10 great books about cycling

For the Christian Science Monitor, Marjorie Kehe came up with 10 great books about cycling, including:

"The Rider," by Tim Krabbé.

This classic in the field of biking literature can be described as a love letter to bike racing. It puts the reader inside the head of Dutch novelist and cyclist Tim Krabbé as he rides a 137-kilometer race through some of the toughest mountain terrain of the Tour de France. As he rides he meditates on his own attachment to the sport, as well as that of other cyclists.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see Matt Seaton's top 10 books about cycling and William Fotherham's top ten cycling novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best crime fiction of 2010: Part II

The editors of January Magazine came up with a list (in two parts) of the best crime fiction of 2010. One title to make the grade:

Print the Legend by Craig McDonald (Minotaur) 352 pages

The Hector Lassiter series took a significant step forward in 2010 when author Craig McDonald released his third book about the renegade hard-boiled writer, Print the Legend. Set in Ketchum, Idaho, in 1965, four years after Ernest Hemingway’s suicide, old Papa pal Lassiter finds himself the keynote speaker at a symposium about his drinking and writing rival and fellow spirit. Hemingway is on the verge of becoming the literary cottage industry that we know today with dissertations, journals, and academic jealousies. On top of it all, Mary Hemingway, the black widow herself, is still ensconced in the Ketchum home where she is said to be ready to release a posthumous memoir Hemingway wrote about his experiences in 1920s Paris, a book familiar to us today as A Moveable Feast. Yet all is clearly not right, since a rogue CIA agent named Donovan Creedy is lurking about the symposium, apparently hell-bent on destroying Papa’s reputation -- and take Lassiter out in the process. Meanwhile, Lassiter is trying to subdue the widow Hemingway, retrieve some long-lost papers, and keep Creedy from screwing Papa over once and for all. McDonald helps to keep this story timely by dovetailing it nicely into the recent controversy surrounding a re-editing of A Moveable Feast by one of the great author’s grandson, Sean Hemingway -- a “restored” version that received significant criticism from Hemingway loyalists. Like the previous entries in the Lassiter series, Head Games (2007) and Toros and Torsos (2008), in Print the Legend McDonald pulls from the archives of conspiracies and skullduggery to compose a rollicking yarn, taking no prisoners and never letting up on the adrenaline. One can’t help but be reminded, when reading several sections of this novel, of that old joke about why battles in academia are so vicious: because the stakes are so modest. -- Stephen Miller

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Print the Legend.

My Book, The Movie: Print the Legend.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best crime fiction of 2010: Part I

The editors of January Magazine came up with a list (in two parts) of the best crime fiction of 2010. One title to make the grade:

City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley (Minotaur) 352 pages

Kelli Stanley’s latest historical thriller is set against the backdrop of San Francisco in 1940. As Europe boils with war, Northern California’s largest city is enjoying its third world’s fair, a two-summer-long celebration called the Golden Gate International Exposition. But Stanley’s alter-ego, private eye Miranda Corbie, is paying more attention to the recent violent death of a Japanese teenager, Eddie Takahashi. It’s an investigation that will send the sexy, cynical and surprisingly resilient, 33-year-old Corbie trawling through the tensions of a segregated city, navigating the undercurrents of the Chinese and Japanese communities in order to discover why Takahashi’s life ended so soon. No one else seems to care about what happened to him, least of all the local cops, who are content to sweep the whole affair under the nearest Oriental rug. Corbie does, though. A former Spanish Civil War nurse and erstwhile female escort, the chain-smoking, tough-talking and romantic-despite-herself shamus does much to make City of Dragons a standout among this year’s crime novels. Her back-story is both exciting and eclectic, and rolls out in satisfying dribs as she combs her city’s venues high and low, straightening out the kinks that she uncovers as she unearths the sad truth and puts herself in danger. Stanley’s first P.I. escapade follows the conventions of the genre, especially as established by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Yet it’s much more than pastiche, with a rich political commentary, characters that come alive and descriptions of San Francisco between the two world wars that make it clear Stanley not only knows, but loves her town. City of Dragons is a choice treat in a crowded genre. There’s every reason to look forward to its planned sequel. -- Ali Karim

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: City of Dragons.

My Book, The Movie: City of Dragons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Books that made a difference to Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy's books include The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, South of Broad, and the recently released memoir My Reading Life.

One book that made a difference to him, as told to O, The Oprah Magazine:

The Lord of the Rings
by J.R.R. Tolkien

"I love books about treks and journeys into the unknown," Conroy says—books like Tolkien's famous high-fantasy epic about a dark lord determined to conquer a magical land. "I was on a quest to be a writer that mattered, and a friend told me that I must read and remember everything. 'You cannot call yourself educated or literate,' he said, 'if you do not know the secrets of Middle-earth, if you have not trekked with the Hobbits.' I mark the time I spent reading these splendid books among the richest days of my life. They are like the elevation of the host to me, their presence transformed, their effect indelible and everlasting. What is the loss of a job or a bad review when you've followed Gandalf the Grey through the mines of Moria?"

Read about the other books that made a difference to the author.

The Lord of the Rings also made Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs' list of ten classic SF books that were originally considered failures, Lev Grossman's list of the six greatest fantasy books of all time, and appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best towers in literature, ten of the best volcanoes in literature, ten of the best chases in literature, and ten of the best monsters in literature. It is one of Salman Rushdie's five best fantasy novels for all ages.

Also see: Pat Conroy's favorite contemporary Southern novelists.

--Marshal Zeringue

The 10 best devils

For the Guardian, Peter Stanford, author of The Devil: A Biography, picked the most majestic Satans in film and literature.

One entry on his list:

Dante's Inferno

In this peerless early 14th-century description of life after death, the final one of the concentric spheres of hell is presided over by the devil. But he is impotent, encased up to chest height in ice, with one head but three faces, all of them weeping as he chews in each of his jaws a notorious sinner – Judas Iscariot, Jesus's betrayer, and Brutus and Cassius, conspirators against Caesar. In contrast to depictions of the devil in Dante's day as a cunning foe ready to prey on human weakness, his Lucifer is strikingly modern, a metaphor for nothingness, all hype and menace but no delivery.

Read about the other devils on the list.

Dante is one of Angus Clarke's favorite religious poets.

Inferno appears on John Mullan's list of ten of the best visions of hell in literature, and The Divine Comedy is one of George Weigel's five essential books for understanding Christianity.

--Marshal Zeringue

8 books to read with a broken heart

At O, The Oprah Magazine, Ashley Hamilton came up with a list of eight great books to read when you're going through a breakup.

One novel on the list:

High Fidelity
by Nick Hornby

Want to know what's going on in his head? Of course you do! You may remember John Cusack in the movie adaptation of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, a cynical breakup tale told from the male perspective. After being dumped yet again, music addict Rob looks back on his "all-time top five" breakups. Read along as he relives the losses, and then ask yourself, "Does this breakup really make my top five?"

Read about the other books on the list.

High Fidelity also made Tiffany Murray's top 10 list of rock'n'roll novels, Mark Hodkinson's critic's chart of rock music in fiction, and John Sutherland's list of the best books about listing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best novels on time and memory

Edmund Morris is the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex; the concluding book in the trilogy, Colonel Roosevelt, is now out from Random House.

For the Wall Street Journal, Morris named a five best list of novels on time and memory.

One title on the list:

One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

The title hints at the vast chronology of this novel, as do the first words of its unforgettable opening ("Many years later, as he stood facing the firing squad ..."). But although generation after generation of the Buendia family lives and dies in the story's course, there is no real sense of time passing. All is dimensionless dream. One does not finish the book so much as awaken from it, crying like Caliban to "dream again."

Read about the other books on the list.

One Hundred Years of Solitude made Rebecca Stott's five best list of historical novels. It is on he lists of Lynda Bellingham's six best books, Walter Mosley's five favorite books, Eric Kraft's five most important books, and James Patterson's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tim Vine's six best books

Tim Vine is an actor, writer and comedian who won the prize for the funniest joke at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

He named his six best books for the Daily Express. One title on the list:

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I love Ishiguro’s novels and this is perhaps his finest hour. It’s a story of lost love in a way but at the same time is romantic and terribly moving. The film of the book, starring Anthony Hopkins, is brilliant but the book is better.

Read about the other books on Vine's list.

The joke that won Vine the prize at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe: "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best depictions of the Alps

For the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best depictions of the Alps in literature.

One novel on the list:

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Hans Castorp, scion of a Hamburg merchant family, arrives in Davos in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin Joachim, who is a patient in a sanatorium. The cold, clear air dizzies and delights him, but he becomes ill himself and, convinced that he has TB, stays for seven years.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Magic Mountain also appears on Brian Dillon's list of the five best books on hypochondria, Arthur Phillips' list of five novels about life during the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best visits to the cinema in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pat Conroy's 6 favorite books

Pat Conroy's books include The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, South of Broad, and the recently released memoir My Reading Life.

He named his six favorite books for The Week magazine, including:

Deliverance by James Dickey

Let me now praise the American writer James Dickey. In 1970, his novel Deliverance was published. I found it to be 278 pages that approached perfection. Its tightness of construction and assuredness of style reminded me of The Great Gatsby. Every sentence sounded marvelous, distinct, and original, and it flowed as quickly as the river it celebrated.

Read about the other books on the list.

Also see: Pat Conroy's six favorite contemporary Southern novelists.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books: Christmas

One of five books for Christmas selected by the Barnes & Noble Review:

The Physics of Christmas
by Roger Highfield

How does a snowflake form? Can reindeer fly? Was the Star of Bethlehem really a comet? Why is Rudolph's nose so red? Readers of all ages can learn the answers to these questions and more in this amusing volume in which a physicist imparts real scientific knowledge as he explores the festive lore of Christmas. Great fun.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

P. J. O’Rourke's 5 best political satires

P. J. O’Rourke's books include Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, Eat the Rich, The CEO of the Sofa, Peace Kills , and On the Wealth of Nations. His latest book is Don’t Vote – It Just Encourages the Bastards.

With Anna Blundy at FiveBooks, he discussed five of the best political satires, including:

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

That’s satire more in the Roman mode. The usual definition of satire is humour used to a moral end for a moral purpose, and there’s certainly a moral purpose to 1984 but it’s not funny really. I mean there is a certain dark humour to rewriting history and things going down a memory hole.

It’s funny in the Russian sense of the word.

I like that. Believe me, I’ll steal that phrase.

I’ll see you in court.

It’s sort of like being popular in Japan.

1984?

It’s eerily predictive of the sort of video camera surveillance world that we now live in. It would be interesting to update 1984 and make all of the things that Orwell foresaw more annoying than dangerous. Well, some of them do get pretty dangerous, but things like television that looks back at you turns out to be a real pain in the ass more than an instrument of government control. We’ve come into the world of 1984 but it turns out to be 1984-Lite.

There’s something surrealist about the absolutely unspeakable horror of somebody’s imagination being actually slightly banal.

Sad in a way. Sad, but at the same time quite a relief. Sad, but a relief.

Read about the other books O'Rourke tagged.

Nineteen Eighty-four is #7 on a list of the 100 best last lines from novels. The book made Daniel Johnson's five best list of books about Cold War culture, Robert Collins' top ten list of dystopian novels, Gemma Malley's top 10 list of dystopian novels for teenagers, is one of Norman Tebbit's six best books and one of the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King. It made a difference to Isla Fisher, and appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best rats in literature and ten of the best horrid children in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue