Ten retold tales featuring the figures of classic Victorian horror

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Meghan Ball tagged ten retold tales featuring figures from classic Victorian horror, including:

Strange Practice, by Vivian Shaw

Dr. Greta Helsing (does that name sound familiar?) has followed in her illustrious family’s footsteps, and uses her medical background to care for sick monsters. Her life is quiet—dull even—until she’s swept up into a murder investigation that has left supernatural London paralyzed with fear. It’s a gripping story, dripping with charm, and full to bursting with classic creatures and literary easter eggs (including a reference to Varney the Vampire, one of the first vampires in fiction). The book is a delight, its stark horror leavened with humor to create a modern day urban fantasy that turns old Victorian tropes on their heads to create something new and exciting. It’s reportedly the first in a new series, so now is the time to check it out.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Johnny Ball's 6 favorite books

Johnny Ball is an English television personality and a popularizer of mathematics. His books include Wonders Beyond Numbers: A Brief History of All Things Mathematical.

One of Ball's six favorite books, as shared at the Daily Express:

THE ASCENT OF MAN by Jacob Bronowski

This was inspired by Darwin’s The Descent Of Man but Bronowski said it should be The Ascent Of Man because man has done incredible things – in poetry and art, as well as science and technology.

The future for young people is brighter than anyone imagines.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight books for fans of "Poldark"

At B&N Reads Tara Sonin tagged eight perfect novels for fans of the historical drama, Poldark. One entry on the list:

Into the Wilderness, by Sara Donati

Another sweeping epic of unexpected romance begins when Elizabeth Middleton departs England for New York in the 18th century. Just as Poldark confronts the injustices set upon the mine workers in Cornwall, Elizabeth must confront slavery and ill-treatment of Native Americans in the new world…and one man who confounds and ignites her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the greatest political founding works

At the Guardian Rohan McWilliam tagged ten of the greatest political founding works, including:

The Prince by Machiavelli (1532)

Machiavelli’s The Prince is still essential reading for all leaders, but it has damaged the author’s reputation. His advice was that leaders should seek to be feared, rather than loved. An effective leader had to be prepared to engage in immoral skulduggery and duplicity in order to stay at the top. Cunning and military force were essential attributes. In the age of conniving Renaissance princes, this was good advice, but it has led to politicians being seen as ruthless and two-faced. If Machiavelli were around today, he would be writing scripts for House of Cards.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of YAs most ruthless heroines

At the BN Teen Blog Dahlia Adler tagged six of YAs most cutthroat heroines, including:

Adelina from The Young Elites, by Marie Lu

The blood fever has killed so many around Adelina, but she is one of its survivors, marked with a mutation and in possession of powers that render her one of the hunted Young Elites. She isn’t supposed to exist, and neither is her strong, dark magic, but when she finds the others like her, she goes from surviving in near-captivity with her hateful father to thriving. And then she begins thriving a bit too much, and when her goals clash with those of everyone around her, her terrible strength makes her a formidable match to take on them all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten essential music books

Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection is They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. One of ten music books that shaped his knowledge of the songs he loves, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock ‘N’ Roll by Kandia Crazy Horse

I admired this book for years when looking for a language with which to explain the roots of black music. Kandia Crazy Horse traces rock and roll to black music, of course. But then takes a step further into blues, into soul, into gospel. The book leans on black rock musicians like Lenny Kravitz, Venetta Fields, and Slash, and it presents them matter-of-factly. Black people playing the music they were born into.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that offer a brand new take on pre-existing works

At the B&N Reads blog Brian Boone tagged five “adaptations” or “re-imaginings” of earlier works, including:

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley is a remake of Shakespeare’s King Lear

One of big reasons why Shakespeare is regarded as the greatest author, or playwright, of all time, is because his stories and characters continue to resonate through the centuries. The Bard wrote his stuff 400 years ago, and it’s still solid, because his themes are universal and his characters are relatable. Once in a while, an author will use one of Shakespeare’s plays as a jumping-off point—they just need to update the language. And the settings. And the plots. And into prose from dialogue. Perhaps the best example of Shakespeare 2.0 is Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres. Because a king deciding which daughter to bequeath his kingdom to is a little irrelevant to the modern United States, Smiley made it about three daughters up to inherit their aging father’s farm. Smiley won a Pulitzer Prize for the novel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

A Thousand Acres is among Edward Docx's top ten Shakespearean stories in modern fiction, Emma Donoghue's six best books, Anne Tyler's six favorite books, Sally O'Reilly ten top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, and John Mullan's top ten twice-told tales.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books about running away from one’s problems to join a space pirate crew

R.E. Stearns's new novel is Barbary Station. One of her five favorite books about running away from one’s problems to join a space pirate crew, as shared at Tor.com:

Let’s begin with a classic: Jack Crow of Armor by John Steakley (1984), running away from prison and various self-inflicted misfortunes to join a crew planning a research colony heist. I met him as he was plotting to kill somebody who didn’t need to die, and I was worried about the main character at the time, so I was not happy to see him in the book, at first. His alternative courses of action are all terrible, though, and he barely tolerates the legend that humanity has constructed around him. Because he’s an unlikable fellow, it’s fun to watch him suffer through everybody treating him as “Jack Crow, ferocious pirate.” He just wants to have a drink in peace and not be hassled, just once. He’s a fairly good pirate, and an awful person. He also has identifiable qualities. All of us are awful sometimes.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven horror stories in which women are more than victims

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Elsa Sjunneson-Henry tagged seven stories in which women fight, win, and survive in horror, including:

Bird Box, by Josh Malerman

When the world isn’t safe even with your eyes open, when you’re pregnant and living with strangers, when you need to get your children to safety—you need strength. You need to be full of mettle. And that’s exactly what our heroine Malorie is made of, fighting to keep those she loves safe in a world in which an unseen horror has driven most everyone mad. A bonus for readers who follow me for my writing on disability, or who appreciate well-handled disability issues in fiction—this is the only horror novel I’ve encountered by a sighted person that deals with blindness in a way that does not make me furious. Malerman manages to make the experience of being blindfolded a “tourist experience” rather than that of an expert. You’ll see what I mean.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The top ten Protestants in fiction

Peter Stanford is the author of Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident. At the Guardian he tagged the top ten Protestants in fiction, including:

Harry Angstrom in John Updike’s quartet of Rabbit novels (1960-90)

While not perhaps a churchgoing Protestant himself – “without a little of it, you’ll sink” is his verdict on religion – “Rabbit” Angstrom is a peerless observer of guilt-ridden, hypocritical Protestant middle America, caught between an instinctive self-righteousness and the appeal of the strip joint in the shopping mall. But his creator, John Updike, was a Protestant to his bones, first a Lutheran, then a Congregationalist and finally an Episcopalian (Anglican). Likening Ronald Reagan to God, Updike once remarked: “You never know how much he knows, everything or nothing.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Updike's Rabbit books figure among Eliza Kennedy's top ten merry adulterers in literature, Sue Townsend's six best books, Julian Barnes's best books to travel with, William Sutcliffe's top ten relationship novels, and Aifric Campbell's top ten list of favorite jobs in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books to make you less stupid about the Civil War

"For the past 50 years, some of this country’s most celebrated historians have taken up the task of making Americans less stupid about the Civil War," writes Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic. One title from that effort:

Battle Cry Of Freedom: Arguably among the greatest single-volume histories in all of American historiography, James McPherson’s synthesis of the Civil War is a stunning achievement. Brisk in pace. A big-ass book that reads like a much slimmer one. The first few hundred pages offer a catalogue of evidence, making it clear not just that the white South went to war for the right to own people, but that it warred for the right to expand the right to own people. Read this book. You will immediately be less stupid than some of the most powerful people in the West Wing.

Read about the other books on the list.

Battle Cry of Freedom is among Jay Winik's six favorite books, Ric Burns' six favorite books, and Malcolm Jones's eleven best books on the Civil War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twenty-five of the scariest horror books

At B&N Reads Jeff Somers tagged "twenty-five books that might not necessarily be the best horror novels, but are certainly the scariest," including:

Rosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin

The film adaptation has supplanted the novel in pop culture, but the novel was a huge hit for Levin—and the film actually sticks to the plot and dialog so closely you really do get a feel for the novel from watching it. The story of a young woman who becomes pregnant after a nightmare gets its terror not from the well-known twist of the baby’s parentage (hint: not her husband), but from the increasing isolation Rosemary experiences as her suspicions about everyone around her grow. So many threads tie into the terror, from the emotional and economic uncertainty of a struggling young couple to the simple fear any mother has for their child, all expertly knotted into a story that will keep you awake at night.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Rosemary's Baby is among Christopher Shultz's top ten literary chillers and Kat Rosenfield's top seven scary autumnal stories.

--Marshal Zeringue