Top 10 literary teenagers

Will Davis' first novel, My Side of the Story, was published in 2007 and took that year's Betty Trask prize. His new book is Dream Machine.

For the Guardian, he named a top ten list of literary teenagers. One teen on the list:

Elizabeth Wurtzel in Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Wurtzel's famous autobiographical novel does not skimp on any aspect of her debilitating depression, which first began when she was a teenager. It might pulsate with an egoism that would make Mariah Carey blush, but you can practically feel the catharsis as she pours out the illness that's marked her life.

Read about the other teens on Davis' list.

Related: Writers Read: Elizabeth Wurtzel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 Elvis Presley books

Robert Fontenot, Jr. is an entertainment critic and journalist, and the About.com guide to oldies music.

Number One on his top 10 list of Elvis Presley books:

"Elvis," Dave Marsh

There are a number of books that explore Elvis more intently from different viewpoints, but this is the only one to define him in all ways at once -- who he was as a person, why he rose, what he meant to music and culture, why he was so loved and hated, why he fell. As a result, this is the first book to buy if you're wondering what all the fuss was about, but there's plenty of thoughtful eulogy for hardcore fans, too. The stunning Bea Feitler photos are alone worth the price of purchase.

Read about the other books on Robert Fontenot, Jr's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on food and cooking

Raymond Sokolov writes the "Eating Out" column for the Wall Street Journal's weekend edition.

In 2005 he named a five best list of books about food and cooking.

One title on the list:

"Mastering the Art Of French Cooking, Vol. 1" by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Knopf, 1961).

This overly meticulous and slightly dated introduction to la cuisine française is still the indispensable text for the cook who has learned the basics and wants to move on to the classic dishes of the world's greatest national food repertoire. By now, "Mastering" is also a historical document, the book that launched the American food revolution. It was based in part on an even greater primer, soon to appear in English, "La Cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange." But for neophytes, nothing will replace Julia.

Reads about all five books on Sokolov's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on the pleasures and hazards of booze

Iain Gately's books include Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization and Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol.

For the Wall Street Journal he named a five best list of books on the pleasures and hazards of drink.

One title on the list:

Headlong Hall
by Thomas Love Peacock
1816

The Enlightenment collides with the squirearchy in this ­Regency novel set in a Welsh manor over Christmas. Guests argue over “Progress” or its ­absence, and their host, Harry Headlong, moderates their ­debates with claret, port, brandy and aqua vitae. There are skulls, explosions, landscaped gardens, the Peacock-coined word osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary (the bony fleshy bloody gutsy gristly marrowy totality of the body), a ball and later betrothals—all lubricated with lashings of booze. ­“Headlong Hall” is also a roman à clef ­featuring Samuel Taylor ­Coleridge and other Romantic poets, drawn from life. Best of all, it is an enthusiastic and stylish picture of the joys of commensal drinking.

Read about the other four books on Gately's list.

The Page 99 Test: Iain Gately's Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best volcanoes

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best volcanoes in literature.

One title on the list:

Pompeii by Robert Harris

The hero of Harris's historical yarn is Roman engineer Marcus Attilius Primus, in charge of Pompeii's water supplies. In the process of trying to keep the aquaducts flowing, he discovers the corruption and decadence of the locals, and scientifically detects the signs of a coming catastrophe.

Read about the other nine volcanoes on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 musical novels

Joyce Hackett's fiction and non-fiction have appeared in publications including Harpers, The Paris Review, London Magazine, Boston Review, Prospect (UK), The Independent, Salon, and the Berlin Daily Der Tagespiegel. Her first novel, Disturbance of the Inner Ear, won the 2003 the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction by an American Woman.

In 2003 she named a top 10 list of musical novels for the Guardian. One novel on the list:

The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

"Invisibility... gives one a slightly different sense of time, you're never quite on the beat." Ellison takes the linear, progressive marching rhythms of Eurocentric music and turns them on their ear with a prose that, while it does not discuss much music, embodies jazz. In this story of a gifted black valedictorian who is tortured, taunted, and made invisible by the whites who must impose their myths upon him, Ellison explores, perhaps more intensely than any other prose writer, the literary possibilities of musical rhythm, time and form.

Read about the other nine musical novels on the list.

Visit Joyce Hackett's website.

The Invisible Mancomes in second on the list of the 100 best last lines from novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Leslie Cockburn's best books

Leslie Cockburn is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the director of American Casino, a documentary about the current economic crisis.

In May she named a best books list for The Week. One book on the list:

Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation 1940-44 by Charles Glass (HarperPress, London).

Before reading Charles Glass’ new book, it never occurred to me that so many Americans refused to leave Paris under Nazi occupation. Glass has uncovered a fascinating chapter of forgotten history.

Read about the other five books on Cockburn's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 time-travelling stories

Linda Buckley-Archer's time-travelling trilogy concludes with Time Quake, available in the U.S. in October.

For the Guardian, she named her top ten time-travelling stories. Her preface:

"My first proper short story was about a man obsessed with marking the new millennium (he missed it). Ever since, though I'm not sure why, the theme of time has managed to creep into almost everything I've written. We are so used to moving backwards and forwards in time in our heads - revisiting times past and speculating on our future - that the notion of time travel is easy to imagine and accept."

One title on the list:

The Time Machine by HG Wells

It's impossible to leave out this seminal time-travelling story from of one of science fiction's founding fathers. Having invented a machine capable of moving through the fourth dimension, a gentleman scientist journeys to the distant future where he discovers that mankind has evolved in disturbing ways. Wells's imagination was extraordinary. Published in 1895 (10 years before Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity) The Time Machine reflects Wells's fascination with both science and social issues.

Read about the other nine titles on Buckley-Archer's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on baseball as a business

Richard J. Tofel, author of A Legend in the Making: The New York Yankees in 1939, named a list of the five best books on baseball as a business for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on the list:

Moneyball
by Michael Lewis
Norton, 2003

Michael Lewis’s “Moneyball” has become the modern ­baseball classic, charting how some of baseball’s have-not teams have hoped to use superior understanding of statistics to even the odds against them. Love it (quantitative baseball progressives, led by statistics maven Bill James) or hate it (anecdotal traditionalists), the book sharpened debates about how to build a winning team and how much difference money ­really makes. In an important sense, Lewis provided a rejoinder to George Will’s 1990 “Men at Work” (which isn’t listed here only because its focus is on the play of baseball rather than the business). One glitch in Lewis’s argument: The story’s hero, general manager Billy Beane, and his Oakland A’s still haven’t won a pennant, much less the World Series.

Read about the other four books on Tofel's list.

Also see Tim McCarver's five best list of baseball books, Tom Werner's six favorite baseball books, Fay Vincent's five best list of baseball books, and Nicholas Dawidoff's five best list of baseball fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Malcolm Jones' 10 favorite crime novels

Newsweek's Malcolm Jones named his ten favorite crime novels.

One book on the list:

The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler:

Philip Marlowe has no serious competition as the quintessential hardboiled private eye. Here he travels through a Los Angeles where nothing—or at least anything good—is what it seems.

Read about the other nine books on the list.

(H/t to Sarah Weinman, who writes that the "dude needs to read more women.")

The Long Goodbye also appears on John Mullan's list of the ten best fake deaths in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best swimming scenes in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best swimming scenes in literature.

One title on the list:

The Sea by John Banville

Narrator Max Morden recalls a seaside holiday from childhood, including the best description I know of the absurd swimming styles of one's parents. His mother wallows in a soupy lagoon with "small, mistrustful pleasure"; his father goes "at a sort of hindered, horizontal scramble with mechanical strokes and a gasping sideways grimace and one starting eye". But swimming will also lead to a very bad ending ...

Read about the other nine swimming scenes on Mullan's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jason Kottke: best books

Jason Kottke builds web sites and edits the famous kottke.org blog.

He named a best books list for The Week. One title on the list:

The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage (Walker, $15).

Even though it’s a history of the telegraph, this book is always relevant. The rise of the 1830s communication device continues to be a fantastic metaphor for each new Internet technology that comes along, from e-mail to IM to Facebook to Twitter.

Read about the other five books on Kottke's list.

The Victorian Internet also appears on Evgeny Morozov's list of ten books to learn how technology shapes the world.

--Marshal Zeringue