. Epic and intimate by turns, these stories—of courage, tragedy, and shame—become a mesmerizing chorus of voices in search of home. Among the fellows are Mustapha, who yearns for the family he tore himself from when he resisted a coup; Agnes, a photojournalist implicated in a brutal civil war; Sonny, a slight figure with don’t-mess-with-me hair, who describes a harrowing escape across continents; Edson, who perilously confides his story to his writing mentor; and Mr. Stan, who draws on the noxious cigarettes of his home island, despite having been tortured there.

Only one man manages to guard his past: the mysterious new fellow AA, whose secrecy ratchets up Julian’s paranoia. Julian suspects that AA is conspiring with a celebrated visiting writer to bring down the House. In fact, AA is planning something else entirely.

A world as beguiling as it is disturbing, Tim Finch’s The House of Journalists is a novel of heartbreak, humanity, and wit, and announces the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction.

Visit Tim Finch's Twitter perch, and learn more about The House of Journalists.

Writers Read: Tim Finch.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best books with "white" in the title

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Amy Wilkinson tagged seven top books with "white" in the title, including:

White Fang, by Jack London

Are you ready to really feel the chill? Bite into White Fang, the companion novel to London’s The Call of the Wild. Set in Canada’s Yukon Territory, this follow-up sets readers on a journey with the titular dog-wolf hybrid as he becomes increasingly domesticated. B.Y.O.F.C. (Bring Your Own Fur Coat.)

Read about another novel on the list.

White Fang is among Emma Barnes's top ten books with wolves and Marcus Sedgwick's top ten books from cold climes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary Kay Zuravleff's "Man Alive!," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Man Alive! by Mary Kay Zuravleff.

The entry begins:

In atmospherics alone, Man Alive! is a natural for the big screen. As a fast-moving storm closes in on the beach, the novel opens with Dr. Owen Lerner being struck by lightning as he puts a quarter in the parking meter on his family's last night of vacation. The child psychiatrist is literally thrown into the air; however, aside from his searing pain, Dr. Lerner is enamored of his experience. In fact, all he wants to do now is barbecue, in hopes of capturing the heavenly smell that he associates with the moment he was struck.

Owen's wife, Toni, and their three children are desperate for him to be himself once again, but he's not convinced he should be medicating kids the way he used to. And as it happens, now he exhibits many of the problems he's known for treating, because people recovering from lightning have problems with ADD, ADHD, PTSD, and traits associated with autism. How far can he drift from his past life before everything falls apart?

Because the novel reveals the fragile eco-system of family life, I pick Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton as the movie's directors. Who better than a married couple to dramatize Toni and Owen's struggle? This team's brilliant Little Miss Sunshine wrings the same painful humor from family life that I'm trying to capture.

Robert Downey Jr., if he is willing to gain a few pounds, is my choice for Owen, a wry and wise shrink to kids and teens. (There would be added value in his possibly knowing about the many drugs Dr. Lerner dispenses.) Also, I recently heard Downey sing! Owen is a soundtrack fan, so there may have to be singing.

Either Mary...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Kay Zuravleff's website.

My Book, The Movie: Man Alive!.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Laura Bickle's "The Outside"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: The Outside by Laura Bickle.

About The Outside, from the publisher:

After a plague of vampires was unleashed in the world, Katie was kicked out of the safe haven of her Amish community for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival. She enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two friends and a horse by her side.

And yet through this darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to deflect vampires and survive the night. But can they be trusted, and are they even people at all?

In this sequel to The Hallowed Ones, it's up to one Amish girl to save her family, her community, and the boy she loves ... but what will she be asked to sacrifice in return?

Learn more about the book and author at Laura Bickle's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Laura Bickle.

The Page 69 Test: The Outside.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Candy Gunther Brown's "The Healing Gods"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America by Candy Gunther Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

The question typically asked about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is whether it works. However, an issue of equal or greater significance is why it is supposed to work. The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America explains how and why CAM entered the American biomedical mainstream and won cultural acceptance, even among evangelical and other theologically conservative Christians, despite its ties to non-Christian religions and the lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy and safety.

Before the 1960s, most of the practices Candy Gunther Brown considers-yoga, chiropractic, acupuncture, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, meditation, martial arts, homeopathy, anticancer diets-were dismissed as medically and religiously questionable. These once-suspect health practices gained approval as they were re-categorized as non-religious (though generically spiritual) health-care, fitness, or scientific techniques. Although CAM claims are similar to religious claims, CAM gained cultural legitimacy because people interpret it as science instead of religion.

Holistic health care raises ethical and legal questions of informed consent, consumer protection, and religious establishment at the center of biomedical ethics, tort law, and constitutional law. The Healing Gods confronts these issues, getting to the heart of values such as personal autonomy, self-determination, religious equality, and religious voluntarism.

Learn more about The Healing Gods at the Oxford University Press website, and follow Candy Gunther Brown on Facebook and Twitter.

Writers Read: Candy Gunther Brown.

The Page 99 Test: The Healing Gods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top stories about infidelity

Alison MacLeod was raised in Canada and has lived in England since 1987. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Chichester University and lives in Brighton. She is the author of three novels: The Changeling; The Wave Theory of Angels; and Unexploded, which is longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize. MacLeod has also written a collection of stories, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction.

She named her top ten stories about infidelity for the Guardian. One novel on the list:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna and Vronsky. The busy train compartment. That first passing glance, as if of recognition … In 1872, Tolstoy saw the wrecked body of a woman who was abandoned by her married lover, a landowner friend of the family. The woman had thrown herself under a train. Was it a tragedy or a grim reinstatement of the natural order of marriage and family? Tolstoy initially planned to tell the story of a woman who "ruined herself" with an extramarital affair, but Anna instead emerged vivid and bright.

Read about another novel on the list.

Anna Karenina also appears on David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature, and ten of the best balls in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Eric Gansworth reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Eric Gansworth, author of If I Ever Get Out of Here.

His entry begins:

To be fair, it is the end of summer, so to some degree, I’m reading to prepare for the coming semester, but that is one of the nice things about teaching in a college. My pleasure reading and my professional preparation are often the same thing. It’s a great benefit of my work life. I get to talk about things I love with young people, and engage their curiosity, learn from their insights. I read eclectically, and visitors have sometimes jokingly wondered if others have just randomly abandoned books at my house, because there seems to be no discernible pattern.

I blew through Stephen King’s Joyland when it came out, because I loved the golden light of this coming of age story so much, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s also a novel in which a young man is forced, by circumstance, to rise to responsibility. I’ve been writing about that tension, myself, so I’m sure that was part of my attraction. It’s just such a fine novel that I wanted to appreciate its richness without...[read on]

About If I Ever Get Out of Here, from the publisher:

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him -- people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan's side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis's home -- will he still be his friend?

Acclaimed adult author Eric Gansworth makes his YA debut with this wry and powerful novel about friendship, memory, and the joy of rock 'n' roll.

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Gansworth's website.

My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

Writers Read: Eric Gansworth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top YA novels

Luke Kelly, who happens to be Roald Dahl’s grandson, is the author of the new children's book, Blanket and Bear, A Remarkable Pair, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka.

One of Kelly's favorite young adult novels, as told to The Daily Beast:

The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green

This recent best seller follows Hazel Grace Lancaster whose parents force her to attend a cancer support group where she falls in love with a fellow sufferer, Gus. Their mutual support of each other and realizations of self worth define the story, with their attachment to the book 'An Imperial Affliction' tracking the later half of the story. This incredibly poignant book is beautifully constructed and truly wonderful.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Fault in Our Stars is among Sophie McKenzie's five favorite Young Adult books that appeal to teenagers.

"[The Fault in our Stars] is just as incredible as everyone says. I say that not as an adult reading a YA book, either, but as a person reading a fantastic book, period," writes Kimberly McCreight. "The Fault in our Stars is truly one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time, maybe ever. The characters are so nuanced and yet so utterly relatable and the writing is subtle and lovely."

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Wilton Barnhardt's "Lookaway, Lookaway"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Lookaway, Lookaway by Wilton Barnhardt.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolina’s high society, where old Southern money—and older Southern secrets—meet the new wealth of bankers, boom-era speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers. Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her family’s legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War re-enactor. Jerene’s brother Gaston is an infamously dissolute bestselling historical novelist who has never managed to begin his long-dreamed-of literary masterpiece, while their sister Dillard is a prisoner of unfortunate life decisions that have made her a near-recluse.

As the four Johnston children wander perpetually toward scandal and mishap. Annie, the smart but matrimonially reckless real estate maven; Bo, a minister at war with his congregation; Joshua, prone to a series of gay misadventures, and Jerilyn, damaged but dutiful to her expected role as debutante and eventual society bride. Jerene must prove tireless in preserving the family's legacy, Duke’s fragile honor, and what's left of the dwindling family fortune. She will stop at nothing to keep what she has—but is it too much to ask for one ounce of cooperation from her heedless family?

In Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt has written a headlong, hilarious narrative of a family coming apart, a society changing beyond recognition, and an unforgettable woman striving to pull it all together.

Learn more about the book and author at Wilton Barnhardt's website and blog.

Writers Read: Wilton Barnhardt.

The Page 69 Test: Lookaway, Lookaway.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Kathleen Wellman's "Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France by Kathleen Wellman.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book tells the history of the French Renaissance through the lives of its most prominent queens and mistresses, beginning with Agnès Sorel, the first officially recognized royal mistress in 1444; including Anne of Brittany, Catherine de Medici, Anne Pisseleu, Diane de Poitiers, and Marguerite de Valois, among others; and concluding with Gabrielle d’Estrées, Henry IV’s powerful mistress during the 1590s.

Wellman shows that women in both roles—queen and mistress—enjoyed great influence over French politics and culture, not to mention over the powerful men with whom they were involved. The book also addresses the enduring mythology surrounding these women, relating captivating tales that uncover much about Renaissance modes of argument, symbols, and values, as well as our own modern preoccupations.

Learn more about Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France at the Yale University Press website.

Kathleen Wellman is Dedman Family Distinguished Professor and chair of the Clements Department of History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.

The Page 99 Test: Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dale M. Kushner's "The Conditions of Love," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Conditions of Love by Dale M. Kushner.

The entry begins:

Once upon a time, movies shaped my education. Fiction held first place as a guide to life’s vicissitudes, but the classic movies of the thirties, forties, and fifties I watched repeatedly on our old Admiral TV. The actors of those films had a presence that refused to fade after the movie ended. Their characters and the situations they managed were archived in my mind as cautionary tales to be revisited when the occasion arose. Mern, one of my central characters in The Conditions of Love, is also infatuated with movie stars. Her greatest ambition is to go to Hollywood (the Hollywood of the fifties) and be discovered at Schwab’s drugstore like Lana Turner. One of my favorite lines in the novel is when she tells a friend, “Why be Betty Crocker when you can be Betty Bacall?”

With nostalgia in mind, here are my choices for actors to play in a film version of my novel.

For Eunice, my narrator, as a young girl, Natalie Wood as a child star. Eunice in her older years, Lauren Bacall.

As Mern, Eunice’s quirky and sometime malicious mother, Shelley...[read on]

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

Writers Read: Dale M. Kushner.

The Page 69 Test: The Conditions of Love.

My Book, The Movie: The Conditions of Love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Palin's 6 favorite books

Michael Palin was a lifelong (so far) member of Monty Python.

His recent books include the travelogue Brazil, and The Truth, a novel about a would-be biographer of a famed environmentalist.

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

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Like his protagonist — an old fisherman in pursuit of a marlin — Hemingway fixes the reader's attention unwaveringly on the story he wants to tell. The tension peaks as an exhausted Santiago fights one last time to find the success that has so persistently eluded him.

Read about another book on Palin's list.

The Old Man and the Sea appears among Robson Green's six best books and Dave Boling's five best examples of how to structure a novel. N.M. Kelby has suggested that The Old Man and the Sea may be The great Florida Novel.

In 2012, Palin told the Daily Express about his six best books, a somewhat different list from his latest.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David P. Wagner reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: David P. Wagner, author of Cold Tuscan Stone.

His entry begins:

Since I write mysteries that take place in Italy, I like to read other mysteries set there. I’ve gone through all those of the late Michael Dibdin, and wait patiently for new ones by Camilleri and Leon. But in between the mysteries I try to read non-fiction books about Italy, and there are many. Lots are straight history, new looks at the same old themes: rise and fall, fall and rise, you know the drill. But every once in a while there is some wonderful new story.

Fortune is a River by Roger D. Masters is one of those. It tells of a strange collaboration between two famous names of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and Niccoló Macchiavelli. Florence was having one of their periodic wars with Pisa, and somebody in Firenze had a great idea: why don’t we divert the Arno River so it doesn’t go through Pisa? That’ll show’em. And Niccoló, why don’t you hire Leonardo for the job since he’s great with water and...[read on]

About Cold Tuscan Stone, from the publisher:

Rick Montoya has just moved from New Mexico to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He’s beginning to settle in to la dolce vita when a school friend who is now senior in the Italian Art Squad recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick would arrive in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery and flush out priceless burial urn traffickers.

But before sunset on Rick’s first day, a gallery employee dies in a brutal fall from a high cliff. Has the trade in fraudulent artifacts upgraded to murder? Are the traffickers already on to Rick?

The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. Plus Rick is a suspect in the dead man’s murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick continues to interview his list: a museum director, a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, and a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. When Rick’s girlfriend Erica arrives from Rome to visit him, she rekindles a friendship with an alluring, maybe dangerous, acquaintance. Has Rick’s role made him the target of both cops and criminals?

Learn more about the book and author at David P. Wagner's website.

Writers Read: David P. Wagner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 vicious literary hatchet jobs

In February 2013 Rupert Hawksley tagged his top ten vicious literary hatchet jobs for the Telegraph. One entry on the list:

George Bernard Shaw on William Shakespeare (1906)

It takes a brave writer to swim against the tide of critical consensus. None braver than George Bernard Shaw who decided that the Bard himself was a fitting target.

"I have striven hard to open English eyes to the emptiness of Shakespeare's philosophy, to the superficiality and second-handedness of his morality, to his weakness and incoherence as a thinker, to his snobbery, his vulgar prejudices, his ignorance, his disqualifications of all sorts for the philosophic eminence claimed for him..."

Shaw went on:

"With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his."

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sean Beaudoin's "Wise Young Fool"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Teen rocker Ritchie Sudden is pretty sure his life has just jumped the shark. Except he hates being called a teen, his band doesn't play rock, and "jumping the shark" is yet another dumb cliché. Part of Ritchie wants to drop everything and walk away. Especially the part that's serving ninety days in a juvenile detention center.

Telling the story of the year leading up to his arrest, Ritchie grabs readers by the throat before (politely) inviting them along for the (max-speed) ride. A battle of the bands looms. Dad split about five minutes before Mom's girlfriend moved in. There's the matter of trying to score with the dangerously hot Ravenna Woods while avoiding the dangerously huge Spence Proffer--not to mention just trying to forget what his sister, Beth, said the week before she died.

This latest offering from acclaimed author Sean Beaudoin is alternately raw, razor-sharp, and genuinely hilarious.

Learn more about the book and author at Sean Beaudoin's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Wise Young Fool.

The Page 69 Test: Wise Young Fool.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Laurel Fulkerson's "No Regrets"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: No Regrets: Remorse in Classical Antiquity by Laurel Fulkerson.

About the book, from the publisher:

No Regrets: Remorse in Classical Antiquity is the first sustained study examining the circumstances under which the emotions of remorse and regret were manifested in Greek and Roman public life. Despite a still-common notion that remorse is a modern, monotheistic emotion, it argues that remorse did in fact exist in pre-Christian antiquity. By discussing the standard lexical denotations of remorse, Fulkerson shows how its parameters were rather different from its modern counterpart. Remorse in the ancient world was normally not expressed by high-status individuals, but by their inferiors, notably women, the young, and subjects of tyrants, nor was it redemptive, but often served to show defect of character. Through a series of examples, especially poetic, historical, and philosophical texts, this book demonstrates this was so because of the very high value placed on consistency of character in the ancient world. High-status men, in particular, faced constant challenges to their position, and maintaining at least the appearance of uniformity was essential to their successful functioning. The redemptive aspects of remorse, of learning from one's mistakes, were thus nearly absent in the ancient world.

Learn more about No Regrets at the Oxford University Press website.

Laurel Fulkerson is an Associate Professor at Florida State University. In addition to work on the emotions, she has published articles on gender, Latin, and Greek poetry. She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Cincinnati, Exeter College, and St. Anne's College, Oxford.

The Page 99 Test: No Regrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best time travelers

At the Guardian, Tom Lamont came up the ten best time travelers. Most are from the big and small screens, but the list includes a couple of figures with prominent literary pedigrees, including:

Ebenezer Scrooge

Dickens got in early on the time-travel game, publishing A Christmas Carol in 1843, a good few decades before Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and HG Wells’s The Time Machine. Ebenezer Scrooge was whisked back several decades by the Ghost of Christmas Past, and then forward a year by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, where he was shown his own grave. “Assure me that I yet may change...by an altered life!” Scrooge begged, and on his return to the present he became (prefiguring many a time traveller) an improved person.

Read about another entry on the list.

Ebenezer Scrooge also appears among Alan Glynn's seven notable one percenters from film & fiction.

Also see: Top ten time travel books; Charles Yu's top 10 time travel books; Linda Buckley-Archer's's top ten time-travelling stories.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Laura Bickle reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Laura Bickle, author of The Outside.

Her entry begins:

I’m reading Yangsze Choo’s The Ghost Bride. The premise is fascinating: Li Lan, the daughter of a family with failing fortunes in Malaya, has been asked to be the ghost bride to the dead son of a wealthy family. I’d heard of the concept of ghost brides before, the idea of promising the living in marriage to the dead to placate unhappy spirits. Choo expands upon this concept in an amazing way, as Li Lan struggles to escape such a marriage while being haunted by the ghost of the petulant and powerful dead son. Li Lan crosses into the world of the dead to...[read on]

About The Outside, from the publisher:

After a plague of vampires was unleashed in the world, Katie was kicked out of the safe haven of her Amish community for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival. She enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two friends and a horse by her side.

And yet through this darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to deflect vampires and survive the night. But can they be trusted, and are they even people at all?

In this sequel to The Hallowed Ones, it's up to one Amish girl to save her family, her community, and the boy she loves .. . but what will she be asked to sacrifice in return?

Visit Laura Bickle's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Laura Bickle.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best stories for whiny kids

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

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog she tagged five top books for whiny kids, including:

The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

All of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books teach perseverance and resourcefulness, but this particular installment in the series is hard for me to shake. Like the title suggests, it’s about the longest weather in recorded human history—I think maybe 36 months of blizzards—or at least that’s what it seems like. Chapter after chapter details the dwindling firewood and bread dipped in watery tea and chapped hands twisting straw and the frightening anemia of the youngest daughter.

This is a fun one to read children when they won’t stop whimpering about who got more sprinkles on his frozen yogurt. I don’t know, kids. GOOD LORD! Just be glad I don’t have to burn your bunk beds for warmth. Now. Who wants salt pork for dinner?

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eric Gansworth's "If I Ever Get Out of Here," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth.
His entry begins:

There seem to be many things against the realistic possibility, so I’m going to have to go into total fantasy-land for this one. This novel, adapted, would need to have an indie film aesthetic with a Michael Bay budget. So in my fantasy-land, all the Beatles and Paul McCartney music has been cleared for inclusion, as I can’t see it without those songs meaningfully in place. McCartney would also give permission for excerpts of his concert film, Rockshow, for the Wings concert scene. Even the choice of actors would be tricky. The tradition seems to be having child actors play child characters, but then, strangely, twentysomething actors are often cast to play high school age characters. Certainly, plenty of actors manage. Michael Angarano was a believable high school student in the adaptation of Stewart O’Nan’s Snow Angels, and he was twenty at the time.

I think we’ve been trained by popular culture to accept young looking adults are credible teens. Most of us don’t have occasion to jump back into that environment in the midst of an average school day. But when I was writing this novel, I...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Gansworth's website.

My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three top books on Brazil

At the Guardian, Pushpinder Khaneka named three of the best books on Brazil. One title on the list:

The Violent Land by Jorge Amado

Amado's novel about the 1920s cacao wars in north-east Brazil is an epic tale of greed, lust, love and murder. Two powerful families, led by Zinho Badaros and Horacio Silveira, battle over the virgin forest of Sequeiro Grande, which they want to develop as cacao plantations – to increase their wealth and power.

These tough, wealthy men of the Bahia region use lawyers and gunmen to assist in their land-grabbing through deceit and violence. Workers flock to the lawless land with dreams of making quick fortunes, but find only brutal regimes on the plantations that keep them in near-slave conditions as they face disease and death.

For the conquistadors of this new land "fertilised by blood", it is the best in the world for planting cacao, which is "worth more than gold".

Amado vividly describes life in the local towns – with their landowners, adventurers, assassins, prostitutes and corrupt officials – inspired by his time growing up in the region, the son of a cocoa planter.

The Violent Land is reputed to be the greatest novel by Brazil's best-selling author and was his favourite. A sometime Communist party member, Amado endured prison and exile in the 1930s and 40s. He died in 2001.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sarah Butler's "Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Ten Things I've Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler.

About the book, from the publisher:

About to turn thirty, Alice is the youngest of three daughters, and the black sheep of her family. Drawn to traveling in far-flung and often dangerous countries, she has never enjoyed the closeness with her father that her two older sisters have and has eschewed their more conventional career paths. She has left behind a failed relationship in London with the man she thought she might marry and is late to hear the news that her father is dying. She returns to the family home only just in time to say good-bye.

Daniel is called many things—"tramp", "bum", "lost." He hasn't had a roof over his head for almost thirty years, but he once had a steady job and a passionate love affair with a woman he’s never forgotten. To him, the city of London has come to be like home in a way that no bricks and mortar dwelling ever was. He makes sculptures out of the objects he finds on his walks throughout the city—bits of string and scraps of paper, a child’s hair tie, and a lost earring—and experiences synesthesia, a neurological condition which causes him to see words and individual letters of the alphabet as colors. But as he approaches his sixties his health is faltering, and he is kept alive by the knowledge of one thing—that he has a daughter somewhere in the world whom he has never been able to find.

A searching and inventive debut, Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love is a story about finding love in unexpected places, about rootlessness and homecoming, and the power of the ties that bind. It announces Sarah Butler as a major new talent for telling stories that are heart-wrenching, page-turning, and unforgettable.

Learn more about the book and author at Sarah Butler's website.

Writers Read: Sarah Butler.

The Page 69 Test: Ten Things I've Learnt About Love.

--Marshal Zeringue