Frances Brody

Frances Brody's Dying in the Wool--the first of the Kate Shackleton books--debuts in the US in February 2012.

From the author's Q & A at Book Chick City:

Hi Frances, thank you for being here today and for answering my questions, it's a pleasure to have you. For those who are unfamiliar with your Kate Shackleton books can you tell us a bit about them?

Kate Shackleton is a First World War widow turned sleuth. She’s been described as a young Miss Marple! Her sidekick is ex policeman, Jim Sykes. The books are murder mysteries with plots that set a puzzle for the reader.

Is Kate based on any body in particular or is she completely fictional?

We have family albums bursting with old photographs that go back a century. Kate stepped from there with her 1920s bobbed hair and carrying a camera. She’s fictional and has qualities I would like to have. She’s quick witted, tenacious and ahead of her time. I’m now writing book three and the great thing is that I’m still finding out about her: how she acts and reacts in different situations. Kate received the familiar wartime telegram about her husband, Gerald: ‘Missing presumed dead’. Part of her still hopes that one day she’ll find him.

What gave you the inspiration to set your books in the 1920's?

It’s a very ‘modern’ period. Those who could afford it (like Kate!) owned cars. People drove motorbikes, listened to jazz, learned new dances, joined camera clubs, drank cocktails and wore great fashions. I was...[read on]

Visit Frances Brody's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

John Yow

From a Q & A with John Yow, author of The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds:

Q: What is an "armchair birder"?

A: An armchair birder is a person too lazy to get up and "go birding," which can be pretty exhausting, or a wannabe naturalist who somehow made it through school without taking any science courses, which can be pretty demanding. But really, being an armchair birder is okay. It means you're content to look at the birds that come to you, but motivated enough to take a close look. And of course, it means you're willing to read to fill in the blanks. One idea behind the book is that the natural world is close by; you don't have to go find it. Thoreau, whom I quote often, never went anywhere, but he saw everything there was to be seen.

Q: I admire your ability to pay close attention to the habits of birds in order to reveal their secret lives. What is the first step in tuning in to the birds around us?

A: The first step is getting outside your own head (or your own i-Pod or cell phone). For some of us, like me, that's easy, because what's inside of our heads is profoundly boring. Other people are endlessly fascinated by their own thoughts, feelings, relationships, and agendas, and about all we can hope for from those folks is that they do as little harm as possible.

Q: How is this book different from other birding books?

A: This is a different bird book because the concept is different. The purpose of bird "guides" is to help you identify birds you haven't seen before, and in most cases, that means helping you identify hundreds of species you will never see. That's fine. Everybody needs a bird guide. But after you've identified the species, the guidebook has done its job. My idea was to take the birds we've already identified and talk about what they're up to.

The great advantage of this concept was that it...[read on]

Visit The Armchair Birder website.

S. J. Watson

In Before I Go To Sleep, S. J. Watson's debut psychological thriller, an amnesiac who, following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and who she can trust.

From the author's Q & A at the Guardian:

How did you come to write Before I Go To Sleep?

I was reading about a man called Henry Molaison who suffered severe amnesia following an operation he underwent when he was 27. He died at the age of 82, and for all that time could form no new memories. I was struck by the image of that old man waking up and looking in the mirror, fully expecting a 27-year-old to be gazing back at him. I realised how vital our memories are to our sense of self, and from that seed the whole novel began to grow.

What was most difficult about it?

I decided to tell the story in the first person, from the point of view of someone who has severe amnesia. That presented some tricky technical challenges, particularly as I edited the book. I had to keep a close eye on the things my character knew at any given time, and the things she didn't.

What did you most enjoy?

The whole process was...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Jonathan Watts

Jonathan Watts is Asia Environment Correspondent for The Guardian and a former president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China.

His 2010 book When a Billion Chinese Jump tells the story of an unfolding ecological crisis as seen from the ground.

From Watts's Q & A with Sam Geall:

SG: So, could China become the world's first green superpower?

I wanted to ask that question in [When a Billion Chinese Jump]. We are heading into a difficult 30 or 40 years for our species. We are over the limit already by just about every ecological measure. And yet our population is probably going to rise by another two billion in the next 40 years. We need to get through this rough period and over that 40-year hump: after that, populations should start to fall and there should be better technology and economic models too. But now, the country that is in the best position – and the worst position – is China.

China is in the best position because its economy is growing so quickly that it does have a lot of resources. It's in the worst position because it's reached this supercharged phase of growth at a very unfortunate time in terms of the history of global development. China can't outsource its problems like other countries have been able to do. This is a country that has to reinvent itself.

The big contrast between China and the United States, particularly in renewable energy for instance, is that China is trapped by momentum, it has to keep moving forward. By contrast, the US is trapped by inertia – it's trying to protect what it already has. This is also why China is in a better position to become a green superpower.

SG: One intention of your book seems to be to introduce a note of scepticism amid much western optimism about China's ability to save the world economy.

JW: There is still a widespread assumption that one model has proven itself again and again over the past 200 years: the get-rich-first, clean-up-later model. But what worked for Britain in the nineteenth century, for the US in the twentieth century and for Japan and South Korea in the late twentieth century, may not work for China, because of scale and because of timing.

In a sense...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathryn Stockett

Kathryn Stockett is the author of the novel The Help. From her Q & A with Elizabeth Day at the Observer:

You started writing The Help the day after 9/11. How did that affect you?

It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad. I've always felt that Aibileen [one of the main characters in the book] had this really deep sadness that I would never understand, being a privileged, spoilt little white girl. Maybe when 9/11 occurred and I was in downtown New York, maybe that's the closest I'll ever be to understanding that sadness.

As a child of divorced parents growing up in Mississippi in the 1970s, you were partly raised by a black maid employed by your grandparents.

Yes, she was called Demetrie. I started writing in her voice because it felt really soothing. It was like talking directly to her, showing her that I was trying to understand, even though I would never claim to know what that experience was like. It's impossible to know what she felt like, going home to her house, turning on her black-and-white TV. And I'm not saying I feel sorry for her, because she was a very proud woman.

Did you have to think long and hard about writing in a black voice?

I...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Ian Rankin

From Ian Rankin's Q & A with Janette Currie:

J:- The Impossible Dead is set in contemporary Scotland with much of the plot looking back to the social and political scene of the 1980s, the same time that you published your first novel, The Flood. If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self?

IR:- Don’t drink so much. A lot of blank spaces back then where memories should be. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t remember all the domestic Scottish terrorism that was going on. A lot of the period 1980-85 seems to have passed me by.

J:- Who would you invite to your Come Dine with Me Dinner and what would you serve them?

IR :- I watch that show. I’m not a great cook but I do have a few ‘bankers’. Maybe a rich beef and wine stew. Or a chilli con carne. Plenty of good white and red wine. To start: smoked salmon. Cheese and oatcakes for afters. Around the table would be arranged Robert Louis Stevenson (so I can ask him about the first draft of Jekyll and Hyde – the one he’s supposed to have thrown on the fire), Frank Zappa (he might even play a few licks – I never got to see him in concert), and Billie Holiday.

J:- Your house is on fire! Your family and record collection are safe but you only have time to save one book – what is it?

IR:- My...[read on]

Learn about Ian Rankin's five favorite literary crime novels and the best selling book he wishes he'd written.

--Marshal Zeringue

Colin Thubron

Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing. His first books were about the Middle East—Damascus, Lebanon, and Cyprus. In 1982 he traveled in the Soviet Union, pursued by the KGB. From these early experiences developed his great travel books on the landmass that makes up Russia and Asia: Among the Russians; Behind the Wall: A Journey through China; The Lost Heart of Asia; In Siberia; Shadow of the Silk Road; and most recently, To a Mountain in Tibet.

From his Q & A at the Guardian:

How did you come to write To a Mountain in Tibet?

Uniquely for me, it originated in mourning. With my mother's death, the last of my family had gone, and I wanted to embark on something slow and contemplative. I chose to walk to Mount Kailas, the holy mountain in Tibet. It was an irrational instinct, a kind of secular pilgrimage. I didn't even know if I'd write about it.

What was most difficult about it?

The fear of altitude sickness. I was going up to 18,600 feet.

What did you most enjoy?

The sheer beauty of the land. I was following the valley of the Karnali river in Nepal, the highest source of the Ganges; then over the border onto the plateaux of Tibet, which have a strange, empty beauty – a frozen desert three miles above sea level.

How long did it take?

The whole journey (from Kathmandu) took...[read on]

See Colin Thubron's 6 favorite books about Asia.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bernard-Henri Lévy

Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World is a series of letters by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellebecq. From the former's Q & A at the Observer:

Did you learn things about yourself from writing this book?

First of all I learned that the great egomaniac I'm supposed to be had never spoken about himself, until now. My main compulsion is secrecy. I do not regret anything that is in this book, but I would not write these things again. The right to secrecy is a human right as important as freedom of speech or habeas corpus.

Do you consider phone-hacking to be particularly egregious?

Phone-hacking is one of the most disgusting things to happen to your country for a long time. It's the very highest level of attack on human integrity. Murdoch has lost the right to be part of the democratic contract that is the basis of this country.

In France, public figures have been afforded greater levels of privacy by the press, but in the wake of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, some journalists have said they should have delved more.

They are wrong. Not speaking of the private life of a politician until he commits a crime is a good position. Which, by the way, includes...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Chuck Palahniuk

From Chuck Palahniuk's Q & A with Euan Ferguson at the Observer:

Rather than your usual homeland settings of the Portland/Seattle area, your latest, Damned, is set a little further afield – in Hell. And you write in the voice of a 13-year-old girl. An easy job?

It sucked. It was absolutely a misery because I was writing the book while taking care of my mother who was dying of cancer. On her medication she became much more herself as a child; a child I never would have known. I was playing in effect the role of parent. It was a terrible time and perhaps that's why Madison's such a glib person. She's covering up a bunch of horrible circumstances and pain.

I thought Madison, your antiheroine, was more resilient than glib.

Well, yes, maybe. I needed to express somehow my grief at having then lost both of my parents [Palahniuk's father, Fred, and his girlfriend were murdered in 1999 by her ex-husband] and I knew that would not make a very entertaining or particularly funny book, so I inverted the situation and made it this very plucky dead child, who could mourn her parents while they were still on Earth – but still...[read on]

Damned is on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on hell.

--Marshal Zeringue

T. J. English

T. J. English's latest book is The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge.

From his interview by Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:

Q: You describe New York as "The Savage City" in your book's title. What do you mean by that?

The book deals with the period from 1963 to 1973 in which the crime rate in the city soared. And more importantly, an atmosphere of fear, paranoia and dread would come to characterize New York in many ways. This is the period in which New York began its descent into this level of darkness.

The book details quite specifically the manner in which the dynamics of race – particularly in relation to the criminal justice system – began to play themselves out in a way that it had never had before in the city's history. They created a level of turmoil, violence and hostility that was unprecedented.

"Savage City" is a sort of a play on the phrase "The Naked City" [the title of a TV series and film noir], which was about New York in the postwar era: a place that had crime and eight million stories. It was an urban jungle, but ultimately the cops were good and there was a pretty good sense of good and evil. The Savage City was a little bit darker. The issue of race – hardly evident in "The Naked City" – becomes front and center, and the police department is revealed to not be the benevolent institution that it had been perceived to be.

Q: Do TV shows and movies set in that period reflect the New York City of that time?

We all do have a cinematic vision in our heads of the New York of this era, movies like "The French Connection" and "Serpico" and a number of others that were filmed on location in the city. You can...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue