Twelve moving novels of the Second World War

At Off the Shelf Caitlin Kleinschmidt tagged twelve moving novels of the Second World War, including:

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

During a snowstorm in 1910, a baby is born. She dies before she can draw her first breath. During a snowstorm in 1910, the same baby is born and lives. What if there were an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you be able to save the world from its own destiny? What power can one woman exert over the fate of civilization as she lives through the turbulent events of the twentieth century again and again?

Read about the other entries on the list.

Life After Life is among Jenny Shank's top five innovative novels that mess with chronology, Dell Villa's top twelve books from 2013 to give your mom, and Judith Mackrell's five best young fictional heroines in coming-of-age novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top literary antiheroines

At B&N Reads Tara Sonin tagged her six literary antiheroines you’ll love to hate (and maybe love, too), including:

Scarlett O’Hara (Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell)

If you’ve seen the classic film adaptation of this novel, you already have an idea of what makes Scarlett an anti-heroine: she’s brash, pursues her dreams and desires in direct opposition to society’s rules, and definitely makes enemies along the way. Desperately in love with Ashley Wilkes at the start of the Civil War, Scarlett is devastated when Ashley marries a kind and simple girl, Melanie, instead. What ensues is a years-long journey that Scarlett believes will eventually lead her back to Ashley, but instead leads her to tragic ends.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Gone With the Wind is among four books that changed Jodi Picoult, five books that changed Kimberley Freeman, Becky Ferreira's seven best comeuppances in literature, Emily Temple's ten greatest kisses in literature and Suzi Quatro's six best books, and was a book that made a difference to Pat Conroy. It is on the Christian Science Monitor's list of the ten best novels of the U.S. Civil War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Yan Lianke's six favorite books

Yan Lianke's latest book is The Explosion Chronicles. One of his six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Call to Arms by Lu Xun

Though Lu is less well known to the rest of the world, he is considered one of Asia's greatest authors. Some of the stories in this 1922 collection provided literature with a unique form of satire grounded in blood and agony. They functioned, at the same time, as swan songs for that distinctive satirical form.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Call to Arms is among Rana Mitter's five top books on modern China.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books featuring unreliable narrators

Avery Hastings is the author of Feuds and Torn. One of her five favorite books featuring unreliable narrators, as shared at Tor.com:

Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is one of the most beautifully-written and authentic stories I’ve read about female friendship in years. Verity is arrested by the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied France when her British spy plane crashes…with her best friend in the pilot seat. The book reads as a confession as well as a recounting of the girls’ relationship and what led to the crash. The narrators are at once unreliable and sympathetic; and even as the “betrayal” of one leads to the death of another, both emerge as tragic heroines.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Code Name Verity also appears on Ryan Graudin's top five list of historical YAs, all set during World War II, Kelly Anderson's list of seven awesome books that celebrate female friendship, Natalie Zutter's top seven list of YA books where friendship trumps romance, Arwen Elys Dayton's top five list od books about false identities, Melissa Albert's top five list of YA books that might make one cry, Sara Brady's list of six of the best spies in romance, Lenore Appelhans's top ten list of teen books featuring flashbacks and Lydia Syson's list of ten of the best historical novels for young readers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five inspiring books about novel writers

At the BN Teen blog, Jenny Kawecki tagged five top novels about inspiring writers, including:

Isla and the Happily Ever After, by Stephanie Perkins

Isla has been in love with Josh for what feels like forever. And now—miracle of miracles—it seems like he likes her, too. But as their relationship gets more serious, Josh’s problems become Isla’s problems, including the way his singular devotion to writing and inking his graphic memoir distracts him from everything else (like, for instance, graduating high school). Then Isla reads his first draft, and she can’t help but feel insecure about the things that are in it. For a healthy dose of a adorable and a glimpse of what it’s like to be a writer’s other half, read Isla and the Happily Ever After.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven classic science fiction space odysseys

At the BookBub Blog Elisabeth Delp tagged seven classic science fiction space odysseys, including:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut — young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Perfect for: Anyone who has ever loved playing the games Stratego, Battleship, or Risk. Don’t be fooled by the youth of the titular character; this book has a depth and intricacy people of all ages can enjoy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ender's Game is among Andrew Liptak's twelve novels that deserve better adaptations than Hollywood produced and top eleven sci-fi reads that might tempt video gamers to put down the controller and try reading, Chris Kluwe's six favorite books, and Jennifer Griffith Delgado's 11 most mind-blowing surprise endings in science fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jeff Kinney's six best books

Jeff Kinney is the author of the bestselling Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series. One of his six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

THE ARRIVAL by Shaun Tan

A wordless graphic novel about being an immigrant. A man arrives in a place where he can’t understand the language or the culture but he ultimately masters that world. The book takes a while to decode but it is a masterpiece.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about exile

Nada Awar Jarrar's latest novel is An Unsafe Haven. One of her ten favorite books about exile, as shared at the Guardian:

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The possibility that one can feel doubly exiled is at the centre of this novel. Ifemelu is an educated young woman who moves from her native Nigeria to the US, where she discovers that race continues to influence social status and compromise one’s rights as a citizen. Not news to most of us, perhaps, but while Adichie’s message is undoubtedly political, it is her focus on Ifemelu’s day-to-day life in exile that makes this novel so compelling. At a dinner party in New York, Ifemelu tells a group of liberal intellectuals that her race had never been an issue in Nigeria, concluding: “I only became black when I came to this country.”

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top thrillers that resist easy fixes

Jeff Somers is the author of the Avery Cates series, The Ustari Cycle, Lifers, and Chum (among many other books) and numerous short stories.

At the B&N Reads blog he tagged five thrillers that resist easy fixes, including:

One Shot, by Lee Child

In his ninth Jack Reacher novel, Lee Child offers a pure mystery for his hulking, drifting hero to solve: an expert sniper is accused of murdering several people in a public place, but Reacher uses a combination of his natural detective abilities and a deep knowledge of sniping and weapons to figure out what’s really going on, before it’s too late. Child manages to make pages of detail regarding the science and art of the sniper fascinating, and makes Reacher’s logical leap in solving the mystery 100 percent sound.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three of the best books on Argentina

At the Guardian, Pushpinder Khaneka named three top books on Argentina. One title on the list:

My Father’s Ghost is Climbing in the Rain by Patricio Pron

Patricio Pron’s genre-defying novel of a struggle between memory and forgetting focuses on the “dirty war” in the 1970s.

The narrator returns to Argentina in 2008 from self-imposed exile in Berlin to be with his dying father. In his parents’ house, he finds a cache of documents relating to a recent missing-person case, that of 60-year-old Alberto José Burdisso. But the key is material relating to the disappearance of Alberto’s sister, Alicia, decades earlier, under the murderous military dictatorship. Through it, the son is able to piece together his father’s past.

He learns that his parents were part of an underground leftwing Peronist group that opposed the military junta – and that some members paid with their lives.

The quirky, fragmented telling of the story is challenging in parts, but perseverance pays dividends as the haunting novel excavates the family’s – and Argentina’s – tortured recent history.

“Your father isn’t sad that he fought the war,” the narrator’s mother says, “he’s only sad that we didn’t win.”

In this largely autobiographical tale, Pron pays tribute to those in his parents’ generation who defied the military dictatorship.

Pron was born in Argentina in 1975, the year before the dirty war began. He now lives in Spain.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top historical YA novels set during World War II

Ryan Graudin's new novel is Blood for Blood. One of her five favorite historical fiction YAs, all set during World War II, as shared at the BN Teen Blog:

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

You’ve probably already read this book. You’ve probably stained its pages with your tears. You’ve probably imagined what Death the narrator looks like. But just in case you haven’t, know that you should.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Book Thief also appears among Sarah Skilton's six most unusual YA narrators, Tracy-Ann Oberman's six best books, Kathryn Williams's top eleven Young Adult books for readers of all ages, Nicole Hill's top seven books with Death as a character, Lenore Appelhans's top ten teen books featuring flashbacks, and Kathryn Erskine's top 10 first person narratives.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten train stories

Kenneth Oppel is the author of many award-winning books, including The Boundless. One of his ten favorite train stories, as shared at the Guardian:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

I can’t imagine a better way of starting the school year than taking a magical steam train, especially one with a food cart that offered such a wide array of amazing chocolates and candies. I love those European style compartments with the sliding door that allows for a bit of cozy privacy: an oasis before the tumult of school, for friendships to be forged or rekindled.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Harry Potter books made Anna Bradley's list of the ten best literary quotes in a crisis, Nicole Hill's list of seven of the best literary wedding themes, Tina Connolly's top five list of books where the girl saves the boy, Ginni Chen's list of the eight grinchiest characters in literature, Molly Schoemann-McCann's top five list of fictional workplaces more dysfunctional than yours, Sophie McKenzie's top ten list of mothers in children's books, Nicole Hill's list of five of the best fictional bookstores, Sara Jonsson's list of the six most memorable pets in fiction, Melissa Albert's list of more than eight top fictional misfits, Cressida Cowell's list of ten notable mythical creatures, and Alison Flood's list of the top 10 most frequently stolen books.

Professor Snape is among Sophie Cleverly's ten top terrifying teachers in children’s books.

Hermione Granger is among Brooke Johnson top five geeky heroes in literature, Nicole Hill's nine best witches in literature, and Melissa Albert's top six distractible book lovers in pop culture.

Neville Longbottom is one of Ellie Irving's top ten quiet heroes and heroines.

Mr. Weasley is one of Melissa Albert's five weirdest fictional crushes.

Hedwig (Harry's owl) is among Django Wexler's top ten animal companions in children's fiction.

Scabbers the rat is among Ross Welford's ten favorite rodents in children's fiction.

Butterbeer is among Leah Hyslop's six best fictional drinks.

Albus Dumbledore is one of Rachel Thompson's ten greatest deaths in fiction.

Lucius Malfoy is among Jeff Somers's five best evil lieutenants (or "dragons") in SF/F.

Dolores Umbridge is among Melissa Albert's six more notorious teachers in fiction, Emerald Fennell's top ten villainesses in literature, and Derek Landy's top 10 villains in children's books. The Burrow is one of Elizabeth Wilhide's nine most memorable manors in literature.

Remus Lupin is among Aimée Carter's top ten shapeshifters in fiction.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban appears on Amanda Yesilbas and Katharine Trendacosta's list ot twenty great insults from science fiction & fantasy and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest prison breaks in science fiction and fantasy.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also appears on Jeff Somers's top five list of books written in very unlikely places, Phoebe Walker's list of eight mouthwatering quotes from the greatest literary feasts, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best owls in literature, ten of the best scars in fiction and ten of the best motorbikes in literature, and Katharine Trendacosta and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the ten greatest personality tests in sci-fi & fantasy, Charlie Higson's top 10 list of fantasy books for children, Justin Scroggie's top ten list of books with secret signs as well as Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs's list of well-known and beloved science fiction and fantasy novels that publishers didn't want to touch. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made Chrissie Gruebel's list of six top fictional holiday parties and John Mullan's list of ten best graveyard scenes in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue