Six of the best fictional dogs

At the B&N Reads blog Brian Boone tagged six of the most memorable dogs from books, including:

Roger (Big Trouble, by Dave Barry)

What could be a cloyingly cute literary device straight out of a creative writing class is made funny, effective, and compelling with the agile comic gifts of Dave Barry. Barry’s first foray into full-length fiction is the ridiculously funny Miami-set crime story Big Trouble. The point of view shifts among a number of characters involved some way in a crime gone wrong—including a dog. Breaking up the unfolding, intertwined action are palate cleansers about a dog named Roger—the “result of generations of hasty, unplanned dog sex,” (he’s a mutt). He’s got his own story to live and his own battle to fight: trying to stop a rogue toad that steals food out of his bowl every morning. You really feel for Roger; this kind of dopey, regular dog. One wishes they could reach into the book, shoo the toad away, and let Roger have a full meal for once.

Learn about the other dogs on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best books about political unrest and conflict

Elliot Ackerman is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Dark at the Crossing and Green on Blue. He is based out of Istanbul, where he has covered the Syrian Civil War since 2013. His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Repub­lic and The New York Times Magazine, among other pub­lications, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories. He is both a former White House Fellow and a Marine, and has served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.

One of Ackerman's six favorite books on war and rebellion, as shared at The Week magazine:

Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński

A fever dream of a book — probably the best title on this list — about the fall of Iran's last shah. Nobody writes quite like Kapuscinski, whose style reads like an improbable blend of magic realism and journalism.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Shah of Shahs is among Kamin Mohammadi's top ten Iranian books.

The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fiona Shaw's six best books

Fiona Shaw is best known for playing Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films. One of her six best books, as shared at the Daily Express:

WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala

Astonishing memoir of the tsunami in 2004 when Sonali lost her husband, parents and children. She held on to a branch and lived. Thereafter it’s an amazing description of their happy life in London and Sri Lanka before they died. I was blown away by it.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five YA novels for politically aware teens

At the BN Teen Blog Elodie tagged five YA must-reads for politically aware teens, including:

Wide Awake, by David Levithan

You should read this book only if you like 1) wonderfully relatable characters and 2) speculative fiction about history in the making. Seventeen-year-old Duncan has spent the last few months campaigning with his boyfriend, Jimmy. Now, it looks like their efforts are paying off: America has finally elected its first gay, Jewish president. But when a recount is demanded in Kansas and voters are being disenfranchised left, right, and center, things take a turn for the worse. Duncan sets off at once to join the thousands-strong crowd currently flocking to Kansas to show their support. But between Duncan’s now-rocky relationship with Jimmy and the ongoing protest movement from the opposition party, drama abounds in what is ultimately a tale of life, love, and hope in the face of political turmoil.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five books that make living & working in space seem ordinary

Carrie Vaughn is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels and over eighty short stories. She's best known for the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series about a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural beings -- the series includes fourteen novels and a collection of short stories -- and the superhero novels in the Golden Age saga.

Vaughn's new novel is Martians Abroad.

At Tor.com she tagged five books that make living and working in space seem ordinary, including:

Finity’s End by C.J. Cherryh

Recently named Grand Master Cherryh’s entire Merchanter series is the ultimate expression of stories about living and working in space, from the realities of cargo ships trying to turn a profit between the stars, to visceral details like condensation dripping off the ceiling of a docking corridor in a crowded space station. Finity’s End isn’t the best known of the Merchanter books, but it’s the first one I read and it particularly focuses on ship-board life through the eyes of a character who didn’t grow up on one of the family-dynasty space-faring ships that give the series its name. It’s a world that’s both strange and familiar: the concerns of time-dilated aging, next to the all-too real drag of working a shift in the kitchen.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Writers Read: Carrie Vaughn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve SFF books for the post-truth era

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Joel Cunningham tagged twelve science fiction & fantasy books for the post-truth era, including:

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell

The undisputed masterpiece of dystopian fiction, George Orwell’s soul-shaking contribution to our collective nightmares was first published in 1949, in the wake of World War II, as humanity tried to come to grips with what it had just allowed to happen—and, hopefully, figure out how to prevent it from ever happening again. As such, it’s not a subtle work in the least, but that’s part of its genius. In envisioning life is a fascistic near-future world in which government surveillance is omnipresent, loyalty to the state is prized above all else, and citizens are encouraged inform on anyone harboring as much as a subversive thought, Orwell put to paper a scenario so terrifying, so beyond the pale, that it’s impossible not to see it echoed in every small step we take toward that possible future. And what’s most critical to keeping Big Brother in power, you ask? The total control of information and an impressive ability to obfuscate it from the average good citizen—to mold history and stuff inconvenient information down the memory hole (of course, in the internet era, you hardly need absolute power to muddy the facts; a Facebook page will do). “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation,” Orwell tells us. “These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.” Making someone doubt the truth in front of their eyes is the first step to convincing them the truth doesn’t matter. Only power matters.

Read about the other books on the list.

Nineteen Eighty-four is on Stephen W. Potts's top five list of useful books about surviving surveillance, Linda Grant's top ten list of books about postwar Britain, Ella Cosmo's list of five fictional books-within-a-book too dangerous to read, the list of four books that changed Peter Twohig, the Guardian's list of the five worst book covers ever, the Independent's list of the fifteen best opening lines in literature, W.B. Gooderham's top ten list of books given in books, Katharine Trendacosta and Amanda Yesilbas's list of ten paranoid science fiction stories that could help you survive, Na'ima B. Robert's top ten list of Romeo and Juliet stories, Gabe Habash's list of ten songs inspired by books and a list of the 100 best last lines from novels. The book made Charlie Jane Anders's list of ten science fiction novels we pretend to have read, Juan E. Méndez's list of five books on torture, P. J. O’Rourke's list of the five best political satires, 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 Aprils in literature, ten of the best rats in literature, and ten of the best horrid children in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten books about voyeurs

Peter Swanson is the author of three novels: The Girl With a Clock For a Heart, a LA Times Book Award finalist; The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; and his most recent, Her Every Fear.

For the Guardian, he tagged ten books about voyeurs, including:

The Executioners by John D MacDonald (1957)

The voyeur of this novel is Max Cady, a psychotic ex-convict, out to get revenge on Sam Bowden, the family man who helped put him away for rape. What is so menacing about MacDonald’s story – filmed twice under the title of Cape Fear – is the way in which Cady just hangs around, keeping an eye on Bowden, his wife and three children, among them a 14-year-old daughter just beginning to become a woman. Before he strikes, he simply (and legally) watches. MacDonald, an underrated thriller writer, shows the helplessness and terror inherent in such a situation.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Visit Peter Swanson's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: The Kind Worth Killing.

The Page 69 Test: The Kind Worth Killing.

Writers Read: Peter Swanson (February 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

Top ten quests in children’s books

David Cadji Newby is the author of The Little Boy Who Lost His Name and The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name. One of his ten top quests in children’s books, as shared at the Guardian:

The Little Black Fish by Samad Behrangi

What happens when you swim against the current? That’s the question at the heart of this book, which follows the Little Black Fish on a journey from his stream to the sea. It’s made more poignant by the fact that it was written in the 1960s by an Iranian author, as an allegory for daring to hold different political views – and whose early death was laid at the door of the regime. The book doesn’t shy away from mortality, and given its background, that should be embraced.

Read about the other entries on his list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top nonfiction books about espionage

Charles Stross has won two Hugo Awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella, and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. His latest book is Empire Games. One of the author's five recommended nonfiction books about espionage, as shared at Tor.com:

The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA by John Ranelagh

Ranelagh has become the unofficial historian of the CIA and The Agency, published at the height of the Cold War, was his first, monumental history of the rise of the organization: from its roots in the wartime OSS, through its ascendancy in the 1950s, its transformation into a government bureaucracy and intelligence analysis operation, the shift towards electronic intelligence gathering in the 1960s, the U2 program and Vietnam, and on to the post-Watergate enquiry into CIA black operations by the Church Commission in the mid to late 1970s.

There are more recent books on the subject (including the author’s own CIA: A History), but this was the first to break the myth of the Company’s slick public presentation and reveal it as another bumbling Washington bureaucracy … but one that had toppled governments, repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro (with everything from exploding cigars to poisoned boot polish), and dosed an elephant with LSD (because every government bureaucracy needs elephants on acid).

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve graphic novels for a new political reality

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Ross Johnson tagged twelve top graphic novels in which the personal is political, including:

Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery, by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece

Race and politics have been inseparable in America from the earliest days: the settling of the country, through the central debates over slavery during the Revolutionary era and beyond. Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece tell the story of Zane Pinchback, a light-skinned black 1930s-era reporter who goes undercover as a white person in order to investigate lynchings in the deep south. The story has roots in history: Walter White, head of the NAACP during the period, did the same thing, and African American writer Johnson has discussed his childhood fantasies about passing in order to infiltrate a white world. Pinchback’s already dangerous circumstances are made more so when his brother is accused of having raped a white woman, forcing Pinchback deeper into danger and into the racial politics of that era and our own.

See also: Black Panther, by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze. It’s a wildly different book, but Coates has as much to say about modern racial politics in his take on African superhero T’Challa.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ottessa Moshfegh's six favorite books

Ottessa Moshfegh's books are Eileen, a novel that won 2016's PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction, and the newly released story collection, Homesick for Another World.

One of her six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Deep Ellum by Brandon Hobson

Restrained, dark, and strangely silent, this almost unbearably compelling novel reminds me how blood ties can cut as deeply and painfully as broken glass through the foot. If you've ever had a homecoming laced with sadness and longing, you'll relate to it.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six awesome diverse YA thrillers

At the BN Teen Blog Eric Smith tagged six top diverse YA thrillers to read right now, including:

A Fierce and Subtle Poison, by Samantha Mabry

In this beautiful debut blending magical realism with a light retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter, a teenager named Lucas grows up hearing legends of a cursed girl, her body full of poison and gifted with magic. These rumors? Turns out they are all too true. After Lucas’s girlfriend is found dead on the beach with other locals, Isabel appears, sending him letters and drawing him into her world of magic and legend. This is a lyrical, heartbreaking book that’s incredibly sad and gorgeously imagined. Magic is mashed together with thrills and mystery, as Lucas tries to unravel the murders and the secrets of the poisoned girl.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Page 69 Test: A Fierce and Subtle Poison.

Writers Read: Samantha Mabry (May 2016).

--Marshal Zeringue