Five top books about small towns

For the Barnes & Noble Review, Jessica Ferri tagged five top books on American small towns, including:

Pet Sematary
by Stephen King

While Stephen King once called Shirley Jackson America’s best horror writer, it’s King who has carried that torch into the twenty-first century. Zombie pets are scary — but the true terror behind Pet Sematary (as in many of King’s novels) is the frustration of a man who doesn’t fit in. Like Jack Torrance in The Shining, Louis Creed has lost his job as a doctor under suspicious circumstances and must move his family to the rural Maine hamlet of Ludlow to work at a university clinic. Ludlow’s constant stream of Mack trucks (the throughway has yet to be built) dooms all pets. Despite warnings not to venture past into the town’s animal graveyard from neighbors and ghosts alike, grief-impaired Louis makes a horrifying mistake.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Pet Sematary is one of Sandra Greaves's top ten ghost stories.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight new beach reads for the social justice set

Some staff members at In These Times tagged a few new books that "will sharpen your awareness of injustice and even provide you with some new tools to fight it," including:

Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry

In an attempt to rewrite a century of U.S. women’s history, Cobble, Gordon and Henry challenge the framing of the feminist movement as a set of competing “waves.”

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten child narrators

John Boyne is the author of numerous works of fiction, including The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a young adult novel that became an international bestseller and was made into an award-winning film.

One of his top ten child narrators, as shared at the Guardian:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

From the opening line, where David queries whether he will be the hero of his own life or whether that station will be held by someone else, the reader shares the heartaches, loneliness and occasional triumphs of Dickens' favourite creation. The early chapters – his love for his mother, Clara, the abusive relationship with his stepfather, Edward Murdstone, and his eventual sanctuary in the home of his great-aunt Betsey – are unparalleled in their presentation of the cruelties that can shape a child's life and the relief of eventual asylum.

Read about the other entries on the list.

David Copperfield is among Lynn Shepherd's top ten fictional drownings and Elizabeth Gilbert's six favorite books. It appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best seductions in literature, ten of the best trips to Canterbury in literature and ten of the best valets in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top books about adventures abroad

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Ellen Wehle tagged four top books top books for armchair travelers, including:

Lords of Corruption, by Kyle Mills

Josh Hagerty has a brand-new MBA, a mountain of student debt, and no job prospects. When a shadowy aid organization called New Africa offers him a post, Josh is suspicious at first, wondering why they would want a guy who’s never done aid work. Desperate for a job and seduced by the “you can make a difference” speech, he accepts. But no sooner has Josh’s plane landed in Africa (although the country is never named) than he realizes he’s in trouble.

The country’s two tribes, the Yvimbo and the Xhisa, hate each other with a ferocity that echoes the Hutus and Tutsis in 1990s Rwanda. And just like that real-life conflict, this one soon erupts into genocide, with Josh and a beautiful Scandinavian aid worker trapped in the middle. Meanwhile, New Africa is raking in the dough as a “nonprofit” group. Will Josh live long enough to tell the world the truth? An action-packed and all-too-believable thriller.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Germaine Greer's six favorite books

Germaine Greer is an Australian academic and journalist, and a major feminist voice of the mid-twentieth century. She earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1967. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since The Female Eunuch became an international bestseller in 1970. She is the author of many other books including Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991); Shakespeare's Wife (2007); and The Whole Woman (1999).

Greer's new memoir, White Beech, is an account of the decade she spent converting land that was once a dairy farm back to its primeval state.

One of her six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

The Wild Trees by Richard Preston

In 2008, I was lucky enough to come across The Wild Trees in an airport bookstall. This is the ripping tale of the coastal redwoods of California and the people who climb them. It is as true as a book can be.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Wild Trees is among the Barnes & Noble Review's five top books on trees and Michelle Nijhuis's 15 green books to take to the beach.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten animal villains

Piers Torday was born in Northumberland, which is possibly the one part of England where more animals live than people. After working as a producer and writer in theatre, live comedy and TV, he now lives in London where there are more animals than you might think. His book The Last Wild was released in the US in March and is followed by the sequel, The Dark Wild.

One of Torday's top ten animal villains, as shared at the Guardian:

Napoleon from Animal Farm by George Orwell

Not technically a children’s book, as some thought at the time, but one I enjoyed as a child – although I feared the tyrannical pig Napoleon, “the rather fierce looking Berkshire boar, with a reputation for getting his own way” who promises equality for all beasts but ends up living like a human in the farmhouse, at their expense.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Animal Farm is one of Robson Green's six best books, Heather Brooke's five books on holding power to account, Chuck Klosterman's most important books; it appears on John Mullan's list of ten of the best pigs in literature and Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that were rejected over and over.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that changed Dav Pilkey

Dav Pilkey has written and illustrated numerous popular, award-winning books for children, including the Captain Underpants and Dumb Bunnies series.

One of five books that changed him, as shared with the Sydney Morning Herald:

Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak

This was the first book to have a huge effect on me. My mother wouldn't let me read it because she thought the scary-looking creatures would give me nightmares. My church library had a copy, though, and I'd sneak it every chance I got. There was something wonderfully forbidden about this experience. I had to hide behind a desk to read it, and the thrill of getting caught made the book seem even more exciting. As an adult, I appreciate this book even more. The illustrations seem just as groundbreaking today as they were when the book came out more than 50 years ago.

Read about the other books on the list.

Where the Wild Things Are is among Molly Schoemann-McCann's five favorite fictional creatures, Michael Rosen's six best books, Jessica Ahlberg's top ten family-themed picture books, Edward Carey's top ten writer/illustrators, Sara Maitland's top ten books of the forest, and Anthony Browne's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten favorite fictional feminists

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Ester Bloom tagged ten favorite fictional feminists, including:

Dr. Maud Bailey (Possession, by A. S. Byatt)

Overlook, if you would, the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow played her in the movie version, and Maud becomes much easier to identify with. A passionate scholar and keen literary detective, Maud finds love without letting that goal displace her desire to be successful and taken seriously.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Possession also appears on Niall Williams's list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, Kyle Minor's list of fifteen of the hottest affairs in literature, Emily Temple's list of the fifty greatest campus novels ever written, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best fossils in literature, ten of the most memorable libraries in literature, ten of the best fictional poets, ten of the best locks of hair in fiction, ten of the best graveyard scenes in fiction, and ten of the best lawyers in literature, and on Rachel Syme's list of the ten most attractive men in literature, Christina Koning's critic's chart of six top romances, and Elizabeth Kostova's top ten list of books for winter nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on cycling

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on cycling:

The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance by David Herlihy

Writes Paul Di Filippo of David Herlihy's history of Franz Lenz: "One of the posers -- they are all amateur bicycle fanatics from the Victorian era -- shows a mild resemblance to the young Paul Newman. He is Frank Lenz, twenty-four years old, and he has conceived of the grand and bold notion of cycling alone entirely around the globe. He will never succeed, meeting a mysterious death in Turkey: a death that will induce further heroics from one of his peers." When Lenz, inspired by a fellow cyclist's 1887 bike trek around the world, sets off on a transcontinental jaunt of his own, an international incident and incredible story of mystery, tragedy, and touching camaraderie-in-memoriam begins.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see John Mullan's list of ten of the best bicycles in literature, Marjorie Kehe's list of ten great books about cycling, Matt Seaton's top 10 books about cycling, and William Fotherham's top ten cycling novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten injustices inflicted on fictional characters

Jonathan Meres is based in Edinburgh. A former stand-up comedian, he has won a Time Out award for comedy and was nominated for The Perrier Award. Having left behind his stand-up days, Meres now classifies himself as a writer and an actor, strictly in that order.

For the Guardian he shared his top ten books that are so unfair, including:

Matilda by Roald Dahl

When it comes to being treated unfairly, Matilda Wormwood has been there, done that and got the proverbial t-shirt. Well, she would have got the t-shirt, except Miss Trunchbull - a headmistress who makes Mr. Sir from [Louis Sachar's] Holes look like Alan Bennet – and who wreaks revenge on her pupils for the mildest of misdemeanours - would have probably confiscated it. Just as well then for the fragrant Miss Honey. And for Matilda's special powers of course. They always come in handy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Matilda appears among Sara Jonsson's seven worst fictional kids to babysit, Nicole Hill's ten top fictional tricksters, Chrissie Gruebel's top ten actually insane children’s book characters, Jeremy Strong's ten funniest fictional families, James Dawson's top ten books to get you through high school, and Christopher Timothy's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten holidays in fiction

Emma Straub is the author of the novels The Vacationers and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. One of her top ten holidays in fiction, as shared at the Guardian:

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

For some, vacations are all about sex – that is certainly the case for Salter's couple, an American man and a French woman, on the go. They cavort (clothed, unclothed, in this position and that) and drink and talk, clearly loth to return to their daily lives. This book makes the 1960s in provincial France look like the place to go.

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Sport and a Pastime is among Thomas H. Cook's five must reads on the writing life, Adam Ross's favorite books under 200 pages, Lorin Stein's six Paris Review book picks, and Jeff Gordinier's list of five books that will make you question the wisdom of ever falling in love.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten unlikely heroes

SF Said is an award-winning author. He was born in Lebanon in 1967, but has lived in London since he was 2 years old. His novels include Varjak Paw (2003), the sequel, The Outlaw Varjak Paw (2005), and PHOENIX (2013), an epic space adventure for readers of 9 and up.

For the Guardian, Said tagged his ten favorite "underdogs who come good and save the day," including:

Katniss in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I'm in the early stages of writing my next book now – and yes, it features an unlikely hero! So it's good to read stories which remind me how exciting that can be. I love Katniss as a character. She's always up against enormous odds. She prevails partly because Suzanne Collins had the genius idea of making her deadly with the bow and arrow; but more, because of her amazing resilience. Whatever life throws at Katniss Everdeen, she keeps going, and never gives up. I find that very inspiring, because that's exactly what you need if you want to write books.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Hunger Games also appears on Rebecca Jane Stokes's top eight list of books perfect for reality TV fiends, Chrissie Gruebel's list of favorite fictional fashion icons, Lucy Christopher's top ten list of literary woods, Robert McCrum's list of the ten best books with teenage narrators, Sophie McKenzie's top ten list of teen thrillers, Gregg Olsen's top ten list of deadly YA books, Annalee Newitz's list of ten great American dystopias, Philip Webb's top ten list of pulse-racing adventure books, Charlie Higson's top ten list of fantasy books for children, and Megan Wasson's list of five fantasy series geared towards teens that adults will love too.

--Marshal Zeringue