Ten books that were banned

Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis are the authors of Censored: A Literary History of Subversion & Control. One of ten books they tagged that were subject to silencing or censorship, as shared at the Guardian:

The Housewife’s Handbook on Selective Promiscuity by Lillian Maxine Serett (1960)

In 1966, while clearing Fanny Hill, the US Supreme Court upheld publisher and bookseller Ralph Ginzburg’s conviction for mailing material including Serett’s sexual autobiography, The Housewife’s Handbook, in which she hoped to show “that various forms of sexual expression are normal and healthy things to do, and also that women do have sexual rights”.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five picture books with a focus on compassion and hope

At the BN Kids Blog Maria Burel tagged five "picture books [to] empower young children to make a difference in their world, in the simplest of ways," including:

Ordinary Mary’s Extrordinary Deed, by Emily Pearson and Fumi Kosaka

Mary is just an ordinary girl, having an ordinary day, doing normal, ordinary things. But then one of those ordinary things leads to a kindness that multiplies not once, not twice, but over and over. A chain reaction of kindness that spans the globe until, fittingly, it comes back to where it all started, with Ordinary Mary. This story will having children thinking twice about the seeming unimportance of a simple, kind gesture.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five SFF worlds tied together by string theory

Ryan Graudin's most recent novel is Invictus. At Tor.com she tagged "five of [her] favorite series that cross multiple dimensions," including:

Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab

I, like many others, love Schwab’s take on the multiverse. This series features a finite number of worlds, all four connected by a single fixed city. Grey, Red, White and Black… each version of London has its own personality and only Kell, the protagonist, possesses the ability to travel between them. His magic is a dying breed, however, and the consequences of this become clear when Kell mistakenly smuggles an item that puts every London in peril. The way Schwab parallels these worlds while also pitting them against each other makes for an addictive, exciting read.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifty of the best adventure novels

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged "50 adventure novels you have to read before you die," including:

The Eiger Sanction, by Trevanian

Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is an art collector and mountaineer with a secret side-job as an assassin who takes contracts targeting other assassins who have killed American agents. To kill his latest target, he must join a group of mountain climbers tackling one of the most dangerous climbs in the world, figure out which one of the men is the subject of the sanction—and survive.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten brothers and sisters in fiction

Sarah Ward is the author of the crime novels In Bitter Chill, A Deadly Thaw, and A Patient Fury. One of her ten top brothers and sisters in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Mr Darcy is his younger sister Georgiana’s guardian and has already had to see off her attempted seduction by the feckless George Wickham. Georgiana is a faint character at first, introduced to Elizabeth Bennet in conversations that praise her musical ability but suggest she shares her brother’s weakness, pride. It is not until Elizabeth witnesses firsthand the fond relationship between the siblings in the inn at Lambton that she sees their true affection.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on Tara Sonin's lists of Fifty must-read regency romances and seven sweet and swoony romances for wedding season, Grant Ginder's top ten list of book characters we love to hate, Katy Guest's list of six of the best depictions of shyness in fiction, Garry Trudeau's six favorite books list, Ross Johnson's list of seven of the greatest rivalries in fiction, Helen Dunmore's six best books list, Jenny Kawecki's list of eight fictional characters who would make the best travel companions, Peter James's top ten list of works of fiction set in or around Brighton, Ellen McCarthy's list of six favorite books about weddings and marriage, the Telegraph's list of the ten greatest put-downs in literature, Rebecca Jane Stokes' list of ten fictional families you might enjoy more than the one you'll actually spend the holidays with, Melissa Albert's lists of five fictional characters who deserved better, [fifteen of the] romantic leads (and wannabes) of Austen’s brilliant books and recommended reading for eight villains, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance, Emma Donoghue's list of five favorite unconventional fictional families, Amelia Schonbek's list of five approachable must-read classics, Jane Stokes's top ten list of the hottest men in required reading, Gwyneth Rees's top ten list of books about siblings, the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Paula Byrne's list of the ten best Jane Austen characters, Robert McCrum's list of the top ten opening lines of novels in the English language, a top ten list of literary lessons in love, Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Cathy Cassidy's top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best housekeepers in fiction, ten great novels with terrible original titles, and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen of the best YA gothic novels

At the BN Teen blog Nicole Hill tagged fourteen top YA gothic novels, including:

Beware the Wild, by Natalie C. Parker

You should pick this one up primarily because of two words: haunted swamp. Nothing good happens in the swamp outside of Sticks, Louisiana. Sterling knows this, and after her brother, Phin, goes missing in its muddy depths, she may be the only one who can figure out what happened. Phin didn’t return, but a girl named Lenora May comes home in his place—and Sterling’s the only one who remembers she had a brother, not a sister. It’s a Southern twist on changeling mythology.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Beware the Wild is among Jennifer Mathieu's six best books for introverts and Dahlia Adler's five great southern gothic Young Adult novels.

The Page 69 Test: Beware the Wild.

My Book, The Movie: Beware the Wild.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top books featuring iconic sleuths

Nelson DeMille's new thriller is The Cuban Affair. One of the author's six favorite books featuring iconic sleuths, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

Sjöwall and Wahlöö set the standard for Scandinavian noir, and also for brooding, flawed Scandinavian detectives. Unlike most of his Anglo-American counterparts, Martin Beck — in true socialist-democracy style — enlists other detectives to help him solve his cases. You eventually come to admire Beck, even if you don't like him.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books non-geek parents of geeks need to read

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged ten books non-geek parents of geeks need to read, including:

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

Heinlein’s influential sci-fi novel isn’t for everyone, but in it he captures the unique combination of brilliance, superiority, terror, and loneliness that defines many geeky folks’ early life experiences. The story of a human raised on Mars by Martians who returns to Earth as the ultimate outsider, it explores that painful outsider status in a way that resonates with many smart kids, while introducing a ton of concepts (and fun words like grok) that have become foundational in geek culture.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Stranger in a Strange Land is among John Bardinelli's five long books that deserve their own movie series, MaryKate Jasper and Charlie Jane Anders's top ten super-weird books that are considered part of the science fiction canon, and Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore's favorite sci-fi novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten Young Adult books that tackle racism

Dhonielle Clayton is the co-author of the Tiny Pretty Things series and the forthcoming The Belles. A former teacher and middle school librarian, Clayton is co-founder of CAKE Literary—a creative development company whipping up decidedly diverse books for a wide array of readers—and COO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books. At Paste magazine, she tagged ten top YA books that tackle racism, including:

How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon

Black 16-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot and killed by Jack Franklin, a white man. Sound familiar? As Tariq’s community tries to piece their lives back together again, readers will discover that no two accounts of the incident tell the whole truth. Everyone struggles to make sense of how everything went down. But all readers should question the things they think are true about how the media portrays boys who wear hoodies and look like Tariq.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five dark romances for adventurous readers

At B&N Reads Amanda Diehl tagged five gritty and twisted dark romances for adventurous readers, including:

First Touch, by Laurelin Paige

When Emily Wayborn receives a voicemail that her best friend is in trouble, she drops everything to track her down. Her amateur investigation leads her to billionaire hotelier Reeve Sallis. Reeve is rumored to be involved with the mafia and Emily believes he has some sort of involvement in her friend’s disappearance. What follows is an erotic cat and mouse game in the seductive world of the rich and dangerous. Told from Emily’s point of view, First Touch is full of suspense and readers never truly know whether or not Reeve is trustworthy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alastair Campbell's six best books

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Blair and the Labour Party, including during the 2005 and subsequent election campaigns. He is now engaged mainly in writing, public speaking and consultancy and is an ambassador for a number of mental health charities. His new book is Diaries Volume 6: From Blair to Brown, 2005 - 2007.

One of Campbell's six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

TEAM OF RIVALS by Doris Kearns Goodwin

One of the best books written about politics. It brilliantly tells the story of Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable rise and how he built his administration around his rivals for the Republican nomination. It is a horrible thought that Donald Trump could now sleep in the Lincoln bed and the book’s a great reminder of a very different presidential character.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six memoirs by funny, awkward women

Sarah Skilton is the author of Bruised, a martial arts drama for young adults; and High and Dry, a hardboiled teen mystery. At the B&N Reads blog she tagged six funny, awkward memoirs by funny, awkward women, including:

You’ll Grow Out of It, by Jessi Klein

As a tomboy who, despite the title, has never actually “grown out of it,” Klein’s highly relatable memoir analyzes the modern trappings of femininity, from the cult of bathing to the difficulty in finding women-friendly porn to the pressure placed on pregnant women to endure “natural births.” Her discovery of standup comedy as a refuge, passion, and calling takes her far in life. From SNL to Inside Amy Schumer (for which she won an Emmy as Head Writer), Klein never loses sight of what it means to be a woman today, whether you’re a poodle or a wolf.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue