Derek B. Miller

Derek B. Miller is the director of The Policy Lab and a senior fellow with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Born and raised in Boston, he has lived abroad for over fifteen years in Israel, England, Hungary, Switzerland, and Norway.

His new novel is Norwegian by Night.

Recently I asked Miller about what he was reading. His reply:

I am a solitary reader. I enjoy this solitude so much that I generally avoid reading book reviews, getting into long discussions about books, or otherwise socializing the experience.

I just finished the first draft of my new novel, and while writing it I was reading — one might say studying — a fabulous edited volume from Andrew Delbanco called Writing New England: An Anthology from the Puritans to the Present. I've been especially interested in the way New England has been portrayed in fiction and in early American religious and philosophical writing. Boston was founded in 1635, and is almost a hundred and fifty years older than America itself, so New England writing is rich and formative for the American experience as a whole. Delbanco's anthology both explained and presented that beautifully.

I used that book as a spring-board to delve more deeply into some other writers going as far back as the mid-1600s. Cotton Mather, in particular, got a lot of my attention. Later, I turned to Emerson, E.B. White, Robert Frost, William James, and Longfellow, to name a few.

I've been reading William Maxwell too. They Came Like Swallows is a quiet, and very sad book about a boy losing his mother. I have the first volume of his early novels and stories from the Library of America. I would recommend it to anyone. I wanted to see how he expressed those feelings without over-sentimentalizing them.

I've also been reading James Salter. I was recently asked by The Times of London to review his new novel All That Is. It is my first book review, and I relished the experience, though I wonder if I'll do any more. As for Salter, though: When an 88 year old master author decides to write a book called All That Is, you should read it.

I just finished Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. I've always loved the movie, and I don't know why I never thought to read the book. Naturally there is much more material in the novel, so it was a real pleasure riding shotgun to Grady Tripp with a dead dog in the trunk. Chabon has such a wonderful way of simply landing on the perfect line without over-writing it. He makes it look easy, which is how good he is. I'm keen to read more of his work and have already bought a few of his novels.

I'm re-reading White Noise from Don DeLillo. I loved it years ago when it came out, and I wanted to see whether the comedy stands up to time. It absolutely does. The notion of consumerism causing death anxiety, which is only alleviated by consumerism is simply wonderful material. This book is actually making me want to go back to Joseph Heller. I like novels that have purpose.

I just bought The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham while in London. I have a Penguin edition I found for about a quid in a pile of books. It is described on the back as his most "serious" and "most ambitious" novel. This is often how I find material, by stumbling onto it, or being directed there by other work I've recently read.

And I also recently finished The Writing of One Novel by Irving Wallace, also bought for nothing in a used book store. This is an overlooked and very valuable piece of work by a novelist who took the time — with copious notes — to reconstruct the act of crafting and editing a novel. While he doesn't delve into the theory of storytelling (for that you should read John Gardner), nor the creative act itself, he does take us into the life of being a writer with great detail. It was written in 1960, and here we are fifty-five years later and — aside from technological matters — everything about the experience is familiar.

As an aside, it is powerful to be reminded that the essence of the craft and the life of the writer that comes with it is largely unchanged. There is something to said for noting these continuities and not being dazzled by the outward changes to the industry, the role of the writer in society, and all the technology. Wallace gets us as close as possible to watching it unfold.

I would say that one exception to my solitude as a reader is the joy I get from reading aloud with my family and also being read to. My wife and I read to each other often. I'm the one who started the tradition, but now she's most often the reader. David Sedaris is a favorite. Each Christmas we read "Santaland Diaries" out loud until we laugh so hard we can't anymore. And I read to my children every night without fail. With the kids, I only read "real books" — that is, no electronic devices are allowed at bedtime. And with Camilla, we usually know in the first few pages whether we've come upon something that needs to be shared. She has a wider range of fiction interests than I do, whereas I'm increasingly limiting my reading to books I think are worth reading aloud.

Follow Derek Miller on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Meg Donohue

Meg Donohue is the bestselling author of All the Summer Girls and How to Eat a Cupcake, which was translated into Dutch, German, Italian, and Polish. She has an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Dartmouth College. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she now lives San Francisco with her husband, two young daughters, and Cole, her endearing Taiwanese rescue pup.

Recently I asked Donohue about what she was reading.  Her reply:

I just finished reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I found it to be devastatingly sad and beautiful. The characters in the book are so fully realized it seems almost impossible to believe that they’re not real people. And Atkinson is a master at lacing her work with a palpable sense of tension—taut, dark moments of foreboding and threat—that keeps you turning the pages.

Visit Meg Donohue's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: How to Eat a Cupcake.

Writers Read: Meg Donohue (April 2012).

My Book, The Movie: How to Eat a Cupcake.

The Page 69 Test: All the Summer Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

A.X. Ahmad

A.X. Ahmad was raised in India, educated at Vassar College and M.I.T., and has worked internationally as an architect. His short stories have been published in literary magazines, and he’s been listed in Best American Essays. The Caretaker is his first novel, to be followed by Bollywood Taxi next year. He lives in Washington, D.C.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the author about what he was reading.  Ahmad's reply:

Imagine a great literary author who starts writing mysteries. Added to his gorgeous prose a clever plot, and the dank, gray setting of Dublin in the 1950s.

John Banville won the Booker Prize for The Sea, and that seemed to have loosened him up. Since then he’s been writing a series of mysteries under the pen name ‘Benjamin Black’, featuring a detective named Quirke, and they are stunners. I’ve read them all, and now am re-reading them.

Check out this prose from his first book, Christine Falls:

“The corpse was that of a young woman, slim and yellow-haired; she had been pretty, but death had robbed her of her features and now she might be a carving in soapstone, primitive and bland…. Looking more closely he noticed the dark roots of her hair at the forehead and temples: dead, and not even a real blonde.”

Another Brit that I’ve been reading lately is Martin Booth. Like me, he lived a peripatetic life, growing up in many countries, and each of his suspense novels deals obsessively with people trying to find a place they can call home.

His last book, The American is about a gunsmith who supplies weapons to assassins. Apart from a crackerjack plot, it is also a love letter to a small Italian hill town where the gunsmith finds a few months of rest. There, he befriends a priest, and the two often meet to drink brandy:

“The priest’s house is halfway alongst a twisting alley…a modest fifteenth century edifice…The front door is of heavy oak blackened with age and studded with iron bolts…at the rear snuggles a walled garden, overlooked by other buildings yet remaining secluded….We are sitting on this patio…We are in lazy soporific sunlight. The brandy bottle—today we have Armagnac—is globulous, made of of green glass and bears a plain label…It is called, simply, La Vie.”

Learn more about the book and author at A.X. Ahmad's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: The Caretaker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Mitzner

Adam Mitzner is the author of A Conflict of Interest and the new legal thriller, A Case of Redemption.

Earlier this month I asked him about what he was reading.  Mitzner's reply:

I'm currently in the middle of three books, two of which involve my daughters. My nine year old and I are reading all of the Hunger Games books aloud to each other, and we're currently midway through Catching Fire. Last year we read all the Harry Potter books and it was the one of the greatest reading experiences of my life. Oh, and we read them wearing costumes of the characters.

To include my fifteen year old, we decided to do a book club. Right now we're both reading Megan Abbott's Dare Me. It's a great book on many levels: the writing is top notch; it's a page turner and has a teenage protagonist but isn't a typical coming of age book, which was the one constraint my daughter placed on my selection process.

And when I have time to read alone, I'm tearing through Jamie Mason's Three Graves Full. Jamie was kind enough to blurb my book, A Case of Redemption, and so I wanted to read hers. It's exciting, scary and funny all at that same time. A great book for summer.

Visit Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner (May 2011).

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

--Marshal Zeringue

Darden North

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Dr. Darden North is a board-certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology. His new novel is Wiggle Room. North has written three previous novels—Fresh Frozen, House Call, and Points of Origin, which received the national IPPY Award, Southern Fiction category. North lives with his wife Sally in Jackson, Mississippi.

Last month I asked the author about what he was reading.  North's reply:

I am reading The Rook, Steven James’ second thriller with protagonist Patrick Bowers. Bowers is an FBI criminologist left to parent his late wife’s pierced and soon-to-be tattooed teenage daughter while drawn into an arson investigation in San Diego. James gets away with a smooth mix of writing in both first and third person, confining each to separate chapters or long scenes as we share Bowers’ complicated life. The agent deals with grief over his wife’s cancer death while the truly nasty antagonist Creighton Melice is busy torturing and murdering women. Of course, there’s the expected corporate greed and government corruption and an emerging, new love interest for Bowers. Then the step-daughter is placed in harm’s way.

Bowers already has his hands full, and I’m less than half-way into this novel!

I was drawn to The Rook after hearing Steven James speak at a thriller writing conference in 2012 and picked up a signed trade-paper copy of the novel. The author remains true to his teachings: Creating the horror off screen puts even more fear in the reader.

Another writing tool that James stressed during the conference is that a deep desire, a wound, and an internal struggle develop a strong character. And that can apply to both the good and the bad guy.

Visit Darden North's website and blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Darden North & Valerie and Foxy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sally Cabot

Sally Cabot lives in Brewster, Massachusetts, with her husband, Tom. A lifelong resident of New England, she is active in the local historical society and creates tours that showcase the three-hundred-year history of her village.

Her new novel is Benjamin Franklin's Bastard.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading.  Cabot's reply:

I’ve just finished reading the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Elinor Lipman, The View from Penthouse B. Ms. Lipman’s book are deceptively easy reads that leave one pondering the greater questions long after the cover is closed (or the “off” key is pressed), which is both a delight and a curse for a fellow writer. I can escape without undo strain to a new place, but sometimes I have trouble leaving that place and returning to the work at hand.

As a writer of historical fiction it might at first appear that Ms. Lipman and I would have little in common, but The View from Penthouse B being a work about a widow, and on reading that Ms. Lipman was recently widowed, I imagine her engaging in some of the same struggles that I do, choosing how much fact to include among the fiction. Do I dare go one outrageous step further and compliment myself by saying we share a similar comedic sense? I think so – after all, I’ve been hanging out with Benjamin Franklin for over three years now.

Visit Sally Cabot's Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Benjamin Franklin's Bastard.

The Page 69 Test: Benjamin Franklin's Bastard.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kit Reed

Kit Reed's books include a new novel, Son of Destruction and The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories, which features some Reed classics as well as her personal favorites over several decades, including six new stories, never before collected.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading: Her reply:

Right now I'm loving American Dream Machine by Matthew Specktor, a Tin House book that's so good that I have to save the last chapter until the house is empty which it isn't right now.

As to what I've read? Too many to talk about -- when I think about it, Peter Heller's The Dog Stars floats to the top.

As for who I have read that influenced me mightily? The first four grafs of last summer's essay for the Library of America say it all.

Visit Kit Reed's website.

My Book, The Movie: Son of Destruction and The Story Until Now.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kevin M. Bailey

Kevin M. Bailey, formerly a senior scientist with NOAA, is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington and author of Billion-Dollar Fish: The Untold Story of Alaska Pollock. He also operates a boutique consulting firm promoting small-scale traditional fisheries.

Recently I asked him about what he was reading.  Bailey's reply:

All my life I’ve been a step behind. That’s given me a perspective from the tail-end of the crowd. Late in life and true to form, I’ve developed a passion for writing. Since I’m a novice writer without an MFA, I’ve played catch-up by taking some writing classes. It’s helpful to read your instructor’s work before you take a class. Or, if you are like me, you get insight by reading their book after the parade has passed by. Here are three books on my coffee table from teachers of my writing classes, and a couple other books I’ve read recently.

Chris Cokinos, The Fallen Sky. Chris taught at the Wildbranch Workshop sponsored by Orion Magazine. His book is a masterful braiding of astronomy with stories of obsession and memoir. He writes of the compulsion of meteor hunters and also about his own preoccupation with learning their stories, and the deeply personal consequences of that.

Peter Mountford, A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism. Peter led a class on story structure at Richard Hugo House in Seattle. I am totally blown away by Peter’s book. It’s a story of a hedge fund analyst who is scoping out the effects of Evo Morales’s election in Bolivia on the natural gas market in South America; a great story and the reading flows effortlessly.

Nick O’Connell, The Storms of Denali. I’ve taken two classes from Nick on creative nonfiction at the Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. His book is abiding on my nightstand. Nick is a master storyteller and a professional writer, and I’m looking forward to reading his book.

Two other books passed by earlier and have themes that still ring true. Erik Larson’s Story of a Gun was written a decade ago, but we are still struggling with gun control legislation and the stranglehold the NRA has on Congress. The other book is Deborah Cramer’s Great Atlantic. This is a story of a voyage woven into a comprehensive view of the Atlantic Ocean. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, exploring the complex relationship of man and the sea.

Visit Kevin M. Bailey's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Julie Sarkissian

Julie Sarkissian is a graduate of Princeton University, where she won the Francis Leon Paige Award for creative writing, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her new novel is Dear Lucy.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Sarkissian's reply:

Give Sorrow Words: Maryse Holder’s Letters From Mexico

Yikes! This book – an epistolary journal of a young American woman’s degrading sexual affairs in Mexico – is almost too painful to read but just too compelling to put down. Witnessing in such gory detail a smart, educated and talented woman subject herself to being used and abused by man after man is excruciating, but her honesty binds you to her suffering in such a way that feels like to turn away from her pain would be to inflict on her yet another injustice.

A Sport and a Pastime – James Salter

As embarrassing as it is, I had never read James Salter until last week. But when a new friend invited me to see him read at the 92Y, I didn’t want to reveal myself as the philistine I am. So in preparation for our date, I bought A Sport and A Pastime and tore through half the novel in one sitting. The pages turned themselves. The novel strikes an elegant balance between beautiful, emotionally wrought language and unexpected literary technique. It also confirms France as best place in the world to have a passionate sexual affair. Easy to see why this book is a classic.

Speed Boat – Renata Adler

After hearing so much buzz, by people more erudite than I, about the reissue of the post-modern classic, Speedboat, by Renata Adler, I had to check it out. The sentences of this novel are gorgeous and clever and the structure and pacing are exhilarating. But I have to admit I can get lost with experimental literature, so I hope I don’t miss too much of what this has to offer because I’m a post-modern neophyte. Regardless, I’m excited to be challenging myself to read something out of my wheelhouse!

Visit Julie Sarkissian's website.

The Page 69 Test: Dear Lucy.

--Marshal Zeringue

Glen Weldon

Glen Weldon is a freelance writer, book critic and movie reviewer.

His new book is Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.

Earlier this month I asked Weldon about what he was reading.  His reply:

I'm taking my sweet time meandering through George Saunders' Tenth of December, putting the book down at the end of each story because I want to spend as much time as I can with it. Man, that guy. I've read every story already, in The New Yorker or wherever, but collected like this I'm finding they keep caroming off one another at oblique angles.

A Saunders story is dependably funny, human, wise. And I want to say ... matter-of-factly heartfelt? Is that a thing? Can it be? Because he's not afraid of big emotions, but he's always careful to earn them.

Visit Glen Weldon's website and follow him on Twitter.

The Page 99 Test: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.

--Marshal Zeringue