Ten top books for teens by indigenous authors

Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She is a former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Boulley lives in southwest Michigan, but her home will always be on Sugar Island. Firekeeper's Daughter is her debut novel.

Boulley's second novel, Warrior Girl Unearthed, is due in May.

At Publishers Weekly she tagged ten "must-read books that set the bar for representing Indigenous characters authentically." One title on the list:

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith

When her boyfriend makes disparaging remarks about Native Americans, Muscogee teen Lou dumps his insensitive ass. The budding journalist regroups quickly and focuses on her high school newspaper. When a group of parents form Parents Against Revisionist Theater to protest the racially diverse casting decisions in the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz, Lou and fellow staffer Joey cover the big story. Sparks ensue. Leitich Smith’s story about first loves, missteps, and lessons learned is a delight.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles with happy endings to brighten dark January days

Eva Carter is the author of How to Save a Life. Carter is a pseudonym for internationally bestselling nonfiction and rom-com writer Kate Harrison, who worked as a BBC reporter before becoming an author. She lives in Brighton on the English coast and loves Grey’s Anatomy and walking her own scruffy terrier, who regularly volunteers as a therapy dog at the local hospital.

Carter's new novel is Owner of a Lonely Heart.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight books with happy endings to brighten up dark January days. One title on the list:

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Talking of nostalgia, your childhood favorite must feature somewhere on the January shelf. This is mine. If you like Brit Lit, and haven’t discovered Noel Streatfeild, dive into the irresistible story of Pauline, Petrova and Posy, the talented young Fossil sisters…

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ballet Shoes is among Joanna Quinn's six top books set in & around the theatrical world.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven acts of betrayal in literature

Gabrielle Bates is the author of Judas Goat (2023), named by Vulture and the Chicago Review of Books as a "must-read" book of 2023. A Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship finalist, her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review, among other journals and anthologies.

At Electric Lit Bates tagged seven "titles [that] contend with the ugly facts of betrayal as a way to investigate, ultimately, what it means to be human, and what it means to love." One entry on the list:

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

In the frame story of this Booker Prize–winning novel, an African American man named Bonbon is standing trial for his attempt to restore slavery and segregation to the fictional town of Dickens, California, and the rest of the novel recounts how he got in this bizarre situation. Thought-provoking, darkly comic, and compulsively readable, the betrayals in this book are many and multilayered: the betrayal of a son by his father in the name of sociological experimentation and the betrayal of Black people by the United States, historically and today, just to name two.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Sellout is among Stephanie Soileau's nine books about homesickness for a place that doesn’t exist anymore.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five mysteries & thrillers about returning to your hometown

Kate Alice Marshall is the author of multiple novels for younger readers. She lives outside of Seattle with her husband, a dog named Vonnegut, and her two kids.

What Lies in the Woods is her thriller debut.

At CrimeReads Marshall tagged five top mysteries and thrillers about returning to your hometown, including:

The Shadows – Alex North

Paul Adams hasn’t been back to his hometown in many years—after all, it was there that two of his friends murdered another in a bizarre, ritualistic killing they claimed was in service of an entity called Red Hands that dwells in dreams. One of the boys responsible was arrested, but the other, Charlie Crabtree, vanished without a trace. Now, with his mother in hospice, Paul returns only to discover that another pair of boys have committed a nearly identical murder. Faced with the prospect that Charlie somehow escaped to inspire a new generation, Paul begins to dig into the past to discover where Charlie went that after bloody day.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top works in American Indian history

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, where he is the faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America. He is the author of Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West.

Blackhawk's forthcoming book is The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History.

At Publishers Weekly he tagged ten essential works in American Indian history, including:

Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War by Lisa Brooks

Brook's account challenges the most storied (and studied) of all English colonies: Puritan New England. Tracing the lives of Indigenous leaders—most notably Weetamoo (Wampanaog) and James Printer (Nipmuc)—throughout the 17th century, Brooks uncovers an astonishing degree of cultural continuity in Northeastern Native kinship systems, gender relations, and land-use patterns. Deploying a rich archive and understanding of Algonquian placenames, she re-writes the familiar teleology of Puritan expansion and Indigenous decline, revealing how even after the cataclysmic revolution brought by King Philip’s War, Indigenous diplomacy, confederations, and survival characterized the Native Northeast.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 novels about office jobs

Caroline Corcoran’s first novel, Through The Wall, came out in October 2019. It was a Sunday Times top 20 bestseller and translated into numerous foreign languages. Her second book, The Baby Group, published in September 2020.

As well as writing books, Corcoran is a freelance lifestyle and popular culture journalist who has written and edited for most of the top magazines, newspapers and websites in the UK.

Her newest novel is What Happened on Floor 34?.

At the Guardian Corcoran tagged ten books that put "the workplace front and central to the action." One title on the list:

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Offices are places where great comedy can be found. Booker-shortlisted Joshua Ferris pins this humour down in this character-driven novel with a huge cast of eccentric characters; it is in equal turn tender and tragic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Then We Came to the End is on Jonathan Lee's list of the ten best office dramas and Alice-Azania Jarvis's reading list on unemployment.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles with strong, spirited Southern ladies

Mimi Herman is the author of A Field Guide to Human Emotions and Logophilia. She codirects Writeaways writing workshops in the United States and abroad, and is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. Herman lives in a 1925 bungalow in Durham, North Carolina.

Her new novel is The Kudzu Queen.

At Lit Hub Herman tagged five books with strong, spirited Southern ladies. One title on the list:

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Lee Smith refers to Mattie as “the most appealing young heroine since Scout,” yet I didn’t even think about Scout until I’d finished writing The Kudzu Queen. But once she came into my head, I realized that Mattie is exactly what Scout might have grown into a few years down the road: sassy and fierce and perhaps too smart for her own good—certainly too smart for the good of anyone who aims to hurt people she cares about. She makes up her own mind about people, and while she’s stubborn, she changes her opinions as she learns new information. I like a narrator who runs on sass, pragmatism and wonder, so it makes sense that Scout feels like part of Mattie’s family.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that could serve as a primer on creating credible, complex and engaging characters. The language is extraordinary, both in the dialogue and in Scout’s monologues on the ways her world works. Harper Lee’s ear in writing and revising this book was pretty close to pitch-perfect. To Kill a Mockingbird is a relative’s house I recommend revisiting, for the family you’ll find there and the music of the narration.

Read about the other entries on the list.

To Kill a Mockingbird made 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

Six notable books with embedded narratives

Ana Reyes has an MFA from Louisiana State University and a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work has appeared in Bodega, Pear Noir!, The New Delta Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teaches creative writing to older adults at Santa Monica College.

The House in the Pines in her first novel.

At CrimeReads Reyes tagged six top stories within stories, including:

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

“My job is to show you a door you can open,” says Holly, a prison writing teacher and star of the outermost story in Jennifer Egan’s The Keep. The door Holly speaks of exists within our minds, accessed by the reading and creation of stories, a concept particularly tantalizing for her incarcerated students. Holly may enter and exit the jail at will, but she too is locked inside her own narrative of addiction and regret, echoing those of her students. The novel revolves around a seemingly autobiographical story written by one of them; a mind-bending tale about a troubled man tasked with helping his cousin renovate a creepy castle. Reading it, Holly can’t know what of it is “real” and what is fantasy, but by the end of the novel, this seems beside the point.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Keep is among Susan Choi's six books that overturn conventions.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine novels about losing / finding yourself in work

Josh Riedel was the first employee at Instagram, where he worked for several years before earning his MFA from the University of Arizona. His short stories have appeared in One Story, Passages North, and Sycamore Review.

Please Report Your Bug Here is his first novel.

He lives in San Francisco, California.

At Electric Lit Riedel tagged nine novels about losing (and finding) yourself in work, including:

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

At once hilarious and heartbreaking, this slim novel follows a temp worker as she takes on a series of increasingly absurd jobs, from an assassin’s assistant to the Chairman of the Board. At some point she even takes on a job as a barnacle—yes, a sea creature—and listens to her coworker’s dream of becoming “the barnacle that rides on the back of a whale. A special kind of breed.” It’s probably the one scene that’s clung in my memory more than any other in the last five years, because it highlights the very relatable absurdity of workplace aspirations.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books that men love

Katie Hafner was on staff at The New York Times for ten years, where she remains a frequent contributor, writing on healthcare and technology. She has also worked at Newsweek and BusinessWeek, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Wired, The New Republic, The Washington Post, and O, The Oprah Magazine. She is the author of five previous works of nonfiction covering a range of topics, including the origins of the Internet, computer hackers, German reunification, and the pianist Glenn Gould.

Her first novel, The Boys, was published in July 2022.

At Publishers Weekly Hafner tagged ten books "that feed and fray men’s souls," including:

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

For years I adored everything about this 1971 novel: the love story; the raw depiction of the American West; the elemental struggles. This, no doubt, is why so many men love it, too. In solidarity with Mary Foote, the woman from whom Stegner apparently stole entire swaths of prose, I recently banished this tome from my shelf. Still, I understand its enduring appeal: Stegner’s leaps of the imagination into the troubled marriage of Susan and Oliver Ward; their confrontations with the frontier and its perilous terrain; the American dream turned rancid, then tragic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Angle of Repose is among Jamie Lee Curtis's six favorite books, Monique Alice's seven top works of Western fiction, Paula Fredriksen's five best books on sin, and Andrea Wulf's six favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine of the best killer dolls and puppets in books

Grady Hendrix is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter living in New York City. He is the author of Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which is being adapted into a feature film by Amazon Studios), We Sold Our Souls, and the New York Times bestseller The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (currently being adapted into a TV series). Hendrix also authored the Bram Stoker Award–winning nonfiction book Paperbacks from Hell, a history of the horror paperback boom of the seventies and eighties, and the non-fiction book These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World.

Hendix's new novel is How to Sell a Haunted House.

At CrimeReads he tagged nine of the fictional "dolls and puppets you should go out of your way to avoid," including:

Clothilde Dupont (The Witch Doll, Helen Morgan)

Despite being marketed to children, Helen Morgan’s The Witch Doll features one of the grossest dolls in Western Literature. Clothilde is cold, snobby, and criticizes the way other people dress, which seems on brand for a French governess. Where she goes wildly off the rails is her obsession with knitting tiny wigs out of people’s hair that she fits onto her wooden doll. As she combs the wig, its hair gets longer, the doll grows larger, and the hair donor’s body shrinks until they become a doll and the doll becomes them. That taste in your mouth? That’s your gorge hitting the back of your throat.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven novels with real estate & urban planning as the heroes and villains

Oindrila Mukherjee grew up in India, where she worked as a journalist for the country's oldest English language newspaper The Statesman. She has attended university on three continents and now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she teaches creative writing at Grand Valley State University.

Her debut novel is The Dream Builders.

At Electric Lit Mukherjee tagged seven city novels in which real estate and urban planning are the heroes and villains. One title on the list:

Mumbai: Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

In his second novel, the Booker Prize winning author once again takes on class divisions in contemporary India. The residents of Vishram Society, a venerable old apartment complex in a middle-class suburb of Mumbai, are suddenly confronted with an unexpected offer. Dharmen Shah, a powerful self-made real estate developer, offers to buy them out so he can demolish the crumbling structure to make way for the luxury high-rise of his dreams: the Shanghai. One by one we learn of the lives and struggles of the residents who have, until now, cohabited peacefully. Most of them agree to sell their flats for the fortune that is guaranteed to improve their lives. But a handful resist, including the retired schoolteacher, Masterji, who cherishes the memories of his late wife and daughter in the flat where he has lived for over three decades. But in this world of ruthless builders and redevelopment schemes, is resistance even possible?

The clock ticks for both Shah whose health is deteriorating fast, and for the residents of Vishram who must yield before October 3 or forever relinquish their dreams of a better life. The tensions between the neighbors rise, with loyalties and old friendships being put to the test. As the deadline looms and pressure mounts from Shah and his sinister associates, Masterji is left alone to make up his mind, in a world that has grown increasingly hostile. In this grittily realistic book, every character is human, even when they do monstrous things. In the backdrop is the maelstrom that is Mumbai. Where there are few degrees of separation between mafia, businessmen, movie producers, law enforcement officials, and politicians. Where everyone wants something, where everything can be bought. Or can it?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue