Pg. 99: Robert Wuthnow's "Red-State Religion"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America's Heartland by Robert Wuthnow.

About the book, from the publisher:

No state has voted Republican more consistently or widely or for longer than Kansas. To understand red state politics, Kansas is the place. It is also the place to understand red state religion. The Kansas Board of Education has repeatedly challenged the teaching of evolution, Kansas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage, the state is a hotbed of antiabortion protest--and churches have been involved in all of these efforts. Yet in 1867 suffragist Lucy Stone could plausibly proclaim that, in the cause of universal suffrage, "Kansas leads the world!" How did Kansas go from being a progressive state to one of the most conservative?

In Red State Religion, Robert Wuthnow tells the story of religiously motivated political activism in Kansas from territorial days to the present. He examines how faith mixed with politics as both ordinary Kansans and leaders such as John Brown, Carrie Nation, William Allen White, and Dwight Eisenhower struggled over the pivotal issues of their times, from slavery and Prohibition to populism and anti-communism. Beyond providing surprising new explanations of why Kansas became a conservative stronghold, the book sheds new light on the role of religion in red states across the Midwest and the United States. Contrary to recent influential accounts, Wuthnow argues that Kansas conservatism is largely pragmatic, not ideological, and that religion in the state has less to do with politics and contentious moral activism than with relationships between neighbors, friends, and fellow churchgoers.

This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the role of religion in American political conservatism.

Learn more about Red State Religion at the Princeton University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Red State Religion.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten vampire stories more romantic than "Breaking Dawn"

At io9, Charlie Jane Anders tagged ten vampire stories that are more romantic than Breaking Dawn.

One story on her list:

Carmilla

What it's about: The original lesbian vampire story, this 1871 novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu follows the beautiful Carmilla Karnstein, who preys on a young girl, Laura, but also falls in love with her. This novel was made into several movies, including Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses and the Hammer Horror film The Vampire Lovers.
Why it's romantic: Carmilla and Laura are constantly embracing and kissing each other in the novel, and Laura talks about Carmilla "gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardor of a lover." Carmilla feels guilty for sucking the life force out of Laura, but also professes love and adoration for her. Like many vampire romances, their love is doomed and unhealthy, but also glorious.

Read about a novel on the list.

Carmilla also made John Mullan's list of ten of the best femmes fatales in literature and Lisa Tuttle's critic's chart of top vampire books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Matt Rees's "Mozart's Last Aria"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Mozart's Last Aria by Matt Rees.

About the book, from the publisher:

The news arrives in a letter to his sister, Nannerl, in December 1791. But the message carries more than word of Nannerl’s brother’s demise. Two months earlier, Mozart confided to his wife that his life was rapidly drawing to a close ... and that he knew he had been poisoned.

In Vienna to pay her final respects, Nannerl soon finds herself ensnared in a web of suspicion and intrigue—as the actions of jealous lovers, sinister creditors, rival composers, and Mozart’s Masonic brothers suggest that dark secrets hastened the genius to his grave. As Nannerl digs deeper into the mystery surrounding her brother’s passing, Mozart’s black fate threatens to overtake her as well.

Transporting readers to the salons and concert halls of eighteenth-century Austria, Mozart’s Last Aria is a magnificent historical mystery that pulls back the curtain on a world of soaring music, burning passion, and powerful secrets.

Learn more about about the book and author at Matt Beynon Rees' website and blog.

Matt Rees is an award-winning crime novelist and foreign correspondent. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Omar Yussef crime series, including The Collaborator of Bethlehem. He is also the author of Cain’s Field, a nonfiction account of Israeli and Palestinian society. Rees lives in Jerusalem.

My Book, The Movie: Mozart's Last Aria.

The Page 69 Test: Mozart's Last Aria.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Craig McDonald reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Craig McDonald, author of four novels in the Hector Lassiter series and the newly released El Gavilan.

Part of his entry:

At this writing, I’m slowly moving through Daniel Woodrell’s powerful collection of short fiction, The Outlaw Album. I’ve long been an admirer of Woodrell’s distinctive, memorable prose style, but recently had the privilege of sharing a stage with Mr. Woodrell during a book event in Quebec. Hearing the author read his own short story “Returning the River” a couple of weeks back, has put a different narrative voice and rhythm in my head when reading Woodrell’s work, bringing a whole new dimension of...[read on]

About El Gavilan, from the publisher:

The news is full of it: escalating tensions from illegal immigration; headless bodies hanging off bridges and bounties placed on lawmen on both sides of the border. New Austin, Ohio, is a town grappling with waves of undocumented workers who exert tremendous pressure on schools, police and city services. In the midst of the turmoil, three very different kinds of cops scramble to maintain control and impose order.

But the rape-murder of a Mexican-American woman triggers a brutal chain of events that threatens to leave no survivors. El Gavilan is a novel of shifting alliances and whiplash switchbacks. Families are divided and careers and lives threatened. Friendships and ideals are tested and budding love affairs challenged. With its topical themes, shades-of- gray characters and dark canvas, El Gavilan is a novel for our charged times.

Among the early praise for El Gavilan:

"Searing. Sobering and as urgent as tomorrow's headlines. McDonald deftly...dissects one of America's most tormenting social problems."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Learn more about the book and author at Craig McDonald's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: El Gavilan.

The Page 69 Test: El Gavilan.

Writers Read: Craig McDonald.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Nigel Cliff's "Holy War"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Holy War: How Vasco da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations by Nigel Cliff.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping historical epic and a radical new interpretation of Vasco da Gama’s groundbreaking voyages, seen as a turning point in the struggle between Christianity and Islam

In 1498 a young captain sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies and, with it, access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage known to history. The little ships were pushed beyond their limits, and their crews were racked by storms and devastated by disease. However, their greatest enemy was neither nature nor even the sheer dread of venturing into unknown worlds that existed on maps populated by coiled, toothy sea monsters. With bloodred Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents.

An epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused and often comical collisions between cultures encountering one another for the first time; Holy War also offers a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history. Identifying Vasco da Gama’s arrival in the East as a turning point in the centuries-old struggle between Islam and Christianity—one that continues to shape our world—Holy War reveals the unexpected truth that both Vasco da Gama and his archrival, Christopher Columbus, set sail with the clear purpose of launching a Crusade whose objective was to reach the Indies; seize control of its markets in spices, silks, and precious gems from Muslim traders; and claim for Portugal or Spain, respectively, all the territories they discovered. Vasco da Gama triumphed in his mission and drew a dividing line between the Muslim and Christian eras of history—what we in the West call the medieval and the modern ages. Now that the world is once again tipping back East, Holy War offers a key to understanding age-old religious and cultural rivalries resurgent today.

Learn more about the book and author at Nigel Cliff's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Holy War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books about tiny people

Conn Iggulden is a bestselling author of historical fiction for adults and co-author with his brother Hal of The Dangerous Book for Boys. His Tollins books, about the adventures of tiny creatures with wings who aren't fairies and are about as fragile as a house brick, are his first foray into children's fiction.

One of his top ten books about tiny people, as told to the Guardian:

Truckers, Diggers and Wings by Terry Pratchett

A trilogy about very small people living in the walls of a department store. With a sense of awe and wonder, they slowly discover that the world around them is greater than Haberdashery and Kitchen Appliances. As always with Pratchett, the dialogue cracks along, peppered with wit – while incidentally exploring our own ideas of reality. Pratchett is loved by millions for very good reason.

Read about another entry on the list.

Learn about the book that changed Conn Iggulden's life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mignon Ballard's "Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause by Mignon Ballard.

The entry begins:

I always knew who I’d like to play the part of the guardian angel in my Augusta Goodnight mystery series, and that would have been the late actress, Eve Arden. I even pictured Augusta as looking a bit like Eve, and her character also shared Augusta’s sometimes-tart tongue and practical way of looking at life.

I had to think a bit to decide on an actress who might be natural in the part of Miss Dimple and I believe any of these four would do my character justice, although I realize it might be a bit late for three of them: Dorothy McGuire came to mind because I loved the way she played the gentle yet courageous mother in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And naturally, I would be honored to have Olivia...[read on]

Learn more about the author and her work at Mignon Ballard's website.

My Book, The Movie: Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Wendy Pearlman reading?

Today's featured contributor at Writers Read: Wendy Pearlman, author of Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement.

Part of her entry:

In Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, I focused on the organizational aspects of mobilization. In my reading on the current uprisings, however, I’ve been drawn to explore the role of emotions. I’m usually skeptical about emotions as a factor explaining political action. But the intensity of feelings expressed in these uprisings has inspired me to rethink that bias.

As such, I’ve been reading about the psychology and sociology of emotions. I’ve been reading works that consider the place of emotions in societal relationships, such as Jack Barbalet’s Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure. I’ve also been reading works on how emotions affect individuals’ decision-making about politics, such as Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment by George Marcus, W. Russell Neuman and Michael MacKuen. In addition, I’ve been reading scholarly articles by George Loewenstein, an economist who has researched how people’s emotions affect their thinking and behavior in ways...[read on]

About Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, from the publisher:

Why do some national movements use violent protest and others nonviolent protest? Wendy Pearlman shows that much of the answer lies inside movements themselves. Nonviolent protest requires coordination and restraint, which only a cohesive movement can provide. When, by contrast, a movement is fragmented, factional competition generates new incentives for violence and authority structures are too weak to constrain escalation. Pearlman reveals these patterns across one hundred years in the Palestinian national movement, with comparisons to South Africa and Northern Ireland. To those who ask why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, Pearlman demonstrates that nonviolence is not simply a matter of leadership. Nor is violence attributable only to religion, emotions, or stark instrumentality. Instead, a movement's organizational structure mediates the strategies that it employs. By taking readers on a journey from civil disobedience to suicide bombings, this book offers fresh insight into the dynamics of conflict and mobilization.

Learn more about Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement at the Cambridge University Press website.

Wendy Pearlman is Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Crown Junior Chair in Middle East Studies at Northwestern University.

The Page 99 Test: Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement.

Writers Read: Wendy Pearlman.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Paul North's "The Problem of Distraction"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: The Problem of Distraction by Paul North.

About the book, from the publisher:

We live in an age of distraction. Contemporary analyses of culture, politics, techno-science, and psychology insist on this. They often suggest remedies for it, or ways to capitalize on it. Yet they almost never investigate the meaning and history of distraction itself. This book corrects this lack of attention. It inquires into the effects of distraction, defined not as the opposite of attention, but as truly discontinuous intellect. Human being has to be reconceived, according to this argument, not as quintessentially thought-bearing, but as subject to repeated, causeless blackouts of mind.

The Problem of Distraction presents the first genealogy of the concept from Aristotle to the largely forgotten, early twentieth-century efforts by Kafka, Heidegger, and Benjamin to revolutionize the humanities by means of distraction. Further, the book makes the case that our present troubles cannot be solved by recovering or enhancing attention. Not-always-thinking beings are beset by radical breaks in their experience, but in this way they are also receptive to what has not and cannot yet be called experience.

Learn more about The Problem of Distraction at the Stanford University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Problem of Distraction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten of the best libraries in literature

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the most memorable libraries in literature.

One entry on the list:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Someone is bumping off monks in an Italian monastery in the 14th century, and the library, in which all its precious manuscripts are stored, is the centre of the mystery. "For these men devoted to writing, the library was at once the celestial Jerusalem and an underground world on the border between terra incognita and Hades."

Read about another title on the list.

The Name of the Rose is one of Andy McSmith's top 10 books of the 1980s, Ian Rankin's five favorite literary crime novels, and Vanora Bennett's five favorite historical novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Craig McDonald's "El Gavilan"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: El Gavilan by Craig McDonald.

About the book, from the publisher:

The news is full of it: escalating tensions from illegal immigration; headless bodies hanging off bridges and bounties placed on lawmen on both sides of the border. New Austin, Ohio, is a town grappling with waves of undocumented workers who exert tremendous pressure on schools, police and city services. In the midst of the turmoil, three very different kinds of cops scramble to maintain control and impose order.

But the rape-murder of a Mexican-American woman triggers a brutal chain of events that threatens to leave no survivors. El Gavilan is a novel of shifting alliances and whiplash switchbacks. Families are divided and careers and lives threatened. Friendships and ideals are tested and budding love affairs challenged. With its topical themes, shades-of- gray characters and dark canvas, El Gavilan is a novel for our charged times.

Learn more about the book and author at Craig McDonald's website and blog.

McDonald's previous books include four novels in the Hector Lassiter series.

My Book, The Movie: El Gavilan.

The Page 69 Test: El Gavilan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tom Lowe's "The Butterfly Forest," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Butterfly Forest by Tom Lowe.

The entry begins:

A very successful novelist friend of mine doesn't want to sell filmmakers the right to adapt his books on screen. And he's had plenty of offers. He feels that would taint or certainly influence the personal image readers form of his characters, especially his two popular protagonists. That's a fair assumption.

But I disagree.

Apparently, so do readers. I often get readers suggesting who could "play Sean O'Brien" if the novels are ever adapted into films. Some of the suggestions include Bradley Cooper and Ryan Reynolds. I'd be happy to see either one of these guys in the role. I read where Tom...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Tom Lowe's website.

Lowe's previous Sean O'Brien mystery/thrillers include A False Dawn and The 24th Letter.

The Page 69 Test: The 24th Letter.

My Book, The Movie: The Butterfly Forest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on Soviet espionage

Allen M. Hornblum has been executive director of Americans for Democratic Action, chief of staff of the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office, and a college lecturer. His books include Sentenced to Science, Acres of Skin, Confessions of a Second Story Man, and The Invisible Harry Gold: The Man Who Gave the Soviets the Atom Bomb.

One of his five best books on Soviet espionage, as told to the Wall Street Journal:

Engineering Communism
by Steven T. Usdin (2005)

This little-known gem of a book is about Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, two idealistic New York engineers and members of the Rosenberg spy ring who decamped for the Soviet bloc in 1950, before the FBI could arrest them. Steven T. Usdin's account of the two City College grads is made all the more gripping because the author knew Joel Barr: The journalist was in Moscow in 1990 working on an article when he was introduced to a respected Soviet scientist named Joseph Berg, a tall, bespectacled septuagenarian who spoke perfect English, albeit with "a classic Brooklyn accent." When Usdin inquired about the accent, Berg said: "We have good schools here." But Usdin wasn't having any of it, and Berg soon owned up to being the fugitive Joel Barr. He took the American to Zelenograd, the secret scientific center he had helped build for the Soviets, and gradually told his story to Usdin. Amazingly, Barr visited America in the 1990s. Instead of being arrested, he was granted a new American passport and Social Security income. Alfred Sarant's life was equally unusual, with parts rivaling some of the seamier episodes of "Days of Our Lives." When Julius Rosenberg was arrested, Sarant and a friend's wife fled to Mexico, eventually reaching the Soviet Union. Sarant was put to work with Barr, and together, Usdin says, the men "played a catalytic role in creating Soviet microelectronics."

Read about another book on the list.

Also see Jonathan Miles's five best books about the secrets of espionage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Susanna Paasonen's "Carnal Resonance"

Today's feature at the Page 99 Test: Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography by Susanna Paasonen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Digital production tools and online networks have dramatically increased the general visibility, accessibility, and diversity of pornography. Porn can be accessed for free, anonymously, and in a seemingly endless range of niches, styles, and formats. In Carnal Resonance, Susanna Paasonen moves beyond the usual debates over the legal, political, and moral aspects of pornography to address online porn in a media historical framework, investigating its modalities, its affect, and its visceral and disturbing qualities. Countering theorizations of pornography as emotionless, affectless, detached, and cold, Paasonen addresses experiences of porn largely through the notion of affect as gut reactions, intensities of experience, bodily sensations, resonances, and ambiguous feelings. She links these investigations to considerations of methodology (ways of theorizing and analyzing online porn and affect), questions of materiality (bodies, technologies, and inscriptions), and the evolution of online pornography.

Paasonen dicusses the development of online porn, focusing on the figure of the porn consumer, and considers user-generated content and amateur porn. She maps out the modality of online porn as hyperbolic, excessive, stylized, and repetitive, arguing that literal readings of the genre misunderstand its dynamics and appeal. And she analyzes viral videos and extreme and shock pornogaphy, arguing for the centrality of disgust and shame in the affective dynamics of porn. Paasonen's analysis makes clear the crucial role of media technologies--digital production tools and networked communications in particular--in the forms that porn takes, the resonances it stirs, and the experiences it makes possible.

Learn more about Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography at the MIT Press website.

Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at University of Turku, Finland. Her scholarship includes Figures of Fantasy: Internet, Women, and Cyberdiscourse and the newly released Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography.

Writers Read: Susanna Paasonen.

The Page 99 Test: Carnal Resonance.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Kenneth Gross reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Kenneth Gross, author of Shylock Is Shakespeare. and the recently released Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life.

His entry begins:

A lot of the reading has been rereading. Some of it for pleasure, some to think about a class I’m teaching on Shakespeare, and also a class on poetry and memory I’ll be teaching in the spring. I’ve been moving slowly through the long section in the second volume of In Search of Lost Time, where Proust describes how Marcel settles and unsettles himself within the life of the grand resort hotel at Balbec, in the company of his beloved grandmother. To get myself thinking about certain questions in Shakespeare, I recently went back to...[read on]

Among the early praise for Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life:

“After three readings, my enthusiasm must take the form of a warning, even of a prohibition: do not read Kenneth Gross’s energetic, expert, and exhaustive essay as if it were merely—merely!—an ecstatic encomium; on the other hand (the puppeteer’s constant cry), do not treat this learned and lyrical study as if it were no more than a reference book, though it has all the beneficent earmarks of that dread convenience. Read it as you always meant to read the Bible: by chapters, by pages, persistently by sentences, readily pausing to concur, to contend, to wonder.... You will find the author has done that much for you, thereby achieving—by a labor of years as well as of love—the Sacred Book of an entire human undertaking, one which has ensorcelled us for all the recorded ages of what the author calls uncanny life.”
—Richard Howard, author of Without Saying

“You have in your hands a uniquely beautiful book, a book of uncommon brilliance and lucidity. It is as wondrous as the theaters of marvels it describes; its leaps and mutabilities provide a thrilling adventure in imaginative thinking. ‘How are we devoured by the things we make?’ it asks. ‘And when might that devouring save us?’ My copy burns brightly on my favorite shelf, beside The Poetics of Space, Eccentric Spaces, and In Praise of Shadows... a treasure!”
—Rikki Ducornet, author of Netsuke and The Fan-Maker’s Inquisition

“A canny and alert examination of the mechanics of animistic and magical thinking.”
—Literary Review

Learn more about Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life at the University of Chicago Press website.

Kenneth Gross is professor of English at the University of Rochester. His books include Shakespeare’s Noise and Shylock Is Shakespeare.

The Page 69 Test: Shylock Is Shakespeare.

My Book, The Movie: Shylock Is Shakespeare.

Writers Read: Kenneth Gross (July 2007).

Writers Read: Kenneth Gross.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brooke Hauser's 6 favorite books about immigrants

Brooke Hauser has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Allure, and Premiere, among other publications.

For several years, she covered the film industry as Writer-at-Large at Premiere, where she was also an editor. In 2005, her interest in profiling characters not usually featured in the mainstream media led her to the City section of the New York Times. For her first story, which was later optioned for a movie, she spent weeks chronicling the misadventures of a clique of Staten Island girls looking for love.

Since then, she has tried to dig deep and tread lightly in many different worlds, from New York’s juvenile justice system to Harlem’s spirited Baptist community.

The recently released The New Kids: Big Dreams Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens is Hauser's first book.

One of her six favorite books about immigrants, as told to The Week magazine:

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

O'Neill, who was born in Ireland and raised in Holland, has written one of the most memorable works of fiction about life in New York City post-9/11. The Dutch narrator is a financial analyst who rediscovers a love of cricket while befriending a wily Trinidadian expat. The novel exposes the personal connections formed and lost in the aftermath of a crisis.

Read about another novel on Hauser's list.

Also see E. C. Osondu's top 10 immigrants' tales and Matthew Kaminski's five favorite novels about immigrants in America.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Riley Adams's "Hickory Smoked Homicide"

This weekend's feature at the Page 69 Test: Hickory Smoked Homicide by Riley Adams.

About the book, from the publisher:

BBQ-joint owner Lulu Taylor knows pretty much everyone in Memphis who lives ribs. But one person she’d rather not know is Tristan Pembroke, a snooty pageant couch with a mean streak. When she finds Tristan’s dead body stuffed in a closet at a party, the police are suspicious—especially since Lulu’s developed a taste for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught in a situation stickier than molasses, Lulu must clear her name, or risk getting fried...

Learn more about the book and author at Riley Adams/Elizabeth Spann Craig's website and her Mystery Writing is Murder blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Elizabeth Spann Craig & Chloe.

Writers Read: Riley Adams.

The Page 69 Test: Hickory Smoked Homicide.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on dogs

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on dogs:

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski

In one of the most inventive retellings of Shakespeare ever put to paper, David Wroblewski introduces an unlikely Hamlet: a voiceless boy, living on a Wisconsin farm, where a breed of highly intelligent dogs is raised by his family. When the murder of his father shatters his familiar world, young Edgar flies into the surrounding wilderness, accompanied by three faithful yearling pups. The result is a daring, risky, and completely captivating novel, with the bond between boy and dogs is at its heart.

Read about a work of non-fiction on the list.

Learn about David Wroblewski's five most important books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Eliot A. Cohen's "Conquered into Liberty"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War by Eliot A. Cohen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Americans often think of the Civil War as the conflict that consolidated the United States, including its military values and practices. But there was another, earlier, and more protracted struggle between “North” and “South,” beginning in the 1600s and lasting for more than two centuries, that shaped American geopolitics and military culture. Here, Eliot A. Cohen explains how the American way of war emerged from a lengthy struggle with an unlikely enemy: Canada.

In Conquered into Liberty, Cohen describes how five peoples—the British, French, Americans, Canadians, and Indians—fought over the key to the North American continent: the corridor running from Albany to Montreal dominated by the Champlain valley and known to Native Americans as the “Great Warpath.” He reveals how conflict along these two hundred miles of lake, river, and woodland shaped the country’s military values, practices, and institutions.

Through a vivid narration of a series of fights— woodland skirmishes and massacres, bloody frontal assaults and fleet actions, rear-guard battles and shadowy covert actions—Cohen explores how a distinctively American approach to war developed along the Great Warpath. He weaves together tactics and strategy, battle narratives, and statecraft, introducing readers to such fascinating but little-known figures as Justus Sherwood, loyalist spy; Jeduthan Baldwin, self-taught engineer; and La Corne St. Luc, ruthless partisan leader. And he reintroduces characters we thought we knew—an admirable Benedict Arnold, a traitorous Ethan Allen, and a devious George Washington. A gripping read grounded in serious scholarship, Conquered into Liberty will enchant and inform readers for decades to come.

Learn more about the book and author at Eliot A. Cohen's website.

The Page 99 Test: Conquered into Liberty.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 music books

In the 1970s and 1980s, Nile Rodgers wrote and produced the songs that defined that era and everything that came after: “Le Freak,” “Good Times,” “We Are Family,” “Like a Virgin,” “Modern Love,” “I’m Coming Out,” “The Reflex,” “Rapper’s Delight.” Aside from his own band, Chic, he worked with everyone from Diana Ross and Madonna to David Bowie and Duran Duran (not to mention Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Prince, Rod Stewart, Robert Plant, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, Bryan Ferry, INXS, and the B-52’s), transforming their music, selling millions of records, and redefining what a pop song could be.

Rodgers's new memoir is Le Freak.

One of his top ten music books, as told to the Guardian:

Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight by John McDermott with Eddie Kramer

This book is interesting to me personally because I know so many of the people, places, and things involved. I put it on my list because I liked reading about the recording sessions, technical decisions, and the Hendrix studio mindset. He was portrayed as a taskmaster who also suffered from something akin to ADD. It was fantastic to see that sometimes beautifully-crafted creations came from persistence, virtuosity – or wonderful accidents.

Read about another book on Rodgers's list.

Also see: Samuel Muston's list of the ten best music memoirs and Kitty Empire's ten best rock autobiographies.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matt Rees's "Mozart's Last Aria," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Mozart's Last Aria by Matt Rees.

The entry begins:

American actresses ought to be climbing over each other to option the film rights for Mozart's Last Aria. Why? Because the main character is a woman just over forty years old.

It’s well-known that all but a few actresses disappear from lead billing by the time they hit that age. Men, by contrast, can still be playing action heroes and romantic leads when they’re already in adult diapers.

Nannerl Mozart, the sister of the great composer, was a child prodigy at the piano, just like Wolfgang. But in her teens she was left at home by their ambitious father, while Wolfgang went to Italy to compose operas. After that, Nannerl was married off – eventually, at age 32, which was old maid territory in the late eighteenth century – and lived in a remote mountain village with her husband, a boring tax official.

In Mozart's Last Aria, she learns of her brother’s death and suspects foul play. (Mozart himself really did tell his wife that he was being poisoned and six weeks later he was dead.) She travels to Vienna to find out the truth. In the imperial capital, she uncovers a plot involving underground Masonic lodges, espionage, and a secret hidden in the libretto of Wolfgang’s last great opera, The Magic Flute.

As I wrote the novel, I was able to keep in mind...[read on]

Learn more about about the book and author at Matt Beynon Rees' website and blog.

Matt Rees is an award-winning crime novelist and foreign correspondent. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Omar Yussef crime series, including The Collaborator of Bethlehem. He is also the author of Cain’s Field, a nonfiction account of Israeli and Palestinian society. Rees lives in Jerusalem.

My Book, The Movie: Mozart's Last Aria.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Susanna Paasonen reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Susanna Paasonen, author of Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography.

Her entry begins:

Currently, I'm reading Steven Shaviro's new book, Post-Cinematic Affect that has so far been an interesting exploration in contemporary moving image culture from the perspective of affect. Compared to a few years ago, there starts to be quite a range of literature on affect and media, and I'm starting to feel quite spoiled. I recently finished Kathleen Stewart's Ordinary Affects that I had earlier skimmed through and decided to really read. It's beautifully written, bit like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's A Dialogue on Love in its blending of...[read on]

Among the early praise for Carnal Resonance:

“Groundbreaking, provocative, insightful. If you want to understand the relationship between the internet and pornography, read this book.”
—Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Professor of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University

“Finally, a comprehensive book that deals originally, intelligently (and non-hysterically) with on-line pornography.”
—Linda Williams, Film and Media, University of California, Berkeley

“This is precise, original, and inventive work; scholarship of the highest order. Pornography is still a relatively neglected subject in online media studies, and even in ‘Porn Studies,’ few scholars focus in detail on pornography itself, rather than on its legal, political, or moral status. This book will be a very valuable and significant addition to the literature on pornography and on online media as a whole. It should appeal not only to scholars and students of pornography and Internet studies, but to those who engage with questions of representation and media more generally.”
—Feona Attwood, Professor of Sex, Communication, and Culture, Sheffield Hallam University, and author of Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography

Learn more about Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography at the MIT Press website.

Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at University of Turku, Finland. Her scholarship includes Figures of Fantasy: Internet, Women, and Cyberdiscourse and the newly released Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography.

Writers Read: Susanna Paasonen.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on Native Americans and colonizers

Colin Calloway is Professor of Native American Studies at Dartmouth.

With Eve Gerber at The Browser, he discussed five books on American Indians and colonizers, including:

The Columbian Exchange
by Alfred W Crosby Jr

This seems an apt time to consider the consequences of European arrival on the existing population of the Americas. Tell us about the core argument of Alfred Crosby’s Columbian Exchange.

Alfred Crosby’s Columbian Exchange was published in 1972. If we read it today, especially in the wake of reading something like 1491, it might seem quite sparse, because since then scholars have done a huge amount of work in fleshing out this idea.

I think titles are important and I think this title, Columbian Exchange, is hugely important because it puts early colonial history into a broader context, so that the European invasion of America is not seen as a one-way street with humans simply crossing the Atlantic and landing in America. It’s two continents coming into contact and so opening up transoceanic exchange of people and plants and animals and disease. Crosby was the first scholar to point to the impact of epidemic diseases. Much more intensive and sophisticated work has been done since, but Crosby’s work was crucial, and there’s nothing more important to understanding that early history of America.

Is the communication of communicable diseases what led to European dominance over the hemisphere?

It’s not the only factor. As Jared Diamond’s book title says: Guns, Germs and Steel. There are a number of issues to consider but I think disease is important to understanding the invasion and colonisation of the Americas and even the subsequent expansion of the United States nation westward. Whenever we consider how native peoples are coping with, responding to, and adjusting to the presence of Europeans and the expanding power of the United States, we should recall the impact of disease on the population. Disease undermines Native Americans’ capacity for resistance at the very time when they need the utmost capacity. It upsets the balances of power and relations between native peoples so I think it certainly has to be high on the list, if not at the top of the list, in understanding how things play out in this continent.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Brian Ruckley's "The Edinburgh Dead"

The current feature at the Page 69 Test: The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Edinburgh: 1828

In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces.

Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city's criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.

Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment - and no one is safe from its corruption.

The Edinburgh Dead is a powerful fusion of gothic horror, history, and the fantastical.

Learn more about The Edinburgh Dead at Brian Ruckley's website.

Ruckley's books include the fantasy trilogy The Godless World, which consists of the books Winterbirth, Bloodheir, and Fall of Thanes.

My Book, The Movie: the Godless World trilogy.

The Page 69 Test: The Edinburgh Dead.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five of the best books on leaderless revolution

Carne Ross, a former British diplomat, is currently on Occupy Wall Street’s general assembly. His latest book, The Leaderless Revolution, explores alternative systems of organizing world affairs, in particular anarchism.

He discussed five books on leaderless revolution with Eve Gerber at The Browser, including:

Common Sense
by Thomas Paine

You’ve cited five books that lay the foundation for just such a leaderless revolution. Let’s begin with America’s most revered revolutionary tract, Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Why should we still read this pamphlet from 1776?

It's an extraordinary and brave book, written by a man who was born in England and adopted America as his homeland, so I relate to him in that way. It's just an incredibly clear account of what was wrong with British colonialism and why Americans should throw it off. It's a brilliant political argument and a model of inspiring political writing – eloquent but also concise. It's about freedom. It's about how to throw off the shackles of repression.

How does this relate to leaderless revolution?

Paine saw a particular circumstance at that time and he felt that people were not articulating clearly what the real problem was and what the solution was – that they were just dancing around the problem. To an extent that's how I feel. We're talking about manifestations of the problem without getting to the fundamentals. He cuts to the chase and that was an inspiration.

But Paine argues strongly for a democratically elected government, right?

To an extent he does. He talks about the design of Congress and it's an ideal system that he describes. But I think Thomas Paine would be pretty horrified by what he might see today that passes for democratic government.

Read about another book Ross tagged.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Robert Brenneman's "Homies and Hermanos"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America by Robert Brenneman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why would a gun-wielding, tattoo-bearing "homie" trade in la vida loca for a Bible and the buttoned-down lifestyle of an evangelical hermano (brother in Christ)? To answer this question, Robert Brenneman interviewed sixty-three former gang members from the "Northern Triangle" of Central America--Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras--most of whom left their gang for evangelicalism. Unlike in the United States, membership in a Central American gang is hasta la morgue. But the most common exception to the "morgue rule" is that of conversion or regular participation in an evangelical church. Do gang members who weary of their dangerous lifestyle simply make a rational choice to opt for evangelical religion? Brenneman finds this is only partly the case, for many others report emotional conversions that came unexpectedly, when they found themselves overwhelmed by a sermon, a conversation, or a prayer service. An extensively researched and gritty account, Homies and Hermanos sheds light on the nature of youth violence, of religious conversion, and of evangelical churches in Central America.

Learn more about the book and author at Robert Brenneman's website.

Robert Brenneman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. He is the author of Faith and the Foreigner.

The Page 99 Test: Homies and Hermanos.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stella Tillyard's favorite historical novels

Stella Tillyard, author of the novel Tides of War, named her four favorite historical novels at The Daily Beast, including:

Vanity Fair, a Novel Without a Hero
by William Thackeray

Vanity Fair, which deals with the same period at the end of the Napoleonic Wars as War and Peace, is something of a dead end for the historical novel, as well as an early example of the realist novel tackling the past. It is a comedy, and I have included it as I think every list can do with a dash of comedic leavening. Whereas the historical novel as it developed, following the model of Stendhal and Tolstoy, has tended to tackle the grand historical themes of war and, later, empire and its disintegration, and therefore to have men and masculinity to the fore, Vanity Fair is a lighthearted satire and has two women at its centre. Its sassy heroine Becky Sharp has come to seem like innumerable chick-lit heroines and the heroines of many popular historical novels set in courts. But in fact Thackeray’s novel is retrospective in its outlook, unlike the majority of great historical novels in the nineteenth century, which have tended to look to the present and the future while dwelling on the past. Becky Sharp is modeled on the great courtesans of the eighteenth century and Regency period, while Thackeray’s story is essentially a satire on the futility of the very notion of progress. All his characters are found wanting, and none are very likeable, unless it is Becky herself who navigates a vitiated world with spirit, humour and, in the end, an unexpected moment of kindness.

Read about another novel on the list.

Vanity Fair also appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best fat men in literature and ten of the best pianos in literature, and Thomas Mallon's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Riley Adams reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Riley Adams, author of Hickory Smoked Homicide.

Her entry begins:

I actually made a departure from the books I usually choose and recently read Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson. I haven't read psychological thrillers for a while, but I heard about this novel on a book blog and was intrigued. A woman who wakes up each morning not knowing her past, her name, or her identity? I was hooked. Since I've been super-short on time lately, I was looking for a novel that would quickly hook me and pull me through the book without letting go.

The book was fascinating on a couple of different levels for me. For one--I struggle with my memory every single day. I wasn't blessed with a great memory to start out with, added to the fact that I'm tremendously busy. The concept of losing even what pitiful memory I have was a sobering one. On another level...[read on]

About Hickory Smoked Homicide, from the publisher:

BBQ-joint owner Lulu Taylor knows pretty much everyone in Memphis who lives ribs. But one person she’d rather not know is Tristan Pembroke, a snooty pageant couch with a mean streak. When she finds Tristan’s dead body stuffed in a closet at a party, the police are suspicious—especially since Lulu’s developed a taste for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught in a situation stickier than molasses, Lulu must clear her name, or risk getting fried...

Visit Riley Adams/Elizabeth Spann Craig's website and her Mystery Writing is Murder blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Elizabeth Spann Craig & Chloe.

Writers Read: Riley Adams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Craig McDonald's "El Gavilan," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: El Gavilan by Craig McDonald.

The entry begins:

El Gavilan is my first standalone novel following four entries in the Hector Lassiter series.

The Lassiter books are historical thrillers. El Gavilan is a novel about illegal immigration and a single murder committed in an Ohio town grappling with waves of undocumented workers.

The time is now.

The setting is, by-and-large, a re-imagined version of my hometown: Call it Main Street USA spilling over into an adjacent metro area-become-a-barrio.

The book—and any movie that might one day be made from it—is a kind of mash-up of a western and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. It’s an oater with Dodge Rams and vintage Impalas set to a soundtrack of sad border ballads and narcocorridos.

The novel tracks the investigations and conflicts of three very different brands of lawmen and the small town reporter who covers their efforts in the local weekly newspaper. Moving between the cops and the journalist—binding them in some ways—is a pretty young “legal” named Patricia whose family owns and operates the town’s favorite Mexican restaurant.

Here’s my dream cast:

I favor actor Timothy Olyphant of Deadwood and Justified fame to play the book’s “hero” Tell Lyon, an ex-Border Patrol agent whose family was murdered by a vengeful cartel chief.

In the part of Tell’s uneasy ally Able Hawk—the county sheriff whose nickname supplies the book’s title—I envision Jeff...[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at Craig McDonald's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: El Gavilan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: David Rothenberg's "Survival of the Beautiful"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution by David Rothenberg.

About the book, from the publisher:

A brilliant investigation of why nature is beautiful and how art has influenced science, sure to stimulate readers of The Art Instinct.

"The peacock's tail," said Charles Darwin, "makes me sick." That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so beautiful. It took the concept of sexual selection for Darwin to explain that, a process that has more to do with aesthetics than the practical. Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty-and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

Sexual selection may explain why animals desire, but it says very little about what they desire. Why will a bowerbird literally murder another bird to decorate its bower with the victim's blue feathers? Why do butterfly wings boast such brilliantly varied patterns? The beauty of nature is not arbitrary, even if random mutation has played a role in evolution. What can we learn from the amazing range of animal aesthetic behavior-about animals, and about ourselves?

Readers who enjoyed the bestsellers The Art Instinct and The Mind's Eye will find Survival of the Beautiful an equally stimulating and profound exploration of art, science, and the creative impulse.

Learn more about the book and author at the Survival of the Beautiful website.

Writers Read: David Rothenberg.

The Page 99 Test: Survival of the Beautiful.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top alternate-history novels

For the Christian Science Monitor, Molly Driscoll named "six novels that explore a slightly alternate version of very familiar events," including:

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon

In 1948 Israel collapsed, and a temporary Jewish district was created in Alaska. As the government prepares to retake the Jewish Sitka District, Meyer Landsman investigates a murder case that may be better left alone. Keep your eyes peeled for startling phrases like "First Lady Marilyn Monroe."

Read about another novel on the list.

Also see David Daw's list of five American presidents in alternate history.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Charles Lemert reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Charles Lemert, author of Why Niebuhr Matters.

His entry begins:

Stephen Greenblatt's recent book, The Swerve, led me back to Lucretius' poem "On the Nature of Things". Greenblatt argues that this long lost classic from the last years of the Roman Republic was rediscovered for the modern era. Lucretius, argues Greenblatt, transformed modern thinking about the world as a sphere of things without an otherworldly force - as beautiful and scientific intricate in itself apart for the displaced hope of a better life in another world. Lucretius was a stunningly fine poet as well as very compelling philosopher of natural history. His "On the Nature of Things" has served me as a kind of counterweight to Reinhold Niebuhr's insistence on human history as...[read on]

About Why Niebuhr Matters, from the publisher:

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) was a Protestant preacher, an influential religious thinker, and an important moral guide in mid-twentieth-century America. But what does he have to say to us now? In what way does he inform the thinking of political leaders and commentators from Barack Obama and Madeleine Albright to David Brooks and Walter Russell Mead, all of whom acknowledge his influence? In this lively overview of Niebuhr's career, Charles Lemert analyzes why interest in Niebuhr is rising and how Niebuhr provides the answers we ache for in the face of seismic shifts in the global order.

In the middle of the twentieth century, having outgrown a theological liberalism, Niebuhr challenged and rethought the nonsocialist Left in American politics. He developed a political realism that refused to sacrifice ideals to mere pragmatism, or politics to bitterness and greed. He examined the problem of morality in an immoral society and reimagined the balance between rights and freedom for the individual and social justice for the many. With brevity and deep insight, Lemert shows how Niebuhr's ideas illuminate our most difficult questions today.

Learn more about the book and author at Charles Lemert's website and the Yale University Press.

Charles Lemert is Senior Fellow at Yale's Center for Comparative Research. His recent books include The Structural Lie: Small Clues to Globalization (Paradigm, 2011).

The Page 99 Test: Why Niebuhr Matters.

My Book, The Movie: Why Niebuhr Matters.

Writers Read: Charles Lemert.

--Marshal Zeringue