Top 10 vampire novels

Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire (“you’d get to live in a castle – how cool is that!”) but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranges from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante’s Inferno and the moose. He is the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviews regularly for the Sunday Times. His new book is Bite: A Vampire Handbook.

For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of vampire novels.

One title on the list:

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

No one who has seen the justly acclaimed film version of Lindqvist's bleak but unexpectedly humane novel will need much encouragement to seek out the original, where much that is cryptic about the on-screen story becomes clarified. The heart of the narrative remains the same – a story of friendship and love between Oskar – a lonely, sad, bullied boy – and Eli, the girl (or is she?) vampire who comes to be his protector. But the book encompasses other tales too, and makes explicit the fact that Eli's older male companion is in fact a paedophile as well as a killer. Harsh, and uncomfortable, but compelling.

Read about all ten novels on Jackson's list.

Also see Lisa Tuttle's top six vampire books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Harold Evans' six favorite­ bio­graphies and memoirs

Harold Evans is The Week’s editor-at-large and author of The American Century. His autobiography, My Paper Chase, will be released in the coming week.

For The Week, he named his six favorite­ bio­graphies and memoirs.

One title on the list:

Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion (Cornell, $24).

A literary sensation in 1919, this vivid memoir-diary has just been reissued. A witty and observant naturalist, its author learned on the day he was declared unfit for service in World War I’s trenches that he was already fatally ill. His diary assumes a dramatic intensity and becomes an uplifting journey.

Read about the other five books on Evans' list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sandi Toksvig's top 10 unsung heroines

Sandi Toksvig is a Danish-born English comedian, author and presenter on radio and television. Her many books for children include Hitler's Canary, based upon her family's experiences in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and Girls Are Best, a look at the overlooked achievements of women down the ages.

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of unsung heroines. Her spur to thought:

"When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. "This is often considered to be man's first attempt at a calendar" she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. 'My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman's first attempt at a calendar.'

"It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women's contributions? How often had I sped past them as I learned of male achievement and men's place in the history books? Then I read Rosalind Miles's book The Women's History of the World (recently republished as Who Cooked the Last Supper?) and I knew I needed to look again. History is full of fabulous females who have been systematically ignored, forgotten or simply written out of the records. They're not all saints, they're not all geniuses, but they do deserve remembering."

One woman on Toksvig's list:

Catherine Littlefield Greene (1755-1814)

As a child growing up in the United States I was taught that a man called Eli Whitney changed the face of the American economy with the invention in 1793 of the cotton gin, a machine that mechanised the cleaning of cotton. In fact it was Catherine's idea but in those days women didn't take out patents.

Read about the other women on Toksvig's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about comedians

William Cook's books about comedy include: Ha Bloody Ha - Comedians Talking (Fourth Estate); The Comedy Store - The Club That Changed British Comedy (Little, Brown); Tragically I Was An Only Twin - The Complete Peter Cook, and Goodbye Again - The Definitive Peter Cook & Dudley Moore (both published by Century); 25 Years of Viz (Boxtree), Eric Morecambe Unseen - The Lost Diaries, Jokes & Photographs (HarperCollins), and Morecambe & Wise Untold (HarperCollins).

In 2006 he named his top ten books about comedians for the Guardian. One title on the list:

Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation by John Lahr

An absorbing backstage biography of the comedienne sometimes mistaken for Barry Humphries, by the theatre critic of the New Yorker - and the son of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Lahr taped 34 hours of interviews with Australia's finest (and funniest) cultural export, but it's his colourful descriptions of Dame Edna, Sandy Stone and Sir Les Patterson that make this book live and breathe. A life in showbiz, seen from the wings.

Read about the other nine titles on Cook's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten Halloween books

In 2006 Book Sense came up with a top ten list of Halloween books. One title on the list:

THE INHABITED WORLD: A Novel, by David Long (Houghton) "This beautifully written ghost story is a moving speculation about the world beyond. A man wakes up to the realities of having dodged just about every stand he could have taken and, 10 years after his suicide, realizes that he's at another branch in the road. If he can't intervene in the world of the living, perhaps the living world can help spur him on to do what he needs to do."

Read about all ten books on the list. Also see James Hynes' 2008 top 10 list of Halloween stories and Brad Leithauser's five best ghost tales. --Marshal Zeringue

Desmond Morris' six best books

Desmond Morris is an internationally famous zoologist, ethnologist and artist. He is a prolific author, whose works include The Naked Ape, Manwatching and Amazing Baby. His new book is Planet Ape.

He named his six best books for the Daily Express. One book on the list:

THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS
by Charles Darwin
John Murray, £12.99

Although Darwin’s most famous book is The Origin Of Species my favourite is his later study of human facial expressions, postures and gestures. He ends the book by saying that his observations confirm “that man is derived from some lower animal form”, adding “but as far as my judgment serves, such confirmation was hardly needed”.

Read about the other books on Morris' list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best examples of moon poetry

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best examples of Moon poetry.

One poem on his list:

"I Watched the Moon Around the House" by Emily Dickinson

Another moon-obsessed poet, Dickinson took the mysterious orb as a metaphor for all sorts of moods. One night, sleepless as ever, she encountered it as a familiar reflection of her own strangeness. "I watched the Moon around the House / Until upon a Pane – / She stopped – a Traveller's privilege – for Rest – / And there upon / I gazed – as at a stranger –."

Read about the other nine Moon poems.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on New York City history

Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America, named a five best list of books on the history of New York City for the Wall Street Journal.

One book on his list:

The Gangs of New York
by Herbert Asbury
Knopf, 1928

Herbert Asbury, a journalist in the 1920s, took upon himself the task of describing for New Yorkers of his era—the flappers and snazzy gents sucking cocktails—the much wilder life of the forebears on whose graves they gaily danced. His "informal history" of New York's seamy 19th-century underclass reads more like a collection of myths and legends. Chapter titles convey some of the flavor: "The Killing of Bill the Butcher," "The Police and Dead Rabbit Riots," "When New York Was Really Wicked." We meet a gaudy cast of disreputable characters, including Louie the Lump, Kid Twist and Madame Killer, in this bawdy, not terribly trustworthy but highly enjoyable portrait of the city and of a long-gone lower Manhattan neighborhood, Five Points. Movie director Martin Scorsese was understandably intoxicated by "The Gangs of New York" and in 2002 tried to capture on film what the city was like when its mean streets were made of cobblestones.

Read about the other four books on Shorto's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Kidder: best books

Tracy Kidder is the Pulitzer–winning author of The Soul of a New Machine and House.

His new book, Strength in What Remains, follows a refugee from ethnic violence in Burundi and from genocide in Rwanda who returns to Africa to open a medical clinic.

For The Week magazine, Kidder named his six best books.

One book on his list:

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (Vintage, $15).

To me, this is Nabokov at his very best. Among Pale Fire’s astonishing contents is a long and rather lovely poem written by a principal character: a poem written by Nabokov, of course, but not by Nabokov, as it were. This is one of the strangest and funniest novels I know.

Read about the other five books on Kidder's list.

Pale Fire is the novel Charles Storch would save for last. It is one of "6 Memorable Books About Writers Writing" yet it disappointed Ha Jin upon rereading.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Richard Norton Smith is Scholar-in-Residence of History and Public Policy at George Mason University. A presidential historian and former head of six presidential libraries, his books include An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1984), The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation (1986) and Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation (1993). His book, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize.

In 2006 he named a five best list of biographies of FDR for the Wall Street Journal. One title on the list:

"Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom" by James MacGregor Burns (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970).

Long overshadowed by its companion volume, "The Lion and the Fox" (which covers FDR's life from 1882 to 1940 and is an invaluable guide through the labyrinth of his character), this gripping account of Roosevelt during World War II presents a would-be crusader adapting to events on a global scale. "I am waiting to be pushed into the situation," the president told associates in the spring of 1941. This strategy of no strategy was deceptive--there was nothing passive, after all, about the $7 billion lifeline to embattled Britain known as Lend-Lease. After Pearl Harbor, the original Great Communicator eased his countrymen through a string of early defeats, inspired mobilization on a staggering scale, refereed an administration often at war with itself and juggled utopian possibilities and crass realpolitik.

Read about the other four books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 antiheroes

Francesca Simon is one of the UK’s best-selling children’s writers. She has published over 50 books, including the immensely popular "Horrid Henry" series, which has now sold over twelve million copies.

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of fictional antiheroes. The context for her choices:

"I have always loved books about rebels and non-conformists, people who swagger through life with a fierce edge and a stubborn refusal to behave themselves. No one in these books would ever win Miss Congeniality or Mr Nice Guy. Their faults definitely exceed their virtues. I'm also partial to selfish, and self-obsessed characters (no surprises there), so I've picked some favourite anti-heroes and heroines. Let's face it, we all need to let our inner imp out sometimes."

One book on her list:

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

I read book one of the Bartimaeus trilogy lying on a sofa, and did not get up until I'd finished. Jonathan Stroud has had a brilliant idea, that Britain is secretly run by a cabal of magicians who get power by summoning and enslaving "djinnies". These djinns hate their masters, and of course will do anything to break free. Our young anti-hero, Nathaniel, summons the sarcastic, powerful Bartimaeus, whom he orders to steal the Amulet from Nathaniel's nemesis. The witty, sarcastic Bartimaeus is a wonderful creation, and I loved the tense relationship he has with the arrogant, immature and somewhat amoral Nathaniel.

Read about the other antiheroes on Simon's list.

Read about Jonathan Stroud's favorite fantasy books.

Writers Read: Jonathan Stroud.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books of Russia

James Meek worked in Moscow as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian from 1991 to 1999, and has won several awards (including Foreign Correspondent of the Year) for his reporting from Iraq and Guantanamo.

His books include the novels We Are Now Beginning Our Descent and the Booker-longlisted The People's Act of Love, which is set in Siberia in 1919 and tells the story of an obscure Christian sect and a stranded regiment of Czech soldiers.

In 2005 he named his top ten books of Russia for the Guardian. One title on the list:

Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol, 1842

A novel of comedy and shame.

"Chichikov saw that the old woman was far from grasping the issue, and that he needed to make it clear. In a few words he explained that the transfer, or purchase, would take place only on paper and that the souls would be registered as if they were living.
'And what good are they to you?' asked the old woman, her eyes bulging.
'That's my business.'
'But, really, all the same, they're dead.'
'Who said they were alive? You're losing money because they're dead: you're still paying for them, and I'm offering to rid you of all these bills and bother. Do you understand? Not just rid you, but give you 15 roubles into the bargain. Is that clear?'
'Really, I'm not sure," said the proprietress hesitantly. "I've never sold dead people before, you know.'"

Read about all ten titles on Meek's list.

--Marshal Zeringue