Campaign for the American Reader
The official blog of the Campaign for the American Reader, an independent initiative to encourage more readers to read more books.
Ten top story collections by women
Sara Batkie's stories have been published in various journals, received mention in the 2011 Best American Short Stories anthology, and, most recently, honored with a 2017 Pushcart Prize. Her story collection Better Times won the 2017 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. One of ten "story collections by women you should read right now" she tagged at Publishers Weekly:
What I Didn't See by Karen Joy Fowler
Jim Shepard is often held up, rightfully, as a paragon of the "deep-dive" writer, whose subjects span the whole globe and bounds of human history. I'd like to posit Karen Joy Fowler as his female counterpart, sharing his omnivorous curiosity about the world but, dare I say, a little less fussy about the research. Fowler is best known as the author of bestselling novels like We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and The Jane Austen Book Club, but this collection, which includes two Nebula winners, provides ample surprises in its pages, from a compassionate portrait of Edwin Booth, haunted by the actions of his brother John Wilkes, to the eerily seductive voice of an immortality cult's true believer. Through it all Fowler pings between darkness and light with admirable ease.
Read about another entry on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posted by Marshal Zeringue at 12:05 PM
Don Zolidis's "The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig," the movie
Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig (a Love Story) by Don Zolidis.
The entry begins:
This is so tricky, because I know it takes a few years to get a movie made, so I need to pick somebody younger than my main characters in order to make it remotely realistic. A particular pet peeve of mine is when everyone in a YA movie is clearly in their mid-twenties. Nobody looked like that in high school! So my current choice for the lead is Finn Wolfhard, who is sufficiently dorky and charismatic to pull off the lead in a rom-com about a Dungeons and Dragons playing nerd.
The female lead requires...[read on]
Visit Don Zolidis's website.
My Book, The Movie: The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig.
Posted by Marshal Zeringue at 8:05 AM
Pg. 99: Jennifer McKitrick's "Dispositional Pluralism"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: Dispositional Pluralism by Jennifer McKitrick.
About the book, from the publisher:
Jennifer McKitrick offers an opinionated guide to the philosophy of dispositions. In her view, when an object has a disposition, it is such that, if a certain type of circumstance were to occur, a certain kind of event would occur. Since it is very common for this to be the case for a variety of reasons, dispositions are very abundant and diverse. They include such varied properties as character traits like a hero's courage, characteristics of physical objects like a wine glass's fragility, and characteristics of microphysical entities like an electron's charge. Some dispositions are natural while others are non-natural. Some dispositions called "powers" are ungrounded while non-fundamental dispositions are grounded in other properties. Some dispositions manifest constantly, some of them manifest spontaneously, while others manifest only when they are triggered to do so. Some dispositions manifest by causing another dispositional property to be instantiated, while others have manifestations that involve non-dispositional properties and relations. Some dispositions are intrinsic to their bearers while others are extrinsic. Some of them are causally relevant to their manifestations while others are not. Some dispositions manifest in some particular way in particular circumstances, while other dispositions manifest in various ways in various circumstances. What makes all of these diverse properties dispositions is their connection to a certain kind of counterfactual fact. Nevertheless, disposition ascriptions are not semantically reducible to counterfactual claims.
Learn more about Dispositional Pluralism at the Oxford University Press website.
The Page 99 Test: Dispositional Pluralism.
Nine YA novels worthy of the Muses
Heidi Heilig's new novel is For a Muse of Fire.
At the BN Teen blog she tagged nine YA books worthy of the Muses, including:
Clio was the muse of history. She'd be all about Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland.
In an alternate history version of the United States, the dead rise from the battle of Gettysburg, and according to the Native and Negro Education Act, "certain children" are given the dangerous task of slaying them. Jane McKeene is among those who attend Miss Preston's School of Combat in the hopes of becoming an Attendant, trained in weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. But when local families go missing, Jane discovers that the walking dead are the least of her worries. Even though this book is alternate history, Clio (the Proclaimer herself) would love how cleverly it shines a light on the truth behind our country's history.
Posted by Marshal Zeringue at 2:05 PM
Pg. 69: Catharine Riggs's "What She Gave Away"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: What She Gave Away: A Thriller by Catharine Riggs.
Revenge is anything but sweet in this twisty thriller about two women with very different lives locked in the same deadly game.
Imagining the best way to destroy a person's happiness is Crystal Love's favorite game. Devious and unpolished, the plus-sized loan analyst couldn't be more out of place in her new town of Santa Barbara, where the beautifully manicured women never age and the ocean views stretch farther than the million-dollar lawns. And yet her eye for the power dynamics at play in this tony community is dead accurate.
Kathi Wright, on the other hand, has made it her life's work to fit in with the plastic people who surround her. But when her husband—a wealthy bank president—dies suddenly, she's left with nothing. Then the FBI shows up, asking questions she can't answer and freezing assets she once took for granted.
While Kathi struggles to outrun the mess caused by her husband's mysterious death, Crystal seems focused on her game. But why? And who are her targets?
Spanning two years and told in Crystal's and Kathi's alternating voices, this tautly plotted novel reveals the power of choice and the price of revenge.
Visit Catharine Riggs's website.
My Book, The Movie: What She Gave Away.
The Page 69 Test: What She Gave Away.
What is Paula Munier reading?
Featured at Writers Read: Paula Munier, author of A Borrowing of Bones: Mercy and Elvis Mysteries (Volume 1).
Her entry begins:
I always am reading several books at a time. Non-fiction and fiction. I just finished The Affair by Lee Child, a Jack Reacher novel I've read before (I've read them all before). These novels are entertaining to me as a reader, and instructive to me as a writer. I travel a lot, and sometimes I dread it—especially flying—but now I treat myself to a Reacher novel whenever I'm on the road. I get so engrossed in the story I forget the trials and tribulations of travel. As always, The Affair is...[read on]
About A Borrowing of Bones, from the publisher:
Grief and guilt are the ghosts that haunt you when you survive what others do not….
After their last deployment, when she got shot, her fiancé Martinez got killed and his bomb-sniffing dog Elvis got depressed, soldier Mercy Carr and Elvis were both sent home, her late lover's last words ringing in her ears: "Take care of my partner."
Together the two former military police—one twenty-nine-year-old two-legged female with wounds deeper than skin and one handsome five-year-old four-legged Malinois with canine PTSD—march off their grief mile after mile in the beautiful remote Vermont wilderness.
Even on the Fourth of July weekend, when all of Northshire celebrates with fun and frolic and fireworks, it's just another walk in the woods for Mercy and Elvis—until the dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones.
U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy's 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Northshire safe on potentially the most incendiary Independence Day since the American Revolution.
It's a call to action Mercy and Elvis cannot ignore, no matter what the cost.
Visit Paula Munier's website.
Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.
My Book, The Movie: A Borrowing of Bones.
Writers Read: Paula Munier.
Posted by Marshal Zeringue at 12:05 AM
The best books about modern married life
Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Her latest novel is The Lie Of the Land. One of the author's favorite books about modern married life, as shared at the Guardian:
Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl gives two very different accounts of Nick and Amy's twisted marriage, escalating into a thriller. At its heart is a wife's Machiavellian revenge for infidelity, but the brilliance of the novel is its author's perception that "marriage is sort of like a long con, because you put on display your very best self during courtship, yet at the same time the person you marry is supposed to love you, warts and all".
Read about another book Craig tagged.
Gone Girl made Sarah Pinborough's top ten list of unreliable narrators, C.A. Higgins's top five list of books with plot twists that flip your perception, Ruth Ware's top ten list of psychological thrillers, Jane Alexander's top ten list of treasure hunts in fiction, Fanny Blake's list of five top books about revenge, Monique Alice's list of six great fictional evil geniuses, Jeff Somers's lists of the top five best worst couples in literature, six books that'll make you glad you're single and five books with an outstanding standalone scene that can be read on its own, Lucie Whitehouse's ten top list of psychological suspense novels with marriages at their heart and Kathryn Williams's list of eight of fiction's craziest unreliable narrators.
Pg. 99: Russell Campbell's "Codename Intelligentsia"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: Codename Intelligentsia by Russell Campbell.
He was the son of a hereditary peer, one of the wealthiest men in Britain. His childhood was privileged; at Cambridge, he flourished. At the age of 21, he founded The Film Society, and became a pioneering standard-bearer for film as art. He was a collaborator of Alfred Hitchcock, rescuing The Lodger and later producing his ground-breaking British thrillers The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent and Sabotage. He directed comedies from stories by H.G. Wells, worked in Hollywood with Eisenstein, and made documentaries in Spain during the Civil War. He lobbied for Trotsky to be granted asylum in the UK, and became a leading propagandist for the anti-fascist and Communist cause. Under the nose of MI5, who kept him under constant surveillance, he became a secret agent of the Comintern and a Soviet spy. He was a man of high intelligence and moral concern, yet he was blind to the atrocities of the Stalin regime. This is the remarkable story of Ivor Montagu, and of the burgeoning cinematic culture and left-wing politics of Britain between the wars. It is a story of restless energy, generosity of spirit, creative achievement and intellectual corruption.
Learn more about Codename Intelligentsia at the publisher's website.
The Page 99 Test: Codename Intelligentsia.
Edwin Hill's "Little Comfort," the movie
Featured at My Book, The Movie: Little Comfort by Edwin Hill.
When I write, I purposefully don't imagine characters as Hollywood actors, but when I finish, I do picture who might play a character in a movie using both contemporary and classic actors. Here are some of my thoughts.
Hester Thursby is four-foot-nine-and-three-quarters inches tall and weighs eighty-nine pounds. She grew up with a mentally ill mother and knows how to fend for herself. When I asked other authors to review Little Comfort, many blurbs came back describing Hester as "feisty," but Hester would hate being called feisty, just as she hates being called "Half Pint" or "Dear" or anything that hints at being dismissed because of her size. In the end, I asked my editor to describe Hester using only adjectives that could be attributed to John Rambo. Hester is tough, she's smart, she's resourceful (unlike Rambo, she's also articulate), but she definitely isn't feisty. She also couldn't be played by Sylvester Stallone in a movie, but once I imagined Ellen Page in the role, I couldn't picture anyone else.
One of the joys of writing is that it allows me to explore the choices I might have made in another lifetime. I love animals and sometimes wonder if I should have gone into veterinary medicine, so I made Morgan Maguire, Hester's "non-husband" as she likes to call him, a veterinarian, one with a habit of bringing home strays. Morgan is handsome in a way that sneaks up on you, kind, and has red hair. He could be played by...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at Edwin Hill's web site.
My Book, The Movie: Little Comfort.
What is Roger Johns reading?
Featured at Writers Read: Roger Johns, author of River of Secrets: Wallace Hartman Mysteries (Volume 2).
His entry begins:
I had the good fortune to moderate two panels of excellent writers at two different conferences on two consecutive weekends, in September. To prepare for my duties, I read at least one novel by each of the panelists, so I've had an embarrassment of riches in the reading department. Here are just a few of the books I had the pleasure to read:
Sujata Massey's latest mystery, The Widows of Malabar Hill is set in 1920's Bombay and tells the story through the eyes of Perveen Mistry, one of the first woman lawyers in India. Sujata's attention to detail is amazing without being the least bit obtrusive. The sense of being there was strong and consistent. Fans of immersive, atmospheric settings, in the tradition of Alan Furst, will enjoy this book. Fans of stories set against the backdrop of the complexities and chaos of societies verging on major change will love...[read on]
About River of Secrets, from the publisher:
When a controversial politician is murdered in cold blood, Baton Rouge Police Detective Wallace Hartman struggles to find the killer amid conspiracies and corruption in River of Secrets, a gripping new mystery from Roger Johns.
Herbert Marioneaux, a Louisiana politician infamous for changing his mind on hot-button issues, has been murdered and his body posed to send a message. Baton Rouge homicide detective Wallace Hartman has to figure out who's sending that message. DNA points to Eddie Pitkin, a social justice activist who also happens to be the half-brother of Wallace's childhood best friend. But even with the combative history between Pitkin and Marioneaux, murder seems out of character for Pitkin, whose usual MO is to confront the wealthy and powerful with their inconvenient past. As Wallace digs deeper, she unearths a possible alibi witness, along with evidence of a deeply troubled relationship that points the finger of suspicion at Marioneaux's son.
While Eddie's supporters are convinced of his innocence, his enemies are equally certain of his guilt. Under pressure from all directions, Wallace pursues her investigation into the dark heart of the political establishment as Baton Rouge falls under the shadow of escalating violence. When it appears a police department insider may be sabotaging her efforts by leaking information about the case, and after menacing messages are left for her and her loved ones, Wallace is forced to untangle a trail of old and disturbing secrets unaided by those she most needs to trust.
Visit Roger Johns's website.
The Page 69 Test: Dark River Rising.
My Book, The Movie: River of Secrets.
The Page 69 Test: River of Secrets.
Writers Read: Roger Johns.
Five top fantasies driven by unconventional minds
At Tor.com she tagged "five books [that] are great examples of the way mentally ill characters fit and function in the fantastical," including:
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
After her aunt's attempt to hospitalize her against her will, Hanna flees to Portero, a crazy town where doorways to other worlds open up to let bloodthirsty monsters in. Hanna herself, an unmedicated bipolar girl dealing with hallucinations and violent mania, is a beautifully written unreliable narrator with a dark sense of humor. The hedonism and the macabre fascinations familiar to many who share her disorder drive her choices, which push the plot forward briskly as Hanna tries to prove herself to a mother who wants nothing to do with her. These family dynamics might be very familiar for too many people living with mental illness, but in this case, there are deep machinations afoot. Bleeding Violet is a fabulous example of a book that can only exist because the main character is mad.
Pg. 69: Peter Blauner's "Sunrise Highway"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: Sunrise Highway by Peter Blauner.
From Peter Blauner, the writer Dennis Lehane calls "one of the most consistently bracing and interesting voices in American crime literature," comes a new thriller about a lone young cop on the trail of a powerful killer determined not just to stop her, but to make her pay.
In the summer of Star Wars and Son of Sam, a Long Island schoolgirl is found gruesomely murdered. A local prosecutor turns a troubled teenager known as JT from a suspect to a star witness in the case, putting away a high school football star who claimed to be innocent. Forty years later, JT has risen to chief of police, but there's a trail of a dozen dead women that reaches from Brooklyn across Long Island, along the Sunrise Highway, and it's possible that his actions actually enabled a killer.
That's when Lourdes Robles, a relentless young Latina detective for the NYPD, steps in to track the serial killer. She discovers a deep and sinister web of connections between the victims and some of the most powerful political figures in the region, including JT himself. Now Lourdes not only has to catch a killer, but maybe dismantle an entire system that's protected him, possibly at the cost of her own life.
Visit Peter Blauner's website.
Writers Read: Peter Blauner.
The Page 69 Test: Sunrise Highway.
Ten top books about Old Shanghai
Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. He is a widely published analyst and commentator on China and has written a number of books, including a history of foreign correspondents in China and a biography of the legendary Shanghai adman, journalist and adventurer Carl Crow. His new book is City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai.
One of French's top ten books about Old Shanghai, as shared at the Guardian:
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard (1984)
Shanghai-born Ballard's fictionalised memoir of his time in a Japanese civilian internment camp at Lunghua on the edge of the city annoyed many of his fellow camp inmates when it was published, as they didn't come out of it very well. Ballard took the decision to fictionalise his experiences the better to show the often "casual surrealism" of war. While he reveals the ignominies and deprivations of the camp, the earlier chapters also provide a vivid description of life for a wealthy and privileged foreign family in the city before the war with Japan.
What is Jacob Stone reading?
Featured at Writers Read: Jacob Stone, author of Cruel: A Morris Brick Thriller #4.
For some inexplicable reason I had never read Philip Roth, and with him passing away I decided I needed to rectify that. First up was his first Nathan Zuckerman novel, The Ghost Writer. The books starts off following an expected path as Nathan visits his idol, E. I. Lonoff. Even though there are no surprises during the first 2/3rds of the book, there are some laugh-out-loud moments and some truly inspired mixing of fact and fiction. But then there is a brilliantly audacious turn when Nathan starts imagining his own truth about Amy Bellette, Lonoff's young former student. Or is it something more than his imagination. Has he uncovered the shocking truth about her? Anyway, the book left me in awe of Mr. Roth's literary skills, so...[read on]
About Cruel, from the publisher:
"17." L.A. detective Morris Brick knows the number all too well. It was the gruesome signature the Nightmare Man left next to his victims' bodies. Brick's father was the first to investigate the killings. Five women were butchered before the perpetrator vanished. Seventeen years later he resurfaced—to kill again in the same depraved ways. Now another seventeen years have passed. Brick knows in his gut that it's time for the Nightmare Man to reawaken. But even Brick can't imagine the madman's true agenda. Or just how terrifying the sleepless nights are going to get in the City of Angels...
Jacob Stone is the byline chosen by award-winning author Dave Zeltserman for his Morris Brick series of serial-killer thrillers. Visit Zeltserman's website.
My Book, The Movie: Deranged.
The Page 69 Test: Deranged.
My Book, The Movie: Crazed.
The Page 69 Test: Crazed.
My Book, The Movie: Cruel.
The Page 69 Test: Cruel.
Writers Read: Jacob Stone.
Five books to help you recover from the loss of your planet
Drew Williams is an author and bookseller. His new novel is The Stars Now Unclaimed.
One of Williams's five books to help you recover from the loss of your planet, as shared at Tor.com:
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr.
Perhaps it wasn't just your homeworld that was destroyed, however—perhaps it was a cascading failure of physics or calamity, even now spreading across the galaxy, a statement by some hidden force or intergalactic deity that this universe is done, that humanity in general is done, and it's only a matter of time before that cascading failure catches up with your small, lonely vessel, adrift in the cosmos. In that particular case, there's no better volume to turn to than Ron Currie Jr.'s novel, a wellspring of compassion, humanism, and a reminder of the power acceptance can bring. The tale of Junior Thibodeau—born with the knowledge, implanted in his mind by some alien being, that humanity will meet its utter devastation thirty-six years hence—and his desperate, ultimately futile rage against the inevitable will be a helpful reminder that even if your universe does, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist, the kindness and decency of humanity will have left their own mark, one far greater than whatever harm we might have wrought.
Read about another book on the list.
The Page 69 Test: Everything Matters!.
Ellen Goodlett's "Rule," the movie
Featured at My Book, The Movie: Rule by Ellen Goodlett.
I am terrible at mentally casting movies, so I'll just preface this whole post with that. But one of my first friends who read and fangirled over Rule told me in her head she'd cast the three narrators' father, King Andros, as Idris Elba the whole time, and after that, I couldn't resist trying to cast my three protagonists, at least for my own sake.
I don't watch a lot of TV, so to start with I tried googling actors. That never really works out, though. But I caught a lucky break when I went to watch Solo in theaters. At the very end, a girl came on-screen (no spoilers about her role in the movie, I promise), and I actually gasped aloud in the theater, because I was like, that's Akeylah.
Akeylah is my quiet sister, the one who's usually in the background. But don't mistake her quiet for ignorance or acquiescence. In reality, she's the one who often has the best suggestions. She doesn't speak often, but when she does, you'd better listen, because she's figured out what's actually going on. If I had a say in it, Erin Kellyman would...[read on]
Visit Ellen Goodlett's website.
My Book, The Movie: Rule.
Pg. 99: Bas van der Vossen & Jason Brennan's "In Defense of Openness"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: In Defense of Openness: Why Global Freedom Is the Humane Solution to Global Poverty by Bas van der Vossen and Jason Brennan.
The topic of global justice has long been a central concern within political philosophy and political theory, and there is no doubt that it will remain significant given the persistence of poverty on a massive scale and soaring global inequality. Yet, virtually every analysis in the vast literature of the subject seems ignorant of what developmental economists, both left and right, have to say about the issue.
In Defense of Openness illuminates the problem by stressing that that there is overwhelming evidence that economic rights and freedom are necessary for development, and that global redistribution tends to hurt more than it helps. Bas van der Vossen and Jason Brennan instead ask what a theory of global justice would look like if it were informed by the facts that mainstream development and institutional economics have brought to light. They conceptualize global justice as global freedom and insist we can help the poor-and help ourselves at the same time-by implementing open borders, free trade, the strong protection of individual freedom, and economic rights and property for all around the world. In short, they work from empirical, consequentialist grounds to advocate for the market society as a model for global justice.
A spirited challenge to mainstream political theory from two leading political philosophers, In Defense of Openness offers a new approach to global justice: We don't need to "save" the poor. The poor will save themselves, if we would only get out of their way and let them.
Visit Jason Brennan's website and Bas van der Vossen's website.
The Page 99 Test: In Defense of Openness.
Nine top banned books
Juno Dawson is the multi award-winning author of novels and non-fiction. One of her best banned books, as shared at the Guardian:
The furore surrounding Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955) has, I'd argue, elevated it above its actual merit. When the Sunday Times named it as one of the best books of that year, the Sunday Express denounced it as "sheer unrestrained pornography". It was soon banned and British customs seized all copies entering the UK. The controversy later led to the downfall of Tory politician Nigel Nicolson, who was closely involved with its publication in 1959.
Lolita appears on Jo Nesbø's six favorite books list, Emily Temple's list of ten essential road trip books that aren't On the Road, Olivia Sudjic's list of eight favorite books about love and obsession, Jeff Somers's list of five best worst couples in literature, Brian Boyd's ten best list of Vladimir Nabokov books, Billy Collins' six favorite books list, Charlotte Runcie's list of the ten best bad mothers in literature, Kathryn Williams's list of fifteen notable works on lust, Boris Kachka's six favorite books list, Fiona Maazel's list of the ten worst fathers in books, Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Steven Amsterdam's list of five top books that have anxiety at their heart, John Banville's five best list of books on early love and infatuation, Kathryn Harrison's list of favorite books with parentless protagonists, Emily Temple's list of ten of the greatest kisses in literature, John Mullan's list of ten of the best lakes in literature, Dan Vyleta's top ten list of books in second languages, Rowan Somerville's top ten list of books of good sex in fiction, Henry Sutton's top ten list of unreliable narrators, Adam Leith Gollner's top ten list of fruit scenes in literature, Laura Hird's literary top ten list, Monica Ali's ten favorite books list, Laura Lippman's 5 most important books list, Mohsin Hamid's 10 favorite books list, and Dani Shapiro's 10 favorite books list. It is Lena Dunham's favorite book.
Pg. 69: Dave Zeltserman's "Husk"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: Husk: A contemporary horror novel by Dave Zeltserman.
Charlie is a Husker on the prowl in New Hampshire when he falls in love with one of them: a girl named Jill. He leaves the cannibalistic Husk clan, but it's more difficult and dangerous than Charlie foresees. He must find the secret to ending his terrible cravings, before it kills him and everything he has grown to love first.
Learn more about the book and author at Dave Zeltserman's website and blog.
My Book, The Movie: Small Crimes.
The Page 69 Test: Pariah.
The Page 69 Test: Outsourced.
My Book, The Movie: Outsourced.
The Page 69 Test: A Killer's Essence.
My Book, The Movie: A Killer's Essence.
The Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Killed Demons.
My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Killed Demons.
The Page 69 Test: Husk.
What is Peter Blauner reading?
Featured at Writers Read: Peter Blauner, author of Sunrise Highway.
Whenever somebody asks me what I'm reading, the answer is usually three or four books at the same time, and chances are one of them will be by Tolstoy.
Yeah, I know it sounds pretentious - but that's only if you haven't actually read Tolstoy. He wrote so many things in so many different genres over such a long period of time that most open-minded readers should be able to find something to appreciate. He wrote epics, novellas, philosophy that influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., political tracts, fables, soap operas, psychological studies, children's stories, religious texts, and what seem to the modern eye like dark crime stories. I devoured Anna Karenina a few years ago and then read his short fiction obsessively. But for some reason...[read on]
About Sunrise Highway, from the publisher:
Seven banned books that shouldn't be missed
At the BN Teen blog Natasha Ochshorn tagged seven "(mostly) YA books off the ALA's banned book lists that should be required reading," including:
Looking For Alaska by John Green
challenged in 2016 (and others) for sexually explicit scene
If I'm correct in my assumption as to what scene this challenge is referring to…it's very funny. Which is great, because sex is sometimes really funny, and it's important to have diverse representations of an experience that's too often depicted only as solemn or sexy or scary The humor of this scene doesn't detract from what the book takes very seriously, which is friendship, and grief, and love, written so beautifully that people are still getting quotes from Green's first novel tattooed on their bodies.
Looking For Alaska is among Alyssa Sheinmel's five favorite books set at boarding school.
Kathleen J. McInnis's "The Heart of War," the movie
Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Heart of War: Misadventures in the Pentagon by Kathleen J. McInnis.
It's funny. While my career in U.S. national security requires me to write a lot, it's always analytic pieces that I've had to put together. So when I started writing The Heart of War: Misadventures in the Pentagon – my first real work of fiction – I didn't have a clue where to start.
I decided to take a cue from my buddy Mike Flanagan, who's a writer and director of horror movies, and compiled a book of actor's headshots to give myself a clear sense of what the characters look like. But, because I'm an analyst by training, my version of was enormously elaborate: each page had an image of an actor that fit the bill, along with notes on their character, bios, and even Myers-Briggs personality types.
Yet as I went through rewrite after rewrite (after rewrite!), the story changed significantly, and so did the characters. And it turns out, they had opinions about what they looked like, and were very insistent that I go back and get that right. As it happens, they also told me to stuff my Myers-Briggs character notes and just listen to them tell their story. So when I sent the final manuscript to the publisher, the characters looked and felt very different to the beginning of the writing process five years ago.
Dr. Heather Reilly, the story's protagonist, is a strong and intelligent woman but with some profound pain at the center of her being. She is brave, but at times naïve. And she's in an environment where...[read on]
Visit Kathleen J. McInnis's website.
My Book, The Movie: The Heart of War.
Pg. 69: Roger Johns's "River of Secrets"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: River of Secrets: Wallace Hartman Mysteries (Volume 2) by Roger Johns.
Pg. 99: Ann Pearlman's "Infidelity"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: Infidelity: A Memoir by Ann Pearlman.
She thought they were the perfect couple. She authored Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair with Your Spouse and appeared on Oprah, Donahue, and Sally Jessy Raphael as an expert on the joys of sexual monogamy. She was a marriage and family therapist who counseled patients coping with cheating spouses. She believed she had escaped her family legacy of marital infidelity. She was wrong. After thirty years of marriage and three children, Ann Pearlman discovered her husband's affair with another woman.
In Infidelity, Pearlman tells the true story of the devastating effect of adultery across three generations of American women. An award-winning author, columnist, psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist, Pearlman draws on sociological and anthropological works as well as her own experience to write out her rage, pain, depression, doubts, and, eventually, her journey back to confidence and strength. Originally published by MacAdam/Cage in 2000, Infidelity was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and also served as the inspiration for a Lionsgate film.
Learn more about the book and author at Ann Pearlman's website.
The Page 69 Test: A Gift for My Sister.
My Book, The Movie: A Gift for My Sister.
The Page 99 Test: Infidelity.
Ryan North's six favorite books
Ryan North is the writer responsible for Dinosaur Comics, the Eisner and Harvey award-winning Adventure Time comics, the #1 bestselling anthology series Machine of Death and the New York Times bestselling and Eisner-award winning Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series for Marvel. His latest book is How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler.
One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (2017).
One of the great allures of time travel is the chance to go back and fix things, and this novel builds on that brilliantly: Someone from a utopia of jetpacks and flying cars goes back with the best intentions and accidentally makes things so much worse that the time line that results ... is ours.
What is A.J. Banner reading?
Featured at Writers Read: A.J. Banner, author of After Nightfall.
I just finished reading A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay.
Sharply written, suspenseful and intriguing, A Noise Downstairs is a psychological thriller with an unusual premise. Several months after sustaining a head injury when he surprised a murder victim disposing of two bodies, Paul Davis, a college professor, is suffering from PTSD and depression. As a form of therapy, he decides to write about his experience on a vintage typewriter, a gift from his wife, Charlotte, who found the typewriter at an estate sale. Soon, Paul begins to hear the typewriter typing by itself at night. But when he runs downstairs, nobody is there. He's the only one who can hear the noise. Charlotte doesn't hear a thing. She...[read on]
About After Nightfall, from the publisher:
From the bestselling author of The Good Neighbor comes a gripping thriller about an engagement party gone fatally awry.
Imagine your closest friend utterly betraying you. Years later, when she seeks forgiveness, you invite her to your engagement party as a gesture of reconciliation. But seething hostilities rise to the surface, ruining everyone's evening. After an awful night, your friend's battered, lifeless body is found at the bottom of a rocky cliff.
Newly engaged Marissa Parlette is living this nightmare. She should be celebrating her upcoming wedding, but she can't shake the image of her friend lying dead on the beach. Did she fall? Was she pushed? Or did she take a purposeful step into darkness? Desperate for answers, Marissa digs deep into the events of the party. But what she remembers happening after nightfall now carries sinister implications: the ugly sniping, the clandestine meetings, the drunken flirtations. The more she investigates, the more she questions everything she thought she knew about her friends, the man she once trusted, and even herself.
Bestselling author A. J. Banner keeps readers on a razor-sharp edge in this intricately plotted novel of psychological suspense…in which nothing is as it seems.
Visit A.J. Banner's website.
The Page 69 Test: After Nightfall.
Writers Read: A.J. Banner.
Pg. 69: Jacob Stone's "Cruel"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: Cruel: A Morris Brick Thriller #4 by Jacob Stone.
Seven top thrillers with therapists
Elisabeth Norebäck is the author of Tell Me You're Mine. One of seven thrillers featuring therapists she tagged at CrimeReads:
The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins, 2015)
When Rachel Watson, a 32-year-old woman with alcoholic tendencies, rides the commuter train to and from work, she watches a house where a perfect couple lives and fantasizes about their wonderful lives. Then one day the woman disappears, and Rachel's world falls apart. She is convinced that the woman was murdered or kidnapped. While she struggles with her own problems—alcohol and memory blackouts—she tries to find out what happened.
By using a therapist, the author communicates an unmistakable psych-vibe and Dr. Kamal Abdic is a reasonable voice in a book full of suspicion and misdirection. Like [S.J. Watson's] Before I go to sleep Hawkins plays with memory loss and how the familiar and the well-known hide scary truths.
Pg. 99: Rachel Plotnick's "Power Button"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing by Rachel Plotnick.
Push a button and turn on the television; tap a button and get a ride; click a button and "like" something. The touch of a finger can set an appliance, a car, or a system in motion, even if the user doesn't understand the underlying mechanisms or algorithms. How did buttons become so ubiquitous? Why do people love them, loathe them, and fear them? In Power Button, Rachel Plotnick traces the origins of today's push-button society by examining how buttons have been made, distributed, used, rejected, and refashioned throughout history. Focusing on the period between 1880 and 1925, when "technologies of the hand" proliferated (including typewriters, telegraphs, and fingerprinting), Plotnick describes the ways that button pushing became a means for digital command, which promised effortless, discreet, and fool-proof control. Emphasizing the doubly digital nature of button pushing—as an act of the finger and a binary activity (on/off, up/down)—Plotnick suggests that the tenets of precomputational digital command anticipate contemporary ideas of computer users.
Plotnick discusses the uses of early push buttons to call servants, and the growing tensions between those who work with their hands and those who command with their fingers; automation as "automagic," enabling command at a distance; instant gratification, and the victory of light over darkness; and early twentieth-century imaginings of a future push-button culture. Push buttons, Plotnick tells us, have demonstrated remarkable staying power, despite efforts to cast button pushers as lazy, privileged, and even dangerous.
Visit Rachel Plotnick's website.
The Page 99 Test: Power Button.
Five top books that explore the monstrous
Fran Wilde's novels and short stories have been finalists for three Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and two Hugo Awards, and include her Andre Norton- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, its sequels Cloudbound, and Horizon, and the Nebula-, Hugo-, and Locus-nominated novelette The Jewel and Her Lapidary. At Tor.com she shared five books that explore the monstrous, including:
Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid — Wendy Williams
This is a gorgeous book that covers so many aspects of cephalopod science, and the stories behind the science, that summing it up would do a disservice to science-journalist Williams' writing. Exploring intelligence, camouflage, propulsion and fuzzy math, the mundane, and the diaphanous, Kraken takes readers on a journey while it informs.
Roger Johns's "River of Secrets," the movie
Featured at My Book, The Movie: River of Secrets: Wallace Hartman Mysteries (Volume 2) by Roger Johns.
Warning: I'm about to cheat. I'm not normally a cheater, but today is different, and for good reason. First, though, a confession: I don't watch television and I very rarely go to the movies. Consequently, as much as I'd like to, I haven't a chance when it comes to choosing a recognizable current actor to play the part of Wallace Hartman, the female police detective who is the lead character in my two recent mysteries, Dark River Rising and River of Secrets. That said, I remember very well an experience I had after I finished an early draft of the first book. The manuscript contained very little physical description of Wallace. After my wife read it, I asked her who she thought Wallace looked like. Her answer took me completely by surprise: "She...[read on]
Coffee with a canine: Paula Munier & Bear
Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.
The author, on Bear's contribution to her writing:
Bear is a great help to me in my writing. He served as the inspiration for Susie Bear, one of the dogs in my K-9 mystery, A Borrowing of Bones. She's a Newfoundland Retriever mix like Bear. She works as a search-and-rescue dog with Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner. Like Bear, she's friendly and cheerful—and a very good...[read on]
About Munier's new novel A Borrowing of Bones, from the publisher:
What is Ashley Weaver reading?
Featured at Writers Read: Ashley Weaver, author of An Act of Villainy: An Amory Ames Mystery (Volume 5).
I'm currently reading Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the novel. The story of a woman thrown into realm of outrageous riches has all the fun and frivolity of a modern-day...[read on]
About An Act of Villainy, from the publisher:
"So you've gotten yourself involved with another murder, have you?"
Walking through London's West End after a night at the theater, Amory Ames and her husband Milo run into wealthy investor and former actor Gerard Holloway. Holloway and his wife Georgina are old friends of theirs, and when Holloway invites them to the dress rehearsal of a new play he is directing, Amory readily accepts.
However, Amory is shocked to learn that Holloway has cast his mistress, actress Flora Bell, in the lead role. Furthermore, the casual invitation is not what it seems—he admits to Amory and Milo that Flora has been receiving threatening letters, and he needs their help in finding the mysterious sender. Despite Amory's conflicting feelings—not only does she feel loyalty to Georgina, but the disintegration of the Holloways' perfect marriage seems to bode ill for her own sometimes delicate relationship—her curiosity gets the better of her, and she begins to make inquiries.
It quickly becomes clear that each member of the cast has reason to resent Flora—and with a group so skilled in the art of deception, it isn't easy to separate truth from illusion. When vague threats escalate, the scene is set for murder, and Amory and Milo must find the killer before the final curtain falls.
Visit Ashley Weaver's website.
The Page 69 Test: A Most Novel Revenge.
The Page 69 Test: An Act of Villainy.
Writers Read: Ashley Weaver.
Pg. 69: Claire O'Dell's "A Study in Honor"
Featured at the Page 69 Test: A Study in Honor: A Novel by by Claire O'Dell.
Set in a near future Washington, D.C., a clever, incisive, and fresh feminist twist on a classic literary icon—Sherlock Holmes—in which Dr. Janet Watson and covert agent Sara Holmes will use espionage, advanced technology, and the power of deduction to unmask a murderer targeting Civil War veterans.
Dr. Janet Watson knows firsthand the horrifying cost of a divided nation. While treating broken soldiers on the battlefields of the New Civil War, a sniper's bullet shattered her arm and ended her career. Honorably discharged and struggling with the semi-functional mechanical arm that replaced the limb she lost, she returns to the nation's capital, a bleak, edgy city in the throes of a fraught presidential election. Homeless and jobless, Watson is uncertain of the future when she meets another black and queer woman, Sara Holmes, a mysterious yet playfully challenging covert agent who offers the doctor a place to stay.
Watson's readjustment to civilian life is complicated by the infuriating antics of her strange new roommate. But the tensions between them dissolve when Watson discovers that soldiers from the New Civil War have begun dying one by one—and that the deaths may be the tip of something far more dangerous, involving the pharmaceutical industry and even the looming election. Joining forces, Watson and Holmes embark on a thrilling investigation to solve the mystery—and secure justice for these fallen soldiers.
Visit Claire O'Dell's website.
The Page 69 Test: A Study in Honor.
Five top gothic novels
Laura Purcell is the author of The Silent Companions and The Corset. One of her five favorite works of gothic fiction, as shared at the Waterstones blog:
The Shining by Stephen King
Veering hard on the horror side of the gothic genre, The Shining takes a modern setting (well, it was modern in 1977) and makes it far more terrifying than an antiquated castle could ever be.
A town cut off by snow and the faded glory of the Overlook Hotel build the atmosphere in Stephen King's masterpiece, but for me the real meat of the story is in the family drama. How many of the strange goings-on in The Overlook spring from the imagination of a troubled child? Is the father and caretaker Jack Torrance possessed by something dark, or are we just witnesses to his tragic descent into alcoholism? This is horror with a beating human heart.
The Shining is among Jeff Somers's five books totally unlike their adaptations, Sam Riedel's six eeriest SFF stories inspired by true events, Joel Cunningham's top seven books featuring long winters, Ashley Brooke Roberts's seven best haunted house books, Jake Kerridge's top ten Stephen King books, Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders's top ten horror novels that are scarier than most movies, Charlie Higson's top ten horror books, and Monica Ali's best books.
Pg. 99: Clare Mulley's "The Women Who Flew For Hitler"
Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Women Who Flew For Hitler by Clare Mulley.
Biographers' Club Prize-winner Clare Mulley's The Women Who Flew for Hitler—a dual biography of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated women pilots.
Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented, courageous, and strikingly attractive women who fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. With the war, both became pioneering test pilots and were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. But they could not have been more different and neither woman had a good word to say for the other.
Hanna was middle-class, vivacious, and distinctly Aryan, while the darker, more self-effacing Melitta came from an aristocratic Prussian family. Both were driven by deeply held convictions about honor and patriotism; but ultimately, while Hanna tried to save Hitler's life, begging him to let her fly him to safety in April 1945, Melitta covertly supported the most famous attempt to assassinate the Führer. Their interwoven lives provide vivid insight into Nazi Germany and its attitudes toward women, class, and race.
Acclaimed biographer Clare Mulley gets under the skin of these two distinctive and unconventional women, giving a full—and as yet largely unknown—account of their contrasting yet strangely parallel lives, against a changing backdrop of the 1936 Olympics, the Eastern Front, the Berlin Air Club, and Hitler's bunker. Told with brio and great narrative flair, The Women Who Flew for Hitler is an extraordinary true story, with all the excitement and color of the best fiction.
Visit Clare Mulley's website.
My Book, The Movie: The Women Who Flew For Hitler.
The Page 99 Test: The Women Who Flew For Hitler.
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