Pg. 99: Helene Stapinski's "Murder in Matera"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Murder In Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy by Helene Stapinski.

About the book, from the publisher:

A writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.

Since childhood, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene’s youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.

Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy’s boot—a mountainous land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty. Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene’s dogged search, aided by a few lucky—even miraculous—breaks and a group of colorful local characters, led her to the truth.

Yes, the family tales she’d heard were true: There had been a murder in Helene’s family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim weren’t who she thought they were. In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization—she wasn’t who she thought she was, either.

Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.

Visit Helene Stapinski's website.

Writers Read: Helene Stapinski.

My Book, The Movie: Murder In Matera.

The Page 99 Test: Murder In Matera.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Robyn Bennis's "The Guns Above"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Guns Above: Signal Airship (Volume 1) by Robyn Bennis.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the tradition of Honor Harrington and the high-flying Temeraire series, Bennis’s THE GUNS ABOVE is an adventurous military fantasy debut about a nation's first female airship captain.

They say it’s not the fall that kills you.

For Josette Dupre, the Corps’ first female airship captain, it might just be a bullet in the back.

On top of patrolling the front lines, she must also contend with a crew who doubts her expertise, a new airship that is an untested deathtrap, and the foppish aristocrat Lord Bernat, a gambler and shameless flirt with the military know-how of a thimble. Bernat’s own secret assignment is to catalog her every moment of weakness and indecision.

So when the enemy makes an unprecedented move that could turn the tide of the war, can Josette deal with Bernat, rally her crew, and survive long enough to prove herself?

Visit Robyn Bennis's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Guns Above.

--Marshal Zeringue

Heather Gudenkauf's "Not A Sound," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Not A Sound by Heather Gudenkauf.

The entry begins:

It’s always fun to dream about one of my books being made into a movie. Not A Sound – the story of Amelia Winn, a nurse who loses her hearing, career and family due to a tragic accident. Two years later, with the help of her service dog, Stitch, she is finally getting her life back together when she discovers a body in the river near her home. Amelia is swept into the investigation and finds she is inextricably connected to the crime and in danger of being the next victim.

Dreaming big these are the actors that I envision in the roles of the main characters of Not A Sound.

Marlee Matlin as Amelia Winn, a former nurse, alcoholic, deafened as the result of a suspicious accident.

She would absolutely be my top pick. It would be an absolute honor to have Ms. Matlin play the character of Amelia. I would also love to see...[read on]

Visit Heather Gudenkauf's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Heather Gudenkauf and Maxine.

My Book, The Movie: Not A Sound.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels to make you question how well you know your partner

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged five thrillers to make you question how well you know your partner, including:

The Daylight Marriage, by Heidi Pitlor

We’ve all seen those romantic comedies where the beautiful, impossibly charming woman realizes that the quiet, unassuming man is The One, and leaves behind the dashing leading-man type to be with him. Pitlor’s novel is an exploration of what happens after the credits rolled. Hannah is beautiful and smart, and was kind of spoiled by her wealthy parents. When a handsome, rich boyfriend goes sour on her, she impulsively married Lovell—quiet, brainy, and introspective. After two children and more than a decade of marriage, their love has withered into a loveless, sexless, airless relationship. Then one morning Hannah vanishes—and Lovell and their children must face the worst possibilities while wrestling with the bigger issues her disappearance brings into the light. As Lovell tries to hold his family together and deal with his intense feelings, the mystery of what really happened to Hannah spins out with delightful tension.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Daylight Marriage.

My Book, the Movie: The Daylight Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Steven Weitzman's "The Origin of the Jews"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Origin of the Jews: The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age by Steven Weitzman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first major history of the scholarly quest to answer the question of Jewish origins

The Jews have one of the longest continuously recorded histories of any people in the world, but what do we actually know about their origins? While many think the answer to this question can be found in the Bible, others look to archaeology or genetics. Some skeptics have even sought to debunk the very idea that the Jews have a common origin. In this book, Steven Weitzman takes a learned and lively look at what we know—or think we know—about where the Jews came from, when they arose, and how they came to be.

Scholars have written hundreds of books on the topic and have come up with scores of explanations, theories, and historical reconstructions, but this is the first book to trace the history of the different approaches that have been applied to the question, including genealogy, linguistics, archaeology, psychology, sociology, and genetics. Weitzman shows how this quest has been fraught since its inception with religious and political agendas, how anti-Semitism cast its long shadow over generations of learning, and how recent claims about Jewish origins have been difficult to disentangle from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He does not offer neatly packaged conclusions but invites readers on an intellectual adventure, shedding new light on the assumptions and biases of those seeking answers—and the challenges that have made finding answers so elusive.

Spanning more than two centuries and drawing on the latest findings, The Origin of the Jews brings needed clarity and historical context to this enduring and often divisive topic.

Learn more about The Origin of the Jews at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Origin of the Jews.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top New York City novels

Michael Friedman’s latest book is Martian Dawn & Other Novels, a collection of three novels.

One of the author's ten best New York City novels, as shared at Please Kill Me:

The Serialist by David Gordon (2010)

The targets of Gordon’s satire in his droll detective novel send-up include the New York literary scene, East Side private schools, Jewish mothers and the porn industry. Narrator and Queens native Harry Bloch is a struggling writer barely staying afloat by penning genre fiction under a variety of pseudonyms. He does it all: porn, sci-fi, detective novels, inner-city African-American fiction, etc. His biggest success is his vampire series, written under the name Sybelline Lorindo-Gold. Meanwhile, to make ends meet he tutors smart-alecky Manhattan high-school students on the side. When he receives a fan letter from a notorious serial killer on death row in Sing Sing, he is drawn into a real-life intrigue.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Serialist.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Courtney Maum reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Courtney Maum, author of Touch.

Her entry begins:

I appear to have a real thing for books by female authors whose protagonists are failed (or failing art students) with dead (or dying) fathers and supercharged (and non-discriminatory) libidos. Just today I finished All Grown Up, the latest novel by Jami Attenberg, which checks all these boxes. Other favorites in this vein are The Bed Moved by Rebecca Schiff and...[read on]

About  Touch, from the publisher:

From the author of the acclaimed I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You, a satirical and moving novel in the spirit of Maria Semple and Jess Walter about a New York City trend forecaster who finds herself wanting to overturn her own predictions, move away from technology, and reclaim her heart.

Sloane Jacobsen is one of the world’s most powerful trend forecasters (she was the foreseer of “the swipe”), and global fashion, lifestyle, and tech companies pay to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family are unwavering: the world is over-populated, and with unemployment, college costs, and food prices all on the rise, having children is an extravagant indulgence.

So it’s no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires Sloane to lead their groundbreaking annual conference, celebrating the voluntarily childless. But not far into her contract, Sloane begins to sense the undeniable signs of a movement against electronics that will see people embracing compassion, empathy, and “in-personism” again. She’s struggling with the fact that her predictions are hopelessly out of sync with her employer’s mission and that her closest personal relationship is with her self-driving car when her partner, the French “neo-sensualist” Roman Bellard, reveals that he is about to publish an op-ed on the death of penetrative sex—a post-sexual treatise that instantly goes viral. Despite the risks to her professional reputation, Sloane is nevertheless convinced that her instincts are the right ones, and goes on a quest to defend real life human interaction, while finally allowing in the love and connectedness she’s long been denying herself.

A poignant and amusing call to arms that showcases her signature biting wit and keen eye, celebrated novelist Courtney Maum’s new book is a moving investigation into what it means to be an individual in a globalized world.

Visit Courtney Maum's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You.

Writers Read: Courtney Maum.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: C.A. Higgins's "Radiate"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Radiate by C.A. Higgins.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the follow-up to Lightless and Supernova, C. A. Higgins again fuses science fiction, suspense, and drama to tell the story of a most unlikely heroine: Ananke, once a military spacecraft, now a sentient artificial intelligence. Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators.

Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators. Now Ananke is on a quest to find companionship, understanding, and even love. She is accompanied by Althea, the engineer who created her, and whom she sees as her mother. And she is in search of her “father,” Matthew, the programmer whose code gave her the spark of life.

But Matthew is on a strange quest of his own, traveling the galaxy alongside Ivan, with whom he shares a deeply painful history. Ananke and her parents are racing toward an inevitable collision, with consequences as violent as the birth of the solar system itself—and as devastating as the discovery of love.

Visit C. A. Higgins's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lightless.

Writers Read: C.A. Higgins.

The Page 69 Test: Radiate.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joel Dinerstein's "The Origins of Cool in Postwar America," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Origins of Cool in Postwar America by Joel Dinerstein.

The entry begins:

Plot: A college junior studying popular culture goes back in time to early-50s New York to find out how and when Americans first started using the word "cool" to understand its mythic hold on global society.

The Origins of Cool focuses on the intersections of iconic figures of film, music, and literature in post-World War II New York (1945-1965). We start out at a jazz club called The Three Deuces where legendary saxophonist Lester "Pres" Young (Terence Howard) is playing with a quintet that includes a young Dizzy Gillespie. Young first invoked "cool" as a word, concept, and style, wore shades at night and on stage, spoke a poetic, coded slang, and developed a bluesy urbane romantic sound along with his musical soulmate, Billie Holiday (Taraji P. Henson). Howard and Henson replay their hiphop romance from Empire here in key of film noir, that is to say, in black-and-white. Their friend Frank Sinatra...[read on]

Visit Joel Dinerstein's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Origins of Cool in Postwar America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top books of war and sacrifice

One title on People magazine's Memorial Day reading list:

Shoot Like A Girl by Major Mary Jennings Hegar

In her memoir, Major MJ Hegar recounts her time as a combat pilot — one especially terrifying search-and-rescue mission earned her a Purple Heart. Despite this heroism, Hegar discovers that her biggest fight is at home. In Shoot Like A Girl, she delves into her battle to end the military’s Ground Combat Exclusion Policy. (She eventually won the lawsuit, which lifted the ban so women can join the front lines.) If that's not badass enough, Angelina Jolie will play Hegar in the film adaption.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Benjamin Heber Johnson's "Escaping the Dark, Gray City"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Escaping the Dark, Gray City: Fear and Hope in Progressive-Era Conservation by Benjamin Heber Johnson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A compelling and long-overdue exploration of the Progressive-era conservation movement, and its lasting effects on American culture, politics, and contemporary environmentalism

The turn of the twentieth century caught America at a crossroads, shaking the dust from a bygone era and hurtling toward the promises of modernity. Factories, railroads, banks, and oil fields—all reshaped the American landscape and people.

In the gulf between growing wealth and the ills of an urbanizing nation, the spirit of Progressivism emerged. Promising a return to democracy and a check on concentrated wealth, Progressives confronted this changing relationship to the environment—not only in the countryside but also in dense industrial cities and leafy suburbs.

Drawing on extensive work in urban history and Progressive politics, Benjamin Heber Johnson weaves together environmental history, material culture, and politics to reveal the successes and failures of the conservation movement and its lasting legacy. By following the efforts of a broad range of people and groups—women’s clubs, labor advocates, architects, and politicians—Johnson shows how conservation embodied the ideals of Progressivism, ultimately becoming one of its most important legacies.

Learn more about Escaping the Dark, Gray City at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Escaping the Dark, Gray City.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable books from the 1980s

Wayne Koestenbaum’s 2013 book, My 1980s and Other Essays, explores, among other things, the age of Ronald Reagan and MTV. One of his five favorite books from the decade, as shared at the Daily Beast:

Eros the Bittersweet (1986)By Anne Carson

Soon after publishing this book—her first—Carson transformed herself into a remarkable poet. But she started out as a classics scholar, and Eros is proof of those labors—even as it lavishly turns away from conventional notions of how to write a critical book. Lyrical yet severe, Eros delivers a poetic meditation on love, told (appropriately, in fragments) over Sappho’s dead body.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennifer Jaynes's "The Stranger Inside," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Stranger Inside by Jennifer Jaynes.

Her entry begins:

I would love for Diane Lane to play my protagonist, Diane Christie. Lane is who I envisioned when constructing Christie physically. She has dark hair and classical features. Diane Lane is a bit older, but...[read on]

Visit Jennifer Jaynes's website.

Writers Read: Jennifer Jaynes.

My Book, The Movie: The Stranger Inside.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Andrew Pyper's "The Only Child"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Only Child by Andrew Pyper.

About the book, from the publisher:

The #1 internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist radically reimagines the origins of gothic literature’s founding masterpieces—Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula—in a contemporary novel driven by relentless suspense and surprising emotion. This is the story of a man who may be the world’s one real-life monster, and the only woman who has a chance of finding him.

As a forensic psychiatrist at New York’s leading institution of its kind, Dr. Lily Dominick has evaluated the mental states of some of the country’s most dangerous psychotics. But the strangely compelling client she interviewed today—a man with no name, accused of the most twisted crime—struck her as somehow different from the others, despite the two impossible claims he made.

First, that he is more than two hundred years old and personally inspired Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker in creating the three novels of the nineteenth century that define the monstrous in the modern imagination. Second, that he’s Lily’s father. To discover the truth—behind her client, her mother’s death, herself—Dr. Dominick must embark on a journey that will threaten her career, her sanity, and ultimately her life.

Fusing the page-turning tension of a first-rate thriller with a provocative take on where thrillers come from, The Only Child will keep you up until its last unforgettable revelation.

Visit Andrew Pyper's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Wildfire Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Wildfire Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Circle.

My Book, The Movie: The Only Child.

The Page 69 Test: The Only Child.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Alan Smale reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Alan Smale, author of Eagle and Empire: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy Book III.

His entry begins:

I’m generally reading several books at the same time, both fiction and non-fiction. Since most of what I write these days is alternate or twisted history I’m continuously reading for research, either central or tangential to the story I’m working on or about to start. I’m a knowledge junkie, so this is kind of fun, but it does mean that after five years of writing the Clash of Eagles series and focusing mostly on research, I faced a solid backlog of the fiction that I hadn’t gotten around to when it came out – some of it by my friends, which was particularly embarrassing. Plus, I’m now making a point of reading respected alternate history novels that I missed along the way.

Good examples of the latter are Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart, an alternate history duology by Steven Barnes. Having just deconstructed North America and rebuilt it for myself, with a Roman invasion of the continent when the Mississippian Culture was at its height, I was interested to see someone else’s take. The Barnes novels postulate an America colonized by the nations of Africa rather than of Europe, and thus with switched racial roles: the big plantation homes are owned by a powerful Islamic African aristocracy, while the slaves in the fields are generally white Northern Europeans. It’s...[read on]

About Eagle and Empire, from the publisher:

The award-winning author of Clash of Eagles and Eagle in Exile concludes his masterly alternate-history saga of the Roman invasion of North America in this stunning novel.

Roman Praetor Gaius Marcellinus came to North America as a conqueror, but after meeting with defeat at the hands of the city-state of Cahokia, he has had to forge a new destiny in this strange land. In the decade since his arrival, he has managed to broker an unstable peace between the invading Romans and a loose affiliation of Native American tribes known as the League.

But invaders from the west will shatter that peace and plunge the continent into war: The Mongol Horde has arrived and they are taking no prisoners.

As the Mongol cavalry advances across the Great Plains leaving destruction in its path, Marcellinus and his Cahokian friends must summon allies both great and small in preparation for a final showdown. Alliances will shift, foes will rise, and friends will fall as Alan Smale brings us ever closer to the dramatic final battle for the future of the North American continent.

Visit Alan Smale's website.

The Page 69 Test: Clash of Eagles.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle in Exile.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle and Empire.

Writers Read: Alan Smale.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top list-driven YA stories

Maurene Goo's new novel is I Believe in a Thing Called Love. At the BN Teen Blog she tagged her five favorite YA stories driven by lists. One title on the list:

The Boyfriend List, by E. Lockhart

After her boyfriend dumps her for her best friend, Ruby Oliver has a series of panic attacks that lands her in the office of Dr. Z for therapy. Dr. Z asks her to compile a list of every boy she has ever had a relationship with, kissed, crushed on, anything. The book goes through every boy on the list, with humor and heart, and each entry reveals a bit more about the complexities of high school social politics.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Pierre-André Chiappori's "Matching with Transfers"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Matching with Transfers: The Economics of Love and Marriage by Pierre-André Chiappori.

About the book, from the publisher:

Over the past few decades, matching models, which use mathematical frameworks to analyze allocation mechanisms for heterogeneous products and individuals, have attracted renewed attention in both theoretical and applied economics. These models have been used in many contexts, from labor markets to organ donations, but recent work has tended to focus on "nontransferable" cases rather than matching models with transfers. In this important book, Pierre-André Chiappori fills a gap in the literature by presenting a clear and elegant overview of matching with transfers and provides a set of tools that enable the analysis of matching patterns in equilibrium, as well as a series of extensions. He then applies these tools to the field of family economics and shows how analysis of matching patterns and of the incentives thus generated can contribute to our understanding of long-term economic trends, including inequality and the demand for higher education.

Learn more about Matching with Transfers at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Matching with Transfers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Forty of the greatest villains in literature

One title on ShortList's roundup of literature's forty greatest villains:

Judge Holden (Blood Meridian) by Cormac McCarthy (1985)

Judge Holden is, apparently, a real, historical figure, though evidence is minimal. After reading Blood Meridian, we'd suggest that we hope he was entirely made-up, seeing as Holden is the devil incarnate, leading a pack of criminals into robbery, rape and murder, throwing in a touch of paedophilia along the way. A seven-foot monster, with pale white skin, McCarthy paints him as almost supernatural in ability, but also in badness. A true villain of the peace in every way.

Read about another entry on the list.

Blood Meridian is one authority's pick for the Great Texas novel; it is among Brian Boone's five great novels that will probably never be made into movies, Sarah Porter's five best books with unusual demons and devils, Chet Williamson's top ten novels about deranged killers, Callan Wink's ten best books set in the American West, Simon Sebag Montefiore's six favorite books, Richard Kadrey's five books about awful, awful people, Jason Sizemore's top five books that will entertain and drop you into the depths of despair, Robert Allison's top ten novels of desert war, Alexandra Silverman's top fourteen wrathful stories, James Franco's six favorite books, Philipp Meyer's five best books that explain America, Peter Murphy's top ten literary preachers, David Vann's six favorite books, Robert Olmstead's six favorite books, Michael Crummey's top ten literary feuds, Philip Connors's top ten wilderness books, six books that made a difference to Kazuo Ishiguro, Clive Sinclair's top 10 westerns, Maile Meloy's six best books, and David Foster Wallace's five direly underappreciated post-1960 U.S. novels. It appears on the New York Times list of the best American fiction of the last 25 years and among the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ryan Lobo's "Mr. Iyer Goes to War"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Mr. Iyer Goes to War by Ryan Lobo.

About Mr. Iyer Goes to War, from the publisher:

A fresh, unique interpretation of Don Quixote, set in modern India.

Dispatched to a hospice center in the sacred city of Varanasi, seventy-something Lalgudi Iyer spends his days immersed in scripture, awaiting spiritual transcendence. After he suffers a concussion, he sees a vision of his past life--he is the reincarnation of the mythological warrior Bhima sent from the heavens to destroy evil.

Convinced of his need to continue his mission and revive the noble principles of Hindu mythology, Iyer embarks on an epic adventure across India with the help of his trusted companion, Bencho the undertaker. His attempts at restoring order to the world, and in the process, winning over the heart of the deeply uninterested maiden Damyanti, are hampered only by his complete detachment from sanity and the reality of contemporary India.

An inventive, ambitious interpretation of Don Quixote for our times, Mr Iyer Goes to War is a sometimes playful, sometimes profound adventure heralding a bold new voice in Indian fiction.

Visit Ryan Lobo's website.

My Book, The Movie: Mr. Iyer Goes to War.

Writers Read: Ryan Lobo.

The Page 69 Test: Mr. Iyer Goes to War.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jennifer Jaynes reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jennifer Jaynes, author of The Stranger Inside.

Her entry begins:

I'm re-reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

I’ve read (& listened) to this book several times since 2014 and will undoubtedly read it several more.

First published in 1937, it was one of the first books that focused on the power of the human mind--and how thinking in a certain way directly influences the results in one's life.

One of the book's most powerful teachings is...[read on]

About The Stranger Inside, from the publisher:

In this tautly crafted tale of psychological suspense, a recently widowed mother resorts to the unthinkable to protect her shattered family. But does she go too far?

After mystery author Diane Christie loses her husband to suicide, she and her son move to the small coastal town of Fog Harbor, Massachusetts. Her daughter is attending college nearby, and Diane hopes that her family can now begin to heal. But rebuilding their lives after the tragedy isn’t so simple.

Diane’s depressed college-age daughter, Alexa, still avoids her, critical of everything Diane does, and even her generally amiable teenage son, Josh, has started acting out. Diane pushes forward, focusing on her writing and her volunteer work at a local crisis hotline. She knows that healing takes time.

But then a girl from Alexa's college is found strangled. Worse still, the murderer uses the crisis hotline to confess to Diane ... and claims she is the only one who can stop the killing. And just when the glow of new love from an attractive admirer begins to chase away some of the darkness, more girls turn up dead, and Diane races to solve a mystery she fears will hit terrifyingly close to home.

Visit Jennifer Jaynes's website.

Writers Read: Jennifer Jaynes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lucy Worsley's six best books

Lucy Worsley's latest book is Jane Austen at Home: A Biography. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

PREP by Curtis Sittenfeld

She is a fantastic novelist and this is about life in a boarding school in America. It is addictive. She captures the angst of being a teenager and has an unlikable heroine, which appeals to me. She has a marvellous facility for looking into the minds of slightly odd, introverted women.

Read about another book on the list.

Prep is among James Browning's ten best boarding school books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Heather Gudenkauf & Lolo

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Heather Gudenkauf & Lolo.

The author, on how she and Lolo were united:

One day I received an unexpected call from the man we bought [our late, much-loved] Maxine from. He said he had a puppy if we wanted to meet her. We did.

The pup was returned to him by the hunter he sold her to because she was soft, scared of loud noises. She intermittently approached us and skittered away, but still, we fell in love. The man pulled out her papers and then brought out Maxine’s genealogy. He smiled broadly. The puppy’s mother was a littermate to Maxine. Maxine was this puppy’s aunt!

We named her Lolo and she seamlessly joined our clan. I imagine her Aunt Maxine, from the great beyond murmuring, That spot, next to the windows, is the best place to soak up the morning sun. Right there, in front of the fireplace is the perfect spot to lie down and chew on your bone. You can play in the woods, but don’t go too far (Lolo doesn’t). Don’t chew on shoes, they hate that (Lolo does). And I imagine that Maxine...[read on]

About Gudenkauf's new novel Not A Sound, from the publisher:

A shocking discovery and chilling secrets converge in this latest crime novel from New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf

When a tragic accident leaves nurse Amelia Winn deaf, she spirals into a depression that ultimately causes her to lose everything that matters — her job, her husband, David, and her stepdaughter, Nora. Now, two years later and with the help of her hearing dog, Stitch, she is finally getting back on her feet. But when she discovers the body of a fellow nurse in the dense bush by the river, deep in the woods near her cabin, she is plunged into a disturbing mystery that could shatter the carefully reconstructed pieces of her life all over again.

As clues begin to surface, Amelia finds herself swept into an investigation that hits all too close to home. But how much is she willing to risk in order to uncover the truth and bring a killer to justice?

Visit Heather Gudenkauf's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Heather Gudenkauf and Maxine.

Coffee with a Canine: Heather Gudenkauf & Lolo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew Pyper's "The Only Child," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: The Only Child by Andrew Pyper.

The entry begins:

The Only Child is a gothic thriller, which is to say it requires the casting of a monster. The monster of my novel isn't outwardly disfigured in any way, his troublesome aspects lying within him - and therefore startling when they appear. This co-lead part in The Only Child movie would require a man capable of charm and threat, and the ability to pass between the two smoothly, even compellingly. So who would I pin to the casting board for The Only Child's monster? How about Tom Hardy? Or Michael Fassbender?

But this isn't only the story of a monster. It's a two-hander, as they say, and the other hand in this case belongs to Dr. Lily Dominick, a forensic psychiatrist who may...[read on]

Visit Andrew Pyper's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Wildfire Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Wildfire Season.

The Page 69 Test: The Killing Circle.

My Book, The Movie: The Only Child.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on modern Germany history

Hester Vaizey is a lecturer in Modern European History, and a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. Her books include Surviving Hitler's War, Keep Britain Tidy and other posters from the Nanny State, and Born in the GDR: Living in the Shadow of the Wall. One of her five best books on modern Germany history, as discussed with Sophie Roell at Five Books:

Anna Funder's Stasiland (2002)

Stasiland is written by a journalist from Australia, Anna Funder, who moved over to Germany just after the wall fell. She placed an advert in the newspaper asking to speak to old Stasi officials.

Nearly one in seven people informed for the Stasi. There were 91,000 full-time employees, whereas the Gestapo had more like 7000. It was so pervasive. People love all the gory details of how the Stasi wired people’s houses, tapped their phones, collected smell samples from suspects in jars with the idea that sniffer dogs might be able to track their movements, all sorts of crazy spy equipment that feels so foreign to our world—although with Edward Snowden, perhaps not. She really brings all of that to life.

Her book is a collection of stories about people whose lives have been affected by the Stasi. She describes the whole process, from the correspondence she has with them and how she feels about what they’re saying.

For example, she agrees to meet a man under a clock and he’ll have a newspaper under his arm—this is pre-mobile phone. And she sits down opposite him, and she describes the whole thing—not just what he says about being a Stasi officer. It’s very lively and journalistic in its style. It really brings to life elements of life with the Stasi and made me particularly interested in life in East Germany. Her whole approach of interviewing and reporting on the experience of the interview as well as the content was the approach that I used in my own book.

I suppose, in my book, I was trying to report more of a range of experiences of life, the people who have more positive experiences too. But her book prompted me to delve into this area and I love her writing style.

Read about another book Vaizey tagged at the Five Books website.

Stasiland is among Steve Kettmann's ten best books on Germans and Germany.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is C.A. Higgins reading?

Featured at Writers Read: C.A. Higgins, author of Radiate.

Her entry begins:

My bookshelf is small and so full of books stacked in like Tetris blocks that at this point it is the books holding the shelf up, and not vice versa. The books that I have recently read, am currently reading, or intend to read shortly exist in a teetering pile alongside my bed.

The most recent read in the pile is Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb. The last of her novels about FitzChivalry Farseer, it lived up to all my love for and investment in the characters in the series. Another...[read on]

About Radiate, from the publisher:

In the follow-up to Lightless and Supernova, C. A. Higgins again fuses science fiction, suspense, and drama to tell the story of a most unlikely heroine: Ananke, once a military spacecraft, now a sentient artificial intelligence. Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators.

Ananke may have the powers of a god, but she is consumed by a very human longing: to know her creators. Now Ananke is on a quest to find companionship, understanding, and even love. She is accompanied by Althea, the engineer who created her, and whom she sees as her mother. And she is in search of her “father,” Matthew, the programmer whose code gave her the spark of life.

But Matthew is on a strange quest of his own, traveling the galaxy alongside Ivan, with whom he shares a deeply painful history. Ananke and her parents are racing toward an inevitable collision, with consequences as violent as the birth of the solar system itself—and as devastating as the discovery of love.

Visit C. A. Higgins's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lightless.

Writers Read: C.A. Higgins.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: John Farrow's "Perish the Day"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Perish the Day: A Thriller by John Farrow.

About the book, from the publisher:

Perish the Day is a riveting new mystery from John Farrow, an author who "brings a literary fiction writer's sensitivity to nuance and feel for landscape to this fine, character-rich thriller with a bang-up finish" (Booklist).

A co-ed is found murdered on campus, her body scarcely touched. The killer paid meticulous attention to the aesthetics of his crime. Coincidentally (or not), a college custodian is also found dead.

While an epic rainstorm assails the Holyoake, New Hampshire campus, overflowing rivers and taking down power lines, a third crime scene is revealed: a professor, formerly a spy, has been shot dead in his home. A mysterious note is found that warned him to run.

Each victim is connected to the Dowbiggin School of International Relations, yet none seems connected to the other. The dead student was a close friend of Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars’s niece, so he puts his nose in; when internecine battles between police departments create a rift, he covertly slips into the crevice so he can be involved in the investigation.

Coming up against campus secrets, Émile Cinq-Mars must uncover the links between disparate groups quickly before the next victim is selected for an elaborate initiation into murder.

Visit Trevor Ferguson's Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Seven Days Dead.

My Book, The Movie: Seven Days Dead.

The Page 69 Test: Perish the Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best novels in which music is a character

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged five novels in which music is a character, including:

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby

It seems like the old-school record shop culture has been on the cusp of complete destruction for decades now. Rob Fleming is the ideal example of it: a thirtyish man with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and a fetish for reducing everything down to Top Five lists. When he applies his list-making to his personal life, he begins an introspective journey that’s scored to his favorite music. Ironically (brilliantly), Rob rediscovers his love for music as a passion instead of a collection of knowledge as he moves through his past love affairs and figures himself out.

Read about another entry on the list.

High Fidelity also made Lisa Jewell's six best books list, Jen Harper's list of seven top books to help you get through your divorce, Chris Moss's top 19 list of books on "how to be a man," Jeff Somers's list of six books that’ll make you glad you’re single, Chrissie Gruebel's top ten list of books set in London, Ted Gioia's list of ten of the best novels on music, Melissa Albert's top five list of books that inspire great mix tapes, Rob Reid's six favorite books list, Ashley Hamilton's list of 8 books to read with a broken heart, Tiffany Murray's top 10 list of rock'n'roll novels, Mark Hodkinson's critic's chart of rock music in fiction, and John Sutherland's list of the best books about listing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Claire D. Clark's "The Recovery Revolution"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Recovery Revolution: The Battle Over Addiction Treatment in the United States by Claire D. Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the 1960s, as illegal drug use grew from a fringe issue to a pervasive public concern, a new industry arose to treat the addiction epidemic. Over the next five decades, the industry's leaders promised to rehabilitate the casualties of the drug culture even as incarceration rates for drug-related offenses climbed. In this history of addiction treatment, Claire D. Clark traces the political shift from the radical communitarianism of the 1960s to the conservatism of the Reagan era, uncovering the forgotten origins of today's recovery movement.

Based on extensive interviews with drug-rehabilitation professionals and archival research, The Recovery Revolution locates the history of treatment activists' influence on the development of American drug policy. Synanon, a controversial drug-treatment program launched in California in 1958, emphasized a community-based approach to rehabilitation. Its associates helped develop the therapeutic community (TC) model, which encouraged peer confrontation as a path to recovery. As TC treatment pioneers made mutual aid profitable, the model attracted powerful supporters and spread rapidly throughout the country. The TC approach was supported as part of the Nixon administration's "law-and-order" policies, favored in the Reagan administration's antidrug campaigns, and remained relevant amid the turbulent drug policies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. While many contemporary critics characterize American drug policy as simply the expression of moralizing conservatism or a mask for racial oppression, Clark recounts the complicated legacy of the "ex-addict" activists who turned drug treatment into both a product and a political symbol that promoted the impossible dream of a drug-free America.

Visit Claire D. Clark's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Recovery Revolution.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top unlikely romantic heroes in fiction

Jenny Colgan is a novelist, journalist and occasional radio pundit. One of her top ten weird romantic heroes, as shared at the Guardian:

Dr Wilbur Larch in The Cider House Rules by John Irving

A man with a devastating romantic past who does nothing but the best for everyone he ever meets. An overlooked, ether-loving angel of Atticus Finch proportions: goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Cider House Rules is among Kate Hamer's ten top books about adopted children.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Zan Romanoff's "Grace and the Fever"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Grace and the Fever by Zan Romanoff.

About the book, from the publisher:

Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty in this contemporary YA about what it means to be a fan—and what it means to be a friend—when your whole world is in flux.

In middle school, everyone was a Fever Dream fan. Now, a few weeks after her high school graduation, Grace Thomas sometimes feels like the only one who never moved on. She can’t imagine what she’d do without the community of online fans that share her obsession. Or what her IRL friends would say if they ever found out about it.

Then, one summer night, the unthinkable happens: Grace meets her idol, Jes. What starts out as an elusive glimpse of Fever Dream’s world turns into an unlikely romance, and leads her to confront dark, complex truths about herself and the realities of stardom.

From the author of A Song to Take the World Apart, Grace and the Fever is a heart-clutching reminder of what it’s like to fall in love—whether it’s with a boy or a boy band—and how difficult it is to figure out who you are after you’ve fallen out of love again.

Visit Zan Romanoff's website.

The Page 69 Test: Grace and the Fever.

--Marshal Zeringue

Helene Stapinski's "Murder in Matera," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Murder In Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy by Helene Stapinski.

The entry begins:

There are two killer (pun intended) roles for women in Murder in Matera. Marisa Tomei would have to play me, the crazy mom traveling back and forth to Southern Italy to uncover the family murder. And Isabella Rossellini would play Vita, my great great grandmother, who escaped to America from the town of Bernalda after the murder in the 1800s, leaving her husband, Francesco behind.

Oscar Isaac, with his sad, dark eyes, would have to play the young Francesco because I love Oscar Isaac and want to meet him and have dinner with him. If...[read on]

Visit Helene Stapinski's website.

Writers Read: Helene Stapinski.

My Book, The Movie: Murder In Matera.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Ryan Lobo reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Ryan Lobo, author of Mr. Iyer Goes to War.

His entry begins:

I am currently reading several books both fiction and non-fiction.

I also just finished reading The Poetry of Derek Walcott, much of it at 2:30 AM while feeding my one month old daughter. Such powerful writing. A line struck me '..and the doors themselves, usually no wider than coffins'. I recalled a friend telling me the story of a maid who had criticized an apartment building because its stairwell was not large enough for a coffin and it struck me that...[read on]

About Mr. Iyer Goes to War, from the publisher:

A fresh, unique interpretation of Don Quixote, set in modern India.

Dispatched to a hospice center in the sacred city of Varanasi, seventy-something Lalgudi Iyer spends his days immersed in scripture, awaiting spiritual transcendence. After he suffers a concussion, he sees a vision of his past life--he is the reincarnation of the mythological warrior Bhima sent from the heavens to destroy evil.

Convinced of his need to continue his mission and revive the noble principles of Hindu mythology, Iyer embarks on an epic adventure across India with the help of his trusted companion, Bencho the undertaker. His attempts at restoring order to the world, and in the process, winning over the heart of the deeply uninterested maiden Damyanti, are hampered only by his complete detachment from sanity and the reality of contemporary India.

An inventive, ambitious interpretation of Don Quixote for our times, Mr Iyer Goes to War is a sometimes playful, sometimes profound adventure heralding a bold new voice in Indian fiction.

Visit Ryan Lobo's website.

My Book, The Movie: Mr. Iyer Goes to War.

Writers Read: Ryan Lobo.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five dramatic books about space-faring history

Jeffrey Kluger's latest book is Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon. One of his five favorite books that make epic drama out of space-faring history, as shared at Tor.com:

The Martian by Andy Weir

True, this isn’t based in history, but it reads like it could be. There are, so the thinking goes, only a few basic plots: comedy, tragedy, rebirth, romance, voyage and return, warfare, rags to riches. But there are sub-categories too, and in the “voyage and return” column, include the tale of the castaway. The storyline is so appealing because the survival tale is magnified by the lone person’s awful solitude. It was inevitable that eventually the person who was cast away would be cast away in space—the idea was tried in the broadly awful 1964 film, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, which relied on scale and flash to achieve its execrable results. Weir’s book is the utter opposite—precise, detailed, almost pointillistic. And yet from that fine, dot-at-a-time writing comes a roaring, churning story. Weir’s writing is the literary equivalent of nuclear fuel: compact, seemingly spare, and improbably powerful.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Martian is among Elisabeth Delp's seven classic science fiction space odysseys, Alexandra Oliva's five novels that get important aspects of survival right, Jeff Somers's seven works of speculative fiction that don’t feel all that speculative and  five top sci-fi novels with plausible futuristic technology, Ernest Cline’s ten favorite SF novels, and James Mustich's five top books on visiting Mars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Alan Smale's "Eagle and Empire"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Eagle and Empire: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy Book III by Alan Smale.

About the book, from the publisher:

The award-winning author of Clash of Eagles and Eagle in Exile concludes his masterly alternate-history saga of the Roman invasion of North America in this stunning novel.

Roman Praetor Gaius Marcellinus came to North America as a conqueror, but after meeting with defeat at the hands of the city-state of Cahokia, he has had to forge a new destiny in this strange land. In the decade since his arrival, he has managed to broker an unstable peace between the invading Romans and a loose affiliation of Native American tribes known as the League.

But invaders from the west will shatter that peace and plunge the continent into war: The Mongol Horde has arrived and they are taking no prisoners.

As the Mongol cavalry advances across the Great Plains leaving destruction in its path, Marcellinus and his Cahokian friends must summon allies both great and small in preparation for a final showdown. Alliances will shift, foes will rise, and friends will fall as Alan Smale brings us ever closer to the dramatic final battle for the future of the North American continent.

Visit Alan Smale's website.

The Page 69 Test: Clash of Eagles.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle in Exile.

The Page 69 Test: Eagle and Empire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paul Theroux's 6 favorite books

Paul Theroux's latest novel is Mother Land. One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

The ultimate novel of Hollywood, written by a native (and the author of the masterpiece Miss Lonelyhearts). I read this when I was young, and my admiration fueled my ambition to be a writer. It is funny, wicked, satirical, and wholly in the American grain.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Day of the Locust is on Joel Cunningham's list of nine Hollywood novels to get you in the mood for Oscar night, Amy Sohn's six favorite books list, Megan Wasson's top 5 list of books about Los Angeles, Jerome Charyn's list of the five best tales of dislocation, Jane Ciabattari's list of the five best novels on Hollywood, Jonathan Kellerman's list of the top ten LA noir novels, and Peter Conn's list of the five best novels from the Great Depression; it also appears on Jonathan Evison's list of books about the Spirit of California and John Mullan's list of ten of the best riots in literature.

Learn about Theroux's five top travel books about an intense experience of a particular place.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christopher J. Fuller's "See It/Shoot It"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: See It/Shoot It: The Secret History of the CIA’s Lethal Drone Program by Christopher J. Fuller.

About the book, from the publisher:

An illuminating study tracing the evolution of drone technology and counterterrorism policy from the Reagan to the Obama administrations

This eye-opening study uncovers the history of the most important instrument of U.S. counterterrorism today: the armed drone. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the CIA’s covert drone program is not a product of 9/11. Rather, it is the result of U.S. counterterrorism practices extending back to an influential group of policy makers in the Reagan administration.

Tracing the evolution of counterterrorism policy and drone technology from the fallout of Iran-Contra and the CIA’s “Eagle Program” prototype in the mid-1980s to the emergence of al-Qaeda, Fuller shows how George W. Bush and Obama built upon or discarded strategies from the Reagan and Clinton eras as they responded to changes in the partisan environment, the perceived level of threat, and technological advances. Examining a range of counterterrorism strategies, he reveals why the CIA’s drones became the United States’ preferred tool for pursuing the decades-old goal of preemptively targeting anti-American terrorists around the world.

Learn more about See It/Shoot It at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: See It/Shoot It.

--Marshal Zeringue