Eight YA novels with characters who are changed by music

Cecil Castellucci, author of five books including the rock novel Beige, named eight YA novels with characters whose lives are changed by music.

One novel on the list:

"Fat Kid Rules the World" by K.L. Going

Troy is a fat kid who doesn't have any friends, just can't take it anymore and decides to end it all. But high school music legend Curt McCrae steps in and saves him, and everything changes. Curt sees something in Troy that no one else sees; even though Troy can’t drum, Curt thinks that Troy should be the drummer for his new band Rage/Tectonic. It’s a funny thing how when someone starts seeing something special in you, you start seeing yourself in a different way, too.

Read about all 8 books on Castellucci's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best concerts in fiction

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

One book on the list:

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Anne Elliot attends a recital in Bath, all a flutter with the knowledge that she has reawakened Captain Wentworth's romantic interest. The creepy Mr Elliot sits next to her and explains the lyrics of amorous Italian songs, while Wentworth stands at the back of the concert room and burns with jealousy.

Read about the other nine concerts on Mullan's list.

Persuasion is among Elizabeth Buchan's "top 10 books guaranteed to give comfort during the ending of a relationship."

The Page 99 Test: Persuasion.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books about trial lawyers at work

The trial lawyer John Quinn is the founder and managing ­partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges LLP in Los Angeles.

For the Wall Street Journal he named a five best list of books about trial lawyers at work. One title on the list:

Courting Justice
by David Boies
Hyperion, 2004

In "Courting Justice," David Boies captures the life of a business trial lawyer, especially the way it often ­requires the simultaneous immersion in multiple, unrelated ­proceedings and different casts of characters—all of which the lawyer has to keep straight. One of the most interesting cases he describes is the antitrust action that the Justice Department, ­represented by Boies, brought against Microsoft in 1998. Bill Gates, who might have been a powerful voice for the company, was effectively neutered as a trial witness, thanks to his overly clever fencing with Boies at his deposition. It's a basic lesson that all litigators learn—at least the successful ones: A witness cannot be credible at trial if he has not been credible at deposition. The book brims with such hard-won insights.

Read about the other four books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's chart: 6 books featuring medical breakthroughs

Last year Thomas Stuttaford, The Times (London) doctor, named a critic's chart of six books featuring medical breakthroughs.

One title on the list:

Medicine's 10 Greatest Discoveries by Meyer Friedman and Gerald Friedland

This inspired book of science by two American clinicians shows keen observation for a human story.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

Best books: Kate Walbert

Kate Walbert, author of the new novel A Short History of Women, named a best books list of her favorite (unlikely) heroines for The Week magazine.

One novel on her list:

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

With Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf magically exposes the complexities and contradictions of an ordinary woman’s life through the course of one single brave day. While reading it, everything that’s possible in fiction suddenly hangs in perfect equilibrium.

Read about the other five literary heroines on Walbert's list.

Mrs. Dalloway also appears on John Mullan's list of ten of the best prime ministers in fiction, and among Michael Cunningham's 5 most important books and Dani Shapiro's 10 favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 graphic novels for teenagers

Malorie Blackman's has written more than 50 books, including Pig-Heart Boy, Hacker and Whizziwig. She also writes for theatre and TV. Her latest book, Double Cross, the fourth in the award-winning Noughts and Crosses series, has just been published in paperback in the UK.

For the Guardian, she named a top ten list of graphic novels for teenagers.

Number One on her list:

V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

This book started my love of graphic novels. I'd always read comics as a child but I didn't realise stories could be told in this format for adults and teenagers until I read this story. V For Vendetta is complex, absorbing and truly brilliant. The story is set in an England in the near future where those deemed "deviants" are sent to camps to be exterminated or experimented on. What I love about this story is that it celebrates the individual, how just one person can make a difference, can start a domino effect that can change a whole society. Awe-inspiring stuff.

Read about all ten books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 10 best lady detectives

Adrian McKinty is the critically acclaimed author of Dead I Well May Be, the award-winning The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead, and Hidden River. McKinty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University. His latest novel is Fifty Grand.

For the (London) Times, he named a top ten list of the best lady detectives.

One lady detective to make the grade:

Precious Ramotswe: Except, ironically, in Botswana, you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t read at least one of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books. The Susan Boyle of the crime fighting world Mma Ramotswe is a rather large, slightly comic, jovial lady who runs a private detective agency in the Botswanan town of Gaborone. Of course like Miss Boyle Precious has hidden depths: smart as a whip, an astute judge of character and with a self taught detecting skill set she is a force for good in a turbulent and often quite depressing landscape. Solving murders, missing persons cases and thefts Ramotswe is a charming, wise and likeable character that everyone could do with as an auntie. She loves the Queen, Nelson Mandela and politician Seretse Khama whose son Ian got moaned at by Jeremy Clarkson and having survived that is now the current President of Botswana.

Read about all ten lady detectives on the list.

Visit Adrian McKinty's blog.

Declan Burke says McKinty's Fifty Grand "is already one of the Top Five Crime Novels of 2009."

McKinty appears on Brian McGilloway's top 10 list of modern Irish crime novels.

The Page 69 Test: Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty.

--Marshal Zeringue

Martin Meredith's 10 books to read on Africa

Martin Meredith is a journalist, biographer, and historian who has written extensively on Africa and its recent history. His books include Mugabe and The Fate of Africa (UK title: The State of Africa).

Brian Schofield calls the latter "an epic survey of a continent gone wrong, starting from colonial independence after World War 2, to the present day. I cannot recommend it too highly - to be part of humanity in 2009, you have to try to understand Africa, and this book offers a tremendous guide to the whole tragic saga."

One book from Meredith's list of ten books to read on Africa:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

While working as a river-boat captain, Conrad witnessed the madness of greed and corruption that overtook King Leopold's Congo Free State at the end of the nineteenth century, immortalising it in a short novel that remains one of the most scathing indictments of imperialism ever written. "The horror! The horror," whispers his chief character Mr. Kurtz on his death bed, memorable words replayed in Francis Ford Coppola's film 'Apocalypse Now.'

Read about all ten books on Martin Meredith's list.

Heart of Darkness also appears on Tim Butcher's list of the top 10 books about Congo, Thomas Perry's best books list, and is #9 on the 100 best last lines from novels list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best magic books in America's past

Owen Davies, Reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire, has written extensively on the history of popular magic, witchcraft, and ghosts. His new book is Grimoires: A History of Magic Books.

For the Wall Street Journal, he named a five best list of books on magic in an earlier America.

One title on the list:

The Long Lost Friend
by John George Hohman
1820

When John George Hohman and his family sailed from the port of ­Hamburg and pitched up on American shores in 1802, they ended up in Berks County, Pa., where other ethnic Germans had settled. It was there that Hohman began peddling books of charms, blessings and recipes. "Der lang verborgene Freund"—"The Long Lost Friend"—was his most successful. Within its pages were instructions "to charm guns" and "to prevent being cheated, charmed, or bewitched." God and guns are key themes in the book, appealing to the pious self-sufficiency of the Protestant Pennsylvania Dutch communities. "Anybody could use the book," explained one woman to a folklorist. But, she said, "you had to have a little faith, you know, you would have to believe in God." First translated into English in 1846, "The Long Lost Friend" eventually spread beyond the German-American population and into America's other folk traditions.

Read about the other books on Davies' list.

Also see Davies' list of the top ten grimoires.

The Page 99 Test: Grimoires: A History of Magic Books by Owen Davies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about U.S. military history

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.

For Foreign Policy, he named ten "books anyone interested in U.S. military history should read."

One title on the list:

Son of the Morning Star
by Evan S. Connell

A great take on Custer, and also of the life of the American soldier in the taking of the West.

Read about all ten books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best: Detroit's car culture, and America's

Paul J. Ingrassia retired from The Wall Street Journal at the end of 2007, after 31 years. In 1993, as the Journal's Detroit bureau chief, Mr. Ingrassia won a Pulitzer Prize -- along with his deputy, Joseph B. White --for coverage of the prior year's crisis at General Motors. The two also won a Loeb Award. Messrs. Ingrassia and White co-authored Comeback: the Fall and Rise of the American Automobile Industry, published by Simon and Schuster in 1994.

His new book, Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster, is due out in January 2010.

Back in 2005 he named a five best list of books that capture Detroit's car culture, and America's.

One title on the list:

"Sloan Rules" by David Farber (University of Chicago Press, 2002).

Henry Ford invented mass production, but General Motors' Alfred P. Sloan invented mass marketing and rolled right past Ford. Sloan, who led GM from the 1920s to the 1950s, left no private papers. But David Farber's research reconstructs his achievements and failures alike--the most notable failure being an inability to see beyond GM's narrow institutional interest: Sloan stoutly resisted turning GM's factories over to weapons production during World War II. Sloan "was not much ruled by a moral vision or a sense of compassion for others," Mr. Farber writes, but his work brought prosperity to millions.

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

--Marshal Zeringue

The ten best children's cookbooks

The Independent came up with a ten best list of children's cookbooks.

One title on the list:

The Gastrokid Cookbook by Hugh Garvey and Matthew Yeomans

One of the greatest challenges for parents is weaning children off their fussy eating habits. 'The Gastrokid Cookbook', birthed by a blog, seeks to help raise a generation of fearless foodies by slowly broadening palates, while encouraging children to get involved with the cooking.

Read about the other cookbooks on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue