Barry Eisler

Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA's Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. Eisler's bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous "Best Of" lists, and have been translated into nearly twenty languages.

Eisler's latest novel is The Killer Collective.

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

I just finished listening to an outstanding book that I hope will be widely read: The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. It’s a study of what the author, Harvard Kennedy School professor Stephen Walt, calls liberal hegemony, a foreign policy worldview Walt persuasively argues has been disastrous for America and for the world. As the jacket puts it: “Since the end of the Cold War, Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to use U.S. power to spread democracy, open markets, and other liberal values into every nook and cranny of the planet. This strategy was doomed to fail, but its proponents in the foreign policy elite were never held accountable and kept repeating the same mistakes.”

As I listened to the book, I found myself thinking that liberal hegemony might be best understood as a kind of secular religion. It has its own priests (whose views often differ from those of lay people); its own orthodoxies (and apostates); its own catechisms. I’ve read studies of how, when a cult believes the world will end on X day and the event doesn’t happen, the cult doesn’t abandon its belief but instead rationalizes the inconsistency, and the psychology there is also reminiscent of liberal hegemony’s refusal to reconsider dogma and resistance to contrary evidence (and even common sense).

All of which is doubly interesting when you consider the way many Americans have been trained to cherry pick religiously inspired violence as the only violence worthy of condemnation. “They kill in the name of Islam, what other religion does that?”…that kind of thing. But the psychology of religion manifests itself more broadly than is immediately obvious, and certainly more people have been killed in the name of liberal hegemony than in the name of other, more obvious gods.

Visit Barry Eisler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Livia Lone.

The Page 69 Test: The Killer Collective.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adele Parks

Adele Parks was born in Teesside, North East England. Her first novel, Playing Away, was published in 2000, and since then she's well over a dozen international bestsellers, translated into twenty-six languages.

Parks's latest novel is I Invited Her In.

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

I’ve just finished reading The Mother-In-Law by Australian author Sally Hepworth. It’s about the often-tricky relationship between a new wife and her mother-in-law. Lucy married Oliver, desperately hoping his mother might become the mom she never had. But Lucy’s mother-in-law, Diana is a conundrum. She’s a pillar of the community, a respected advocate for social justice and a strong, devoted matriarch, yet for all that she remains cool and distant. Lucy just can’t get close to Diana, no matter how hard she tries. Over the years Lucy is forced to settle for impeccable manners, rather than the genuine warmth she longs for. Then Diana is found dead, apparently suicide, and it soon becomes clear she was a woman who no one truly knew, a woman harbouring lots of secrets: the biggest being, how and why did she really die?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book that has such emotional density, combined with great plot twists and a thrilling, compelling sense of ‘whodunit?’ I’ll certainly be hunting out more of Sally Hepworth’s books to read.

Visit Adele Parks's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Invited Her In.

--Marshal Zeringue

Padma Venkatraman

Padma Venkatraman was born in Chennai, India, and became an American citizen after attaining a Ph.D. in oceanography from The College of William and Mary.

She is the author of A Time to Dance, Island's End, and Climbing the Stairs.

Venkatraman lives in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Her new novel is The Bridge Home.

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

I'm reading Faint Promise of Rain, the first in a historical fiction series, I believe, by author Anjali Mitter Duva. Set in 16th century India and written in lyrical, evocative prose, that brings alive the sights and sounds of dance and the desert where the novel begins, this is the story of a dancer's exploration of art, duty, and freedom, at a time change. I was drawn to it because my own novel, A Time To Dance, is also about an Indian dancer's search for self. I'm also reading a children's fantasy in German, called Das Blaubeerhaus, by Antonia Michaelis - because I want to keep up with my German and what's on my kid's reading list!

Visit Padma Venkatraman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bridge Home.

My Book, The Movie: The Bridge Home.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jane A. Adams

Jane A. Adams is a British writer of psychological thrillers. Her first book, The Greenway, was nominated for a CWA John Creasey Award in 1995 and an Author's Club Best First Novel Award. She has a degree in Sociology and was once lead vocalist in a folk rock band.

Adams's new novel is Kith and Kin.

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

I tend to have several books on the go at the same time and read a pretty even split of ebooks and physical books.

Lately, I’ve been revisiting Agatha Christie – following a conversation with a friend who was complaining, after watching a TV adaptation, that ‘the book wasn’t like that!’ I’ve just read Ordeal by Innocence and Witness for the Prosecution. I came to Christie quite late. As a teenager I loved Dorothy L Sayers and Cornell Woolrich in particular but Christie was more familiar through television and film. I’ve come to appreciate the subtle and often rather cold way that she layers plot, casting a particularly merciless eye on her characters and their failings and foibles. I’ve not read either of these books in a while, but coming back after a long interval this coldness seems particularly pronounced in Ordeal by Innocence and in the end I found I was left not really liking anyone – but, oddly, still feeling sorry for them.

I’m fond of short stories and recently, in a second hand bookstore, found an edition of Points of View, edited by James Moffett and Kenneth R McElheny and first published in 1956. Contributors include Dorothy Parker, Frank O’Connor and Katherine Mansfield, plus a great many authors I’d never heard of but have really enjoyed, such as Cynthia Marshall Rich and Lorrie Moore. What really makes this collection unusual is that the stories are organised according to the POV from which they are written – Diary, Subjective Narration, Multi Character POV etc., which for a writer is very interesting.

As a contrast, I’m also reading The Watchman by Robert Crais. I’m a big fan of the Elvis Cole Books – though this one is in the spinoff, Joe Pike series. Crais seems to plug into those stylised elements of noir that I like so much; there’s an awareness of roots and tradition, but the books are also totally fixed in their particular now. I love the pace and the action and the imperfect but totally engaging characters. Reading a Robert Crais book is like being offered a privileged ride in the back seat of the story car. The reader can be at the very heart of the action (so long as you promise to stay quiet and not get in the way).

For research I’ve been reading a memoir. Crime Doctor by Dr A David Matthews who was a police surgeon and GP. Although only the early part of his career overlaps with the Henry Johnstone series, in practise things were slow to change in the way the police and GPs on their register interacted. What is particularly fascinating is the social attitudes. For example, the good doctor is frequently called out to certify drunkenness – particular in drivers – and he gets very cross about the risks some people take, assuring the reader that he would never have more than three drinks if he knew he would be driving home afterwards.

Visit Jane A. Adams's website.

The Page 69 Test: Kith and Kin.

My Book, The Movie: Kith and Kin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gareth Hanrahan

Gareth Hanrahan’s three-month break from computer programming to concentrate on writing has now lasted fifteen years and counting. He’s written more gaming books than he can readily recall, by virtue of the alchemical transmutation of tea and guilt into words. He lives in Ireland with his wife and twin sons.

Hanrahan's newest novel is The Gutter Prayer.

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

A lot of my reading is driven by research for freelance projects, so it’s a fairly eclectic mix and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a lot of them. Currently on deck, for example, is David Chute’s Sixty-Eight, a history of the political upheavals of May ’68, which I’m reading as reference for a Fall of Delta Green adventure for a tabletop roleplaying project. I’m a child of the ’80s, so I always dismissed the 1960s as flower-child hippies. It’s only recently, reading books like that or John Higgs’ I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary, that I’m waking up to how transformative those years were, and how a lot of our current events are those same unresolved tensions.

For Christmas, I got a copy of The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff. I’m not sure how good it is as a history – it seems to bounce around the chronology of events a lot, and focusses on individual cases in great detail without really giving a strong impression of the context – but it’s got some great descriptions of the hallucinations and the beliefs of the unfortunate villagers, and it’s good at conveying their mindset.

A friend recommended Chris Bailey’s Hyperfocus to me. So far, it covers a lot of the same ground as Cal Newport’s Deep Work – which is no bad thing, as Hyperfocus is more focussed (so to speak) on practical techniques and approaches, while Deep Work is more about the benefits and value of undistracted concentration. At times, it does feel like the book is just screaming Turn Off Twitter You Fool, but that could just be me. And it’s good advice, too. (I find that I need to reset my approach to work every six to nine months. I start out with excellent practices – up early, lots of focus, lots of exercise, internet firmly turned off, no distractions – and then within a few weeks, I fall back on bad old habits.)

I just finished Michael Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption, which was compared to my own Gutter Prayer. This… worries me, rather a lot. I mean, Beyond Redemption is great, but it’s twisted and so very, very dark. It’s got that sickening post-apocalyptic desperation that comes when everyone knows in their gut that everything’s doomed, that the world is dying and sliding into madness, but everyone’s also in denial, and direct that nihilistic fervour into violence or religion or hedonism or just shore up that denial to absurd levels. It’s the Thirty Years War if you added broken magicians.

Next up, I’ll be rereading Jonny Nexus’ comedic The Sleeping Dragon before it comes out next month.

Visit Gareth Hanrahan's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Gutter Prayer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Simon Ings

Simon Ings is the author of novels (some science fiction, some not) and non-fiction, including the Baillie Gifford longlisted Stalin and The Scientists. His debut novel Hot Head was widely acclaimed. He is the arts editor of New Scientist magazine and can often be found writing in possibly the coldest flat in London.

Ings's newest novel is The Smoke.

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

I've just finished The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark. My ex-wife had some run-ins with Dame Muriel: now there, she once told me, was a woman who could make a typist cry.

Towards the end of her life Muriel gave huge grief to her agent because her books weren't thick enough to compete, spine-wise, with the books they were shelved next to. (My new, slim Penguin edition of the Ballad uses exquisitely thin paper: some former typist's revenge, perhaps?)

Dougal Douglas (or is it Douglas Dougal?), an "arts man" consulting for a textiles firm, is taking the moral temperature of Peckham in South London. He advances this research by chatting up girls, provoking fights, and extemporising unusual dance moves. He cannot possibly come into the office, because this would get in the way of his field studies. Also there is the matter of his raise. Douglas flim-flams his way through the class-complexes of Peckham, wreaking quiet havoc as he goes. Spark never once breaks the fourth wall: If you find this sort of thing funny, well, that's up to you, dear. You absolutely would not survive a game of poker with Dame Muriel.

I lived in Peckham for years, and it was amusing to see which pubs are still going; daunting. too, to realise that the factory next door, Robert's Capsule Stopper Company, was probably the sole survivor of industries that gave Spark's community its life.

It's taken this long for everyone to stop baffing on about it for long enough that I feel that I can give Donna Tartt's The Secret History a proper read. Even then, my 15-year-old daughter had to press her copy into my hands. "Text me about it," she insisted.

What shall I say, after 13 whole pages? That it seems to have emerged from an alternate reality in which Woolf, Joyce and Carver never happened? I don't understand why I couldn't just re-read Dickens. It's unputdownable, of course. And it will probably turn out to be a work of genius. Books I avoid for no good reason usually turn out to be the very books that might have turned my life around.

Visit Simon Ings's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: The Smoke.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ann Weisgarber

Ann Weisgarber was born and raised in Kettering, Ohio. She has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa. She is the author of The Promise and The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers.

Weisgarber's new novel is The Glovemaker.

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

I’m currently a judge for Texas Institute of Letters’ two fiction prizes so I have to resist the urge to talk about the stacks of books I’ve been reading during the past two months. Between books, though, I’m reading poet Tim Conroy’s Theologies of Terrain. Most of the poems are short – a much needed break from novels -- but are layered with meaning that shifts each time I reread them. Conroy doesn’t get tangled up in fancy language but uses simple words that dive into my heart and make me see something new about myself.

Before the stacks of the novels showed up on my doorstep, I was at the South Dakota Festival of Books. While on an elevator, Jacob M. Appel handed me his latest book, Millard Saltzer’s Last Day. It’s about a 75-year-old psychiatrist who plans his suicide. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read this but I’m glad I did. I started it on the plane trip home and had heaps of laugh-out loud moments. But for every one of those, there were profoundly moving scenes.

I’m a fan of historical fiction and was bowled over by Judithe Little’s Wickwythe Hall. It takes place in a country estate outside of London in May 1940. Germany has invaded France, and England is on edge. As Churchill and Roosevelt spar over what to do next, the characters feel the threat of invasion tightening around their lives. The prose is beautiful but doesn’t bog down the pace or tension. The best historical fiction taps into history that has been overlooked, and Wickwythe Hall does this in fine form.

Visit Ann Weisgarber's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Glovemaker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Patrice Sarath

Patrice Sarath is an author and editor living in Austin, Texas. Her novels include the fantasy books The Sisters Mederos and Fog Season (Books I and II of the Tales of Port Saint Frey), the series Books of the Gordath (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God’s Girl) and the romance The Unexpected Miss Bennet.

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

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. The Murderbot Diaries comprise the books All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy. The books tell the story of a fearsome SecUnit, a cyborg who has hacked its governor and could become a rage-filled murderous killing machine. Instead, all it wants to do is to be left alone to watch TV. Murderbot, as it calls itself, takes on jobs providing security for various human contractors, and is baffled by humans’ inability to keep themselves alive.

The books are poignant, hilarious, and thrilling, and are a commentary on humanity at its best and its worst. I highly recommend the series.

The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana-Headley. A retelling of Beowulf but so much more. The Mere Wife delves into the poem in a way that doesn’t just place Beowulf in a modern setting but provides additional insight into the story. I loved this book, and I’m looking forward to re-reading.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. This is my current read and I am enjoying it immensely. What I love is that all of the characters like each other. They aren’t goody-two shoes or anything like that, but they work well as a team, and they like each other for their differences. It’s a very accepting book. But don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of conflict and plot, as well as humor and romance.

My Sister The Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Loved it! This fast-paced thriller kept me on the edge of my seat. I don’t want to say too much about it, because I don’t want to spoil anything. I recommend it as a quick read.

Visit Patrice Sarath's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Fog Season.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lior Sternfeld

Lior B. Sternfeld is Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Penn State. His new book is Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran.

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

These days, as I am teaching two courses this semester and preparing for some summer research, I have on my desk some books that connect many points of teaching and research interests. I guess that the overarching theme is global and transnational histories of the Middle East. Orit Bashkin's Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel, is an inspiring account of the Iraqi Jewish communities who had immigrated to Israel after 1948. Bashkin analyzes the formation of Iraqi-Israeli-Jewish identity that is far more complex than earlier assumed. The social struggles, the navigation between the Israeli nation-building project, the "melting pot," and tension between ideas, ideologies, unreconciled past, and unclear present and future (with regards to the active conflicts of Israel and its Arab neighbors, "Oriental" identity, and assimilation).

Neda Maghbouleh's The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race, is one of the most important contributions to the understanding of Iranian identity in general and the construction of diasporic Iranian identity specifically. Maghbouleh brilliantly dismantles the race categories as we understand them in the American context and the Iranian context. This book allows the reader to get a sort of an X-Ray photo of the Iranian-American community in terms of perception of diaspora/homeland and assimilation questions.

Another book that I just started reading (trying to finish it before I get to the relevant week on the syllabus) is Michael R. Fischbach's Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color. I find it extremely important to see how discourse on civil rights, self-determination, and the awakening of the dark nations manifested itself in earlier periods. Perhaps even to find earlier displays of intersectional struggles and solidarity.

Last, I found myself this semester, in light of many events in this country and other places, go back to one of my favorite novels, Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. This book tells the story of a devastated generation that fought in the First World War, pointed out all the fallacies of their contemporary politicians and warlords. The reader cannot help but see how patriotism easily transforms into radical hatred and racism, and the belief that every sacrifice is justified if "the nation" demands it.

Learn more about Between Iran and Zion at the Stanford University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jane Corry

Jane Corry is the author of The Dead Ex, published by Pamela Dorman Books. Her previous books, My Husband’s Wife and Blood Sisters, were international bestsellers.

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

I’ve just started reading The Tattooist Of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. To be honest, I’ve had it on my bedside table for a while because I didn’t feel in the right frame of mind to tackle a serious subject. But the new year moved me to open it and as soon as I read the first page, I was hooked. Why? It was the main character who drew me in. Here is a man who fell into the job of tattooing prisoners in concentration camps. You might say he’s a bit of a jack-the-lad but he also has strong family values. Then he falls in love. I’ve just got to this bit (I kept on reading well beyond midnight). Now I can’t wait for bedtime tonight. What makes it particularly moving is that the real-life protagonist told his story to the author and trusted her to write his story. In my view, she’s done a great job.

Follow Jane Corry on Twitter and Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Ex.

My Book, The Movie: The Dead Ex.

--Marshal Zeringue