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

Moira Crone

Moira Crone is the author of several novels and story collections including What Gets Into Us and A Period of Confinement; her works have appeared in Oxford American, The New Yorker, Image, Mademoiselle, and over forty other journals and twelve anthologies. She has won prizes for her stories and novellas, and in 2009 she was given the Robert Penn Warren Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers for the entire body of her work.

Her latest novel is The Not Yet.

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

Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg, 1974.

I found the collection in a used bookstore in Carrboro, N.C. I was visiting my very aged parents who have been in assisted living for many years now. I was thinking about the unintended costs and consequences of the current commonplace longevity. My parents complain of the “limbo” they have entered in their nineties. They continue on life extending drugs, and have many procedures. Science is keeping them alive—they find this depressing, even agonizing, far beyond boring. Yet there is no way out.

Two of the three novellas in Born with the Dead are explorations of the consequences of cheating death. They are subtle, intense, psychological and mysterious.

I especially loved the portrayal of Jorge Klein in the title story. His wife Sybille has died, but she has been “rekindled” ---brought back to a kind of “life.” A very elegant zombie, Sybille likes to be with her own kind and refuses to have anything to do with her former husband. She lacks desire, or ordinary emotions. She’s called a “cold.” It’s a very ironic version of “retirement,” a very dark in-between she’s entered.

The story is also a great parable about Jorge’s grief, and love.

Another novella in the book, “Going,” looks at the 135th year of a brilliant composer. He lives in a world where people must will themselves to die, for no diseases will kill them anymore. Silverberg’s waiting centers, where citizens go to die, are reminiscent of today’s assisted living homes. But, unlike 2012 residents, this hero has the benefit of counseling, life review, and autonomy. He is encouraged to choose, and celebrate his exit when he is finally ready.

I read the book, in part, because Silverberg was referenced in a review of my recent novel The Not Yet, in the British Science Fiction magazine, Interzone. My novel explores the consequences---emotional, material, societal, spiritual---of extreme longevity. Though Silverberg’s characters have circumstances of plenty, mine know a world where the rich go on for centuries, while the rest barely survive.

But what I share with Silverberg book is that I’m interested in science fiction about the spirit. He asks: what have medical advances done to the way we conceive of life? And therefore, how we shall live it it now?

Visit Moira Crone's website and the Facebook page for The Not Yet.

--Marshal Zeringue

Linda Grimes

Linda Grimes is a former English teacher and ex-actress now channeling her love of words and drama into writing. She grew up in Texas and currently resides in northern Virginia with her husband.

Her new novel is In a Fix.

Not so long ago I asked Grimes what she was reading. Her reply:

Right now, in the lead-up to the release of In a Fix, I haven't been able to read for pleasure nearly as much as I'd like. I think I'm in withdrawal. (Hmm. That would explain the twitching.)

There are a few books I managed to sneak in, mainly because I took a little peek and then couldn't stop reading:

Whispers in Autumn by Trisha Leigh. It's a YA dystopian set on an earth that's been taken over by mind-controlling aliens, and it's totally gripping. It's an indie book—one of the best I've ever read—and the first of a trilogy. All I can say is, I can't wait for the next installment.

Pivot Point by Kasie West. I feel a bit guilty mentioning this one, since it won't officially be released until February 2013. I was lucky enough to get hold of an advance reader copy, and man, was it ever good!

Here's how it's described on GoodReads:

Reminiscent of the movie Sliding Doors, Pivot Point is about a girl who has the power to Search alternate futures. When faced with a life changing decision, she lives out six weeks of two different lives (in alternating chapters), both holding the potential for love and loss, and must ultimately choose which path she is willing to live through.

Doesn't that sound great? Trust me, you should put it in your TBR pile.

Both of those are YA books, which might seem odd for an adult to read, especially one who doesn't write YA books herself. But I do have a lot of friends who write it, and they've kind of sucked me into giving the genre a chance. I'm so glad they did! Let's face it—conflict is conflict, whether it revolves around a seventeen-year-old or an adult, and good characterization is good characterization. If a story latches on to me, I'm not going to quibble over age.

Now, if only I had time to dive back into my TBR pile. *sighs* Maybe next month...

Visit Linda Grimes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bill Crider

Bill Crider's new novel, Murder of a Beauty Shop Queen, is his 19th Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mystery.  In his review of the novel, Ed Gorman praised Crider's "skills with characterization and milieu" and called the author "a master plotter."

A few weeks ago I asked the author what he was reading.  His reply:

I just finished an ARC of Max Allan Collins’ new Nate Heller novel, Target Lancer, in which Heller helps prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Chicago in November 1963. Not much has been written about that particular plot, and Collins does a great job of shining some light on it. The book is fiction, of course, but it’s based on real events. I’m not much of a conspiracy buff, but I really enjoyed the book.

Older books are always a part of my reading, and I write about one on my blog each week for Friday’s Forgotten Books, a meme started by Patti Abbott. Recently I’ve read and commented on Manhattan is my Beat, and early novel by Jeffery Deaver, published by Bantam back in 1989 when he was using Jeffrey Wilds Deaver as his by-line. The protagonist is a young woman named Rune who works in a video store that rents VHS tapes (anybody remember those?). When one of her customers is murdered, she becomes an amateur sleuth and appears to be in way over her head. Several good twists in this one. Before that one I talked about a fine collection of Robert Sheckley’s SF short stories from the 1950s, Citizen in Space.

I’ve now started reading David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, having gotten interested after seeing the trailer for the movie version. I’ve read the first two sections, and I still don’t know where it’s going. The trip looks like a lot of fun, however.

Learn more about the book and author at Bill Crider's website and blog.

Read the Page 69 Test entries for Crider's A Mammoth Murder, Murder Among the OWLS, Of All Sad Words, Murder in Four Parts, Murder in the Air, and The Wild Hog Murders.

Writers Read: Bill Crider (July 2011).

My Book, The Movie: The Wild Hog Murders.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathryn Miller Haines

Kathryn Miller Haines is an actor, mystery writer, and award-winning playwright. Her debut YA novel, The Girl Is Murder, received an Edgar Award nomination and a starred review from School Library Journal as well as from Booklist, who called the book a "smart offering that gives both mysteries and historical fiction a good name." The sequel, The Girl is Trouble, was released last month.

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

I’ve been on a non-fiction kick lately. Both of these books are, in their own ways, true historical crime, which is my weakness as a reader. Neither is the standard recounting of a historical murder, rather more what the horrible price of hubris can be.

I just finished Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, his non-fiction examination of life in Berlin during Hitler’s rise from the point of view of our ill-equipped Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and his daughter Martha. Given my obsession with World War II (I’ve written two mystery series during that time period) and my love of Larson (I think Devil in the White City is such an extraordinary book) this was a natural match for me. While Hitler is the evil at the center of the book, what’s almost more discomforting than reading about what life in Berlin was like for the citizenry under his hold, is the naiveté with which the American public and its government was viewing his rise to power and how we turned a blind eye to the early signs of his madness, violence, and desire for greater domination. There’s no greater symbol for this deliberate ignorance than in Martha Dodd, a young woman (with a voracious sexual appetite) who defends the Nazis over and over again in her correspondence, perhaps because she’s romantically involved with so many of them (including the married head of the SS). The bumbling Ambassador Dodd, in contrast to his daughter, seems profoundly aware of the evil afoot and the great tragedy at the center of the narrative is how no one seems to listen to him back in the U.S. government. When war finally happens there’s no solace for him in knowing he was right all along. Instead, he dies just when the world is most fractured, never knowing that the “good guys” win.

I’m currently flying through Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case, Debbie Nathan’s detailed accounting of how the tale of the multiple personality case was largely fabricated by three women: the psychiatrist, her patient, and the woman who authored the bestselling “non-fiction” book. Nathan was able to write the book after the Sybil archives held at John Jay College of Criminal College were finally unsealed following the deaths of the major players in the case. After reading about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, it’s a sad reminder that what passed for psychiatry in the first half of this century was in many ways equally barbarous. The psychiatrist at the center of the tale, Dr. Connie Wilbur, is so determined to prove herself in a male-dominated profession that she’ll go to any lengths, including over medicating and regularly providing electro-shock therapy to her emotionally fragile patient, the real Sybil. And Sybil allows herself to be dominated, giving her doctor what she desperately wants, including inventing personalities to prove her diagnoses. Worst of all is Flora Schreiber, the writer desperate for fame who finds sign after sign that the story is fabricated yet because of the lure of money and fame, still agrees to write Sybil’s story and adds further fabrications in the name of creating a more interesting book, damaging many lives and legacies in her thinly veiled account in the process.

Visit Kathryn Miller Haines's website and blog.

Writers Read: Kathryn Miller Haines (August 2011).

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Kathryn Miller Haines & Mr. Rizzo and Sadie.

--Marshal Zeringue

Padgett Powell

In Padgett Powell's new novel, You & Me, "two loquacious gents on a porch discuss all manner of subjects, from the mundane to the spiritual to the downright ridiculous."

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

I have completed in the last several weeks Peter Guralnick’s Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, which I picked up in Kevin Canty’s house. Kevin said it’s sad and he is not incorrect. Poor Elvis is about the best I can hazard. It is a frightening long march of mismanagement and silliness and it will scare you if you see in it-–the Presley life, the person-- even small facets of your own dispositions and inclinations. I am on to a book by Thompson and Cole that Guralnick refers to as authoritative called The Death of Elvis. Might have to look at superbitch Goldman’s second Elvis book too (the first, because he can write, is a hoot). It’s all bracingly sad.

I have finished chapter one of Under The Volcano, a book on my list since about 1969 probably. I had to start the chapter twice to get to the end and even now do not feel the undertow I wish I’d start feeling. (I am in approximately the same position vis-a-vis Ulysses, for approximately the same time period.) I like one of the sentences in this chapter well enough that I used it as an epigraph for You & Me: “He felt rather like someone lying in a bath after all the water has run out, witless, almost dead.” That aptly describes me and my fellows in the book, so we shoe-horned it in. Malcolm Lowery is spelled Malcom Lowery in the first edition, so if you want the error, step lively and buy now.

Learn more about Padgett Powell's You & Me at the HarperCollins website.

My Book, The Movie: You & Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Douglas Corleone

Douglas Corleone is a former New York City defense attorney and winner of the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition for One Man's Paradise. His second novel, Night on Fire, came out in 2011, and Last Lawyer Standing, his latest book featuring criminal defense attorney Kevin Corvelli, is now out from Minotaur Books.

Recently I asked Corleone what he was reading.  His reply:

Like most of the American reading public, I’m currently enjoying Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. And I’m so glad I am. After weeks of watching 50 Shades crowding the bestseller lists, it’s wonderful and heartening that we have a literary phenomenon that’s worthy of being a literary phenomenon. What’s even greater is that this is a book that can’t be placed in a box – it’s dark, it’s literary, it’s suspenseful, there’s a mystery, and at its heart, it’s an incredible character-driven psychological thriller. I’m just blown away.

Visit Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: One Man's Paradise.

The Page 69 Test: Night on Fire.

My Book, The Movie: Night on Fire.

The Page 69 Test: Last Lawyer Standing.

--Marshal Zeringue