Six books for fans of "Jaws"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged six books for fans of Jaws, including:

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

This novel is for the shark lovers out there. It may also appeal to the many Jaws fans who became terrified of sharks because of the film and crave the catharsis of a book with a nicer shark. In 1995, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls off a cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean and ends up getting rescued and delivered back to his mom by a massive shark. As time passes and Nainoa develops strange abilities, his family begins to view this miracle as the work of ancient Hawaiian gods. Yet these beliefs may cause fractures in the family, too.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels set during times of great political upheaval

Daphne Fama was born in the American South, embedded in its tight-knit Filipino community. When she’s not writing stories about monsters and the women who love them, she’s writing about video games. And when she’s not writing, she’s spending every minute adoring her partner and pup.

Fama's new novel is House of Monstrous Women.

At CrimeReads she tagged seven novels "of political upheaval [that] capture the terror and resilience of those caught in history’s undertow, where survival is an act of defiance." One title on Fama's list:

Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

In 1980s Sri Lanka, as civil war erupts, Sashi dreams of becoming a doctor. But in Jaffna, violence is inescapable, and her four brothers are each pulled into the conflict in different ways. Torn between family loyalty, survival, and her own ambitions, Sashi endures is forced to bear witness to the brutality carried out by both the government and the Tamil Tigers. Brotherless Night is a beautifully rendered portrait of a family shattered by war, and of a young woman who endures with courage when everything she loves is at risk.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

Brotherless Night is among Asha Thanki's seven novels about families surviving political unrest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles about toxic work environments

Cleyvis Natera is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Neruda on the Park and the recently published sophomore novel, The Grand Paloma Resort. At Electric Lit she tagged seven books" "rooted in a person’s relationship to work."

[F]rom views into the lives of a working population during genocidal mandates from the government, to tender illuminations on what it means to be part of a society that fails to count women’s work as labor, to the seduction of wealth and power that lead many of these characters to become complicit in systems that benefit from their own dehumanization, each of these novels offers an unvarnished understanding of an individual’s search for self-actualization through labor.

One title on Natera's list:

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

The Farm is a brilliant debut by Joanne Ramos that follows Jane, a Filipino domestic worker and single mother to an infant daughter named Amalia. When Jane loses her job, her elderly cousin Evelyn “Ate” guides her toward a position at Golden Oaks, a facility referred to as “The Farm” where women serve as surrogates to the wealthy. The payoff for spending the better part of a year to conceive and birth a child is significant. Yet, the sacrifice is to be away from Jane’s own child. The story unfolds in a series of events that help a reader ask profound questions about immigration, class, gender, and race. As Jane’s body becomes commoditized, we understand the interplay between childbearing as an act of survival or the sacred. Ramos does a remarkable job of laying bare the ways that certain paths to progress are closed to immigrants, especially women. It’s a refreshing take on the American Dream.

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

The Farm is among Sara Flannery Murphy's nine books that explore the weirder side of reproduction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top possession novels

Peter Rosch is the author of multiple dark fictions born from the various addictions he chased while living in New York City as an award-winning writer and creative director. He’s many years sober now but remains an addict’s addict. What the Dead Can Do is his debut novel.

[Q&A with Peter Rosch; My Book, The Movie: What The Dead Can Do]

Rosch grew up in the Southwest, lived in New York for nearly 20 years, and now resides midway between Austin and San Antonio in Wimberley, TX where he works as an author, freelance creative director and copywriter in advertising, and most importantly, full-time dad.

At CrimeReads Rosch tagged six favorite posession novels, stories that show how "we can be possessed by an idea or a relationship (with another human, with a substance, with a home, or even with religion and spirituality itself) that can lead us to act out in a demonic-possession way as well." One title on the list:

Herman Koch, The Dinner

By my own admission, I am possessed by my son. I’d do anything he told me to do, probably. I count myself lucky that he is the very best human I know and hasn’t yet asked me to kill.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Jennifer McMahon's nine top demon & possession novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five sci-fi books you haven’t read…yet

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five quality sci-fi books that not enough readers have yet discovered, including:

Unity by Elly Bangs

In the wake of the apocalypse, a tech servant looks to escape the dangers of Bloom City. Danae is not only looking to get herself and her partner Naoto out, but also a secret that she is hiding inside her body, involving a collective. With the help of an ex-mercenary guide, Danae and Naoto traverse the broken world, while enemies old and new seek them out.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten great crime novels set in London

Mark Ellis is a thriller writer from Swansea and a former barrister and entrepreneur.

He is the creator of DCI Frank Merlin, an Anglo-Spanish police detective operating in World War 2 London. His books treat the reader to a vivid portrait of London during the war skillfully blended with gripping plots, political intrigue and a charismatic protagonist.

The newest title in the DCI Frank Merlin series is Death Of An Officer.

At The Strand Magazine Ellis tagged ten great crime novels set in London, all pre-dating the current century (to indicate that they have have stood the test of time). One title on the list:

Asta’s Book by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine (1993)

Ruth Rendell is most famous for her Inspector Wexford detective series but, under the pen name of Barbara Vine, she also wrote a series of wonderful stand-alone psychological thrillers. Asta’s Book is my favourite of these. The book of the title is the diary of a Danish immigrant who came to London in 1905 and then raised a family. Many years later the diary falls into the hands of her grand-daughter who finds significant gaps in her grandmother’s life story. She investigates and discovers terrible secrets. A brilliant book.

Read about the other entries on Ellis's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top small town America thrillers

Vaseem Khan's acclaimed Baby Ganesh Agency crime series won the Shamus Award in the US, with The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra selected by the Sunday Times as one of the 40 best crime novels published 2015-2020, now translated into 16 languages. The first novel in the Malabar House series, Midnight at Malabar House, won the CWA Historical Dagger 2021 and was shortlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Khan's newest novel is The Girl In Cell A.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five favorite small town America thrillers, including:

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I first read this in school. Yes, Harper Lee’s classic has even made it to the curriculum in England! Emblematic of the intricacies and prejudices of small town communities, this definitive work of American literature is just as relevant today. Although The Girl in Cell A isn’t about race, there is no escaping the fact that local feeling might have shaded Orianna’s conviction. Orianna is the descendant of Catholic Indians brought over from the subcontinent to Caribbean plantations, who then made the short journey over to the States. Her mother worked for the Wyclerc dynasty as a housekeeper. Orianna can never quite escape the fact that she is different; during her long years in prison that sense of being an outsider fuels her belief that the gaps in her memory hold the key to her innocence.

Read about the other entries on the list.

To Kill a Mockingbird made Mimi Herman's list of five titles with strong, spirited Southern ladies, Debbie Babitt's list of eight coming-of-age thrillers, Allison Pataki's top ten list of father figures in literature, Bonnie Kistler's list of four classic fictional trials that subverted the truth, Kathy Bates's ten desert island books list, Lavie Tidhar's list of five fantastical heroines in great children’s books, Sarah Ward's ten top list of brothers and sisters in fiction, Katy Guest's list of six top books for shy readers, Jeff Somers's top ten list of fictional characters based on actual people, Carol Wall's list of five books that changed her, John Bardinelli's list of five authors who became famous after publishing a single novel and never published another one, Ellie Irving's top ten list of quiet heroes and heroines, a list of five books that changed Richelle Mead, Robert Williams's top ten list of loners in fiction, Alyssa Bereznak's top ten list of literary heroes with weird names, Louise Doughty's top ten list of courtroom dramas, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epic epigraphs, the Telegraph's list of ten great meals in literature, Nicole Hill's list of fourteen characters their creators should have spared, Isla Blair's six best books list, Lauren Passell's list of ten pairs of books made better when read together, Charlie Fletcher's top ten list of adventure classics, Sheila Bair's 6 favorite books list, Kathryn Erskine's top ten list of first person narratives, Julia Donaldson's six best books list, TIME magazine's top 10 list of books you were forced to read in school, John Mullan's list of ten of the best lawyers in literature, John Cusack's list of books that made a difference to him, Lisa Scottoline's top ten list of books about justice, and Luke Leitch's list of ten literary one-hit wonders. It is one of Sanjeev Bhaskar's six best books and one of Alexandra Styron's five best stories of fathers and daughters.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 10 best fashion history books for beginners

At ELLE magazine Alexandra Hildreth tagged the ten best fashion history books for beginners, including:

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History

The Battle of Versailles is probably one of the lesser-known events to occur within the infamous palace halls, but it’s definitely one of the most important for the fashion industry. Written by Pulitzer Prize–winning fashion critic Robin Givhan, the book examines the unprecedented runway walk-off between European and American designers that solidified Seventh Avenue in fashion history.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five fantasy titles involving poison

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five "enthralling fantasy books, [in which the] main characters all deal with poison, whether as victims or perpetrators." One title on the list:

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

Imagine you are one of three young sisters, triplets, each with a different special ability and all heirs to the throne of the island of Fennbirn. Sounds pretty great, right? Except only one of you actually gets to sit on the throne, and to do so, you have to kill your other two sisters on your shared 16th birthday. Not so great now, is it? That’s the dilemma facing Mirabella, Katharine, and Arsinoe. And despite Arsinoe sounding like “arsenic,” it’s Katharine who is the poisoner, who has worked her whole life to build up a tolerance to toxins so that now no poison can touch her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Three Dark Crowns is among Marissa Meyer's five books that test our loyalties at every turn and April Genevieve Tucholke's five books with secret Norse tropes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five speculative fiction titles with feminist themes

A graduate of Wesleyan University, Melissa Pace is a former editor and writer for Elle, as well as a past finalist for the Humanitas New Voices Fellowship for emerging film and television writers. The mother of three amazing children, Pace lives with her husband in Los Angeles, and when not writing she likes to lace up her cleats and get all her ya-yas out on the soccer field.

The Once and Future Me is her first novel.

At CrimeReads Pace tagged five favorite speculative fiction novels with feminist themes, including:

Octavia Butler, Kindred

The story of Dana, a black woman from 1976 who finds herself being pulled back in time, again and again, to antebellum Maryland to save the life of her abusive white ancestor, Rufus, so that she and the rest of his descendants don’t flicker out of existence.

A book Butler called “a kind of grim fantasy,” where she “set out to make people feel history,” Kindred shines a light on the power dynamics of antebellum slavery, in particular, the brutal calculations and choices it forced its female victims to make in order to survive.

All of this is seen through Dana’s twentieth-century eyes and sensibility, making for a gut-wrenching experience as she’s compelled to make increasingly painful compromises to her autonomy in order to preserve her bloodline and stay alive long enough to get back to her own time.

By the end of the book, Butler has redefined heroism in terms of persistence, survival and escape, and enduring as the ultimate denial of victimization. And if that weren’t enough, Butler’s dialogue just moves, and her prose is so lyrical, I like to dip into it from time to time, like a warm bath of inspiration.

Read about the other novels on Pace's list at CrimeReads.

Kindred is among Caroline O'Donoghue's top ten lost women's classics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten Ukrainian titles that show its many sides

Sam Wachman's new novel is The Sunflower Boys.

He is a writer from Cambridge, Massachusetts with Ukrainian roots. His short fiction has appeared in Sonora Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, and New England Review. Before writing The Sunflower Boys, he taught English to primary schoolers in central Ukraine and worked with refugee families in Europe and the United States.

At Electric Lit Wachman tagged ten Ukrainian books that show the many sides of a nation. One title on the list:

Love Life by Oksana Lutsyshyna, translated by Nina Murray

In Love Life, love itself is a higher power that is inextricable from pain. Yora, a Ukrainian immigrant, lives on an unnamed American peninsula identical to Florida. Disoriented, vulnerable, and highly empathetic, she falls in love with Sebastian, an actor who leads her on until revealing that she is only one of his many lovers.Yora’s life disintegrates when her relationship with Sebastian ends. She contracts a mysterious illness, and her grief reveals itself through a series of bizarre dreams. Through Yora’s descent, Lutsyshyna examines the experience of being a Ukrainian woman abroad and the existential suffering inherent to post-Soviet womanhood.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight historical thrillers with macabre medical themes

Tonya Mitchell is the author of The Arsenic Eater’s Wife, an historical true crime Gothic mystery set in 1889 Liverpool. Her debut historical novel, A Feigned Madness, won the Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award and the Kops-Fetherling International Book Award for Best New Voice in Historical Fiction.

Mitchell's latest novel is Needle and Bone, "a gothic tale of guilt, vengeance, and a girl’s fight to reclaim her soul from the shadows."

At CrimeReads the author tagged "eight novels with medical themes at their core with gothic twists you’d expect from a subgenre steeped in the creepy." One title on the list:

Bridget Collins, The Silence Factory

Arguably the most bizarre book on the list, The Silence Factory is a speculative tale with a wholly original premise. In it, Collins spins a tale of spider silk imbued with unusual powers.

When Dr. Henry arrives at Carthmute House to treat Philomel of her deafness, he uncovers a magic breed of spiders whose silk can both silence and amplify sound—yet neither is innocuous. As Henry’s mental state deteriorates, he discovers dark family secrets, corruption, and odd magic he can’t explain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels of existential shipwreck

Peter Mann is the author of the novels The Torqued Man (2022) and World Pacific (2025). A longtime resident of San Francisco, he grew up in Kansas City, went to Wesleyan University, and got a PhD in Modern European history before becoming a novelist and a cartoonist.

[Q&A with Peter Mann; The Page 69 Test: The Torqued Man]

At The Strand Magazine Mann tagged "five great, albeit wildly different, novels that explore the theme of existential shipwreck and the drama of staying afloat." One title on the list:

The Sot-weed Factor by John Barth (1960)

This is the greatest comic historical novel ever written. Barth takes the historical seed of a minor early American poet who in 1706 wrote a satirical poem about the then backwater colony of Maryland, and grows it into a sprawling picaresque and bildungsroman, about the misadventures of one Ebenezer Cooke, self-proclaimed virgin and self-appointed poet laureate. We join the poet, along with his spineless servant Bertrand and enigmatic tutor Henry Burlingame, as he travels to the American colony to reclaim his father’s estate and earn his place in the literary pantheon. Naturally, all manner of intrigue and perversion intervenes to throw our hero’s plans overboard and disabuse him of his criminal innocence—literal shipwreck, piracy, buggery, bestiality, Papist skullduggery, Indian uprisings, and the love of a pox-ridden prostitute, to name just a few. Add to this the McGuffin of a secret historical diary by John Smith relating how he once harnessed the tumescent properties of eggplant to woo Pocahantas and you have the makings of a masterpiece.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen top music memoirs

At GQ (UK edition) Brit Dawson and Josiah Gogarty tagged over a dozen of the best music memoirs, including:

My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

There are few showbiz lives as monumental as Barbra Streisand’s, and at just under 1,000 pages, My Name is Barbra’s formidable length proves it. But if you can get to grips with that page count, the book has endless rewards: first of which is reminding us that, though she’s a canonical star today, Streisand’s ascent was rocky, with a mocking stepfather and countless professional rejections to hurdle. Her petty delight at exposing all those doubters – and some of her less-than-gentlemanly romantic partners – is a lot of fun, as are all the encounters with other stars as her career develops.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top fantasy novels that blend genres

Veronica Lancet is a doctoral student by day and an author of dark, epic love stories by night. She loves to tread the line between right and wrong, exploring the many shades of morality through flawed heroes, forbidden desires, and the razor-thin edge between love and obsession.

Lancet's new novel is Fairydale.

At The Nerd Daily she tagged seven of the "best fantasy novels that masterfully blend genres." One entry on the list:

The Cabot Sisters series by Teresa Medeiros

Vampires. Regency gowns. Snappy banter. Need I say more? The Cabot Sisters is a deliciously underrated historical paranormal romance series that delivers both humor and heat. Teresa Medeiros writes with charm and heart, and this series is no exception. It’s witty, whimsical, and wonderfully romantic. If you’re craving a little supernatural sparkle in your historicals, this is the perfect fix.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels featuring women reclaiming their power & taking revenge

Katie Collom grew up in Mazatlan, Mexico, and is a life-long expat and world traveler. She spent four years in Texas and has carried a piece of it with her ever since. Currently, she resides in York, England, with her husband and three cats.

Collom's new novel is Peter Miles Has to Die.

At CrimeReads she tagged six novels for fans of “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks; that is, novels that prove "that vengeance can come in many forms—sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes not so much—but there’s always a sense of satisfaction at seeing women take control." One title on the list:

Out by Natsuo Kirino

Kirino’s fantastic novel is centered around four women living in Tokyo who work the night shift at a box lunch factory. When one of them murders her abusive husband, she turns to the rest for help covering up the crime. What follows is a gritty tale about female friendship, misogyny in Japanese culture, and the lengths women go to for some semblance of control over their own lives. One of my favorite aspects of the book is its portrayal of violence inflicted by women instead of against them. It flips gender stereotypes in a way that is both shocking and unforgettable.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Out is among Emily Temple's top ten books about outsiders for teenage girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten psychological thrillers with explosive family secrets

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number-one bestselling author of eleven stand-alone novels, including The Sisters, Local Girl Missing, Last Seen Alive, Do Not Disturb, Then She Vanishes, Just Like The Other Girls, The Couple at No. 9, The Girls Who Disappeared, The Woman Who Lied, and The Wrong Sister.

[Writers Read: Claire Douglas (December 2017)]

At The Strand Magazine she tagged ten "favourite psychological thrillers with explosive family secrets." One title on the list:

THE FAMILY GAME by Catherine Steadman

A rollercoaster ride of a thriller about Harriet, newly engaged to the heir of a powerful family, Edward Holbeck. When she goes to visit them she is drawn to the family, who seem welcoming and happy about their impending marriage. But when Edward’s father, Robert, gives Harriet a tape of a book he’s been working on, she’s shocked that it’s actually a confession to an horrific crime. A murder. Is this just a ploy from Edward to test Harriet’s loyalty to the family or is there something much darker going on?

Read about the other thrillers on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about female friendship in every decade of life

Michelle Herman's latest book is the essay collection If You Say So. Her books include three earlier essay collections – The Middle of Everything, Stories We Tell Ourselves, and Like A Song – as well as four novels (Missing, Dog, Devotion, and Close-Up), the novella collection A New and Glorious Life, and a book for children, A Girl’s Guide to Life.

At Electric Lit Herman tagged "a list of books in which it’s friendship that matters most, in every decade of a woman’s life." One title on the list:

Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories by Lore Segal

No round-up of books about women’s friendship would be complete without this one by Lore Segal. Brilliant, witty, fierce, full of surprises, this book was published a year almost to the day before her death, in 2024, at 96. (Full disclosure: Lore Segal and I were longtime friends.) If you don’t know her work, I urge you to read all of it, but there’s no reason not to start with this final collection, most of which is about a group of friends, now in their 90s, who’ve been close for decades. They meet regularly for lunch, where they tell each other everything. “We are the people to whom we tell our stories,” one of them tells the others. And so, when they can no longer meet in person, they talk on the phone and over Zoom—they persevere. As Lore Segal did.

Read about the other books on Herman's list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers with beach & jungle settings

Jo Morey is a graduate of the Faber Academy and the Curtis Brown Mentoring Scheme. The manuscript for Lime Juice Money was awarded the 2023 Claire Mannion Literary Endeavour Prize, came runner-up in the Cheshire Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the Primadonna Prize, the Plaza First Pages Award and Killer Nashville's Claymore Award in the literary category. Morey lives in West Sussex, England at the foot of the South Downs with her husband, two boys, and two Portuguese Water Dogs.

Lime Juice Money is her first novel.

[The Page 69 Test: Lime Juice Money]

At CrimeReads Morey tagged eight favorite thrillers with beach and jungle settings, including:

Alex Garland, The Beach

The Beach by Alex Garland is arguably the ultimate backpacker classic. When it was first published, I was on a two-year trip around the globe and remember reading it on the beach on Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. Every other person was reading it too, and everyone was talking about it.

Set in Thailand, The Beach charts a young backpacker, Richard’s search for a legendary, idyllic and hidden island beach untouched by tourism. The paradise he finds here soon starts to unravel into a Lord of the Flies hallucinatory hellfest.

This one also features in Lime Juice Money and two of my characters bond over its “tropical horror.” A true literary thriller.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Beach appears on Ivy Pochoda's lit of five books that dive into the drug-fueled darkness of the club scene, Andrea Bartz's list of seven psychological thrillers for White Lotus fans, Lucy Clarke's top ten list of books about castaways, Hephzibah Anderson's list of eleven previously hip books that have not aged well, S J watson's list of six novels that could only take place at the seashore, Cat Barton's top five list of books on Southeast Asian travel literature, Kate Kellaway's ten best list of fictional holidays, Eleanor Muffitt top 12 list of books that make you want to pack your bags and trot the globe, Anna Wilson's top ten list of books set on the seaside, 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

Eleven green flag books

Certain books are a "red flag" -- they are a sign that you might not want to date the person who has them on display. The staff at GQ (UK edition) and some literary friends tagged a few green flag books -- books that indicate the reader may have more positive qualities. Josiah Gogarty's contribution to the list:

The best books are at least a little bit unhinged, and you want a dash (not too much) of the same spirit in a relationship. Save us, please, from the mediocre Hinge dates who are still stuck on the bland “sad girl lit” on special displays at Waterstones. Patricia Lockwood’s pyrotechnic memoir Priestdaddy, about her dad who’s also a priest (he became a Catholic after having kids), is suitably deranged: very funny and very emotional – and sometimes at once, just like infatuation should be.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Priestdaddy is among Tom Perrotta's six favorite funny books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to explain the weirdest parts of religion to non-believers

Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Her most recent book, Spellbound (2025), is a history of charisma as both a religious and a political concept from the Puritans to the Trump era. Apostles of Reason (2013) examines American evangelical intellectual life since 1945, especially the internal conflicts among different evangelical subcultures. Her first book, The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost (2006), is a behind-the-scenes study of American diplomacy and higher education told through the lens of biography.

[Writers Read: Molly Worthen (November 2013); The Page 99 Test: Apostles of Reason]

At Shepherd Worthen tagged five of the "best books to help a secular person understand the weirdest parts of religion," including:

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

I read this book during a very intense summer a few years ago when I was trying to figure out if Christianity could possibly be true, and how a nerdy secular academic like myself could even begin to ask that question.

I found a kindred spirit in Sheldon Vanauken. In this memoir set mainly in the 1950s, he tells the story of how he took a sabbatical from his teaching job at a little college in Virginia to go to Oxford with his wife. Neither of them was religious at the time. In fact, the first part of the book is a very intense (some might say: cloyingly sentimental) account of their romance, when they basically worshipped each other instead of a deity.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to shout “get a room already” and throw the book at the wall during the first few chapters. But I’m glad I stuck it out, because the story gets much more interesting once they get to Oxford and meet various smart, fun Anglicans, including C.S. Lewis.

Pretty soon, they realize that being a smart, fun Christian is not a contradiction in terms. They start investigating the claims of Christianity, doing a lot of reading, having late-night conversations with thoughtful Christians, and so on.

“The Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt if you’ll get away!” Lewis writes to Vanauken in a letter. I love how he captures the agony of a seeker, especially when he realizes that he’s reasoned his way to this awkward middle ground: sure, accepting Christianity would mean a leap of faith, but (it turns out) going back to his old worldview would be an even bigger leap, in the other direction. He’s on this little plateau between two chasms, and he has to make a choice because it’s crumbling fast.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels that prove writers can make the best protagonists

Megan Cummins is the author of the novel Atomic Hearts and the story collection If the Body Allows It, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Bingham Award. The managing editor of Public Books and an editor at large at A Public Space, she lives in New York City.

At Electric Lit Cummins tagged seven novels showing that writer-protagonists can be a tool of versatility in a novel. One title on the list:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

It’s made clear at several moments in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that the first-person narrator known to us only as Offred is offering the reader a story. (“Because I’m telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.”) We know from Offred’s telling that before her capture and conscription as a handmaid to one of Gilead’s “commanders” she worked in a library. She loved books when she was still allowed to have them. While perhaps not professionally a “writer,” Offred is certainly a storyteller with a literary sensibility, one whose voice the architects of Gilead are trying their hardest to silence. In the book’s epilogue, set in 2195 at an academic conference, a Professor Pieixoto of Cambridge University delivers a keynote address on the subject of his discovery and transcription of a collection of thirty cassette tapes found in a footlocker in what used to be Maine, which his partner academic has coined “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is an intentionally vulgar pun on tail: “That being, to some extent, the bone, as it were, of contention, in that phase of Gileadean society of which our saga treats.”

Near the end of his keynote, Professor Pieixoto scolds Offred for not describing more of the “workings” of the Gileadean empire, or better yet, printing off pages from Commander Waterford’s computer. From this epilogue we learn, for certain, that Gilead has fallen; that Offred was able to record her story, and possibly make it as far as Maine in her escape; and that the world after the fall of Gilead is just as misogynistic, that the academics have little regard for their “anonymous author,” and that Gilead’s worldview was not eradicated, just made, once again, latent.

This postscript changes one’s reading of the pages before it, but to me Pieixoto’s callous critiques enhance the feeling that Offred’s voice is her own. She tells her story as she wishes, and as she is able in her circumstances to tell it. And in Offred’s time, as in our own, telling one’s story is an act of resistance.

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

The Handmaid's Tale made Max Barry's list of five top books that are secretly science fiction, Louisa Treger's top ten list of great boundary-breaking women of fiction, Claire McGlasson's top ten list of books about cults, Siobhan Adcock's list of five top books about motherhood and dystopia, a list of four books that changed Meg Keneally, A.J. Hartley's list of five favorite books about the making of a dystopia, Lidia Yuknavitch's 6 favorite books list, Elisa Albert's list of nine revelatory books about motherhood, Michael W. Clune's top five list of books about imaginary religions, Jeff Somers's top six list of often misunderstood SF/F novels, Jason Sizemore's top five list of books that will entertain and drop you into the depths of despair, S.J. Watson's list of four books that changed him, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of eight of the most badass ladies in all of banned literature, Guy Lodge's list of ten of the best dystopias in fiction, art, film, and television, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Rachel Cantor's list of the ten worst jobs in books, Charlie Jane Anders and Kelly Faircloth's list of the best and worst childbirth scenes in science fiction and fantasy, Lisa Tuttle's critic's chart of the top Arthur C. Clarke Award winners, and PopCrunch's list of the sixteen best dystopian books of all time.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five essential thrillers perfect for the aspiring writer

Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of The Housekeeper, Cul-de-sac, All the Wrong Places, The Bad Daughter, She’s Not There, Someone Is Watching, Charley’s Web, Heartstopper, Mad River Road, See Jane Run, and other acclaimed novels.

Her new novel is Jenny Cooper Has a Secret.

[The Page 69 Test: Shadow Creek; My Book, The Movie: Shadow Creek; The Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching; My Book, The Movie: Someone Is Watching; My Book, The Movie: The Bad Daughter; The Page 69 Test: The Bad Daughter; My Book, The Movie: All the Wrong Places; The Page 69 Test: All the Wrong Places; Writers Read: Joy Fielding (March 2019)]

At CrimeReads Fielding tagged "five of my favorite books – in no particular order – that have helped me in various way and that I would recommend for aspiring writers." One title on the list:

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiassen is one of those rare suspense or crime novelists for whom humor is the key ingredient. His novels, all of which are set in South Florida, and deal with varying degrees of crime and corruption, are full of laugh-out-loud funny shenanigans. Tourist Season was Hiaasen’s first book and my personal favorite, although I suspect this will apply to whatever book you read first because the plots are largely interchangeable and not all that important. What makes these books special are the characters that Hiaasen creates, a bunch of not-quite-believable but somehow all-too-real, one-of-a-kind creations that you delight in spending time with. He taught me that humor is key to likeability.

Read about the other titles on Fielding's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles in which a party changes everything

Jackie Thomas-Kennedy’s debut novel, The Other Wife, was included in The New York Times list of “The Summer’s Best Beach Reads.” A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is the winner of the 2019 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. Her work has been recorded for NPR’s Selected Shorts, and her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, One Story, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Harvard Review, Star Tribune, The Millions, and on the Ploughshares blog. She has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MacDowell, Ucross, and Saltonstall. She holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University School of the Arts.

At Electric Lit Thomas-Kennedy tagged eight books that use "a party’s celebratory chaos as a backdrop for something important, whether dramatic conflict or quiet realization, to brilliant effect." One title on the list:

Choose This Now by Nicole Haroutunian

Haroutunian’s collection of linked stories focuses on friends Taline and Valerie (“Tal and Val”) as they navigate college and the years that follow. In “Twenty-One,” the opening story, an egg strikes Val in the temple as she and Val make their way to a Halloween party, presaging more extreme events to come. Once they finally arrive, the festivities themselves take a surprising and violent turn that will haunt Val for years. Haroutunian’s precise, understated prose sets up the questions that expand in the fourteen stories that follow: what does it feel like to grow older, to mature? How do people grapple with ambition, both artistic and personal? How do the relationships of early adulthood evolve? How does one salvage the pleasure and wash away the rest? That last question is top of mind for Val in “Twenty-One” as she cleans her face: “I want to remove egg, retain glitter.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles where competitive parenting goes off the rails

Jennifer Jabaley is the award-winning author of Lipstick Apology and Crush Control. She won Georgia Author of the Year in the young adult category and was nominated for the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award. Jabaley is a practicing optometrist. She brings sharp focus to eye care by day and to storytelling by night. She lives in the north Georgia mountains with her sports-obsessed family and two rescue dogs.

Jabaley's new novel is What's Yours Is Mine.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six novels that depict various worlds of cutthroat parenting. One title on the list:

Megan Abbott, You Will Know Me

This book explores inside a tightly knit community of gymnasts and their hyper-involved families whose lives revolve around their children’s athletic futures. This was the first book I read that demonstrated how parents become consumed with their children’s accolades outside of an academic setting.

Being that I spend a lot of time inside the world of high-pressure sports, this story spoke to me. It really encapsulated how parents will sacrifice everything—time, money, emotional stability—to support their children’s athletic success. In a world where every parent thinks their child is the best, tension and competition boil at every opportunity for playing time, recruitment, and scholarship opportunity.

This book revolved around gymnastics and the strive for the Olympics, but it could so easily take place inside of any athletic endeavor. Her dark, tense writing style effectively portrayed the stress simmering inside parents, praying for their kids to win.

Read about the other entries on the list.

You Will Know Me is among Zach Vasquez's seven top dark novels about motherhood and Alison Wisdom's nine coming-of-age stories about girls who do bad things.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that explore the inner lives of animals

Case Q. Kerns is the author of Habitat (2025), a novel of interconnected narratives beginning in a near future New England and ending a century later. Originally from Buffalo, NY, he received a BS in Cinema & Photography from Ithaca College and an MFA from Emerson College where he served as fiction editor for the literary journal Redivider. His work has appeared in The Literary Review, The Harvard Review, and West Branch. He lives in Massachusetts with his family.

At Electric Lit Kerns tagged seven "books that engage with animals in different ways, probing their behaviors and our relationship to them, our sympathies for and atrocities against them." One title on the list:

An Immense World by Ed Yong

Of all the books on this list, Ed Yong’s exploration of animals’ senses brings me closest to the experience of communicating with them. Yong begins by imagining a human joining an elephant, mouse, robin, owl, bat, rattlesnake, spider, and mosquito in a room, and then describes the sensory experience of each animal. While all occupy the same space, their individual experiences highlight the different ways in which they sense an environment and alter our understanding of how they might feel.

An important distinction Yong makes concerning what we understand and don’t understand about animals’ behavior and senses is that while we may be able to discover, biologically, how an animal “reacts to what it senses,” we don’t know “how it feels.” In the chapter on “Pain,” Yong writes: “Imagine your entire body became delicate to the touch whenever you stubbed your toe: That’s a squid’s reality.”

For anyone seeking a better understanding of how animals experience the world—not how we experience animals in a vast network of ecologies making up a world that we think belongs to us but how they might feel—I can’t recommend An Immense World enough. It’s a wondrous journey.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Five dark books for long summer days

Sara Ochs is an author, law professor, and avid traveler. Born and raised in Upstate New York, Ochs and her husband now split their time between the United States and Sweden.

When she’s not turning one of the many places she’s visited into the setting of her next thriller, she can usually be found trip planning.

Ochs’s debut novel, a thriller set on a remote Thai island, was published as The Dive in the UK and territories and as The Resort in the US.

[Q&A with Sara Ochs]

Her new novel is This Stays Between Us.

At CrimeReads Ochs tagged five "dark books that are perfect to balance out the cheeriness of summer." One title on the list:

ALL HER FAULT by Andrea Mara

The very first chapter of this addictive thriller by Andrea Mara begins with every parent’s worst nightmare: a mother turning up to a playdate to find her son missing. What unfolds is an intrinsically plotted web of secrets and lies that will leave you second guessing every single character. An underlying feeling of unease runs through the entire novel up to the very last page, and I stayed up racing through the pages well after the sun went down.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The twenty-five best dystopian novels ever

At Entertainment Weekly Robert English and Kevin Jacobsen tagged the 25 best dystopian novels of all time. One title on the list:

The Wall by John Lanchester (2019)

Among the more contemporary dystopian literature is this suspenseful and satirical 2019 novel by John Lanchester. The Wall takes place on an island nation in a world ravaged by climate change, insulated from the widespread disaster by the titular Wall. Protagonist Joseph Kavanagh's role as a Defender on the island is to protect a section of the Wall from the Others, survivors looking to escape the rising seas on the outside. Suspenseful and timely, Lanchester's work is a compelling read of modern sociological issues seen through an affecting lens only the best fiction can achieve.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Wall is among Anne Charnock's five recent novels about climate catastrophe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten great titles for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid

At People magazine senior books editor Lizz Schumer tagged ten "books to read while we wait for [Taylor Jenkins Reid's] The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo movie adaptation," including:

The Education of Kia Greer by Alanna Bennett

As the daughter of a reality TV star, Kia has grown up under a media microscope. She would gladly give up the fame if it meant she could experience life as an ordinary teenager — go to parties, gossip with her friends, apply to college and make mistakes in private. Then she meets Cass, who’s his own kind of rising star, and now her first love has only pulled her deeper into the spotlight. Teenage romance is complicated enough without constant rumors and speculation. The pressure starts to take a toll, and Kia must decide what she wants for herself and what her choices might mean for their budding relationship.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue