Eight top books for emotional release

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Dell Villa tagged eight books to read when you’re in the mood to cry for days, including:

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.

Like most of humanity, or at least the contingent I choose to consort with, I thought this novel was full of magic and incredibly provocative. Patchett uses her trademark lyrical, transcendent prose to describe, of all things, a hostage situation. Multiple perspectives expose unexpected relationships among the hostages as well as help cultivate concurrent empathy for the hostages, terrorists, and crisis negotiator. Some of the tears, I’m sure, stemmed from the fact that the book had to end.

Read about the other books on the list.

Bel Canto is among John Mullen's ten best birthday parties in literature and Joyce Hackett's top ten musical novels.

Also see: Hallie Ephron's ten best books for a good cry.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten American children's classics you may have missed

Rebecca Stead's novels include Liar and Spy.

For the Guardian she tagged her favorite classic American novels for children that may be overlooked outside of the US. One entry on the list:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

A New York girl with an anti-authoritarian streak and a writing habit alienates her friends when they read her notebook, where she has written what she really thinks of all of them. This one made me contemplate what it would be like if everyone at school could read my thoughts, and also what it would be like to have a townhouse and a cook.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best writers in novels

After author John Niven tagged his top ten writers in novels for the Guardian, a number of readers suggested other candidates for the list, including:

Roger Wade
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

Chandler's famous detective, Philip Marlowe, gets a call from a New York publisher concerned about one of his best writers, Roger Wade. Described by ProfessionalCynic as a 'lacerating self-portrait', Wade is an alcoholic who, like Chandler, has authored a string of successful novels but finds it increasingly hard to write in older age. Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye as his wife was dying, which goes some way to explaining its personal nature – and Wade's links with his creator.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Long Goodbye is among David Nobbs's top five faked deaths in fiction, Malcolm Jones's ten favorite crime novels, David Nicholls' ten favorite film adaptations, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best fake deaths in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top food memoirs

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Nikki Metzgar tagged five food memoirs worth digging into, including:

My Life in France, by Julia Child

By now, any foodie worth her salt is more than a little bit familiar with the work of Julia Child. We’ve experienced her warmth and personality through movies, remembrances, and, of course, her recipes, but her memoir of diving into French culture, attending the Cordon Bleu, and her relationship with her husband, Paul, offers an unparalleled opportunity to really understand and enjoy Julia. She’s the type of person you’d love to sit down to coffee with, and this book is your best substitute.

Read about the other books on the list. 

My Life in France also appears on Tien Nguyen's list of five addictive books by cooks and Richard Lacayo and Lev Grossman's list of five memoirs worth reading.

Pamela Redmond Satran called My Life in France "unexpectedly transporting as the tale of a middle-aged woman’s discovery of herself, of her true calling, and of ambition."

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about the people in suburbia

Nigel Williams's latest novel is Unfaithfully Yours. For the Guardian he named his top ten books about the people in suburbia, including:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Franzen's characters may roam all over the place – on nightmare cruises or ill-advised trips to Eastern Europe – but they are still bound to the suburban decencies. He writes about ordinary families with extraordinary honesty and delicacy and, though his characters are a long way from Palmers Green, their doomed attempts to do the right thing, for me, recall with almost painful clarity my own childhood, and, particularly, my father, who like the paterfamilias in this book, had a favourite chair … Incidentally, Freedom – whatever anyone may tell you – is just as good.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Corrections is on Tim Lewis's list of the ten best Christmas lunches and John Mullan's list of ten of the best episodes of drunkenness in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen of the most tear-jerking moments from science fiction & fantasy

At io9 Charlie Jane Anders came up with fifteen moments from science fiction and fantasy that will make absolutely anyone cry. One entry on the list:

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

This book is full of super-sad moments, but especially some of the ending. Says Christopher Cevasco, "near the end, the scene in which Rosemund finally succumbs. When that apple rolled across the floor, I utterly lost it. Devastating."

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about South America

Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez's new novel is The Sound of Things Falling.

One of his five favorite novels about South America, as told to The Daily Beast:

Nostromo
by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s insultingly ambitious and incredibly accurate political novel is, to my mind, the best piece of fiction ever written about Latin America outside of Latin America. The fictional republic of Costaguana watches one of its provinces secede, aided by the military intervention of the United States, in a series of events that are suspiciously reminiscent of the revolution through which the province of Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903. This is political literature at its best.

Read about the other books on the list.

Nostromo is one of Ben Ryder Howe's top ten novels featuring mythical countries.

--Marshal Zeringue

The six most honest, least insulting parenting books

Whitney Collins is the author of The Hamster Won't Die: A Treasury of Feral Humor and the creator and editor of two humor sites -- errant parent and The Yellow Ham.

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog she tagged the six most honest, least insulting parenting books, including:

The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting, by Christie Mellor

Oh, thank goodness for snarky little tongue-in-cheek books like this. This slim beauty extols the virtues of keeping one’s children out of the way—unless they’re serving hors d’oeuvres and mixing gimlets. It also does a pretty good job of outlining the types of over-achieving parents under-achieving parents best avoid. This is a great one for parents to read when they return from one of those kid’s birthdays parties that makes them question the entire meaning of life.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: The Page 99 Test: Christie Mellor's You Look Fine, Really.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven of the best books about dinosaurs

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Becky Ferreira tagged some of the best books about dinosaurs, including:

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Obviously! Crichton’s bestselling novel is a must-read not only for dinosaur enthusiasts, but for science fiction aficionados in general. It’s both a gripping page-turner and a mind-blowing meditation on the ethics of science. You won’t be able to put it down, and the issues Crichton raises will stick with you for years.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best writers in novels

John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He has written for The Times, Independent, Word and FHM among other publications. He is also the author of the novella Music from Big Pink, and the novels Kill Your Friends and Straight White Male.

One of his top ten writers in novels, as told to the Guardian:

Paul Sheldon
Misery by Stephen King

Sheldon, a novelist who is taken hostage by his “No 1 fan”, is now so bound up with James Caan, who played him in the hugely successful movie adaptation, that it’s hard to think of him as anyone but Caan. There are some crucial differences that make it worth reading the novel, however. Not least the fact that when Annie Wilkes performs the famous “hobbling” operation in the book, she doesn’t, as she did in the film, smash his ankles with a sledgehammer. No, she saws off his feet and blowtorches the stumps to cauterise them. A fine example of what you can do on the page that you can’t do on the screen

Read about the other fictional writers on Niven's list.

Misery is among Emerald Fennell's top ten villainesses in literature and Lesley Glaister’s top ten books about incarceration.

Also see: John Mullan's ten best fictional poets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about Austria-Hungary

Sean McMeekin is an assistant professor of history at Koç University. His latest book is July 1914: Countdown to War.

At the Guardian, McMeekin named a top ten list of books about Austria-Hungary, including:

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

Sent off to the publisher from Brazil the day before Zweig and his wife killed themselves, this is one of history's most moving suicide notes. Although composed against the backdrop of Nazi ascendancy (roughly from 1934 to 1942), which forced the Jewish Zweig into exile, the author's real elegy is for the Austria-Hungary of 1914, before the Great War wrecked its civilisation and Europe's alongside it (Zweig, a pacifist, spent the war in Switzerland). Similar in spirit to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Zweig mostly avoids sentimentality, which is remarkable in the circumstances. A wonderful memoir, which perfectly captures the textures and rhythms of life in the Dual Monarchy. One can almost taste the strudel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six notable fictional book nerds

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Melissa Albert tagged six favorite fictional book nerds, including:

Kilgore Trout (Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, etc.).

I don’t know how much reading Trout does, but he’s certainly a nerd for the writing of books. He wrote hundreds of works of science fiction, sometimes allegorical, often bizarre, always underappreciated. His tantalizing titles, including The Pan-Galactic Straw Boss, Bunker Bingo Party, and Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, frequently served as porn mag filler, but at least he had a fan in Billy Pilgrim.

Read about the other nerds on the list.

Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five also made Jon Ronson's five top list of books on madness, John Mullan's list of ten of the best aliens in science fiction, Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of twelve great stories to help you to cope with mortality, Sebastian Beaumont's top 10 list of books about psychological journeys, and Tiffany Murray's top ten list of black comedies.

--Marshal Zeringue