Five books about puppets and living dolls

Keith Donohue is the author of five novels, including The Boy Who Drew Monsters (which includes an imaginary friend) and the newly released The Motion of Puppets. One tile on his list of five notable books about puppets and living dolls, as shared at Tor.com:

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

The post-apocalyptic world, set in the dark future where England is now Inland, and the language has evolved into this weird phonetic dialect. The moment when Ridley discovers the blackened puppet in the dump is mesmerizing. Of course, the puppet is Punch, from the classic Punch and Judy Show, and he becomes both a powerful way of connecting the mythos of the past with the broken future. What sort of list about puppet books would be complete without the original and freakish Punch? “This here figger his name is Punch which hes the oldes figger there is.” And he’s right. With roots in the 16th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England on May 9, 1662. Imagine, a puppet with a birthday. Better yet, leave it alone.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Riddley Walker is among Philip Gross' favorite writings from the edge of language.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top poetry collections

At the Daily Express Stefan Kyriazis tagged ten top poetry books, including:

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Listed at #1 for both “Love Poems” and the “Women” poetry subcategory [at Amazon.uk, and a New York Times bestseller], Milk and Honey has been called “the poetry collection every woman needs on her nightstand or coffee table” and takes the reader through a journey of the bitterest moments in life, finding sweetness in them all.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about old men

One of ten top books about old men, as shared by Ross King at the Guardian:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.” How can we not cheer on Santiago, the luckless fisherman, 84 days without a catch, who on day 85 hooks the huge marlin far off the coast of Cuba? Hemingway was only in his early 50s when he wrote the novel, but it’s tempting to read his own plight – poor health, writer’s block, a spate of vicious reviews – in to that of the struggling Santiago. Luckily, The Old Man and the Sea turned out to be Hemingway’s literary marlin. He then landed the Pulitzer and, in 1954, the Nobel prize.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Old Man and the Sea is among Jeff Somers's top ten books to read before traveling to Cuba, four books that changed Angelica Banks, Leo Benedictus's five best books for men who never read, Jung Chang's 6 favorite books, Kathryn Williams's thirteen best stories about pride, Scott Greenstone's twenty best books with fewer than 200 pages, Michael Palin's six favorite books, Robson Green's six best books, and Dave Boling's five best examples of how to structure a novel. N.M. Kelby has suggested that The Old Man and the Sea may be The Great Florida Novel.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six amazing YA books that take place in slanted realities

Sarah Skilton is the author of Bruised, a martial arts drama for young adults; and High and Dry, a hardboiled teen mystery. At the BN Teen blog she tagged six amazing YA books that take place in skewed realities, including:

Adaptation, by Malinda Lo

The reality: High-school junior Reese is in Arizona with her handsome debate team partner, David Li, when all flights back to San Francisco—all flights, period—are grounded, and the Internet blows up with conspiracy theories that lead to a rapid breakdown in society. Reese and David attempt to drive home, but a car crash sends them to a mysterious hospital where their lives are saved—and possibly changed forever.

The slant: The government’s hiding something big. And I will say no more.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Adaptation is among Lauren Naturale's top six SF/F novels with non-white protagonists that aren’t by Octavia Butler.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine notable novels with really long sentences

Mauro Javier Cardenas's debut novel, The Revolutionaries Try Again, happens to have a number of very long sentences. One of nine novels he loves, all which have some very long sentences, as shared at Publishers Weekly:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

I used to read as if searching for rooms that would lead to my own room, La Baba Que Ama, and although Borges and Cortázar opened the door to the first room, The Possibilities of Fiction, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf opened the door to the second one, The Performance of Interiority, starting with James Ramsay, who, upon hearing his mother say sure, they’ll go to the lighthouse if it’s fine tomorrow, becomes so excited Woolf performs his interior reaction by telling us that since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallize and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss.

Read about the other entries on the list.

To the Lighthouse appears among Rachel Cusk's six favorite books, Helen Dunmore's six best books, Annie Baker's six favorite books, Meg Wolitzer's five favorite books by women writers, Laura Frost's top 10 best modernist books, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five unforgettable fathers from fiction, Margaret Drabble's top ten literary landscapes, the American Book Review's 100 best last lines from novels, Amity Gaige's best books, and Adam Langer's best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top YA novels with mean girls who are living, breathing humans

At the BN Teen blog, Jenny Kawecki tagged six YA novels that "take your stereotypical mean girl and give her agency, motives, an inner life," including:

Wink Poppy Midnight, by April Genevieve Tucholke

Mean girl Poppy is exactly that: heart-stoppingly, irrefutably mean. When Midnight moves away from their shared block, he starts to think he’ll finally be free of his painful crush on Poppy—especially since he has nice, weird, wacky Wink to distract him. But as Wink embarks on a mission of righteous revenge, and Midnight is pulled between the two girls’ warped worlds, he starts to question who, exactly, is their story’s true villain. If you’re looking for a mean girl turned victim turned what-is-actually-going-on-here, Wink Poppy Midnight needs to be on your to-be-read stack.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jane Alexander's six favorite books

Jane Alexander is a Tony- and Emmy-winning actress, a former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, and a conservation activist. Her new book is Wild Things, Wild Places. One of the actor-author-activist's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Ada Blackjack by Jennifer Niven

I am a sucker for adventure stories with a woman in the hero's role. In 1921, Ada Blackjack, a 23-year-old Inuit woman, accompanied four men on an Arctic expedition to Wrangel Island. As the team encounters every imaginable nightmare — polar bears, fierce storms, and ice, ice, ice — Niven's account becomes a moving testament to human will.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Ada Blackjack is among M.J. McGrath's five best books on life and travels in the Arctic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five classic romantic stories that still ring true today

At the B&N Reads blog, Cristina Merrill tagged five classic romantic stories that still relevant today, including:

The Professor, by Charlotte Brontë

This has got to be one of the original “finding love abroad” stories. Charlotte Bronte wrote it before Jane Eyre, but it was published posthumously in 1857. The story is partly based on the author’s experiences as a student and teacher in Brussels. The protagonist, William Crimsworth, is like a male version of Jane Eyre. He’s nothing too exciting to his fellow English people, and he goes abroad in the hopes of making a better life for himself. He meets and eventually marries another teacher to whom he is teaching English. While this particular work doesn’t have the prestige of some of Bronte’s other works, we can still appreciate it today for several reasons. Like so many educated young people today, Williams has a hard time finding gainful employment. He becomes somewhat entranced by a not-so-great woman. And when he finally does end up with the right person, they pool their resources together for a financially secure happy ending.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Santa Montefiore's six best books

Santa Montefiore is the bestselling novelist whose books include Secrets Of The Lighthouse, The Beekeeper’s Daughter, The French Gardener, The Perfect Happiness, and The Mermaid Garden. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters

I’d love to come up with a plot as clever as this. The twists and turns punched me in the stomach. It’s about deception, very Gothic and a surprising love story as well. And the intricate details of Victorian England are fascinating. I feel like I’m there.

Read about the other books on the list.

Fingersmith is among Stuart Jeffries's five sexiest scenes in literature and Kirsty Logan's ten best LGBT sex scenes in literature.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Happiness.

The Page 69 Test: The Mermaid Garden.

My Book, The Movie: The Mermaid Garden.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best vampires in romance novels

At B&N Reads Tara Sonin tagged her five favorite romance novel vampires, including:

Zhadist (Lover Awakened, Black Dagger Brotherhood #3 by J.R. Ward)

If I could pick every single book in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, I would, but #3 is my favorite of them all because Zhadist is the darkest, most tortured, most wonderful hero of all time. After a century as a slave, Zhadist has embraced his freedom and identity as a savage force of vengeance. The cruelest of his brothers, Zhadist wants nothing more than to exact vengeance against those who hurt him…until he meets Bella—and then he wants nothing more than her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Also see Lauren Owen's top ten vampire books, the ten best vampire novels ever, the top ten vampires in fiction and popular culture, ten vampire stories more romantic than "Twilight", Kevin Jackson's top 10 vampire novels, and Lisa Tuttle's critic's chart of top vampire books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five sci-fi books that make use of music

Christopher Priest’s most recent novel is The Gradual.

One of his five top science-fiction books that make use of music, as shared at Tor.com:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004)

The novel has a complex structure, consisting of six partially connected stories set in different historical periods. One of the longest stories, close to the centre, describes a distant future world which is based on a slave society of “fabricants”, humans who are drugged into submission. The remarkable quality of this novel is that it was essentially inspired by, and based on, music—in particular, two pieces written by husbands of the artist Yoko Ono: Toshi Ichiyanagi and John Lennon. One of the strongest and most entertaining sequences in the novel is loosely based on the story of Eric Fenby, a young musician who went to work as amanuensis to the dying composer Frederick Delius. A challenging but rewarding novel, highly ambitious and achieved, full of layers and suggestions and haunting images.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Cloud Atlas is among Patrick Hemstreet's five top books for the psychonaut and the six books that changed Maile Meloy's idea of what’s possible in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top stories of hubris

Tommy Wieringa is an award-winning Dutch writer. One of his top ten stories of hubris, as shared at the Guardian:

The Possibility of An Island by Michel Houellebecq

Houellebecq embroiders further upon his infectious train of thought. The reader follows two incarnations of Daniel, a French comedian. The first, on whom all newer and better clones are based, suffers from every single bane of existence, while the 24th incarnation of Daniel lives in gentle, everlasting light. Inside him, however, there lives on an echo of the avidity that has led mankind to its downfall. It is more or less impossible to think about the total lack of desire and pleasure without feeling slightly nauseous. We are enamoured of our misery and addicted to our fate. Human shortcomings are the only thing that make our species vaguely interesting. Without vices, the life of a man is about as interesting as that of a roundworm.

Learn about the other entries on the list.

Read Ray Taras's review of Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island.

--Marshal Zeringue