Top five crime & mystery novels of 2008: NPR

For National Public Radio, Maureen Corrigan named a list of the "Top Five Crime And Mystery Novels Of 2008."

One title on the list:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, translated from the Swedish by Reg Keeland

For the past decade or so, Sweden has been a popular pick for crime capital of the literary world, thanks to Henning Mankell and his fellow practitioners of noir on ice. The newest name in mystery to emerge out of the frozen north is that of the late journalist-turned-novelist Stieg Larsson. His debut novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was a blockbuster when it was debuted in Europe; this past fall, an English-language version was published in the United States. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a super-smart amalgam of the corporate corruption tale, the legal thriller, the Agatha Christie-type "locked room" puzzle, and the dysfunctional family suspense story. Reporter Mikael Blomkvist is hired by an elderly mogul to solve the "cold case" disappearance of his niece, 40 years ago, from the family compound.

Blomkvist is aided in his investigation by a 24-year-old computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. Salander is a pierced and tattooed Goth with major attitude problems. She's also one of the most invigorating women to come along in detective fiction since Miss Marple.

Read about all five titles on Corrigan's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten angel books

Karl O. Knausgaard, author of A Time for Everything, named "his 10 favourite depictions of these not always divine creatures" for the Guardian.

His argument for the list and the top title:

Never having been interested in angels or religion, I suddenly stumbled across one in my writing. Mostly out of boredom with myself, really, and with the terrible, never-ending novel I was working on then, I thought I maybe should look into the subject. For the next year I was obsessed with angels, read everything I could find about them, and then I wrote a new novel.

Angels are connected with the divine, but also with men. Through this deeply archaic image, it's possible to see how the relations between those two have constantly changed, in a polarity that has kept producing meaning, and still does. I hope my selections give some sense of this rich and strange tradition.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

It may be hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Salman Rushdie was the best novelist in the world. In 1988, to be exact, when this novel was published. Every sentence is full of life, and the life described is everchanging, unstoppable, in constant metamorphosis and flux, in opposition to the religious longing for one god, one people, purity and control. The angel in this neo-baroque world, Gibreel, is an Indian film star. I can´t think of any novel that treats the problems of our time better and more accurately than this one.

Read about all ten titles on Knausgaard's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best novels of 2008: Christian Science Monitor

From the Christian Science Monitor's list of the best novels of 2008:

When Will There Be Good News?
By Kate Atkinson

Scottish author Kate Atkinson earns kudos with this third and final installment of her mystery series focused on detective Jackson Brodie. Here, Brodie investigates the mysterious disappearance of an Edinburgh doctor and her baby.

Read about all of the books to make the Monitor's fiction list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Washington Post: 10 best books of 2008

The editors and reviewers at the Washington Post named their ten best list of books for 2008.

One title on the list:

The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars by Andrew X. Pham

Chronicles the undoing of a vast and elaborate dynasty, the cataclysmic disintegration of a country, and the dramatic misfortunes that befell the descendant of a Vietnamese war hero.--Martha Sherill

Read about all ten titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books that debunk pseudohistory

Damian Thompson, author of the recently released Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History, named a five best list of books for the Wall Street Journal. His subject: books that "emphatically debunk pseudohistory and spurious 'knowledge.'"

One title from the list:

Speak of the Devil
by J.S. La Fontaine
Cambridge University, 1998

The subtitle of this book is "Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England," which gives the impression that the author, a leading anthropologist, is merely examining the phenomenon of the scare stories about satanism that swept Britain in the late 1980s, having migrated from America. In fact, Jean La Fontaine performed a vital role -- at some cost to herself -- in bringing this dreadful episode to an end. "Speak of the Devil" draws on her report, sponsored by the British government, into the allegations of unspeakable acts of degradation performed on small children by covens of devil worshipers. She found not only that there was no evidence that these covens existed but also that the accusations had been extracted from children by social workers and other "experts" who were determined to prove that the organized satanic abuse happened. The manipulation of children described by La Fontaine is shocking -- and deeply sad, because this modern witch hunt destroyed families, reputations and lives.

Read about all five titles on Thompson's list.

Damian Thompson is the editor in chief of The Catholic Herald. He also writes for The Daily Telegraph.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Wroblewski's 5 most important books

David Wroblewski is the author the acclaimed debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

He named his five most important books for Newsweek.

One title on the list:

"Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville.

I love it because it is too long, and it goes on and on about whales.

Read about all five books on Wroblewski's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on presidential rhetoric

Elvin T. Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush.

He named a five best list of books on presidential rhetoric for the Wall Street Journal.

Number One on his list:

Woodrow Wilson and the Lost World of the Oratorical Statesman
by Robert Kraig
Texas A&M, 2004

Historians have argued that Woodrow Wilson's decision in 1913 to deliver the State of the Union address in person rather than as a written statement to Congress signaled the beginning of the end of oratory. As the century progressed, and especially after the arrival of television, what had once been a carefully considered annual presentation of legislative proposals gradually turned into a laundry list of programmatic promises and vacuous applause lines. Robert Kraig argues that President Wilson was in fact the last of a dying breed of orator-statesmen who took words seriously enough to value them for their pedagogic as well as theatrical qualities. Kraig casts new light on that famous failure of rhetorical persuasion, Wilson's western tour of the nation in 1919, in which he tried unsuccessfully to win popular backing for the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. It is a tragic story, in Kraig's telling, of an orator who would suffer a breakdown -- and, a week later, a permanently incapacitating stroke -- as a result of the strenuous 26-day speaking campaign. Wilson believed, perhaps to a fault, Kraig says, in his ability to mobilize and educate public opinion according to the "verdict of his conscience."

Read about all five titles on Lim's list.

The Page 99 Test: Elvin T. Lim's The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: books about doctors and patients

In 2006 Jerome Groopman named a five best list of books about doctors and patients for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on the list:

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (1886).

With fine brush strokes, Tolstoy paints the portrait of an ambitious and upwardly mobile magistrate, Ivan Ilyich, who suddenly comes down with a mysterious malady. The restrained prose works to amplify a chilling message: Severe illness strips away life's façade and forces us to examine our inner core. Ilyich, at the cusp of death, realizes that he has squandered his life by pursuing what is insubstantial. But Tolstoy affirms that while there may no longer be hope for the body, there is, until the last breath, hope for the soul. It is a lesson best learned while still healthy.

Read about all five titles on Groopman's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten sexy French books

Helena Frith Powell is the author of All You Need to Be Impossibly French: A Witty Investigation Into the Lives, Lusts, and Little Secrets of French Women and other books.

Back in 2005 she named a top ten list of "sexy French books" for the Guardian.

Her argument for the list and one title from it:

Why are French women so sexy? Ever since 1066, we've been enthralled by the innate superiority of the French female. Never mind Larkin and 1963; the French were at it well before that. French women are beautiful, stylish and chic - but they have something else that many English women lack. One of their tools, every bit as potent as their matching underwear, is their knowledge of literature. They see being well-read as important as being well-groomed. In order to outwit our French female foes across the Channel, here is a list of the top 10 sexy French books, guaranteed to land you a date with Thierry Henry.

* * *

Emmanuelle by Emmanuelle Arsan

My husband's favourite French book. He says he reads it for the philosophy. It is the story of a woman getting laid. A lot. In just about every position and place imaginable, but mainly Thailand. This book has entertained French boys since publication. I fully expect to find it under my son's pillow in a few years' time.

Read about all ten titles on Frith Powell's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books with big ideas

Tom Whitwell, assistant editor at the (London) Times online, named a critic's chart of "books with big ideas."

One title on the list:

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

How message boards and blogs are dramatically changing the world.

Read about all six titles on Whitwell's chart.

Visit Clay Shirky's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alex Ross: five most important books

Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker since 1996 and author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, recently told Newsweek about his five most important books.

One title to make the list:

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live by Joan Didion.

An awe-inspiring nonfiction collection. Didion imposes her style on the world, yet records the world as it is.

Read about all five titles on Ross' list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best rare books on early America

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, a former rare-books dealer, named a five best list of "rare books on early America" for the Wall Street Journal.

Number One on the list:

Mourt's Relation
by William Bradford and Edward Winslow
1622

For narrative suspense and visual detail, few accounts of the Plymouth colony's first year can match this report by the Mayflower passengers William Bradford and Edward Winslow. ("Mourt's Relation" refers to the Bradford family connection who published the work.) We see them wading ashore in the fall of 1620, wary of the unseen natives but obliged to seek them out to barter for food. For days they find only clues: a distant plume of smoke, the shallow grave of a child, abandoned huts, the head of a freshly killed deer. Finally, one evening: the cry "Indians! Indians!" and a hail of arrows. A year later, with the group of 102 nearly halved by frost and disease, the Pilgrims sit down to an autumn feast. The Indians, now friendly, join them.

Read about all five titles on da Fonseca-Wollheim's list.

--Marshal Zeringue