Nineteen novels to understand America

The literary team of The Times (UK) and Sunday Times asked novelists, journalists and US experts to recommend great fiction about America.

I.S. Berry's entry on the list:

Ask the Dust by John Fante (1939)

The Great Depression was one of America’s most defining traumas: our proudly capitalist nation had abruptly plunged from its lofty heights and, accordingly, produced a plethora of great literature. Ask the Dust is an exquisitely written swansong for the American dream — of prosperity, success, religious and secular faith. The iconic protagonist Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in 1930s Los Angeles, falls in love with unstable, aloof Camilla Lopez, ultimately sacrificing his literary aspirations for her. You won’t love Bandini but you’ll feel for him, and the uniquely American existential futility that pervades the story is revealing, haunting, and palpable.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best dark academia novels

At Mental Floss Chris Wheatley tagged six of the best dark academia novels, including:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

“Write what you know” is a piece of advice often given to aspiring authors, and that’s essentially what American novelist Donna Tartt did in her wildly successful debut. The four years that Tartt spent at Bennington College, a private liberal arts school in Vermont, were formative for the creation of The Secret History—even though Tartt has since denied that Hampden College, the fictional liberal arts institution in the book, is based off it.

The novel follows a group of six students whose lives are devastated by a murder. Tartt makes use of an unconventional narrative structure to add extra layers of intrigue, with the story told from a viewpoint dated years after the shocking event. This allows for reflection on both the aftermath of it and the social dynamics of the college. Despite several near-misses, The Secret History has yet to be adapted for film—a pity, as the evocative setting and intricate relationships captured in this tome would surely make for some rich cinema.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Secret History is among Ali Lowe's six best campus crime novels, Edwin Hill's six perfectly alluring academic mysteries, a top ten Twinkies in fiction, Kate Weinberg's five top campus novels, Emily Temple's twenty best campus novels, and Ruth Ware's top six books about boarding schools.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven historical mysteries where political intrigue powers the plot

Celeste Connally is an Agatha Award nominee and a former freelance writer and editor whose novels include historical mysteries set in Regency-era England and genealogy-themed cozy mysteries set in modern-day Austin, Texas. Whether the mystery is set in past or present, she delights in giving her books a good dose of romance and a few research facts she hopes you’ll find as interesting as she does. Passionate about history and slightly obsessed with period dramas, what Connally loves most is reading and writing about women who don’t always do as they are told.

[The Page 69 Test: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord]

Connally's new novel is All's Fair in Love and Treachery.

At CrimeReads the author tagged "seven historical mysteries... wherein each uses political upheaval or intrigue to add extra suspense to their plots." One title on the list:

Julia Kelly – A Traitor in Whitehall (The Parisian Orphan, book 1)

As the war heats up in 1940, Evelyne Redfern, once known as “the Parisian Orphan,” has barely begun working in Churchill’s cabinet war rooms as a secretary when she discovers one of the girls she works with murdered. A fan of classic murder mysteries, Evelyne takes it upon herself to look into her co-worker’s death, and finds herself being thwarted at every turn by David Poole, the minister’s aide—until she discovers David is there to uncover a government traitor. The two must then work together to keep England’s secrets safe from the enemy as they risk their lives to uncover a killer.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten gripping nonfiction titles about history’s greatest mysteries

At Mental Floss Jennifer Byrne tagged ten gripping nonfiction books about history’s greatest mysteries. One title on the list:

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar

This especially “cold” case will seem familiar to fans of True Detective and the 2000 pound “corpsicle” at the heart of season four’s crime story. Writer/director Issa López acknowledged being inspired by the strange case of nine elite Russian hikers who died in the Siberian wilderness in 1959. The real-life mystery of the Dyatlov Pass hikers isn’t so much about how they perished—hypothermia was ruled the cause of death in almost all cases (although blunt force trauma was a factor in three of the deaths). Rather, it’s why, because the peculiar details surrounding that night make this one an enduring mystery.

The bodies were found about a mile from their tent, which had been ripped open, and none of these expert hikers were wearing shoes in sub-zero temperatures. Not only that, but one body was wearing two watches while another was missing a tongue, and some of their clothes tested positive for radioactivity. In Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, author Donnie Eichar presents a well-constructed and scientifically plausible theory to explain this head-scratcher of a case which, over the years, has been chalked up to everything from the KGB to “Siberian Demon Dwarves.”

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about the Spanish Civil War

Julian Zabalbeascoa's fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, The Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, One Story, and Ploughshares, among other journals. He divides his time between Boston and the Basque Country in Spain.

What We Tried to Bury Grows Here is Zabalbeascoa's first novel.

At Electric Lit the author tagged nine books -- memoirs and novels that can be found in English -- about Spain’s bloody civil war that served as a dress rehearsal for World War II. One title on the list:

Lord of All the Dead by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean

In Lord of All the Dead, Javier Cercas returns to the subject of Spanish Civil War. In his surprising break-out novel Soldiers of Salamis, Cercas documents his attempt (or the attempt of a character with the name Javier Cercas) to tell the story of a Falangist soldier who narrowly escapes being executed by firing squad at the end of the Spanish Civil War, while searching for the Republican soldier who allowed this escape. The exhumation of the past hums along, stalls, hits a wall, then receives help from none other than Roberto Bolaño. In Lord of All the Dead, Javier Cercas (or, again, a character with the name Javier Cercas) tries once more exhuming the story of a soldier from the Spanish Civil War. This time it is the story of Manuel Mena, the great-uncle to both Javier Cercases, who falls under the sway of fascist ideas and enlists at the age of 17. He will die two years later during the Battle of the Ebro. Cercas knows little else of this man whose absence created a lacuna in the family. With Lord of All the Dead, he repeatedly tries and fails to fill it in and to understand why his great-uncle was willing to die fighting for an unjust cause, “for interests that weren’t even his.” Cercas receives assistance from the filmmaker David Trueba, who adapted Soldiers of Salamis for the screen and directed the film and who has also recently lost his wife to a very handsome and very famous actor (the identity is revealed late in the novel). As with Bolaño in Soldiers of Salamis, Trueba prods Cercas along. “We don’t judge Achilles by the justice or injustice of the cause he died for,” Trueba tells Cercas, “but for the nobility of his actions, by the decency and bravery and generosity with which he behaved. Should we not do the same with Manuel Mena?…Look, Manuel Mena was politically mistaken, there’s no doubt about that; but morally…would you dare to say you’re better than him? I wouldn’t.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven chilling novels with young people taking charge of their lives

Marie Tierney was a finalist in the Daily Mail First Novel competition. When she isn’t researching criminal history, she writes plays and poetry. Born and raised in Birmingham, England, Tierney dedicated almost twenty years to working in education before becoming a full-time writer. She lives in East Anglia with her husband and son.

Tierney's new novel is Deadly Animals.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven books that "feature young people who have taken responsibility for their own lives when the adults around them have abandoned or betrayed them." One title on the list:

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

This is a psychological horror of nine-year-old girl Trish who is separated from her squabbling family during a forest hike and has to learn quickly how to survive on her scant provisions. All the while, she listens to a baseball game on her Walkman which features her favourite player Tom Gordon and it is through listening to the games she gains enough strength to carry on even though she is hopelessly lost, starving and becoming very ill. As the days pass, and a police search ensues, Trish often hallucinates and is sure that something evil is following her. She believes it is the God of The Lost, a confrontation with whom she is resigned to face.

I loved this book, and I appreciated Trisha’s realistic mistakes made while she comes to terms that has to survive in the wilderness.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten riveting nonfiction books on history’s greatest medical mysteries

At Mental Floss Marla Mackoul tagged ten books that "delve into some of the wildest moments in medical history." One title on the list:

Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails by Camper English

Until relatively recently, alcohol was considered a treatment for a variety of ailments. Doctors and Distillers travels through time to show how people across the globe have used it in remedies, from uses for wine in ancient Greece to “alchemical” concoctions in China and India. In fact, many classic cocktails were originally invented for healing or stimulating purposes: the Negroni, the Old-Fashioned, and the Gin and Tonic are just a few examples. This well-researched gem covers enormous ground, including significant historical moments like the Prohibition Era and the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books of speculative feminism written by women

Vanessa Saunders is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her experimental novel, The Flat Woman, won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and was published by Fiction Collective Two and University of Alabama Press. Her writing has appeared in magazines such as Seneca Review, Los Angeles Review, Passages North, and other journals. Saunders currently works as a Professor of Practice at Loyola University in New Orleans.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven works of speculative feminism written by women. One title on the list:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Set in the undetermined future, in The Left Hand of Darkness, a human envoy named Genly ventures to a different planet whose inhabitants are biologically androgynous for most of the year. At the core of the story is Genly’s relationship with Estraven, a diplomat who tries to help Genly gain acceptance in this foreign land.

The novel is structured as a series of documents penned by Genly and Estraven as well as myths and legends of the imagined world. Some of the narrative friction comes from the sharp juxtapositions of the styles of the different documents, which demonstrates how digressions are an effective narrative engine. Some of Le Guin’s best writing describes the scenery of this distant planet, especially in the second half of the book where the story of Genly and Estraven reaches its full pitch.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Left Hand of Darkness is among Jeff Somers's ten wintry science fiction & fantasy novels, Andrew Hunter Murray's five best books to make you feel less alone, Kelly Jensen's five inhospitable planets in film and fiction, Ann Leckie's ten best science fiction books, Esther Inglis-Arkell's ten most unfilmable books, Jeff Somers's top five sci-fi novels that explore gender in unexpected and challenging ways, Joel Cunningham's top twelve books with the most irresistible titles, Damien Walter's top five science fiction novels for people who hate sci-fi and Ian Marchant's top 10 books of the night. Charlie Jane Anders included it on her list of ten science fiction novels that will never be movies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about talented criminals and con artists

Jesse DeRoy lives in New York with their family. DeRoy is a former consultant, rock-climbing instructor, and award-winning journalist.

Safecracker is DeRoy's first novel.

At CrimeReads the author tagged seven titles about literature's greatest thieves: talented criminals and con artists that provided inspiration for writing their novel. One title on the list:

David W. Maurer’s The Big Con

Maurer was a professor of linguistics, and even though the book was published in 1940 and is, in some ways, a historical artifact, Maurer’s attention to language means the book still feels alive today. Sure, grifters are running versions of the same cons in 2024 as they were in 1924, but Maurer spent years cultivating sources within the community of swindlers so that he got inside access. Much of the charm of The Big Con is when Maurer’s cast of characters explain moves like the “cackle-bladder” or how to “sew a man up,” but there’s also something delightfully entertaining about having con men let you behind the curtain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve top books on history’s most notorious diseases

At Mental Floss Marla Mackoul tagged twelve books that dive "into an infamous disease and the people battling it in various capacities, showcasing the unwavering courage and resilience of individuals in the face of indescribable tragedy." One title on the list:

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah

In The Fever, journalist Sonia Shah offers a compelling investigation into one of humanity’s oldest and deadliest foes: malaria. Despite over a century of knowledge on how to prevent this parasitic disease, it continues to infect almost 250 million people globally and claims nearly hundreds of thousands of lives. Shah traces malaria’s persistent impact on human history while exploring why efforts to eradicate it have repeatedly fallen short. Uniquely strengthened by Shah’s own original reporting from affected regions, The Fever illuminates the enduring threat of malaria and the need for renewed action.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles featuring navigating grief through found family

Laura Buchwald is a writer and editor based in New York City. Her strong belief in the afterlife has led her to consult with multiple spiritual mediums, to convincing results. She has spent significant time in New Orleans researching ghosts and restaurant culture—two of her favorite things. She is co-host of the podcast People Who Do Things, a series of conversations about the creative process. Buchwald lives in Manhattan with her husband and dog.

Her new novel is The Coat Check Girl.

At Electric Lit Buchwald tagged nine "books that address the theme of navigating grief through found family." One title on the list:

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

The protagonist and narrator of this quiet story is mourning the loss of a dear friend and mentor who took his own life. She adopts his equally bereft Great Dane, Apollo, and embarks on an effort to understand who her friend was, flaws and all, while dealing with the threat of eviction for housing a dog in a pet-averse building. What at first seems a relationship born strictly of necessity soon comes to show our protagonist the ineffable bond we can share with our canine companions.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Friend is among Peter Ho Davies’s top ten books about the unknowable, Mia Levitin's ten top books about consent, Lee Conell's seven books about New York City’s stark economic divide and Eliza Smith's twenty books to help you navigate grief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four horror books featuring artists

Delilah S. Dawson is the author of the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: Phasma, as well as Star Wars Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire, Mine, the Hit series, the Blud series, the creator-owned comics Ladycastle, Sparrowhawk, and Star Pig, and the Shadow series (written as Lila Bowen). With Kevin Hearne, she co-writes The Tales of Pell. She lives in Georgia with her family.

Dawson's new thriller is The Violence.

At CrimeReads the author tagged four horror books featuring creatives. One title on the list:

First of all, let’s remember that writers are artists, too. In Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays, a successful Hollywood screenwriter is finally on the cusp of making it big at the Oscars when the studio bigwigs force him to do the most predictable and soul-killing thing: kill off his gay characters to suit the algorithm. When he refuses, horrifying monsters from his own creations begin to stalk him, breaking the line between reality and fiction. Since the protagonist is a writer and the book is in first person point of view, the reader is treated to beautiful, thoughtful moments where Misha considers the relationship between the writer and story and how past trauma always finds a way in.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven dark tales haunted by music

Kate van der Borgh's new novel is And He Shall Appear. By day, the author is a freelance copywriter, and by night, she’s usually composing or playing music. She grew up in Lancashire and went on to study music at Cambridge, so there’s a reasonable amount of her in her narrator—including the fact that she was a pianist and reluctant bassoonist. She has, however, never had reason to suspect that her best friend has occult powers.

At Electric Lit van der Borgh tagged seven "novels in which music is used to communicate indescribable emotions and inexplicable experiences." One title on the list:

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

In this ‘memoir’, a man recalls an unsettling friendship from his youth. And, from the first page, you know the story won’t be straightforward. Its narrator, Art Barbara, bears a striking resemblance to the author Paul Tremblay himself, not least in their shared love of punk band Hüsker Dü. And the friend Art has written about—a woman named Mercy—has made notes in the margins of this memoir, contesting Art’s view of what happened all those years ago. At the heart of the work is a question: in this toxic friendship, was Mercy an emotional vampire? Or something worse?

This is a story about yearning for lost youth and all the potential that came with it. And, by filling it with Art’s favourite bands—Talking Heads, Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Patti Smith—Tremblay manages to underscore all the fear and dread with an exquisitely painful nostalgia. Eerie, funny, and ultimately extremely moving, this for me is Tremblay at his best.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten great mysteries in the great outdoors

Margaret Mizushima writes the internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is the recipient of a Colorado Authors League Award, a Benjamin Franklin Book Award, a CIBA CLUE Award, and two Willa Literary Awards by Women Writing the West. Her books have been finalists for a SPUR Award by Western Writers of America, a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, and the Colorado Book Award. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado, where they raised two daughters and a multitude of animals, to a home in the Pacific Northwest.

Mizushima's new Timber Creek K-9 mystery is Gathering Mist.

[Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah, Bertie, Lily and Tess; Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah; My Book, The Movie: Burning Ridge; The Page 69 Test: Burning Ridge; The Page 69 Test: Tracking Game; My Book, The Movie: Hanging Falls; The Page 69 Test: Hanging Falls; Q&A with Margaret Mizushima; The Page 69 Test: Striking Range; The Page 69 Test: Standing Dead; The Page 69 Test: Gathering Mist; Writers Read: Margaret Mizushima (October 2024)]

At CrimeReads Mizushima tagged ten favorite mysteries set in the great outdoors. One title on the list:

Over the Edge by Kathleen Bryant

Lucky me, I was given an early read of Over the Edge, Bryant’s debut mystery set in Sedona’s red rock canyons. Here is what I thought of it: “Bryant weaves a rich tapestry out of all things Sedona. Loaded with details about the area’s people, its history, and the mystical beauty of its landscapes, Over the Edge delivers a unique and compelling outdoor mystery. There’s a lot to love about this book!” Don’t miss this cat-and-mouse thriller in which a former reporter pieces together her shattered memories, hoping to stop a killer before it’s too late.

Read about the other entries on the list.

My Book, The Movie: Over the Edge.

Q&A with Kathleen Bryant.

The Page 69 Test: Over the Edge.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight of the best books about horses for adults

Christina Lynch is at the beck and call of two dogs, three horses, and a hilarious pony who carts her up and down mountains while demanding (and receiving) many carrots. Besides Pony Confidential, her new novel, she is also the author of two historical novels set in Italy and the coauthor of two comic thrillers set in Prague and Vienna. She teaches at College of the Sequoias and lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

[My Book, The Movie: The Italian Party; The Page 69 Test: The Italian Party; Writers Read: Christina Lynch (April 2018); My Book, The Movie: Sally Brady's Italian Adventure;Writers Read: Christina Lynch (June 2023); The Page 69 Test: Sally Brady's Italian Adventure]

At Electric Lit Lynch tagged eight top horse books for adults, including:

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

This 2022 novel by the brilliant Australian-born journalist-turned-novelist Geraldine Brooks is a triple narrative of an enslaved young man working as a jockey in the antebellum South and Lexington, the horse he forms a relationship with; a 1950s art dealer interested in a painting of that horse; and a 21st century researcher at the Smithsonian who crosses paths with both the horse’s skeleton and an art historian researching the painting. Brooks masterfully weaves the stories to create tension and suspense. The memorable moment for me is the jockey’s flight from danger through a warzone on Lexington’s back –I was on the edge of my seat for every hoofbeat. Based on the real Lexington, Horse is a nod to the many African-Americans whose foundational contributions to the sport of horse racing in this country are only now being acknowledged and celebrated after centuries of erasure.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten novels centering women finding their power

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels and the Emmy Award–winning cohost of the literary TV show A Word on Words. She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker.

With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Her titles have been optioned for television and published in twenty-eight countries.

[The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black; The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall; My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall; My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind; The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind; The Page 69 Test: No One Knows; My Book, The Movie: No One Knows; The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me; My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie; The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie; Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020); Q&A with J.T. Ellison; The Page 69 Test: A Very Bad Thing]

Ellison's new novel is A Very Bad Thing.

At CrimeReads the author tagged ten novels that "celebrate women embracing their inner fires, mastering mystical abilities, and claiming power through acts of heroic leadership against daunting odds." One title on the list:

Circe by Madeline Miller

A reimagining of the mythological Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios, and the nymph Perse, a minor goddess who discovers her power in witchcraft. An absolute stunner of a tale, Circe is banished to the isle of Aiaia, where she takes full advantage of her burgeoning power to right the wrongs against her and womankind in general. Even her infamous encounter with Odysseus has a completely new spin, and she makes her own place in the history books. Without a single misstep throughout, Madeline Miller weaves a tale so heartbreaking and true that one wonders how mythology itself would have been reshaped were it understood to be true.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Circe is among Paula Munier's eight top works informed by The Odyssey, J. Nicole Jones's seven books about people accused of being witches, Diana Helmuth's seven top books about modern witchcraft, Megan Barnard's eleven books about misunderstood women in history & mythology, Rita Chang-Eppig's ten top books with irresistible anti-heroines, Emilia Hart's five novels featuring witchcraft, Brittany Bunzey's top ten books centering women in mythology, Mark Skinner's twenty top books in witch lit, Hannah Kaner's five best novels featuring gods, the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings, Ashleigh Bell Pedersen's eight novels of wonder and darkness by women writers, Kelly Barnhill's eight books about women's rage, Sascha Rothchild's most captivating literary antiheroes, Rachel Kapelke-Dale's eleven top unexpected thrillers about female rage, Kat Sarfas's thirteen enchanted reads for spooky season, Fire Lyte's nine current classics in magic and covens and spells, Elodie Harper's six top novels set in the ancient world, Kiran Millwood Hargrave's seven best books about islands, Zen Cho's six SFF titles about gods and pantheons, Jennifer Saint's ten top books inspired by Greek myth, Adrienne Westenfeld's fifteen feminist books that will inspire, enrage, & educate you, Ali Benjamin's top ten classic stories retold, Lucile Scott's eight books about hexing the patriarchy, E. Foley and B. Coates's top ten goddesses in fiction, Jordan Ifueko's five fantasy titles driven by traumatic family bonds, Eleanor Porter's top ten books about witch-hunts, Emily B. Martin's six stunning fantasies for nature lovers, Allison Pataki's top six books that feature strong female voices, Pam Grossman's thirteen stories about strong women with magical powers, Kris Waldherr's nine top books inspired by mythology, Katharine Duckett's eight novels that reexamine literature from the margins, and Steph Posts's thirteen top novels set in the world of myth.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books on maritime disasters and ecological collapse

Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary is out now from Row House Publishing in 2024 and her novel All the Water in the World is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press in early 2025.

At Lit Hub Caffall tagged ten books on maritime disasters and ecocollapse, including:

Erik Larson, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

Isaac’s Storm is a nonfiction recounting of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which killed twelve thousand people, the worst weather disaster in American history. I bought the bestseller on impulse in a Midway Airport bookshop on my way from Chicago to Boston to care for my father as he was dying from the kidney disease we share. I read it through on the plane, then read it again for weeks at his bedside.

It is a town-wreck, a hurricane book, but it also features ships caught in the storm at sea, ships wrecking into a city, and the heartbreaking wreck of the raft made to escape a flooding home. It conveys the science of weather, the history weather prediction, and the American politics that made the disaster worse.

It presents a fully realized world within the creative nonfiction, with recreated conversations, the heat of the Gulf Coast, the smell of fresh sawn wood, the sound of the Bavarian beer hall, the heartbreaking feeling of losing the grip of the hand of your beloved underwater.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Isaac’s Storm is a book that made a difference to Brian Williams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about the history of voting in America

Tommy Jenkins is the humanities division chair at Louisburg College in Louisburg, North Carolina, and an associate professor of English. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina, studied film at Columbia University, and received an MFA in fiction writing from North Carolina State University.

Jenkins is thea author of Drawing the Vote: A Graphic Novel History for Future Voters, illustrated by Kati Lacker.

At Electric Lit Jenkins tagged "a list of books that cover various significant aspects of the history of voting in the United States." One title on the list:

The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault

Women’s suffragists have existed in America almost as long as the country itself. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was the beginning of a concerted, focused women’s suffrage movement. The Myth of Seneca Falls deftly covers women’s voting at this time, the different factions that came together in Seneca Falls, and the aftermath of the convention. Why did it still take another 70 years for women to gain the right to vote? This book explains why in gripping detail.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best Christmas crime novels

Denzil Meyrick was educated in Argyll, then after studying politics, joined Strathclyde Police, serving in Glasgow. After being injured and developing back problems, he entered the business world, and has operated in many diverse roles, including director of a large engineering company and distillery manager, as well as owning a number of his own companies, such as a public bar and sales and marketing company. "D. A. Meyrick has also worked as a freelance journalist in both print and on radio. Well-known for his gritty series of police procedurals centred on the maverick DCI Daley," writes Mark Skinner at the Waterstones blog. "Meyrick has displayed his versatility in the past couple of years with his festive cosy crime mysteries - Murder at Holly House and The Christmas Stocking Murders."

One of Meyrick's favorite Christmas crime reads:

Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh

My late mother was a huge fan of Marsh’s writing. I remember the books on shelves in the house in the seventies and well beyond. This particular novel was written in 1972, but don’t let that put you off.

We’re back in the country house over Christmas, where resentments and rivalries, all stewing under the surface, manifest themselves in murder.

Ngaio Marsh, like P. D. James, is one of those who kept the Agatha Christie tradition alive into the modern era. Her books are all worth a read. This one is perfect for the festive season. Sit back and watch the plot evolve. You won’t be disappointed.

Read about the other entries on the list at the Waterstones blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six coastal reads for brisk autumn days

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, All the Hearts You Eat, A Light Most Hateful, The Worm and His Kings series, and other books of dark fiction.

"I have a soft spot for the beach outside the thrills of summertime," she writes at CrimeReads. It's an atmosphere shared by her modern coastal gothic, All the Hearts You Eat.

One title on her list of "books that will coil you in that delicious dismal atmosphere and never let go:"

They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

What better way to begin than with a book taking place at a haunted locale by the name of Cape Disappointment? We arrive outside the tourist season, where Meredith Strand has left her wife, taking their daughter back to her family’s home to stay with Meredith’s ailing mother. But family can be a curse, and as we discover early on (helped by a handy family tree!), Meredith’s family has endured a fate of being hunted by the sea for generations. If she isn’t careful, her daughter might be next. From the desolate lighthouse to the troublesome water to the secrets waiting in the depths, there’s a doomed nature to Cape Disappointment’s dread, but each clue into the past makes you eager to endure the next wave.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels featuring protagonists over 70

Anna Montague is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn.

How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? is her first novel.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven favorite novels "with senior protagonists on great adventures." One title on the list:

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton, a writer, embarks on a road trip with her ex-husband, William, in the hope of understanding a family secret just revealed to him. Over the course of the journey, Strout beautifully depicts the peaks and valleys of a marriage, and the ways in which family— despite everything that can tear them apart—will endure.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen bone-chilling new horror titles

Michael J. Seidlinger is the Filipino-American author of The Body Harvest, Anybody Home?, Tekken 5, and other books.

He teaches at Portland State University.

At Publishers Weekly Seidlinger tagged fifteen "recent titles ... guaranteed not only to scare but to expand your definition of what horror can be." One book on the list:

The Devil by Name by Keith Rosson

Rosson’s stellar sequel to 2023’s Fever House maintains that book’s artful combination of chilling postapocalyptic worldbuilding and fully developed characters. Five years ago, “most of the world suddenly started devouring each other” after hearing “The Message,” a communication that American president Preston Yardley had intended to target only the populations of enemy countries. The aural weapon transformed those who heard it into bloodthirsty zombie-like beings dubbed the fevered. To get the outbreak under control, Yardley allies the federal government with Terradyne Industries, launching a harsh initiative to restore order. Hopes for a reversal of the apocalypse may lie with Naomi Laurent, a French woman rumored to somehow have gained the ability to reverse the effects of The Message and make the fevered human again. The search for Laurent is interwoven with the narratives of several other characters, including John Bonner, a security officer for Terradyne, and Katherine Moriarty, who tends to her son even after he becomes one of the fevered. Rosson’s sophisticated plotting manages to toggle between these perspectives without ever slackening the tension. This is literary horror at its finest.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best books on guns in America

Catherine Habgood is a writer and editor living in New York City. She is one of the fiction editors at The Washington Square Review and is pursuing an MFA in Fiction at New York University.

"To understand America’s complicated culture of guns is an interdisciplinary pursuit: legal, historical, sociological, economic," she writes at Lit Hub, shere she tagged ten "exemplary attempts at that understanding." One title on the list:

Carl T. Bogus, Madison’s Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment, 2023

In Madison’s Militia, Carl T. Bogus shows that “the right to bear arms was not about protecting liberty but preserving slavery.” He argues that “a close examination of the context in which Madison drafted the Second Amendment reveals the text as an offering to white southerners preoccupied with containing slave rebellion and uneasy about losing control of the primary instrument for it, the militia” (The New England Quarterly). Carl T. Bogus is a professor of law emeritus at Roger Williams University, but Madison’s Militia is a history, told with the scrupulousness of a lawyer, “a surprisingly fast-paced account of the events leading up to the Second Amendment” (Jeannine DeLombard, author of In the Shadow of the Gallows).

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Madison's Militia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top book villains

At B&N Reads Isabelle McConville tagged seven favorite book villains. One title on the list:

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

Be careful what you wish for — on the verge of death, this romantasy lover gets a second chance at life in between the pages of her favorite books. Loving this villain is a not-so-guilty pleasure you’ll want to tell all your friends about.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles channeling the mythic horror of girlhood

Tyler Wetherall is a journalist and author. Her first book, No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run, came out in 2018, following her childhood spent on the run with her fugitive father. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, British Vogue, The Guardian, National Geographic, LitHub, Vice, and Condé Nast Traveler, amongst others.

Wetherall's new novel, her debut, is Amphibian.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books that "borrow from the toolbox of magic realism and horror to convey the experience of girlhood in all its delight and barbarity." One title on the list:

Chlorine by Jade Song

Ren Yu is a mermaid. She tells you so on the first page. She doesn’t come from the tradition of red-haired shell-breasted singing mermaids; she is ripped, disinterested in humans, particularly men, and, by the climax of the book—she’s bloody. Ren narrates the story of her self-determined transformation starting from her life as a young competitive swimmer, so addicted to the water and the race that she licked the chlorine from her skin when she missed the pool. But as the pressure to win, and to prove herself by getting into an Ivy League college mounts, along with cruelties from her crew of fellow swimmers, she starts to pursue her longing to be a mermaid with a near holy embrace of physical pain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six great suspense novels featuring mysterious mansions

Tom Ryan is an award winning author, screenwriter and producer. His YA mystery Keep This to Yourself was the winner of the 2020 ITW Thriller Award for Best YA Thriller, the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for Best YA Crime Book, and the 2021 Ann Connor Brimer Award, and is currently being adapted for television. His followup YA mystery I Hope You're Listening was the winner of the 2021 Lambda “Lammy” Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction.

Ryan's new novel, his adult mystery debut, is The Treasure Hunters Club.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six "fantastic novels featuring creepy houses that will keep you on the edge of your seat." One title on the list:

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Fingersmith is one of my all time favourite novels, featuring a twist so delicious and elegantly orchestrated that I gasped out loud when it was sprung upon me. Set in Victorian-era England, Fingersmith is a crime novel centering on two young women, Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly, whose lives become entangled in a complex web of betrayal and deception. Sue, raised in a den of thieves, is recruited to help swindle Maud, a wealthy orphan, out of her inheritance by posing as her maid. As Sue integrates into Maud’s household, she discovers unexpected feelings for her, which complicates the plan. However, nothing is as it seems, and the novel is filled with twists and reversals, exploring themes of class, identity, and betrayal.

Read about the other titles on the list at CrimeReads.

Fingersmith is among Jean Louise's five books with first-rate worldbuilding, Jenni Murray's six best books about history’s forgotten women, Santa Montefiore's six best books, Stuart Jeffries's five sexiest scenes in literature, and Kirsty Logan's ten best LGBT sex scenes in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine gripping thrillers featuring women on the run

At Likewise Turner Gray & Likewise Pix tagged nine "tantalizing thrillers that delve deep into the intense journeys of women who find themselves fleeing from danger, unraveling mysteries, and discovering unexpected secrets along the way." One title on the list:

Wallace Stroby’s "Heaven's a Lie" weaves a gritty tale of desperation and moral ambiguity. Joette Harper, a widow with mounting debts, sees a chance for a new start in the form of a briefcase filled with cash found at a crash site. However, the bag's origins tie her into a deadly game with its dangerous owner. Readers will find themselves enthralled in Joette's journey of survival as she navigates gang violence and the weight of her decisions.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Heaven's a Lie.

Q&A with Wallace Stroby.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five essential titles for understanding Native American history

Kathleen DuVal is a Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her field of expertise is early American history, particularly interactions among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans on the borderlands of North America.

Her books include Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution and Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.

At Lit Hub DuVal tagged five books that "go deeply into Native American history, and all are written by Native authors." One title on the list:

Philip J. Deloria, Indians in Unexpected Places

A professor at Harvard, Deloria (Yankton Dakota) wrote this book to directly counter the myth that Native Americans are people of the past rather than modern human beings, who have changed with the times, just like everyone else. He presents image after image of Native Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries doing the kinds of things that non-Natives at the time were insisting they couldn’t do: playing baseball, riding in automobiles, and singing opera.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about badass madwomen

Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of four novels that have been published in a total of twenty-one countries around the world: The Madwomen of Paris (2023), Wunderland (2019), The Gods of Heavenly Punishment (2012), and The Painter from Shanghai (2007).

[The Page 69 Test: The Painter from Shanghai; The Page 69 Test: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment; Writers Read: Jennifer Cody Epstein (May 2019); The Page 69 Test: Wunderland; Q&A with Jennifer Cody Epstein; The Page 69 Test: The Madwomen of Paris; My Book, The Movie: The Madwomen of Paris]

She is the recipient of the 2014 Asia Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Award for fiction, and was longlisted for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize.

At Shepherd Epstein tagged five of her favorite books about badass madwomen. One title on the list:

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

This is probably the most powerful example of literary pastiche novels I’ve read, not just because it takes on one of the most beloved novels in English literature—Jane Eyre—but because it brutally turns that novel’s premises on their gentrified heads.

I am truly awed by how vibrantly Rhys inhabits Antoinette, Rochester’s doomed wife, weaving in themes of colonialism and gendered power into Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic romance and, in the process, making it a kind of subversive and gritty feminist and anti-colonial manifesto.

Rhys’s depiction of Antoinette’s descent into madness is so visceral and believable that you are (or at least I am) all but cheering as she literally burns the patriarchy to the ground. I also love that while it’s generally considered Rhys’s masterpiece, she wrote it in her seventies.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Wide Sargasso Sea is among Sophie Ratcliffe's five top books inspired by classic novels, Jane Corry's ten heroines who kept their motives hidden, Siân Phillips's six favorite books, Richard Gwyn's top ten books in which things end badly, and Elise Valmorbida's top ten books on the migrant experience.

--Marshal Zeringue