Top ten books about working life

Joanna Biggs is a writer and editor at the London Review of Books. Her new book is All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain At Work.

One of her top ten books about working life, as shared at the Guardian:

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

Nancy Hawkins is the editor-in-chief at Ullswater Press in 1954. The office clock is “unreliable”, the authors ring to complain about not being paid, sandwiches are sent out for and eaten with office-made coffee when it rains, Ivy the typist never lets up, a raincoated man from the (unpaid) printer stares up from the street all week, manuscripts pile up on Mrs Hawkins’s desk and sherry is poured out at 5.30pm. I, needless to say, long to walk into the office of Ullswater Press.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Aman Sethi's five best books on work and working.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten climate change fiction books for young readers

At the Guardian, Sarah Holding, author of the SeaBEAN eco-thriller trilogy, tagged her top ten "cli-fi novels that make you think deeply about the human consequences of climate change," including:

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Also a debut novel, I loved the bleak, troubled voice of Saba in this story, as she chases across a desolate landscape after the people who took her twin brother Lugh. Buckle up for an epic dystopian road novel with strong characters, spiced with romance and a convincing sense of danger throughout.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best fictional elections

At the Guardian, John Dugdale tagged ten of the best fictional elections (UK edition), including:

To Play the King by Michael Dobbs (1992)

Dobbs’s better-known House of Cards is about what happens after an election, as is Chris Mullins’s A Very British Coup; whereas here Francis Urquhart, as Tory PM, campaigns in an election where his real opponent is King Charles III, who sees Urquhart’s policies as divisive and lacking in compassion and aligns himself with the opposition.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books about weddings and marriage

Ellen McCarthy is an award-winning feature writer for the Style section of The Washington Post. She joined the Post in 2000 and wrote about business, technology, arts, and entertainment before launching the paper’s On Love section in 2009. She has interviewed hundreds of couples and written extensively about weddings and relationships. Her first book, The Real Thing: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter’s Notebook, is the culmination of that work.

One of McCarthy's six favorite books about weddings and marriage, as shared at The Week magazine:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The book that taught me that wit and intellect are every bit as attractive as physical beauty. We spend most of Jane Austen's classic watching Elizabeth Bennet spar with Mr. Darcy, even as she unwillingly falls in love with him.

Read about the other books on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on the Telegraph's list of the ten greatest put-downs in literature, Rebecca Jane Stokes' list of ten fictional families you might enjoy more than the one you'll actually spend the holidays with, Melissa Albert's lists of five fictional characters who deserved better, [fifteen of the] romantic leads (and wannabes) of Austen’s brilliant books and recommended reading for eight villains, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance, Emma Donoghue's list of five favorite unconventional fictional families, Amelia Schonbek's list of five approachable must-read classics, Jane Stokes's top ten list of the hottest men in required reading, Gwyneth Rees's top ten list of books about siblings, the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Paula Byrne's list of the ten best Jane Austen characters, Robert McCrum's list of the top ten opening lines of novels in the English language, a top ten list of literary lessons in love, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Cathy Cassidy's top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best housekeepers in fiction, ten great novels with terrible original titles, and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four notable books that changed Kelly Link

Kelly Link is the author of the story collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, The Wrong Grave, Pretty Monsters and most recently Get In Trouble.

One of four books that changed her, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

Carmen Dog
Carol Emshwiller

A battle of the sexes novel in which animals begin to turn into women, and women turn into animals. A wife becomes a wolverine. A dog yearns to sing opera at the Metropolitan. Mad scientists! A book I was so crazy about that I eventually republished it through the small press that I run with my husband.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve of the greatest children's books of all time

At the Daily Express Robert Gore-Langton tagged twelve of the greatest children's books of all time, including:

TREASURE ISLAND (1883)

Buried treasure, a map marked with a cross, and pirates led by the clunking amputee Long John Silver plus parrot.

Not to mention the terrifying Blind Pew and a fine young hero in Jim Hawkins.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s salty tale is a chance for any reader — young or old — to stow away on a ship full of thrills and the adventure of a life at sea.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Treasure Island also appears on Emily St. John Mandel's list of the six books that influenced her most as a writer, David McCallum's six best books list, Bear Grylls's top ten list of adventure stories, Eoin Colfer's top 10 list of villains in fiction, Charlie Fletcher's top ten list of swashbuckling tales of derring-do, Robert McCrum's list of the ten best first lines in fiction, John Mullan's list of ten of the best pirates in fiction, and among Mal Peet's top ten books to read aloud, Philip Pullman's six best books, and Eoin Colfer's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about false identities

Arwen Elys Dayton's new novel is Seeker.

For Tor.com she tagged five top books about false identities, including:

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

It might be a stretch to include this book on this particular list, but I was especially affected by the time the hero, Kvothe, spent alone in the woods and then his years as a street urchin. With the traumatic death of his parents, Kvothe loses his place in the world, and with it his identity. He essentially becomes someone else for a very long time, until he recovers enough of who he is to move forward with his life.

Read about the other books on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Name of the Wind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about betrayal

Karin Altenberg was born in Sweden and moved to Britain to study in 1996. Her first novel, Island of Wings, was shortlisted for the Scottish book of the year award and longlisted for the Orange prize for fiction. Her latest novel is Breaking Light.

One of Altenberg's top ten books about betrayal, as shared at the Guardian:

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark’s Calvinist influence is evident in the story of Miss Jean Brodie, a captivating Edinburgh schoolteacher with an almost godlike authority and fascist leanings. Spark’s superb wry humour and elegant phrasing carry this otherwise rather sinister tale of Brodie’s manipulation of her special girls - her créme de la crème – and her pupil Sandy’s betrayal.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is among Megan Abbott's five most dangerous mentors in fiction, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on teaching and learning and Ian Rankin's six best books. Miss Jean Brodie is one of John Mullan's ten best teachers in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven great YA novels about best friendship

One title on Dahlia Adler's list of seven great YA novels about best friendship, as shared on the B & N Teen Blog:

Under a Painted Sky, by Stacey Lee

Lee’s racially diverse YA western is about many things, but at the heart of it is the relationship between newfound best friends Sammy and Annamae. Sammy is a newly orphaned Chinese American girl on the run from the law; Annamae is the slave who joins her in the hopes of a better life. The year is 1849 and together the girls head west, disguising themselves as cowboys for the journey. What could be a terrifying and isolating trip turns into an excitement-laden adventure as the two work together, protect each other, make new friends, and become each other’s family in this unique and lovely historical.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Writers Read: Stacey Lee.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Painted Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books for newlyweds

At B & N Reads, Kelly Anderson tagged five books to help you celebrate the power of love, including:

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss

I read this book once, just before I started dating the man who is now my husband, but the delicate, surreal feel of it has stayed with me ever since. Krauss’s tale of love focuses on an old man and a book he wrote a lifetime ago. It showcases a love that lasts decades and spans countries and multiple versions of the past, with gorgeously realized prose in perfect accordance with that feeling of all-encompassing, overwhelming love we envy in newlyweds.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books with sympathetic characters in dangerous settings

Alan Gurganus's books include White People, Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, and the novella Decoy.

At The Week magazine he tagged his six favorite books with sympathetic characters in dangerous settings, including:

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell

This chronicle proves how a superb American novelist — in this case the author of Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge — can write a great work of American history. Connell made sense of the insanity of the Battle of Little Big Horn and anatomized the psychopathology of Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Son of the Morning Star shows how the military mind and the criminal mind too often too perfectly intersect.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Son of the Morning Star is among Mark J. Miller's five top books on the wild west.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about the British in India

Ferdinand Mount is the author of The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905.

One of his top ten books about the British in India, as shared at the Guardian:

The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert (1978)

For the British, there was no more traumatic event in the entire 19th century than the Great Mutiny. The European officers were cut down by their own men whose loyalty they had trusted, and their women and children were butchered in what looks like a variety of ethnic cleansing. This savage ingratitude for the supposed blessings of British rule provoked a retaliation on a far greater scale, which shocked public opinion “at home” as much as the mutiny itself. Hibbert’s book is the best short account of those terrible months.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best fictionalized biographies

At B & N Reads, Jenny Kawecki tagged six of the best fictionalized biographies, including:

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

Speaking of power couples, this book is not about one. McClain’s novel fictionalizes the life of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. During the years the couple lived in Paris, Hadley struggles to support Hemingway emotionally and artistically as he writes The Sun Also Rises. Everyone’s got an opinion on Hemingway, and good or bad, you’ll find something to agree with in this bio/novel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Paris Wife is among Jessica Ferri's top nine novels about writers inspired by real-life events, Nicole Hill's five books that are basically country and western songs and Wai Chee Dimock's five top books on Hemingway in Paris; it made Kirkus Reviews list of the best historical fiction titles of 2011.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Wife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten controversial teen books

Brian Conaghan is the author of When Mr Dog Bites, first published in the UK in January 2014 to great critical acclaim and which has been shortlisted for the 2015 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

At the Guardian he tagged his top ten controversial teen books, including:

Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

This memoir relates to Kaysen’s experience as a teenager’s reluctant route into womanhood. The book is set in a psychiatric hospital after she was diagnosed with a personality disorder. Kaysen provides personal stories, a series of reflections and anecdotal descriptions of events whilst as a patient. Obviously Girl, Interrupted’s leans towards suicide, mental illness, incarceration and drug use, however it is an honest, poignant and at times fiercely funny book.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten feminist icons in children's and teen books

Sarah Alderson is the author of Hunting Lila (winner of the Kingston Book Award), Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound, Out of Control, and Conspiracy Girl. At the Guardian, she tagged her top ten feminist icons in children's and teen books. One title on the list:

Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)

Yes, Katniss is strong, brave and can wield a bow and arrow like nobody else. She also becomes the poster child for equality for all, but it isn’t this alone that makes her a feminist, I would argue that the way she forges relationships with others, particularly women and girls, in defiance of a patriarchal society, is why she ultimately triumphs in the arena and what makes her such a special character in the YA world.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Hunger Games also appears on Jonathan Meres's top ten list of books that are so unfair, SF Said's top ten list of unlikely heroes, Rebecca Jane Stokes's top ten list of fictional families you could probably abide during holiday season and top eight list of books perfect for reality TV fiends, Chrissie Gruebel's list of favorite fictional fashion icons, Lucy Christopher's top ten list of literary woods, Robert McCrum's list of the ten best books with teenage narrators, Sophie McKenzie's top ten list of teen thrillers, Gregg Olsen's top ten list of deadly YA books, Annalee Newitz's list of ten great American dystopias, Philip Webb's top ten list of pulse-racing adventure books, Charlie Higson's top ten list of fantasy books for children, and Megan Wasson's list of five fantasy series geared towards teens that adults will love too.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten novels that explore sibling relationships

Sally Allen is Books, Ink editor and founder.

At Brain, Child Magazine she tagged ten top novels that explore sibling relationships, including:

The Sixteenth of June by Maya Lang

On June 16, 2004, brothers Stephen and Leo, polar opposites in every way, prepare for a their grandmother’s funeral and their striver parents’ Bloomsday party later that night. Caught between them is Nora, best friend of the former and fiancée of the latter. Oldest Stephen, a graduate student, fulfills his parents’ intellectual pretensions but questions his purpose as an academic. Leopold, an IT consultant who enjoys beer and sports, longs for acceptance from his parents but rejects their pretentions. Nora, a talented opera singer, had a promising career on the horizon but abandoned it in the wake of her mother’s death and is beset by crippling anxiety.

Each character harbors secrets that bubble contentiously to the surface over the course of the day in this novel about intersecting stories, the search for personal meaning, and the difficulty of coming to terms with who you are in relation to those around you, especially your siblings.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Sixteenth of June.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten explosions in children's books

Rachel Hamilton studied at Oxford and Cambridge and has put her education to good use by working in an ad agency, a comprehensive school, a building site and a men’s prison. Her interests are books, films, stand-up comedy and cake, and she loves to make people laugh, especially when it’s intentional rather than accidental.

She is the author of The Case of the Exploding Loo and The Case of the Exploding Brains.

One of her top ten explosions in children's books, as shared at the Guardian:

Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett has created some of the wisest and funniest lines ever written. But my favourite of them all is his brilliant reference to the most important explosion of all. It is both the opening line of Lords and Ladies and the closing line of my top 10 list:

“In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amber Tamblyn's six favorite books

Amber Tamblyn is a contributing writer for the Poetry Foundation and the author of three works of poetry, Free Stallion, Bang Ditto, and Dark Sparkler. As an actress, she has been nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and an Independent Spirit award.

One of her six favorite books, as shared with The Week magazine:

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg

I love books with unintended heroines. Smilla Jaspersen, a Greenland-born resident of Copenhagen, turns into the most badass homicide detective the world has ever seen after the suspicious death of her 6-year-old neighbor. Her story makes for an incredible ride. I read it once a year, usually during the height of summer.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Smilla's Sense of Snow is one of Elizabeth Hand's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top sci-fi novels with reasonably believable futuristic technology

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 B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Somers tagged five books that resist the handwave with believable futuristic technology ("The Handwave is a powerful thing is sci-fi: the ability to fix a problem with a science-y sounding solution that isn’t even remotely plausible"), including:

The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

The result of both meticulous research and good old-fashioned thoughtfulness, Robinson’s Mars Trilogy manages to take something that potentially bone-chillingly boring (the centuries-long effort to terraform and settle Mars) and make it into a fascinating, exciting, often shocking story of politics, economics, genetics, and very believable science. Robinson’s secret isn’t so much the plausibility of his science as it is the thoughtful way he explores its consequences, deftly avoiding the common problem of technology that exists in a vacuum, fulfilling only a specific need, with no unforeseen ripple effects. To say that’s not the case in this incredible series is a vast understatement.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is among James Mustich's five notable books on Mars and beyond.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top YA books for fans of "Game of Thrones"

Sona Charaipotra is a New York City-based writer and editor with more than a decade’s worth of experience in print and online media. For the B & N Teen Blog she tagged seven top YA books for fans of Game of Thrones, including:

The Wrath And The Dawn, by Renee Ahdieh

Drawing from the grandeur of a magical, Middle Eastern–flavored setting, this A Thousand And One Nights unspinning has it all—revolution and politics, a slow-simmering, impossible romance, and vengeance, of course, all unfolding in lush, lyrical language. Smart and resourceful Shazi, on a suicide mission to kill the Caliph of Khorasan—who’s married then murdered countless girls, including her best friend—discovers herself fighting to survive instead. And finding love with the enemy in the process? Confounding, yes. But delicious indeed.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten novels about style

Joseph Connolly's latest novel is Style. For the Guardian he tagged his top ten novels about style, including:

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

The “Great American Novel” about class, money, decadence, money, obsession, selfishness, passion, money, clothes and money. A highly amusing though grossly overrated book – it is no wonder that it was voted the 20th century’s best American novel, because Americans sincerely believe that they actually invented style: the best that money can buy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Great Gatsby appears among Nick Lake’s ten favorite fictional tricksters and tellers of untruths in books, the Independent's list of the fifteen best opening lines in literature, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of five of the lamest girlfriends in fiction, Honeysuckle Weeks's six best books, Elizabeth Wilhide's nine illustrious houses in fiction, Suzette Field's top ten literary party hosts, Robert McCrums's ten best closing lines in literature, Molly Driscoll's ten best literary lessons about love, Jim Lehrer's six favorite 20th century novels, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best clocks in literature and ten of the best misdirected messages, Tad Friend's seven best novels about WASPs, Kate Atkinson's top ten novels, Garrett Peck's best books about Prohibition, Robert McCrum's top ten books for Obama officials, Jackie Collins' six best books, and John Krasinski's six best books, and is on the American Book Review's list of the 100 best last lines from novels. Gatsby's Jordan Baker is Josh Sorokach's biggest fictional literary crush.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top Young Adult thrillers

Meredith Moore is the author of the new Young Adult thriller I Am Her Revenge. At the B & N Teen Blog she tagged her five favorite YA thrillers, including:

We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

Lockhart creates a tightly woven narrative about a girl, her family’s island, and a troupe of lying cousins. This is one of those books you shouldn’t know anything about before you start reading, so I won’t summarize it here, except to say the threat is mainly psychological, and Lockhart does a fabulous job of building tension in each scene. That tension leads to a twist ending that will blow you away.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten books about Italy

John Hooper is the author of The Italians and the Southern Europe editor of the Guardian and Observer.

He tagged his top ten books about Italy, including:

The Sack of Rome by Alexander Stille

It is striking how many books about Italy have deceptive titles. This one is really a biography of Silvio Berlusconi. It suffered from being published in 2006 when the media tycoon had just lost an election and his political career seemed over. The Sack of Rome pre-dates Bunga Bunga, but foreshadows it, and remains the most penetrating exploration of the doings of the man who, more than any, has shaped the outlook of today’s Italians: “Berlusconi believes that the world revolves him – the ultimate narcissistic fantasy – but he has bent reality to fit his fantasy, so that much of life in Italy does indeed revolve around him.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books that explore man's inherent violence

T.C. Boyle's latest novel The Harder They Come explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character. For The Week magazine he tagged his six favorite books that explore man's inherent violence, including:

Deliverance by James Dickey

I recently revisited this 1970 novel and found it even better than I'd remembered. Dickey's line-to-line writing is sublime without ever getting in the way, and his depiction of four men reverting to the primitive while on a Georgia canoe trip is telling and well measured — Lord of the Flies peopled with adults.

Read about the other books on the list.

Deliverance is one of Pat Conroy's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-two top sci-fi & fantasy stories that can help you make sense of economics

At io9 Diana Biller tagged 22 great science fiction and fantasy stories that can help you make sense of economics, including:

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi

A super-upsetting novel about extreme resource scarcity, environmental disaster, and agribusiness, The Windup Girl is one of those books that strikes a little too close to home. Oil is gone, the sea levels are rising, and food is sold by exploitative calorie companies driven entirely by their bottom line. This is a great look at what happens when basic necessities become so scarce that people go to extreme lengths to control them.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Windup Girl is among Torie Bosch's twelve great pandemic novels, Madeleine Monson-Rosen's top 15 books that take place in science fiction and fantasy versions of the most fascinating places on Earth and Annalee Newitz's lists of books to prepare you for the economic apocalypse and the 35 essential posthuman novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

The eleven greatest children’s books

BBC.com Culture’s Jane Ciabattari polled dozens of critics around the world about the best children’s books (for ages 10 and under) ever published in English. One of the top 11 on the list:

Ursula K Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)

A young boy known as Sparrowhawk saves his village with a smattering of magic he learned from his aunt, a local witch. Apprenticed to the mage Ogion the Silent, and renamed Ged, he begins his training as a sorcerer. Le Guin’s exploration of the consequences of Ged’s misfires and temptations while at a school for wizards, his struggles with dragons and his inner demons, reshaped fantasy storytelling’s concepts of good and evil. Gradually, Ged gains wisdom as he faces his challenges. "He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun." "To me Le Guin’s story is about learning your craft as a writer, the long and painful struggle for mastery of both your art and yourself, written in astounding prose," says Amanda Craig, author and reviewer for the New Statesman and the Daily Telegraph.

Read about the other entries on the list at BBC.com Culture.

A Wizard of Earthsea is among five books that changed Gary Corby and Lev Grossman's top five fantasy novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top baseball books

At B & N Reads Jenny Shank tagged five top baseball books, including:

Ball Four, by Jim Bouton

Jim Bouton was a pitcher for the Seattle Pilots in 1969, the only year this MLB team existed. In this zany 1970 book, Bouton gives a behind-the-scenes look at baseball, including the players’ rampant use of methamphetamines, interpersonal squabbles, ogling of women, and Mickey Mantle’s drinking problem. Bouton got into a lot of trouble for writing it—he was ostracized by fellow players—but his witty voice and honesty about his decline as an athlete are what make it still entertaining and insightful today. “Baseball players are smarter than football players,” he writes. “How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ball Four is among Claire Zulkey's top seven books for sports fans and Tim McGarver's five best baseball books.

--Marshal Zeringue

The seven best books on the heart

Rob Dunn, associate professor of Ecology and Evolution in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University, is the author of The Wild Life of Our Bodies, Every Living Thing and, most recently, The Man Who Touched His Own Heart: True Tales of Science, Surgery, and Mystery.

At The Daily Beast he tagged seven top books with literal or figurative hearts, including:

In William Harvey, A Life in Circulation (Oxford University Press, 2013), Thomas Wright tells the untold story of the man who figured out circulation. Until Harvey, no one could quite make sense of the heart and cardiovascular system, which way blood moved, what moved it and to what end it served. Harvey more than anyone made sense of how and why our heart and, with it, our bodies more generally, works.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty top book-to-film adaptations of 2015

The editors at B & N Reads tagged twenty top book-to-film adaptations of 2015, including:

The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith

Nobody does sexual obsession like Patricia Highsmith. In the forthcoming adaptation of her cult classic novel The Price of Salt (to be released with its alternate title, Carol), Rooney Mara’s dissatisfied shopgirl has a chance meeting with Cate Blanchett’s elegant housewife, and love, dreams of escape, and blackmail follow. We can’t wait to see what Todd Haynes, known for his incredible direction of women, does with this one.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Price of Salt made Carmela Ciuraru's top ten list of great books written by pseudonymous authors.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books for "X-Files" fans

Sona Charaipotra is a New York City-based writer and editor with more than a decade’s worth of experience in print and online media. For the B & N Teen Blog she tagged ten top books for fans of The X-Files, including:

Adaptation, by Malinda Lo

There’s always been something creepy about birds–and in Malinda Lo’s dark Adaptation, there’s good reason to be freaked. Flocks of them are crashing into planes, causing thousands of people to lose their lives. The country’s on a terror alert, and Reese, after recovering from an accident near the infamous Area 51, returns to a San Francisco on military lockdown to discover she and pal David have changed in inexplicable ways. She’s focused on a blooming relationship with pink-haired Amber, but the men in suits that are stalking her and David put a bit of a damper on things.

Read about the other books on the list.

Adaptation is among Lauren Naturale's top six SF/F novels with non-white protagonists that aren’t by Octavia Butler.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best Southern Gothic books

Jamie Kornegay lives in the Mississippi Delta, where he moved in 2006 to establish an independent bookstore, TurnRow Book Co. Before that he was a bookseller, events coordinator, and radio show producer at the famous Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. He studied creative fiction under Barry Hannah at the University of Mississippi.

Kornegay's new novel is Soil.

At Publishers Weekly the author tagged his ten best Southern Gothic books, including:

Citrus County by John Brandon

Southern Gothic still seems like an Old South institution, and I wasn’t sure it could be properly represented in a modern setting. But John Brandon’s quietly brilliant and unsung novel depicts the cruelty of youth in a New South Gothic. A frustrated eighth-grade boy commits a terrible act, which Brandon wisely lets simmer in the background as his characters move about rural Florida, bemused and nonchalant. The humor here has an off-handed, almost unintended quality that adds to the creepiness. The real world becomes Gothic in the long shadow of this book, and I admired the lingering, low-grade anxiety that book left in me.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Soil.

Writers Read: Jamie Kornegay.

--Marshal Zeringue