Sunday, September 30, 2012

Five top books on catastrophes, natural and otherwise

John Kelly's latest book is The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best books list on catastrophes, natural and otherwise, including:
Plagues and Peoples
by William McNeill (1976)

In 'Plagues and People,' one of the seminal books of the last half-century, William McNeill introduced an important but largely ignored subject to the study of history: epidemic disease. Agriculture had lighted the flame of human pestilence by bringing us into daily contact with horses, hogs, cattle and sheep. Measles, smallpox and a host of other animal diseases promptly migrated to us; then, around 500 B.C., the creation of the city provided the population density that epidemic disease requires to flourish. McNeill's book occasionally leaves us with the feeling that nature has had it in for us ever since we abandoned our natural niche as hunter-gatherers. A second-century smallpox epidemic ultimately led to the fall of the Roman Empire; in the 14th century, the first burst of globalization produced a catastrophic epidemic. Italian merchants returning from China contracted the bubonic plague on the Eurasian steppe, and within a decade a third of Europe was dead. Human ingenuity, McNeill's book suggests, is not an unmixed blessing.
Read about another book on the list.

Plagues and Peoples is one of Steven Johnson's five best books about great plagues.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jane Tesh reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Jane Tesh, author of Mixed Signals.

Her entry begins:
The Graveyard Game is one of a series of Company novels by the late Kage Baker.

The all-seeing, all-knowing Company, headed by the mysterious Dr. Zeus, has created cyborgs to go back in time to save treasures for future clients who’ll pay big bucks for a lost Van Gogh or a missing Hemingway manuscript. This concept allows Baker to set her stories in any time and on any historical subject. This story involves Facilitator Joseph’s search for his father, one of the first cyborgs, who is now a threat to the Company, and his search for his daughter, the Botanist Mendoza, whom Joseph “recruited” to the Company when she was a child, and who has been punished for killing mortals and sent way back in time.

But the true heart of the story involves Literature Preserver Lewis, a hopeless romantic, who...[read on]
About Mixed Signals, from the publisher:
It’s Christmas in Parkland, North Carolina, and PI David Randall is looking forward to his mother’s visit to 302 Grace Street, even though he knows she’ll want to talk about his daughter, Lindsey, who died in a car accident. Then he and his friend Camden find Camden’s friend Jared Hunter brutally stabbed. Cam has violent flashbacks to the crime, making him fear he’s linked with the killer. The suspects include Boyd Taylor, who hires Randall. Randall’s investigations reveal Jared served time for breaking into the Parkland Museum of History, and Bert Galvin, son of Ralph Galvin, editor of the Parkland Herald, was also involved.

Randall believes inept superhero, the Parkland Avenger, is a set up by award-hungry Herald reporter, Brooke Verner. The Super Hero Society of Parkland insists the Avenger isn’t one of them. To his dismay, Kary, wanting a more active role in his cases, joins the SHS.

Brooke tells Randall she saw a letter from Bert promising not to tell about the museum funds. By comparing museum records and newsletters, Randall discovers a collector of valuable letters was never paid the full amount and died in a car crash suspiciously soon after the sale. He realizes Galvin used the museum break in to cover up this embezzlement scheme.

A map found in Jared’s comic collection leads Randall and Cam to a series of tunnels underneath several stores that have been recently robbed. Kary, in her guise as Wonder Star, helps them trap Galvin in the tunnels and end Cam’s troubling visions.
Learn more about the book and author at Jane Tesh's website.

The Page 69 Test: Mixed Signals.

Writers Read: Jane Tesh.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Bernard Capp's "England's Culture Wars"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: England's Culture Wars: Puritan Reformation and Its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649-1660 by Bernard Capp.

About the book, from the publisher:
Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

England's Culture Wars explores how far this agenda could be enforced, especially in urban communities which offered the greatest potential to build a godly civic commonwealth. How far were local magistrates and ministers willing to cooperate, and what coercive powers did the regime possess to silence or remove dissidents? How far did the reformers themselves wish to go, and how did they reconcile godly reformation with the demands of decency and civility? Music and dancing lived on, in genteel contexts, early opera replaced the plays now forbidden, and puritans themselves were often fond of hunting and hawking. Bernard Capp explores the propaganda wars waged in press and pulpit, how energetically reformation was pursued, and how much or little was achieved. Many recent historians have dismissed interregnum reformation as a failure. He demonstrates that while the reforming drive varied enormously from place to place, its impact could be powerful. The book is therefore structured in three parts: setting out the reform agenda and challenges, surveying general issues and patterns, and finally offering a number of representative case-studies. It draws on a wide range of sources, including local and central government records, judicial records, pamphlets, sermons, newspapers, diaries, letters, and memoirs; and demonstrates how court records by themselves give us only a very limited picture of what was happening on the ground.
Learn more about England's Culture Wars at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: England's Culture Wars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Top 10 books about quantum theory

David Kaiser is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of Physics. His books include How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival.

For the Guardian, Kaiser named his top ten books on quantum theory. One title on the list:
The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics was Reborn, by Louisa Gilder (2008)

Some of the most provocative features of quantum theory emerged much more recently. The notion of quantum entanglement — which Einstein had dubbed, dismissively, as "spooky action at a distance" — came into its own over the past 50 years. Gilder provides a creative rendering of the newer material with a series of portraits based on physicists' published writings, unpublished correspondence and interviews. Her account blends popular science writing with historical detective work and narrative flair.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew L. Erdman's "Queen of Vaudeville," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Queen of Vaudeville by Andrew L. Erdman.

The entry begins:
In 1952, Twentieth Century-Fox released The I Don’t Care Girl, a movie putatively about the life of Eva Tanguay. Alas (as you can read in my book Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay) they didn’t get it much right. It had Mitzi Gaynor and Oscar Levant and lots of flashy sets and Bob Fosse-style choreography. But it ended up really being about a bunch of movie producers on the Fox lot trying to cobble together Eva Tanguay’s history. It was their story, not hers.

If I could have some say in a film about the actual life of the Twentieth Century’s first true lady megastar, it’d be different. Who would I cast? Here are some thoughts…

As Eva Tanguay, I could see Renée Zellweger, her shiny blonde mane all curled up and her demeanor nothing but up-and-down wild, crazy, lovely, and sad. There is also the comic Maria Bamford, who I adore. Not sure if she can sing, dance, or act—but then, Eva Tanguay considered that she herself could in fact do none of those things.

Eva never got along very well with men. But the women in her life—her sister and nieces, and her lady vaudevillians—formed her closest-knit sorority of intimates. As the corpulent comedienne Trixie Friganza, I could see...[read on]
Learn more about Queen of Vaudeville at Andrew L. Erdman's website.

The Page 99 Test: Queen of Vaudeville.

My Book, The Movie: Queen of Vaudeville.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jason Webster's "A Death in Valencia"

This weekend's feature at the Page 69 Test: A Death in Valencia by Jason Webster.

About the book, from the publisher:
A Death in Valencia is the electrifying second Max Cámara Valencian crime novel from Jason Webster, author of Or the Bull Kills You.

Max Cámara is feeling low. Ominous cracks have appeared in the walls of his flat; the body of a well-known paella chef has been washed up on the beach; there are rows and threats about abortion clinics in anticipation of the Pope’s visit to Valencia; and Town Hall officials are set on demolishing El Cabanyal, the colorful fisherman’s quarter on Valencia’s seafront. As Cámara untangles these threads, he stumbles into a web of corruption and violence, uncovering deep animosities and hidden secrets, and forcing him to question his own doubts and desires.

This is the second novel in Webster’s dark and witty series, following his widely praised debut, Or the Bull Kills You. The plot is fast and twisting, the scene-setting vivid, and the atmosphere powerfully authentic. Starring the determined Cámara, with his love of flamenco and brandy, and occasional doped-out high, A Death in Valencia delves into issues that rouse unruly passions and divide the Spanish people today.
Learn more about the book and author at Jason Webster's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Or the Bull Kills You.

The Page 69 Test: Or the Bull Kills You.

Writers Read: Jason Webster (September 2011).

The Page 69 Test: A Death in Valencia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, September 28, 2012

Pg. 99: Valerie Hansen's "The Silk Road"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: The Silk Road: A New History by Valerie Hansen.

About the book, from the publisher:
The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different--and far more interesting--as revealed in this new history.

In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For centuries, key records remained hidden-sometimes deliberately buried by bureaucrats for safe keeping. But the sands of the Taklamakan Desert have revealed fascinating material, sometimes preserved by illiterate locals who recycled official documents to make insoles for shoes or garments for the dead. Hansen explores seven oases along the road, from Xi'an to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. There was no single, continuous road, but a chain of markets that traded between east and west. China and the Roman Empire had very little direct trade. China's main partners were the peoples of modern-day Iran, whose tombs in China reveal much about their Zoroastrian beliefs. Silk was not the most important good on the road; paper, invented in China before Julius Caesar was born, had a bigger impact in Europe, while metals, spices, and glass were just as important as silk. Perhaps most significant of all was the road's transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic motifs.

The Silk Road is a fascinating story of archeological discovery, cultural transmission, and the intricate chains across Central Asia and China.
Visit Valerie Hansen's faculty webpage, and learn more about The Silk Road at the Oxford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Silk Road.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 horse books

Belinda Rapley is the author of the Pony Detectives series. She is a British Horse Society Instructor, has a National Diploma in Horse Studies and has spent time working in show jumping and flat racing.

Rapley named her top ten horse books for the Guardian. One title on the list:
The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Without even opening the front cover I can still picture each page of this book, it left such an impression on me. The version I have was based on the film, with photos throughout. After Alec saves the ferociously temperamental but talented black stallion from a shipwreck, the stallion saves the boy's life when Alec grabs the lead rope and is pulled through the sea to a deserted island. The pair strike up a bond as castaways before being rescued and shipped back to America. They finally end up on the racetrack and The Black proves his almighty speed, winning a prestigious race. For me the excitement and romance of the story is all at the start, when Alec forges a bond with such a creature as The Black. It reminds me even now of the privilege we as humans have of sharing time with such magnificent, powerful animals. The trust they place in us and we in them each time we spend time with them in the field, or sit on their backs, is awesome.
Read about another book on the list.

Also see: Ten of the best horse races in literature; Five notable books on the equestrian life; and Top eight books about horses.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Susanna Moore's "The Life of Objects"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore.

About the book, from the publisher:
In 1938, seventeen-year-old Beatrice, an Irish Protestant lace maker, finds herself at the center of a fairy tale when she is whisked away from her dreary life to join the Berlin household of Felix and Dorothea Metzenburg. Art collectors, and friends to the most fascinating men and women in Europe, the Metzenburgs introduce Beatrice to a world in which she finds more to desire than she ever imagined.

But Germany has launched its campaign of aggression across Europe, and, before long, the conflict reaches the Metzenburgs’ threshold. Retreating with Beatrice to their country estate, Felix and Dorothea do their best to preserve the traditions of the old world. But the realities of hunger and illness, as well as the even graver threats of Nazi terror, the deportation and murder of Jews, and the hordes of refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army begin to threaten their existence. When the Metzenburgs are forced to join a growing population of men and women in hiding, Beatrice, increasingly attached to the family and its unlikely wartime community, bears heartrending witness to the atrocities of the age and to the human capacity for strength in the face of irrevocable loss.

In searing physical and emotional detail, The Life of Objects illuminates Beatrice’s journey from childhood to womanhood, from naïveté to wisdom, as a continent collapses into darkness around her. It is Susanna Moore’s most powerful and haunting novel yet.
Learn more about the book and author at Susanna Moore's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Life of Objects.

--Marshal Zeringue

Coffee with a canine: Gigi Amateau & Biscuit and Cola

Today's featured trio at Coffee with a Canine: Gigi Amateau & Biscuit and Cola.

The author, on how she was united with Biscuit and Cola:
We fell in love with the redbone breed years ago when we met a dog named Gus at our favorite mountain retreat in Rockbridge County, Virginia. We keep horses about half an hour outside of town. At the horse farm they also raise redbones and black and tans. Four summers ago, my daughter had a job of socializing the hound puppies and that’s when we met Biscuit, on the day she was born!

Cola is a rescue-girl. My daughter found her at Animal Control and pretty much...[read on]
About Amateau's new book, Come August, Come Freedom: The Bellows, The Gallows, and The Black General Gabriel, from the publisher:
In a time of post-Revolutionary fervor in Richmond, Virginia, an imposing twenty-four-year-old slave named Gabriel, known for his courage and intellect, plotted a rebellion involving thousands of African- American freedom seekers armed with refashioned pitchforks and other implements of Gabriel’s blacksmith trade. The revolt would be thwarted by a confluence of fierce weather and human betrayal, but Gabriel retained his dignity to the end. History knows little of Gabriel’s early life. But here, author Gigi Amateau imagines a childhood shaped by a mother’s devotion, a father’s passion for liberation, and a friendship with a white master’s son who later proved cowardly and cruel. She gives vibrant life to Gabriel’s love for his wife-to-be, Nanny, a slave woman whose freedom he worked tirelessly, and futilely, to buy. Interwoven with original documents, this poignant, illuminating novel gives a personal face to a remarkable moment in history.

An 1800 insurrection planned by a literate slave known as "Prosser’s Gabriel" inspires a historical novel following one extraordinary man’s life.
Learn more about the book and author at Gigi Amateau's website.

Read--Coffee with a canine: Gigi Amateau & Biscuit and Cola.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Julia Keller reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Julia Keller, author of A Killing in the Hills.

Her entry begins:
I’ve heard many writers say that they don’t like to read during the time period when they’re toiling away on their own books because they fear the dreaded incursion of style-creep: Their work may inadvertently pick up stray bits of inflection and random echoes of emphasis. (Willa Cather solved this by only reading the bible prior to a day of writing—not from an excess of piety, but because those solemn cadences are like scales on a piano.)

I seem to be impervious to style-creep. In fact, it’s the opposite for me: I think I write in ornery opposition to what I read. And frankly, if I had to give up one or the other—writing or reading—it would have to be the former. The latter is too crucial.

I read in frantic bunches and motley multitudes. Always have. And right now, the wobbly stack of books on the little table adjacent to my reading chair—a tower that always threatens collapse as a consequence of its ceiling-scraping plentitude—includes the following:

The Book in the Renaissance (2010) by Andrew Pettegree, is a marvelous survey of the first century and a half after Gutenberg did his thing. It’s written with style and wit, filled with fascinating tidbits—ever wonder how and why italic was invented?—as it reminds us that the book business has always been crazy-volatile and subject to the whims of...[read on]
About the book, from the publisher:
In A Killing in the Hills, a powerful, intricate debut from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Keller, a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it's too late.

What's happening in Acker's Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker's Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow?

One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, WV. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job.

After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good—in fact, putting her own life in danger?
Learn more about the book and author at Julia Keller's website.

Writers Read: Julia Keller.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Stephanie Chong's "The Demoness of Waking Dreams," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Demoness of Waking Dreams by Stephanie Chong.

The entry begins:
Luciana Rossetti, Rogue demoness, is the novel’s heroine. The noble daughter of an 18th century silk merchant, she’s as headstrong as she is beautiful. For centuries, she has survived on her wits and her skill as an accomplished seductress. Luciana will stop at nothing to get whatever – and whoever – she wants. At the beginning of the novel, she returns to her home city of Venice to embark on her annual hunt for a human sacrifice.

As Luciana: A young Monica Belluci would be perfect. Megan Fox has the right look. Keira Knightly with an Italian accent would be fun – she can pull anything off.

Guardian angel Brandon Clarkson arrives in Venice to track down Luciana. An ex-cop with a tough-guy exterior, Brandon is also highly intelligent and an expert at his job: safeguarding humankind from the most dangerous demons on the planet. His rain-grey eyes and tattoo-covered, rock-hard body fascinate Luciana, even though he’s her sworn enemy.

As Brandon...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at Stephanie Chong's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Where Demon’s Fear To Tread.

My Book, The Movie: The Demoness of Waking Dreams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Hedrick Smith's "Who Stole the American Dream?"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Who Stole the American Dream? by Hedrick Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:
Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith’s new book is an extraordinary achievement, an eye-opening account of how, over the past four decades, the American Dream has been dismantled and we became two Americas.

In his bestselling The Russians, Smith took millions of readers inside the Soviet Union. In The Power Game, he took us inside Washington’s corridors of power. Now Smith takes us across America to show how seismic changes, sparked by a sequence of landmark political and economic decisions, have transformed America. As only a veteran reporter can, Smith fits the puzzle together, starting with Lewis Powell’s provocative memo that triggered a political rebellion that dramatically altered the landscape of power from then until today.

This is a book full of surprises and revelations—the accidental beginnings of the 401(k) plan, with disastrous economic consequences for many; the major policy changes that began under Jimmy Carter; how the New Economy disrupted America’s engine of shared prosperity, the “virtuous circle” of growth, and how America lost the title of “Land of Opportunity.” Smith documents the transfer of $6 trillion in middle-class wealth from homeowners to banks even before the housing boom went bust, and how the U.S. policy tilt favoring the rich is stunting America’s economic growth.

This book is essential reading for all of us who want to understand America today, or why average Americans are struggling to keep afloat. Smith reveals how pivotal laws and policies were altered while the public wasn’t looking, how Congress often ignores public opinion, why moderate politicians got shoved to the sidelines, and how Wall Street often wins politically by hiring over 1,400 former government officials as lobbyists.

Smith talks to a wide range of people, telling the stories of Americans high and low. From political leaders such as Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to CEOs such as Al Dunlap, Bob Galvin, and Andy Grove, to heartland Middle Americans such as airline mechanic Pat O’Neill, software systems manager Kristine Serrano, small businessman John Terboss, and subcontractor Eliseo Guardado, Smith puts a human face on how middle-class America and the American Dream have been undermined.

This magnificent work of history and reportage is filled with the penetrating insights, provocative discoveries, and the great empathy of a master journalist. Finally, Smith offers ideas for restoring America’s great promise and reclaiming the American Dream.
Learn more about the book and author at Hedrick Smith's website.

The Page 99 Test: Who Stole the American Dream?.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on Hollywood

Leo Braudy is among America's leading cultural historians and film critics. He currently is University Professor and Leo S. Bing Chair in English and American Literature at the University of Southern California. His books include The Hollywood Sign: Fantasy and Reality of an American Icon.

For the Wall Street Journal, Braudy named a five best list of books on Hollywood, including:
Material Dreams
by Kevin Starr (1990)

To begin to understand Hollywood beyond the clichés, it is best to start with an establishing shot: Hollywood in the context of Southern California. "Material Dreams," the second entry in Kevin Starr's multivolume history of California, focuses on the period that saw the transformation of a complicated and often incoherent mix of small studios, distributors, exhibitors, labs and locations into the studio system that dominated American filmmaking until the 1960s. "In 1923," he writes, "a pamphlet appeared entitled Why Los Angeles Will Become the World's Greatest City." It was during the period of tremendous growth and expansion in the silent-film era that the word "Hollywood" became the umbrella term for anything happening in the movie business, regardless of its geographic or economic relation to Hollywood itself. Starr's lively, insightful book chronicles the metamorphosis of a region known for agriculture and livestock into the world's filmmaking capital.
Read about another book on the list.

Also see Steven J. Ross's five best books on politics & the movie industryStefan Kanfer's five best books on remarkable Hollywood lives, and Jane Ciabattari's five best list of novels on Hollywood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Janice Law's "Fires of London"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Fires of London by Janice Law.

About the book, from the publisher:
A killer takes refuge in the blacked-out streets of wartime London, upending the world of one of Britain’s greatest painters in this chilling and captivating reimagining of the life of Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon walks the streets of World War II London, employed as a warden for the ARP to keep watch for activities that might tip off the Axis powers. Before the war, Bacon had travelled to Berlin and Paris picking up snatches of culture from a succession of middle-aged men charmed by his young face. Known for his flamboyant personal life and expensive taste, Bacon has returned home to live with his former nanny—who’s also his biggest collector—in a cramped bohemian apartment.

But one night, death intrudes on his after-hours paradise. When a young man is found dead in the park, his head smashed in, Bacon and the rest of London’s demimonde realize that they have much more to fear than the faraway scream of war.
Learn more about the book and author at Janice Law's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Fires of London.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

What is Sharon Fiffer reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Sharon Fiffer, author of eight Jane Wheel mysteries including the recently released Lucky Stuff.

Her entry begins:
I am a fast and greedy reader. Often, I don’t let myself start a book I think I’ll like until I know I can afford an all-nighter. In other words, I like to finish what I start—quickly. And since I took this summer off from writing because of teaching and editing commitments, I read and am currently reading a lot. Fast and greedily!

After devouring Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel, I decided that maybe I do like historical fiction after all. It was an absolute thrill to realize I could see that period through the eyes of Cromwell instead of Thomas More. After all, I’ve seen the movie, A Man For All Seasons, at least 8 times and I thought I knew what was what with Cromwell, but Mantel has offered such a...[read on]
About Lucky Stuff, from the publisher:
Officially divorced, antiques picker and private investigator Jane Wheel finally faces the reality that she needs to sell her house, which means clearing out her extensive—and beloved—antique collection. While it’s a daunting task, the preemptive move proves worthwhile when her house sells in one day. Finding herself suddenly homeless, Jane heads to her hometown, Kankakee, Illinois, to find that it, too, has been turned upside down.

Lucky Miller, a little-known comedian, is staging what he calls a comeback. It’s all part of his plan to break into showbiz by making it seem like he’s always been a big name. Suspicious of what Lucky’s trying to prove and why he’s chosen to prove it in Kankakee, Jane’s mother, Nellie, hires Jane to investigate. But why does Nellie care? Lucky would sure like to know, so he, too, calls on Jane to find out. Still, Nellie may be the least of his problems when a driver on his crew turns up dead hours after claiming that Lucky tried to kill him.

With the charming and dogged Jane Wheel at the center of another clever puzzle, Lucky Stuff is an outstanding addition to Sharon Fiffer’s popular series.
Learn more about the book and author at Sharon Fiffer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Scary Stuff.

Writers Read: Sharon Fiffer (January 2011).

Writers Read: Sharon Fiffer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about exploration

Max Jones is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at The University of Manchester and author of The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice.

In 2003 he named his top ten books about exploration for the Guardian. One title on the list:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (1968)

A mesmerising collection of essays exploring California in the 1960s by one of America's greatest writers, on topics ranging from murder trials to the movies of John Wayne. Few cultural commentators have rivalled Didion's ability to express penetrating insights in such elegant prose.
Read about another book on the list.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of Kurt Andersen’s five favorite ’60s books, and is a book David Rakoff keeps returning to.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Christopher Beckwith's "Warriors of the Cloisters"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Warriors of the Cloisters: The Central Asian Origins of Science in the Medieval World by Christopher I. Beckwith.

About the book, from the publisher:
Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of science were imported to Western Europe from the Islamic world, but until now the origins of such key elements of Islamic culture have been a mystery.

In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers--most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers--and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia.

Using in-depth analysis of ancient Buddhist, Classical Arabic, and Medieval Latin writings, Warriors of the Cloisters transforms our understanding of the origins of medieval scientific culture.
Learn more about Warriors of the Cloisters at the Princeton University Press website.

Christopher I. Beckwith is Professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. He is the author of The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages; Koguryo, Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives; Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present; and several other books.

The Page 99 Test: Empires of the Silk Road.

Writers Read: Christopher I. Beckwith.

The Page 99 Test: Warriors of the Cloisters.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Rich's "Caravan of Thieves," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Caravan of Thieves by David Rich.

The entry begins:
My wife claims that when I used to tell her the stories I was working on or thinking about working on I always said Jeff Bridges would be perfect for the lead. I don’t remember it that way, though, looking back, I can’t think of one role he wouldn’t have been great in. I know I thought of lots of actors at various times and thought I was writing a role that would be just perfect for so and so. Then I got to know some actors and took some acting classes myself and I found out that if I wrote a good part lots of actors could play it. Many of them are astoundingly good at their jobs. I stopped thinking of specific actors while I write; it’s too limiting.

Tommy Lee Jones would be great as Dan in Caravan of Thieves. So would Jack Nicholson. Same for Woody Harrelson. Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford: you bet. And, yes, Jeff Bridges. The list could go on and on. Dan is a charmer and these guys are all experts at turning that on. If any one of them wouldn’t be great as a conniving, charming con artist, he would have been forgotten long ago.

Rollie is tougher to cast. Colin...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at David Rich's website.

Writers Read: David Rich.

My Book, The Movie: Caravan of Thieves.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Pg. 69: Shelley Freydont's "Foul Play at the Fair"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Foul Play at the Fair by Shelley Freydont.

About the book, from the publisher:
Every day is a holiday in Celebration Bay ...but unfortunately death doesn’t take a holiday.

As more and more tourists flock to Celebration Bay, New York, to enjoy their seasonal festivals, the town is in need of a professional coordinator. Enter Manhattan event planner Liv Montgomery, tired of big-city stress and looking for an idyllic spot where she and her Westie terrier, Whiskey, can put down roots. The Harvest by the Bay Festival is Liv’s first chance to prove herself, and everything from apple bobbing to pumpkin painting goes perfectly—until the body of an itinerant juggler is discovered stuffed into an antique apple press.

With a murderer on the loose, town leaders threaten to shut down the upcoming Halloween and Christmas festivals. But the town’s livelihood is at stake, and there is no way Liv is going to let that happen, even if she has to solve the murder herself. No matter how many balls she needs to keep in the air, Liv is determined to find a killer who’s rotten to the core...
Learn more about the book and author at Shelley Freydont's website.

The Page 69 Test: Foul Play at the Fair.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top trilogies

Ken Follett emerged in the book world with Eye of the Needle, an award-winning thriller and international bestseller. After several more successful thrillers, he published The Pillars of the Earth and its long-awaited sequel, World Without End, a national and international bestseller. Follett's new historical epic, The Century Trilogy, opened with the bestselling Fall of Giants which is followed by the newly released Winter of the World.

Follett named his five best trilogies for The Daily Beast. One entry on the list:
The Foundation Trilogy
by Isaac Asimov

“Future history” is now a genre of its own, and Isaac Asimov invented it. I met him in 1979, soon after my first bestseller, Eye of the Needle, was published. Breathlessly, I told him that I had reread his Foundation books several times. He thanked me as graciously as if it was the first time he had heard a fan say that. It was probably the millionth.
Read about another trilogy on the list.

The Foundation Trilogy appears on Orson Scott Card's list of five books sure to get new readers hooked. Foundation is a book that inspired Paul Krugman.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Debra Ginsberg reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Debra Ginsberg, author of What the Heart Remembers.

Her entry begins:
As a reviewer and freelance editor, I am reading all the time, but unfortunately seldom for pleasure (although I do enjoy much of what I read for work; Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn being the most recent example). As a result, the to-be-read stack on the nightstand has become the to-be-read stack on the floor and actually now functions as its own nightstand. Sigh. So...[read on]
About What the Heart Remembers, from the publisher:
Whispers of the past…

When young Eden Harrison receives a heart transplant from an unknown donor, her seemingly charmed life falls apart. Haunted by dreams of people and places she doesn’t recognize, Eden is convinced that her new heart carries the memories of its original owner. Eden leaves her old life behind as she is mysteriously drawn to the city of San Diego.

Whispers of the mind…

There, Eden becomes fast friends with Darcy, a young woman recently widowed by Peter, her wealthy, much older husband. But Darcy is unsettled by her inability to mourn, and more unsettled by recurring thoughts of Adam, a young musician she was having an affair with--who has suddenly vanished.

Whispers of the heart…

Yet, the more Eden learns about Darcy, the more she realizes that all is not as it seems, and she begins to suspect foul play behind Peter's and Adam’s fates. As the tension around them escalates, Eden’s mysterious dreams become more and more frequent. Can Eden listen to what her heart is trying to tell her before it is silenced forever?
Learn more about the book and author at Debra Ginsberg's website.

The Page 69 Test: Blind Submission.

The Page 69 Test: The Grift.

The Page 69 Test: The Neighbors Are Watching.

Writers Read: Debra Ginsberg.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best accounts of great African journeys

Tim Jeal is the author of the acclaimed biographies Livingstone, Baden-Powell, and Stanley, each selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was selected as the winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

His latest book is Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure.

One of Jeal's five best accounts of great African journeys, as told to the Wall Street Journal:
Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman
by Marjorie Shostak (1981)

In the 1970s the anthropologist Marjorie Shostak set out to present a rounded and readable portrait of a hunter-gatherer woman from the Kalahari in her own words. In so doing, she journeyed into the mind and culture of someone whose daily life was superficially as different from her own as could be imagined but that mirrored the way our ancestors lived for 90% of human history. The reader feels with Nisa as she gives birth alone in the bush for the first time, gathers mongongo nuts and caterpillars, is beaten by her husband for infidelity, and sees three of her four children sicken and die. That's not all—a surviving adult daughter is murdered by her husband for refusing to have sex. But Nisa endures, remaining brave and humorous, with an amazing capacity for enjoying life whatever its trials and sorrows. "Nisa" is a humbling and inspiring book.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Angilee Shah & Jeffrey Wasserstrom, eds., "Chinese Characters"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, edited by Angilee Shah and Jeffrey Wasserstrom.

About the book, from the publisher:
Though China is currently in the global spotlight, few outside its borders have a feel for the tremendous diversity of the lives being led inside the country. This collection of compelling stories challenges oversimplified views of China by shifting the focus away from the question of China's place in the global order and zeroing in on what is happening on the ground. Some of the most talented and respected journalists and scholars writing about China today profile people who defy the stereotypes that are broadcast in print, over the airwaves, and online. These include an artist who copies classical paintings for export to tourist markets, Xi'an migrant workers who make a living recycling trash in the city dumps, a Taoist mystic, an entrepreneur hoping to strike it rich in the rental car business, an old woman about to lose her home in Beijing, and a crusading legal scholar.

The immense variety in the lives of these Chinese characters dispels any lingering sense that China has a monolithic population or is just a place where dissidents fight Communist Party loyalists and laborers create goods for millionaires. By bringing to life the exciting, saddening, humorous, confusing, and utterly ordinary stories of these people, the gifted contributors create a multi-faceted portrait of a remarkable country undergoing extraordinary transformations.
Learn more about Chinese Characters at the University of California Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Chinese Characters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, September 24, 2012

Pg. 69: Jane Tesh's "Mixed Signals"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Mixed Signals: A Grace Street Mystery by Jane Tesh.

About the book, from the publisher:
It’s Christmas in Parkland, North Carolina, and PI David Randall is looking forward to his mother’s visit to 302 Grace Street, even though he knows she’ll want to talk about his daughter, Lindsey, who died in a car accident. Then he and his friend Camden find Camden’s friend Jared Hunter brutally stabbed. Cam has violent flashbacks to the crime, making him fear he’s linked with the killer. The suspects include Boyd Taylor, who hires Randall. Randall’s investigations reveal Jared served time for breaking into the Parkland Museum of History, and Bert Galvin, son of Ralph Galvin, editor of the Parkland Herald, was also involved.

Randall believes inept superhero, the Parkland Avenger, is a set up by award-hungry Herald reporter, Brooke Verner. The Super Hero Society of Parkland insists the Avenger isn’t one of them. To his dismay, Kary, wanting a more active role in his cases, joins the SHS.

Brooke tells Randall she saw a letter from Bert promising not to tell about the museum funds. By comparing museum records and newsletters, Randall discovers a collector of valuable letters was never paid the full amount and died in a car crash suspiciously soon after the sale. He realizes Galvin used the museum break in to cover up this embezzlement scheme.

A map found in Jared’s comic collection leads Randall and Cam to a series of tunnels underneath several stores that have been recently robbed. Kary, in her guise as Wonder Star, helps them trap Galvin in the tunnels and end Cam’s troubling visions.
Learn more about the book and author at Jane Tesh's website.

The Page 69 Test: Mixed Signals.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew Porter's "In Between Days," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: In Between Days by Andrew Porter.

The entry begins:
In Between Days is about a family torn apart by divorce and is told through the alternating perspectives of each of the four family members: Elson (the father), Cadence (the mother), Richard (the son) and Chloe (the daughter.)

Since this is purely an exercise in fantasy, I’m going to go straight to the top of the “A-list” and say that George Clooney would make a perfect Elson, especially after seeing his amazing performance in The Descendents. And while we’re sticking with the A-list, I’d also love to see Julianne...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at Andrew Porter's website.

My Book, The Movie: In Between Days.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about Hitler and the Third Reich

Anthony Read's books include The Devil's Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler's Inner Circle.

In 2003 he named his top ten books about Hitler and the Third Reich for the Guardian. One title on the list:
The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert

The literature on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the so-called Final Solution is almost as vast as that on Nazism and the Third Reich. Trying to encompass the Holocaust in a single book would therefore seem to be a hopeless task, but Gilbert comes as close as is humanly possible with this deeply compassionate book, never letting us forget that though a million deaths may be a statistic, each one is a tragedy.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Christopher I. Beckwith reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Christopher I. Beckwith, author of Warriors of the Cloisters: The Central Asian Origins of Science in the Medieval World.

His entry begins:
My reading mostly falls into two categories: non-fiction connected with my research, which I often check or use rather than actually “read,” though my first two are exceptions to that rule, and fiction that is usually related in some way to my own fiction writing.

In non-fiction, I read two books by Frans de Waal: Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are (2005), and Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes (revised ed., 1998). The author shows how chimps and bonobos, and sometimes other primates, deal with each other in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways that reveal how amazingly close to humans they are. They are among the most insightful books I have ever read about...[read on]
About Warriors of the Cloisters, from the publisher:
Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of science were imported to Western Europe from the Islamic world, but until now the origins of such key elements of Islamic culture have been a mystery.

In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers--most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers--and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia.

Using in-depth analysis of ancient Buddhist, Classical Arabic, and Medieval Latin writings, Warriors of the Cloisters transforms our understanding of the origins of medieval scientific culture.
Learn more about Warriors of the Cloisters at the Princeton University Press website.

Christopher I. Beckwith is Professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. He is the author of The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages; Koguryo, Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives; Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present; and several other books.

The Page 99 Test: Empires of the Silk Road.

Writers Read: Christopher I. Beckwith.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Pg. 99: Tom Koch's "Thieves of Virtue"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Thieves of Virtue: When Bioethics Stole Medicine by Tom Koch.

About the book, from the publisher:
Bioethics emerged in the 1960s from a conviction that physicians and researchers needed the guidance of philosophers in handling the issues raised by technological advances in medicine. It blossomed as a response to the perceived doctor-knows-best paternalism of the traditional medical ethic and today plays a critical role in health policies and treatment decisions. Bioethics claimed to offer a set of generally applicable, universally accepted guidelines that would simplify complex situations. In Thieves of Virtue, Tom Koch argues that bioethics has failed to deliver on its promises. Instead, he argues, bioethics has promoted a view of medicine as a commodity whose delivery is predicated not on care but on economic efficiency.

Koch questions the “founding myths” of bioethics by which moral philosophers became practical ethicists who served as adjudicators of medical practice and planning. High philosophy, he argues, does not provide a guide to the practical dilemmas that arise at the bedside of sick patients. Nobody, he writes, carries Kant to a clinical consult.

At the heart of bioethics, Koch writes, is a “lifeboat ethic” that assumes “scarcity” of medical resources is a natural condition rather than the result of prior economic, political, and social choices. The idea of natural scarcity requiring ethical triage signaled a shift in ethical emphasis from patient care and the physician’s responsibility for it to neoliberal accountancies and the promotion of research as the preeminent good.

The solution to the failure of bioethics is not a new set of simplistic principles. Koch points the way to a transformed medical ethics that is humanist, responsible, and defensible.
Learn more about the book and author at Tom Koch's website.

The Page 99 Test: Thieves of Virtue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five notable books on the English Revolution of 1688

Steven Pincus is professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy, 1650-1668, and England’s Glorious Revolution: A Brief History with Documents.

His latest book, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, has won a number of prizes, including the 2010 Morris D. Forkosch Prize given by the American Historical Association.

With Sophie Roell at The Browser, Pincus discussed five top books on the English Revolution of 1688, including:
The Revolution of 1688 in England
by JR Jones

What does the next book, JR Jones’s The Revolution of 1688 in England, bring to the table? This was published in 1972, you mentioned.

Jones made two really significant contributions. The first was to point out that a number of former Whigs, people who had been active in trying to remove James II from the throne, were willing to work with James once he promoted his Declaration of Indulgence. So there are Whig collaborators with James’s regime, which, again, puts pressure on seeing it straightforwardly as a Protestant-Catholic struggle. The second contribution Jones made was to go back to something which Macaulay had done, which had fallen out in Trevelyan’s work, which was the international context of diplomatic struggles and how those made it important, from William’s perspective, to get involved in the British situation. I learned a great deal from both of these contributions.

One point I would make about the foreign policy issue is that Jones’s assumption was that these diplomatic issues motivated European actors. They explain why William wanted to get involved in Britain, but weren’t an issue for Britons, because Britons didn’t care about what was going on on the Continent. In my view, Britons cared deeply about what was going on on the Continent. The transformation of foreign policy – that turned England from an anti-Dutch alignment to an anti-French alignment – was something that a lot of people in Britain actually wanted and was on their agenda long before William came on the scene. In fact, part of the reason they wanted William was because they supported William’s foreign policy. It wasn’t William who imposed it on them.
Read about another book Pincus tagged at The Browser.

The Page 99 Test: 1688: The First Modern Revolution.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Sharon Potts's "The Devil’s Madonna"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Devil's Madonna by Sharon Potts.

About the book, from the publisher:
A picture’s worth a thousand words…countless lies… millions of deaths… and one fateful birth

Happily married and pregnant with her first child, artist Kali Miller probes Lillian Campbell, her ninety-three year old grandmother, for information about her roots and her mother’s accidental death when Kali was a child. But the impact on her grandmother and the answers that Kali gets are anything but what she expected. Kali’s questions intensify the profound paranoia that had dominated her grandmother’s adult life — that someone from the past has found her — and with Kali’s demand for the truth, Lillian sinks into a life of nightmares and paralyzing fear. Will her life in 1930′s Berlin, her loves and lies, and the true meaning of the small painting that she has hidden for more than seventy years be exposed to reveal the hideous secret that has haunted Lillian to this day? Or will the hunt to uncover her past lead to the imminent murder of Lillian and her pregnant granddaughter? Perhaps murder is the only means to keep Kali and her unborn child from a future that no one in the world would ever want to face?
Learn more about the book and author at Sharon Potts' website.

My Book, The Movie: In Their Blood.

My Book, The Movie: Someone’s Watching.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil's Madonna.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kim Fay's "The Map of Lost Memories," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay.

The entry begins:
When I started writing my novel, I was twenty-nine years old, the same age as my main character, Irene Blum. When I finished, fourteen years later, I was … well, you can do the math. The same goes for Cate Blanchett, the actress I had envisioned playing Irene. The problem with the latter, at least when it comes to The Map of Lost Memories making its way to the big screen, is that Irene will forever be twenty-nine, just as her partner-in-crime/rival Simone will always be in her early twenties, and her love interest Marc Rafferty in his early thirties. This knocks my supporting role original choices of Emily...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at Kim Fay's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: The Map of Lost Memories.

My Book, The Movie: The Map of Lost Memories.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Five of the best tales about stormy couples

Amanda Bennett's books include In Memoriam (1997, with Terence B. Foley), The Man Who Stayed Behind (1993, with Sidney Rittenberg), The Death of the Organization Man (1990), and the recently released memoir, The Cost of Hope.

For the Wall Street Journal she named a five best list of tales about stormy couples, including:
Furious Love
by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger (2010)

The marriage of the century was launched during the filming of the epic "Cleopatra." Richard Burton soon became the octo-nuptarian Elizabeth Taylor's fifth and sixth husband; she would be the second and third of his five. This account of their love is almost too rich with incident and phrase. Burton and Taylor were both verbally adroit ("Well, Mike is dead and I'm alive," she said as she remarried quickly after the death of husband Mike Todd. "What do you expect me to do? Sleep alone?" Elizabeth is "an eternal one-night stand," says Burton.) Their careers map the 1950s and '60s stage and screen. He: "Becket," "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." She: "National Velvet," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "BUtterfield-8." They: "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Doctor Faustus," "Cleopatra." Their vicious fighting was sometimes for the benefit of the crowds, but mostly real. Hard to tell where Antony and Cleopatra, or George and Martha, leave off and Elizabeth and Richard begin. From the private letters on which this volume draws, it is obvious that for each the pill-and-alcohol-fueled drama represented passion and connection and touchingly clear that they found it hard to live either with or without each other. "I don't want to be that much in love ever again," Taylor said when the two divorced the first time, in 1974. Said Burton: "There is no life without you, I am afraid."
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Thomas Medvetz's "Think Tanks in America"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Think Tanks in America by Thomas Medvetz.

About the book, from the publisher:
Over the past half-century, think tanks have become fixtures of American politics, supplying advice to presidents and policymakers, expert testimony on Capitol Hill, and convenient facts and figures to journalists and media specialists. But what are think tanks? Who funds them? And just how influential have they become?

In Think Tanks in America, Thomas Medvetz argues that the unsettling ambiguity of the think tank is less an accidental feature of its existence than the very key to its impact. By combining elements of more established sources of public knowledge—universities, government agencies, businesses, and the media—think tanks exert a tremendous amount of influence on the way citizens and lawmakers perceive the world, unbound by the more clearly defined roles of those other institutions. In the process, they transform the government of this country, the press, and the political role of intellectuals. Timely, succinct, and instructive, this provocative book will force us to rethink our understanding of the drivers of political debate in the United States.
Learn more about the book and author at Tom Medvetz's website.

The Page 99 Test: Think Tanks in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Niall Leonard reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Niall Leonard, author of Crusher.

His entry begins:
I have been reading an eclectic range of books recently, which is unusual for me as I normally prefer fiction. However last August I found Little America: The War Inside The War For Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasekaran to be stranger, funnier and more tragic than any work of fiction I have read for a long time. Its tale of how bureaucracy, government infighting and terrifying myopia of the agencies meant to be addressing the fundamental problems of Afghanistan have squandered talent, goodwill, billions of dollars and countless lives, both American and Afghani. It's as bleak and as black as Heller's Catch 22 except there is not a word of exaggeration or satire in it - it's almost too horrifyingly true to contemplate.

From there I moved onto...[read on]
About Crusher, from the publisher:
The day Finn Maguire discovers his dad bludgeoned to death in a pool of blood, his dreary life is turned upside down. Prime suspect in his father’s murder, Finn must race against time to clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him.

Scouring the sordid, brutal London underworld for answers, exposing dark family secrets, and facing danger at every turn, Finn is about to learn that it’s the people you trust who can hit you the hardest...
Learn more about the book and author at Niall Leonard's website.

Writers Read: Niall Leonard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, September 21, 2012

Six notable books about dark journeys

Iain Sinclair is the author of many books, including Downriver, Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, and Ghost Milk: Recent Adventures Among the Future Ruins of London on the Eve of the Olympics.

For The Week magazine, he named his six favorite books about dark journeys, including:
Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac

A lyrical sweep down the Pacific Rim, from the elective solitude of a summer on a Cascades peak to partying in San Francisco. With a restless Kerouac lurch, the story moves to isolation again — a roof in Mexico City, where the writer recomposes memory as a dream of fiction.
Read about another book on the list.

Also see Iain Sinclair's list of five novels that capture the spirit and rich history of London.

--Marshal Zeringue