Chelle Cordero

Chelle Cordero's romance novels include Bartlett’s Rule, Forgotten, Within the Law, Courage of the Heart, Hostage Heart, A Chaunce of Riches, and Common Bond, Tangled Hearts. Her murder-mystery thriller, Final Sin, was published in May 2009.

Recently, I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

I admit, I have several “name” authors I enjoy reading (Dean Koontz, Faye Kellerman, Patricia Cornwell) but since I have been on the published author side, I’ve been made aware that there are a lot of enjoyable books from indie authors and publishers. I do tend to favor titles and authors from my publisher’s line-up (Vanilla Heart Publishing) and have read some really good stories from Charmaine Gordon, Smoky Trudeau, Sandy Nicks, Malcolm Campbell and L. E. Harvey. I favor VHP but don’t limit my reading…

I just finished a book by Janet Lane Walters (non VHP author) called Obsessions. This is a very fast paced book involving murder, obsession and fear (on both the heroine’s and the reader’s part). I truly enjoy a good mystery and this drama, which takes place in a hospital setting, didn’t disappoint.

Visit Chelle Cordero's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dexter Palmer

Dexter Palmer lives in Princeton, New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University, where he completed his dissertation on the work of James Joyce, William Gaddis, and Thomas Pynchon (and where he also staged the first academic conference ever held at an Ivy League university on the subject of video games).

His new novel is The Dream of Perpetual Motion.

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

Recently I finished The Bascombe Novels by Richard Ford, a collection of three novels that includes The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. I picked it up because I’m trying to read fiction that’s outside my comfort zone—when it comes to late-twentieth-century writing I tend to prefer postmodernist comedies like Thomas Pynchon’s novels, and I wanted a change of pace. I really enjoyed Ford’s trilogy, perhaps even more than I liked John Updike’s similar project with the character of Rabbit Angstrom—taken together, the three novels are a master class in dynamic character development. Over time the character of Frank Bascombe, sportswriter turned real-estate agent, comes to seem almost like a real person, due to all the carefully chosen details that Ford uses to depict Bascombe’s habits and thoughts, as well as the endearingly meandering interior monologues that capture Bascombe’s attempts to make sense of his own life. And Ford is a great stylist, too—features of life that would otherwise seem mundane become much less so when described with such gorgeous sentences.

I’m also intermittently working through a reading of all of Herman Melville’s novels in order of publication—up until recently I’d only read Moby-Dick, Pierre, and The Confidence-Man, none of which I believe I fully understood at the time. It turns out that Moby-Dick (which I just reread in January) makes much more sense, and is much easier to get into, if you’ve read the novels that Melville wrote before it: especially, you can see glimmers of Melville’s grand project gestating in the two previous novels Redburn and White-Jacket, which are more accessible warm-ups that can prepare you for tackling his masterpiece.

And I just received a shipment of books that I’m looking forward to digging into—The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (I purchased it primarily because of its interesting cover); A Dark Matter by Peter Straub (because it’s been a while since I’ve read a horror novel); The Death of American Virtue by Ken Gormley (I never was able to make sense of the Bill Clinton/Ken Starr scandal, and I’m hoping this book will do it for me); and The Room and the Chair by Lorraine Adams (which got a nice write-up in the most recent issue of Bookforum). But I probably buy twice as many books as I have the time to read—there are worse habits to have.

Learn more about The Dream of Perpetual Motion and its author at Dexter Palmer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Malena Watrous

After graduating from Barnard College, Malena Watrous eventually taught English in Japan. She was placed by the Jet Program in Shika-Machi, the nuclear power plant town in which she set her debut novel, the newly released If You Follow Me.

Recently, I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

Lit is the first book by Mary Karr that I’ve read. In addition to rarely reading books about writing, I generally prefer novels to memoir, but I heard Karr talk about the book on the radio and I liked her dark and irreverent sense of humor, so I ordered Lit on my husband’s new Kindle and ran out of battery power that night, about three quarters of the way in. (This is the new way of saying, “page-turner,” since I was pushing a button instead of flipping pages). Not having read any of Karr’s poetry, nor her previous two memoirs, The Liars’ Club or Cherry (which I picked up after finishing Lit) I wasn’t versed in Karr’s “apocalyptic” Texas childhood. I met her as a young poet, married to a man as chilly and controlling as she was warm and veering out of control. She was attempting to take off as a writer while also taking care of her new baby, and drinking an awful lot, from early morning on. Although she wanted to be different in every way from her own alcoholic and mentally ill mother, she was clearly following some familiar patterns. Throughout the book, she writes vividly of her descent into alcoholism, hard earned recovery, and almost accidental quest for some kind of spiritual practice. Karr is such an incredible writer and storyteller that it barely matters what she’s writing about. It’s always apparent that she’s a poet first, not because her language is flowery or needlessly ornate, but because she leads with powerful and precise images, trusting her sensory details to evoke feeling in the reader. No matter how ugly her subject or scene, she can always find redemptive humor in it, but she manages to be funny without sacrificing vulnerability. By the end of the book, the extremely simple title had taken on multiple meanings, as Karr braided together narratives about being “lit” on alcohol, about her literary pursuits and achievements, and about seeking some brighter light than her own.

I picked up After The Workshop, by John McNally, while in Iowa City, where the novel is set. This is a bitingly funny satire of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and while I derived particular pleasure from reading it there (this is another book I devoured in one big gulp) I think it would appeal to anyone with a prurient interest in the contemporary literary “scene” (unglamorous as it is), and anyone who has been in enough writing workshops to become versed in their clichés. McNally nails the details. The main character is a workshop graduate who has stayed for a decade in Iowa City, working as a “literary escort” to the writers who come through town to read at Prairie Lights bookstore (where I bought this novel). He had early success, publishing a story in The New Yorker (though he has good reason to doubt whether it got in on his own merits) and now he is stuck in every sense—a recognizable Iowa City type, most frequently seen at The Foxhead bar. Whereas Lit is a book on a serious subject by an author who can’t help but infuse it with her darkly comic sensibility, After The Workshop is a blatant and unapologetic comedy, by an author who manages nonetheless to bring surprising depth to his main character and his concerns. Who hasn’t felt left behind, insecure, stuck? At the same time, while he may have spent the last decade in stasis, the novel takes place over just a couple of days in which we see him make one brilliantly glaring mistake after another, all of which combine to somehow (mostly believably) get him un-stuck.

Another great novel that I read most recently was one that I reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle: The Gin Closet, by Leslie Jamison. This is a novel about a young woman who discovers that she has an aunt she never knew existed, a sort of prodigal daughter who ran away to the desert of Nevada, where she has been living in squalor in a trailer, after working most of her adult life as a prostitute. The setup is extreme, but the characters are heartbreakingly real. Jamison’s novel alternates between the first person voices of the niece and the aunt, very different but equally strong and compelling. Flannery O’Connor famously wrote that the end of a story should be at once surprising and inevitable, and Jamison somehow manages to achieve this neat effect on the sentence level. While I was definitely drawn in by the bigger story, and wanted to find out what was going to happen to these two troubled women, I savored the novel for its sentences and actually read it slowly on purpose, because I didn’t want to miss any luminous moment.

I also want to recommend a beautiful and chilling novel called My Abandonment, by Peter Rock. This novel came out in 2008, but it’s one I can’t get out of my head, and I don’t think it got as much attention as it deserves. Rock writes absolutely persuasively from the point of view of a homeless teenaged girl, living with her dad (at least we think he’s her dad) in a park just outside Portland, Oregon. They have been living on the fringes of society and off its dregs for almost as long as she can remember, and they have their systems down in a way that’s fascinating to read about. I love how deeply Rock inhabited this young female character, how well he captured her voice, how he made her extreme circumstances seem almost normal, almost enviable at times, but also how he left murky things murky. Is her father her biological father? Should we root for the girl to get caught by the system the two of them are so hell-bent on avoiding, or should we accept that this life they lead is freer and suits her? This is a spare and economical novel that dramatizes questions of what it means to be “civilized,” and whether someone can or should be allowed to live completely on their own terms. The book doesn’t end the way I expected it to, and yet it’s a perfect ending for this novel, one of the reasons why it continues to haunt me, like an unresolved chord.

Browse inside If You Follow Me, and learn more about the book and author at the official Malena Watrous website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christopher Norment

Christopher Norment is a professor of environmental science and biology at SUNY College at Brockport, where he specializes in the breeding biology and ecology of migratory birds.

In addition to numerous scientific articles, he is the author of In the North of Our Lives and Return to Warden's Grove: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows.

I’ve just finished American Rust, by Phillipp Meyer, which is one of the best novels I’ve read in the last year. It’s a powerful story about moral choices, and human determination to persist in the face of failure and despair. American Rust is set in the coal and manufacturing country of southwestern Pennsylvania, a once-prosperous region facing desperate economic times. Meyer does a wonderful job of describing the decaying towns of the Monongahela Valley, and the contrasting beauty of a natural landscape exploding into spring. What he’s best at, though, is giving voice to the emotions and experiences of a diverse range of characters, from two twenty-year-old men, to a middle-aged mother, and the local chief of police. Meyer uses a stream of consciousness style to depict how the minds of his main characters work, and he captures the haphazard, disjointed, and ambivalent essence of this process. American Rust is great fiction because it compelled me to consider my own life - how I perceive and react to the world, deal with my history, and make the choices that I do. Phillipp Meyer has written a wonderful and very wise book, an achievement all the more remarkable because it is his first published novel.

I am also working though Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True. Coyne is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, and an expert on speciation. I need no convincing about the truth of evolution, but the book has received good reviews, and I am always looking for interesting and compelling information about evolution to impart to my students. Coyne’s book is non-technical, well-written, and entertaining. Coyne makes a compelling case for the truth of evolution, and I recommend it to anyone who feels as though they would like to develop a better understanding of the central unifying principle of biology.

Finally, I always have a collection of poems close at hand. I like to begin and end the day with a poem or two, just to settle my mind (in the evening) or get my mind going (in the morning). At the moment I am revisiting one of my favorites, B. H. Fairchild’s Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. Fairchild is a lyrical and deeply thoughtful poet. He is very good with memory and desire, and a master at depicting the vast and empty landscapes of western Kansas, where he grew up, and the lives of working people. Two of my favorite poems in this collection are “Rave On,” and the long narrative poem “Blue Buick.”

Visit Chris Norment's faculty webpage where you will find links to excerpts and reviews of his books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gardner McFall

Gardner McFall is the author of a book of poems, The Pilot's Daughter, and two children's books: Jonathan's Cloud and Naming the Animals.

She is the editor of Made With Words, a prose miscellany by May Swenson and has written the Introduction and Notes for Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. She received her Ph.D. from New York University, her M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and her B.A. from Wheaton College. Forthcoming work includes an opera libretto for a new opera commissioned by Seattle Opera (music by Daron Hagen, story by Stephen Wadsworth), entitled Amelia, scheduled to premiere in 2010, and a new book of poems, Russian Tortoise. McFall teaches at Hunter College.

A couple of weeks ago I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

I've been reading On Kindness (FSG, 2009) by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor, a very readable, thought-provoking 114 page essay on the history of kindness and its place in our culture today. Written by a psychoanalyst and an historian, the book shows that while kindness has historically been essential to the Western idea of the Good Life, we are ambivalent about it in our own age of self-interest. The authors remind us of the reasons we need to embrace kindness for our children and ourselves since it is the key to our community and humanity. They draw on fascinating sources, without ever being pedantic or moralizing.

I am also reading (or reading through since it is a large, companionable book) The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (Norton, 2010), edited by Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keeley, and Karen Van Dyck, with an Introduction by Robert Hass. This is an indispensable anthology for anyone interested in classical Greek poetry, contemporary Greek poetry, and everything in between. The book is comprehensive and pleasurable to read; it should be a resource in everyone's personal library.

Finally, I have just started Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Grove, 2010) by Karl Marlantes.It is a big, sprawling, compelling novel written by a decorated Marine combat veteran about Bravo company and its soldiers on the front line of war.

Read a poem from Russian Tortoise and learn more about the opera Amelia.

Visit Gardner McFall's Hunter College faculty webpage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lynda Simmons

Lynda Simmons is the author of Getting Rid of Rosie.

Late last month I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

Because I teach a novel writing class, I try to practice what I preach and read, read, read, because honestly, I don’t think you can write well if you don’t. So with my latest manuscript finally out the door, it was time at last to dip into the stack of books that I received for Christmas – some by authors I was trying for the first time, and a few by authors I always enjoy.

Where to begin was the problem. When I pick up a book, I’m looking to be engaged from the opening line. I want the writer to reach out, grab me by the throat and hold on until the very end. But beyond a compelling plot, I also hope the characters will be memorable, that they’ll linger in my heart and mind, drawing me back again and again. Characters like Lilah Kemp in Timothy Findlay’s Headhunter, who believes she has freed Kurtz from page 92 of Heart of Darkness and now must find her own Marlow to help get him back. Or the dog in Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game, who is torn between survival and being a ‘good dog’ – fabulous bit of characterization there.

So as I started in on my stack of books, I was hoping to find at least one with staying power, one that would stick with me long after I’d closed the cover and set the book back on the shelf. And I was delighted to discover that Claudia Dey’s Stunt definitely sticks.

The main character, Eugenia is nine years old, wise beyond her years and desperate for her father to love her. When he disappears, leaving behind a note of apology addressed only to her mother and sister, Eugenia is convinced he’s coming back for her. That her name was left out, not because he forgot to include her, but because he has no intention of leaving her behind. Now picture a nine year old girl sitting on the front stairs in a corduroy dress. “Teeth brushed. Hair brushed.” With provisions sewn into the hem of that dress. Things a little girl believes they will need. “. . .nuts, a handkerchief, rope, a pen and paper and a knife. I will move with you as seamlessly as you move through the world. I will be your shadow.” Heart breaking stuff for the adult reader who just knows that man is never coming back.

Stunt is not an easy read, not the kind of book you can skim through, toss aside and move on to the next. Dey’s style makes you slow down, take your time, savour every image, every quirky twist and turn in this unique and fascinating novel. Chances are good you’ll read it a second time, and a third, to catch what you surely missed the first time through.

Another book that hooked me from the beginning was The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. In case you haven’t heard about the book, which I doubt, The Help is set in Mississippi in 1962 and tells the story of Skeeter, a young white woman who cannot squeeze herself into the narrow life that awaits every woman of her social class. Like everyone else she knows, Skeeter was raised by the family’s maid, a black woman named Constantine who disappeared without a word to the girl who loved her as much as she loved her own mother. In trying to find out what happened to Constantine, Skeeter grows more and more curious about the lives of the women who work in the homes of her friends and family. Deciding their stories need to be told, Skeeter convinces one of the maids, Abileen, to not only write down her own story, but to help her recruit other maids to tell theirs as well.

While The Help is not a story with a lot of action, the affection the reader feels for the characters and knowing how dangerous this project could be for both Skeeter and the maids who agree to take part, keep the tension tight and the reader turning the pages well after the rest of house has gone to sleep.

Short stories are a blessing for anyone cursed with a love of books and too little time to indulge their cravings. Usually, I save short story collections for those agonizing weeks when I’m in deadline hell with a new book of my own and only have time for a quick reading fix. But having received a copy of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café Unplugged, I decided to indulge myself early. The first thing you need to know is that Stuart Mclean is an oral storyteller with a weekly radio show I try hard not to miss. His ongoing tales of Dave and Morley – a fictional couple whose lives I have been following for years – are funny, insightful and real enough to make me wish they’d invite me to dinner some time. McLean won the Stephen Leacock award for humor for this collection, and there is not a single entry that disappoints.

These are not hard-hitting, gritty, urban tales. These are stories about the every day things in life. Things like trying to keep the dog off the bed, and first snowfalls, and picking the wrong time to leave the bathroom naked. Tender moments, hilarious moments and more importantly the difficult moments every one of us has known. But whatever moment McLean is sharing with us, he does it with humour, compassion and an obvious affection for the human race that is guaranteed to make even the most cynical reader smile.

It’s almost March now and I’m not even half way through my stack of books. Still, I’m optimistic and hoping to get through most of them by the summer. I’ll let you know if any of them stick!

Visit Lynda Simmons' website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joanna Smith Rakoff

Joanna Smith Rakoff is the author of the novel A Fortunate Age, which was a New York Times Editors' Pick, a winner of the Elle Readers' Prize, a selection of Barnes and Noble's First Look Book Club, an IndieNext pick, and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. As a journalist and critic, she's written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe, Vogue, Time Out New York, O: The Oprah Magazine, and many other newspapers and magazines. Her poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, Kenyon Review, and other journals.

About ten days ago, I asked her what she was reading. Her response:

Right now, I’m reading Meghan Daum’s deeply brilliant memoir, Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House, a sort of history of her life (and her mother’s life) through the prism of real estate, which is also a vivid take on the housing craze of the early Oughts. Daum is, undoubtedly, one of the most interesting thinkers—and cultural critics—of our generation, if not the most interesting, and certainly one of the most elegant, sharp writers of prose around. While reading Life Would Be Perfect—which I cannot put down—I’ve found myself thinking, “Wow, I’d read Meghan Daum’s thoughts on anything.” (A slight tangent: Recently, while getting my hair cut, I was handed a tattered copy of Allure and began reading a profile of Kristen Stewart, only to find myself thinking, “This is incredibly smart and funny. It’s as if Allure hired Meghan Daum to profile Kristen Stewart.” Then I flipped back to the byline and, indeed, Allure had hired Meghan Daum to profile Kristen Stewart.) In Life Would Be Perfect she traces her fixation on housing to her mother’s class strivings, which manifest themselves in her own psyche once she leaves home and becomes obsessed with, in turn, the ideal dorm room, Upper West Side apartment, Nebraska farmhouse, and Echo Park bungalow. (It’s not a spoiler to say that after many misfires, she acquires the latter, only to find that home ownership isn’t the nirvana she’d envisioned.) But the tale’s brilliance lies less in the subject matter—though, of course, it’s both tragic and hilarious to look back on the decorating fever that gripped the country for a few years—than in Daum’s singular, hilarious, piercing take on it, and, of course, her gripping, forceful prose (which is, ultimately, what makes the book impossible to set down).

I’m also re-reading David Schickler’s Kissing in Manhattan, a collection of that made a big splash when it came out in 2001, a year or so after one of the stories, “The Smoker,” appeared in The New Yorker’s now-defunct debut fiction issue. I read the collection a few years later—after the hype had died down—and loved it, in part because it struck me as very different from most of the contemporary fiction I was reading at the time. Schickler’s stories are stylized—there’s a vaguely Mamet-like quality to them, though Schickler’s sensibility is pure romanticism, the opposite of Mamet’s cynicism—and seriously weird, somehow walking an odd, transfixing line between realism and surrealism (or, perhaps, absurdism). The Manhattan in which they take place is at once comfortingly recognizable—there’s the Broadway-Lafayette stop! And Riverside Drive!—and utterly fantastical. The characters live in a fictional apartment building, the Preemption, on Riverside Drive, which may or may not have vaguely supernatural qualities, just as the city itself may be possessed of its own volition, in Schickler’s odd, charming worldview.

Too quickly: I’ve recently finished two lovely, and very different novels by friends, Jami Attenberg’s The Melting Season, a dark tale about a young Nebraskan who escapes a bad marriage, and Shanthi Sekaran’s The Prayer Room, a family saga that chronicles, with great humor and grace, the marriage of a working class English scholar and a rebellious South Indian woman he meets on his year abroad. I also just finished Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, and loved, in particular, the story “Executors of Important Energies,” in which a young man is visited by his wealthy, senile father. Brutal. (Like much of the book.)

Sitting beside my bed is Margaret Drabble’s 2006 novel The Sea Lady, which I’ve been holding out to myself as a reward for finishing a difficult piece on which I’ve been working for way too long (I love Drabble and, thus, am doling out her novels, just as I do with Dawn Powell, allowing myself perhaps one every eight months, so as not to run out). Also in the queue: Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed (Then We Came to the End is one of my favorite novels of recent years), my Oberlin classmate Paul Jaskunas’ Hidden, a disturbing novel about a woman who’s survived a brutal attack by her husband (it’s so distressing that I can’t read it after dark and, thus, am not making much headway), Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s Picking Bones from Ash, because I’m mildly obsessed with Japan, and Justin Taylor’s new collection Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, because it sounds fantastic.

Read an excerpt from A Fortunate Age, and learn more about the book and author at Joanna Smith Rakoff's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Fortunate Age.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sujatha Hampton

All Sujatha Hampton ever wanted to be was a novelist. Her first book, As It Was Written, was published in February by Thomas Dunne Books.

Last month I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:

Right now, honestly, I am rereading my own novel, As It Was Written, for perhaps the millionth time. I’m looking for excerpts to read for various audiences. Some stuff is better left unread in certain venues. I’m doing some readings in schools; there are paragraphs I’d best not touch in front of the PTA.

But before this I was reading Theft by Peter Carey. I loved this book, and it was a fascinating discovery that I loved it despite the absolute fact that I was not particularly sympathetic with either of the main characters. The last novel I think I loved though I really didn’t find any one character likeable was A Confederacy of Dunces. It is a wonder to be so vastly talented that the reader simply doesn’t need to feel the characters to love the book.

Before this I was reading Possession by A. S. Byatt, which is brilliant and awesome, in the true sense of the word. There is a foreboding, brooding danger through the book and yet it is a literary mystery. Why should I feel dread over the lives of dead poets? And yet…I did. Marvelous.

I believe I was reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union before that and this now ranks as one of my favorite novels of all time. Chabon creates an entire world of brilliant, downtrodden, desperate and talented Alaskan refugee Jews that is at once heartbreaking and hilarious. These days, we are rarely allowed novels of this sweeping and audacious quality. It seems publishers worry that readers will not come along on such a daring ride anymore. Books like The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, like Winter’s Tale by Helprin, like A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole, like Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, they are falling away. Our books become shorter and shorter, less and less complicated, less and less extraordinary. The powers that be are afraid of the dwindling attention spans of Americans; they cut characters right and left. They slash whole story lines to get to the pith of it, when perhaps what was not pithy, but certainly meaty, was what would propel the story into the place that legends live.

I do seek out the great and delicious books, and I read them with my mouth agog and my heart thumping in my chest. It is a rare gift these days, that kind of story. I must say, it was what I was hoping for when I wrote my own novel. Time will tell if I succeeded.

Visit Sujatha Hampton's website and the publisher's webpage for As It Was Written.

--Marshal Zeringue

Josh Berk

Josh Berk lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is a children’s services librarian at the Allentown Public Library. His new book, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, is published by Knopf Books for Young Readers.

A week ago I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

I was lucky enough to recently meet Rebecca Stead and have her sign When You Reach Me, this year's Newbery Winner, for me. I'm not bragging about how fancy my friends are! OK, I sort of am. But anyway, the book is great. I was completely enthralled. It has some fantastical elements, but somehow feels entirely real. The narrator is a sixth grader named Miranda who is completely convincing and likable. The story captured me from page one. I think I liked some of the small moments best, like when Miranda is learning the right way to cut bread at a deli. Maybe it's these small, almost mundane moments, that make the big, fantastic things work so well. It's also worth nothing that the adult characters are well-rounded and believable. This is hard to do in a children's book! Really a great book!

So although I usually read teen novels to stay abreast of my own field, I was then on a kick to read more great children's novels. I picked up The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane and it fit the bill perfectly. Here's another likable and realistic young heroine. The story is fairly simple -- a young girl named Molly learns to throw the knuckleball from her father. He dies tragically and Molly decides to join the baseball team. But Mick's writing is flawless and it filled me with envy. He found depth in all sorts of places, including a Zen analysis of the knuckleball. I'm a sucker for any "baseball as life" book and the knuckleball is one of those things that makes baseball so wonderful to me.

I also am a huge fan of audiobooks and pretty much always have one going in the car. It's such a great way to get extra "reading" done. I don't even know why I put "reading" in quotes. It totally counts as real reading! Right? Well maybe it's cheating a little. Anyway, right now I'm listening to Lowboy by John Wray. I picked it up just because I saw it at the library and I had heard about Wray through my father, who is a huge reader. Lowboy is such an odd book but totally compelling. The main character (known as "Lowboy") is a semi-psychotic teenager off his meds roaming the subways of New York. A missing persons detective named Ali Lateef is out to find him, and he's a very interesting detective but, it's not really at all a regular detective novel. It's beautifully written and quite funny in parts and also sort of disturbing and quite strange. I'm enjoying it a lot! It's a very modern work of fiction but I read someone compared it to Dostoevsky and it actually makes me think of James Joyce.

Read an excerpt from The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, and visit Josh Berk's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Richard A. Knaak

Richard A. Knaak is the New York Times bestselling author of some three dozen novels, including the The Sin War trilogy for Diablo and the Legend of Huma for Dragonlance.

He has penned the War of the Ancients trilogy, Day of the Dragon and its followup, Night of the Dragon.

His other works include his own Dragonrealm series, the Minotaur Wars for Dragonlance, the Aquilonia trilogy of the Age of Conan, and the Sunwell Trilogy -- the first Warcraft manga.

Knaak's new book is World of Warcraft: Stormrage.

Last month I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

While my reading time is limited, I've recently read The Light of Burning Shadows, the second book in Chris Evans' Iron Elves series. I was asked to do a blurb for the first book and was so caught up in the tale I looked forward to reading the second as soon as I could. The mix of Napoleonic politics with traditional fantasy elements made for a fascinating read. I also enjoyed the look into the prejudices surrounding soldiers whose loyalties are questioned just because of their race. At the same time, a terrific adventure.

Visit Richard A. Knaak's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue