Pg. 69: Katrina Kittle's "The Blessings of the Animals"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: The Blessings of the Animals by Katrina Kittle.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Katrina Kittle, critically acclaimed author of The Kindness of Strangers, comes a wry and moving story of forgiveness, flexibility, happiness, and the art of moving on.

Veterinarian Cami Anderson has hit a rough patch. Stymied by her recent divorce, she wonders if there are secret ingredients to a happy, long-lasting marriage or if the entire institution is outdated and obsolete. Couples all around her are approaching important milestones. Her parents are preparing to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. Her brother and his partner find their marriage dreams legally blocked. Her former sister-in-law—still her best friend—is newly engaged. The youthfully exuberant romance of her teenage daughter is developing complications. And three separate men—including her ex-husband—are becoming entangled in Cami's messy post-marital love life.

But as she struggles to come to terms with her own doubts amid this chaotic circus of relationships, Cami finds strange comfort in an unexpected confidant: an angry, unpredictable horse in her care. With the help of her equine soul mate, she begins to make sense of marriage's great mysteries—and its disconnects.

Learn more about the book and author at Katrina Kittle's website.

Writers Read: Katrina Kittle.

The Page 69 Test: The Blessings of the Animals.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: James Rodger Fleming's "Fixing the Sky"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control by James Rodger Fleming.

About the book, from the publisher:

As alarm over global warming spreads, a radical idea is gaining momentum. Forget cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, some scientists argue. Instead, bounce sunlight back into space by pumping reflective nanoparticles into the atmosphere. Launch mirrors into orbit around the Earth. Make clouds thicker and brighter to create a "planetary thermostat."

These ideas might sound like science fiction, but in fact they are part of a very old story. For more than a century, scientists, soldiers, and charlatans have tried to manipulate weather and climate, and like them, today's climate engineers wildly exaggerate what is possible. Scarcely considering the political, military, and ethical implications of managing the world's climate, these individuals hatch schemes with potential consequences that far outweigh anything their predecessors might have faced.

Showing what can happen when fixing the sky becomes a dangerous experiment in pseudoscience, James Rodger Fleming traces the tragicomic history of the rainmakers, rain fakers, weather warriors, and climate engineers who have been both full of ideas and full of themselves. Weaving together stories from elite science, cutting-edge technology, and popular culture, Fleming examines issues of health and navigation in the 1830s, drought in the 1890s, aircraft safety in the 1930s, and world conflict since the 1940s. Killer hurricanes, ozone depletion, and global warming fuel the fantasies of today. Based on archival and primary research, Fleming's original story speaks to anyone who has a stake in sustaining the planet.

Read an excerpt from Fixing the Sky and learn more about the book at the Columbia University Press website, and visit James Rodger Fleming's "Atmosphere" website.

The Page 99 Test: Fixing the Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books for the spiritually starved

For The Daily Beast, Spencer Bailey tagged seven new books for the spiritually starved.

One title on the list:

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt

In Radical, Alabama megachurch Pastor David Platt suggests something is seriously wrong with the Christian faith in America today. Christians have, as he puts it, “embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.” Most of all, Platt argues, American churchgoers skewer the biblical Jesus, rendering him as a “nice, middle-class, American” everyman ideal. “We may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible,” he writes. “Instead we might actually be worshiping ourselves.” Full of spiritual pronouncements readers of any religion can appreciate (“there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and a 401(k)”), Radical caters mostly to Christians, as a fervent manual to the faithful. If you’re stuck in the American dream of “self-advancement, self-esteem, and self-sufficiency,” as Platt describes it, then the book could be a good fit for you, too.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jodi Compton's "Hailey's War," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Hailey's War by Jodi Compton.

The entry begins:

On my website and in bookstore discussions about Hailey’s War, I’ve made a lot of the fact that no major character in this book is over the age of 24. The story grew out of the circumstances in which it was written -- I was living in a college town called San Luis Obispo, which is dominated by young people, and I was surrounded by their culture, music and slang.

Unfortunately, the downside of a book with such young characters is that it’s hard to mentally cast the film. Although I enjoy youth movies, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any, which means I’m likely overlooking some gifted young actors in addressing this question. So, here’s how I’m going to handle this problem. You’ve heard of colorblind casting? This is going to be "age-blind" casting: I’m going to pick actors I think have the right qualities and not worry about the DOB -- mostly I’m using these choices to emphasize the qualities I hope a casting director would look for in filling these roles.

My protagonist, Hailey Cain, is a Texan-born ex-West Pointer: not dewy, not gamine, not pixie-ish. Not a laeta, as Hailey herself would say (laeta being her term for a certain kind of L.A. girl, from the very flexible Latin word that can mean happy, fortunate, fertile or silly). For this part, I favor...[read on]

Read the opening pages of Hailey’s War and more at Jodi Compton's website.

Writers Read: Jodi Compton.

The Page 69 Test: Hailey's War.

My Book, The Movie: Hailey's War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Tony O'Neill's "Sick City"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Sick City by Tony O'Neill.

About the book, from the publisher:

Meet Jeffrey and Randal, two desperate junkies and your guides on this top-to-bottom fun-house tour of Hollywood's underbelly. From infamous crime scenes to celebrity treatment centers, Sick City is an outrageous page-turning adventure set in the sun-bleached wilds of LA.

Learn more about the book and author at Tony O'Neill's website.

The Page 69 Test: Sick City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best umbrellas in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named a list of ten of the best umbrellas in literature.

One book on the list:

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene

Bendrix, Greene's embittered narrator, recalls meeting his former lover's despised husband on Clapham Common. He has taken the wrong umbrella from the rack in the cramped hall of his block of flats. Soon the brolly springs a leak and rain runs down under his collar and he decides to join Henry, the cuckold, for a drink. More misery follows.

Read about another book on the list.

The End of the Affair also appears on Mullan's lists of ten of the best novels about novelists and ten of the best priests in literature, and Douglas Kennedy's top ten list of books about grief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Margot Minardi's "Making Slavery History"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Making Slavery History: Abolitionism and the Politics of Memory in Massachusetts by Margot Minardi.

About the book, from the publisher:

Making Slavery History focuses on how commemorative practices and historical arguments about the American Revolution set the course for antislavery politics in the nineteenth century. The particular setting is a time and place in which people were hyperconscious of their roles as historical actors and narrators: Massachusetts in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. This book shows how local abolitionists, both black and white, drew on their state's Revolutionary heritage to mobilize public opposition to Southern slavery. When it came to securing the citizenship of free people of color within the Commonwealth, though, black and white abolitionists diverged in terms of how they idealized black historical agency.

Although it is often claimed that slavery in New England is a history long concealed, Making Slavery History finds it hidden in plain sight. From memories of Phillis Wheatley and Crispus Attucks to representations of black men at the Battle of Bunker Hill, evidence of the local history of slavery cropped up repeatedly in early national Massachusetts. In fixing attention on these seemingly marginal presences, this book demonstrates that slavery was unavoidably entangled in the commemorative culture of the early republic-even in a place that touted itself as the "cradle of liberty."

Transcending the particular contexts of Massachusetts and the early American republic, this book is centrally concerned with the relationship between two ways of making history, through social and political transformation on the one hand and through commemoration, narration, and representation on the other. Making Slavery History examines the relationships between memory and social change, between histories of slavery and dreams of freedom, and between the stories we tell ourselves about who we have been and the possibilities we perceive for who we might become.

Margot Minardi is Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College.

Learn more about Making Slavery History at the Oxford University Press website.

Writers Read: Margot Minardi.

The Page 99 Test: Making Slavery History.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Toby Ball reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Toby Ball, author of The Vaults, his first novel.

His entry begins:

I am currently reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell, and it is tremendous. I don't generally read very much "literary fiction," but a cousin gave me this book as a present and I'd heard a number of people whose opinions I value recommend Cloud Atlas, also by Mitchell. Briefly, it is the story of a Dutch clerk who travels to Nagasaki around the turn of the 19th century to root out corruption in the Dutch East India Company outpost there. I really love this book. The writing is wonderful without calling attention to itself and the relationships between...[read on]

Among the early praise for The Vaults:

“(An) impressive thriller debut…. The plot steamrolls to a dramatic conclusion. Ball’s “City,” in which despair and graft are almost palpable, is an imaginative achievement on par with Loren Estleman’s Gas City.”
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“If George Orwell and Dashiell Hammett had ever decided to collaborate on a book, they might have come up with something like The Vaults … superbly plotted, stylishly written and entirely unique.”
--Michael Harvey, author of The Third Rail, The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor

“The Vaults – like a dark dream you can’t shake off upon waking — is stunning. With a Kafka-esque view filtered through a Jasper Fforde lens, Toby Ball gives us the gray terror of Any City in Any Unnamed Year that could reach from 1930 to today, and reminds us, once again, of the importance of vigilance and the danger of Big Boss rule. Masterfully created.”
--Louise Ure, Shamus Award-winning author of Liars Anonymous

Visit Toby Ball's website and blog.

Writers Read: Toby Ball.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Darin Bradley's "Noise"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Noise by Darin Bradley.

About the book, from the publisher:

This haunting debut from a brilliant new voice is sure to be as captivating as it is controversial, a shocking look at the imminent collapse of American civilization—and what will succeed it.

In the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static’s random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization—and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old.

Hiram and Levi are two young men, former Scouts and veterans of countless Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Now, on the blood-drenched battlefields of university campuses, shopping malls, and gated communities, they will find themselves taking on new identities and new moralities as they lead a ragtag band of hackers and misfits to an all-but-mythical place called Amaranth, where a fragile future waits to be born.

Read an excerpt from Noise, and learn more about the book and author at Darin Bradley's website.

Visit the promotional companion site to Noise.

The Page 69 Test: Noise.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best World War Two memoirs

Andrew Roberts is the author of Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of World War II memoirs.

One title on the list:

Life and Fate
by Vasily Grossman

Between 1941 and 1945, Vassily Grossman was a reporter for the Soviet Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) newspaper who specialized in interviewing the "frontoviki" (front-line troops). He covered the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin, and his interview subjects included Gen. Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, the Red Army's battlefield commander at Stalingrad. The writer was also present at the liberation of the Treblinka concentration camp. Taking extensive notes throughout the war, Grossman—a Jew who felt deeply betrayed by the Bolsheviks' growing anti-Semitism— incorporated the stories into his monumental autobiographical novel, "Life and Fate," which has been likened to "War and Peace" in its scope and ambition. The book, and even the typewriter ribbon on which it was written, were confiscated by the KGB after the war, and Grossman was told that "Life and Fate" could not be published for 200 years. That wasn't true—the book came out in the West in 1980 and in Russia eight years later. Its author had died of cancer in 1964.

Read about another book on the list.

Life and Fate also appears among Antony Beevor's five best works of fiction about World War Two.

Also see Ian Kershaw's five best books about major decisions of World War II.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: K. Schiller & C. Young's "The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany by Kay Schiller and Christopher Young.

About the book, from the publisher:

The 1972 Munich Olympics—remembered almost exclusively for the devastating terrorist attack on the Israeli team—were intended to showcase the New Germany and replace lingering memories of the Third Reich. That hope was all but obliterated in the early hours of September 5, when gun-wielding Palestinians murdered 11 members of the Israeli team. In the first cultural and political history of the Munich Olympics, Kay Schiller and Christopher Young set these Games into both the context of 1972 and the history of the modern Olympiad. Delving into newly available documents, Schiller and Young chronicle the impact of the Munich Games on West German society.

Read more about The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany at the University of California Press website.

Visit the faculty webpages for Kay Schiller and Christopher Young.

The Page 99 Test: The 1972 Munich Olympics and the Making of Modern Germany.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nora McFarland's "A Bad Day's Work," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: A Bad Day's Work by Nora McFarland.

The entry begins:

My main character is named Lilly Hawkins. Despite her physically demanding job as a TV news photographer, called a “shooter” in the industry, she’s actually fairly petite. She uses intelligence and a pit-bull personality to stay ahead of the bigger and stronger male shooters in her hometown of Bakersfield, Calif.

Ellen Page is physically perfect, but more than that, she has the right combination of toughness and vulnerability. She’s also got excellent comic timing. She’s younger than Lilly, but I don’t mind because she so perfectly embodies the character.

Rod Strong, a new reporter at Lilly’s TV station, is very handsome and wears expensive designer clothes. Lilly initially believes he’s shallow and vain, but over the course of the story discovers most of her assumptions about him are wrong.

I’d love to see...[read on]

A Bad Day's Work is a funny, fast-paced mystery similar in tone to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. It was a Target Breakout Pick for the month of August.

Learn more about the book and author at Nora McFarland's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Bad Day's Work.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lorin Stein's 6 "Paris Review" book picks

Lorin Stein is the new editor of The Paris Review.

He named six books associated with the magazine's past. One title on the list.

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

Publishers are always wishfully describing things as “a novel of erotic obsession.” In 1968 George Plimpton was lucky enough to find the real deal for his fledgling Paris Review Editions—the story of an American man and a Frenchwoman, and a writer who can’t get their love affair out of his head.

Read about another book on the list.

A Sport and a Pastime also appears on Jeff Gordinier's list of five books that will make you question the wisdom of ever falling in love.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Joan Frances Turner reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Joan Frances Turner, author of Dust.

Her entry begins:

A Way of Life, Like Any Other, Darcy O'Brien. I have a great weakness for writers who specialize in the Rotting Underside of Fantastic L.A.--James Ellroy, Joan Didion, James M. Cain, Nathanael West--and A Way of Life, Like Any Other reads like a more acerbic, male version of Play It As It Lays. The unnamed protagonist, the pampered son of two 1940s Hollywood B-players (O'Brien, the son of actors George O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill, knew his material well), watches his entire life slide into the drink, literally and figuratively, before the age of ten when his parents' careers don't survive the advent of television. They turn to various addictions for solace--alcohol, compulsive spending and horrible men for his mother, right-wing Catholicism for his father--and their son, our narrator is left not only to raise himself but to clean up the increasingly nasty messes his "caretakers" leave behind.

A Way of Life does something else I have a great weakness for...[read on]

Joan Frances Turner was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives near the Indiana Dunes with her family and a garden full of spring onions and tiger lilies, weather permitting.

Dust, her first novel, is a story of the undead from their own point of view, as they battle time, decay, the loved ones they left behind, encroaching humanity and each other. Or, think Watership Down with zombies instead of rabbits.

Among the early praise for the novel:

“With Dust, Joan Frances Turner does her part to revive zombie lit from the dead end of novelty-book silliness. Here the rotting, flesh-hungry ghouls are the heroes, and they roam the landscape bickering and horsing around like teenage hooligans out of S.E. Hinton’s Rumble Fish. Lush gore abounds–this is a vivid trip to the dark side that could have been called Twilight of the Dead.”
–Walter Greatshell, author of Xombies: Apocalypticon

“DUST is a nail-bitingly good Zombie romp that magically morphs into an intelligent treatise on life, death and the fallibility of being human. With its engaging protagonist Jessica, and a host of well-imagined supporting characters – both alive and undead – DUST is a cut above the rest.”
–Amber Benson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress and author of Cat’s Claw

“Dust is a thoughtful, poignant, and frightening book about the undead. It is a truly original idea told from a view point that will surprise and horrify, and may make you change sides in the next war between zombies and humans.”
–Laurell K. Hamilton, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Visit Joan Frances Turner's website and blog.

Writers Read: Joan Frances Turner.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Katie Hickman's "The Pindar Diamond"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Pindar Diamond by Katie Hickman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A tale of lust, greed, and danger set in seventeenth-century Venice, The Pindar Diamond is a gripping and superbly told historical novel.

In a small town on the Italian coast, a mysterious woman washes ashore. She is crippled, mute, and clutches a bundle to her chest—a baby the townspeople insist is a real-life mermaid. It can only bring bad luck; they pay a troupe of acrobats to carry mother and child away.

In the bustling trade center of Venice, merchant Paul Pindar is the subject of his colleagues' concern. Since his return from Constantinople, they have found him changed; raging over the loss of his beloved, Celia, he has gambled away his fortune at the gaming tables. But when a priceless blue diamond surfaces in the city, Pindar recognizes the opportunity to regain everything he has lost—including, perhaps, the woman he loves.

A celebrated writer of history and travel books, Katie Hickman has always been a master of evoking time and place. With The Pindar Diamond, her follow-up to The Aviary Gate, she brings early-seventeenth-century Italy vividly to life, and also demonstrates her maturity as a novelist. A tale of love and avarice, with a touch of the mystical, The Pindar Diamond is rich with historical detail, and unfolds with urgency and grace. It is accomplished, wholly satisfying historical fiction.

Learn more about the author and her work at Katie Hickman's website and blog.

Writers Read: Katie Hickman.

The Page 69 Test: The Aviary Gate.

The Page 69 Test: The Pindar Diamond.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to read after checking the egg recall list

For the Christian Science Monitor, Rebekah Denn named five books that help to place the salmonella scare and egg recall in context.

One item on her list:

"Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser

The book that started it all. A Publishers Weekly review of the 2001 book said, “While cataloguing assorted evils with the tenacity and sharp eye of the best investigative journalist, he uncovers a cynical, dismissive attitude to food safety in the fast food industry and widespread circumvention of the government's efforts at regulation enacted after Upton Sinclair's similarly scathing novel exposed the meat-packing industry 100 years ago.” Schlosser’s book specifically addresses the fast food industry, but by its nature extends into other foods produced on a large scale.

Read about another book on Denn's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Jim Minick's "The Blueberry Years"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family by Jim Minick.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Blueberry Years is a mouth-watering and delightful memoir based on Jim Minick's experiences as an organic blueberry farmer. This story of one couple, one farm, and 1000 bushes transports readers so that they experience the joys and frustrations of creating and operating one of the mid-Atlantic’s first certified-organic, pick-your-own blueberry farms. Written by a farmer who also is a poet, The Blueberry Years follows in the vein of The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where lyrical writing captures a well-told story about food, family, and the choices we make with every bite.

For over a decade, the author and his wife planned, planted, pruned, and picked, filling their lives with blueberries. And every summer, they opened their field to hundreds of people who came to harvest berries. These pickers shared blueberry-flavored moonshine and sober religion, warm hugs and cool hats, and always bushels of stories.

To give a larger context to this one farm’s story, Minick includes brief chapters on national issues such as organic foods, farmer’s markets, and the many problems caused by industrial agriculture. He also includes short interludes on all things blueberry, like the fruit’s many health benefits or the blueberry in song, literature, and film. Ultimately, though, this book tells the story of a young couple pursuing their blueberry dream.

As Gene Logsdon, author of Pope Mary and The Church of Almighty Good Food, writes “Everyone talks these days about growing local food for local markets. Here's what it's like to really do it. Minick paints a lovely picture of how a few people come together on a little farm to enjoy each other's quirks and commonalities along with good food.”

Read an excerpt from The Blueberry Years, and learn more about the book and author at Jim Minick's website.

Writers Read: Jim Minick.

The Page 99 Test: The Blueberry Years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Lisa Black's "Trail of Blood"

Today's feature at the Page 69 Test: Trail of Blood by Lisa Black.

About the book, from the publisher:

Seventy-five years ago, a madman nicknamed the Torso Killer terrorized Cleveland. His horrific spree lasted four years and crisscrossed the entire city. Overall, he was credited with more than a dozen murders. And he was never caught.

Today, forensic scientist Theresa MacLean is called to an abandoned building where a desiccated, decapitated body has been found in a room that's been sealed off for years. Although there's no immediate proof, everyone assumes the same thing: that the newly discovered corpse was a Torso Killer victim. The body has decayed beyond recognition, leaving few forensic clues, but Theresa sees this as an opportunity to shed some light on a big piece of Cleveland's past that until now has been shrouded in mystery.

But then another body—this one recently deceased—turns up, and all signs at the scene seem to indicate the work of a new Torso Killer. Suddenly, Theresa's investigation takes on a whole new meaning. Her examination of the old body has opened a door to the past—a door someone wanted to keep closed—and she shifts her focus from solving a historical puzzle to catching a very dangerous, present-day psychopath.

But as the body count rises, Theresa finds herself nearer to danger than she ever imagined. For the killer is keeping a watchful eye on Theresa, and she begins to feel his presence everywhere. Each step brings them closer and closer to each other—at one point separated by no more than a speeding train in a railroad switchyard—as Theresa scours the city in her hunt for a murderous lunatic intent on reliving a terrifying past.

View the video trailer for Trail of Blood, learn more about the book and author at Lisa Black's website.

The Page 69 Test: Takeover.

My Book, The Movie: Takeover.

My Book, The Movie: Trail of Blood.

The Page 69 Test: Trail of Blood.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Nicole Walker reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Nicole Walker, author of This Noisy Egg (Barrow Street Press, 2010).

Her entry begins:

I’m reading Vanishing Point, by Ander Monson, again. I’ve read this book several times even though it’s only been out a couple of months for a few reasons. The first is that I can’t quite qualify what Ander’s doing. He seems to me to be teaching how to think about nonfiction. It’s a theoretical book in a lot of ways. How to we remember, how do we misremember, in what way do collective memories trump individual memories, how do we think and record memories and does writing them down trump everything? In the first essay/chapter, Ander writes about being vetted by lawyers before serving on a jury. The idea of whole truth and nothing but the truth isn’t investigated in some philosopher’s declarative sentences but through the lens of his mother’s death. But this is where I have trouble getting to how the book works: it’s not a memoir, as the cover of the book asserts. His mother’s death is...[read on]

Among the praise for This Noisy Egg:

"I enjoy the ferocity of [Nicole Walker's] language, seeming simplicity wrapped in complex structures. The mark of great poetry, for me, is a book that makes me want to fling it down and start writing. Walker’s poetry inspires me in this way."
—Lynn Kilpatrick

"This Noisy Egg makes us consider a new world constructed by an intrepid “I” armed with her own brand of sassy humor."
—Cole Swenson

"This is a book of luscious verberations. Of sonic and imaginative exuberance. Of emotional and grammatical restlessness."
— Bob Hicok

Visit Nicole Walker's website and blog.

Writers Read: Nicole Walker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books: the end of the Cold War, 1989

Mary Elise Sarotte is Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. Her books include 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, which was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Financial Times.

At FiveBooks, she told Daisy Banks about her five best books about the end of the Cold War in Europe in 1989. One book they discussed:

The Turn: From the Cold War to a New Era by Don Oberdorfer

Tell me about your first choice, The Turn: From the Cold War to a New Era by Don Oberdorfer.

Don Oberdorfer is a journalist who spent many years with The Washington Post. The Turn is not a new book; it came out in 1991. There are more recent books by journalists, but I really like this one, because he was present at a number of the key events and he did a good job of documenting what was significant and then pulling it together immediately afterwards.

So, if you ask me for just one book to give you the narrative of events, I actually would still recommend this one. He is particularly good on international relations. This topic is a key part of the story of 1989 and 1990; it is hard to understand what happened if you look at just one country. Obviously, it is interesting to look at divided Germany when the Berlin Wall comes down, but you have to put that in the context of Solidarity coming to power in Poland, Mikhail Gorbachev and his reforms in the Soviet Union, and how the United States reacted, and how France reacted. You need to understand the actions of a lot of different countries.

And that is what your book, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe looks at as well – this idea, that there wasn’t one straightforward outcome.

Yes, I think that Oberdorfer’s book is a good first cut of history. The theme of multiple potential futures going forward from 1989-1990 is something that I tried to develop further in my own book.

Read about another book on the list.

Also see Daniel Johnson's five best books about Cold War culture.

--Marshal Zeringue