Ten titles on maritime disasters and ecological collapse

Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary is out now from Row House Publishing in 2024 and her novel All the Water in the World is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press in early 2025.

At Lit Hub Caffall tagged ten books on maritime disasters and ecocollapse, including:

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale

This book found me, child of a hydrogeologist and a fisherman, a willing reader. I grew up in view of Monument Mountain, where Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne hiked to the top and perhaps fell in love and for sure came up with the shape of this book. It picked up where my childhood obsessions with Greenpeace, animals, the ocean, and whales specifically, left off.

Making fictional the actual events of the whaleship Essex, it is about what leads nature to enact understandable vengeance on human overreach. Full of commentary on environmental, racial, and class issues in America, it feels prescient and modern at the same moment. It is one giant shipwreck story, even if the actual shipwreck holds off until the very last moments.

And for more eloquence about why this is essential reading, pick up Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Why Read Moby-Dick? Because he says everything that I believe about why you must read this book right now.

Read about another entry on the list.

Moby-Dick appears among Emily Temple's ten notorious literary slogs that are worth the effort, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce's top ten novels & stories about prophets, James Stavridis's five best books to know the sea, Robert McCrum's top ten Shakespearean books, Bridget Collins's top ten Quakers in fiction, John Boyne's six best books, Kate Christensen's best food scenes in fiction, Emily Temple's ten literary classics we're supposed to like...but don't, Sara Flannery Murphy ten top stories of obsession, Harold Bloom's six favorite books that helped shape "the American Sublime,"  Charlotte Seager's five well-known literary monomaniacs who take things too far, Ann Leary's top ten books set in New England, Martin Seay's ten best long books, Ian McGuire's ten best adventure novels, Jeff Somers's five top books that will expand your vocabulary and entertain, Four books that changed Mary Norris, Tim Dee's ten best nature books, the Telegraph's fifteen best North American novels of all time, Nicole Hill's top ten best names in literature to give your dog, Horatio Clare's five favorite maritime novels, the Telegraph's ten great meals in literature, Brenda Wineapple's six favorite books, Scott Greenstone's top seven allegorical novels, Paul Wilson's top ten books about disability, Lynn Shepherd's ten top fictional drownings, Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, Penn Jillette's six favorite books, Peter F. Stevens's top ten nautical books, Katharine Quarmby's top ten disability stories, Jonathan Evison's six favorite books, Bella Bathurst's top 10 books on the sea, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best nightmares in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, Susan Cheever's five best books about obsession, Christopher Buckley's best books, Jane Yolen's five most important books, Chris Dodd's best books, Augusten Burroughs' five most important books, Norman Mailer's top ten works of literature, David Wroblewski's five most important books, Russell Banks' five most important books, and Philip Hoare's top ten books about whales.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Elia Powers's "Performing the News"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality by Elia Powers.

About the book, from the publisher:

Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality explores how journalists from historically marginalized groups have long felt pressure to conform when performing for audiences. Many speak with a flat, “neutral” accent, modify their delivery to hide distinctive vocal attributes, dress conventionally to appeal to the “average” viewer, and maintain a consistent appearance to avoid unwanted attention. Their aim is what author Elia Powers refers to as performance neutrality—presentation that is deemed unobjectionable, reveals little about journalists’ social identity, and supposedly does not detract from their message. Increasingly, journalists are challenging restrictive, purportedly neutral forms of self-presentation. This book argues that performance neutrality is a myth that reinforces the status quo, limits on-air diversity, and hinders efforts to make newsrooms more inclusive. Through in-depth interviews with journalists in broadcasting and podcasting, and those who shape their performance, the author suggests ways to make journalism more inclusive and representative of diverse audiences.

Visit Elia Powers's website.

The Page 99 Test: Performing the News.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about the history of voting in America

Tommy Jenkins is the humanities division chair at Louisburg College in Louisburg, North Carolina, and an associate professor of English. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina, studied film at Columbia University, and received an MFA in fiction writing from North Carolina State University.

Jenkins is thea author of Drawing the Vote: A Graphic Novel History for Future Voters, illustrated by Kati Lacker.

At Electric Lit Jenkins tagged "a list of books that cover various significant aspects of the history of voting in the United States." One title on the list:

Vanguard by Martha Jones

Too often the history of women’s suffrage in the United State is a history of white women’s suffrage. The great historian Martha Jones rectifies this injustice in Vanguard. African American women not only had to overcome sexism, they also dealt bravely with racism, often relying on only themselves to claw for their rights. This is an important and much-needed work that greatly expands our understanding of American history. Jones is a skilled and moving writer.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nikki May's "This Motherless Land"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: This Motherless Land: A Novel by Nikki May.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Wahala, a “vibrant” (Charmaine Wilkerson) decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park, exploring identity, culture, race, and love.

Quiet Funke is happy in Nigeria. She loves her art teacher mother, her professor father, and even her annoying little brother (most of the time). But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather grey. Worse still, her mother’s family are cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin Liv.

Free-spirited Liv has always wanted to break free of her joyless family. She becomes fiercely protective of her little cousin, and her warmth and kindness give Funke a place to heal. The two girls grow into adulthood the closest of friends.

But the choices their mothers made haunt Funke and Liv and when a second tragedy occurs their friendship is torn apart. Against the long shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to chart a path forward, separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition.

Moving between Somerset and Lagos over the course of two decades, This Motherless Land is a sweeping examination of identity, culture, race, and love that asks how we find belonging and whether a family’s generational wrongs can be righted.

Visit Nikki May's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Nikki May & Fela and Lola.

The Page 69 Test: This Motherless Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lee Alan Dugatkin's "Dr. Calhoun's Mousery"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Dr. Calhoun's Mousery: The Strange Tale of a Celebrated Scientist, a Rodent Dystopia, and the Future of Humanity by Lee Alan Dugatkin.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bizarre and compelling biography of a scientist and his work, using rodent cities to question the potential catastrophes of human overpopulation.

It was the strangest of experiments. What began as a utopian environment, where mice had sumptuous accommodations, had all the food and water they could want, and were free from disease and predators, turned into a mouse hell. Science writer and animal behaviorist Lee Alan Dugatkin introduces readers to the peculiar work of rodent researcher John Bumpass Calhoun. In this enthralling tale, Dugatkin shows how an ecologist-turned-psychologist-turned-futurist became a science rock star embedded in the culture of the 1960s and 1970s. As interest grew in his rodent cities, Calhoun was courted by city planners and his work was reflected in everything from Tom Wolfe’s hard-hitting writing to the children’s book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He was invited to meetings with the Royal Society and the pope and taken seriously when he proposed a worldwide cybernetic brain—a decade before others made the internet a reality.

Readers see how Calhoun’s experiments—rodent apartment complexes like “Mouse Universe 25”—led to his concept of “behavioral sinks” with real effects on public policy discussions. Overpopulation in Calhoun’s mouse (and rat) complexes led to the loss of sex drive, the absence of maternal care, and a class of automatons that included “the beautiful ones,” who spent their time grooming themselves while shunning socialization. Calhoun—and those who followed his work—saw the collapse of this mouse population as a harbinger of the ill effects of an overpopulated human world.

Drawing on previously unpublished archival research and interviews with Calhoun’s family and former colleagues, Dugatkin offers a riveting account of an intriguing scientific figure. Considering Dr. Calhoun’s experiments, he explores the changing nature of scientific research and delves into what the study of animal behavior can teach us about ourselves.

Visit Lee Alan Dugatkin's website.

The Page 99 Test: Power in the Wild.

The Page 99 Test: Dr. Calhoun's Mousery.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top Christmas crime novels

Denzil Meyrick was educated in Argyll, then after studying politics, joined Strathclyde Police, serving in Glasgow. After being injured and developing back problems, he enterred the business world, and has operated in many diverse roles, including director of a large engineering company and distillery manager, as well as owning a number of his own companies, such as a public bar and sales and marketing company. "D. A. Meyrick has also worked as a freelance journalist in both print and on radio. Well-known for his gritty series of police procedurals centred on the maverick DCI Daley," writes Mark Skinner at the Waterstones blog. "Meyrick has displayed his versatility in the past couple of years with his festive cosy crime mysteries - Murder at Holly House and The Christmas Stocking Murders."

One of Meyrick's favorite Christmas crime reads:

Snow by John Banville

Banville is a hugely respected Irish screenwriter and novelist, a Booker Prize winner, no less. His writing is a joy, both poetic and beautiful.

Banville dishes up a sometimes-gritty novel, set in the fifties in an Ireland dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. When the local priest dies in a small, tight-knit community in County Wexford, Inspector St. John Strafford is called in to investigate. He is from the Protestant tradition, and the juxtaposition between him and the locals creates a haunting, occasionally disturbing read.

Banville’s compelling, meandering prose and dry wit draws you into a story with its fair share of red herrings. It’s a real modern classic, which richly deserves the praise and success that has come its way. One to curl up with beside the fire.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Michael Wendroff

From my Q&A with Michael Wendroff, author of What Goes Around:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think my title, What Goes Around, does quite a lot. First, I believe potential readers complete the thought (Comes Around), and immediately involving your readers in a "conversation" puts you ahead of the game. It also piques interest, as the immediate questions raised are what occurred that requires retribution, and what will occur for the "comes around." Lastly, it sounds like a thriller, and indeed the reader will be taken through very thrilling twists and turns.

Note, this wasn't the original name of the book. Its draft name was The Perennial Plan, which ties into the surprising ending. But my publisher, who is great, thought we could do better, and the team there came up with What Goes Around, which is much much better.

What's in a name?

All of the character names in my novel are purposeful.

Jack Ludlum is an amalgam of...[read on]

Visit Michael Wendroff's website.

The Page 69 Test: What Goes Around.

Q&A with Michael Wendroff.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Audrey Wu Clark's "Against Exclusion"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Against Exclusion: Disrupting Anti-Chinese Violence in the Nineteenth Century by Audrey Wu Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Against Exclusion, Audrey Wu Clark dramatically reframes Asian American resistance via the lives of five early Chinese American public figures. In contrast to later activists who sought to defy stereotypes, Ah Toy, Mary Tape, Wong Chin Foo, Yan Phou Lee, and Yung Wing deployed the model minority and yellow peril tropes to make themselves visible during a period of rampant anti-Chinese violence and legal exclusion. In making themselves visible, they sought to expose and dismantle the contradictory exceptionalism of nineteenth-century US liberalism that both required and “disavowed” the deaths of Chinese Americans. In examining these figures and the ways in which they fought their exclusion as Chinese Americans—via court cases, autobiographical writings, journalism, and other forms of activism—Clark contributes to prevailing scholarly conversations about stereotypes of Asian Americans but contextualizes them in the nineteenth century. She traces the twinned emergences of the model minority and the yellow peril, excavating the exceptionalism with which Chinese Americans were racialized and subject to death—whether by lynching, other forms of driving out, or loss of citizenship or rights—and mapping its reverberations into the present day.

Visit Audrey Wu Clark's website.

The Page 99 Test: Against Exclusion.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six cold coastal reads for brisk autumn days

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, All the Hearts You Eat, A Light Most Hateful, The Worm and His Kings series, and other books of dark fiction.

"I have a soft spot for the beach outside the thrills of summertime," she writes at CrimeReads. It's an atmosphere shared by her modern coastal gothic, All the Hearts You Eat. One title on her list of "books that will coil you in that delicious dismal atmosphere and never let go:"

Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling

I’m realizing now that setting as character can’t help being a defining quality when you’re looking at atmosphere—Yellow Jessamine fits the bill, too, both with the port city of Delphinium and the soon-to-be-overgrown manor of Evelyn Perdanu, filled with secrets, science, and the pall of death. Decay rules this world, a unifying factor of land, sea, and people, and no amount of loyalty from Evelyn’s attendant Violetta or betrayal from other merchants and nobles can deter what’s to come. This is a brisk, engrossing novella by the sea, and for me, Starling at her gothic best.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Gemma Liviero's "An Age of Winters"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: An Age of Winters: A Novel by Gemma Liviero.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the seventeenth century, witchfinders rule and paranoia thrives in a chilling novel about unrequited love, persecution, and betrayal by the bestselling author of The Road Beyond Ruin and Broken Angels.

In 1625, the Franconian village of Eisbach has been plagued by disease, famine, heinous crimes, and a merciless winter. Katarin Jaspers is the maidservant to the enigmatic Reverend Zacharias Engel, appointed by Rome to cure the village of suspected diabolism and save every God-fearing soul.

Zacharias soon finds his first witch, and the public burning of a local man could spell the end of misfortune. As a sense of peace settles over the village, Katarin finds herself increasingly infatuated with Zacharias, who is a disruption to her predictable existence and a balm for her cruel past. But peace for Katarin is short-lived. Margaretha Katz―the new midwife―is seen as a rival for the reverend’s attention. Fear and recrimination reach a fever pitch when a great tragedy sets the town fully on edge.

With the walls of winter closing in around Eisbach once again, rumours flourish and villagers turn on each other. Now, no one is safe from the pyre.

Visit Gemma Liviero's website.

The Page 69 Test: An Age of Winters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tony Wirt's "Pike Island," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Pike Island: A Thriller by Tony Wirt.

The entry begins:

Pike Island is a dual POV book split into two timelines, the current day and twenty years ago. Since the past timeline revolves mostly around teenagers, I’ll stick to the current timeline with my casting.

Krista Walsh – Krysten Ritter

Krista is a take-no-crap woman who is often underestimated because of her age and gender, but never lets that stand in the way of getting what she wants. Who better to play her Krysten Ritter, than the woman who brought Jessica Jones to life?

Andrew Harrison “Harry” Leonard – Glen Powell

I know he’s everywhere now, but Glen Powell is about perfect for the adult version of Harry Leonard. Tall, blonde, with an aura that makes you trust him even if...[read on]

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

Q&A with Tony Wirt.

My Book, The Movie: Pike Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Polly Zavadivker's "A Nation of Refugees"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: A Nation of Refugees: Russia's Jews in World War I by Polly Zavadivker.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the Great War began, the Russian Empire was home to more than five million Jews, the most densely settled Jewish population anywhere in the world. Thirty years later, only remnants of this civilization remained. The years of war from 1914 to 1918 launched the forces that scattered and destroyed Eastern European Jewry and transformed it in ways that were second only to the Holocaust in their magnitude. Yet little has been written about the experience of Russia's Jews during this time. A Nation of Refugees uncovers this untold history by revealing the stories of how Jewish civilians experienced the war and its violent epicenter on the Eastern Front. It presents a history of rupture and dispersion at a human level, with accounts of individuals who struggled to survive and the activists who worked to aid them.

The stories in this book are drawn from hundreds of documents held in previously inaccessible archives, the Russian and Yiddish press, and the personal accounts of refugees, relief workers, writers, artists, and political leaders. This is a history of the first state violence and military aggression directed at Jewish civilians anywhere in modern Europe. It is a history of refugees, so numerous and scattered across Russia that they represented the fate of the Jewish nation itself. And it is a history of how Russia's Jews formed the largest and most influential humanitarian campaign in their history, and of their leaders and institutions that endured long past the years of war and revolution.

Learn more about A Nation of Refugees at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: A Nation of Refugees.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sung J. Woo reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sung J. Woo, author of Lines.

The entry begins:

Right now I'm more than halfway through the writing of my sixth novel, and it's been a bit of a bear. More than the usual bear, that is -- the creation of fiction has never been easy for me, but this one has had additional unexpected difficulty. I knew going in that I would be writing about a pair of unpleasant men (one is way worse than the other, but neither are boy scouts), but I did not expect to feel so unpleasant myself while doing so! Naive, I suppose -- it should've been obvious that stepping into the shoes of unsavory characters would bring me down, but it's too late now. I'm in it and that's all there's to it.

So what am I reading now to make myself feel better? Don't laugh, but I'm very much into two novels related to Bret Easton Ellis. One is his most infamous, American Psycho, starring Patrick Bateman -- the most well-dressed serial murderer in literary history. Contrary to what you might believe, I'm not a glutton for punishment. I'm genuinely curious how Ellis writes his evil protagonist. The other novel...[read on]

About Lines, from the publisher:

On a foggy morning in New York City, a man and a woman are about to run into each other, literally. Upon impact, they fall to the ground in an instinctively protective hug. The fog dissipates, and they stare into each other's eyes in disbelief, at the sheer magnitude of their bodily collision and their subsequent, spontaneous coupling. They laugh. The man, a writer, invites the woman, an artist, for coffee and they talk until lunch. They date. They fall in love, hard. They marry just two months later. And four years later, their marriage is on the precipice of disaster.

On a foggy morning in New York City, the same man and woman pass through the fog, oblivious of each other's existence. Until five years later, when the writer finds an oval-shaped locket no bigger than his thumbnail, a tiny white dress painted within the boundary of its golden border.

Lines is about possibilities, about the choices we make - or fail to make. It's a star-crossed love story; it's a bitter tragedy. It's about Josh and Abby and their intertwined lives, together and apart, through births and deaths and the beautiful mess in between.

Visit Sung J. Woo's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sung J. Woo & Koda.

The Page 69 Test: Everything Asian.

My Book, The Movie: Skin Deep.

Q&A with Sung J. Woo.

The Page 69 Test: Skin Deep.

My Book, The Movie: Deep Roots.

The Page 69 Test: Deep Roots.

Writers Read: Sung J. Woo (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Lines.

My Book, The Movie: Lines.

Writers Read: Sung J. Woo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top novels featuring protagonists over 70

Anna Montague is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.

How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? is her first novel.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven favorite novels "with senior protagonists on great adventures." One title on the list:

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

Grace is a retired math teacher, whose life is rocked by a long-lost friend’s death, after which she is bequeathed their old house on a Mediterranean island. Puzzling over her friend’s death requires her to examine her own life, delving into the past and reimagining what her future could look like.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Aidan McGarry's "Political Voice"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Political Voice: Protest, Democracy, and Marginalised Groups by Aidan McGarry.

About the book, from the publisher:

The inclusion of marginalised groups is a problem of modern democratic societies as representative democracy is built on principles which favour the majority. Around the world, some sections of society are silenced and actively excluded--including women, migrants, refugees, LGBTIQ, indigenous communities, and ethnic minorities, among others. The voice of the majority is used to contain, diminish, and oppress minorities through institutional racism, violence, erasure from public life, socio-economic exclusion, and gender inequality. As marginalised people around the globe rise up to challenge political regimes, there is a pressing need to understand what political voice is, why is it vital to marginalised and excluded people, and examine its transformative potential.

In Political Voice, Aidan McGarry examines the agency of marginalised people, emphasizing the processes and strategies through which different communities around the world articulate their political voices. McGarry develops an innovative concept of political voice around three elements: autonomy, representation, and constitution. This conceptualization is illustrated through contemporary case studies of two persecuted and silenced groups: LGBTIQ activists in India and Roma mobilization in Europe. The cases show how excluded people articulate their ideas, demands, hopes, and experiences, and what impact these interventions have on democratic institutions. By focusing on the political voices of marginalised groups, McGarry considers democratic expression beyond the ballot box, examining how the articulation of political voice constitutes marginalised groups and democracy itself.

Visit Aidan McGarry's website.

The Page 99 Test: Political Voice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: J.T. Ellison's "A Very Bad Thing"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Very Bad Thing by J.T. Ellison.

About the book, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has―and everyone she knows.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on―at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?

Visit J.T. Ellison's website and follow her on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020).

Q&A with J.T. Ellison.

The Page 69 Test: A Very Bad Thing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen bone-chilling new horror books

Michael J. Seidlinger is the Filipino-American author of The Body Harvest, Anybody Home?, Tekken 5, and other books.

He teaches at Portland State University.

At Publishers Weekly Seidlinger tagged fifteen "recent titles ... guaranteed not only to scare but to expand your definition of what horror can be." One book on the list:

How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive by Craig DiLouie

DiLouie (Episode Thirteen) remixes classic horror tropes into a harrowing thriller set in 1988. Middle-aged Max Maurey, known for his series of low-budget Jack the Knife slasher films, is appalled that audiences are cheering and laughing at the violence in his latest sequel. He feels like a hack, but his seedy producer, Jordan Lyman, won’t let Max explore his true artistic ambitions. He’s inspired, however, when he encounters Sally Priest, an aspiring actor who believes, like Max, that “horror is only horror if it’s real.” At an estate sale for a reclusive director, Max buys the camera that recorded the infamous film Mary’s Birthday, which ended in tragedy when the actors were sliced to bits by a disabled helicopter. Despite the message scrawled on the case (“Never use this camera”), Max decides to try it out—and discovers that people he points the camera at die gruesomely. It’s just the kind of truth he’s been searching for in his work, so he sets out to make a movie that will upend cliché, casting Sally as his final girl. The cursed object set up feels familiar, but readers will be pulled in by the morally twisted characters and serpentine plot. Film buffs will especially enjoy this paean to ’80s slasher films and the people who love them.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Rachel Louise Moran's "Blue"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America by Rachel Louise Moran.

About the book, from the publisher:

A powerful look at the changing cultural understanding of postpartum depression in America.

New motherhood is often seen as a joyful moment in a woman’s life; for some women, it is also their lowest moment. For much of the twentieth century, popular and medical voices blamed women who had emotional and mental distress after childbirth for their own suffering. By the end of the century, though, women with postpartum mental illnesses sought to take charge of this narrative. In Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America, Rachel Louise Moran explores the history of the naming and mainstreaming of postpartum depression. Coalitions of maverick psychiatrists, psychologists, and women who themselves had survived substantial postpartum distress fought to legitimize and normalize women’s experiences. They argued that postpartum depression is an objective and real illness and fought to avoid it being politicized alongside other fraught medical and political battles over women’s health.

Based on insightful oral histories and in-depth archival research, Blue reveals a secret history of American motherhood, women’s political activism, and the rise of postpartum depression advocacy amid an often-censorious conservative culture. By breaking new ground with the first book-length history of postpartum mental illness in the twentieth century, Moran brings mothers’ battles with postpartum depression out of the shadows and into the light.

Visit Rachel Louise Moran's website.

The Page 99 Test: Blue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Marilyn Simon Rothstein

From my Q&A with Marilyn Simon Rothstein, author of Who Loves You Best: A Novel:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think the title --along with the cover--makes it clear Who Loves You Best is a warm and humorous contemporary story and that there is a competition going on. From the cover, it’s also clear that the people in the book wear shoes.

The working title for Who Loves You Best was Battle of the Bubbies.

What's in a name?

A lot. I go for names of people who...[read on]

Visit Marilyn Simon Rothstein's website.

The Page 69 Test: Who Loves You Best.

Q&A with Marilyn Simon Rothstein.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books on guns in America

Catherine Habgood is a writer and editor living in New York City. She is one of the fiction editors at The Washington Square Review and is pursuing an MFA in Fiction at New York University.

"To understand America’s complicated culture of guns is an interdisciplinary pursuit: legal, historical, sociological, economic," she writes at Lit Hub, shere she tagged ten" exemplary attempts at that understanding." One title on the list:

Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture, 2016

It’s too easy to forget that even objects imbued with such political controversy, existential power and cultural deification as the “gun” are also products manufactured, goods—bought, sold and advertised. Pamela Haag’s The Gunning of America corrects “the perception of the gun’s inevitability in American life by showing its history as a commodity invented and then deliberately marketed and distributed like any other widget or household appliance.” (The New Republic). She contends that “the gun industry created, rather than responded to, America’s gun culture,” and “successfully exploited notions of frontier individualism, responsibility, and masculinity” to the exclusive benefit of the bottom line. Haag ascribes the origins of the gun industry to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, illustrating how their business success calcified the American interest in the gun, as it is today.

Read about another book on the list.

The Page 99 Test: The Gunning of America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Terrence G. Peterson's "Revolutionary Warfare"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency by Terrence G. Peterson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Revolutionary Warfare investigates how efforts to counter a revolution could also be revolutionary. The Algerian War fractured the French Empire, destroyed the legitimacy of colonial rule, and helped launch the Third Worldist movement for the liberation of the Global South. By tracing how French generals, officers, and civil officials sought to counter Algerian independence with their own project of radical social transformation, Terrence G. Peterson reveals that the conflict also helped to transform the nature of modern warfare.

The French war effort was never defined solely by repression. As Peterson details, it also sought to fashion new forms of surveillance and social control that could capture the loyalty of Algerians and transform Algerian society. Hygiene and medical aid efforts, youth sports and education programs, and psychological warfare campaigns all attempted to remake Algerian social structures and bind them more closely to the French state. In tracing the emergence of such programs, Peterson reframes the French war effort as a project of armed social reform that sought not to preserve colonial rule unchanged, but to revolutionize it in order to preserve it against the global challenges of decolonization.

Revolutionary Warfare demonstrates how French officers' efforts to transform warfare into an exercise in social engineering not only shaped how the Algerian War unfolded from its earliest months, but also helped to forge a paradigm of warfare that dominated strategic thinking during the Cold War and after: counterinsurgency.

Visit Terrence G. Peterson's website.

The Page 99 Test: Revolutionary Warfare.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephanie Booth's "Libby Lost and Found," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Libby Lost and Found: A Novel by Stephanie Booth.

The entry begins:

Forty-year-old Libby Weeks writes the best-selling fantasy series in the world, The Falling Children. (Imagine the popularity of Harry Potter, then dial it up a million.) But before she can finish the last book in the series, which fans across the globe are impatiently waiting to be published, Libby learns that she has early-onset dementia. Desperate to save the characters she loves so much, Libby reaches out to her biggest fan, an 11-year-old girl named Peanut Bixton, to help her finish the very last book.

I did not have any actors in my head while I was writing this, so it’s harder than I thought it would be to answer this question!

Peanut should probably be played by an earnest kid who begged her parents to go to the audition, they said, “No, you’re not missing school for this,” and she sneaked out and went anyway. I also expect that she gave the casting director a...[read on]

Visit Stephanie Booth's website.

Q&A with Stephanie Booth.

My Book, The Movie: Libby Lost and Found.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michael Wendroff's "What Goes Around"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: What Goes Around by Michael Wendroff.

About the book, from the publisher:

EVIL HAS MANY FACES

Chilling killings terrorize a town and bring together two detectives to face the hardest tasks of their lives. Jack Ludlum, who relies on his brawn to get things done, is now paired with his archenemy, Jill Jarred, a brilliant investigator with keen intuition. As they delve into the secret world of incels and white supremacists, and conflict between local authorities and the FBI rages, a media frenzy further complicates the mission.

Is there a serial killer on the loose? Or something entirely different? Will their clashing personalities be their undoing, or can they unite to stop the killer before they kill each other?

What Goes Around is a dynamic thriller that examines the intricacies of love, loss, and the unbreakable bonds that transcend time. With its pulse-pounding pace, captivating characters, and a revelatory twist that challenges the boundaries of life and death, this novel will keep you hooked from the first page to the last, and thinking long afterwards.

Visit Michael Wendroff's website.

The Page 69 Test: What Goes Around.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best book villains

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged seven favorite book villains. One title on the list:

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

Fully illustrated in staggering detail, this is the start of Rin’s epic story. In a grim world of gods, monsters, opium and war, there can be no heroes — only villains.

Read about another book on the list.

The Poppy War is among Hannah Kaner's five top novels featuring gods, Sasha Peyton Smith's six magical schools you wish you could attend, Aigner Loren Wilson's five thrilling SFF books to motivate you while exercising, Megan Whalen Turner's eight SFF books featuring deities, Jennifer Giesbrecht's top five fantasy books steeped in history, and Ross Johnson's twenty-five epic fantasies for fans of Game of Thrones.

The Page 69 Test: The Poppy War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Sara J. Charles's "The Medieval Scriptorium"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages by Sara J. Charles.

About the book, from the publisher:

Illuminated with illustrations, an exploration of medieval manuscript production that offers insight into both the early history of the book and life in the Middle Ages.

This book takes the reader on an immersive journey through medieval manuscript production in the Latin Christian world. Each chapter opens with a lively vignette by a medieval narrator—including a parchment maker, scribe, and illuminator—introducing various aspects of manuscript production. Sara J. Charles poses the question “What actually is a scriptorium?” and explores the development of the medieval scriptorium from its early Christian beginnings through to its eventual decline and the growth of the printing press.

With the written word at the very heart of the Christian monastic movement, we see the immense amount of labor, planning, and networks needed to produce each manuscript. By tapping into these processes and procedures, The Medieval Scriptorium helps us to experience medieval life through the lens of a manuscript maker.

Learn more about The Medieval Scriptorium at the Reaktion Books website.

The Page 99 Test: The Medieval Scriptorium.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with Tony Wirt

From my Q&A with Tony Wirt, author of Pike Island: A Thriller:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Most of the excitement in Pike Island takes place on Pike Island, so I think the title puts readers right in the middle of the action. I always thought the name of the island would be a great title for the book, unfortunately, the real place I set this book is called Mystery Island, and that sounds way too much like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo. So my agent, my editor, and I put our heads together to think up a new name that sounded both realistic and...[read on]

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

Q&A with Tony Wirt.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Timothy Jay Smith reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Timothy Jay Smith, author of Istanbul Crossing.

His entry begins:

Rabih Alameddine is no stranger to the LGBTQ literary community. In 2017, his novel, The Angel of History, won the Lammy Award for Best Gay Novel, and he’s a frequent essayist-cum- philosopher on subjects ranging from HIV/AIDS to the emerging status of gay writers and the role we play in world literature.

Somewhat belatedly, I learned about his book, The Wrong End of the Telescope, published in 2021. In it, a trans Lebanese doctor (living in Chicago with her wife) travels to the Greek island of Lesbos for a short stay to help refugees – primarily Syrian – who arrive by crossing a narrow but treacherous channel from Turkey.

The setting intrigued me for more than the obvious reason that it’s set in Greece. For over twenty years, I’ve gone every year to Lesbos and know exactly where Alameddine has set his novel. At the height the refugee crisis (2015-2017), I assisted the relief efforts in many capacities, so I was especially curious how he would describe and characterize the situation.

Alameddine’s portrayal of the place, people, and situation is perfect. For anyone who wants to know how the refugee crisis played out in terms of the interactions between volunteers, international aid agencies, and local villagers, Telescope captures it – including cringe-worthy moments when...[read on]

Visit Timothy Jay Smith's website.

Writers Read: Timothy Jay Smith (May 2019).

My Book, The Movie: The Fourth Courier.

The Page 69 Test: The Fourth Courier.

Q&A with Timothy Jay Smith.

The Page 69 Test: Fire on the Island.

The Page 69 Test: Istanbul Crossing.

Writers Read: Timothy Jay Smith (October 2024).

Writers Read: Timothy Jay Smith.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books channeling the mythic horror of girlhood

Tyler Wetherall is a journalist and author. Her first book, No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run, came out in 2018, following her childhood spent on the run with her fugitive father. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, British Vogue, The Guardian, National Geographic, LitHub, Vice, and Condé Nast Traveler, amongst others.

Wetherall's new novel, her debut, is Amphibian.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books that "borrow from the toolbox of magic realism and horror to convey the experience of girlhood in all its delight and barbarity." One title on the list:

The Curators by Maggie Nye

Another polyvocal entry, this historical fantasy is told mostly by a group of five teenage Jewish girls obsessed—as was the rest of Atlanta in 1915—with the real life lynching of Jewish factory superintendent Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. This public trauma is experienced through their adolescent lens, and Frank is mythologized as an object of the girls’ hungry desires. Urgent and lyrical, the novel is as much about this crime—with all its relevance today—as it is about girlhood and the power of devotion. Determined to keep his memory alive, they use dirt from the garden to create a golem in his image, but then––brilliantly––their golem starts to speak.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Curators.

Q&A with Maggie Nye.

The Page 69 Test: The Curators.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Serene J. Khader's "Faux Feminism"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop by Serene Khader.

About the book, from the publisher:

For readers of Hood Feminism and Against White Feminism

An incisive examination of why the pillars of feminism have eroded—and how all women, not just the #girlbosses, can rebuild them

After over 175 years, the feminist movement, now in its fourth wave, is at risk of collapsing on its eroding foundation. In Faux Feminism, political philosopher Serene Khader advocates for another feminism—one that doesn’t overwhelmingly serve white, affluent #girlbosses. With empathy, passion, and wit, Khader invites the reader to join her as she excavates the movement’s history and draws a blueprint for a more inclusive and resilient future.

A feminist myth buster, Khader begins by deconstructing “faux feminisms.” Thought to be the pillars of good feminism, they may appeal to many but, in truth, leave most women behind. Khader identifies these traps that white feminism lays for us all, asking readers to think critically about

–The Freedom Myth: The overarching misconception that feminism is about personal freedom rather than collective equality
–The Individualism Myth: The pervasive idea that feminism aims to free individual women from social expectations
–The Culture Myth: The harmful misconception that “other” cultures restrict women’s liberation
–The Restriction Myth: The flawed belief that feminism is a fight against social restrictions
–The Judgment Myth: The fallacy of celebrating women’s choices without first interrogating the privileges afforded or denied to the women

In later chapters, Khader draws on global and intersectional feminist lessons of the past and present to imagine feminism’s future. She pays particular attention to women of color, especially those in the Global South. Khader recounts their cultural and political stories of building a more inclusive framework in their societies. These are the women, she argues, from whom today’s feminists can learn.

Khader’s critical inquiry begets a new vision of feminism: one that tackles inequality at the societal, not individual, level and is ultimately rooted in community.

Visit Serene Khader's website.

The Page 99 Test: Faux Feminism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tony Wirt's "Pike Island"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Pike Island: A Thriller by Tony Wirt.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the bestselling author of Just Stay Away comes a haunting thriller about a rising politician whose shadowy past threatens to end his career―and his future shot at the presidency.

What happens at the cabin stays at the cabin. Right?

Andrew Harrison “Harry” Leonard is destined for politics. Getting his start on the Rochester City Council, he quickly rose to become the youngest representative in Congress. Now the up-and-comer from Minnesota is on the brink of something big. If all goes well, he’ll be in perfect position to aim for the presidency.

Then a postcard arrives, blank except for the name on the address: Andy Leonard. Harry hasn’t used that name since high school. Krista Walsh, Harry’s chief of staff, recognizes his old moniker, and when he dodges questions about it, she wonders what he’s trying to hide. She soon discovers the lake pictured on the postcard holds secrets too.

Krista’s investigation into Harry’s past uncovers the truth of what happened one fateful teenage summer. But as disturbing details come to light, how far will Krista go to keep Harry’s career―and her own―headed to the top?

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top suspense novels featuring mysterious mansions

Tom Ryan is an award winning author, screenwriter and producer. His YA mystery Keep This to Yourself was the winner of the 2020 ITW Thriller Award for Best YA Thriller, the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for Best YA Crime Book, and the 2021 Ann Connor Brimer Award, and is currently being adapted for television. His followup YA mystery I Hope You're Listening was the winner of the 2021 Lambda “Lammy” Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction.

Ryan's new novel, his adult mystery debut, is The Treasure Hunters Club.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six "fantastic novels featuring creepy houses that will keep you on the edge of your seat." One title on the list:

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Riley Sager’s Home Before Dark follows Maggie Holt, who returns to Baneberry Hall, the Victorian mansion her family fled when she was a child. Her father went on to write a bestselling book about their time in the house, claiming it was haunted, but Maggie has always been skeptical of his account. When she moves back to renovate the estate, she begins to experience strange occurrences that mirror the events in her father’s book, leading her to question whether the house is truly haunted or if something else is going on. As Maggie delves deeper into the truth about what’s going on in Baneberry Hall, Sager expertly balances psychological suspense with supernatural elements, creating a narrative that constantly keeps the reader guessing. The atmosphere in Baneberry Hall is thick with mystery, making it one of the most unsettling modern creepy houses in fiction.

Read about another title on the list.

Home Before Dark is among Chanel Cleeton's nine novels about grand homes that are filled with secrets, Philip Fracassi's ten best thrillers with supernatural elements, Ana Reyes's six top books with embedded narratives, James S. Murray's five top books about women fighting their way out and Karen Dionne's eight top thrillers that turn home into a place of mortal danger.

The Page 69 Test: Home Before Dark.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Travis Vogan's "LeRoy Neiman"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: LeRoy Neiman: The Life of America’s Most Beloved and Belittled Artist by Travis Vogan.

About the book, from the publisher:

The untold story of an American hustler who upset the art world and became a pop culture icon, cutting a swath across twentieth-century history and culture.

LeRoy Neiman—the cigar-smoking and mustachioed artist famous for his Playboy illustrations, sports paintings, and brash interviews—stood among the twentieth century’s most famous, wealthy, and polarizing artists. His stylish renderings of musicians, athletes, and sporting events captivated fans but baffled critics, who accused Neiman of debasing art with popular culture. Neiman cashed in on the controversy, and his extraordinary popularity challenged the norms of what art should be, where it belongs, and who should have access to it.

The story of a Depression-era ragamuffin–turned–army chef–turned–celebrity artist, Neiman’s biography is a rollicking ride through twentieth-century American history, punctuated by encounters with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, Joe Namath, and Andy Warhol. In the whirlwind of his life, Neiman himself once remarked that even he didn’t know who he really was—but, he said, the fame and money that came his way made it all worth it. In this first biography of the captivating and infamous man, Travis Vogan hunts for the real Neiman amid the America that made him.

Learn more about LeRoy Neiman at the University of Chicago Press website.

The Page 99 Test: LeRoy Neiman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Q&A with J. T. Ellison

From my Q&A with J.T. Ellison, author of A Very Bad Thing:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think it’s a rather straightforward title, quite literal and easy to understand, as it sets the stakes for the whole story from the jump. It was not the first title I entertained—mine rarely are—but it was one of the first lines I wrote for the book. It starts with a letter. My darling daughter. Many years ago, I did a very bad thing. Even I wanted to know what that very bad thing was, and what I thought wasn’t what it ended up being. So I tricked myself! Columbia Jones is an author, and she’s killed in the opening pages of the book. The letter gives us a peek into her mind, one of the few we get, as the story revolves around the people closest to her, the ones with...[read on]

Visit J.T. Ellison's website and follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020).

Q&A with J.T. Ellison.

--Marshal Zeringue