Six top SF/F novels with non-white protagonists

Lauren Naturale likes literary fantasy, the gothic, historical fiction, and sensational things to read on trains; she writes in and about all of these genres.

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog she tagged six SF/F novels with non-white protagonists that aren’t by Octavia Butler, including:

Half-Resurrection Blues, by Daniel José Older

Older’s first novel, but third published book—he’s also the author of Salsa Nocturna, a collection of short stories, and one of the editors of Long Hidden, an anthology of diverse historical SFF —details the adventures of Carlos Delacruz, an “inbetweener” in a vividly realized alternate Brooklyn where ghosts and demons roam openly (still recognizable as the Brooklyn of our own world, where the walking dead are a bit more discreet). Carlos, who’s neither dead nor alive, works for the New York Council of the Dead (NYCOD) as a kind of mediator between the two worlds. When another inbetweener releases a horde of demons, it’s up to Carlos to stop him from before he destroys the city.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten bad boys with good(ish) hearts in YA fiction

Catherine Doyle lives in the west of Ireland. She holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a master's degree in English from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Vendetta, her debut novel, is the first part of the Blood for Blood series.

For the Guardian she tagged her top ten bad boys with good(ish) hearts in YA fiction, including:

Dante Walker in the Dante Walker series by Victoria Scott

"But let me tell ya, spend every day living only for yourself, every day indulging in little sins that aren’t that big of a deal, and one day I may be showing you the ropes in hell. Amen."
― Victoria Scott, The Collector

Dante Walker is about as bad as they come. Sinfully attractive, this boy is, quite literally, bad to the bone. Hailing from hell and on a mission to bring good people down with him, he collects souls for the Devil himself, and Dante definitely doesn’t care about where they come from. That is, until he encounters Charlie Cooper. Dante’s cavalier attitude to morality meshes seamlessly with both arrogance and charm, but when he meets his new good-girl target, he gets more than he bargained for. For the first time, being bad doesn’t feel so good, and unassuming, selfless Charlie Cooper is the only person who can show him that.

Read about the other entries on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Collector.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books to celebrate the Year of the Sheep

At B & N Reads Ginni Chen tagged seven books to celebrate the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Sheep, including:

The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston

No exploration of the Chinese immigrant experience in America is complete without Kingston’s critically acclaimed The Woman Warrior. Part autobiography, part collection of Chinese folk tales, this book explores a Chinese American woman’s navigation of life in 20th-century America and the age-old stories of her roots.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Woman Warrior is among Eva Hoffman's top five striking memoirs and Julia Alvarez's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten fictional troublemakers

Matt Sumell's new book is Making Nice.

One of the author's top ten fictional troublemakers, as shared at the Guardian:

Guy Grand in The Magic Christian by Terry Southern

A hilarious billionaire determines to prove that there is nothing so awful that someone won’t do it for money. Whether it’s paying parking officers enormous amounts of money to eat the tickets, bribing an actor on a live TV show to deviate from the script, or buying a prestigious advertising firm just to install a pygmy as the president – it’s a book so funny and irreverent it led to Stanley Kubrick hiring Southern for Dr Strangelove.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six great fictional evil geniuses

At B & N Reads Monique Alice tagged six great fictional evil geniuses, including:

Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of The Lambs and The Hannibal Lecter Series, by Thomas Harris)

If “evil genius” were a phrase in the dictionary, there’s a good chance the definition would include a picture of Hannibal Lecter. Part of what terrifies us so much about him is his grisly taste for human flesh (he even pairs it with fancy wines!), but this proclivity can be understood as merely the manifestation of Hannibal’s desire to dissect, possess, and consume his victims psychologically. We have no trouble believing that, had Dr. Lecter used his clinical cunning for good, he would have been a superb psychotherapist. Instead, it’s up to Agent Starling to get inside Lecter’s mind without letting him take control of her own.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Silence of The Lambs is among sixteen book-to-movie adaptations that won Academy Awards. Red Dragon appears on Kimberly Turner's list of the ten most disturbing sociopaths in literature and John Mullan's lists of ten of the best dragons in literature and ten of the best tattoos in literature, and the (U.K.) Telegraph 110 best books; Andre Gross says "it should be taught as [a text] in Thriller 101."

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten contemporary novels inspired by Shakespeare

At Flavorwire Alison Nastasi tagged ten contemporary novels inspired by Shakespeare, including:

The Dead Fathers Club

Matt Haig’s Dead Fathers Club embraces the murderous Oedipal tendencies of its inspiration, the Bard’s Hamlet. Transplanting the introspective, brooding princeling to contemporary Britain, the author’s teenage hero is exhorted to dispatch a villainous uncle by his deceased — and apparently murdered — father. Substituting a local pub for the court of Denmark, Haig’s quirky treatment of the venerable source material, viewed through the prism of his hero-narrator, brings familiar dynastic struggles to the fore.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Fathers Club.

My Book, The Movie: The Dead Fathers Club.

Also see: Sally O'Reilly's top ten novels inspired by Shakespeare, the greatest Shakespeare homages and cover versions in science fiction and fantasy and Matt Haig's top ten list of novels influenced by Shakespeare.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best YA Hollywood novels

One title on Dahlia Adler's list of seven top YA Hollywood novels, as shared on the B & N Teen Blog:

Secrets of My Hollywood Life, by Jen Calonita

This book is the first of six that take teen actress Kaitlin from TV to high school to Broadway and beyond. From on-set rivals to managing a relationship with a non-actor to bad-girl phases getting caught on camera, this insidery series is especially perfect for younger YA readers who want to know all about the industry, through the eyes of a sweet, likable heroine.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Jen Calonita and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Writers Read: Jen Calonita (May 2014).

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books that warp reality

Kelly Link is the co-founder of Small Beer Press. Her latest book of stories is Get in Trouble.

One of the author's six favorite books that warp reality, as shared at The Week magazine:

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

These are contemporary Russian fairy tales written by a short-story master. Petrushevskaya has a brisk, matter-of-fact style that you instinctively cede authority to, as if she were a tour guide to a place (where are we? who turned out the lights? did something just touch my hand?) that you were always meant to go.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine novels about writers inspired by real-life events

At Bustle Jessica Ferri tagged nine novels about writers inspired by real-life events, including:

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel not only tells the story of Virginia Woolf, but reimagines her characters from her work in the lives of three other people: Samuel, a poet suffering from AIDS, his friend Clarissa, and Laura Brown, a depressed housewife living in Los Angeles in 1949. Obviously inspired by the work and inner struggles of Woolf herself, The Hours is, in many ways, the perfect example of literary-inspired fiction.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Hours is among Philip Hensher's top ten parallel narratives--i.e., novels that track unconnected but related stories.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten menaces in children’s fiction

Steven Butler is the author of The Diary of Dennis the Menace.

At the Guardian he tagged ten top menaces in children's fiction, including:

Peter Pan, in Peter Pan by J M Barrie

The ultimate trickster, Pan embodies the very essence of what a good menace is made from. His endless need for adventure, and ruthless determination to get exactly what he wants, crowns him (arguably) as the greatest menace ever to grace the pages of children’s fiction.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Peter Pan is on Melissa Albert's top five list of weird fictional crushes, Jill Hucklesby's top ten list of books about running away, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best pirates in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven new YA novels that deal with death

At B & N Teen Blog, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick tagged seven new YA novels that deal with death, including:

My Heart and Other Black Holes, by Jasmine Warga

Aysel wants to kill herself, but doesn’t think she can go through with it alone. Then she meets Roman in a suicide chatroom, and they agree to be “suicide partners,” each making sure the other ultimately ends their life. But will Aysel still want to die after her feelings for Roman start to change? This darkly funny novel takes us inside the world of two talented but depressed teens who can’t decide if life is worth the heartache. Warga makes us fall for Aysel, while offering an unflinching look at teen depression and suicide.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten books about rivers

Katharine Norbury is the author of the debut novel, The Fish Ladder.

For the Guardian, she tagged her top ten books about rivers, including:

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

It too begins on the Thames, with The Nellie, a cruising yawl, as the dream-boat that carries Marlow, employed by “the Company”, as he heads into unmapped territory in search of missing company director, Kurtz. A journey to the heart of our collective subconsciousness.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Heart of Darkness is on Michael Palin's six favorite books list, Robert Twigger's list of five of the best books about rivers, Robert McCrum's list of ten of the best closing lines of books, Mark Malloch-Brown's lis of six favorite novels of empire, John Mullan's list of ten of the best fogs in literature, Tim Butcher's list of the top 10 books about Congo, Martin Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa, Thomas Perry's best books list, and is #9 on the 100 best last lines from novels list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten erotic books hotter and better than "Fifty Shades of Grey"

At TimeOut New York Tiffany Gibert tagged ten erotic books hotter and better than Fifty Shades of Grey, including:

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Okay, Nutting’s controversial book is, in fact, about a teacher seducing a young student. But what’s so engaging about Tampa isn’t this scandal: It’s how, with keen details, the author portrays the intensity of obsession from a female perspective, a brilliant twist on Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert.

Read the other entries on the list.

Tampa is also among Kristi Steffen's top five titles told from the perspective of an extremely disturbed individual you would never want to meet.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve books that make you want to travel

At the Telegraph Eleanor Muffitt tagged 12 "books that make you want to pack your bags and trot the globe," including:

The Beach, Alex Garland

Any wannabe-backpacker needs this sinister tale of a traveller searching for adventure in Thailand in their (limited) luggage. The book follows Richard, a young English tourist who finds a map in a Bangkok hotel room. Directed to a secret community, Richard decides to settle down in paradise – only to discover modern-day Edens are easily corrupted by temptation.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Beach also appears on Anna Wilson's top ten list of books set on the seaside, Kate Kellaway's ten best list of fictional holidays, the Guardian editors' list of the 50 best summer reads ever, John Mullan's list of ten of the best swimming scenes in literature, and Sloane Crosley's list of five depressing beach reads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six YA love stories for book nerds

At the B & N Teen Blog, Jenny Kawecki tagged six YA love stories for book nerds, including:

A Novel Idea, by Aimee Friedman

Short on extracurriculars for her college apps, Norah starts a book club. When she falls in love with one of her attendees, she decides the best way to win him over is to adopt the plot of her favorite romance novel. Cheesier than a trip to Muenster? Yes. Still our own personal fantasy? So, so yes.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Treuer's six favorite books

David Treuer's new novel is Prudence.

One of the author's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White

A modern classic. In his coming-of-age novel set in the 1950s in Ohio and Michigan, White explores how the illicit nature of gay love in that time and place can corrupt the very nature and quality of that love and deform the heart that produces it. Comic and devastating.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten barriers to love in some top stories

James Dawson’s books include Say Her Name and This Book Is Gay. At the Guardian he tagged ten ways in which writers have established barriers to love just for the sake of a great story, including:

I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR LOVE

Nothing says “I Love You” like completing a mythical quest for a loved one. Orpheus had to travel into the Underworld and perform his greatest hits for Hades before he was allowed to take Eurydice back to the land of the living (only to then muck it up at the last minute). Rama had to rescue Sita from Ravana, Mal must bring the antlers of Morozova’s Stag to Alina in Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone, and pretty much ANY YA roadtrip novel would fall into the “quest” category. I prefer my quests a little darker and Valmont’s deflowering of Madame De Tourvel to win the “love” of Madame de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses is much more to my taste.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses also appears on Jonathan Grimwood's top ten list of French Revolution novels, Helena Frith Powell's top ten list of sexy French books, H.M. Castor's top ten list of dark and haunted heroes and heroines, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best lotharios in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the baddest boyfriends and girlfriends of YA lit

Sarah Skilton is the author of Bruised, a martial arts drama for young adults; and High and Dry, a hardboiled teen mystery. At the B&N Teen Blog she tagged six terrible YA boyfriends and girlfriends, including:

The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith

Offender: Jack Whitmore, expat American boyfriend of English rose Nickie Stromberg

Crime: Addict. Can’t stop wearing purple-tinted glasses that allow him to visit a gruesome, terrifying alternate reality called Marbury; as such, has no memory of his first meeting with Nickie, their courtship, or many of their conversations.

Telltale line that something is amiss: (via Jack’s internal monologue): “…did I tell you about how I can’t even remember anything about meeting you today because I hallucinated some crazy [bleep] about people getting hacked into pieces and eaten by bugs?”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that’ll make you glad you’re single

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At B & N Reads Somers tagged six books that’ll make you glad you’re single, including:

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Perhaps the obvious choice, but no less powerful for it, Flynn’s breakout novel isn’t so much a crime story as it is the story of what happens when you marry someone you don’t know as well as you think you do. We all start off as strangers, after all, and how well can you ever truly know someone? As explored in this incredible novel, the answer might not be to your liking. This Valentine’s Day, if you’re wondering why you never get a “meet cute” moment that leads to the perfect marriage, read Gone Girl again and be reminded your chances of marrying a crazy person are more than zero.

Read about the other books on the list.

Gone Girl made Jeff Somers's list of five books with an outstanding standalone scene that can be read on its own, Lucie Whitehouse's ten top list of psychological suspense novels with marriages at their heart and Kathryn Williams's list of eight of fiction’s craziest unreliable narrators.

Also see: Eleven books for the happily unwed.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten books about addiction

SJ Watson is the author of Before I Go To Sleep and Second Life.

One of his top ten books about addiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

Bleakly comic, this tells the story of Victor, a man who has sex in order to avoid life, rather than embrace it, and as a distraction from his damaged relationship with his mother. And where does this sex addict go to find partners? Sex-addiction support groups, of course. Like I said, bleakly comic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Dan Barden's six top stories of addiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best sex scenes from film, TV and literature

At the Guardian Alex Preston tagged the ten best sex scenes from film, TV and literature, including:

Madame Bovary

One of the most sexually charged scenes in literature – the carriage ride in Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – doesn’t allow even a glimpse of the copulating couple. Emma Bovary has met her lover, Léon, in church and they set off on a wild ride across the Normandy countryside, carriage blinds drawn. The horses sweat, the coachman curses, and passers-by wonder, like the reader, what is occurring behind those blinds: “the good folk opened large wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about like a vessel”.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Madame Bovary is on Rachel Holmes's top ten list of books on the struggle against gender-based inequality, Jill Boyd's list of six memorable marriage proposals in literature, Julia Sawalha's six best books list, Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Amy Sohn's list of six favorite books, Sue Townsend's 6 best books list, Helena Frith Powell's list of ten of the best sexy French books, the Christian Science Monitor's list of six novels about grand passions, John Mullan's lists of ten landmark coach rides in literature, ten of the best cathedrals in literature, ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best bad lawyers in literature, ten of the best lotharios in literature, and ten of the best bad doctors in fiction, Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007. It is one of John Bowe's six favorite books on love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books that broke genre barriers

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At B & N Reads Somers tagged five of the best books that busted genre conventions, including:

The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick

Convention Busted: Alternate history isn’t serious.

The works of Philip K. Dick continue to be popular, including his novel The Man in the High Castle, which took the previously disreputable and underused trope of alternate history and turned it into something literary and remarkable. Jumping off from a version of history where the United States and its allies were conquered by the Axis Powers, it wasn’t the first alternative history novel ever written, but it was the first to take the trope seriously, to elevate it to a literary status and develop a fully realized universe from the “point of departure” in its version of history. So complex and layered is the novel—to the point that it contains a fictitious novel within the story that tells an alternate history in which the Axis Powers lost the war—it singlehandedly established alternate history as more than a stunt.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books that explore human duality

Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting, Ecstasy, Glue, Porno, Filth, Marabou Stork Nightmares, The Acid House, Skagboys, and, most recently, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins.

One of his six favorite books that explore human duality, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson's story about a law-abiding citizen who turns into a monster at night was based on Deacon Brodie, a respected Edinburgh politician who after dark became a drunken, violent womanizer. The tale mirrors the novel's London, a city perpetually locked in a conflict between its rough and respectable images.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also appears on the Huffington Post's list of classic works that are all under 200 pages, Koren Zailckas's top 11 list of favorite evil characters, Stuart Evers's list of the top ten homes in literature, H.M. Castor's top ten list of dark and haunted heroes and heroines and John Mullan's list of ten of the best butlers in literature, and among Yann Martel's six favorite books. It is one of Ali Shaw's top ten transformation stories and Nicholas Frankel's five best pieces of decadent writing from the nineteenth century.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best horror books you've never read

Nick Cutter is a pseudonym for an acclaimed author of novels and short stories. His new novel is The Deep.

At Publishers Weekly Cutter named a ten best list of littler-known horror books, including:

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

I hesitated to put this on, only because I’m not sure anyone could label Straub or his masterwork “little known.” Straub is a titan of the genre. He’s probably the most purely literary horror writer we have, along with Ramsay Campbell. And Ghost Story—which Stephen King famously called “a tiger tank of a book, made of iron and well-nigh unstoppable”—is, I suspect, quite well known outside of the horror genre. It’s one of those exceptional works that, while written primarily for horror readers, is so wonderful that it breached its containment and ran roughshod over the general populace. But it’s been out for decades and maybe some newer horror readers don’t know about it, so hell, I threw it on the list. Sue me! It’s one of the very best horror books you will read in your lifetime.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ghost Story is among the Telegraph's fifteen spookiest books and Lauren Oliver's ten favorite ghost stories.

The Page 69 Test: Nick Cutter's The Deep.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books you should finally read in 2015

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well.

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Somers tagged ten books you should finally read in 2015, including:

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas has the difficult novel trifecta: A shattered timeline, an invented patois, and a story involving several sets of characters in completely different time periods. The trick with Cloud Atlas is that it’s like reading seven novels all at once. There is a theme, and a point, but ultimately what this means is that if you’re confused or bored or mildly alarmed by what you’re reading, just muddle through—a new story will begin shortly.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Cloud Atlas is among the six books that changed Maile Meloy's idea of what’s possible in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 children's books on death and bereavement

Holly Webb’s latest book is A Tiger Tale.

For the Guardian she tagged her top ten children's books on death and bereavement, including:

The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

When the Velveteen Rabbit’s owner has scarlet fever, all his toys have to be destroyed for fear of infection. But the rabbit has been so well loved that he’s made Real. Such a beautiful book, again not directly about death, but about being taken away from someone you love, and the way things change and carry on.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten novels featuring works of art

Sophia Tobin is the author of The Silversmith’s Wife and The Widow’s Confession.

One of her top ten novels featuring works of art, as shared at the Guardian:

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951)

“I can’t remember any murderer … who looked like him.” So says Alan Grant, a police inspector recovering from an operation in hospital, who is given a pile of portraits by a friend to keep him occupied. Grant considers himself an expert on faces, and is intrigued by one particular portrait, soliciting opinions from his doctor, nurses and visitors. When he discovers that the face belongs to Richard III, he decides to research the mystery of the princes in the Tower. This most unconventional of detective stories is enthralling and, for the record, I agree with him about that portrait.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: Ian MacKenzie's top 10 artworks in novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six new must-read historical fiction novels

At B & N Reads Nicole Hill tagged six of the best new titles in historical fiction, including:

Of Irish Blood, by Mary Pat Kelly

Bringing the action closer to our time period is Nora Kelly, a lively and scrappy Irish-American heroine fleeing an abusive relationship. In the sequel to Mary Pat Kelly’s Galway Bay, Nora, ever plucky, winds up in Paris on the eve of World War I. There she encounters an astounding array of characters from the 20th century, including but not limited to: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and Henri Matisse. She also finds a little romance in the guise of a hunky academic and adventure in the form of Irish revolutionaries. It’s a tale to make tongues wag.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Learn more about Of Irish Blood.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten liars in fiction

Nick Lake’s latest teen/YA book is There Will Be Lies.

At the Guardian he tagged his ten favorite fictional tricksters and tellers of untruths in books, including:

Jack, in Home by Marilynne Robinson

Perhaps my favourite ever book, and one I press on anyone who is willing to listen. It’s silly to make these kind of pronouncements, but I’m going to do it anyway: Marilynne Robinson is the finest prose writer in the world right now. The story revolves around Glory, the adult daughter of a preacher in the American South, who returns to live at home, and partly it’s about her dealing with this apparent failure; with reconciling herself to life as a spinster in the house she grew up in. But it’s also about her brother Jack, the wayward prodigal son who also returns to the family home for a while, and a ‘lie’ he tells. That is, we know that Jack has a wife and son, and that he is reluctant for them to visit, but Glory only learns why at the end of the book. It’s a final revelation, a lever de rideau on the whole sublot, that not only shows what Jack has been hiding, but also reveals the true purpose of the book: appearing on the outside to be a domestic drama, it is really a furious and utterly heartbreaking look at perhaps America’s greatest injustice. It’s amazing (and revelatory) how many Amazon reviewers don’t get it at all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Home is among Richard Zimler's five best books featuring pariahs and Diana Quick's six best books.

Also see: Dan Ariely's six top books about, or by, liars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books that illuminate the Victorian era

Rebecca Mead's best-seller My Life in Middlemarch is a personal ode to George Eliot's great 1874 novel.

At The Week magazine, Mead named her six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era, including:

Angels and Ages by Adam Gopnik

Gopnik's double biography concerns two men born on the same day in 1809: Abraham Lincoln — who was not a Victorian — and Charles Darwin, who most decidedly was. Gopnik's deft touch as he weaves their worlds together belies the scrupulousness of his research.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best marriage plots in novels

Martine Bailey’s first historical novel, An Appetite for Violets, is a gastronomic mystery tale set in 18th century Europe. Written as a book of recipes, it takes a young cook on a murderous trip from England to Italy. Bailey lives in Chester, England and as an amateur cook, won the Merchant Gourmet Recipe Challenge and was a former UK Dessert Champion.

At the Huffington Post Bailey tagged six of the best marriage plots in novels, including:

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte

A governess's conscience besieged In Jane Eyre, the eponymous heroine is forewarned of the fate of servants, so knows all about Richardson's Pamela from the tales told by her old nurse, Bessie. As a governess, Jane is an ambivalently placed servant to masterly Rochester, the Byronically attractive master of Thornfield Hall. In defending her virtue Jane battles for respect and equality of passion with Rochester. As befits a Gothic novel, Jane rejects the virtuous (and to my mind genuinely creepy) St John Rivers for the dark and ultimately humbled Rochester. Considered to be dangerously radical when first published, it 'violated every code human and divine,' according to The Quarterly Review. Now it is generally considered to be a masterpiece.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Jane Eyre also made Radhika Sanghani's top ten list of books to make sure you've read before graduating college, Lauren Passell's top five list of Gothic novels, Molly Schoemann-McCann's lists of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance and five of the best--and more familiar--tropes in fiction, Becky Ferreira's lists of seven of the best fictional depictions of female friendship and the top six most momentous weddings in fiction, Julia Sawalha's six best books list, Honeysuckle Weeks's six best books list, Kathryn Harrison's list of six favorite books with parentless protagonists, Megan Abbott's top ten list of novels of teenage friendship, a list of Bettany Hughes's six best books, the Guardian's top 10 lists of "outsider books" and "romantic fiction;" it appears on Lorraine Kelly's six best books list, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, and Jessica Duchen's top ten list of literary Gypsies, and on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best governesses in literature, ten of the best men dressed as women, ten of the best weddings in literature, ten of the best locked rooms in literature, ten of the best pianos in literature, ten of the best breakfasts in literature, ten of the best smokes in fiction, and ten of the best cases of blindness in literature. It is one of Kate Kellaway's ten best love stories in fiction.

The Page 99 Test: Jane Eyre.

My Book, The Movie: An Appetite for Violets.

The Page 69 Test: An Appetite for Violets.

--Marshal Zeringue