Seven novels that subvert social norms

A. Natasha Joukovsky holds a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She spent five years in the art world, working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before pivoting into management consulting. The Portrait of a Mirror is her debut novel. She lives in Washington, D.C.

At Electric Lit she tagged "seven novels that irresistibly subvert social norms and etiquette," including:

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The first time Kazuo Ishiguro wrote The Remains of the Day, it was set in post-World War II Japan and called An Artist of the Floating World. But it wasn’t until he rewrote fascist propagandist Masuji Ono as English butler Mr. Stevens—seemingly, the paragon of Western etiquette—that Ishiguro won the Man Booker and later Nobel prizes. As Stevens’ unraveling interbellum memories reveal that his extraordinary professional “dignity” was not only performed in the service of a Nazi sympathizer, but personally cost him the most meaningful and transformative moments of his life, he is forced to reckon with just what kind of man his manners made him. I loved An Artist of the Floating World, too, but likely akin to the various prize committees, I viscerally find Ishiguro’s nuanced subversion of etiquette even more nuanced and subversive in the cultural context that broadly birthed my own—indeed, this is the innate power of social norms, and what gives such weight to their transgression. The Remains of the Day utterly destroyed me.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Remains of the Day is among Mark Skinner's ten best country house novels, Xan Brooks's ten top terrible houses in fiction, Molly Schoemann-McCann's nine great books for people who love Downton Abbey, Lucy Lethbridge's ten top books about servants, and Tim Vine's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five psychological thrillers with single-minded villains & anti-heroes

May Cobb earned her MA in literature from San Francisco State University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Rumpus, Edible Austin, and Austin Monthly. Her debut novel, Big Woods, won multiple awards. A Texas native, she lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

Cobb's new novel is The Hunting Wives.

At CrimeReads she tagged "five favorite psychological thrillers that revolve around crime characters who are driven by their naked ambition," including:

Framed by S.L. McInnis

From the outside, Beth Montgomery leads an idyllic life. She lives in a charming bungalow high in the hills above Los Angeles and is married to a sexy, adoring husband who has a promising road ahead of him as a film producer. But when her estranged best friend Cassie Ogilvy arrives in town looking for a place to crash, Beth’s life soon becomes upended by the sly and shifty Cassie, who not only takes up residence in Beth’s home, but also in Beth’s husband’s fantasies. Cassie’s character is a manipulative frenemy in its most glorious form and Framed will keep readers guessing as to what angle Cassie is working.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best fiction titles about Hollywood

Katherine St. John is a native of Mississippi and a graduate of the University of Southern California who spent over a decade in the film industry as an actress, screenwriter, and director before turning to penning novels. When she's not writing, she can be found hiking or on the beach with a good book. St. John currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.

She is the author of The Lion's Den and The Siren.

[Q&A with Katherine St. John]

At Lit Hub St. John tagged five of her top fiction reads about Hollywood, including:

Martha Southgate, Third Girl From The Left

This layered and emotional story of three women—grandmother, mother, and daughter—ranges freely through time through the Tulsa race riots of 1921, the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, and the Los Angeles of modern times. Each of the women has a different perspective based on her life experience and the time in which she came of age, and Southgate paints an intimate portrait of their dreams and disappointments with fresh prose. While set in Hollywood, the true heart of the book lies in the complex relationships between these women and how they influence one another over the years.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven darkly humorous titles about relationships

Emma Duffy-Comparone’s fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, One Story, AGNI, The Sun, The Pushcart Prize XXXIX & XLI, and elsewhere. A recipient of awards from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, the MacDowell Colony, the Yaddo Corporation, and the Elizabeth George Foundation, she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Merrimack College.

Love Like That is Duffy-Comparone’s first published book.

At Electric Lit she tagged seven "books that break up the dark with some light, whose characters make me laugh and wince with recognition." One title on the list:

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I’ve been hearing the term “unlikable women” a lot and wondering what people mean by that, and sometimes all I can come up with is that it has something to do with a sharpness, a bite, that we seem to have a problem with women who don’t mince words. But these are my favorite kind of women, and Olive Kitteridge is one of my favorite characters: incorrigibly honest, often wickedly funny, strong and fearless, her big heart beating. Here is a little taste of her:

“She must not hear him because of the water running into the sink. She is not as tall as she used to be, and is broader across her back. The water stops. ‘Olive,’ he says, and she turns. ‘You’re not going to leave me, are you?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Henry. You could make a woman sick.'”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Olive Kitteridge is among Susie Yang's six titles featuring dark anti-heroines, Sara Collins's six favorite bad women in fiction, Laura Barnett's ten top unconventional love stories, and Sophie Ward's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve top books about the New York underworld

David Gordon was born in New York City. His first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. It was also made into a major motion picture in Japan. His work has also appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Purple, and Fence, among other publications.

[The Page 69 Test: The Serialist; The Page 69 Test: Mystery Girl; The Page 69 Test: White Tiger on Snow Mountain; Writers Read: David Gordon (August 2019); The Page 69 Test: The Hard Stuff; Q&A with David Gordon.]

Gordon's new novel, Against the Law, is his third installment in the Joe the Bouncer series.

At CrimeReads he tagged twelve "favorite books about outlaw New York," including:

Down These Mean Streets, by Piri Thomas

A sensation upon publication, this is an autobiographical account of growing up poor and angry in Spanish Harlem in the 50s. Of mixed Puerto Rican and Cuban background, the narrator is darker than his family, who are ashamed of their African heritage. He is poor and exposed at a young age to violence and sex. Drawn into the gang life, he becomes an addict and ends up in prison for armed robbery. Upon his release, he began the “soul-searching” that led to this book. An amazing record of the speech, style, subcultures of the time, it is also extremely current in its concern with the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and poverty. Considered a founding text of Nuyorican literature.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about ballet

Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Poison Tree, The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, The Ties That Bind, He Said/She Said, Stone Mothers and Broadchurch: The Novel, inspired by the mega-hit TV series. In 2013, The Poison Tree became a major ITV drama and was a Richard & Judy Summer Read in 2011. He Said/She Said spent six weeks in the top ten in both hardback and paperback, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier crime novel of the year award, and selected for both the Simon Mayo Radio 2 and Richard & Judy Book Clubs.

Kelly's latest novel is Watch Her Fall.

At the Guardian she tagged ten of the best books about ballet, including:

Life in Motion by Misty Copeland

Copeland was the first African American female soloist in the history of the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. At 13, she came to the barre relatively late and from a chaotic home life, but talent and drive quickly saw her outshine her peers. Copeland is frank about the racism and sizeism she experienced in an environment that still favours pale skin and narrow hips. She turns the spotlight back on the women of colour who wore pointe shoes before her: the way she talks about her mentor Raven Wilkinson is especially moving. There’s also an abridged, accessible version for younger readers, for so many of whom Copeland is an icon.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six non-fiction books about crime & general bad behavior in Silicon Valley

Kathy Wang grew up in Northern California and is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Wang's debut novel Family Trust was a Costco Pennie’s Pick, Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, and the inaugural selection of the Buzzfeed Book Club. Her second novel Impostor Syndrome will be published by Custom House/HarperCollins in June 2021.

At CrimeReads Wang tagged six of her "favorite non-fiction books about crime and general bad behavior in Silicon Valley," including:

Super Pumped, by Mike Isaac

This book charts the rise and fall of Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder and CEO, who revolutionized the gig economy. We follow Kalanick as he expands Uber while maintaining an iron grip over control of the company—growth, growth, growth being his chief mantra, and we watch as he does everything from deceiving Apple (and enraging Tim Cook) to personally targeting journalists. This is another tale, like with Bad Blood, in which the reporter becomes part of the story. In Isaac’s case, it is when an employee at Uber comes to him with documentation of illegal tracking programs—and you see Travis Kalanick go from being king of the world, to being pushed out of the still very successful company that he founded.

Also, if you enjoy Super Pumped, I also highly recommend Whistleblower, by Susan Fowler. Fowler, a former engineer at Uber, outlines her very personal experience with the company. She’s also an excellent writer, perceptive and clever, even while facing increasingly outrageous treatment from her management and HR.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top uninhabitable houses in fiction

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, and has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester.

She has written four novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; Bitter Orange; and Unsettled Ground.

At Electric Lit Fuller tagged seven "fictional homes that test the limits of where we’re willing to live," including:

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Cassandra lives in a crumbling castle with her father, sister and stepmother. At some times of the day, especially in a dusky kind of afternoon light when it can’t be seen properly, the castle appears romantic and beautiful. But in her diary, Cassandra wittily records the reality of the place: the icy draughts, how her father has sold off most of the furniture, the smelly, muddy moat, and how she has to take a hot brick to bed to keep warm at night.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

I Capture the Castle is among Sarah Driver's five best sibling stories for children, Gail Honeyman's five favorite idiosyncratic characters, Anna Wilson's top ten embarrassing parents in books, Rose Mannering’s top five books, Diane Johnson's six favorite books, and Sophia Bennett's top ten stylish reads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five historical fantasies set beyond New York & London

Nicole Jarvis has been writing stories as long as she can remember. After graduating with degrees in English and Italian from Emory University, Jarvis moved to New York City to pursue a career in publishing. She lives in Manhattan with two cats named after children’s book characters.

The Lights of Prague is her first published novel.

At Tor.com Jarvis tagged "five brilliant historical fantasy novels exploring a range of locales—all with their own dose of magic." One title on the list:

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you haven’t already picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates’s debut novel, you are in for a true treat. An Oprah’s Book Club selection and star of “Best of” lists throughout 2019, this stunning book starts at a plantation in Antebellum Virginia. Hiram Walker, the mixed-race son of a white plantation owner and a black mother, has a powerful ability—through water, he can transport himself and others across the country. This power, called Conduction, is key to Hiram’s freedom and priceless to the Underground Railroad movement. However, it is tied to the power of memories, so he must confront the tragedy of his lost mother before he can unlock his true potential.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Water Dancer is among Elif Shafak's six top books to help us through tough times.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleven books to help understand the Sixties

Mike Bond has been called the “master of the existential thriller” by the BBC and “one of the 21st century’s most exciting authors” by the Washington Times. He is a bestselling novelist, environmental activist, international energy expert, war and human rights correspondent and award-winning poet who has lived and worked in many remote and dangerous parts of the world.

Bond's latest novel is America.

At LitHub he tagged eleven books that influenced his 1960s experience, including:

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Though written in 1954, Aldous Huxley’s extraordinary introduction to psychotropic drugs had a huge impact on me and millions of others during the 1960s. “The urge to transcend self-conscious selfhood is… a principal appetite of the soul.” – these words exemplify the 1960s and what we tried to achieve.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Doors of Perception is among John Higgs's top ten psychedelic non-fiction books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about the reality of life on the internet

Kleopatra Olympiou is a writer from Cyprus, and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Durham University. She works as a staff writer at Reedsy.

At Electric Lit she tagged nine books about the reality of life on the internet, including:

Grown Ups by Emma Jane Unsworth

Jenny McLaine’s life is a mess, and she knows it. Exasperated by her lukewarm and precarious career as a columnist, sharing her London house with unamused lodgers since her ex moved out, failing at friendship, and ambushed by her mother, Jenny feels cornered into inaction—all she does is idolize (read: stalk) flawless women on Instagram. Grown Ups is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of what happens when she begins to lose control. Bonus points for the all-around pissed off energy.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about depression

Alex Riley is an award-winning science writer and the author of A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It, his first book. He received a best feature award from the Association of British Science Writers for his reporting on The Friendship Bench, a project that began in Zimbabwe in 2006 and has since provided mental health care to thousands of people in New York. A former research scientist, he has co-authored peer-reviewed scientific papers while working at the Natural History Museum in London. Since leaving academia in 2015, he began writing popular science articles for magazines such as New Scientist, PBS’s NOVA Next, BBC Future, Mosaic Science, Aeon, and Nautilus Magazine.

At the Guardian Riley tagged ten top books about depression, including:

The Inflamed Mind by Ed Bullmore

An accessible insight into psychoneuroimmunology, the study of inflammation, the brain and mental illness. While the subtitle, A Radical New Approach to Depression, suggests that this is a new science, it actually emerged decades ago and, as the author explains, has now found support from numerous fields of study. Epidemiology, immunology and trials into anti-inflammatories are finding that a subset of depressions stem from low-grade chronic inflammation.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue