Six of the best feminist thrillers

Nora Murphy attended law school in Washington, D.C., then worked as a judicial law clerk before transitioning to private practice. During law school, she participated in two clinics through which she represented and studied the issues facing survivors of intimate partner violence. A practicing attorney, Murphy writes as much as she can, usually long before the sunrise or on her phone for brief moments when the inspiration strikes. She resides in Maryland with her husband, young son, and five rescue pets.

The Favor is Murphy's first novel.

At CrimeReads she tagged some of her favorite feminist thrillers, including:

The Wife by Alafair Burke

Alafair Burke’s The Wife is, for me, as much a story about the relationship between a mother and her daughter as it is a #MeToo novel. Angela’s comfortable marriage to Jason, an economics professor and bestselling author, is turned upside down when an intern accuses him of sexual harassment. This accusation is followed by another by a woman named Kerry Lynch. Kerry then disappears, and The Wife tells the story of how Angela, and the people surrounding her, handle these accusations against Jason, which cause Angela to question everything she thought she knew about the man she had married.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Page 69 Test: The Wife.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about listening to nature

David George Haskell is a writer and biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, is an Editor’s Choice at the New York Times and explores the story of sound on Earth. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, he illuminates and celebrates the emergence, diversification, and loss of the sounds of our world, including human music and language.

At the Guardian Haskell tagged ten books that "helped me to hear better and to understand the stories behind the sounds I was hearing" in nature. One title on the list:

What the Robin Knows by Jon Young

Careful listening to the sounds of birds not only cues us into the identity of the songsters, their sounds can also attune us to the landscape. The nuances of the calls and songs of everyday birds can reveal the nature and location of animals such as foxes and owls, and also connect us to seasonal rhythms and year-to-year changes. Young is an evangelist for “sit spots”, locations that we return to again and again to open our senses to the world, a practice that I have found essential to my own education in listening. Repeated attention to one place helps us to belong to it, rather than existing as outside observers.

Read about the other entries on the list at the Guardian.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about big money New York real estate

Adam Piore is an award-winning journalist based in New York. A former editor and correspondent for Newsweek magazine, his narrative features have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, GQ, Discover Magazine, Mother Jones, Playboy, Scientific American, the Atavist, BusinessWeek and many others.

Piore's new book is The New Kings of New York.

At Lit Hub he tagged five of his favorite books about New York City's "most iconic properties, and the big personalities behind them." One title on the list:

Julie Satow, The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel (Twelve)

Satow’s book is epic in scope, tracing the illustrious history of a hotel that was synonymous with luxury and glamour through many generations. This book has it all—The Plaza’s Gilded Age birth in 1907, when its hallowed halls were inhabited by the likes of the Vanderbilts, Astors. and Morgans. The roaring 20s and the Jazz Age—those giddy good times before the fall when a young F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald took a drunken dip in the fountain outside. (Ernest Hemingway once joked that when Scott died his liver should go to Princeton and his heart to the Plaza.)

And the famous institution’s role during the dawning of the second Gilded Age: you can read about the condo conversation plan in the early aughts, when a mysterious Russian oligarch, famous for surviving a car bombing in a Kremlin parking lot, paid a record price for the hotel’s largest penthouse. And, once again, the ubiquitous Harry Macklowe and his soon-to-be-divorced wife of 57 years, who also purchased a pair of units, moved in, and muscled onto the condo board. Along the way, you’ll read about a cold-blooded murder, a disgraced Indian tycoon who ran the hotel from a maximum-security prison cell 7,000 miles away in Delhi, and the real story behind Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Books by women, recommended by male writers

Mary Ann Sieghart leads a portfolio life. She makes programs for BBC Radio 4 and is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London. She spent 2018-19 as a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she researched her book, The Authority Gap, on why women are taken less seriously than men. She is Chair of the judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.

For the Guardian Sieghart asked a number of well-known male writers about their favorite books by women. One entry on the list:

Richard Curtis: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Strout is my absolute favourite, and Olive Kitteridge is the masterpiece. Its profound humanity; its deeply flawed but wonderful heroine; its remarkable structure, separate stories from one life that add up to a total picture; its perfect language page after page. It would be crazy to generalise about men’s books and women’s books – but I do feel my whole life has been hugely enriched and my sense of the world deepened by at last flying around in the other half of the sky.

Read about the other books on the list.

Olive Kitteridge is among Elizabeth Lowry's top ten difficult marriages in fiction, Lisa Harding's six top out-of-control characters in literary fiction, Genevieve Plunkett's seven books about the search for intimacy, Emma Duffy-Comparone’s seven darkly humorous titles about relationships, Susie Yang's six titles featuring dark anti-heroines, Sara Collins's six favorite bad women in fiction, Laura Barnett's ten top unconventional love stories, and Sophie Ward's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 10 most captivating apocalypse books

David Yoon is the New York Times bestselling author of Frankly in Love, Super Fake Love Song, and for adult readers, Version Zero and City of Orange.

He’s a William C. Morris Award finalist and an Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature Honor book recipient.

At CrimeReads Yoon tagged ten of his favorite apocalypse novels. One title on the list:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

This riveting non-fiction book takes a simple question—What happens after humans go extinct?—and follows the thread all the way to Earth’s inevitable disintegration. It even talks about how our broadcast waves will eventually disappear, too, unless aliens are game and able enough to record them. It’s a strangely comforting book. Sure, one day, anything humans ever did or said will be gone without a trace. But so will all our preoccupations with legacy and reputation and legend, too. So why worry?

Read about the other entries on the list.

The World Without Us appears on Randall Munroe's list of six recommended books, Drew Williams's list of five books to help you recover from the loss of your planet, David Mitchell's six favorite books list, Annalee Newitz's list of thirty-five essential posthuman novels, and is one of Louise Erdrich's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books featuring unconventional families

Amy Feltman graduated from Vassar College in 2010 and earned her M.F.A. in Fiction at Columbia University in 2016, where she was also a Creative Writing Graduate Teaching Fellow. She is the author of Willa & Hesper (2019), which was longlisted for the National Jewish Book Awards’ Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction.

Her new novel is All the Things We Don’t Talk About.

At Lit Hub Feltman shared a reading list of books featuring unconventional families. One title on the list:

Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

The Killers asked: “It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?” That line that goes through my head whenever I think about this gorgeous, wide-scope family novel. We hit the ground running when Bert Cousins crashes a christening party and kisses Beverly, the (married) mother of the newly christened Franny. What follows is the end of both marriages and the turbulent, at times disastrous, blending of the Keating and Cousins families. Tracking the relationships among the children as they grow up is both a joy and a stressfest.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Commonwealth is among Ingrid Persaud's ten top novels about unconventional families.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight novels of wonder and darkness by women writers

Born and raised in Virginia, Ashleigh Bell Pedersen holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Pedersen’s fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, and New Stories from the South, and has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. Her short story “Crocodile” won the 2020 Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest.

Pedersen's new novel is The Crocodile Bride.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight of her favorite magical novels by women writers, including:

Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe is set in the world of the Greek gods, and tells the story of our heroine’s journey from her upbringing as the daughter of narcissistic Helios and Perse, to her life as an exiled sorceress. It explores themes of love, connection, family, and solitude—to name a few—but what I found most moving of all was this novel’s exploration of mortality through the lens of immortality. So much of Circe’s journey is about her relationship, not to magic, but to the ordinary aspects of life that magic cannot touch. It is a stunning read, one I think about often.

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

Circe is among 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

Five of the most salacious thrillers

May Cobb earned her MA in literature from San Francisco State University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Rumpus, Edible Austin, and Austin Monthly.

She is the author of the novels The Hunting Wives and the newly released My Summer Darlings.

A Texas native, Cobb lives in Austin with her family.

At CrimeReads she tagged her five favorite salacious thrillers, including:

More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez

I had the pleasure of reading this mesmerizing, groundbreaking literary suspense early and I’m here to testify that this is the kind of novel that will resound for years to come. Even the tag line is salacious: “The dance becomes an affair, which becomes a marriage, which becomes a murder.” More Than You’ll Ever Know follows a propulsive, dual narrative that follows Lore Rivera, who, in 1985, finds herself living a double life in both Laredo, Texas, and also in Mexico City by marrying two men in each city, one who eventually gets arrested for murdering the other. The other pov is set in present day and is that of Cassie Bowman, a true-crime writer who stumbles across Lore’s story and becomes obsessed with finding out the truth of Lore’s past. The oft-tropey themes of infidelity, betrayal, secrets and lies–and also our society’s fixation on true crime—are so artfully explored in Gutierrez’s deft hands that they become intensely nuanced and personal, an elevated meditation on marriage, motherhood, and the shadow self that lies in wait inside all of us.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 novels about inheritance

Cressida Connolly is a reviewer and journalist who has written for Vogue, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Guardian and numerous other publications. Connolly's books include The Happiest Days, which won the MacMillan/PEN Award, The Rare and the Beautiful, My Former Heart, and After the Party.

Her new novel is Bad Relations.

At the Guardian Connolly tagged ten top novels about inheritance, including:

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Johnson examines an alternative America in which the white supremacist attack that took place in Charlottesville in 2017 was only a beginning. Fleeing racist militia, fugitives from a threatened neighbourhood pitch up at Monticello, the plantation home of the third US president, Thomas Jefferson. The story is narrated by Da’Naisha, a descendant of his from his relationship with an enslaved woman, Sally Hemings. This book is a history lesson, a fable, an inquiry into the nature of historic monuments, a heartfelt tale of community and above all a nail-biting story.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five horror titles that will change your view of everyday objects

Nina Nesseth is a professional science communicator. Her background is rooted in biomedical sciences and science communication, with a special interest in human biology. She is a staff scientist at Science North in Sudbury, Ontario. In 2017, Nesseth co-authored The Science of Orphan Black: The Official Companion, published by ECW Press.

Her forthcoming book is Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films.

At Tor.com Nesseth tagged "five horror novels that, at some point in my life, really made me rethink what sort of stuff I keep lying around my house." One entry on the list:

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

“Guts” is probably the most well-known story featured in Palahniuk’s 2005 novel Haunted; it’s infamous for its high

fainting-factor during live readings. If body horror isn’t your thing, all you need to know is this: a teen boy experiments with the suction of his family’s swimming pool’s drainage system for pleasure. Things take a turn for the grisly.

If this scenario sounds familiar, it might be because the Final Destination franchise similarly employed a pool drain to deadly effect a few years later in The Final Destination (2009). While it’s true that faulty drain covers can actually be dangerous, between “Guts” and The Final Destination, you might find yourself a little more nervous than necessary next time you go to take a dip in the pool.

Read about the other entries on the list at Tor.com.

Haunted is among Jeff Somers's six novels that can teach you real-life skills, five books that work equally well as both novels and story collections, and four huge books that will hurt your brain—but in a good way, Ginni Chen's top eight bone-chilling books to help beat the summer heat, and Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders's ten horror novels that are scarier than almost any movie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that show a different side of horse girls

Courtney Maum is the author of the novels Costalegre, Touch, I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You, and the handbook Before and After the Book Deal: A writer’s guide to finishing, publishing, promoting, and surviving your first book. Her writing has been widely published in such outlets as BuzzFeed; the New York Times; O, the Oprah Magazine; and Poets & Writers.

[The Page 69 Test: I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You; The Page 69 Test: Touch; The Page 69 Test: Costalegre]

Maum's new book is the memoir, The Year of the Horses.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books about "horse girls who are dirty, daring, and feminist as hell," including:

Horse: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

An enslaved but gifted groom on the eve of the civil war, a gallery owner haunted by a 19th-century equestrian oil painting and two Smithsonian scientists—one of whom is studying the suppressed history of Black horsemen—all come together in this sweeping exploration of racial injustice by Pulitzer Prize-winning Geraldine Brooks.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles featuring teens behaving badly

Davida G. Breier was born in Miami, FL and spent her formative years in Florida, rural Minnesota, urban New Jersey, and suburban Pennsylvania. She’s worked as a youth sports photographer, TV extra, substitute teacher, jewelry maker, bookseller, and ATM cleaner. Breier discovered the world of zines and independent publishing in 1994 and Baltimore’s City Paper awarded her with “Best Local Zinester” in 2000 and “Best Zine” in 2003. She won the Literary Death Match, Baltimore 3.0 event in 2011. She’s spent the last two decades in various roles within the book industry and currently works for Johns Hopkins University Press. Breier lives in Maryland with her family, a pack of wee rescue dogs, a rescue tortoise, and two companion chickens.

Her new novel is Sinkhole.

At CrimeReads Breier tagged nine books featuring teens behaving badly, including:

A Secret Place by Tana French

Set at St. Kilda’s School, a girls’ boarding school in Dublin, Tana French brings readers inside the clandestine underworld of teenage girls. A Secret Place refers to a physical message board where students leave anonymous posts that range from the mundane to the cruel to cries for help. French has said she was inspired by the site PostSecret. A message is left with a photo of a boy who was found murdered on school grounds a year ago with the caption, “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.”

The murdered boy, Chris Harper, was handsome and popular and the investigation into his death has been at a standstill. The Dublin Murder squad, in this installment Detective Stephen Moran and Detective Antoinette Conway, are called in to investigate. They are faced with the daunting task of penetrating tight cliques of teenage girls to discover the truth.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Secret Place is among C. J. Cooke's eight thrillers & mysteries with underlying supernatural elements, Cambria Brockman's five thrillers featuring a small group of friends, Adele Parks's eight crime novels featuring intense female friendship, Kristen Lepionka's ten top female detectives in fiction, the B&N Reads editors' five favorite fun, fearless femmes fatales in fiction, and Kelly Anderson's seven amazing female friendships in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue