Top ten novels with multiple narratives

Susan Barker is the author of the novels Sayonara Bar (2005), The Orientalist and the Ghost (2008), and The Incarnations (2014). One of her top ten novels with multiple narratives, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Centered on the ill-fated de Leon family, blighted (according to the narrator, Yunior) by a multi-generational curse, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao moves back and forth between Oscar de Leon’s childhood in '70s and '80s New Jersey, to Oscar’s sister Lola’s teenage rebellion, to their mother Belico’s harsh life in Trujillo-era '50s and '60s Santo Domingo. Written by Yunior (a reluctant friend from Oscar’s student days at Rutgers) in energetic, idiosyncratically slangy prose, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a tragicomic and exhilarating read.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao appears among BBC Culture's twelve greatest novels of the 21st century, Emily Temple's fifty greatest debut novels since 1950, Niall Williams's top ten bookworms' tales, Chrissie Gruebel's nine best last lines in literature, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, Jami Attenberg's top six books with overweight protagonists, Brooke Hauser's six top books about immigrants, Sara Gruen's six favorite books, Paste magazine's list of the ten best debut novels of the decade (2000-2009), and The Millions' best books of fiction of the millenium. The novel is one of Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America and is a book that made a difference to Zoë Saldana.

The Page 99 Test: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

--Marshal Zeringue

Frank Rich's ten top books

Frank Rich joined New York magazine in June 2011 as Writer-at-Large, writing monthly on politics and culture, and editing a special monthly section anchored by his essay. His books include Ghost Light: A Memoir and, most recently, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina.

For One Grand he named ten books that influenced him before he finished high school (Woodrow Wilson High, Washington, D.C., class of ‘67). One title on the list:

Lord of the Flies
William Golding

The cruel politics of the schoolyard, and beyond.

Read about another book on the list.

Lord of the Flies is on Non Pratt's top ten list of toxic friendships in literature, Francesca Haig's top ten list of the greatest twins in children’s books, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick list of thirteen favorite, occasionally-banned, YA novels, Matt Kraus's list of six famous books with extremely faithful film adaptations, Michael Hogan's list of the ten best fictional evil children, Danny Wallace's six best books list, Gemma Malley's top ten list of dystopian novels for teenagers, AbeBooks' list of 20 books of shattered childhoods and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King. It appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best pigs in literature, ten of the best pairs of glasses in literature, and ten of the best horrid children in literature, Katharine Quarmby's top ten list of disability stories, and William Skidelsky's list of ten of the best accounts of being marooned in literature. It is a book that made a difference to Isla Fisher and is one of Suzi Quatro's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Leslie Budewitz reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Leslie Budewitz, author of Butter Off Dead.

Her entry begins:

I’ve been doing a lot of driving around Montana this summer, with a big stack of audio books on the seat next to me. That raises the pesky question whether listening is reading. Yes, in my view, though it reading with my ears is a vastly different experience from reading with my eyes. I miss the ability to flip back and check a phrase I missed—or one I particularly liked. But there’s something wonderfully comforting about being read to. And I feel freer to choose books I might not pick up otherwise, because my sit-down-and-read time is limited. Audio books let me dip into other worlds beyond the light-hearted mysteries I write.

At the moment, I’m listening to The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. I can’t remember the last time I read a book set in Australia—something more recent than The Thorn Birds, I hope! From the brief prologue about Pandora of myth—did you know she was given a jar, not a box?—and the opening lines of Chapter 1, I knew this book was going to be...[read on]

About Butter Off Dead, from the publisher:

As the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries continue, the merchants of Jewel Bay, Montana, try to heat up chilly winter business with a new film festival. But their plans are sent reeling when a dangerous killer dims the lights on a local vendor…

In an attempt to woo tourists to Jewel Bay and cheer up the townies, Erin Murphy, manager of the specialty local foods market known as the Merc, is organizing the First Annual Food Lovers’ Film Festival, filled with classic foodie flicks and local twists on favorite movie treats. But when her partner in planning, painter Christine Vandeberg, is found dead only days before the curtain rises, Erin suspects someone is attempting to stop the films from rolling.

To make matters worse, Nick—Erin’s brother and Christine’s beau—has top billing on the suspect list. Convinced her brother is innocent and determined that the show must go on, Erin has to find who’s really to blame before Nick gets arrested or the festival gets shut down. But the closer she gets to the killer, the more likely it becomes that she’ll be the next person cut from the program…

Visit Leslie Budewitz's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Butter Off Dead.

Writers Read: Leslie Budewitz.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Randy McBee's "Born to Be Wild"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Born to Be Wild: The Rise of the American Motorcyclist by Randy D. McBee.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 1947, 4,000 motorcycle hobbyists converged on Hollister, California. As images of dissolute bikers graced the pages of newspapers and magazines, the three-day gathering sparked the growth of a new subculture while also touching off national alarm. In the years that followed, the stereotypical leather-clad biker emerged in the American consciousness as a menace to law-abiding motorists and small towns. Yet a few short decades later, the motorcyclist, once menacing, became mainstream. To understand this shift, Randy D. McBee narrates the evolution of motorcycle culture since World War II. Along the way he examines the rebelliousness of early riders of the 1940s and 1950s, riders' increasing connection to violence and the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s, the rich urban bikers of the 1990s and 2000s, and the factors that gave rise to a motorcycle rights movement. McBee's fascinating narrative of motorcycling's past and present reveals the biker as a crucial character in twentieth-century American life.

Learn more about Born to Be Wild at The University of North Carolina Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Born to Be Wild.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top stoners from the arts and culture

At the Guardian Tim Lewis tagged ten top stoners from the arts and entertainment. Only one poet made the list:

Charles Baudelaire
Poet

The 19th-century French poet is one of the great chroniclers of drug use and his memoir Artificial Paradises features a detailed analysis of hashish. He was a member, along with other influential Parisian authors Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac, of Club des Hachichins (Hashish-Eaters’ Club), which met regularly between 1844 and 1849. “At first, a certain absurd, irresistible hilarity overcomes you,” he noted of their experiments. But, surprisingly, although far from strait-laced – he smoked opium and drank very heavily – Baudelaire was unconvinced by the appeal of hashish. It boosted creativity, he found, but artists risked becoming too dependent on it.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see Sam Munson's six best stoner novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Christopher Farnsworth's "The Eternal World"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Eternal World: A Novel by Christopher Farnsworth.

About the book, from the publisher:

If you could live forever, what would you die for?

Five hundred years ago, a group of Spanish conquistadors searching for gold, led by a young and brilliant commander named Simon De Oliveras, land in the New World. What they find in the sunny and humid swamps of this uncharted land is a treasure far more valuable: the Fountain of Youth. The Spaniards slaughter the Uzita, the Native American tribe who guard the precious waters that will keep the conquistadors young for centuries. But one escapes: Shako, the chief’s fierce and beautiful daughter, who swears to avenge her people—a blood oath that spans more than five centuries...

When the source of the fountain is destroyed in our own time, the loss threatens Simon and his men, and the powerful, shadowy empire of wealth and influence they have built. For help, they turn to David Robinton, a scientific prodigy who believes he is on the verge of the greatest medical breakthrough of all time. But as the centuries-old war between Shako and Simon reaches its final stages, David makes a horrifying discovery about his employers and the mysterious and exotic woman he loves. Now, the scientist must decide: is he a pawn in a game of immortals. . . or will he be its only winner?

Learn more about the book and author at Christopher Farnsworth's website.

Farnsworth is also the author of the bestselling Nathaniel Cade series, about a vampire who works for the President of the United States. Called “the best debut vampire novel in many years” and “dazzlingly clever” by critics, the books have been optioned by producer Lucas Foster (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Man on Fire, Law-Abiding Citizen)

The Page 69 Test: Blood Oath.

The Page 69 Test: The Eternal World.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susan Campbell Bartoletti's "Terrible Typhoid Mary," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

From her entry:

As serious as the story of Terrible Typhoid Mary is, I’d cast comedic actors in the roles. (Mind you, I don’t know if these people can sing, but most of Audrey Hepburn’s singing in My Fair Lady was dubbed by Mami Nixon, according to IMDb.) Before you balk at this choice, consider how effective Will Ferrell was in Stranger than Fiction and Steve Carell as the sick and twisted du Pont in Foxcatcher.

In the role of 38-year-old Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary, I’d cast Tina...[read on]

Visit Susan Campbell Bartoletti's website.

My Book, The Movie: Terrible Typhoid Mary.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels featuring runaway parents

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At B & N Reads Somers tagged "five novels in which parents ran off and left their children to fend for themselves—with powerful consequences," including:

Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple

After having suffered the sort of betrayal and professional setback that destroys people, Bernadette Fox is living (more or less as a recluse) in Seattle with her husband and her precocious, brilliant daughter, Bee. Bernadette’s decision to run away and leave her family behind is sparked by what can only be seen as a complete emotional breakdown, but this is communicated in such caustic, hilarious episodes that the gravity of Bernadette’s mental and emotional condition is obscured. Her flight to, of all places, Antarctica, and Bee’s detective work in tracking her down to bring her back (in more ways than one) is equally hilarious and heartwarming, as Bernadette grows and evolves into a better person, and her daughter Bee sees her mother in a more realistic if no less affectionate light, as the murky details of her past are brought into clarity.

Read about another entry on the list.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is among Chrissie Gruebel's seven great books for people who love Modern Family, Charlotte Runcie's ten best bad mothers in literature, Joel Cunningham's seven notable epistolary novels and Chrissie Gruebel's five top books for readers inspired by Nora Ephron.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nadia Hashimi reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Nadia Hashimi, author of When the Moon Is Low.

Her entry begins:

I've got a couple of books on my "nightstand" right now. In the last two or three years, I've forced myself to be more open to e-books and audio books which has allowed me to enjoy more stories than I would if I relied only on books I can flip through. I'm listening to State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I thought I would identify with Marina Singh, the protagonist, since she's also a physician but the novel has her traveling through the Amazon in a quest to find out why the Lakashi women remain fertile well into their golden years. That's a far cry from my work as a pediatrician in a Washington DC hospital but that makes it...[read on]

About When the Moon Is Low, from the publisher:

Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.

Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister's family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.

Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.

Visit Nadia Hashimi's website.

The Page 69 Test: When the Moon Is Low.

Writers Read: Nadia Hashimi.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Leslie Budewitz's "Butter Off Dead"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Butter Off Dead by Leslie Budewitz.

About the book, from the publisher:

As the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries continue, the merchants of Jewel Bay, Montana, try to heat up chilly winter business with a new film festival. But their plans are sent reeling when a dangerous killer dims the lights on a local vendor…

In an attempt to woo tourists to Jewel Bay and cheer up the townies, Erin Murphy, manager of the specialty local foods market known as the Merc, is organizing the First Annual Food Lovers’ Film Festival, filled with classic foodie flicks and local twists on favorite movie treats. But when her partner in planning, painter Christine Vandeberg, is found dead only days before the curtain rises, Erin suspects someone is attempting to stop the films from rolling.

To make matters worse, Nick—Erin’s brother and Christine’s beau—has top billing on the suspect list. Convinced her brother is innocent and determined that the show must go on, Erin has to find who’s really to blame before Nick gets arrested or the festival gets shut down. But the closer she gets to the killer, the more likely it becomes that she’ll be the next person cut from the program…

Visit Leslie Budewitz's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Butter Off Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top psychological thrillers

Ruth Ware has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. She is married with two small children, and In a Dark, Dark Wood is her début thriller.

One of her top ten psychological thrillers, as shared at B & N Reads:

We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

While it was published as young adult, readers of any age will be gripped by this slow, hypnotic tale of a monied, uptight New England family, and the weight of a secret that unfolds with shocking violence.

Learn about another book on the list.

We Were Liars is among Meredith Moore's five favorite YA thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Deanna Fei's"Girl in Glass"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Girl in Glass: How My "Distressed Baby" Defied the Odds, Shamed a CEO, and Taught Me the Essence of Love, Heartbreak, and Miracles by Deanna Fei.

About the book, from the publisher:

Deanna Fei was just five-and-a-half months pregnant when she inexplicably went into labor. Minutes later, she met her tiny baby who clung to life support inside a glass box. Fei was forced to confront terrifying questions: How to be the mother of a child she could lose at any moment. Whether her daughter would survive another day--and whether she should. But as she watched her daughter fight for her life, Fei discovered the power of the mother-child bond at its most elemental.

A year after she brought her daughter home from the hospital, the CEO of AOL--her husband's employer--blamed the beautiful, miraculously healthy little girl for a cut in employee benefits and attached a price tag to her life, using a phrase, "distressed babies," that set off a national firestorm.

Girl in Glass is the riveting story of one child's harrowing journey and a powerful distillation of parenthood. With incandescent prose and an unflinching eye, Fei explores the value of a human life: from the spreadsheets wielded by cost-cutting executives to the insidious notions of risk surrounding modern pregnancy; from the wondrous history of medical innovation in the care of premature infants to contemporary analyses of what their lives are worth; and finally, to the depths of her own struggle to make sense of her daughter's arrival in the world. Above all, Girl in Glass is a luminous testament to how love takes hold when a birth defies our fundamental beliefs about how life is supposed to begin.

Learn more about the book and author at Deanna Fei's website.

The Page 99 Test: Girl in Glass.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is David Hofmeyr reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Hofmeyr, author of Stone Rider.

His entry begins:

Winter's Bone
Daniel Woodrell

Woodrell steeps you in a bleak and twisted landscape with prose that burns. I feasted on his words, reading slowly to prolong the joy. Every page has something to revel in. “Amid the harsh landscape of the Ozark Hills, sixteen-year-old Ree is taking care of her mother and two brothers. Her father has put their house up as bail and if he doesn't show up at court it'll be sold from under them. To save her family she needs to track him down but in a community riven with long-running feuds getting answers isn't easy.” This is a modern day fairy-tale. Ree heads into the woods on a primal quest to save her family and the ogres she encounters on the road are the in-bred redneck meth-burning criminals of the Ozarks. A brutal and gripping story. But there is beauty and majesty. Winter’s Bone throws you into an uncompromising world with...[read on]

About Stone Rider, from the publisher:

In the vein of The Outsiders and the early Western novels of Elmore Leonard, this inventive debut novel, a cross between the cult classic Mad Max movie series and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, blends adrenaline-fueled action with an improbable yet tender romance to offer a rich and vivid portrayal of misfits and loners forced together in their struggle for a better life.

Adam Stone wants freedom and peace. He wants a chance to escape Blackwater, the dust-bowl desert town he grew up in. Most of all, he wants the beautiful Sadie Blood. Alongside Sadie and the dangerous outsider Kane, Adam will ride the Blackwater Trail in a brutal race that will test them all, body and soul. Only the strongest will survive.

The prize? A one-way ticket to Sky-Base and unimaginable luxury.

And for a chance at this new life, Adam will risk everything.

Visit David Hofmeyr's website.

Stone Rider is one of Rachel Paxton-Gillilan's top five YA books for Mad Max fans.

My Book, the Movie: Stone Rider.

The Page 69 Test: Stone Rider.

Writers Read: David Hofmeyr.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lisa Moses Leff's "The Archive Thief," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust by Lisa Moses Leff.

The entry begins:

The Archive Thief is about a Jewish historian named Zosa Szajkowski (Shy-KOV-ski) who stole tens of thousands of documents from the archives in France between 1940 (during World War II) and 1961 (when he was caught red-handed). What interested Szajkowski in the archives was anything that could be used for writing the history of the Jews of Europe— government documents, synagogue records, Jewish charity organization record books, you name it. Some of the stuff dated back to the 18th century, most of it was from the 19th and 20th century. He took all his booty back to the U.S., where he used it as evidence in his books and articles, and when he was done, he sold the documents off to American Jewish research libraries, which still have them today.

Ever since I started writing this book, people have asked me who would play Szajkowski in a future movie version. It’s a strange question for an academic to consider, but this isn’t your typical academic book. Szajkowski’s a fascinating character and the story is full of drama— so perhaps a movie adaptation will indeed be in the cards. I’ve certainly given the casting enough thought! The bulk of the action takes place before and during World War II, when Szajkowski served as a soldier first in the French Foreign Legion and then later, for the U.S. Army.

--For Szajkowski: Joaquin Phoenix. Szajkowski was both a tough guy and an intellectual— self-made, determined, and smart. He was emotionally strong, solid to the point of being hard. He saw firsthand the...[read on]

Learn more about The Archive Thief at the Oxford University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: The Archive Thief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Nadia Hashimi's "When the Moon Is Low"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: When the Moon Is Low: A Novel by Nadia Hashimi.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.

Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister's family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.

Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.

Visit Nadia Hashimi's website.

The Page 69 Test: When the Moon Is Low.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about food

J. Ryan Stradal's new novel is Kitchens of the Great Midwest.

One of his ten top books about food, as shared at the Guardian:

Pow! by Mo Yan

“During the day they made meat-filled dumplings and rolled noodles to feed the Koreans; at night, after the restaurant closed, they cooked a pot of dog meat and opened a bowl of strong white liquor. Each of them held a dog’s leg – two legs out of the pot, and two more inside – with its bewitching aroma, waiting to be eaten.”

Nobel prize winner Mo both retells his childhood in post-Cultural Revolution rural China as burlesque and critiques his country’s modern-day government in this surreal, wonderful, visceral novel set in a meat-obsessed town called Slaughterhouse Village.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nick Holdstock reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Nick Holdstock, author of The Casualties: A Novel.

His entry begins:

I’ve just finished reading William Vollmann’s new novel, The Dying Grass, a 1300 page novel about the Nez Perce Indian war in 1877. During this the US army pursued the Nez Perce Indians over three months, killing many of them in the process. Those that were captured were placed on reservations where they were further preyed on by missionaries and profiteers. I doubt I’ll read anything as good as this book for a while – it’s rich, formally daring and has consistently wonderful sentences. Like Vollmann’s other historical novels, it also has the virtue of being honest about what’s been made up, distorted, or lifted from historical sources, which actually makes the whole thing seem...[read on]

About The Casualties, from the publisher:

In Nick Holdstock's The Casualties, a man recounts the final weeks of his neighborhood before the apocalyptic event that only a few of the eccentric residents will survive.

Samuel Clark likes secrets. He wants to know the hidden stories of the bizarre characters on the little streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. He wants to know about a nymphomaniac, a man who lives under a bridge, a girl with a cracked face. He wants to uncover their histories because he has secrets of his own. He believes, as people do, that he is able to change. He believes, as the whole world does, that there is plenty of time to solve his problems. But Samuel Clark and the rest of the world are wrong. Change and tragedy are going to scream into his and everyone's lives. It will be a great transformation, a radical change; and it just might be worth the cost.

Written by a rising literary star whose work has been published in notoriously selective publications such as n+1 and The Southern Review, The Casualties is an ambitious debut novel that explores how we see ourselves, our past and our possible futures. It asks the biggest question: How can we be saved?

Visit Nick Holdstock's website.

Writers Read: Nick Holdstock.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Svetlana Stephenson's "Gangs of Russia"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Gangs of Russia: From the Streets to the Corridors of Power by Svetlana Stephenson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since their spectacular rise in the 1990s, Russian gangs have remained entrenched in many parts of the country. Some gang members have perished in gang wars or ended up behind prison bars, while others have made spectacular careers off the streets and joined the Russian elite. But the rank and file of gangs remain substantially incorporated into their communities and society as a whole, with bonds and identities that bridge the worlds of illegal enterprise and legal respectability.

In Gangs of Russia, Svetlana Stephenson explores the secretive world of the gangs. Using in-depth interviews with gang members, law enforcers, and residents in the city of Kazan, together with analyses of historical and sociological accounts from across Russia, she presents the history of gangs both before and after the arrival of market capitalism.

Contrary to predominant notions of gangs as collections of maladjusted delinquents or illegal enterprises, Stephenson argues, Russian gangs should be seen as traditional, close-knit male groups with deep links to their communities. Stephenson shows that gangs have long been intricately involved with the police and other state structures in configurations that are both personal and economic. She also explains how the cultural orientations typical of gangs—emphasis on loyalty to one's own, showing toughness to outsiders, exacting revenge for perceived affronts and challenges—are not only found on the streets but are also present in the top echelons of today's Russian state.

Learn more about Gangs of Russia at the Cornell University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Gangs of Russia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five creepy monsters from fantasy fiction

Aliette de Bodard has won two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award, and a BSFA Award, and has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Sturgeon, and Tiptree Awards. Her new novel is The House of Shattered Wings. For Tor.com she tagged her five creepiest monsters in fantasy, including:

The Other Mother—Coraline by Neil Gaiman

I hesitated a lot over picking this one, because Neil Gaiman has a knack for really scary creepy monsters and there were several others that I could have named. In the end, though… there’s little scarier than a thing that look like a dream mother—attentive, cooking better food and seemingly more loving—except that it turns out she steals eyes, keeps around the ghost-children she’s killed, and plans to do the same to Coraline….

Read about another entry on the list.

Coraline appears among Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's top seven awesomely scary novels and Sam Leith's top ten alternative realities.

--Marshal Zeringue

James Abel's "Protocol Zero," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Protocol Zero by James Abel.

The entry begins:

I certainly would love for Protocol Zero to be a movie, but I don't really envision one actor or another in the part of Joe Rush. I think that's because the best actors always surprise us with their range. Once I sold a novel to Paramount because Jodie Foster wanted to play the lead. Unfortunately, the script was so late in coming in that Foster went on to other things, I was told. But the fascinating thing for me was that she'd wanted to play a part I wrote for a man. And she would have been perfect. That part was about strength through loneliness.

Joe Rush, my Marine doctor and bio-terror expert in Protocol Zero, is a strong, moral person but also someone who can't stop once he starts after something. Drive is his talent but also...[read on]

Visit James Abel's website.

The Page 69 Test: Protocol Zero.

Writers Read: James Abel.

My Book, The Movie: Protocol Zero.

--Marshal Zeringue