Six top food scenes in fiction

Kate Christensen's new novel is The Last Cruise.

One of her six favorite food scenes in fiction, as shared at The Week magazine:

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Lily Bart meets Lawrence Selden in Grand Central Station and goes to his apartment — "I can give you a cup of tea in no time — and you won't meet any bores." There's no real food — just cake and cigarettes. Lily never seems to eat. Somehow, for me, this most elemental self-denial lies at the heart of her tragic downfall.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The House of Mirth is one of Anna Murphy's ten "most inspiring fictional women [Lily Bart] you may never have heard of," Anna Quindlen's five best list of novels about women in search of themselves, Jay McInerney's five essential New York novels, Megan Wasson's five novels that explore the dark side in New York City, Rachel Cusk's five best books on disgrace and Kate Christensen's six books that she rereads all the time; it appears on Robert McCrum's top ten list of books for Obama officials.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about Zimbabwe

Panashe Chigumadzi is a Zimbabwean-born novelist and essayist. Raised in South Africa, she is the author of Sweet Medicine (2015), which won the 2016 K. Sello Duiker Literary Award. She is the founding editor of Vanguard magazine, a platform for young black women coming of age in post-apartheid South Africa. A contributing editor to the Johannesburg Review of Books, her work has featured in titles including The Guardian, The New York Times, Transition, Chimurenga, Washington Post and Die Ziet. These Bones Will Rise Again (June 2018) is her first book to publish in the UK.

One of five of the best books about Zimbabwe Chigumadzi tagged at the Guardian:

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s epic satire House of Stone (2018) is driven by one Zamani’s almost pathological desire to replace the missing son of the Mlambo family. In Tshuma’s beautiful interweaving of personal and national history, we learn of successive generations burdened by sins of their fathers. In Zamani’s desperation for family, rooting and history, it is not hard to miss Zimbabwe’s own constant search for “Fathers of the Nation”.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see Petina Gappah's top ten books about Zimbabwe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

Meaghan Wilson Anastasios holds a PhD in art history and cultural economics and has been a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. She is also a researcher and writer for film and TV. She co-wrote the bestselling historical novel, The Water Diviner, based on the script for the film of the same name starring Russell Crowe.

One of four books that changed the author, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

THE FIRST MAN IN ROME
Colleen McCullough

Nobody had to convince me that history was fun and exciting. But Colleen McCullough showed me that characters and stories could be recruited from dusty academic tomes and recast in dynamic and highly entertaining novels. Her settings are evocative, the plotlines riveting and historical detail painstakingly researched. Her achievements encouraged me to be brave in my aspirations and to see the value in the knowledge I've accumulated as an archaeologist and historian.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-five irresistible Hollywood novels

At Entertainment Weekly David Canfield and Seija Rankin tagged twenty-five of the best Hollywood novels, including:

Children of Light, by Robert Stone

Robert Stone’s Mexico-set novel tries covering a lot of ground: In its exploration of the romance between a failed playwright and sometimes-screenwriter and his successful actress girlfriend, the book takes on alcoholism, mental illness, the struggles of adaptation, and much more. Try to keep up.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Children of Light is among Michael Friedman’s ten best Hollywood novels, David Bowman's five great noir novels from the post-Chandler generations, and Jane Ciabattari's five best novels on Hollywood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four top stories with awesome autistic protagonists

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Joel Cunningham tagged four top stories with awesome autistic protagonists, including:

Experimental Film, by Gemma Files

Lois Cairns is an undiagnosed autistic woman and the mother of a high-support autistic son, who finds her family menaced by a mysterious figure from an old film. This horror novel deals very intimately with relationships between different disabled people, internalized ableism, and the desire to push oneself to work no matter the cost. Lois is depressed and feels broken because of her neurotype, and some of her thoughts will be too close to home for some autistic readers. But the way that she begins to change over the story, and the way the disability themes come together at the story’s end, is absolutely breathtaking.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top tales from the frontier

Paul Howarth was born and grew up in Great Britain before moving to Melbourne in his late twenties. He lived in Australia for more than six years, gained dual citizenship in 2012, and now lives in Norwich, United Kingdom, with his family. In 2015, he received a master’s degree from the University of East Anglia’s creative writing program, the most prestigious course of its kind in the UK, where he was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship.

Howarth's new novel is Only Killers and Thieves.

One of the author's top ten tales from the frontier, as shared at the Guardian:

The Son by Philipp Meyer

Meyer’s multi-generational novel about a Texan oil family is rooted in the legend of the patriarch, Eli McCullough: from his childhood on the Texan frontier, to his capture and raising by Comanches, reluctant return to white society, and the empire he founded on the plains. A stunning, meticulously researched book that is epic in scale, ambition, and historical sweep.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven of the best Venetian reads

Judith Mackrell's latest book is The Unfinished Palazzo. One of her favorite books inspired by Venice, as shared at the Waterstones blog:

In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant

This is the second novel in Sarah Dunnant’s excellently researched trilogy about the lives of women in Renaissance Italy, and it focuses on the adventures of Fiammetta, a buccaneering and beautiful courtesan. Dunnant tells a rollicking good story , but the novel’s power lies in its vivid recreation of the Venetian world of Fiammetta and her fellow courtesans, a community of women who were renowned for their wit and learning, and who were intimate with both sides of 16th century Venice - the city’s shimmering luxury and its dark underbelly of poverty and plague.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about artificial intelligence

Nick Harkaway is the author of a nonfiction work about digital culture, The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World, and the novels The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker, Tigerman, and Gnomon.

Harkaway happens to be the son of John Le Carré.

One of his five favorite books about AI, as shared at the Guardian:

We may not understand conscious intelligence but, biological or digital, it is certainly a functioning arrangement of information. Another way to begin to understand AI is to try to grasp our relationship with information as a structure that increasingly seems to underlie everything from the infinitesimal to the vast: what it is, and where it fits into the universe. James Gleick’s majestic The Information spans centuries, continents, space and time. It is surely the perfect place to start answering that pesky question of what it means to be a thinking thing.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Baldacci's 6 favorite books with an element of mystery

One of David Baldacci's six favorite books with an element of mystery, as shared at The Week magazine:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This is a tale of two lives, really, those of a German boy and a blind French girl whose paths converge during World War II. The prose is so lush you could love Doerr's Pulitzer Prize–winning 2014 novel for its language alone. But the story is also remarkable — heartfelt and heartbreaking.

Read about the other entries on the list.

All the Light We Cannot See is among Jason Flemyng's six best books, Sandra Howard's six best books, Caitlin Kleinschmidt's twelve moving novels of the Second World War and Maureen Corrigan's 12 favorite books of 2014.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books to inspire you to imagine a better future

Kameron Hurley is the author of The Stars Are Legion, the award-winning essay collection The Geek Feminist Revolution, the God’s War trilogy, and the Worldbreaker Saga. Her newest book is Apocalypse Nyx.

At Tor.com she tagged five works "of uplifting speculative fiction that emphasize our collaborative greatness over our despair. Our passion for creation over destruction. Our struggle to become better together than we are individually." One title on the list:

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

One of my favorite surprise discoveries of the last few years, Dark Orbit is old-school science fiction at its finest. This “science saves the day!” plus “sense of wonder!” standalone novel features a smart, capable scientist who must use her wits to survive. Alien contact, mystery, murder, wondrous landscapes and breathtaking discoveries (bonus dark matter!)—this one has it all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six YA books featuring dangerous waters

At the BN Teen blog Samantha Randolph tagged six YA novels set in dangerous waters, including:

The Vicious Deep, by Zoraida Córdova

Once you’ve devoured Córdova’s latest YA, Bruja Born, check out her other series, beginning with The Vicious Deep. Tristan Hart was taken by the ocean for three days. When he’s returned, he has no memory of what happened, but he can’t get the image of a mermaid, a kingdom, and an ancient battle out of his head…a battle he might be in the middle of. When he’s pulled back to the waters, he will find that the ocean doesn’t like giving up what it has claimed.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Pamela Hart

Pamela Hart is the author of The Soldier’s Wife, The War Bride, A Letter from Italy, and The Desert Nurse. As Pamela Freeman, she's written children’s fiction, epic fantasy, crime fiction and children’s poetry.

One of four books that changed the author, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

WAYS OF SEEING

John Berger

This was a set text for my first year of uni. It changed how I looked at things. That was its aim – as Berger said, it "wanted to question some of the assumptions made about European art". In doing so, it introduced this convent-school-educated 17-year-old to concepts such as "the male gaze", "the phallic image", and how advertising actually worked. It made me a critical consumer of all media, including books.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top fantasy books steeped in the Southern Gothic

Craig DiLouie’s new fantasy novel is One of Us.

One of the author's ten top fantasy books steeped in the Southern Gothic, as shared at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog:

Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice

Louis, a vampire, shares his 200-year-long life story to a reporter, a story that begins in 1790s New Orleans.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Interview With The Vampire is among Tara Sonin's five sexy novels to unleash your wanderlust, Jeff Somers's eight good, bad, and weird dad/child pairs in science fiction and fantasy, Jonathan Hatfull's ten best vampire novels, Ryan Menezes' top five movies that improved the book, Will Hill's top ten vampires in fiction and popular culture, and Lynda Resnick's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top YA novels about immigration

At Bustle Kerri Jarema tagged five YA novels about immigration that every teen (and adult) should read, including:

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

This family saga follows five girls across three generations and explores the inheritance of culture. Rane is worried that her children are losing their Indian culture; Sonia is wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair; Tara is seeking the limelight to hide her true self; Shanti is desperately trying to make peace in the family; and Anna is fighting to preserve her Bengali identity. This book is moving look at the struggle to adapt to a new country while holding on to beloved traditions.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books about cycling

Jon Day, writer, academic and cyclist, is the author of Cyclogeography. He worked as a bicycle courier in London for several years, and is now a lecturer in English Literature at King's College London. One of his five best books about cycling, as shared at the Guardian:

Books about racing have tended to focus of the physical suffering endured by the long-distance road cyclist (and often on their chemical aids). As early as 1902 the experimental playwright and novelist Alfred Jarry, who scandalised French literary society by wearing his cycling outfit to the poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s funeral, described the way in which competitive cycling reduced riders to machines. His absurdist, whimsical novella The Supermale describes a race between a group of cyclists and a train. The riders are fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and one dies during the race but, being legally contracted to finish it, his body is obliged to carry on cycling.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Bella Bathurst's seven stone-cold classics about cycling, Jon Day's ten best books about cycling, the Barnes & Noble Review's five top books on cycling, 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

Six of the best books based on true crimes

Megan Abbott's new novel is Give Me Your Hand.

One of her six favorite books based on true crimes, as shared at The Week magazine:

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Morrison based her stunning, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel on the story of Margaret Garner, a runaway slave who killed her baby daughter rather than surrender her to a life in bondage. "I think if I had seen what she had seen, and knew what was in store," Morrison said in a 1987 interview, "I would have done the same thing."

Read about the other entries on the list.

Beloved also appears on Melba Pattillo Beals's 6 favorite books list, Sarah Porter's list of five favorite books featuring psychological hauntings, Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis' list of ten books that were subject to silencing or censorship, Jeff Somers's list of ten fictional characters based on real people, Christopher Barzak's top five list of books about magical families, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's ten top list of wartime love stories, Judith Claire Mitchell's list of ten of the best (unconventional) ghosts in literature, Kelly Link's list of four books that changed her, a list of four books that changed Libby Gleeson, The Telegraph's list of the 15 most depressing books, Elif Shafak's top five list of fictional mothers, Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten great books you didn't know were science fiction or fantasy, Peter Dimock's top ten list of books that challenge what we think we know as "history", Stuart Evers's top ten list of homes in literature, David W. Blight's list of five outstanding novels on the Civil War era, John Mullan's list of ten of the best births in literature, Kit Whitfield's top ten list of genre-defying novels, and at the top of one list of contenders for the title of the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten fantasy novels that bibliophiles will love

At Unbound Worlds Matt Staggs tagged ten "fantasy novels starring books, readers, and amazing libraries," including:

Revisionary
Jim C. Hines

Isaac Vainio is a libriomancer, a magician who can reach into books and draw forth things into our world. Sworn to protect the world from magical threats, Isaac has fought many enemies over the years: vampires, black magicians, and others. In Revisionary, book four of Magic Ex Libris, Isaac’s decision to reveal the existence of magic to the world has produced chaos, and he has to make things right or risk a war between the magical and the mundane.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top alt-history World War II books

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog he tagged ten "of the most ambitious, imaginative, and flat-out cool speculative takes on a World War II that never actually happened," including:

Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis

Less realistic, but no less exciting for it: Tregillis doesn’t use any half-measures here, imagining that in the early days of World War II, a Nazi mad scientist manages to give a group of orphans super powers—invisibility, fire starting, precognition, your typical X-Men stuff. When a British secret agent discovers this, he recruits his magic-wielding acquaintance, who in turn brings out Britain’s population of warlocks in order to defend the Allies from a mutant-powered invasion by the Nazis. Tossing history out the window and running with this imaginative premise, this trilogy-starter is one of the most fun alternative World War II stories you’ll ever read.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels dealing with time travel

Prentis Rollins has over twenty years of experience working as a writer and artist in the comics industry. The Furnace is his debut full-length graphic novel. One of his five top novels dealing with time travel, as shared at Tor.com:

Kindred

Kindred (1979) by Octavia E. Butler is the outlier. It is often classified as science fiction simply because it is a time-travel story; probably it is best thought of as time-travel fantasy (Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court would be another example of this). A young African-American woman named Dana Franklin is a writer living in present-day Los Angeles. One day she suddenly feels strange, swoons, and finds herself transported back to a plantation in antebellum Maryland, where she has to live as a slave—until she just as suddenly jumps back to the present and normality. Her life becomes a nightmare as these time-shifting leaps continue to happen—she never knows when they are going to happen, or for how long she’ll be trapped in this particularly hellish past. At one point her white husband, Kevin, goes back with her—he becomes trapped in the past for five years. The question of how the time leaps are being accomplished (are they somehow being caused by Dana’s mind? Are they a natural phenomenon? Has Dana been chosen for some inscrutable reason?) is never addressed—and it really doesn’t matter; that’s not what the book is about. What the book is about (among other things) is the hideousness of slavery—how it blighted the lives of the slaves, of course, but also the ruinous and degrading effect it had on the slaveholders. It remains an enthralling, disturbing modern classic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Kindred is among Caroline O'Donoghue's top ten lost women's classics.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about self-reinvention

Liese O'Halloran Schwarz grew up in Washington, DC after an early childhood overseas. She attended Harvard University and then medical school at University of Virginia. While in medical school, she won the Henfield/Transatlantic Review Prize and also published her first novel, Near Canaan.

The newly released The Possible World is her second novel.

One of the author's ten books about self-reinvention, as shared at the Guardian:

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)

At first we might pity Eleanor, the 30-year-old odd-bird outcast who lives in a rut of lonely vodka weekends and supermarket pizza. When a sudden passion for a pop star jolts Eleanor out of her track and she resolves to remake herself, her journey out of isolation is hilarious, surprising and poignant. The book doesn’t shy away from serious themes – “loneliness is the new cancer”, Eleanor says – but the sadness is perfectly balanced with hope. Damaged, quirky and above all resilient, Eleanor is a modern heroine.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fifteen of the most evil moms in literature

At Entertainment Weekly Dana Schwartz tagged fifteen of the most evil moms in literature, including:

Eleanor Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon)

It’s the first thing they teach you when you become a new mother: Don’t brainwash your child into becoming a political pawn.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Manchurian Candidate also appears among Megan Wasson's ten best classic political novels, Jonathan Lethem's list of five terrific novels overshadowed by their film versions and Barry Forshaw's top political thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five enduring American mysteries explored in novels

At Unbound Worlds Matt Staggs tagged "five of the nation’s weirdest mysteries and novels that reference them," including:

Phantoms
Dean Koontz

In 1587, a little more than 100 English colonists arrived on Roanoke Island to found a new colony. After the colony was successfully established, its governor, John White, returned to England to fetch more supplies. When he returned three years later, he discovered it deserted. The only clue that might solve the mystery was a single word carved on a tree: “Croatoan.” White had no idea what it meant, and neither does anyone else. One of the more popular theories suggest that the colonists may have abandoned their settlement in favor of moving in with a nearby Native American tribe, the Croatans, and left the engraving to let White know. There are plenty of other possibilities, though, and this one isn’t going to be solved any time soon.

Dean Koontz’s Phantoms features another disappearance that is eerily similar to what happened in Roanoke. Could the two incidents be related? What could possibly be responsible? (Hint: It’s not a friendly neighboring Native American tribe.)

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven badass female protagonists helping to redefine modern thrillers

Cristina Alger's new novel is The Banker's Wife. At CrimeReads she tagged seven truly badass female protagonists in thrillers, including:

Never Tell, by Alafair Burke

Drawing on her own experiences as a criminal law professor and deputy district attorney, Alafair Burke writes sharp, brilliant true-to-life suspense. Never Tell features Ellie Hatcher, a young, tenacious New York City detective, who is tasked with investigating the alleged suicide of a wealthy sixteen year old girl. If you love this book, you’ll be thrilled (as I was) to learn that it’s one of a series featuring the smart, tough, tenacious Ellie Hatcher.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five horrifying tales of cannibalism

At Unbound Worlds Matt Staggs tagged five "lip-smacking stories of forbidden hunger," including:

Bones & All
Camille DeAngelis

Maren Yearly will break your heart — out of your ribcage and eat it. She’s a cannibal, and has been since she was a child. It doesn’t make her bad person though, right? Well, maybe to you, but not to the community of like-minded man-eaters she encounters after her mother finally cuts her loose. Maren’s journey of self-discovery is like no other. Do you have the appetite to join her?

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Bones & All.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five SFF books exploring sibling relationships

Sam Hawke is a fantasy writer who grew up and still lives in Canberra, Australia, where she and her husband are currently raising two small ninjas and two idiot dogs. Her new novel is City of Lies.

One of the author's five top SFF books exploring sibling relationships, as shared at Tor.com:

Court of Fives series by Kate Elliott

In this series, billed as “Little Women meets American Ninja Warrior in Greco-Roman Egypt,” the main character, Jes, is an athlete with a Commoner mother and an upper class Patron father. Her dream is to compete for the Fives, an athletic competition that offers a chance for glory, but due to the society’s strict rules and her father’s delicate position, the only way she can compete is in secret. When disaster strikes and a ruthless Lord tears Jes’s family apart, she is forced into a much more deadly game of politics and loyalty, and a desperate plan to save her mother and sisters. This story has so much going for it that I love (competitive girls in sports! Intricate political scheming and cultural clashes! Slow burn background magic!) but easily my favourite element was the portrayal of Jes’s family over the course of the trilogy, and particularly her complex, well-realised relationships between her sisters. Elliott really nails the layers of family dynamic, crafting four very distinct sisters with their own character arcs and motivations, and the complex mix of love, combativeness, defensiveness and trust that binds them together.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books that take you someplace you’ve likely never been

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Reads blog he tagged ten books to read instead of taking a vacation this summer, including:

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

India is big. Like, really, really big. Saying you want to “go to India” is sort of like saying you want to go to Europe, or the Moon—you really need to be more specific. That being said, despite the often grimy subject matter, Roberts’ controversial biography-as-novel introduces to an India that is equal parts overwhelming and exciting, overcrowded, hot, and beautiful, as seen through the eyes of an escaped convict on the run. You might not want to follow in the author’s supposed footsteps exactly, but reading this book is like getting off a plane in India without any money or a current passport and just diving into the country.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve sex-positive YA novels

Kelly deVos's new novel is Fat Girl on a Plane.

At PopSugar she tagged twelve teen novels with positively imperfect stories about sex, including:

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

What I love about Firsts is that the novel's jumping off point is the acknowledgment that the first time is usually awkward and blundering. In the book, 17-year-old Mercedes Ayres decides to give virgin boys their first sexual experience. Her goal is to help them learn to give their girlfriends the "perfect" first time that she never had. Firsts remains sex positive throughout even as Mercedes comes to feel that it's time to end her extracurricular activities and the story deals, head on, with the idea that sexual maturity and emotional maturity might not happen at the same time.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about gangsters

Rod Reynolds's new book, his third Charlie Yates novel, is Cold Desert Sky. One of his ten favorite books about gangsters, as shared at the Guardian:

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

Winslow’s novel chronicles the first 30 years of the US’s “war on drugs”. Epic in every sense, the book lays bare the violence, futility and hypocrisy of the policy, and is made all the more striking by its grounding in true events. But this is much more than a fictional exposé of recent history; as in The Godfather, it’s the personal relationships that drive the narrative as the friendship between DEA agent Art Keller and narco kingpin Miguel Angel Barrera disintegrates into a blood feud.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top woman-centric heist novels

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and the Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People. At the B&N Reads blog he tagged eight woman-centric heist novels for fans of Ocean's 8, including:

Artemis, by Andy Weir

In Artemis, city on the Moon, Jazz Bashara works as a porter, scraping by and supplementing her income with a little light smuggling on the side. Her moonlighting brings her into contact with wealthy, powerful figures like Trond Landvik, a businessman with designs on a lunar aluminum monopoly. Landvik asks Jazz to come up with a way to sabotage his competition, and Jazz seizes the opportunity to grab a big score with a bold plan. The resulting caper moves at a mile a minute, and is delivered with the same witty dialogue and ribald humor that made us fall in love with Mark Watney, narrator of Weir’s blockbuster novel The Martian. Jazz is a woman with a serious attitude problem, and you’ll quickly come to love her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight thrillers for "Sharp Objects" fans

At PopSugar Corinne Sullivan tagged eight thrillers for fans of Sharp Objects, including:

The Secrets You Keep by Kate White

In Kate White's The Secrets You Keep a self-help author, Bryn Harper, is already troubled by recurring nightmares of her devastating car accident when she encounters a new issue: her husband, Guy, seems to be hiding something. When a woman hired to cater their dinner party is brutally murdered, Bryn must turn to her dreams to unlock the truth and reveal the murderer.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books about tennis

Benjamin Markovits is an author and critic. His new novel is A Weekend in New York. One of five books about tennis the author recommended at the Guardian:

I’m not a good player. Geoff Dyer once described my game as “so inelegant and ineffective” that he worried it might be “infectious”. Fact checkers from Harpers, where he published the line, got in touch with me to establish the evidence base. I was happy to corroborate. I used to get beaten regularly by William Skidelsky, whose memoir Federer and Me ends this list. We used to argue about Federer but the book is a moving reminder that for lots of us fandom has an intensity as profound as playing – that watching sports is like reading a novel, an experience that doesn’t entirely belong to the writer or the athlete. Books and ballgames made up my childhood and I haven’t outgrown them yet.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see: the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on tennis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four books that changed Alison Booth

Alison Booth is an academic economist at the Australia National University as well as a bestselling novelist. One of four books that changed the writer, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

OUT STEALING HORSES
Per Petterson

Out Stealing Horses (translated into English by Anne Born) is a poignant novel that spans half a century, from the time of German occupation of Norway early in World War II. I love short novels (clearly Patrick White is an exception), and greatly admire how Per Petterson tells his story – with its profound insights about the legacy of the past on the present in such parsimonious and beautiful prose.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Out Stealing Horses is among Dea Brøvig's top ten Norwegian books available in English translation, a top ten list of books written by librarians, and the 20 most loaned books in Norway's libraries in 2008.

Read Ray Taras' review of Out Stealing Horses.

--Marshal Zeringue

Graham Nash's six best books

Graham Nash is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee - with Crosby, Stills, and Nash and with the Hollies. One of his six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

GLOW KIDS by Nicholas Kardaras

My school report when I was 11 said: “This boy wants to know everything.”

I’m curious about how the world works.

This book examines what the small, bright screen that we hold continuously is doing to our brains.

People walk along checking their phone and miss a great deal of real life, which disturbs me.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue