Nine of the most memorable manors in literature

Elizabeth Wilhide is the author of the novel Ashenden, whose title "character" is also a house. Ashenden Park is based on Basildon Park, the Berkshire stately home that featured as Netherfield Hall in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

For The Daily Beast, Wilhide came up with nine illustrious houses in fiction, including:

The Burrow

Higgledy-piggledy, several crooked stories high and seemingly held up by magic, the home of the Weasleys and their seven children is the polar opposite of sterile, mundane, suburban 4 Privet Drive, where Harry Potter has spent his childhood banished to a cupboard under the stairs. The cosy Burrow, cluttered with “rusty cauldrons and old Wellington boots,” introduces Harry to a family life where warmth, humor, and magic are part of everyday existence.

Learn about the other houses Wilhide tagged.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best owls in literature, ten of the best scars in fiction and ten of the best motorbikes in literature, and Charlie Higson's top 10 list of fantasy books for children, Justin Scroggie's top ten list of books with secret signs as well as Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that publishers didn't want to touch. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made John Mullan's list of ten best graveyard scenes in fiction.

The Harry Potter books made Alison Flood's list of the top 10 most frequently stolen books.

Dolores Umbridge is among Emerald Fennell's top ten villainesses in literature and Derek Landy's top 10 villains in children's books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best football books

Christian Science Monitor contributor Ben Frederick came up with a list of ten of the best football books, including:

"When Pride Still Mattered," by David Maraniss

Vince Lombardi's impact on how the game of football is practiced and played are still being felt. This profile of the man considered by many to be the greatest coach of all time also offers insight into the state of the game today.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: five top books about the Super Bowl and five top books about football (and its dark side).

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 fictional best friends that would make good real best friends

Panayiota Kuvetakis is a student at UC Berkeley studying comparative literature and theater. For Writer's Bloq, she named a top ten list of fictional best friends we'd like to have as nonfictional best friends, including:

Horatio – Hamlet

Though Hamlet’s self-centered crisis puts him in the limelight, Horatio is always there to support him. He is there to support Hamlet when he:

• Sees a terrifying ghost of his dad
• Plots to prove Claudius’ guilt in the mousetrap play
• Finds out his long time love who he is currently bickering is dead
• Has a breakdown when he finds out that his childhood clown, Yorick, can’t tell
• jokes anymore because he is dead
• Is poisoned to death

And after all that, Horatio is compliant with only being referred to as “friend to Hamlet” throughout the whole play. He even offers to drink Hamlet’s poisoned goblet! Instead, Hamlet tells him to stay alive, and “put things right” in Denmark.

Well that’s a lot of pressure.

Read about the other entries at Writer's Bloq.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stanley McChrystal's six favorite books

Stanley McChrystal retired in July 2010 as a four-star general in the U.S. Army. His last assignment was as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force and as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He had previously served as the direc­tor of the Joint Staff and as the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. He is currently a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and the cofounder of the McChrystal Group, a leadership consulting firm.

McChrystal's new book is My Share of the Task: A Memoir.

One of his six favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

In The Face of Battle — published the year I graduated from West Point — Keegan writes that military academy cadets' knowledge of war is "theoretical, anticipatory, and secondhand." His book is an antidote to this, putting the reader amid the clang of armor and putrid trench mud.

Read about the other books on McChrystal's list.

The Face of Battle is among Stephen Hunter's five best books about soldiers at war and Thomas C. Schelling's most influential books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about guerrillas

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present.


One of his five best books about guerrillas, as told to the Wall Street Journal:

Into the Land of Bones
by Frank L. Holt (2005)

This excellent accountof Alexander the Great's foray into Afghanistan in 329 B.C. is a reminder that guerrilla warfare is not a recent invention—it is in fact older than civilization itself. Fresh off his dismantling of the Persian Empire, Alexander found the obstreperous tribes of Central Asia harder to subdue. Entire Macedonian detachments were lost in ambushes, and Alexander himself was wounded twice. Frank Holt, a classicist at the University of Houston, narrates his struggle in clear prose that makes this ancient campaign come alive and gives greater appreciation for the challenges that confront all counterinsurgents in Afghanistan—including the U.S. troops still fighting there more than a decade after 9/11.

Read about the other books on Boot's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top works of nonfiction

At The Daily Beast, Pulitzer winner Tracy Kidder and his longtime editor Richard Todd named six of their favorite narratives, essays, and memoirs, including:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
by Anne Fadiman

The beautifully observed story of a Hmong immigrant family in its encounter with Western doctors, as each community struggles to help an epileptic child. A reflective compassion, more powerful for its restraint, informs this account of tragic cultural misperceptions.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on happiness

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on happiness:

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
By Winifred Gallagher

Might the fullest life be found by those with the ability to sharply "zoom in" on their passions? In Rapt, Winifred Gallagher posits that our mood is most directly in tune with that upon which we choose to focus our attention. Productivity clichés get deflated along the way, as when Gallagher cognitive scientist David Meyer states that "Einstein didn't invent the theory of relativity while multi-tasking at the Swiss patent office." Gallagher’s thesis -- that catharsis is found in clarifying our interests and devoting to them the emphasis they deserve -- brings pinpoint precision to a field often jumbled by generality.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: six books that examine the idea of happiness, five top books on happiness through negative thinking, and Maria Popova's seven top books on happiness.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books that began as speech

Sheila Heti latest novel, How Should a Person Be?, is structured on transcribed dialogues between her and her friends.

One of her top ten books that began as transcribed speech, as told to the Guardian:

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel

Published in 1972, this groundbreaking book by the great American oral history genius documented America's relationship with work. Terkel spoke with prostitutes, housewives, gravediggers, everyone (many of the jobs included don't exist anymore, or don't exist in the same way). The monologues are crafted invisibly, and each voice is direct and distinct. "It's an automatic thing, waiting on people," says a washroom attendant. "It doesn't require any thought. It's almost a reflex action. I set my toilet articles up, towels – and I'm ready." Americans had never seen themselves quite so clearly before - and oral history became a more prominent form as a result.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Working is one of Daniel H. Pink's six favorite books about work.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best picture books for children, 2012

At the Guardian, Kate Kellaway collected the best 2012 picture books for children.

One entry on the list:

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau
by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Amanda Hall

Rousseau’s spirit has inspired Amanda Hall: this book is a captivating homage to a lavish, playful, painterly world. We see Henri, eyes shut, on a Parisian park bench, apparently inhaling the scent of outsize marigolds. Meanwhile, Markel tell his story, and lets us know how art eventually won out against establishment ridicule. She explains: ‘Sometimes Henri is so startled by what he paints that he has to open the window to let in some air.’ We have no need to do likewise – this book is the freshest of breezes. (5+)

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on essays

Alain de Botton is the author of essays on themes ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His best-selling books include How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel, The Architecture of Happiness, and Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion.

One of five top books on essays he discussed with Jessica Mudditt for The Browser in 2009:

The Secret Power of Beauty
by John Armstrong

John Armstrong’s The Secret Power of Beauty has a tantalising title – why did you choose this collection?

I admit I know the author very well. I partly chose it because it reflects many ideas that I have discussed with him and I also think he writes very well.

His central argument is that beauty is linked with all kinds of values that we find encoded in objects, and that these values can excite and move us just as people can excite and move us. I had not heard discussions of beauty unfolding in this way.

Has the way we think about beauty changed over time?

The modern way of thinking about beauty is to consider it a diversion. People apologise for finding someone attractive because we think it’s superficial. Or if someone is interested in fashion, they’ll say: “I know it’s all a bit frivolous.” Armstrong goes back to a much earlier view held by Greek philosophers, which was that our connection to beauty is connected to deep things and it’s an interest in goodness more generally. It’s a good starting point for being a decent human being and that is not at all a modern day version of beauty.

Read about the other books de Botton tagged at The Browser.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten teen books featuring flashbacks

Lenore Appelhans has been blogging about books at Presenting Lenore since 2008. She is the author of the Memory Chronicles, which includes Level 2 and the forthcoming Level 3, and the forthcoming picture book Chick-o-Saurus Rex (under the name Lenore Jennewein) with her husband, illustrator Daniel Jennewein.

One of Appelhans's ten favorite teen books that deal with remembering, forgetting and flashbacks, as told to the Guardian:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

When British spy Verity is captured by the Nazis in occupied France, she is forced to write down her secrets. She chooses to write about her best friend Maddie, a RAF pilot who flew the mission with her, pouring out her heart by flashing back to their joint history and detailing her current predicament. Not a moment goes by when we don't fear for Verity's life, but little do her interrogators know just how skilled Verity is in her spycraft. A thrilling, heartbreaking gem.

Read about the other titles on Appelhans's list.

Code Name Verity also appears on Lydia Syson's list of ten of the best historical novels for young readers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books on love, betrayal, and creative people who behave badly

Ben Schrank published his first novel, Miracle Man, in 1999. The New Yorker selected it as one of six debut novels in that year’s fiction issue, saying “As the ethical lines blur, Schrank makes New York seem sharp and new.” Time Magazine called it a “brilliantly observed story about the desire to live in an egalitarian world.” In 2002 Schrank published his second novel, Consent. Leonard Michaels wrote of Consent: “It is a very serious story, and, in places, it is hilarious. As for the woman at the center, she is unforgettable.”

Schrank has taught at the MFA program at Brooklyn college. He was for some years the voice of "Ben’s Life," a fictional column for Seventeen magazine.

His new novel is Love Is a Canoe.

One of Schrank's six favorite books on love, betrayal, and creative people who behave badly, as told to The Week magazine:

Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth

The affair that Mickey Sabbath, gifted puppeteer, has with an innkeeper's wife catapults him into a journey backward. The novel is a debauched sexual roller coaster that ends with Roth's best closing line — a line about turning away from death: "How could he go? Everything he hated was here."

Read about the other books on Schrank's list.

Sabbath's Theater is among Edward Docx's top ten deranged characters and Howard Jacobson's five best novels on failure.

Visit Ben Schrank's website.

Writers Read: Ben Schrank.

--Marshal Zeringue