Pg. 69: Rick Mofina's "Six Seconds"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Six Seconds by Rick Mofina.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vengeful woman who aches for her place in paradise…

In Iraq an aid worker who lost her husband and child in a brutal attack saves the life of an American contractor. Believing he can help her avenge her family's deaths, she follows him back home to the United States.

An anguished mother desperate to find her child…

In California a soccer mom arrives to pick up her son from school, only to discover that her husband has taken their child and vanished without a trace.

A detective who needs to redeem himself…

In the Rocky Mountains an off-duty cop rescues a little girl from a raging river moments before she utters her final words in his arms. Haunted by failure, he launches an investigation that leads him to a Montana school where time is ticking down on an event that will rewrite history.…

Three strangers entangled in a plot to change the world in only six seconds…

Read an excerpt from the novel and watch the video trailer.

Check out Ali Karim's take on the book at The Rap Sheet.

Rick Mofina is the acclaimed author of the award-winning Reed-Sydowski series (If Angels Fall, Cold Fear, Blood of Others, No Way Back and Be Mine) and the new internationally-acclaimed Jason Wade series (The Dying Hour, Every Fear and A Perfect Grave.)

Visit Rick Mofina's website.

The Page 69 Test: Six Seconds.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Louise Penny's "A Rule Against Murder"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny.

About the book, from the author's website:

Wealthy, cultured and respectable, the Finney family is the epitome of gentility. When Irene Finney and her four grown-up children arrive at the Manoir Bellechasse in the heat of summer, the hotel's staff spring into action. For the children have come to this idyllic lakeside retreat for a special occasion - a memorial has been organised to pay tribute to their late father. But as the heat wave gathers strength, it is not just the statue of an old man that is unveiled. Old secrets and bitter rivalries begin to surface, and the morning after the ceremony, a body is found. The family has another member to mourn.

A guest at the hotel, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache suddenly finds himself in the middle of a murder enquiry. The hotel is full of possible suspects - even the Manoir's staff have something to hide, and it's clear that the victim had many enemies. With its remote location, the lodge is a place where visitors come to escape their pasts. Until the past catches up with them.

Learn more about the book and author at Louise Penny's website and her blog.

A Rule Against Murder is the fourth novel in the Three Pines mystery series.

Louise Penny's first Three Pines mystery, Still Life, won the New Blood Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association and the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada. In the United States it received the prestigious Anthony and Barry Awards at Bouchercon 2007, as well as the Dilys Award for the book that the members of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association most enjoyed selling. Her second in the series, A Fatal Grace, won the 2007 Agatha Award for Best Novel. And her third, The Cruelest Month, was number one on the hardcover Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list in March 2008.

The Page 69 Test: Still Life.

My Book, The Movie: A Fatal Grace.

The Page 99 Test: The Cruelest Month.

The Page 99 Test: A Rule Against Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best books: Charles Cumming

Charles Cumming is a British spy novelist who has been hailed as the heir apparent to John le Carré.

For The Week, he named his favorite thrillers.

One title to make the list:

A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (Vintage, $13).

Ambler is the father of the spy novel, a writer who showed that the popular thriller could also be regarded as literature. This is undoubtedly his masterpiece, a fantastically compelling novel about a mystery writer who becomes involved in the seedy, pre–World War II European underworld.

Read about another title on Cumming's list.

Learn more about the author and his work at Charles Cumming's website.

His most recent novel, Typhoon, was published in the UK to huge critical acclaim.

Cumming’s first novel, A Spy By Nature, was released in 2008 in the US in paperback. The sequel, The Spanish Game, is available in hardcover from St. Martin’s Press.

The Page 69 Test: A Spy By Nature.

My Book, The Movie: The Spanish Game.

--Marshal Zeringue

Summarizing Sundance 2009: Part II

In yesterday's dispatch from the Sundance Flim Festival, Ray Taras reported on the films Pomegranates and Myrrh, Corazón del Tiempo, and El General.

In today's communiqué, Taras covers three films: Cliente (A French Gigilo), An Education, and In the Loop.

It is often with anguish that I leave the movie theatre after seeing another Sundance film that has captured my imagination—and often my heart. I know the odds are stacked against an indie film getting a distribution deal and being released to wider audiences. The majority of films at this year’s festival have not been picked up. In a recession, artistic merit counts for even less than usual when compared to commercial value. It is some consolation that filmmakers can now post links to their work on the internet. But the economic payoff for them is likely to be next to nothing.

Perhaps symbolically, the snow in Park City has been replaced with interludes of drizzle these last few days. The ski slopes are shrouded in fog and, down in the Salt Lake Valley below, a week-long inversion has given the area the worst air quality in America. The good news is that the recession has had no impact on the number of brilliant films screened at Sundance 09 (next year will be another story). Taking in a movie to get away from it all has never been a better option.

Three European films that have promising commercial futures are ones set in those secure cinematic locations of London and Paris. Cliente, which has been rendered in English as “A French Gigolo,” offers a sensitive and at times comic treatment of a ménage à trois—there is a reason why we use a French term to describe this arrangement. At one point in the film, the wife confers with her husband’s female client about a schedule when he can be of best service to each of them. But the reality is that both are in love with him and the conflict becomes one for the ages: will the older, wealthier, more sophisticated woman (intriguingly played by Nathalie Baye) win out, or will it be the younger, blond-haired, shapely wife? No prizes for guessing right, but the lead does change hands a number of times. Telling a complicated love story is always best left to the French, who have mastered the art, and director Josiane Balasko has solidified that reputation.

It’s a cultural leap backward from the chic streets of Paris to the dowdy roads of Twickenham; the affectionate local term for the place, “Twickers,” sums the place up. Danish director Lone Scherfig stumbled into making a movie out of the screenplay written by celebrated Londoner Nick Hornby: she took over on the set when Beeban Kidron (director of Bridget Jones Diary 2) dropped out. Scherfig’s grand uncle was the great Danish iconoclastic novelist Hans Scherfig. Lone’s own unconventional artistic roots lie in the Dogme canon, reflected in her 2000 film Italian for Beginners.

Are those the right qualifications to make a movie set in Twickers? Lone appeared defensive in her comments after her first screening of An Education in the presence of an audience. She admitted to deferring to Hornby’s sensibilities and to his re-writes. She overcompensated for not being a Londoner with extensive research on the city and the period—the much-neglected 1960s. She heaped praise on Carey Mulligan, the much acclaimed actress playing the lead part of a 16-year-old — even though the actress looks every bit 22, her actual age. Scherfig insisted there was eroticism in her film even though there was no nudity, but she confessed that most sex scenes she has filmed end up on the editing room floor.

The film is an introspective story of a girl in sixth form preparing nervously for her A levels, seeking to read English at Oxford, with all the personal sacrifices this entails. She is suddenly swept away by a louche older man who wines and dines her, buys her a pre-Raphaelite painting at an auction (for which the winning bid at the time was only 200 guineas!), and takes her for her birthday to, well, predictably, Paris for a weekend to take away her virginity. Based on a true story written by an English journalist, the mismatched couple breaks up. But Scherfig told us that the man on whom the story is based still phones up his former girlfriend each year, on her birthday.

When not studying for A levels—and even when they are—the English can be raucous. In the Loop, whose world premiere was at Sundance, has an extraordinary cast transforming a brilliant screenplay into a cinematic tour de force. “Wicked” must be used in any description of the humor in the film. A biting satire on how Britain and the U.S. made the decision to invade a Middle East country, director Armando Iannucci feigned that it had nothing to do with facts or real people. But Sundance director Geoff Gilmore suggested the film should have been entered in the world documentary category. On second thought, he believed it ought to have been sent to the White House in early 2003.

The pastiche treatment of British and American policy makers is outrageous. Public school brats deaf to anything but an Elgar symphony and speaking eloquently, and vacuously, run Britain. Ambitious young sycophantic interns—the females always in bulky pant suits—shape U.S. policy. The two groups try to outdo each other in their deviousness, their hypocrisy, and their vulgar language. In the Loop is no genteel “Yes Minister” English political satire but an exposition on the repulsiveness of the Anglo-American special relationship.--Ray Taras

Read Summarizing Sundance 2009: Part I.

Ray Taras, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, is the author of the recently released Europe Old and New: Transnationalism, Belonging, Xenophobia. His literature reviews here on the blog include Per Petterson's To Siberia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jill Sorenson's "Crash Into Me," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Crash Into Me by Jill Sorenson.

The entry begins:

Crash Into Me is set in San Diego, a real place, but none of my characters are based on real people. I guess I start with a blank face, adding details as I go. It was a lot of fun to surf the net, searching for actors who resemble the pictures in my head.

With his brown hair and dark, bedroom eyes, Eric Bana is a good match for Ben Fortune, my surfer hero. Ben is a struggling single father and a successful pro athlete, a former ladies’ man and current murder suspect. Since his wife’s death, he’s been in virtual seclusion, shunning fans and avoiding the media. Bana seems like a reluctant heartthrob, and a strong, sensitive type, which makes him a perfect choice for Ben.

My heroine, Special Agent Sonora “Sonny” Vasquez, is more difficult to cast. Physically, she’s kind of fierce, like....[read on]

Crash Into Me hits bookstores on Tuesday, January 27th.

Read an excerpt from Crash Into Me, and learn more about the author and her work at Jill Sorenson's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Crash Into Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Erica Bauermeister's "The School of Essential Ingredients"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reminiscent of Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate, a gorgeously written novel about life, love, and the magic of food.

The School of Essential Ingredients follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students’ lives. One by one the students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of Lillian’s food, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love and a peppery heirloom tomato sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.

Read an excerpt from The School of Essential Ingredients, and learn more about the book and author at Erica Bauermeister's website.

Erica Bauermeister is the co-author of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide and Let's Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14, and has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Washington.

The Page 69 Test: The School of Essential Ingredients.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best butlers in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best butlers in literature.

One butler on the list:

Poole

Poole is Dr Jekyll's butler and the only character from whom Jekyll's inquisitive lawyer Mr Utterson can extract information about his increasingly odd client. We know that we are reaching the climax of the story when Poole abandons his post and his butler-like reticence to visit Utterson and confide his suspicion that his master has been murdered by Mr Hyde. . .

Read about the butler who topped Mullan's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Lorne Tepperman's "Betting Their Lives"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Betting Their Lives: The Close Relations of Problem Gamblers by Lorne Tepperman.

About the book, from the publisher:

There are now more ways than ever to gamble-casinos, corner stores, the internet-and as a result, there are also ever more "problem gamblers," individuals who gamble compulsively to their own detriment. While gambling is promoted as fun and glamorous, the reality is usually very different. Studies suggest that some 1 in 50 adults, or roughly 480,000 Canadians, have a gambling problem. So it is time to take a new and careful look at how gambling affects the lives of all these people.

Problem gambling has traditionally been seen as an individual issue: it's your problem, you deal with it. But this new book, the only study of its kind, takes an innovative sociological approach, considering problem gambling as a public health issue (it has social causes and significant health outcomes). Betting Their Lives is based on first-hand interviews that take us right into the lives of a selection of problem gamblers; we see how gambling is influenced by, and in turn influences, relationships with intimate partners - husbands, wives, children.

Based on important new research by outstanding Canadian sociologist Lorne Tepperman, this book looks into the personal relationships of problem gamblers, and comes out with some surprising results. It provides a superb discussion of expert opinion on the subject, includes first-hand narratives of those who have suffered from gambling addictions, and brings essential new explanatory concepts to the issue.

While more research is required into this growing problem, Betting Their Lives introduces a new and urgently needed understanding of problem gambling.

Read more about Betting Their Lives at the Oxford University Press website.

Lorne Tepperman is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and is the author of many important books on sociology in Canada.

The Page 99 Test: Betting Their Lives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Summarizing Sundance 2009: Part I

Ray Taras, who covers World Literature for the blog, filed this dispatch from the Sundance Flim Festival:

It was the wrong question to ask, especially after what has been happening these last few weeks. The emotional reply didn’t clear anything up, but it was perfectly understandable. Palestinians continue to sing and to dance and to love, first-time director and screenwriter Najwa Najjar insisted, because they do not see themselves as victims.

Of course Palestinians are victims. They may continue to sing and to laugh and to harvest, but ordinary Palestinians are the victims of both Israeli military attacks, and of the intra-Palestinian disputes between Fatah and Hamas that heighten Israeli insecurity. Pomegranates and Myrrh—“sweetness and bitterness,” as Najjar says of her film, does indeed, in my view, depict Palestinian self pity—the question I had asked of her. If there are any circumstances in which national self pity is justified—and most nations invariably have bouts of it—then those confronting the Palestinians are it. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to apologize for.

A film project that she began while confined for weeks to her home by the Israeli crackdown following the breakout of the Second Intifada in 2000, there are scenes of the immense wall constructed by Israel to separate itself from the West Bank, the prison where the film’s protagonist is being held under “administrative detention.” There is the land confiscation issue—a controversial policy not providing for the same dramatic imagery as Israeli tanks rolling through Gaza but every bit as threatening to Palestinian survival. As one character in the film puts it, “If the Israelis succeed in confiscating our land, all is lost.”Armed Jewish settlers lurk on Palestinian-owned olive groves subjected to Israeli confiscation orders just waiting to start digging foundations for new apartment blocks.

How do you resist under these conditions? the film director asks. By training for a dance performance at a reopened fair grounds is the literal answer. Najjar, an earnest, eloquent, soft-spoken film maker, told us that her characters are searching for a way to speak about their lives, to open up dialogue. When I asked whether that meant engaging in a dialogue with someone like Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, who has shown much sympathy for the Palestinian cause, she ruled it out—“let’s not go there.” The two solitudes have never been further apart, it seems.

Pomegranates and Myrrh is a testimonial to Palestinian helplessness. It needn’t be this way: the literary voices of Ghassan Kanafani and Mhmoud Darwish ring out loudly and assertively. We cannot argue with Najjar when she acknowledges that a low budget movie like hers is understandable; money is desperately needed for hospitals and schools, not films. The saccharine electronic sound track is composed by the omnipresent Toronto-based film music master Mychael Dana. While a coup for her—“I emailed telling him about our low budget movie, he viewed the rough cut, and replied ‘make me an offer’”—it raises questions why Palestinian music cannot capture the fate of the Palestinian people.

Perhaps only a Western idiom can convey that fate to a Western audience. This reality is underscored by a second film dealing with Palestinians, selected by some critics as one of the top five at Sundance this year. There is a simple reason for this. Amreeka follows a Palestinian single mother who migrates to the U.S. to live with her Americanized extended family. Made by Cherien Dabis, an Arab-American who grew up in Ohio, it has a hook American viewers can relate to. Still, if a film about fitting in with our culture—not being a Palestinian in Palestine—is what critics prize, our level of cultural intelligence is worryingly impoverished.

Can the cinema of resistance be successful in projecting its message? For over a decade the most savvy resistance movement there has been anywhere in the world are the Zapatistas in southern Mexico. This phenomenon—it is just that—is underscored in Corazón del Tiempo (“Heart of Time”) being shown at Sundance. The film was made using no professional actors—just people recruited from indigenous communities in Chiapas, who were given a script to read. Alberto Cortés’ fourth feature is based on years of gaining access to and the trust of these communities. Showing these people other films, he emphasized, helped create a bond.

Predictably, one character in the film uses a hand held camera to video the Mexican government’s military helicopters and convoys that constantly harass the region. Should they make a false step, the world will be able quickly to witness it on their computers, and international solidarity with the descendants of the Mayans will deepen. Given the political capital the Zapatistas have carved out, the filmmaker claims he even invited the paramilitaries used by the federal Mexico authorities to repress the Zapatistas to take part in his film. The up tempo songs in the film are local, too, and, most significantly, the story-telling medium is distinctly indigenous. The film’s premiere was in the indigenous communities.

The unshakeable seemingly effortless self assurance of Corazon del Tiempo is rarely found in the cinema of resistance. Who else but the Zapatistas can make a film about the Leninist dictum to speed up the electrification of the countryside and infuse it with wide popular appeal! When Cortés was asked if he feared repercussions for his glorification of the Zapatistas’ struggle he smiled dismissively and replied no, Mexico has won its freedom and a filmmaker too can enjoy it in peace.

A fact that does not exist in the Palestinian territories today. Or in Mexico a hundred years ago, before the Revolution. Or for the first two decades after it. A third film I watched was titled El General dealing with General Plutarco Elias Calles, Mexican president from 1924 to 1928, then, under his successors, El Jefe Máximo (giving name to the Maximato of 1928 to 1935). An authoritarian figure under whom political assassinations were commonplace and executions of Catholic priests widespread, Calles’ legacy is evaluated through the audio recordings made by his daughter in the 1960s and a superimposed commentary by his great granddaughter.

Lest we assume that Mexican affairs are naturally of greater interest to us than Palestinian ones, this film is so tedious—slow scans of newspaper headlines and old family photos, repeated slo-mo showings of the few video clips we have of Calles, another minimalist music sound track that grates—that its commercial appeal may be limited to the Mexican equivalent of PBS. Mexican democracy is a mess, the film informs us, and corruption needs to be swept away. We see countless images of street cleaners with big brooms tidying up daily after the reported 500,000 street vendors—generating up to one-third of the country’s GDP--in Mexico City have called it a day. But just as it does about Calles’ legacy, the film equivocates about who should clean up Mexico. Like the notion of cantinfeado that originated in a 1930s film about a barber who is elected to the Mexican Congress by spewing out political promises he does not intend to keep, El General exemplifies Mexico’s problems and is not a part of its solution.

Sundance celebrates a notional twenty-fifth anniversary this year—there was a small film festival before 1984—and Steven Soderbergh was at a panel this week to celebrate it. The maker of sex, lies, and videotape (1989) that made him the “poster boy of the Sundance generation,” he argued that the Indie versus Hollywood dichotomy was meaningless. “It’s good movie versus bad movie. Indie cinema doesn’t have the market cornered on quality” (Sundance Daily Insider, January 21, 2009). Robert Redford, too, in his promo film, insists that there is no such thing as a Sundance film. Instead, “there will always be space for new stories told in new ways.”

The “new stories” in 2009 that have created a buzz include Endgame, a British film capturing the tense final years of South Africa’s apartheid regime; William Hurt stars in this Sundance premiere that will soon be at our Cineplexes. The September Issue focuses on Anna Wintour, long time editor of Vogue and a powerful figure in the world of fashion. Taking Chance, starring Kevin Bacon who has been pacing back and forth along Main Street this week, has been picked up by HBO after playing to shaken and sobbing audiences in Park City. It is not another film about the Iraq war but a defining one, the story of a Marine who brings the remains of a young soldier back to his family in Wyoming. Made by debut film maker Ross Katz, at a Q and A session the Marine emphasized how he had been taught to just “suck it up” when dealing with death and grieving. Another noteworthy film—one of the first world cinema documentaries to sell out all four screenings--is Let’s Make Money, an exposé of the arrogant globalization clan running the world’s financial system and transferring the wealth of nations into private hands. It is directed by Austrian director Erwin Wagenhofer.--Ray Taras

Read last year's Festival report from Taras: Summarizing Sundance '08.

Ray Taras, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, is the author of the recently released Europe Old and New: Transnationalism, Belonging, Xenophobia.

His literature reviews here on the blog include Per Petterson's To Siberia.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Catherine Allgor reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Catherine Allgor, author of A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation and Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government.

Her entry begins:

The most intriguing thing I learned from P. M. Forni's Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct is on the front cover. A professor of Italian literature, Forni is also the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project! Who knew there was such a thing?

This amazing fact does not mean you need to stop at the cover; Forni's small volume contains much wisdom and many insights. Choosing Civility, as Forni acknowledges, is just the most up-to-date version of a long-established genre--the courtesy book. As a historian of early America, I have had my own experiences with these manners manuals. Though they originated in European courts, courtesy books have an important place in American history. George Washington famously copied the dicta from one into his own little book; the nineteenth-century versions played an enormous role in the refinement movement in the United States.

When you read the old books--and even skim the rules that a young Washington chose to record--you understand how many of these "don't's" were about not intruding on another's space....[read on]

Catherine Allgor is the Visiting Croul Chair in American History at Claremont McKenna College.

The Page 99 Test: A Perfect Union.

Writers Read: Catherine Allgor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Geri Spieler's "Taking Aim at the President"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Taking Aim at the President: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot at Gerald Ford by Geri Spieler.

About the book, from the publisher:

"I'm not sorry I tried...if successful, the assassination...just might have triggered the kind of chaos that could have started the upheaval of change." --Sara Jane Moore in 1976

Journalist Geri Spieler met would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore while she was in prison; Taking Aim at the President is based on over two decades of interviews as well as independant research. Spieler follows Moore's actions from her childhood in a small West Virginia town to her release from prison in December 2007. Moore's life was never conventional, and along the way she entered and dropped out of the military, was married five times, and was both a political radical and an FBI informant. Focusing on the complex psychology and motivations of a quintessentially desperate housewife and the only woman to ever fire a bullet at an American president, Spieler delivers a nuanced portrait of an elusive person and a fascinating glimpse back at a turbulent period in American history.

Read an excerpt from Taking Aim at the President, and learn more about the book at author at Geri Spieler's website and blog.

Geri Spieler is an investigative journalist and award-winning speaker. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes. She has a strong professional relationship with her subject, Sara Jane Moore, who she has visited and interviewed in prison for the last thirty years.

The Page 69 Test: Taking Aim at the President.

--Marshal Zeringue

William H. Macy: best books

The actor William H. Macy named a "best books" list for The Week.

One title to make the list:

The Willow Field by William Kittredge.

I easily deem this 20th-century epic Western as one of my favorites. The book chronicles the life and times of Rossie Benasco, the son of a Reno, Nev., casino boss. Rossie’s decision to leave home to become a ranch hand leads him on many life adventures.

Read about another book on Macy's list.

Read an excerpt from The Willow Field.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: D. Sperling & D. Gordon's "Two Billion Cars"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability by Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon.

About the book, from the publisher:

At present, there are roughly a billion motor vehicles in the world. Within twenty years, the number will double to 2 billion, largely a consequence of China's and India's explosive growth. Given that greenhouse gases are already creating havoc with our climate and that violent conflict in oil-rich nations is on the rise, does this mean that matters will only get worse? Or are there hopeful signs that effective, realistic solutions can be found?

In Two Billion Cars, transportation experts Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon provide a concise history of America's love affair with cars and an overview of the global oil and auto industries. America is still the leading emissions culprit, and what is especially worrying is that developing nations are becoming car-centric cultures as well. The authors explain how we arrived in this dangerous state, and also what we can do about it. Sperling and Gordon expose the roots of the problem-- the resistant auto-industry, dysfunctional oil markets, short-sighted government policies, and unmotivated consumers. They zero in on reforming our gas-guzzling culture, expanding the search for low-carbon fuels, environment-friendly innovations in transportation planning, and more. Promising advances in both transportation technology and fuel efficiency together with shifts in travel behavior, they suggest, offer us a realistic way out of our predicament.

Ironically, the authors contend that the two places with the most troublesome emissions problems--California and China-- are taking the lead in developing effective strategies that can help wean us from our reliance on conventional, petroleum-fueled cars. California's embrace of eco-friendly policies, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses in the foreword, and China's willingness to confront the twin environmental and energy crises wrought by an exponential growth in cars, suggest that if they can develop ingenious and effective solutions, then there really is reason for hope.

Learn more about Two Billion Cars at the Oxford University Press website.

Daniel Sperling is Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science & Policy at the University of California, Davis, and Founding Director of University of California, Davis's Institute of Transportation Studies. Deborah Gordon is a senior transportation policy analyst who has provided consulting services to the National Commission on Energy Policy, the California Energy Commission, Hewlett Foundation, and the Chinese government to develop fiscal policies for their burgeoning auto fleet.

The Page 99 Test: Two Billion Cars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: David Oppegaard's "The Suicide Collectors"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegaard.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Despair has plagued the earth for five years. Most of the world’s population has inexplicably died by its own hand, and the few survivors struggle to remain alive. A mysterious, shadowy group called the Collectors has emerged, inevitably appearing to remove the bodies of the dead. But in the crumbling state of Florida, a man named Norman takes an unprecedented stand against the Collectors, propelling him on a journey across North America. It’s rumored a scientist in Seattle is working on a cure for the Despair, but in a world ruled by death, it won’t be easy to get there.

Read more about The Suicide Collectors at the publisher's website and at David Oppegaard's website and blog.

David Oppegaard holds a B.A. in English Literature from St. Olaf College and an M.F.A. in Writing from Hamline University. The Suicide Collectors is his first published novel.

The Page 69 Test: The Suicide Collectors.

--Marshal Zeringue

10 great novels with terrible original titles

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten great novels with terrible original titles.

One book on the list:

The Saddest Story

What Ford Madox Ford had wanted to call his 1915 masterpiece; he had offered an alternative, The Good Soldier, to his publisher as a joke. The publisher, however, rejected his preference, worried that it would render the novel "unsaleable" in wartime.

Read about the top two titles on Mullan's list.

The Page 99 Test: The Good Soldier.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Rick Mayes reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Rick Mayes, associate professor of public policy at the University of Richmond and co-author of Medicare Prospective Payment and the Shaping of U.S. Health Care and the recently published Medicating Children: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health.

His entry begins:

Like millions of Americans, I was raised “born again” in an evangelical environment—at school, church and home—where my peers and I were often encouraged to foster a “personal relationship with Jesus.” Also like millions of Americans, I suppose, my enthusiasm for pursuing this kind of religious or spiritual experience waxed and waned over the years. The faith that I did develop out of these influences genuinely helped me through a variety of difficult personal times in my teens and 20s. But occasionally I found my uniquely American, Protestant, 20th century, consumerist version of Christianity to be intellectually hard to explain, much less defend. Millions of people around the world were suffering from a variety of severe deprivations and injustices and yet I was supposed to believe (or wanted to believe) that God was also equally concerned about my suburban, existential ups and downs? Wouldn’t that be a bit irrational and perverse, I sometimes thought to myself? Well, over the last several years a number of new Christian writers, who came to similar conclusions, have been publishing entertaining books about their personal journeys of faith and the evolution in their spiritual thinking: Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What) and Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians) are some examples. Another writer who has joined this cadre is Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.

Claiborne was raised in eastern Kentucky and....[read on]

Learn more about Rick Mayes' teaching, research, and publications at his University of Richmond faculty webpage.

Writers Read: Rick Mayes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: John Jeter's "The Plunder Room"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Plunder Room by John Jeter.

About the book, from the publisher:

Moments before Edward Duncan dies, the colorful World War II hero leaves a mandate for his grandson Randol--to safeguard the family's proud Southern legacy. Randol, paralyzed and in a wheelchair after a car accident, buries his grandfather, and learns that his father, a Vietnam veteran, is running an illicit empire with Randol's half-brother, Jerod.

A wise-cracking music critic, Randol already has his hands full with his pot-smoking Goth son. When Jerod brings the gorgeous Annie down South and parks her in their South Carolina home, the family maid Volusia, "quick to ram a bar of soap into any foul mouth," sizes up Annie in short order. Jerod, his father, and Randol, are blind to what Volusia sees so easily, making it that much harder for Randol to bring the family together and salvage their dignity.

John Jeter's debut is a powerfully compelling story about one man's mission to preserve his family's ideals of honor and loyalty.

View the video trailer and read more about The Plunder Room at the publisher's website and John Jeter's blog.

John Jeter is a former editor and reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, San Antonio Express-News and St. Petersburg Times, with a master's in journalism from Columbia University. He is also co-owner and founder of The Handlebar, an award-winning concert venue in Greenville, South Carolina. The Plunder Room is his first published novel.

The Page 69 Test: The Plunder Room.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: C.A.J. Coady's "Messy Morality"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Messy Morality: The Challenge of Politics by C.A.J. Coady.

About the book, from the publisher:

Tony Coady explores the challenges that morality poses to politics. He confronts the complex intellectual tradition known as realism, which seems to deny any relevance of morality to politics, especially international politics. He argues that, although realism has many serious faults, it has lessons to teach us: in particular, it cautions us against the dangers of moralism in thinking about politics and particularly foreign affairs. Morality must not be confused with moralism: Coady characterizes various forms of moralism and sketches their distorting influence on a realistic political morality. He seeks to restore the concept of ideals to an important place in philosophical discussion, and to give it a particular pertinence in the discussion of politics. He deals with the fashionable idea of "dirty hands," according to which good politics will necessarily involve some degree of moral taint or corruption. Finally, he examines the controversial issue of the role of lying and deception in politics.

Along the way Coady offers illuminating discussion of historical and current political controversies. This lucid book will provoke and stimulate anyone interested in the interface of morality and politics.

Read more about Messy Morality at the Oxford University Press website.

C. A. J. (Tony) Coady is one of Australia's best-known philosophers. He has an international reputation for his research in both epistemology and political and applied philosophy. His recent publications include Morality and Political Violence (Cambridge, 2007).

Learn more about Tony Coady at his webpage at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics.

The Page 99 Test: Messy Morality.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laurel Corona's "The Four Seasons," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Four Seasons by Laurel Corona.

The entry begins:

Writing The Four Seasons, I quickly realized how much of a challenge it was going to bring to life the sensual extravaganza that was Venice in the early eighteenth century. I think every writer comes up against the sobering fact that in our culture we shortchange our sensory experiences, so that we really can’t, for example, describe with any great degree of specificity the way a rose smells or butter tastes. I am old enough to remember American Bandstand, where cute teenagers, when asked whether they liked a new record, would almost inevitably say they did, with no more explanation than “it has a good beat and I can dance to it.” Novels based on paintings, such as those by Tracy Chevalier and Susan Vreeland, get a visual boost from their covers, but alas, there’s no such help for the poor soul writing a novel about music.

I often joked with my friends about how I was writing “Amadeus Meets Girl with the Pearl Earring,” realizing early on that for The Four Seasons to come to full life it needed to be experienced with Vivaldi’s music backing it up. I won’t be bashful about saying that I really, truly hope it will become a movie. In addition to the two main characters that can’t be cast—Venice and Vivaldi’s music--here are some ideas for first-rate actors who could bring The Four Seasons to life on screen.

For Vivaldi, Elijah Wood and Tobey Maguire bear a pretty good resemblance, but....[read on]

Read an excerpt from The Four Seasons, and learn more about the book and author at Laurel Corona's website and blog.

Laurel Corona is the author of more than a dozen middle school books and Until Our Last Breath: A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance, and is a professor of English and Humanities at San Diego City College.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Seasons.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Seasons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Malcolm Gladwell: best books

Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker contributor and author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers: The Story of Success, named a "best books" list for The Week.

One title to make the list:

The Blind Side by Michael Lewis.

Lewis is the finest storyteller of our generation, and this is his best book. Supposedly about football (the title refers to the side of the field a quarterback is blind to), it’s actually an extraordinary story about love and redemption.

Read about another book on Gladwell's list.

Learn about Michael Lewis' most important books.

The Page 69 Test: The Blind Side.

--Marshal Zeringue