Nine classic YA novels ready for genderbent versions

At the B&N Teen Blog Natalie Zutter tagged nine classic Young Adult books ripe for some creative genderbending of the main characters, including:

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

How would you know you weren’t being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn’t. You really want to tell me a girl can’t be just as obsessed with her peers’ phoniness as a boy? Fakeness is a weapon, something women are conditioned at a young age to be repulsed by. Though the genderqueer Dela (meaning “hollow valley,” same as Holden) probably wouldn’t share Holden’s fears of being perceived as homosexual, or his belief that it’s up to him to save young children from losing their innocence.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Catcher In The Rye appears on Lance Rubin's top ten list of books with a funny first-person narrator, Andy Griffiths's list of five books that changed him, Chris Pavone's list of five books that changed him, Gabe Habash's list of the 10 most notorious parts of famous books, Robert McCrum's list of the 10 best books with teenage narrators, Antoine Wilson's list of the 10 best narrators in literature, A.E. Hotchner's list of five favorite coming-of-age tales, Jay McInerney's list of five essential New York novels, Woody Allen's top five books list, Patrick Ness's top 10 list of "unsuitable" books for teenagers, David Ulin's six favorite books list, Nicholas Royle's list of the top ten writers on the telephone, TIME magazine's list of the top ten books you were forced to read in school, Tony Parsons' list of the top ten troubled males in fiction, Dan Rhodes' top ten list of short books, and Sarah Ebner's top 25 list of boarding school books; it is one of Sophie Thompson's six best books. Upon rereading, the novel disappointed Khaled Hosseini, Mary Gordon, and Laura Lippman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten thrilling locations in children’s books

Dark Parties, Sara Grant's first young adult novel, won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Crystal Kite Award for Europe. Her new series is Chasing Danger – an action-adventure series for tweens.

One of Grant's ten top thrilling locations in children’s books, as shared at the Guardian:

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

On Sophie’s first birthday, she’s found floating in a cello case in the English Channel. This beautifully written tale takes flight from the rooftops of Victorian Paris. This book offers a unique perspective on one of the top tourist destinations of all time. “Clocks below her began to strike four, and Paris was waking. Its sound was like the hum of a hundred secrets, she thought: it was the mutter of a dozen soothsaysers.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Visit Sara Grant's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best short stories on crossing boundaries

Light Box is K J Orr's first collection of short stories. One of her top ten short stories that hinge on crossing boundaries, as shared at the Guardian:

"Axolotl" by Julio Cortázar

Tracing the metamorphosis of a man into a reptile, this can be read as a love letter to literature – to the connective power of writing and reading. What is at stake here is the awareness of “the presence of a different life, of another way of seeing”. In meticulous detail, the narrator describes the shift of perception that takes him from watching axolotls through a pane of glass in to their alien experience.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten SF novels with serious science

Sylvain Neuvel's new novel is Sleeping Giants. One of his ten top speculative fiction novels with serious science, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Hominids, by Robert J. Sawyer

The premise for this parallel universe story is a really good one, but the science is what got me hooked. You could probably use this book to help students pick a field of study. It has a bit of everything: physics, (paleo)anthropology, genetics, quantum computing, etc., etc. Sawyer’s research is impeccable and the science is always solid.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Frans de Waal's six favorite books

Biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal's latest book is Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?. One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Wild Life by Robert Trivers

I have long known Trivers, one of the most brilliant biologists of our time, and read his memoir with growing alarm at how often he has narrowly escaped death in his adventurous life. It's an enlightening read, especially when he uses his typical candor to describe his colleagues.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten guardian angels in children’s books

At the Guardian, writer Andrew Norriss tagged ten favorite characters that offer a helping hand to their heroes, including:

The Sword in the Stone by TH White

This is the first volume of the quartet written by TH White on the Arthurian legend and incomparably funnier and deeper than the amiable Disney movie. If you’re going to have a guardian angel watching over your early years and growing up, Merlin the magician is not a bad choice.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Sword in the Stone is on Jessamy Taylor's list of the ten top castles in fiction, John Dougherty's top ten list of fictional badgers, and Gill Lewis's top ten list of birds in books; it is the first part of The Once and Future King, which is among Philip Womack's best classic children's books and Lev Grossman's five top fantasy books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five YA novels that put the bully in the hot seat

One title on Dahlia Adler's list of five YA books told from the bully’s perspective, as shared on the B & N Teen Blog:

Tease, by Amanda Maciel

Everyone knows the stories in the news of girls who are bullied to death—girls like Emma. But not everyone knows the other side, where Sara sits. Sara, who has been charged, along with her friends, with driving Emma to suicide. Sara, who had more reasons to hate Emma than everyone knew. Sara, who’s steadfast in her belief that Emma deserved exactly what happened to her. Sara, who’s now the very kind of outcast she and her friends once made Emma, right up until Emma couldn’t take it anymore.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rose Tremain's six best books

Rose Tremain was one of only five women writers to be included in Granta’s original list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1983. Her novels and short stories have been published worldwide in 27 countries and have won many prizes. In 2013 was appointed Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. One of the author's six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy

I’m a hard-hearted reader of fiction but I couldn’t stop crying when I finished this. A father and son traverse a destroyed world and the internal landscape of the characters is captured with power and tenderness.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Road appears on Ian McGuire's ten top list of adventure novels, Alastair Bruce's top ten list of books about forgetting, Jeff Somers's list of eight good, bad, and weird dad/child pairs in science fiction and fantasy, Amelia Gray's ten best dark books list, Weston Williams's top fifteen list of books with memorable dads, ShortList's roundup of the twenty greatest dystopian novels, Mary Miller's top ten list of the best road books, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven "literary" novels that include elements of science fiction, fantasy or horror, Claire Cameron's list of five favorite stories about unlikely survivors, Isabel Allende's six favorite books list, the Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Joseph D’Lacey's top ten list of horror books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Ken Jennings's list of eight top books about parents and kids, Anthony Horowitz's top ten list of apocalypse books, Karen Thompson Walker's list of five notable "What If?" books, John Mullan's list of ten of the top long walks in literature, Tony Bradman's top ten list of father and son stories, Ramin Karimloo's six favorite books list, Jon Krakauer's five best list of books about mortality and existential angst, William Skidelsky's list of the top ten most vivid accounts of being marooned in literature, Liz Jensen's top 10 list of environmental disaster stories, the Guardian's list of books to change the climate, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and the Times (of London) list of the 100 best books of the decade. In 2009 Sam Anderson of New York magazine claimed "that we'll still be talking about [The Road] in ten years."

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that carry curses

Samantha Mabry's new novel is A Fierce and Subtle Poison. At Tor.com she tagged five books that carry curses, including:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

Like [Junot Díaz's] Oscar Wao, this is another novel that features a generational curse, though the source of the curse can be specifically pin-pointed. Early in the story, one of the characters (Ursula’s mother) warns that a baby born from incest will have the tail of a pig. As the family enters the modern era (or, as the modern era encroaches upon the family), the family morally deteriorates until finally, the prophecy is fulfilled, leaving the pig-tailed baby to be abandoned and eventually eaten by ants. The generational curse is then broken because the family itself is broken.

Read about the other entries on the list.

One Hundred Years of Solitude made Sameer Rahim's list of five essential works by Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende's list of six favorite books, Sara Jonsson's list of five books to read when you can't go to sleep, Juan Gabriel Vásquez's five best list of novels about South America, Pushpinder Khaneka's list of three of the best books on Colombia, Michael Jacobs's list of the top ten Colombian stories, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families and Rebecca Stott's five best list of historical novels. It is one of Lynda Bellingham's six best books, Walter Mosley's five favorite books, Eric Kraft's five most important books, and James Patterson's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books to read before your trip to Cuba

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. At the B&N Reads blog Somers tagged ten books to read before traveling to Cuba, including:

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

You shouldn’t need much prompting to read a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and was instrumental in earning its author the Nobel Prize in Literature, but if you’re headed to Cuba then Papa’s classic account of an elderly Cuban fisherman who spends months attempting to catch a giant marlin off the coast of Florida is essential. Hemingway lived in Cuba off and on for two decades and was an avid fisherman, so for all its lyricism and symbolism the book is written from an expert’s point of view, and many feel it captures the spirit of the country.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Old Man and the Sea is among four books that changed Angelica Banks, Leo Benedictus's five best books for men who never read, Jung Chang's 6 favorite books, Kathryn Williams's thirteen best stories about pride, Scott Greenstone's twenty best books with fewer than 200 pages, Michael Palin's six favorite books, Robson Green's six best books, and Dave Boling's five best examples of how to structure a novel. N.M. Kelby has suggested that The Old Man and the Sea may be The Great Florida Novel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books on Vladimir Putin's Russia

Michael Honig is a former surgeon and lives in England. The Senility of Vladimir P. is his first novel. One of Honig's ten top books on Vladimir Putin's Russia, as shared at the Guardian:

Putin’s Kleptocracy by Karen Dawisha

Published in the US but not in Britain – for fear of the UK’s tyrant-friendly libel laws – American academic Karen Dawisha’s book provides a dispassionate, extensively researched account of Putin’s early criminality and the descent of the Russian government into an engine of organised crime. A must-read for anyone asking if the Putin regime is really as corrupt as people say and who wants to see the balance of evidence for themselves.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: ten books that explain Russia today and five top books on Putin and Russian history.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best female-fronted thrillers

L.S. Hilton grew up in England and has lived in Key West, New York City, Paris, and Milan. After graduating from Oxford, she studied art history in Paris and Florence. She has worked as a journalist, art critic, and broadcaster, and is presently based in London. Her new novel is Maestra. One of Hilton's top ten female-fronted thrillers, as shared at the B&N Reads blog:

Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood

Mental illness, spiritual fanatics, a notorious nineteenth-century murderess who has been misunderstood, this book has everything.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Alias Grace is among Rebecca Jane Stokes's top seven books for fans of Orange Is The New Black and Tracy Chevalier's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue