Ten essential titles of Northern Irish literature

Alexander Poots was born in London in 1985. After studying at the University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford, he worked as a bookseller.

The Strangers’ House: Writing Northern Ireland is his first book.

He lives in Belfast.

At Publishers Weekly Poots tagged ten works with the "tact, nuance, and deep historical understanding" essential to capturing the "predicament" (Seamus Heaney's term) that is Northern Ireland. One title on the list:

Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine

One aspect of the Troubles that receives little attention is the manner in which decades of conflict quashed all other stories in Northern Ireland. Even during the worst years, people got married, started bands, moved house, and changed careers. Erskine’s debut collection of short stories, largely set in contemporary Belfast, moves the focus back to the inner lives and struggles of Northern Irish people. While the Troubles cast a shadow—as in “To All Their Dues,” in which a woman who opens a beauty salon must deal with the demands of local paramilitaries—sectarianism is a background hum, not the subject. My favorite story here is “the soul has no skin,” where an act of kindness hollows out a young man’s life.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten sinister small town thrillers

At B&N Reads Brittany Bunzey tagged ten sinister small town thrillers, including:

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor

Our June Mystery and Thriller Monthly Pick, Dirt Creek, follows an investigation after a local girl’s disappearance shakes a town. Determined to bring her best friend home, Ronnie launches her own investigation, and the more people talk to her, the more she wonders how many of them are lying about what they know. All about the ties that bind us together and the past that follows us, this debut is a powerful story with twists and turns that will catch you by surprise.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Dirt Creek is among Jane Harper's five top Australian thrillers and mysteries.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five noir classics at the corner of Hollywood and music

Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume, Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him “an incomparable punk stylist.”

His new novel is The Last Songbird.

At CrimeReads Weizmann tagged five noir titles that "feature mysteries, musicians, and mayhem against a Tinseltown backdrop." One entry on the list:

Speaking of L.A. in the freak-out Sixties, nobody has ever taken a more sobering look at it than the great Walter Mosley, in one of his many Easy Rawlins masterpieces, Little Green. The book starts with Easy half-comatose after a near fatal car crash, but just as soon as he steps off his sick bed, he slips, like Alice falling up, into a new Wonderland, the dizzying world of hippie counterculture. Easy’s assignment: find Evander Noon, a young Black man who has gone missing while up on the Sunset Strip checking out some rock bands. Reading Little Green, I couldn’t help but reflect on Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols, Black heroes of the band Love, and the insidious way that L.A.’s invisible color line has always tried in vain to keep worlds apart.

Read about the other titles on Weizmann's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine books about book people

Jane L. Rosen is an author and screenwriter whose critically acclaimed first novel, Nine Women, One Dress, has been translated into ten languages. Katie Couric called her novel Eliza Starts a Rumor “A smart, engaging treat for Big Little Lies fans. The perfect summer read!” Rosen lives in New York City and on Fire Island with her husband and three daughters.

[The Page 69 Test: Eliza Starts a Rumor; My Book, The Movie: Eliza Starts a Rumor]

Rosen's new novel is On Fire Island.

At Lit Hub she tagged nine books about book people, including:

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Another of my never-miss authors, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s literary gem drew me in from page one.When a once-promising young writer turned professor hears his student has died, he steals the plot of the student’s destined-for-success book in hopes of enjoying success of his own. As an author, little is scarier than being out of ideas, and while I don’t recommend Jacob Finch Bonner’s solution, it was a thrill to watch the twists unfold.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Plot is among Elyse Friedman's eight novels featuring schemers & opportunists, E.G. Scott's five best books-within-books, Kimberly Belle's four thrillers with maximum escapism, and Louise Dean's top ten novels about novelists.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about connecting with nature

Hannah Stowe writes, paints, and sails. Her boat is named Larry.

I am drawn to literature that cements humans as a part of nature and stories than use the natural world to anchor our lived experiences, to explore what it means to be human, to help to understand ourselves as a part of the ecosystem [she writes at the Guardian]. In my own writing, I explore my changing relationship with the sea, how nature has both hurt and healed my body and mind, and how wild creatures have provided waypoints along a physical and emotional navigation.

Stowe's new book is Move Like Water: My Story of the Sea.

At the Guardian she tagged ten books that "explore how nature can help us understand the human experiences of addiction, illness, loss, loneliness and allow us to find solace, sanctuary, connection and subtle wisdom in the wild." One title on the list:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A professor, a botanist, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a mother. Kimmerer draws on her scientific background and Indigenous wisdom to teach us how to listen to the natural world, and reinforce our place in it, as part of a whole. The author has used all of herself, her background, her training, to deliver a book that is ecologically complete, vital in its message, its intelligence, its argument, its celebration.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Braiding Sweetgrass is among Sarah Thomas's top ten nature memoirs.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers in which the house hides a sordid past

Jaclyn Goldis is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and NYU Law. She practiced estate planning law at a large Chicago firm for seven years before leaving her job to travel the world and write novels. After culling her possessions into only what would fit in a backpack, she traveled for over a year until settling near the beach, where she can often be found writing from cafés.

Her new novel is The Chateau.

At CrimeReads Goldis tagged six thrillers in which the house hides a sinister past, including:

Curtain by Agatha Christie

Poirot’s final hurrah is one of my very favorite Christies, but best saved for readers who’ve already covered the breadth of the famed detective’s previous exploits. Christie ingeniously selects the rambling country house where Poirot and his sidekick solved their first mystery together for the site of their last. A mind-blowingly twisty plot makes use of the property’s gardens, windows from which suspicious acts are viewed, and bedrooms where the guests slumber—or don’t—in close quarters. In Curtain, Poirot may be old and relegated to a wheelchair, but his little gray cells are as sharp as ever.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine love stories for every decade of life

Nzinga Temu is a writer who received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Howard University. During her undergraduate studies she has written for Zenger News and Picture This Post.

At Electric Lit she tagged "nine love stories, each in a different decade of life," including:

80s: John and Jackie by T.J. Klune

At the age of eighty, it is rare and beautiful to love the person that you met at age twelve. In the last hours of John’s life, he and his husband Jackie recount their 70 years together within five stories, through hardships and happy times. John and Jackie by T.J. Klune is a window into a deep, meaningful, and long lasting relationship between two people who have become each other’s world.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top quiet apocalypse stories

Jane Hennigan was born and raised in Aldershot in Hampshire. After a decade working in E-commerce, she gained a degree in English Literature and Philosophy from Royal Holloway, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey. She spent seven years teaching English literature undergraduates, before moving to the seaside to concentrate on writing.

She is the author of the dystopian speculative fiction titles Moths and Toxxic.

At Lit Hub Hennigan tagged "six titles, centering around personal, introspective aspects of the demise of humanity—who would you want there with you on that final day, what it might feel like to watch the final days unfold, and what if the hero can’t save us all?" One entry on the list:

The Stranding by Kate Sawyer

The apocalypse unfolds gradually, as a series of environmental disasters lead to societal collapse. The narrative follows Ruth, who seeks refuge in a beached whale carcass, and Nik, who joins her in this unconventional sanctuary. Nature figures highly, as you would expect in a book starting with a beached whale – the focus is on intimate physical aspects—flesh, touch, sex, birth—the reader is repeatedly reminded that we’re denizens of the natural world. A moving story about a woman’s escape from her old life and the strength she needs to forge a new one, emerging from the belly of a whale.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top thrillers about women getting revenge

Victoria Helen Stone, author of the runaway best seller Jane Doe, writes critically acclaimed novels of dark intrigue and emotional suspense. Aside from At The Quiet Edge, The Last One Home, Problem Child, Half Past, and the chart-topping False Step and Evelyn, After, she also published twenty-nine books as USA Today bestselling author Victoria Dahl and won the prestigious American Library Association Reading List award for best genre fiction.

Her new novel is The Hook.

At CrimeReads Stone tagged five favorite thrillers about women getting revenge, including:

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

This audiobook (narrated by Catherine Ho) was an absolute delight. A young college graduate moves back to Malaysia with her family, and three generations live together: daughter, mother, and grandmother. Except this grandma is a ghost. At first, the haunting feels almost cozy, but grandma isn’t back for a visit. She wants revenge… and she’s brought along a friend who wants a little payback for herself too.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles centered around fractured families & relationships

At B&N Reads Brittany Bunzey tagged eight books centered around fractured families and relationships, including:

All Adults Here by Emma Straub

A multigenerational story of the things we carry with us into adulthood, All Adults Here is a warm and witty tale filled with the ups and downs of one family’s reflections. After witnessing a tragedy, the matriarch reassesses her parenting and how it affected her now-adult children. Celebrating the messiness of those we hold dear, Emma Straub’s novel touches on family dynamics and forgiveness with the keen observations and charm she is known for.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books set in Hawai’i by local authors

Lisa Zhuang is an intern at Electric Literature. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from Emory University and currently resides in mid-Missouri.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight novels, short stories and poetry collections set in Hawaii and written by local authors, including:

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

In Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s debut short story collection, superstitions come alive and turn into truths. Night Marchers wander the lands. Pele’s wrath is not to be trifled with. Characters refuse to whistle at night and do not sleep with their toes pointed towards the door. Though the ghosts of colonialism haunt the land, the cast of women in Kakimoto’s stories survive and thrive on generations of shared wisdom.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 cops in fiction

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing. His debut novel Bloody January was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, February’s Son was nominated for an Edgar Award, Bobby March Will Live Forever was picked as a Times Best Book of the Year, won a Prix Mystère de la Critique Award and won an Edgar Award. The April Dead was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year and May God Forgive won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2022. He lives and works in Glasgow.

To Die In June is the sixth Harry McCoy thriller.

At the Guardian Parks tagged his top ten cops in fiction, including:

John Rebus

Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh-based detective has aged in real time as the series goes on. Now he’s not in the best of health and retired. But he’s still sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted and long may he do so. Rankin manages to keep Rebus involved in the changing city, keeps him in the here and now, still vital.

Read about the other entries on the list.

John Rebus is among Euan Ferguson's ten best fictional sleuths.

--Marshal Zeringue