The ten best New Year’s Eves in culture

Michael Hogan writes about lifestyle and entertainment, specializing in pop culture and TV. For the Guardian he rounded up the ten best New Year’s Eves in culture--film, television, and fiction--including:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

“That’s the problem with being born in New York – you’ve got no New York to run away to.” Banker-turned-novelist Amor Towles’s underrated 2011 debut, inspired by his grandmother’s life, opens at a 1937 New Year’s Eve bash in Greenwich Village (“We started the evening with a plan of stretching three dollars as far as it would go”) and follows the next 12 months in the life of Russian immigrant’s daughter Katey Kontent (real name Katya). This Dorothy Parker-meets-Holly Golightly heroine hangs out in sleazy jazz clubs, sips gin martinis, steals silk stockings from Bendel’s and works at a louche literary magazine, all the while seeking her fortune and true love. It’s like a retro-chic Sex and the City or Downton Abbey on a gap year.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: Jeff Somers's five memorable books set on New Year’s Eve (and Day) and John Mullan's ten most notable New Years in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books that straddle the past and the present

Rhian Ivory's latest novel is The Boy who Drew the Future. One of her ten favorite novels set in the past and the present, as shared at the Guardian:

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

Winner of the Carnegie prize in 1958, Tom’s Midnight Garden has long been regarded as a children’s classic and each time I re-read it I can see why. The story of Tom and Hattie holds such appeal because no matter how much technology has to offer Generation X, nothing can beat the hope and possibility of being able to walk into a garden and step back into the past when the clock strikes 13.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The very best science fiction and fantasy books of 2015: io9

Among io9's very best science fiction and fantasy books of 2015:

The Beautiful Bureaucrat, Helen Phillips

Ursula K. Le Guin recommended this dystopian novel, and it more than lives up to the hype. Josephine is enduring a job that sees her entering information into The Database, and finds a horrifying world in the bureaucracy that she’s now part of.

* * *

Providence of Fire, Brian Stavely

Brian Staveley blew us away with his debut novel The Emperor’s Blades, and the second installment of his trilogy is even better. Staveley has continued the adventures of Adare, Valyn and Kaden in the aftermath of their father’s assassination and as war looms over Annurian Empire. Most epic fantasies get mired down as their worlds and stories expand with each volume, but Staveley manages to keep his focus on the plight of his characters, which rockets the book to a stunning conclusion.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Beautiful Bureaucrat.

The Page 69 Test: The Providence of Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books of criticism that changed A.O. Scott's life

A. O. Scott joined the New York Times as a film critic in January 2000. His forthcoming book is Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth.

One of five books of criticism that changed the critic's life, as shared at the Penguin blog:

W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand.

Many of the virtues of Auden’s poetry—the mix of conversational ease and high philosophical seriousness; the naughty wit and unguarded earnestness; the friendliness and unmatched erudition—are on display in this collection of critical writings. There is ample wisdom and much fun to be found in the chapters on Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Robert Frost and Igor Stravinsky, but it’s the first three chapters, devoted to “Reading,” “Writing” and “Making, Knowing, and Judging” that make this book one I return to again and again. Masquerading as a miscellaneous collection of aphorisms and observations, those pages add up to a theory of human thought and behavior, and therefore a guide to life.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten parallel worlds in fiction

Christopher Edge's latest book is The Many Worlds of Albie Bright. At the Guardian he tagged his top ten parallel worlds in fiction, including:

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

In a parallel world, I never bunked off school at the age of fourteen to go to a Neil Gaiman signing in a comic book shop. In that universe I never had that moment of inspiration that made me realise that becoming a writer wasn’t an impossible dream. Maybe in that world I’ve got buttons for eyes, just like the Other Mother in Coraline, who lurks behind a locked door in a sinister parallel world that’s an eerie reflection of Coraline’s own.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Coraline appears among Aliette de Bodard's five creepiest monsters in fantasy, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's top seven awesomely scary novels, and Sam Leith's top ten alternative realities.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten crime fiction books of 2015: MysteryPeople

At MysteryPeople Scott Montgomery tagged his top ten crime fiction books of 2015, including:

The Long & Faraway Gone by Lou Berney

A private detective’s latest case takes him him back to Oklahoma City where he was once the lone survivor of a movie theater robbery. At the same time a woman plots to a trap for the man who is believed to have murdered her sister a month after that robbery. Berney skillfully tells three mystery stories to explore the ideas of survival and loss.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robin Coste Lewis' six favorite books

Robin Coste Lewis' debut poetry collection, Voyage of the Sable Venus, won a 2015 National Book Award. One of the poet's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Aimé Césaire

This long poem, which shook the French literary world in 1939, examines the ways home is ruptured — or even prevented from existing — by colonialism. And what, the book asks, does that mean? How can one return to a home that was never built?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

TIME's top ten nonfiction books

One of Time magazine's top ten nonfiction books of 2015:

Negroland, Margo Jefferson

Jefferson’s upbringing in 1950s Chicago was almost idyllic. Almost. Home life was cozy enough—her physician father and socialite mother were members of the city’s black bourgeoisie, and she and her sister were well fed, well cared for, pointedly well dressed. But the tensions of the time were inescapable, and with them came personal pressures that eventually sunk Jefferson into depression—yet one more thing she wasn’t “allowed” to have as a black woman. Jefferson uses the long poem format, alternating between poetry and prose, despair and triumph, to tell a story that is as compelling for the reader as it seems cathartic for her.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: TIME's top ten fiction books of 2015.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten uncanny graphic novels

Ian Williams is a physician, comics artist and writer, based in Brighton, UK. His 2014 graphic novel is The Bad Doctor. One of his ten top uncanny graphic novels, as shared at the Guardian:

Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet (2014)

Cute characters, taking tea, are suddenly surrounded by dripping gore. Ah – turns out they are living inside the body of a dead girl in a forest. They climb out of the skull to find lots of tiny companions, wandering about. Trying to set up a new community to survive in the woods is challenging. They forage for food, build new shelters, and interact with the woodland creatures, sometimes trying to befriend them, sometimes killing and eating them. Nature takes its cruel course, picking off the characters one by one as they start to squabble and kill each other.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight apt books to leave for Santa instead of cookies

At B & N Reads Ginni Chen tagged eight of the best books to leave for Santa instead of cookies, including:

Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with the Arctic Herd, by Karsten Heuer

If Santa has ever wondered about the lives of regular, non-flying reindeers (aka as caribou), this book will captivate him. Heuer, a wildlife biologist, and his filmmaker partner spent five months in the wilderness following a caribou herd’s annual 2,800 mile journey. Heuer’s account will change not just how you think about reindeer, but how you think about the North American wild.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Oline Cogdill's fifteen best mystery novels of 2015

Among Oline Cogdill's fifteen best mystery novels of 2015:

Where All Light Tends To Go by David Joy

“Where All Light Tends To Go” by David Joy (Putnam): North Carolina memorist David Joy delivers a thoughtful coming-of-age novel about a young man who believes that he will forever be moribund in Appalachia because of his family’s history of drug abuse and violence. But is he strong enough to leave the mountains when he gets the opportunity?

Learn about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Where All Light Tends to Go.

My Book, The Movie: Where All Light Tends to Go.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten urban fantasy books for "Jessica Jones" fans

At Bustle.com Catherine Kovach tagged ten top urban fantasy books for Jessica Jones fans, including:

The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo

Don't let the name of this book fool you, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is ideal for those who love the lack of slut-shaming in Jessica Jones. Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier but came back as a vampire. Now a private detective, he's called to investigate a mysterious outbreak of nymphomania in rocky flats, and has to contend with conspiracies, vampire hunters, and a group of women who seem to only want him for his body. Skewering sexual stereotypes, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is a quirky, funny read.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Nymphos of Rocky Flats.

--Marshal Zeringue