Emily Colin

Emily Colin holds a BA in Psychology, with a second major in Literature/Media Studies, from Duke University, and an MS in Family Studies and Human Services, with a specialization in Youth Development, from Kansas State University. She is the Associate Director of DREAMS of Wilmington, a nationally award-winning nonprofit dedicated to building creative, committed citizens by providing youth in need with high-quality, free-of-charge arts programming.

Her debut novel The Memory Thief is now out from Ballantine Books.

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

At the moment, I am reading several books simultaneously, more by accident than design. A small sampling: Staying overnight at an author’s cottage after my first reading for The Memory Thief, I discovered Marc Lewis’ Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs. I’ve always had a strong interest in psychology and neuroscience—it’s what I studied as an undergraduate—and something about this book drew me. It’s an accessible combination of memoir and science, and Lewis’ style is both frank and captivating. Alas, I didn’t get to finish the book—I got about 50 pages in and had to return it to the overflowing shelves of the cottage—so now I need to hunt it down at our local library.

I’ve also just started Heather Gudenkauf’s novel, The Weight of Silence. This one I picked up in an airport bookstore, en route to a conference in Oslo. Despite the fact that it was released back in 2009 to critical acclaim, I hadn’t heard anything about it (perhaps I have been living under a rock). Still, the cover caught my eye, and I thought the title was beautiful. Plus, Gudenkauf’s use of multiple points of view appealed to me—as anyone who’s read The Memory Thief will understand. The kicker: one of the two seven-year-old girls who goes missing in this book is a selective mute—a phenomenon that’s fascinated me since, as a teenager, I read psychologist Tori Hayden’s Ghost Girl. Thus far I’ve only had a chance to make it through the first chapter—but at least I own this one, so I won’t have to give it back before I finish!

Visit Emily Colin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

D.E. Johnson

D. E. Johnson, a graduate of Central Michigan University, is a history buff who has been writing fiction since childhood. He comes by his interest in automotive history through his grandfather, who was the vice president of Checker Motors. Johnson's books include The Detroit Electric Scheme and Motor City Shakedown and lives with his family near Kalamazoo, Michigan.

His new novel is Detroit Breakdown.

Recently I asked the author what he was reading.  Johnson's reply:

I just finished rereading the first three books of William Kennedy’s Albany cycle: Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, and Ironweed. Legs is the story of a portion of the gangster Legs Diamond’s life, Billy is about a smalltime hustler and his unlikely role as the go-between in a kidnapping, and Ironweed is a look at Depression-era homeless people and the prices we pay for what we do. These books follow the same Albany families during the 1920’s and 1930’s, culminating in the story of Francis Phelan.

Ironweed won a Pulitzer prize and is my favorite book of all time. I almost never reread books, but this was my fourth time through. The prose is beautiful, the story is wonderful, but most of all, the characters are real people with the strengths and weaknesses of real people, and I think everyone can see themselves in the characters, for good and for bad. Kennedy loves these people, and he makes us love them as well. The book is a triumph. I also really enjoy the first two, and they serve as a perfect setup for Ironweed.

While I read fiction by choice, most of the reading I’m doing these days is non-fiction for research. Since my books take place a hundred years ago, I can’t take anything for granted and have to double-check just about everything I write. Some of the recent reads that were great for me, but not books I would recommend for others are Compiled Ordinances of Detroit of 1912 (Did you know newsboys and bootblacks needed licenses? Or that the city speed limit had been raised from 10 to 15 miles per hour? Wow!) and History of Eloise, which contains a great deal of information about Eloise Hospital, the insane asylum in which much of my new book, Detroit Breakdown, takes place. Best of all, History of Eloise was written in 1912 and contains incredibly detailed information about the hospital as it was then. Both books are available as free Google e-books, if I’ve piqued the interest of anyone with strange taste in books.

Learn more about the book and author at D.E. Johnson's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Motor City Shakedown.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Rich

David Rich has sold screenplays to most of the major studios, and to production companies in the U.S. and Europe. He wrote the feature film, Renegades, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Philips, as well as episodes of MacGyver and other shows. He wrote three plays: The Interview, The Rescue, and W.A.R. (Women's Armed Resistance). Forsaking Los Angeles for small town Connecticut, Rich turned his attention to fiction. Caravan of Thieves, his new novel, is the result. Raised in Chicago, he received his B.A. from Tulane, spent one rainy, Withnail-esque year in Wales, and earned his M.A. in English from University of Colorado.

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

On the coffee table in my den, Brighton Rock is opened to page 165. Pinkie, cut with razor blades, has returned to the wretched boarding house and reported Spicer’s death at the race track. “The Boy led the way into the bed sitting room and turned on the single globe. He thought of Colleoni’s room at the Cosmopolitan. But you had to begin somewhere. He said: “You’ve been eating on my bed again.”

Redemption can come “between the stirrup and the ground”, and a better life begins with wiping the crumbs off the bedcovers. Dread begins with Graham Greene. I reread this one once a year.

Most of my reading is rereading. It is tough to be admitted to the canon – the great Jim Thompson just got in a few years ago – but once admitted an author is on call around the clock. Books are open all over the house. I read to my mood.

Also on the coffee table is a compilation of short pieces by P.J. O’Rourke opened to page 44. It’s a tight, well written story about working on the Community Underground Press in 1971 in Baltimore. He can’t remember why they used the word Underground. The paper was sold openly. “Though the police did raid the old row house that served as our home and office, it was illegal drugs that brought them there, not publishing.” When he leaves politics out of it, P.J. O’Rourke tells a good story.

Len Deighton’s Spy Sinker is open in the bedroom to page 264. Deighton was admitted the canon on the basis of Funeral in Berlin and Ipcress File. I had avoided him for years, regarding him as le Carré lite. It’s a fair epithet, but those two books are taut and jazzy. Unfortunately, by the time he got around to the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy he started diluting the meat with oatmeal. There is a lot of filler. I’ll reread Funeral in Berlin soon, but the last three Bernard Samson books I read can be donated.

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh is queued up next. It’s a double figure choice by now (could any book make it to three figures?). Basil Seal is the perfect scoundrel, so good that Waugh revived him from his earlier novel Black Mischief. Unfortunately for Basil and for England, the powers that be can’t understand that being the perfect scoundrel and purveyor of mayhem would probably make him an excellent spy. Every line of dialogue is the culmination of an elaborate thought process by the character. Every line is timed for maximum effect. It’s a short book, but I never read it fast. It’s too good.

After that I plan to reread The Renegades by T. Jefferson Parker, the newest of member of the club. He reminds me of Jim Thompson.

Visit David Rich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Debra Dean

Debra Dean’s bestselling debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a #1 Booksense Pick, a Booklist Top Ten Novel, and an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. It has been published in twenty languages. Her collection of short stories, Confessions of a Falling Woman, won the Paterson Fiction Prize and a Florida Book Award.

Her new novel, The Mirrored World, was released last month.

A native of Seattle, Dean lives in Miami and teaches at Florida International University.

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

School’s in session again, so much of what I’m reading is as yet unpublished: my MFA students’ manuscripts. But I’m playing hooky right now with Ann Bauer’s The Forever Marriage, which came out in June. It’s an astute psychological depiction of a woman, recently widowed, who believes herself finally free of a stultifying marriage. Then she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Facing down her own mortality, she reexamines her marriage to a kind but socially awkward math genius and surprises herself with a depth of feeling she had not previously suspected. One of the things I’m really appreciating in this novel is that the protagonist is not yet another amiable heroine in a relentlessly uplifting story. There’s no pink bow. It’s better than that: Bauer’s taking the risk to give us a real woman, acerbic and honest and flawed, one who is growing as the novel unfolds.

Over the summer, I read a couple of wonderful books. Ann Patchett is one of my favorite go-to writers, and State of Wonder didn’t disappoint. A paean to Heart of Darkness, the novel is a richly imagined and engaging adventure tale. A mild-mannered scientist who works for a pharmaceutical company is sent to the Amazon to learn what has become of a top-secret research project that is a potential goldmine for the company. Her colleague and friend, sent before her, has been reported dead under mysterious circumstances, and the director of the project refuses to relay back anything more than the curtest snippets of information. State of Wonder creates a delicious tension in the reader: the desire to slow down and savor beautiful prose against the itch to turn the page.

And then a book that I had been meaning to get to since I first heard about it: Faith by Jennifer Haigh. It is set in Boston, 2002, and narrated by the sister of a priest accused of abusing a boy in his parish. Before you turn away – yes, who wants to engage with this continuing horror? – consider this: the novel is brilliant, eminently humane and thoughtful, suspenseful but without a drop of melodrama. Did he or didn’t he is only the surface concern; Haigh explores the subterranean dynamics of the family and the Church and the ties that bind us to each. I’m in awe of her talents.

Visit Debra Dean's website and Facebook page.

--Marshal Zeringue

Trish MacGregor

Trish J. MacGregor's books include Esperanza and her new novel Ghost Key, the first two supernatural thrillers in the Hungry Ghost series.

Not so long ago I asked the author what she was reading. MacGregor's reply:

I usually have three or four books that I’m reading at any time. Depending on my mood, I read one at the gym, another at night before I go to bed, another while I’m eating breakfast or lunch.

My book for the gym is W. Bruce Cameron’s novel, A Dog’s Purpose, a delightful story that traces one dog’s spiritual evolution through several lifetimes. As with humans, the dog’s name and circumstances change from life to life. He begins his first life in a litter born in the wild, where he and his litter mates are eventually taken to a chaotic dog rescue place. Here, he’s named Toby and learns how to exist in a fenced area with other rescued dogs. Cameron captures the pecking order in such a situation and does it in a way that instantly pulls you into the emotional texture of Toby’s life. When Toby’s mother escapes from the rescue place, you feel what Toby feels, betrayal, bewilderment, fear. When Toby is attacked by Spike, the local bully, you feel Toby’s horror and pain. You also feel what Toby feels when his leg is damaged beyond repair and he’s euthanized.

Toby is reborn as a golden retriever, and this lifetime really spoke to me; we have owned two goldens. In this life, he’s called Bailey and ends up with a family whose young son is definitely his primary human. He recalls his previous life as Toby, what it was like in that fenced yard, how his mother had escaped, how Spike had attacked him. It’s obvious that Cameron has done his research on dogs. But more than that, Cameron has a real gift for bringing you fully into the dog’s personality, his memories, his love for the boy, his search for purpose.

The novel is extraordinary. I wish I’d written it!

Visit Trish J. MacGregor's website.

Writers Read: Trish J. MacGregor (September 2010).

The Page 69 Test: Esperanza.

My Book, The Movie: Esperanza.

The Page 69 Test: Ghost Key.

--Marshal Zeringue

Enid Shomer

A widely published fiction writer and poetry, Enid Shomer is the author of seven books. Her work has been collected in more than fifty anthologies and textbooks, including POETRY: A HarperCollins Pocket Anthology, Best American Poetry, and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best.

Shomer's new novel is The Twelve Rooms of the Nile.

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

Last January I had the privilege of hearing Francine Prose lecture on the stories of Anton Chekhov. Since then, I’ve been reading books by her that I missed when they came out, including the biography, Caravaggio, and the novellas entitled Guided Tours of Hell.

I enjoyed also Geraldine Brooks’s Caleb’s Crossing and Hella Winston’s Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels.

A couple of days ago, I shelved the excellent memoir by Paul Pines entitled My Brother’s Madness.

Finally, I’ve just finished reading Julian Barnes’ latest novel The Sense of an Ending.

Visit Enid Shomer's website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: The Twelve Rooms of the Nile.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kim Kavin

Kim Kavin is an award-winning writer, editor, photographer, and website developer. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism in 1994 and worked as a daily newspaper editor until 2000, when she became executive editor of Yachting magazine. She has been a full-time freelance journalist since April 2003 and is now considered one of the world’s foremost authorities covering the luxury yacht charter industry. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, a member of the Author’s Guild, a past president of Boating Writers International, and a member of the Dog Writers Association of America.

Kavin's latest book is Little Boy Blue: A Puppy's Rescue from Death Row and His Owner's Journey for Truth.

A few weeks ago I asked the author what she was reading.  Her reply:

My Kindle’s home page resembles a disheveled library right now. I’m really all over the place.

I just finished Asylum: Hollywood Tales from my Depression by Joe Pantoliano. It caught my eye because I think he’s an interesting character actor. Now I know why: He’s living out his depression symptoms on screen. That book was a quick and interesting read if you are a fan of Joey Pants (The Sopranos, The Matrix, etc.).

Currently I am reading Attention All Passengers: The Airlines’ Dangerous Descent—and How to Reclaim Our Skies. It’s a research book for me, one that my literary agent asked me to take a look at for a book that I may ghostwrite about the cruise-ship industry. I’m looking as much at the format of that book as I am at the actual words on the page. I guess I’m not really reading. I’m more studying it and taking it apart in my mind.

Queued up and ready to go next are Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow, which I’m curious to read because of the never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; The War at the Shore: Donald Trump, Steve Wynn, and the Epic Battle to Save Atlantic City, which intrigues me because I’m from New Jersey and, well, I just can’t seem to look away from Donald Trump’s personal circus; Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, which I think I first learned about on BookTV and decided it was something I should know about as a decent American and human being; and Wallace: The Underdog Who Conquered a Sport, Saved a Marriage, and Championed Pit Bulls—One Flying Disc at a Time, which is by my friend Jim Gorant, who wrote the foreword for my own book Little Boy Blue. Jim is a great writer, as anybody knows who read his New York Times bestseller The Lost Dogs. Wallace will probably bump to the top of my list as soon as it’s released on August 30.

Some recent books I really enjoyed include The Fiddler in the Subway, which I know I’m late to the party in reading because it came out in 2010, but I just am so consistently impressed with Gene Weingarten’s writing that I had to make time for it. I also recently read and liked Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis (who is one of my favorite all-time writers); Bossypants by Tina Fey, which cracked me up; and the Jeanette Walls memoir The Glass Castle, which I avoided for the longest time because I didn’t think it would be my kind of book, and then kicked myself for failing to read sooner because it was so terrific.

Visit the official site of the book Little Boy Blue and the wonderful dog who inspired it.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Kim Kavin and Blue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maryanne O'Hara

A graduate of Emerson College's MFA program, Maryanne O'Hara was a longtime associate editor at Ploughshares magazine. Her short stories have been published in Five Points, The North American Review, The Crescent Review, and Redbook, as well as the literary anthologies MicroFiction, Brevity & Echo, The Art of Friction, and Flash Fiction: Youth.

Her newly released debut novel is Cascade.

Last month I asked O'Hara what she was reading. Her reply:

My favorite books of the past year have easily been Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, Nicole Krauss’s Great House, and David Grossman’s To the End of the Land—all of them masterful meditations on time and memory.

A recent gem I also really enjoyed was Jane Gardem’s Old Filth, about a British former Raj orphan looking back on his fractured life. The writing is precise and clear, the dialogue quite perfect; I found myself a bit heartbroken at the end. (Note: Must read more Jane Gardem.)

I don’t normally read psychological thrillers but one day I was out with the Penguin rep and mentioned I had Irish citizenship. He asked me if I knew the work of another Irish writer, Tana French, and when I said I didn’t, he sent me her books. I’m on her 4th, most recent book now, and I can tell you they’re all a bit wordy to start, but soon enough, you cannot put them down. Her voice is compelling and strong and articulate, but I especially admire how she has her finger directly on the pulse of Ireland. When the first two books were written, the Irish economy was still riding high. Now it’s in ruins, and Broken Harbor’s tough tale is all the more harrowing for being set within the context of a country's broken dreams.

Visit Maryanne O'Hara's website and Facebook page, and view the Cascade trailer.

The Page 69 Test: Cascade.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cece Bell

Cece Bell lives in an old church in Virginia and works in a new-ish barn right next door. She is an author and illustrator of books for children. Her books include Bee-Wigged, Itty Bitty, and the Sock Monkey series for Candlewick Press; stuff coming out soon includes Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover (also for Candlewick Press), illustrations for Crankee Doodle (written with her husband, Tom Angleberger, for Clarion Press) and for Bug Patrol (by Denise Mortensen, also for Clarion Press). She is currently working on a graphic novel for Amulet.

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

I am not a voracious reader because I am a slow reader. But when I recently finished Robertson Davies' The Salterton Trilogy (which was given to my husband by his editor, but stolen by me, and which very well may be the thickest book I've ever read), I was almost ready to re-read it immediately. Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), and A Mixture of Frailties (1958) are Davies' first three novels (packaged together as The Salterton Trilogy), and all three are about the residents of the fictional university town of Salterton, Ontario. Funny as heck. Complicated, sometimes absurd, often bawdy, Davies, like Dickens, surprises you in the middle of the action by making sweeping statements about society and its institutions that stick with you for a long time. Highly, highly recommended. I loved this trilogy so much that I have since read Davies' The Cunning Man (also excellent), and am just now starting on The Deptford Trilogy. Good stuff!

In the mid-grade category, I recently read Katherine Paterson's 1978 novel, The Great Gilly Hopkins. She really nailed the voice of a tough, sad, frustrated, and frustrating girl who clings to the hope that her real mother will be her salvation as she adjusts to life in yet another foster home. Gilly's gradual transformation into a kinder person is beautifully drawn out, and, more importantly, it's believable. It's been a while since I got so caught up in a character's quest for happiness.

And finally... have you seen Extra Yarn??? It's written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen. If that book doesn't get the Caldecott, I'll be filling up the Well of Sorrow with my own fat tears. And that's only a slight exaggeration. The story is so right-on, so magical. And the illustrations! I get jealous of other people's work all the time. But these are so good that my jealousy meter just quit working as I basked in the awesome that is Jon Klassen.

Visit Cece Bell's website.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Cece Bell and Tuna, O.D., and Sue Bee.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matthew Dicks

Matthew Dicks is a writer and elementary school teacher. His articles have been published in the Hartford Courant and he has been a featured author at the Books on the Nightstand retreat. He is the author of the novels, Something Missing and Unexpectedly Milo.

Dicks's new novel is Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend.

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

Among the handful of books that I am currently reading is Stephen King’s The Long Walk. I am halfway through the book and have found it exceptionally compelling thus far.

The book was originally written under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and King opens the novel with a preface explaining the origin and purpose of the Bachman pseudonym that any fan of King’s will find fascinating.

The book is also, in many ways, a precursor to The Hunger Games trilogy, and readers who enjoyed those novels are likely to enjoy this one as well. Like The Hunger Games, The Long Walk is the story of children pitted against one another in a contest to the death while the world looks on in morbid fascination. King spins out the backstory to the contest and the world in which we find these characters slowly, in tiny pieces, which allows for greater suspense, mystery and dread than what Collins’s Hunger Games provides. But the book also has considerably less action than The Hunger Games. The nature of the contest (a long walk) alone all but guarantees this, but it does not make the story any less compelling. Instead, the book takes on an eerie, sinister feel, and I find myself utterly mystified as to how the story might end. As a reader, I cannot ask for more than this from a book.

Visit Matthew Dicks' website and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend.

--Marshal Zeringue