What is Lou Anders reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Lou Anders, author of Nightborn.

His entry begins:

Right now I’m reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with my son, the first time for both of us. I read the first two Harry Potter novels very soon after they were released, but I also began a career as a professional editor around the same time. So when book three was out, I was too busy with my own slush piles to read further. In fact, for a good portion of the next fifteen years, I never read more than the first book in any series I didn’t acquire myself. The reason was that I felt I needed to keep up with as much as I could beyond my own list. Reading six “Book Ones” from separate series would teach me more about the climate of speculative fiction than reading six books in the same series.

Then, maybe four or five years ago, my son was old enough for me to begin reading Harry Potter to him. We made it to the third book, but he started to find it a little frightening. I realized that these books were...[read on]

About Nightborn, from the publisher:

From the author of Frostborn comes Book 2 in the acclaimed Thrones and Bones fantasy-adventure trilogy for fans of Lloyd Alexander and Brandon Mull.

Karn Korlundsson is a gamer. Not a riddle solver. But in order to rescue his best friend, Thianna Frostborn, he will need to travel to the faraway city of Castlebriar (by wyvern), learn how to play a new board game called Charioteers (not a problem), decipher the Riddle of the Horn, and tangle with mysterious elves.

Meet Desstra. She’s in training to join the Underhand—the elite agents of the dark elves. When she crosses paths with Karn, she is not all that she appears to be.

Everyone is chasing after the horn of Osius, an ancient artifact with the power to change the world. The lengths to which Karn will go in the name of friendship will be sorely tested. Who knew that solving a riddle could be so deadly?

Visit the official Thrones & Bones website, Lou Anders's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Nightborn.

My Book, the Movie: Nightborn.

Writers Read: Lou Anders.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maggie Mitchell's "Pretty Is," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell.

The entry begins:

How irresistible, to envision the main characters of Pretty Is embodied by actors I admire! It seems particularly, inevitably apt, moreover, because the novel is in fact partly about the process of adapting a novel to the screen. Pretty Is tells the story of two girls who are abducted and held captive for six weeks when they are twelve; years later, when both are twenty-nine, their lives intersect again. One, Lois, has become an English professor (and, secretly, a novelist); the other, Chloe, is an actress whose movie career is slipping. The situation is complicated by the fact that Lois has written a novel loosely based on the abduction which is actually being made into a movie--so in fact the question of casting is explicitly addressed in the fictional realm, and it makes a strange kind of sense to take this improbable process one step further.

I think Jennifer Lawrence would make a perfect Chloe. (Since this is a fantasy, I feel free to ignore practical issues like availability, and the fact that Jennifer Lawrence is probably already committed for the next three years or more.) She is beautiful, certainly, but also...[read on]

Visit Maggie Mitchell's Facebook page and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Pretty Is.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sara Nickerson's "The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me by Sara Nickerson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Determined to make some extra money, twelve-year-old Missy and her older brother Patrick get summer jobs picking blueberries at a local farm. For Missy, though, blueberry picking quickly becomes about more than just money— it’s the perfect distraction from the fact that her two best friends have gone off to summer camp without her and that her dad is getting remarried. Why can’t everything go back to the way it used to be? Back to normal? But, Missy soon discovers that the summer is full of secrets: the secrets to making her family feel whole again; the secrets to keeping her two best friends from changing and leaving her behind; the secrets of a local farm’s blood feud; and most importantly, the secrets of blueberries.

Author Sara Nickerson infuses warmth and emotion into this relatable story about finding something special within yourself and a place to call your own in even the most tumultuous of times.

Visit Sara Nickerson's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Sara Nickerson & Pico.

The Page 69 Test: The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top literary hoaxes

Mark Blacklock is a writer, editor, researcher, and author the newly released debut novel, I'm Jack.

One of his top ten literary hoaxes, as shared at the Guardian:

Theodore Sturgeon – I, Libertine (1956)

In the 1950s US bestseller lists were compiled by newspaper subeditors who would phone around bookstores to ask what was selling. The late night talk radio host Jean Shepherd, in collusion with his listeners, concocted a fake book, I Libertine, a raunchy historical romance by the similarly fictitious author Frederick R. Ewing, a retired Royal Naval officer resident in Rhodesia and expert in eighteenth century erotica. Shepherd urged his listeners to request the title from as many bookshops as possible. Despite its non-existence it was banned in Boston before the publisher Ballantine commissioned Kurt Vonnegut’s friend (and character in Slaughterhouse 5) Theodore Sturgeon to make the hoax text a reality.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Judy Brown's "This Is Not a Love Story"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: This Is Not a Love Story: A Memoir by Judy Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

A razor-sharp, hilarious, and poignant memoir about growing up in the closed world of the ultraorthodox Jewish community.

The third of six children in a family that harks back to a gloried Hassidic dynasty, Judy Brown grew up with the legacy of centuries of religious teaching, and the faith and lore that sustained her people for generations.

But her carefully constructed world begins to crumble when her "crazy" brother Nachum returns home after a year in Israel living with relatives. Though supposedly "cured," he is still prone to retreating into his own mind or erupting in wordless rages. The adults' inability to make him better - or even to give his affliction a name - forces Judy to ask larger questions: If God could perform miracles for her sainted ancestors, why can't He cure Nachum? And what of the other stories her family treasured?

Judy starts to negotiate with God, swinging from holy tenets to absurdly hilarious conclusions faster than a Talmudic scholar: she goes on a fast to nab coveted earrings; she fights with her siblings at the dinner table for the ultimate badge of honor ("Who will survive the next Holocaust?"); and she adamantly defends her family's reputation when, scandalously, her parents are accused of having fallen in love---which is absolutely not what pious people do.

For all its brutal honesty about this insular community, This Is Not a Love Story is ultimately a story of a family like so many others, whose fierce love for each other and devotion to their faith pulled them through the darkest time in their lives.

Visit Judy Brown's website.

My Book, The Movie: This Is Not a Love Story.

Writers Read: Judy Brown.

The Page 99 Test: This Is Not a Love Story.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Wendy Sand Eckel reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Wendy Sand Eckel, author of Murder at Barclay Meadow.

Her entry begins:

I recently delivered the first draft of Death at the Day Lily Café to my editor, the second in the Rosalie Hart mystery series. Writing up to ten hours a day for months on end cut into my reading time. But to keep the gears turning I kept a well worn copy of East of Eden nearby. I have dog-eared more pages in that book than any other. Steinbeck’s themes are timeless and universal, his descriptions like poetry. He has the unique ability to tap into the feeling of...[read on]

About Murder at Barclay Meadow, from the publisher:

Rosalie Hart's world has been upended. After her husband confesses to an affair, she exiles herself to her late aunt's farmhouse on Maryland's Eastern Shore. With its fields untended and the house itself in disrepair, Barclay Meadow couldn't be more different than the tidy D.C. suburb she used to call home. Just when Rosalie feels convinced things couldn't get any worse, she finds a body floating in her marsh grasses. When the sheriff declares the death an accident, she becomes suspicious. The dead girl, Megan, reminds her of her own daughter, who has recently gone off to college, and she feels a responsibility to find out the truth.

Rosalie confides her doubts to her friends in her creative writing class, and they ask to join her investigation, beginning the search in earnest. Meanwhile, Rosalie works on restoring Barclay Meadow to its former glory-with help from the rugged Tyler Wells, a farmer who once leased the land. When Rosalie discovers her aunt's favorite bread recipe on a yellowed index card, she begins baking, and with her deep love for nourishing others rekindled, she starts to feel alive again. But as she zeroes in on the truth about what happened to Megan, she begins getting ominous threats. Determined to get justice for Megan and protect the new home she's begun to build for herself, Rosalie races to catch the killer in this deftly plotted and heartwarming debut.

Visit Wendy Sand Eckel's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Murder at Barclay Meadow.

Writers Read: Wendy Sand Eckel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lou Anders's "Nightborn," the movie

Featured at My Book, the Movie: Nightborn by Lou Anders.

The entry begins:

When I write a book, I tend to think of the main characters as if I were casting a film. Sometimes I’ll have more than one actor in mind, using two or three to triangulate a type. I write in Scrivener, so it’s easy to snag photos and have them open when I need to remind myself of the sort of person I’m penning.

For the Thrones and Bones series, I had a number of people in mind for my major characters.

For Karn Korlundsson, a young farm boy in the Norse-inspired land of Norrøngard, I imagined Nathan O’Toole, who played the part of Bjorn Ironside on the first two seasons of Vikings. For Thianna Frostborn, the half-giant girl, I imagined what...[read on]

Visit the official Thrones & Bones website, Lou Anders's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Nightborn.

My Book, the Movie: Nightborn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven awesome books that celebrate female friendship

At B & N Reads, Kelly Anderson tagged seven amazing female friendships in fiction, including:

The Secret Place, by Tana French

Speaking of less palatable underbellies, Tana French’s The Secret Place is a memorably accurate exploration of teenage female friendship that has quite possibly gone horribly wrong. A teenage boy is found dead on the grounds of an all-girls’ prep school in Ireland, prompting an investigation with few leads—until one day someone anonymously posts “I know who killed him” on the school’s community bulletin board, known as the “secret place.” The detectives reopen the case and find themselves up against the psychological battlefield of high school girl cliques, frenemies, and social hierarchies, and all the secrets they hide. French paints a powerful picture of how deeply friendship matters to teenage girls, and does it with a depth of emotion sure to transport readers back to their own high school years.

Read about another novel on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tom Harper's "Zodiac Station"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Zodiac Station by Tom Harper.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Dan Brown and Michael Crichton—an eerie, evocative thriller set in the unforgiving Arctic from the author of The Orpheus Descent.

Deep in the Arctic, the US Coast Guard icebreaker Terra Nova batters its way through the frozen sea. A gaunt figure skis out of the fog on the pack ice. He says his name is Thomas Anderson, and that he’s the lone survivors of a terrible accident at the research outpost Zodiac Station, located on the ice-bound island of Utgard.

Ten days earlier, he’d arrived at Zodiac Station looking to resurrect a career destroyed by scientific scandal. But things quickly went wrong when the man who hired him, brilliant biochemist Martin Hagger, turned up dead, at the bottom of a crevasse. The base commander insisted he fell. But footprints in the snow told a much different story. As Anderson tells a tale of sabotage, suspicion, and paranoia, the mystery only deepens.

When other survivors are discovered and their stories cast doubt on Anderson’s reliability, it seems the grim fate of the scientists at Zodiac Station may involve human greed, jealousy, oil company trickery, Russian espionage, genetic experimentation, and global warming. But the truth is something no one on the Terra Nova could have imagined.

A fast-paced, gripping thriller that marries science and adventure, Zodiac Station is as chilling and unpredictable as the fierce Arctic landscape.

Visit Tom Harper's website.

My Book, The Movie: Zodiac Station.

The Page 69 Test: Zodiac Station.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Judy Brown reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Judy Brown, author of This Is Not a Love Story: A Memoir.

Her entry begins:

The Slave Trade, by Hugh Thomas

This is the kind of book you read over a period of time, to better process, ponder, and fully digest. Reading too much at once is unsettling for the mind. It is 798 pages on the slave trade, encompassing the span of thousands of years, covering the roots of this most ancient of markets, that of man trading man for money and power. The scope is breathtaking, covering....[read on]

About the book, from the publisher:

A razor-sharp, hilarious, and poignant memoir about growing up in the closed world of the ultraorthodox Jewish community.

The third of six children in a family that harks back to a gloried Hassidic dynasty, Judy Brown grew up with the legacy of centuries of religious teaching, and the faith and lore that sustained her people for generations.

But her carefully constructed world begins to crumble when her "crazy" brother Nachum returns home after a year in Israel living with relatives. Though supposedly "cured," he is still prone to retreating into his own mind or erupting in wordless rages. The adults' inability to make him better - or even to give his affliction a name - forces Judy to ask larger questions: If God could perform miracles for her sainted ancestors, why can't He cure Nachum? And what of the other stories her family treasured?

Judy starts to negotiate with God, swinging from holy tenets to absurdly hilarious conclusions faster than a Talmudic scholar: she goes on a fast to nab coveted earrings; she fights with her siblings at the dinner table for the ultimate badge of honor ("Who will survive the next Holocaust?"); and she adamantly defends her family's reputation when, scandalously, her parents are accused of having fallen in love---which is absolutely not what pious people do.

For all its brutal honesty about this insular community, This Is Not a Love Story is ultimately a story of a family like so many others, whose fierce love for each other and devotion to their faith pulled them through the darkest time in their lives.

Visit Judy Brown's website.

My Book, The Movie: This Is Not a Love Story.

Writers Read: Judy Brown.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Morgan's "The Forge of Vision"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity by David Morgan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Religions teach their adherents how to see and feel at the same time; learning to see is not a disembodied process but one hammered from the forge of human need, social relations, and material practice. David Morgan argues that the history of religions may therefore be studied through the lens of their salient visual themes. The Forge of Vision tells the history of Christianity from the sixteenth century through the present by selecting the visual themes of faith that have profoundly influenced its development. After exploring how distinctive Catholic and Protestant visual cultures emerged in the early modern period, Morgan examines a variety of Christian visual practices, ranging from the imagination, visions of nationhood, the likeness of Jesus, the material life of words, and the role of modern art as a spiritual quest, to the importance of images for education, devotion, worship, and domestic life. An insightful, informed presentation of how Christianity has shaped and continues to shape the modern world, this work is a must-read for scholars and students across fields of religious studies, history, and art history.

Learn more about The Forge of Vision at the University of California Press website.

Writers Read: David Morgan.

The Page 99 Test: The Forge of Vision.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top timeless kids' books from the ’90s

At B & N Reads Jen Harper tagged ten top kids' books from the ’90s that have proven to be utterly timeless, including:

The Giver, by Lois Lowry (1993)

Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a society free of pain and suffering. The seeming utopia has converted to Sameness in order to protect its people—there’s no crime, hunger, poverty, or memory of the past. “The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual.” But it’s also a life without love, music, and color. Jonas, like everyone else in his community, is assigned a job at age 12 by the Elders. And Jonas is chosen for the most important and difficult job of all: Receiver of Memory. The Giver teaches him the truth about his community’s dystopian, mind-controlling reality. Together, Jonas and the Giver come up with a plan for Jonas’s escape, which would restore memories to everyone in the community. Despite being published more than 20 years ago, Lowry’s provocative book remains a timeless classic.

Read about another book on the list.

The Giver made John Corey Whaley's top ten list of coming of age books for teens, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of thirteen top, occasionally-banned YA novels, Guy Lodge's list of ten of the best dystopias in fiction, film, art, and television, Joel Cunningham's list of six great young adult book series for fans of The Hunger Games, and Lauren Davis's top ten list of science fiction’s most depressing futuristic retirement scenarios.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Lois Lowry & Alfie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Benjamin Johncock's "The Last Pilot," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock.

The entry begins:

This is a tough one. I usually prefer to let readers form their own images and impressions… but, who can resist the fun of a game like this? Well, not me. I love the movies.

Let’s start with Harrison Ford, circa 1981 for Jim. I’ve also been mesmerized by Matthew Goode, an actor who can say nothing but convey everything. Matthew Goode is the scene. He’s a master. We were at the University of Birmingham together too, though our paths never crossed. Robert Bernstein, who produced the 2008 adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, said that Goode won the role of Ryder because of his wonderful stillness: “The sign of a truly great actor is not what he says but what he appears to say when the camera is on him, and Matthew has that.” It’s the same quality I see in Jon...[read on]

Visit Benjamin Johncock's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Pilot.

Writers Read: Benjamin Johncock.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Pilot.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Frankie Y. Bailey reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Frankie Y. Bailey, author of What the Fly Saw.

Her entry begins:

I’d like to say I’m reading a literary classic or a terrific mystery. But the truth is my fiction reading is on hold until I can get away on vacation later this summer. Until then I’m going to focus on reading related to a non-fiction book I’m writing about clothing and crime. On my desk right now: The Politics of Fashion in Eighteenth Century America by Kate Haulman and Sensory Worlds in Early America by Peter Charles Hoffer. I’m also working on a historical thriller set in 1939. I’m reading about the New York City World’s Fair and the royal visit and the premier of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta. Luckily, I happen to...[read on]

About What the Fly Saw, from the publisher:

Frankie Bailey introduced readers to an exciting new protagonist in The Red Queen Dies, the first book in the Detective Hannah McCabe mystery series. Now in What the Fly Saw, Hannah and her partner Mike Baxter are back with an even more puzzling case.

Albany, New York, January 2020

The morning after a blizzard that shut down the city, funeral director Kevin Novak is found dead in the basement of his funeral home. The arrow sticking out of his chest came from his own hunting bow.

A loving husband and father and an active member of a local megachurch, Novak has no known enemies. His family and friends say he was depressed because his best friend died suddenly of a heart attack and Novak blamed himself. But what does his guilt have to do with his death? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. The minister of the megachurch and the psychiatrist who provides counseling to church members--do either of them know more than they are saying?

Detective Hannah McCabe and her partner, Mike Baxter, sort through lies and evasions to solve the riddle of Novak's death, while unanswered questions from another high-profile case, and McCabe's own suspicions make for a dynamite crime novel.

Visit Frankie Y. Bailey's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: What the Fly Saw.

My Book, The Movie: What the Fly Saw.

Writers Read: Frankie Y. Bailey.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lou Anders's "Nightborn"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Nightborn by Lou Anders.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of Frostborn comes Book 2 in the acclaimed Thrones and Bones fantasy-adventure trilogy for fans of Lloyd Alexander and Brandon Mull.

Karn Korlundsson is a gamer. Not a riddle solver. But in order to rescue his best friend, Thianna Frostborn, he will need to travel to the faraway city of Castlebriar (by wyvern), learn how to play a new board game called Charioteers (not a problem), decipher the Riddle of the Horn, and tangle with mysterious elves.

Meet Desstra. She’s in training to join the Underhand—the elite agents of the dark elves. When she crosses paths with Karn, she is not all that she appears to be.

Everyone is chasing after the horn of Osius, an ancient artifact with the power to change the world. The lengths to which Karn will go in the name of friendship will be sorely tested. Who knew that solving a riddle could be so deadly?

Visit the official Thrones & Bones website, Lou Anders's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Nightborn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Laura Lippman

Since the publication of her first novel in 1997, Laura Lippman has won virtually every major award given to U.S. crime writings, including the Edgar Award, Anthony Award, Agatha Award, Nero Wolfe Award, Shamus Award, and the Quill Award. She is a New York Times bestseller. Lippman's novels include a number standalones as well as Hush Hush, her twelfth Tess Monaghan novel.

One of four books that changed the author, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith

This is considered a young adult novel and I think it's an unrecognised American classic because it centres on the life of a young girl. Set in Brooklyn 100 years before the neighbourhood became hip, it is about a family trapped in grinding poverty. It also has one of the best insights on writing that I've ever read. The heroine, Francie Nolan, yearns to write. After trying to create lush fantasies for a teacher who finds her real-life stories "sordid", Francie realises that describing one's fantasies is a round-about way of being inauthentic.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Gennifer Choldenko & Sasha

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Gennifer Choldenko & Sasha.

The author, on how she and Sasha were united:

Sophie, our last German shepherd, died suddenly after a fantastic holiday at the beach. My son, my daughter and I were absolutely distraught. My husband, not so much. He and I had agreed to wait to get another dog, but alas he left for Europe on business ... and my daughter, then eleven, went to work. She found Sasha and lobbied hard for her. I talked to my husband about this by phone. I discussed my concerns about buying a dog over the internet, my worries about taking my kids then eleven and fifteen with me to a strange person’s home to get the dog and how exactly we might pay for said dog. But none of this quite registered with him. It was when we were driving home with the adorable puppy Sasha curled up at my daughter’s feet, that...[read on]

About Choldenko's new novel, Chasing Secrets, from the publisher:

Newbery Honor–winning author Gennifer Choldenko deftly combines humor, tragedy, fascinating historical detail, and a medical mystery in this exuberant new novel.

San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people . . . but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow’s snobby school for girls. Lizzie’s secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city—a side that’s full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.

The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook’s son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in a heart-stopping race to save the people they love.

Visit Gennifer Choldenko's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Gennifer Choldenko & Sasha.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Reid Mitenbuler's "Bourbon Empire"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey by Reid Mitenbuler.

About the book, from the publisher:

How bourbon came to be, and why it’s experiencing such a revival today

Unraveling the many myths and misconceptions surrounding America’s most iconic spirit, Bourbon Empire traces a history that spans frontier rebellion, Gilded Age corruption, and the magic of Madison Avenue. Whiskey has profoundly influenced America’s political, economic, and cultural destiny, just as those same factors have inspired the evolution and unique flavor of the whiskey itself.

Taking readers behind the curtain of an enchanting—and sometimes exasperating—industry, the work of writer Reid Mitenbuler crackles with attitude and commentary about taste, choice, and history. Few products better embody the United States, or American business, than bourbon.

A tale of innovation, success, downfall, and resurrection, Bourbon Empire is an exploration of the spirit in all its unique forms, creating an indelible portrait of both bourbon and the people who make it.

Visit Reid Mitenbuler's website.

The Page 99 Test: Bourbon Empire.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Sarah Elizabeth Schantz reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Sarah Elizabeth Schantz, author of Fig.

Her entry begins:

I’ve been reading a lot of poetry, which is new for me. I just finished Dorianne Laux’s exquisite collection, Facts About the Moon, and before that Marie Howe’s, What The Living Do, and Ellen Bass’ Like a Beggar. I soon learned there is a connection between these poets as Howe dedicated her book to Laux and blurbed Bass’ The Human Line. I learned of Howe when I heard her read “Practicing” on Fresh Air. Every once in a while, I encounter work by someone else that feels like work I could have written—I don’t know how else to describe the feeling, and please understand that I am not by any means saying I could write a poem as gorgeous or as honest as “Practicing,” because I couldn’t, but I am attempting to explain the affinity I feel for it. From there, I discovered Bass, and then serendipity led me to Laux. I’m part of...[read on]

About Fig, from the publisher:

Love and sacrifice intertwine in this brilliant and provocative debut of rare beauty about a girl dealing with her mother’s schizophrenia and her own mental illness.

Fig’s world lies somewhere between reality and fantasy.

But as she watches Mama slowly come undone, it becomes hard to tell what is real and what is not, what is fun and what is frightening. To save Mama, Fig begins a fierce battle to bring her back. She knows that her daily sacrifices, like not touching metal one day or avoiding water the next, are the only way to cure Mama.

The problem is that in the process of a daily sacrifice, Fig begins to lose herself as well, increasingly isolating herself from her classmates and engaging in self-destructive behavior that only further sets her apart.

Spanning the course of Fig’s childhood from age six to nineteen, this deeply provocative novel is more than a portrait of a mother, a daughter, and the struggle that comes with all-consuming love. It is an acutely honest and often painful portrayal of life with mental illness and the lengths to which a young woman must go to handle the ordeals—real or imaginary—thrown her way.

Visit Sarah Elizabeth Schantz's website.

The Page 69 Test: Fig.

My Book, The Movie: Fig.

Writers Read: Sarah Elizabeth Schantz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Justin Gifford's "Street Poison," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford.

The entry begins:

When I began to contemplate the film version of Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim, a number of clear choices emerged for lead actor as well as director of the film. Street Poison is the remarkable true story of Robert “Iceberg Slim” Beck, a notorious criminal who pimped on the streets of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and many other American cities for twenty-five years. He served five bits in prison during this period, including a two-year term at the infamous Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary and a brief stint at the Chicago House of Corrections (he escaped from that prison in 1947). In 1962, Beck went straight and moved to California to be with his ailing mother. He published his autobiography Pimp: The Story of My Life and a handful of other streetwise crime novels with a third-tier paperback publisher, and in the process, he transformed himself from pimp to author. By the time of his death on the day of the Rodney King riots in 1992, Beck had sold over six million books, and his work had inspired the creation of blaxploitation film, gangster rap, and street literature.

When I began this book ten years ago I had always envisioned...[read on]

Learn more about Street Poison at the publisher's website.

My Book, The Movie: Street Poison.

--Marshal Zeringue