Five essential titles for the Bigfoot-curious

Giano Cromley is the author of two indie YA novels, The Prince of Infinite Space, and The Last Good Halloween, and a short story collection, What We Build Upon the Ruins. He is a recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and was a BookEnds Fellow with Stonybrook University.

[Coffee with a Canine: Giano Cromley & Kaiya and Tanka; My Book, The Movie: The Last Good Halloween]

Originally from Billings, Montana, he graduated from Dartmouth College and received an MFA from the University of Montana. He has worked as a speech writer and deputy press secretary in Washington, DC, and he has taught GED and ESL classes in Chicago. He is currently an English professor at Kennedy-King College, where he is chair of the Communications Department. He is also an amateur woodworker and a certified wildlife tracker. He lives on the South Side of Chicago with his wife and two dogs.

Cromley's new novel is American Mythology.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "books to broaden your Sasquatch knowledge (whether you believe or not)." One title on the list:

The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster by John O’Connor

While researching his book, O’Connor participated in several Bigfoot expeditions in order to better understand the individuals who spend their lives looking for this mythical creature. The portraits of the people he encounters are sensitive and honest, capturing the fact that their fascinations may tell us more about ourselves as a country than we care to admit.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve great LA books

David Gordon was born in New York City. His first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. It was also made into a major motion picture in Japan. His work has also appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Purple, and Fence, among other publications.

[The Page 69 Test: The Serialist; The Page 69 Test: Mystery Girl; The Page 69 Test: White Tiger on Snow Mountain; Writers Read: David Gordon (August 2019); The Page 69 Test: The Hard Stuff; Q&A with David Gordon; The Page 69 Test: The Wild Life]

Gordon's new novel is Behind Sunset.

At The Strand Magazine he tagged twelve favorite Los Angeles books. One title on the list:

Devil in a Blue Dress – Walter Mosley

With this, the first case of Easy Rawlins, Mosely introduces an archetypal detective, and kicks off a retelling of post-war LA history as experienced by black Americans, refreshing and reimagining classic crime along the way.

Read about the other books on Gordon's list.

Devil in a Blue Dress is among Gabino Iglesias's fifty best mysteries of all time, Zach Vasquez's nine novels that explore secrecy & deception in racial identity, Peter Colt's eight books featuring unlikely detectives, E.G. Scott's ten best pairs of frenemies in fiction, Alex Segura's nine top jazz-infused crime novels, Lori Roy's five top morality-driven thrillers, and Al Roker's six favorite crime novels.

Raymond “Mouse” Alexander, from Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series, made The A.V. Club's list of “13 sidekicks who are cooler than their heroes.”

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top age-gap relationship novels

Hattie Williams began pursuing a music career in her teens and toured Europe extensively, making three studio albums and working as a composer before finding her way to book publishing (quite by accident). She spent the next twelve years working with some of the biggest authors in the world, and she is the former producer of the Iceland Noir Literary Festival, which takes place in Reykjavík every November. Williams continues to feed her creativity through her writing from her home in East London, where she lives with her partner and daughter.

Williams's new novel is Bitter Sweet.

At Lit Hub she tagged eight of her favorite age gap relationship novels, including:

Louise Kennedy, Trespasses

This absolutely devastating novel set in Northern Ireland in 1975 follows the affair between young Cushla, and older, married British lawyer Micheal. Everything about this novel is perfect.

The prose, staccato and refined and ever so slightly detached, paints the setting so viscerally; every single character in the ensemble around these doomed lovers is multi-dimensional and written with such tenderness and understanding that they leap off the page and into your heart, where they will stay forever.

I read this book after I had written Bitter Sweet and honestly wanted to throw mine in the bin and move under a rock because it is that good. It made me a better writer just by reading it. The ending will destroy you, even if you know what’s coming.

Read about the other novels on Williams's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books to understand Middle Eastern Muslims

Donna Lee Bowen, Professor Emerita of Political Science and Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University, is co-editor of Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East.

At Shepherd she taggd five of the best books to understand Middle Easterners and their lives in the Muslim Middle East. One title on the list:

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas

Over the past forty-plus years, the Middle East has seen more than its due of wars and chaos. Kim Ghattas, a Lebanese journalist who currently writes for The Atlantic, writes in Black Wave of the impact throughout the Middle East of three heavy-duty events—the fall of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic, the attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca by a Saudi Arabian fundamentalist, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and gives a sense of the why and the how behind the events she documents.

Ghattas tracks the impact of these events throughout Iran and Afghanistan but also in Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. She handles the sheer volume of material by focusing on the repression of regimes and the ideologies they represent as seen through the voices of novelists, journalists, intellectuals, and religious figures. Her account emphasizes issues often seen as marginal to the politics of the region, such as dialectical differences and actresses choosing to veil, but which, under examination, prove to be meaningful as dictators use social issues to keep their political pots boiling.

One of my favorite sections was the Pakistani woman news announcer who began her career as a top-notch star, then gradually lost freedom to dress as she chose, and then even to appear on air. I was also fascinated by an unconventional story of love and free speech. A well-known Egyptian literature professor’s life was upended by conservative Muslim scholars critical of his publications. In court, they won cases that declared that in looking at the origins of Islam through a critical eye, he was an apostate under Islamic law. They undermined his private life by ruling that—no longer considered a Muslim—he could no longer be married to his wife, a Muslim woman.

All of these stories help readers understand the everyday impact the increasing political Islamization had on Egyptians, Pakistanis, and other Middle Easterners.

Read about the other books on Bowen's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight twisty crime thrillers

Elisa Shoenberger is a freelance writer and journalist. At Book Riot she tagged "eight crime thrillers with incredible twists that will have you guessing and holding your breath to the last page." One title on the list:

The Long Weekend by Gilly MacMillan

For folks who want a little bit more of a taste of White Lotus, here’s a twisty thriller for you. A group of couples have planned a weekend away in Dark Fell Barn, which is set far from everyone on a farm in Northumberland. The women arrive first before their husbands, but when they arrive, there’s a note. One of the woman’s husbands is dead. On top of that, there’s a storm that makes their isolation complete. None of the three women can reach out to their husbands, nor leave the retreat. All they have are their secrets which are all about to come how.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Long Weekend is among Lisa Unger's six best (or worst!) books to read in a secluded cabin in the woods.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top crime fiction canines

Dick Lochte is an award-winning, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of numerous crime novels, including The Talk Show Murders with Al Roker. He and his wife Jane live in Southern California with their dog Hoagy. Lochte's newest novel, with William M Webster IV, is Rockets' Red Glare.

At The Strand Magazine Lochte tagged six notable crime fiction canines, including:

ROBERT CRAIS’S MAGGIE

Crais’ main sleuth, Elvis Cole, essentially a younger West Coast version of Spenser, is more cat- than dog-lover, but in the novel, Suspect, another of the author’s protagonists, LAPD K-9 officer Scott James walks his beat with Maggie, a retired military German shepherd. She is suffering a canine version of PTSD caused by the death of her handler and her own wounds after a bombing attack in Afghanistan. Scott himself has not quite recovered from a devastating ambush by unidentified assailants who killed his human partner. Just as in Rockets’ Red Glare, after Sage and Peak are nearly killed by explosives left by the assassins, the bond between man and dog is more than mere companionship—it’s one of healing.

Crais writes some of the novel from Maggie’s point of view, displaying astonishing empathy while allowing readers into her memory-driven, sensory world. In this Maggie clearly is not just a sidekick or emotional support; she’s a protagonist. Though the crimes she helps solve are important, they’re secondary to the deeper story: two wounded souls rebuilding by trusting one another. (Further examples of novels that take readers into the minds of dogs include Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series, narrated by Chet the canine partner of Bernie the down-at-heels private eye, and several of Dean Koontz’s bestselling fantasies, including Watchers which features Einstein, a genetically altered golden retriever who understands human language and has near-human intelligence.)

Read about the other canines on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eighteen brilliantly transporting works of historical fiction

At Vogue Mia Barzilay Freund tagged eighteen "of the best historical fiction books of the last several decades," including:

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

Brisk and engaging, this 2014 novel invites readers to the set of a popular sitcom in 1960s London. Hometown beauty queen Barbara Parker is plucked from obscurity and rebranded as Sophie Straw, the star of the BBC’s latest hit comedy. Hoping to channel her hero Lucille Ball, Sophie navigates newfound funny-girl fame with an amusing group: two bantering TV writers, an admiring producer, and a self-absorbed costar. With humor and sensitivity, Hornby brings out the color and chaos of TV comedy and the unusual people it throws together.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Funny Girl is among Brian Boone's five favorite literary crushes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven love triangle novels that are about more than romance

Lidija Hilje is a Croatian novelist and certified book coach. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and other outlets. After ten years of trying cases before Croatian courts, she obtained a book coaching certification and has been working professionally with writers ever since. She lives in Zadar, Croatia, with her husband and two daughters.

Slanting Towards the Sea is her first novel.

At Electric Lit Hilje tagged seven of her "favorite love triangles in literary fiction." One title on the list:

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

William Waters is a college student with a tragic past who meets and falls in love with Julia Padavano, a decisive and ambitious fellow student at Northwestern University. But Julia doesn’t come alone; she is one of four sisters, and a member of a tight-knit Italian family. While at first it seems like Julia’s drive and clear vision for the future are exactly what rudderless William needs, when tragedy strikes, it isn’t Julia who can understand him, but her younger—and closest—sister, Sylvie. The emergent love between William and Sylvie will spur an epic betrayal and cause a rift between sisters that will ripple through generations. Hello Beautiful explores the strength of three different kinds of bonds—sibling, romantic, and motherly––asking which is the strongest, and what happens when they’re stacked against one another.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

Hello Beautiful is among Morgan Dick's seven books about long-lost sisters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six social thrillers that will make you question who you can trust

Anna Barrington has worked in galleries and auction houses in the art world for over five years. She received an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Originally from Atlanta, she currently lives in London, where she worked at a leading international art gallery.

The Spectacle is her first novel.

At CrimeReads Barrington tagged "six novels to remind us that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you." One title on the list:

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Korede is a nurse whose life centers around her mission to protect her beautiful sister Ayoolah. Who is Ayoolah? Along with being the favorite child, she’s also a serial killer with an unpleasant habit of murdering her boyfriends. This novel is set in Lagos, Nigeria, where Korede navigates torrential storms and traffic jams as she reluctantly helps her sister clean up the mess … Until Ayoolah’s eye falls on Tade, the kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where Korede works. This novel reads like a combination of American Psycho and Nip/Tuck, imagining a murderous response to the pressure on women to be beautiful and sexually appealing. But Braithwaite doesn’t press the point. She is most interested in the sisters’ relationship, which is complex and filled with realistically petty jealousies.

Read about the other novels on the list.

My Sister the Serial Killer is among Kate Alice Marshall's six great thrillers featuring sisters (and murder), Margot Douaihy's four novels that show the power of siblings in mysteries & thrillers, Francesca McDonnell Capossela's seven books about women committing acts of violence, Tessa Wegert's five thrillers about killer relatives, Catherine Ryan Howard's five notable dangers-of-dating thrillers, Sally Hepworth's top five novels about twisted sisters, Megan Nolan's six books on unrequited love and unmet obsession, Sarah Pinborough's top ten titles where the setting is a character, Tiffany Tsao's top five novels about murder all in the family, Victoria Helen Stone's eight top crime books of deep, dark family lore, and Kristen Roupenian's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about women doing dirty jobs

Kelly Ramsey was born in Frankfort, Kentucky. She studied poetry writing at the University of Virginia and earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Pittsburgh. She co-founded The Lighthouse Works, an artists’ residency program on Fishers Island, New York, and later moved to Northern California, where she worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a trail maintenance worker, wilderness ranger, and wildland firefighter on a hotshot crew. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Sierra, Electric Literature, Catapult, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger. She loves creeks, lakes, coffee, the ocean, punishing hikes, diner breakfasts, getting too much sun, and plants—even if their care remains a mystery. She lives in Redding, California, with her partner, their daughter, and their dog, a lab mix who won’t swim named Rookie.

Ramsey's new book is Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven books

about ladies who work hard in mysterious, misunderstood industries. They suffer and struggle and can’t find anywhere to pee. Sometimes they’re victimized. And yet, in each of these stories, the women grow stronger than they ever imagined. Their books are about finding strength, resilience, joy, belonging, and so much more in the grittiest, most “masculine” workplaces.

One title on the list:

Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood by Hilary Peach

I have to admit straightaway that, before reading Thick Skin, I didn’t know exactly what a boilermaker was, but I knew it sounded tough as hell. A boilermaker is a construction welder, which, as Peach’s book humbly demonstrates, is an entirely badass and rather terrifying job (picture being lowered in a basket with a crane to weld a plate onto the side of a massive cruise ship). In this memoir of episodic stories, Peach tracks her many assignments and the progression of her skills as a welder in Canada—where she was based—and on assignment in the U.S. While misogyny is rampant in the male-dominated field of boilermaking, Peach’s approach is even-handed: she shows villains who tell her to “go home” alongside lovable mentors, allowing her male colleagues to be as human as herself. Peach, also a poet, writes beautifully (and humorously too!). I love this one and it deserves more attention than it has thus far received.

Read about the other books on Ramsey's list at Electric lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best political nonfiction books ever

For Esquire Charles P. Pierce tagged fifteen of the best political nonfiction books ever, including:

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson

Before Being Hunter ate him alive. Some of the most honest, scabrous, and, dammit, beautiful writing ever on how we govern ourselves.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is among the books that made a difference to John Cusack.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five laugh-out-loud mysteries

Jo Firestone is a comedian and writer best known for her work on After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson, ZIWE, and Joe Pera Talks With You. You can watch her most recent comedy special, Good Timing, currently streaming on Peacock. She can be heard hosting the long-running podcast, Dr. Gameshow, with comedian Manolo Moreno. She is also the co-author of two card games: Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers and Fruits.

Her debut murder mystery novel is Murder on Sex Island.

At CrimeReads Firestone tagged five favorite laugh-out-loud mysteries, including:

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

This book is about a dysfunctional family of private investigators, with 28-year-old Izzy at the helm. Izzy is a mess and so is her family, but the stories about them are charming. They’re such good private investigators, they are constantly tailing and wiretapping each other. It’s a cozy and quick read.

Read about the other titles on Firestone's list.

The Spellman Files is among Dahlia Adler's five books for Veronica Mars fans.

The Page 99 Test: The Spellman Files.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five novels on smart, quirky women facing personal struggles

Ruth F. Stevens likes to create stories that will make readers laugh and cry. A former public relations executive in New York and Los Angeles, she is a produced playwright and author of the novels Stage Seven, My Year of Casual Acquaintances, and The Unexpected Guests. Stevens is a proud member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association and the Dramatists Guild of America and serves as a volunteer and acquisitions editor for AlzAuthors. She lives in Torrance, California, with her husband. In her spare time, she enjoys travel, hiking, hip-hop and fitness classes, yoga, Broadway musicals, wine tasting, leading a book club, and visiting her grandsons in NYC.

At Shepherd Stevens tagged five of the best novels on smart, quirky women facing personal struggles. One title on the list:

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

This book contained everything I love in a novel: a sympathetic and unforgettable hero and a story that’s funny, original, and often surprising.

Elizabeth Zott is a beautiful woman and a gifted scientist, and I could feel her frustration as she tried to compete in the male-dominated professional world of the early 1960s. I cheered her on when she met her soulmate, fellow researcher Calvin, and abandoned her lonely existence.

When Elizabeth later ended up hosting a popular TV cooking show, where she taught her female fans how to break out of the stereotypical housewife rut to become modern women, I cheered even louder at her bold defiance of the status quo.

Read about the other entries on Stevens's list.

Lessons in Chemistry is among Lorna Graham's seven top workplace novels and Claire Alexander's five books to read for when you’re lonely.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top Greek mythology retellings

John Wiswell is a disabled author who lives where New York keeps all its trees. His fiction has been translated into 10 languages. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Short Story for "Open House on Haunted Hill," and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for "That Story Isn't The Story." He has also been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards.

Wiswell's new novel is Wearing the Lion.

At People magazine he tagged six Greek mythology retellings, including:

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

Achilles is one of the great heroes of retellings, both ridiculously popular and ever inconsistent across iterations. Some myths cast him as invincible except for a weak spot on his heel, yet in the most famous work he appears in, Homer’s Iliad, he is so not-invincible that the gods make sure he gets the right armor and shield. He is a figure with a million angles. Most recently, audiences fell in love with Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles, a tender gay romance that focused on Achilles and his fellow soldier Patroclus.

If you hunger for another LGBTQ+ take on Achilles, you need Wrath Goddess Sing in your life. It springs from the ancient story of Achilles passing as a woman in the court of King Skyros, and Deane explodes that idea to speculate that Achilles was a trans woman. She is hardly the only queer figure in the era of the Trojan War, but this Achilles has a unique path through the treacherous relationships of kings and warriors.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Mark Skinner's nineteen top Greek myth retellings, Christine Hume's ten top feminist retellings of mythology, and the B&N Reads editors' twenty-four best mythological retellings.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles featuring parents & children at the end of the world

Barnaby Martin is a multi-talented storyteller and creator. Besides his writing, he is an award-winning and self-taught composer, video essayist and teacher. His music has been performed widely in the UK and internationally by groups including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North and Westminster Cathedral Choir. His YouTube channel, Listening In, which he began in 2019 and for which he makes videos that explore the cross-section between pop culture and classical music, has garnered over 200,000 subscribers and ten million views. He studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and now teaches in London, where he lives with his husband.

Martin's new novel is The Quiet.

At CrimeReads he tagged seven "novels where a parent, or surrogate parent, just wants to save their child from the end of the world." One title on the list:

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

Station Eleven doesn’t directly feature a parent-child relationship, but it has all the hallmarks of it. Kirsten, who is eight when the Georgia Flu appears, saw actor and movie star Arthur Leander as a father figure. And Jeevan, who is with Kirsten on the night of the outbreak, looks after her as a parent would following the collapse of civilization.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

Station Eleven is among Brittany K. Allen's ten books that get the theatre world right, Jeanette Horn's nine twisted novels about theatrical performers, Isabelle McConville's fifteen books for fans of the post-apocalyptic TV-drama Fallout, Joanna Quinn's six best books set in & around the theatrical world, Carolyn Quimby's 38 best dystopian novels, Tara Sonin's seven books for fans of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, Maggie Stiefvater's five fantasy books about artists & the magic of creativity, Mark Skinner's five top literary dystopias, Claudia Gray's five essential books about plagues and pandemics, K Chess's five top fictional books inside of real books, Rebecca Kauffman's ten top musical novels, Nathan Englander’s ten favorite books, M.L. Rio’s five top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Anne Corlett's five top books with different takes on the apocalypse, Christopher Priest’s five top sci-fi books that make use of music, and Anne Charnock's five favorite books with fictitious works of art.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fourteen top essay collections

At GQ (UK edition) Josiah Gogarty tagged the "best essay collections for proving how amazingly well-read you are." One title on the list:

Feel Free by Zadie Smith

For all Zadie Smith’s talents and successes as a novelist, some in the literary world think her real strength is non-fiction. They have a strong case: Feel Free, Smith’s second essay collection, is full of superb writing. She’s razor-sharp at times, but also unafraid to confess genuine love and admiration for the subject at hand. The book and exhibition reviews are deft, but the highlights come with weirder subjects: a meditation on joy, in relation to ecstasy and British rave culture, and an improbable but brilliant comparison between Justin Bieber and the philosopher Martin Buber.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amateur sleuths with offbeat jobs

Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore; may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.

MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.

Her latest novel is There'll Be Shell to Pay.

[My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism; The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism; The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels; My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels; 
The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual; The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide; Q&A with Molly MacRae; Writers Read: Molly MacRae (July 2024); The Page 69 Test: Come Shell or High Water; My Book, The Movie: Come Shell or High Water]

At CrimeReads MacRae tagged a few favorite amateur sleuths with offbeat jobs, including:

Gloria Lamerino, protagonist in the Periodical Tables Mysteries by Camille Minichino, is a former Berkeley physics professor. Gloria left California for her hometown, Revere, Massachusetts, and now works part-time as a science consultant for the Revere police department. Her former and current jobs are offbeat only because so many cozy mysteries feature crafters, cooks, café owners, and the like. Gloria is fifty-six, turning gray, and thinks of herself as amply proportioned. She has brains and hips. She uses her science background and everything she absorbed from the dynamics and traditions of her Italian family to help her solve murders in her own well-mannered way. There’s something else offbeat about her—she doesn’t live in a quaint or cute cottage and she hasn’t inherited an inn or B&B. She lives in an apartment above a friend’s funeral home. These are intelligent, well-written, tightly-paced mysteries with appealing, sympathetic characters and a real Boston feel. There are eight books in the series and several short stories.

Read about the other entries on MacRae's list.

--Marshal Zeringue