"This Kind of Trouble"

New from Tiny Reparations Books: This Kind of Trouble: A Novel by Tochi Eze.

About the book, from the publisher:

A riveting tale of forbidden love centered on an estranged couple brought together to reckon with the mysterious events that splintered their family.

In 1960s Lagos, a city enlivened with its newfound independence, headstrong Margaret meets British-born Benjamin, a man seeking his roots after the death of his half-Nigerian father. Despite Margaret’s reluctance, their connection is immediate. They fall in love in the dense, humid city, examining what appears to be their racial and cultural differences. However, as they exchange childhood stories during lazy work lunches, they uncover a past more entangled than they could have ever imagined. Margaret’s deteriorating mental health combined with the shadow of events that transpired decades ago in a small village sets their gradual fracture in motion.

By 2005, Margaret has retired to an upscale gated community in Lagos, and seemingly happy Benjamin lives alone in Atlanta, managing his heart problems with no options when asked to name his next of kin. But their attempt at a settled life is shattered when their grandson begins to show ominous signs echoing the struggles Margaret once faced. The former lovers are forced to reunite to confront the buried secrets they had dismissed in the passion of their youth—secrets that continue to ripple through their family.

A startling and propulsive tale of forbidden love, This Kind of Trouble traces the intertwined legacies of one family’s history, exploring the complex relationship between tradition, modernity, and the ways we seek healing in a changing world. With this debut novel, Tochi Eze announces herself as a dazzling new voice in world literature.

Visit Tochi Eze's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Children of Mars"

New from Oxford University Press: Children of Mars: The Origins of Rome's Empire by Jeremy Armstrong.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fresh narrative history of the rise of Rome's empire in Italy, that exposes the monumental expansion of the Roman familial, social, political, and militaristic way of living across Italy.

Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula. This book explores the origins of Roman imperialism and the creation of Rome's early Italian empire, bringing new light and interpretations to this important but problematic period in Roman history. It explains how and why the Romans were able to expand their influence within Italy, often through the use of armed conflict, laying the foundations for their great imperial project.

This book critically reexamines and reframes the traditional literary narrative within an archaeologically informed, archaic Italian context. Jeremy Armstrong presents a new interpretation of the early Roman army, highlighting the fluid and family-driven character which is increasingly visible in the evidence. Drawing on recent developments within the field of early Roman studies, Children of Mars argues that the emergence of Rome's empire in Italy should not be seen as the spread of a distinct “Roman” people across Italian land, but rather the expansion of a social, political, and military network amongst the Italian people. Armstrong suggests that Rome's early empire was a fundamentally human and relational one. While this reinterpretation of early Roman imperialism is no less violent than the traditional model, it alters its core dynamic and nature, and thus shifts the entire trajectory of Rome's Republican history.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Atomic Hearts"

New from Ballantine Books: Atomic Hearts: A Novel by Megan Cummins.

About the book, from the publisher:

I’d been raised on secrets, I knew they weren’t a good idea.

Sixteen and living in a small Michigan town, Gertie is harboring a secret heavy enough to fracture her closest friendship. She and Cindy have been bonded since birth by the fact their fathers are addicts, and their unsteady home lives are a little easier when they’re together, sprawled on a trampoline with pilfered vodka and dreams of moving to New York.

Everything was changing so fast. I didn’t know what was real.

After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she’s caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. Terrified of the consequences of being honest with Cindy, her sole refuge is the fantasy novel she’s writing, a portal to another world and the story of a young girl roaming a strange land, trusting her wits to survive.

I had to become a different, stronger person before I’d even figured out who I was in the first place.

Years later, when ghosts of the past surface, Gertie decides to write again about that explosive summer from the stabler shores of adulthood. Powered by the fierce imagination of her youth, Gertie finally allows herself the grace to tell a version of her narrative that she always hoped would be true.

Written with the feel and power of a ticking time bomb, Atomic Hearts is an unforgettable story of the ways we can be saved by friendship, love, and imagination.

Visit Megan Cummins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Agents of Justice"

New from Oxford University Press: Agents of Justice: How the American Bureaucracy Mobilizes Private Lawsuits to Make Policy Work by Quinn Mulroy.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the last half century since the height of the rights revolution - a period marked by significant rights expansions but limited government capacity to enforce them - efforts to defend individuals' and communities' rights have hinged on the effectiveness of the "litigation state:" a fragile but sometimes powerful mode of governance that relies on private litigants and their attorneys, rather than agencies, to enforce the laws of the land.

In Agents of Justice, Quinn Mulroy argues that this system of governance was built and shaped by the concerted, mission-driven efforts of the agency officials who have largely been written out of the story of the litigation state. She traces how constrained civil rights and environmental agencies established during the rights revolution developed creative strategies for mobilizing mass private legal activity on the statutes they enforce, generating significant, societal-level regulatory effects. In doing so, they acted as agents of justice. Mulroy builds a new theory of the origins and development of the litigation state, challenging the conventional view that it was created to circumvent the bureaucracy and durably insulate private regulatory action in the courts. Through comparative case studies of the agencies charged with combatting employment discrimination, environmental degradation, and housing discrimination, she uncovers the pivotal, but quite hidden, role of agency officials in building, sustaining and, at times, even weakening private legal activity over time. By centering the efforts of agents of justice in our conception of the litigation state, this book offers major lessons for our understanding of American politics, regulation, and state building from the mid-20th century to the present.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tantrum"

New from G.P. Putnam’s Sons: Tantrum by Rachel Eve Moulton.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this electric horror novel from the author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster. She’s right.

Thea’s third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn’t consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn’t convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine.

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she’s always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, “I eat.”

Thea doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface—flashes from Thea’s childhood that won’t release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her.

Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.

Visit Rachel Eve Moulton's website.

My Book, The Movie: Tinfoil Butterfly.

The Page 69 Test: Tinfoil Butterfly.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Atlantic Crescent"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Atlantic Crescent: Building Geographies of Black and Muslim Liberation in the African Diaspora by Alaina M. Morgan.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the period between the twentieth century’s two world wars, Black and Muslim people from the United States, South Asia, and the Caribbean collided across an expansive diasporic geography. As these people and their ideas came into contact, they reignited the practice of Islam among people of African descent living in the United States and the Anglophone Caribbean and prompted them to adopt new understandings of their place in the world. As the freedom dreams of these diasporic communities met the realities and limitations of colonialism and race in the Atlantic world, Islam presented new strategies for combating oppression and introduced new allies in the struggle.

Envisioning the geography and significance of this encounter within what she calls the Atlantic Crescent, Alaina M. Morgan draws on an expansive archive to show how Black and Muslim people imagined, understood, and acted on their religious and racial identities. Morgan reveals how her subjects' overlapping diasporic encounters with Islam led to varied local adaptation as well as common ground to pursue liberation from racial subjugation and white supremacy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dead Come to Stay"

New from Hanover Square Press: The Dead Come to Stay: A Novel by Brandy Schillace.

About the book, from the publisher:

A delightful new cozy crime novel from the award-winning author of the "twisty, engaging, and thoroughly unexpected" (Deanna Raybourne) The Framed Women of Ardemore House

An amateur autistic sleuth. A wry English detective. A murder case that thrusts them both into the wealthy world of the rare artifacts trade...

Jo Jones can't seem to catch a break. Trading in city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of North Yorkshire to take over her family estate should have been a chance for a "fresh start.” Instead, she's been driven further into the past than she thought possible — and not just her own. The estate property is littered with traces of ancestors that Jo never knew existed, including the mysterious woman in a half-destroyed painting – and hints about Jo's late uncle, who may hold the key to her cryptic family history. Then there’s the gossipy town politics Jo must constantly navigate as a neurodivergent transplanted American… And of course, the whole murder business.

When prickly town detective James MacAdams discovers a body in the moors with coincidental ties to Jo Jones, they're forced to team up on the case. The clues will lead them into the wealthiest locales of Yorkshire, from sparkling glass hotels to luxury property sites to elite country clubs. But below the glittering surfaces, Jo and MacAdams discover darker schemes brewing. Local teens, many of them international refugees, are disappearing left and right, and each case is somehow linked to a shady architectural firm — which also happened to employ the dead man from the moor-side ditch.

What begins as bizarre murder case quickly plunges them both into the blackmarket world of rare artifacts and antique trading... and a murderer who will do anything to cover it up.

Visit Brandy Schillace's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Framed Women of Ardemore House.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sins of Excess"

New from the University of Oklahoma Press: Sins of Excess: The Spatial Politics of Idolatry and Magic in Colonial Mexico by Anderson Hagler.

About the book, from the publisher:

For the Spanish colonizers of Mexico in the sixteenth century, the concept of “excess”—even the word itself—covered a multitude of sins, including idolatry and magic. In Sins of Excess, Anderson Hagler uses the language of excess as a lens for examining how the colonizers of New Spain conflated cultural diversity into a superficially—and usefully—homogeneous whole under the pejorative umbrella of excess in its many forms. In this way, Hagler suggests, deploying excess and its derivatives influenced how Spanish colonists came to view the practices of the Indigenous population.

In the viceroyalty of New Spain descriptive terms such as “harms and excesses” (daños y excesos) not only referred to crimes like murder and robbery (muertes y robos) but also became generalized to refer to Native religious, social, or cultural practices that fell outside the boundaries of Catholic orthodoxy. A reading of royal decrees and ecclesiastical missives, commoner testimony from criminal cases, and the trials of the Mexican Inquisition reveals a calculated rhetorical strategy that gathered non-European social-cultural experiences into a negative category. Consequently, “excess” provides an analytical framework for understanding how colonial officials interacted with Indigenous peoples and those of African descent as they attempted to impose social order.

While primary sources in non-European languages such as Nahuatl reveal a similar preoccupation with excess, Hagler reveals in this insightful book how incongruities between Nahua and Spanish interpretations of the term extended through the colonial era and generated increasing conflict.

Visit Anderson Hagler's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Behind Sunset"

New from Mysterious Press: Behind Sunset by David Gordon.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this comical noir tale from the acclaimed author of the Joe the Bouncer series, a struggling writer follows a mystery into one of Los Angeles’ darkest corners: the intersection of the porn industry and New Age wellness.

For generations, Hollywood has attracted all sorts of dreamers―and then has slowly crushed their aspirations. Elliott Gross is one such case; fresh out of college, he moved west from New York with hopes of writing for the silver screen and living a life of fame and fortune. A couple of years later, he’s writing for an adult magazine and living in a garage. The year is 1994 and, with the rise of the internet, the era of print pornography is in its twilight, but Raunchy’s owner has enough “catch-and-kill” secrets in the vault to ensure that his power will persist as long as his silence remains valuable.

When Gross is sent to write a profile on the company’s newest starlet, he discovers that she has vanished seemingly without a trace. To find her, he embarks on a twisted journey through a business both seedy and carnivalesque. Rumors of a sensitive VHS tape held in the vault, which may hold the secret to Crystal’s whereabouts, stir around Elliott and he stumbles into a corpse. Before his search can be concluded, a shadow of suspicion falls on Gross and his position is terminated. Then he washes up at a celebrity-anchored New Age wellness brand and discovers a world far darker and more cruel than the porn industry.

Combining David Gordon’s trademark humor with a stylish, unflinching, and unpredictable plot, Behind Sunset is a comic and noir-tinged tour through Tinseltown that uncovers darkness and lightness, in equal measure, from the most unexpected of sources.

Visit David Gordon's blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Serialist.

The Page 69 Test: Mystery Girl.

The Page 69 Test: White Tiger on Snow Mountain.

Writers Read: David Gordon (August 2019).

The Page 69 Test: The Hard Stuff.

Q&A with David Gordon.

The Page 69 Test: The Wild Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"From Subordination to Revolution"

New from the University of California Press: From Subordination to Revolution: A Gramscian Theory of Popular Mobilization by John Chalcraft.

About the book, from the publisher:

At a time of mass discontent, revolutionary weakness, and right-wing ascendancy, John Chalcraft presents a new theory of popular mobilization. From Subordination to Revolution is based on an innovative reading of the living Gramscian tradition, and it offers an alternative to conservative, liberal, Marxist, and poststructuralist theory. Drawing on examples from across the globe, Chalcraft defines popular mobilization as the many ways in which subordinated groups rearrange their relationships to challenge and overcome domination. The theory sets out a fertile constellation of concepts encompassing the many faces and phases of the long journey from subordination to revolution. This approach breaks ground in connecting the social, structural, spatio-temporal, strategic, and transnational elements of popular mobilization. It also enables Chalcraft to situate anew the fundamental issues of domination, autonomy, consent, and leadership and put forward new arguments about party and bloc. The point is to link together diverse popular struggles in the contemporary world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dawn of Fate and Fire"

Coming soon from Harper Voyager: Dawn of Fate and Fire: A Swashbuckling Historical Fantasy of Magic, Rebellion, and Revolution in the Heart of 16th Century Mexico by Mariely Lares.

About the book, from the publisher:

The stunning conclusion to the duology that began with the internationally bestselling Sun of Blood and Ruin, this Zorro reimagining weaves Mesoamerican mythology and sixteenth-century Mexican history into a swashbuckling historical fantasy filled with magic, intrigue, treachery, and romance.

They call her many things. Witch, Nagual Warrior, lady, Pantera. And after defeating the Obsidian Butterfly, Leonora carries a new title: Godslayer.

Peace in Mexico City is fragile. Rebellion brews in the North, and when the people’s safety is at risk, Pantera must once again become the demure viceregent Leonora to stop a war before it begins. But her friends are scattered, Tezca is gone, and one wrong move could seal her fate. Caution is her ally, for the real Prince of Asturias—her former betrothed—has arrived at court, reigniting rumors that Leonora and Pantera are one.

A greater threat looms in the mountains, where a false king seeks to summon the god of night using a weapon of untold power. It’s up to the Godslayer to confront this enemy. . . and the one growing within her. Only by embracing her divine origins can Leonora triumph over the forces of darkness—and maybe even spark a revolution that could change Mexico’s fate forever.

But in doing so, she risks losing herself forever.

Visit Mariely Lares's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Concentration Camps: A Global History"

New from Oxford University Press: Concentration Camps: A Global History by Alan Kramer.

About the book, from the publisher:

A global and comprehensive history of a modern institution of inhumanity.

In popular perception concentration camps are synonymous with genocide and Nazi racial extermination. Yet concentration camps were and are a global phenomenon, not restricted to Nazi Germany, used at times even by democracies, with an astonishing range of functions.

Drawing together a wide range of multi-lingual archival research and synthesising a broad secondary literature, Alan Kramer provides here a comprehensive history of concentration camps, charting their first establishment at the beginning of the twentieth century on the colonial periphery, through their most extreme and inhuman instances in the mid-twentieth century, to their continued use today. Concentration camps are shown to be a truly transnational phenomenon that emerged both simultaneously (within and between imperial spheres―Britain, Spain, the USA, and Germany around 1900), and diachronically (from then to the First World War, the Gulag, and Nazi camps). Such camps existed (and exist) under a variety of regimes, often concomitant with empire-building by revolutionary dictatorships, as sites of genocide, mass murder, and performative violence, but also as central elements of utopian schemes of social and racial transformation. Integrating the perspective of perpetrators and the victims and contextualising them within the historiography of other carceral institutions, the book will reshape the way we think about concentration camps as part of modern civilization, past and present.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Glorious Ruins"

Coming August 12 from Lake Union: Glorious Ruins: A Novel by Judithe Little.

About the book, from the publisher:

Power, love, fame, and catastrophic greed collide in a sweeping historical novel about 1920s Paris based on the enduring friendship between Coco Chanel and world-famous muse Misia Sert.

In 1920s Paris, Misia Sert is a patron and a muse to the most revolutionary artists of the era. She is also profoundly in love with renowned muralist José María “Jojo” Sert, who prizes his wife’s iconoclastic vision and independence. But in Misia’s rarified circle, there is no greater kindred soul than designer Coco Chanel. Two women, two friends, for whom rules do not apply.

Then Misia finds herself challenged by the enigmatic Roussadana Mdivani, a Russian émigré and sculptress who solicits Jojo’s tutelage in service to a rising career of her own. It becomes evident Roussadana wants more from an enamored Jojo than that. Misia recognizes a disrupter when she sees one. Misia, with Coco as her confidante, is ready to fight to maintain her position―in marriage and in Paris―in the most unconventional ways. But the stakes are higher, and the fallout darker, than Misia and Coco can fathom.

Set during Paris’s scandalous années folles, Glorious Ruins is a sweeping novel about an indomitable friendship and the exquisite agonies of art and of love.

Visit Judithe Little's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Back East"

New from the University of Washington Press: Back East: How Westerners Invented a Region by Flannery Burke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Western imaginations of "Back East" rewrote America's cultural identity, shaping myths and realities alike

Just as easterners imagined the American West, westerners imagined the American East, reshaping American culture. Back East flips the script of American regional narratives.

In novels, travel narratives, popular histories, and dude ranch brochures, twentieth-century western US writers saw the East through the lens of their experiences and ambitions. Farmers following the railroad saw capitalists exploiting their labor, while cowboys viewed urban easterners as soft and effete. Westerners of different racial backgrounds, including African Americans and Asian Americans, projected their hopes and critiques onto an East that embodied urbanity, power, and opportunity.

This interplay between “Out West” and “Back East” influenced income inequality, land use, cultural identities, and national government. It fueled myths that reshaped public lands, higher education, and the publishing industry. The cultural exchange was not one-sided; it contributed to modern social sciences and amplified marginalized voices from Chicane poets to Native artists.

By examining how westerners imagined the American East, Back East provides a fresh perspective on the American cultural landscape, offering a deeper understanding of the myths that continue to shape it.

Visit Flannery Burke's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seduction Theory"

Coming soon from Little, Brown and Company: Seduction Theory: A Novel by Emily Adrian.

About the book, from the publisher:

When two married professors tiptoe toward infidelity, their transgressions are brought to light in a graduate student’s searing thesis project.

Simone is the star of Edwards University’s creative writing department: renowned Woolf scholar, grief memoirist, and campus sex icon. Her less glamorous and ostensibly devoted husband, Ethan, is a forgotten novelist and lecturer in the same department. According to Simone and Ethan, and everyone on campus, their marriage is perfect. That is, until Ethan sleeps with the department administrative assistant, Abigail, and the couple’s faith in their flawless relationship is rattled.

Simone, meanwhile, has secrets of her own. While Ethan’s away for the summer, she grows inordinately close with her advisee, graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green. In Robbie, Simone finds a new running partner, confidante, and disciple—or so she believes. Behind Simone’s back, Robbie fictionalizes her mentor’s marriage in a breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis. Determined to tell her version of the story, Robbie paints a revealing portrait of Simone, Ethan, Abigail, and even herself, scratching at the very surface of what may—or may not—be the truth.

Simultaneously provocative and tender, Seduction Theory exposes the intoxicating nature of power and attraction, and is a masterful demonstration of how love and betrayal can coexist.

Visit Emily Adrian's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Emily Adrian & Hank.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sensational Proletarian"

New from Stanford University Press: The Sensational Proletarian: Leftist Cultures in Colonial Korea by Kimberly Chung.

About the book, from the publisher:

Starving ghosts, anguished farmers, and grieving mothers. Floating heads, gaunt bodies, and masses of bodily fluids. Such are the visceral sensations, exaggerated affects, and suffering subjects that characterized leftist Korean cultural production in the 1920s and 1930s. In popular fiction, print cartoons, reportage, and other emergent forms of mass culture, scenes detailing the spectacular bodily harms endured by figures like migrant workers, tenant farmers, and everyday families proliferated. Yet at the time such representations were criticized as excessively grotesque and insufficiently political by leftist intellectuals, and they have subsequently been overlooked by scholars in favor of socialist realism and its dynamic proletarian heroes. The Sensational Proletarian, by contrast, focuses on these textual and visual representations to tell the story of how new affects and everyday experiences introduced by imperial capitalism and colonial modernity were mediated through the lower-class body. Kimberly Chung traces the emergence of "the sensational proletarian" as a central figure of colonial Korean print culture and reads its varied manifestations as emblematic of Korean efforts not only to grapple with modernity, imperialism, and capitalism, but to do so using the new political ideology and imaginary of Marxism. This book brings to light the centrality of sensational cultures in the development of class politics in Korea, an integral relationship that continues throughout modern and contemporary Korean cultural history.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Jenny Cooper Has a Secret"

New from Ballantine Books: Jenny Cooper Has a Secret: A Novel by Joy Fielding.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of All the Wrong Places, a dementia patient reveals a deadly secret—and one woman must decide whether to believe her.

Reeling from her husband’s death and best friend’s dementia diagnosis, seventy-six-year-old Linda Davidson feels lost and alone. Her beloved daughter Kleo and son-in-law Mick have moved into her house to keep her company, but the constant bickering quickly turns their presence into yet another worry on Linda’s long list.

Eager to escape the tension at home, Linda goes to visit her friend at Legacy Place, a memory care facility for the elderly, where she meets Jenny Cooper, a ninety-two-year-old dementia patient who makes a shocking confession: she kills people.

Linda dismisses the so-called secret as the confusion of an ailing mind, but Jenny seems strangely lucid during their visits as she recounts stories of her many victims—mostly men who hurt her. Then a fellow patient at Legacy Place dies. Everyone else sees it as the natural death of an sick old man, but Linda can’t help but wonder: is there any chance Jenny’s telling the truth?

Visit Joy Fielding's website.

The Page 69 Test: Shadow Creek.

My Book, The Movie: Shadow Creek.

The Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching.

My Book, The Movie: Someone Is Watching.

My Book, The Movie: The Bad Daughter.

The Page 69 Test: The Bad Daughter.

My Book, The Movie: All the Wrong Places.

The Page 69 Test: All the Wrong Places.

Writers Read: Joy Fielding (March 2019).

--Marshal Zeringue

"In Pursuit of Prosperity"

New from the University of Michigan Press: In Pursuit of Prosperity: Industrial Policy and the Politics of Economic Upgrading by Charles R. Hankla.

About the book, from the publisher:

With so many states committed to economic transformation, and so many experts ready to provide technical advice on how to achieve it, why does progress so often remain elusive? In Pursuit of Prosperity examines the process of economic upgrading—moving to more valuable activities in production, improving technology, knowledge, and skills, and participating in global value chains—and develops a new theory to explain the form and success of national policies designed to promote it.

Using a mixed-methods approach, Charles R. Hankla draws upon archival research and interviews from France and India as well as quantitative models of sixteen countries across six decades. He finds that when state and private actors are aligned in their institutional structures, which can happen in both corporatist and pluralist systems, industrial policy tends to be more effective. It is when the state or the private sector independently dominates industrial policy that poor outcomes are most likely. As In Pursuit of Prosperity shows, rather than being fixed characteristics of countries, policymaking styles vary across time and across sectors of the economy, reflecting the changing power dynamics and organizational resources of stakeholders. The book sheds light on how industrial policy—which is experiencing a comeback in the United States and beyond—can best be harnessed for upgrading. It offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between state politics and economic performance in the modern globalized world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mistress of Bones"

New from Wednesday Books: Mistress of Bones by Maria Z. Medina.

About the book, from the publisher:

An epic, multi-POV debut fantasy perfect for fans of The Bone Shard Daughter and Six of Crows, where a necromancer trying to resurrect her sister gets embroiled in bigger, world-ending plans instead

Necromancer Azul del Arroyo only wants one thing: to steal her sister back from Death by reclaiming her sister’s bones. But the Emissary of the Lord Death will do anything to stop her, no matter how alluring he finds her . . .

As their paths collide, they’re drawn into a deadly game of pawns and power with a count who begrudgingly works for a child king, a faceless witch who transforms the bones of gods into dreams she can peddle, and a long-lost half-brother with a secret of his own—and soon realize the fate of the lands is hanging in the balance.

For long ago the gods raised the continents, binding them with their own bones to keep humanity alive. But in an era when the gods’ sacrifice has been forgotten, Death might not be the only resentful god Azul must defy.

Swashbuckling, grand, and tragically romantic, Mistress of Bones is a can't-miss start to a duology about love, loss, and, of course, death.

Visit Maria Z. Medina's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Middlebrow Musical"

New from Oxford University Press: The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America by James O'Leary.

About the book, from the publisher:

Rattled by two world wars, ongoing discrimination, and economic calamity, a group of critics in 1940s New York sought to promote art that would do nothing less than heal the world. The primary obstacle to this project, they believed, was that American culture had splintered into factions, which in turn divided American audiences: highbrow art, which these writers regarded as obscure and elitist; folk art, which they found provincial and alienating; and popular culture, which they considered merely commercial. Blending these kinds of art, they argued, could draw together a fractured society into mutual understanding (if not necessarily agreement) by situating the most sophisticated ideas within longstanding expressive traditions, accessible to all. Their contemporaries called this culture “middlebrow” and believed that its culmination appeared on Broadway.

The Middlebrow Musical straddles the study of popular musical theater and opera, and in so doing charts a new path through modernism. Through detailed archival work, this book uncovers the crucial critical networks that originally theorized a middlebrow approach to culture, beginning in the literary circles of Van Wyck Brooks and Archibald MacLeish, and radiating outward to major theater and music critics including Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes. Their broad influence on theater becomes clear as this book follows three shows from their earliest conceptions to their opening-night reviews: Richard Rodgers's and Oscar Hammerstein II's Oklahoma!, Duke Ellington's and John Latouche's Beggar's Holiday, and Kurt Weill's, Elmer Rice's, and Langston Hughes's Street Scene. Each chapter features behind-the-scenes communications, which reveal how these Broadway writers explicitly deployed middlebrow theories to negotiate high-art aspirations toward operas, symphonies, and experimental theater; toward contemporary folk-music studies; and toward popular-culture accessibility, all with civic intentions of pulling disparate audiences together into a thoughtful reflection upon the modern, war-torn world.

While The Middlebrow Musical focuses on Broadway, it also offers new strategies for understanding the relationship between popular and highbrow culture during the early decades of the twentieth century. Compared to the experiments of high modernism, many of the works featured in this book have struck previous scholars as conservative or cautious. The Middlebrow Musical invites readers to take another look, to consider the forgotten principles that inspired these works, and to recognize them as equally daring and controversial contributions to twentieth-century art.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dwelling"

New from Farrar, Straus and Giroux: Dwelling: A Novel by Emily Hunt Kivel.

About the book, from the publisher:

A dazzling, surrealist fairy tale of a young woman's quest for house and home—from New York to the Texas hinterlands and, maybe, back again.

The world is ending. It has been ending for some time. When did the ending begin? Perhaps when Evie’s mother died, or when her father died soon after. Perhaps when her sister, Elena, was forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric hippie commune in Colorado. Certainly at some point over the last year, as New York City spun down the tubes, as bedbugs and vultures descended, as apartments crumbled to the ground and no one had the time or money to fight it, or even, really, to notice.

And then, one day, the ending is complete. Every renter is evicted en masse, leaving only the landlords and owners—the demented, the aristocratic, the luckiest few. Evie—parentless, sisterless, basically friendless, underemployed—has nothing and no one. Except, she remembers, a second cousin in Texas, in a strange town called Gulluck, where nothing is as it seems.

And so, in the surreal, dislodged landscape, beyond the known world, a place of albino cicadas and gardeners and thieves, of cobblers and shoemakers and one very large fish, a place governed by mysterious logic and perhaps even miracles, Evie sets out in search of a home.

A wry and buoyant fairy tale set at the apex of the housing crisis, Emily Hunt Kivel’s Dwelling takes us on a hapless hero’s journey to the end of the world and back again. Madcap and magical, hilarious and existential, Dwelling holds a funhouse mirror to our mome

Visit Emily Hunt Kivel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Native America"

New from Princeton University Press: Native America: The Story of the First Peoples by Kenneth L. Feder.

About the book, from the publisher:

An epic deep history of the Indigenous peoples of North America, covering more than 20,000 years of astonishing diversity, adaptation, resilience, and continuity

Native America presents an infinitely surprising and fascinating deep history of the continent’s Indigenous peoples. Kenneth Feder, a leading expert on Native American history and archaeology, draws on archaeological, historical, and cultural evidence to tell the ongoing story, more than 20,000 years in the making, of an incredibly resilient and diverse mixture of peoples, revealing how they have ingeniously adapted to the many changing environments of the continent, from the Arctic to the desert Southwest.

Richly illustrated, Native America introduces close to a hundred different peoples, each with their own language, economic and social system, and religious beliefs. Here, we meet the Pequot, Tunxis, Iroquois, and Huron of the Northeast; the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Apache of the Southwest; the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Lakota of the Northern Plains; the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish of the Northwest Coast; the Tule River and Mohave of Southern California; the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole of the Southeast; and the Inuit and Kalaallit of the Arctic. We learn about hunters of enormous Ice Age beasts; people who raised stone toolmaking to the level of art; a Native American empire ruled by a king and queen, with a huge city at its center and colonies hundreds of miles away; a society that made the desert bloom by designing complex irrigation networks; brilliant architects who built fairy castles in sandstone cliffs; and artists who produced beautiful and moving petroglyphs and pictographs that reflect their deep thinking about history, the sacred, the land, and the sky.

Native America is not about peoples of the past, but vibrant, living ones with an epic history of genius and tenacity—a history that everyone should know.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mess"

Coming August 12 from Harper Perennial: Mess: A Sharp and Witty Tale of a Perfectionist Organizer Battling the Chaos of Hollywood and Her Own Heart by Michael Chessler.

About the book, from the publisher:

Marie Kondo meets The Real Housewives in this charming and perceptive story of a professional organizer to Hollywood’s elite who learns to find love and acceptance amid the messiness of life.

To the world, Jane Brown, a Los-Angeles based professional organizer, is a model of composure and reticence. But inside, she’s fiercely judgmental and critical of herself and others. A lover of order and tidiness, she struggles to accept the world’s exasperating messiness of both her own clients—a superficial sphere of influencers and rich creatives—and her live-in boyfriend, who is becoming as aggravating as he is comforting.

When she arrives at the home of a new client, a has-been Hollywood actress—a woman opposite to her in every way—Jane finds herself unexpectedly moved. Realizing how desperately she wants to lower her defenses and open her heart, Jane decides to declutter the mess of her own mindset. Organizing her own feelings turns out to be the most daunting job she’s ever tackled, but one that promises big rewards if she succeeds, including freedom—and even love.

Set against the dazzlingly rich, beautiful, and shallow world of Hollywood money and mansions, Mess is an honest, heartfelt, and often hilarious response to the disorder of our lives today.

Visit Michael Chessler's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Explaining our Actions"

New from Cambridge University Press: Explaining our Actions: A Critique of Common-Sense Theorizing by Peter Carruthers.

About the book, from the publisher:

We often explain our actions and those of others using a commonsense framework of perceptions, beliefs, desires, emotions, decisions, and intentions. In his thoughtful new book, Peter Carruthers scrutinizes this everyday explanation for our actions, while also examining the explanatory framework through the lens of cutting-edge cognitive science. He shows that the 'standard model' of belief–desire psychology (developed, in fact, with scant regard for science) is only partly valid; that there are more types of action and action-explanation than the model allows; and that both ordinary folk and armchair philosophers are importantly mistaken about the types of mental state that the human mind contains. His book will be of great value to all those who rely in their work on assumptions drawn from commonsense psychology, whether in philosophy of mind, epistemology, moral psychology, ethics, or psychology itself. It will also be attractive to anyone with an interest in human motivation.

The Page 99 Test: Human Motives.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What's Yours Is Mine"

Coming soon from Lake Union: What's Yours Is Mine: A Novel by Jennifer Jabaley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Determined daughters. Controlling mothers. There’s no such thing as friendly competition in a twisty novel of suspense about ambition, revenge, and unrealized dreams.

Valerie Yarnell is a hardworking single mother who’d do anything for her daughter, Kate. Kate is a dancer with dreams of stardom, just like her talented best friend, Colette. Despite Valerie’s sacrifices, it’s Colette’s mother, former prima ballerina Elise, whom Kate adores. And Colette has become like the practically perfect sister Kate never had. How can Valerie not feel frustrated, ineffectual, and a little jealous of the queen bee of dance moms? Not only has she hijacked her daughter, but Elise is married to the man Valerie pines for.

Rivalries are forming. Tension is mounting. In preparation for an elite dance competition, Kate outshines the more promising Colette onstage, and the pressure is on for Colette to keep her position in the spotlight―and especially to keep her demanding mother happy. Who could have foreseen the violent attack that sabotages everything? Anyone who’s been watching closely.

As ruthless and sinister ambitions are exposed, a media firestorm and an explosive town scandal erupt. Before it’s over, two mothers and two daughters will learn just how fierce and dangerous a rivalry can still get.

Visit Jennifer Jabaley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Industrial Islamism"

New from the University of California Press: Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian Movements Mobilize Workers by Utku Baris Balaban.

About the book, from the publisher:

Industrial Islamism analyzes the relationship, since the end of the Cold War, between the rise of political Islamism in Muslim-majority countries and the rise of a new global "middle class" of industrial entrepreneurs. Challenging common assumptions, Utku Balaban questions the idea that political Islamism represents the antithesis of Western modernity and industrialization. On the contrary: the more enthusiastically a Muslim-majority country industrializes, the more "Islamized" its politics becomes.

The book focuses on Turkey, historically the most industrialized Muslim-majority country in the world, with the most successful Islamist movement and a relatively competitive electoral system. It provides a fine-grained historical and ethnographic analysis at the local level of urban-industrial control over workers in sweatshops and working-class neighborhoods by this new global middle class, whom Balaban calls the faubourgeoisie. As the central actor behind Turkey's post–Cold War industrialization, the faubourgeoisie allies with the Islamist movement to control its workers and significantly influence national politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mad Sisters of Esi"

Coming soon from DAW Books: Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta.

About the book, from the publisher:

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi meets Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler in this stunning meta fantasy about the power of stories, belief, and sisterhood

Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel—until Myung flees, beginning an adventure that will spin her through dreams, memories, and myths

Ask for the story of the mad sisters of Esi, and you’ll get a thousand contradictory folktales. Superstitious sailors, curious children, and obsessed academics have argued over the particulars for generations. They have wondered about the mad sisters’ two greatest marvels: the museum of collective memory that sprawls underneath our universe, waiting for any who call for it, and the living, impossible, whale of babel.

Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to their creator, the Great Wisa. For Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.

When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe full of people, shapeshifting islands, and argumentative ghosts. In her search for Great Wisa and her longing for her sister Laleh, Myung sets off on an adventure that will unravel the mystery that has confounded everyone for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.

Fables, dreams and myths come together in a masterful work of fantasy full of wonder and awe, that asks: in the devastating chaos of the world, where all is in flux, and the truth is ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to? And what stories will you choose to tell?

Visit Tashan Mehta's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"In God's Image"

New from NYU Press: In God's Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea by Tomer Persico.

About the book, from the publisher:

The idea that all human beings were created in God’s image was core to the creation of the modern West

In God’s Image examines the central role that the idea that all people were created in the image of God played in the development of Western civilization. Focusing on five themes―selfhood, freedom, conscience, equality, and meaning―the book guides the reader through a cultural history of the West, from ancient times through modernity. It explains how each of these ideals was profoundly influenced by the central biblical conception of humanity’s creation in God’s image, embracing an essential equality among all people, while also emphasizing each human life’s singularity and significance.

The book argues that the West, and particularly Protestant Christianity, grew out of ideas rooted deeply in this notion, and that it played a core role in the development of individualism, liberalism, human rights discourse, and indeed the secularization process. Making the case for a cultural understanding of history, the volume focuses on ideas as agents of change and challenges the common scholarly emphasis on material conditions. Offering an innovative perspective on the shaping of global modernity, In God’s Image examines the relationship between faith and society and posits the fundamental role of the idea of the image of God in the making of the moral ideals and social institutions we hold dear today.

Visit Tomer Persico's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"I'll Follow You"

Coming October 1 from Mindy's Book Studio: I'll Follow You: A Novel by Charlene Wang.

About the book, from the publisher:

For two best friends desperate to escape their dead-end town, a viral online persona becomes a dangerous game of control in a twisting psychological thriller about class, power, and identity.

Faith and her charismatic best friend, Kayla, always vowed to escape their trailer park together. After their social media persona, Hannah Primrose, goes viral, their fates seem more entwined than ever. But when Faith is accepted into prestigious Harkness College, she must decide whether to keep her promise to Kayla or learn to tell her own story.

By the time Faith arrives on campus, Kayla is no longer speaking with her. Struggling to fit in with her wealthy classmates, Faith reinvents herself, drawing the attention of her enigmatic art history professor. Then Kayla shows up outside her dormitory one night. I need to stay with you.

Having Kayla on campus is thrilling―and dangerous. Posing as a student, Kayla charms everyone she encounters, and soon enough they’re posting together again. Hannah Primrose, after all, is perfect for a place like Harkness. But as Faith risks her future for the persona she helped create, she begins to realize that Kayla is playing a deadly game…and it may be too late to regain control of the narrative.

Visit Charlene Wang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Operation Wrath of God"

Coming August 7 from Cambridge University Press: Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign by Aviva Guttmann.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this unprecedented history of intelligence cooperation during the Cold War, Aviva Guttmann uncovers the key role of European intelligence agencies in facilitating Mossad's Operation Wrath of God. She reveals how, in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre, Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorism were hunted and killed by Mossad with active European cooperation. Through unique access to unredacted documents in the Club de Berne archive, she shows how a secret coalition of intelligence agencies supplied Mossad with information about Palestinians on a colossal scale and tacitly supported Israeli covert actions on European soil. These agencies helped to anticipate and thwart a number of Palestinian terrorist plots, including some revealed here for the first time. This extraordinary book reconstructs the hidden world of international intelligence, showing how this parallel order enabled state relations to be pursued independently of official foreign policy constraints or public scrutiny.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Bluest Night"

Coming October 7 from Severn House: The Bluest Night by Aaron Philip Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

A Black cop turned PI. An unspeakable crime. A Californian beach town ready to combust. The new shocking, completely gripping Trevor Finnegan thriller.

Families are complicated. Former LAPD detective turned private investigator Trevor Finnegan might have only just learned he has an adult half-brother, but when Avery Dixion goes missing along with his girlfriend Keisha, he springs into action to track his sibling down. Trevor knows from his time in law enforcement that missing Black folk are often at the bottom of the cops’ priority list, and soon his worst fears are realized when Keisha is found dead in Malibu―and Avery is suspected of the crime.

What were Avery and Keisha doing in Malibu when they had arranged to meet Trevor’s father, Shaun “Pop” Finnegan, for the first time in Palm Springs? And if Avery killed his girlfriend, why is he so badly beaten that he can barely remember his own name?

Convinced his brother’s no killer, Trevor turns to a dangerous former client, wealthy Malibu resident Cassandra Boyle, for help navigating the inner workings of the conservative beach town. But the deeper Trevor digs into what really happened to Keisha, the closer he gets to a deadly conspiracy so vast and vile that if he survives he’ll never be the same again.

Visit Aaron Philip Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: Under Color of Law.

The Page 69 Test: Blue Like Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Josephus and Jesus"

Coming August 22 from Oxford University Press: Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T. C. Schmidt.

About the book, from the publisher:

This book brings to light an extraordinary connection between Jesus of Nazareth and the Jewish historian Josephus. Writing in 93/94 CE, Josephus composed an account of Jesus known as the Testimonium Flavianum. Despite this being the oldest description of Jesus by a non-Christian, scholars have long doubted its authenticity due to the alleged pro-Christian claims it contains. This book, however, authenticates Josephus' authorship of the Testimonium Flavianum and reveals a startling observation: Josephus was directly familiar with those who put Jesus on trial. Consequently, Josephus would have had access to highly reliable information about the man from Nazareth. The book concludes by describing what Josephus tells us about the Jesus of history, his miracles, and his resurrection.

Visit T. C. Schmidt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Housewarming"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Housewarming: A Novel by Kristin Offiler.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a haunting novel of psychological suspense, a summer getaway gone wrong rips apart a group of lifelong friends, thrusting their story into the true crime spotlight―and potentially their secrets, too.

For five friends vacationing on Block Island, it was a summer to remember. How could they forget it when only four made it back to the mainland?

Now, half a decade after Zoe Gilbert’s unsolved disappearance, Callie Sutter invites estranged friends Meg, Tess, and Lindsey―the last to see Zoe on that fateful trip―to reunite on the anniversary of the mystery that tore them apart. Back on Block Island, Callie reasons, they can come together again, memorialize Zoe, allay old resentments and recriminations, and put the past to rest. But it won’t be so easy. Patricia Adele, a true crime podcaster who once made a name for herself by casting suspicion on Zoe’s surviving friends all those years ago, is most eager for the reunion. She’s resurfaced with a book proposal claiming to expose them all as cold-blooded liars and conspirators in a crime once and for all.

Driven by self-preservation, the women must reckon with their long-held secrets and shared history if they’re to find out what really happened to Zoe on that hot August day. But will the truth set them free or condemn them all? No one is prepared to find out.

Visit Kristin Offiler's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bankers' Trust"

New from Cornell University Press: Bankers' Trust: How Social Relations Avert Global Financial Collapse by Aditi Sahasrabuddhe.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Bankers' Trust, Aditi Sahasrabuddhe reveals a crucial element behind the resolution of global financial crises: trust between central bank leaders.

Central bank cooperation during global financial crises has been anything but consistent. While some crises are arrested with extensive cooperation, others are left to spiral. Going beyond explanations based on state power, interests, or resources, Sahasrabuddhe argues that central bank cooperation—or the lack thereof—often boils down to ties of trust, familiarity, and goodwill between bank leaders. These personal relations influence the likelihood of access to ad hoc, bilateral arrangements with more favorable terms.

Drawing on archival evidence and elite interviews, Sahasrabuddhe uncovers just how critical interpersonal trust between central bankers has been in managing global financial crises. She tracks the emergence of such relationships in the interwar 1920s, how they helped prop up the Bretton Woods system in the 1960s, and how they prevented the 2008 global financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression. When traditional signals of credibility fell short during these periods of crisis and uncertainty, established ties of trust between central bank leaders mediated risk calculations, alleviated concerns, and helped innovate less costly solutions.

Sahasrabuddhe challenges the idea that central banking is purely apolitical and technocratic. She pinpoints the unique transnational power central bank leaders hold as unelected figures who nonetheless play key roles in managing states' economies. By calling attention to the influence personal relationships can have on whether countries sink or swim during crises, Bankers' Trust asks us to reconsider the transparency and democratic accountability of global financial governance today.

Visit Aditi Sahasrabuddhe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"One Killer Night"

Coming October 14 from Montlake: One Killer Night (To Die For Book 1) by Trilina Pucci.

About the book, from the publisher:

USA Today bestselling author Trilina Pucci cranks up the heat in this sexy slasher filled with dark family secrets, classic horror tropes, and banter as sharp as a deranged killer’s knife.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

Love will stab you from behind.

It’s Halloween night, and out-of-work writer Goldie Monroe’s trip to the drugstore scares up more than the fake blood she’s looking for. It leads to the man of her naughtiest dreams. And in spite of her costume, sparks fly from the moment they meet.

Noah Adler, aspiring sneaker designer, is impossibly gorgeous―like a tatted-up version of Goldie’s favorite blue-eyed vampire. He’s there for candy, but it’s Goldie he can’t resist. When she invites him to her sister’s F/X company bash, he’s all in without a second thought.

The pair’s flirty connection heats up fast, carrying them to electrifying new heights. But after Goldie discovers Noah is hiding a dark secret, it all starts to crumble. Looking for answers about her own past awakens new dangers, and when Goldie and Noah land at a slasher camp for adults, a deadly tragedy threatens to repeat itself. If they can survive this one killer night, they can definitely slay a happily ever after.

Visit Trilina Pucci's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rewiring Democracy"

Coming October 21 from The MIT Press: Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship by Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Hacker's Mind and Data & Goliath, an informative and wide-ranging exploration of how AI will alter every facet of democracy, and how to harness the technology to distribute rather than concentrate power.

AI will change democracy. The only question is how.

AI’s impact on democracy will go far beyond headline-grabbing political deepfakes and automated misinformation. Everywhere it will be used, it will create risks and opportunities to shake up long-standing power structures.

In this highly readable and advisedly optimistic book, Rewiring Democracy, security technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan Sanders cut through the AI hype and examine the myriad ways that AI could dramatically change every aspect of democracy— for both good and ill.

The authors describe how the sophistication of AI will fulfill demands from lawmakers for more complex legislation, reducing deference to the executive and altering the balance of power between legislators and administrators. They show how the scalability of AI is enabling civil servants to enforce regulations on corporations used to skirting the rules, which will reshape private-sector behavior. They also explain how both lawyers and judges will leverage the speed of AI, upending how we think about law enforcement, litigation, and dispute resolution.

Whether these outcomes enhance or degrade democracy depends on how we shape the development and use of AI technologies. Powerful players in private industry and public life are already using AI to increase their influence, and AIs built by corporations to drive shareholder value aren’t designed to deliver the fairness and trust necessary to enhance democratic governance. But, steered in the right direction, the broad scope of an AI-augmented democracy would help citizens build consensus, express their voice, and organize against anti-democratic policies.

Democracy is facing new challenges worldwide, and AI will be a part of that. It can inform, empower, and engage citizens. It can also disinform, disempower, and disengage them. The choice is up to us. Schneier and Sanders blaze the path forward, showing us how we can use it to make an AI-infused democracy stronger and more participatory.

The Page 99 Test: Bruce Schneier's Liars and Outliers.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Literati"

Coming September 9 from Harper Muse: The Literati: A Novel by Susan Coll.

About the book, from the publisher:

An unexpected catastrophe of literary proportions...

Aspirant, bookish, and close to broke, 26-year-old Clemi steps into her dream job at a prestigious literary nonprofit and finds herself in the bull's eye of a financial, legal, and existential calamity. The executive director has disappeared, leaving behind an inscrutable cat to which she is highly allergic. Meanwhile, the bank accounts have been overdrawn, the FBI is asking questions, and she has three days to pull off the annual fundraising gala, a glamorous affair filled with famous writers and local literati.

On the upside, she will get to meet her all-time favorite writer, who has won the award. Clemi has read and reread her novels, pouring over her every word. But her interactions with the author and her eight-year-old son, as well as with the nonprofit's Board Members, leave her wondering whether certain writers are better on the page than in person.

All the while, Clemi is trying to sort out her own life: her current boyfriend is, like every boyfriend before him, a pompous poseur, and the clock is running on her apartment-sitting gig. She finds herself wondering what all the goings-on in this dysfunctional, scandal-plagued nonprofit have to do with literature. And if it's time to let go of her literary aspirations and apply to law school.

In the week in which this madcap story unfolds, USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Coll weaves together a charmingly witty and warm comedy of manners that offers a peek behind the literary curtain--one that anyone who's ever been a little bit uncertain of what the future might hold can relate to.

Visit Susan Coll's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Susan Coll & Zoe.

The Page 69 Test: Acceptance.

The Page 69 Test: Beach Week.

The Page 69 Test: The Stager.

The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Swiftynomics"

Coming January 2026 from the University of California Press: Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy by Misty L. Heggeness.

About the book, from the publisher:

A feminist romp through pop culture that illuminates how women impact and shape the economy.

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé aren’t just pop megastars. They are working women, whose astounding accomplishments defy patriarchal norms. And while not all women can be Rihanna or Dolly Parton or Reese Witherspoon, their successes help us understand the central role of everyday women in today’s economy.

Swiftynomics assesses the complex economic lives of American women. Drawing insights from pathbreakers like Taylor Swift, Misty Heggeness digs into the data revealing women’s hidden contributions and aspirations—the unexamined value they create by following their own ambitions. She confronts misconceptions about the roles women play in today’s economy by highlighting the abundance of productive activity occurring in their daily lives and acknowledging the barriers they still face.

Lighthearted but substantive, Swiftynomics explores critical reforms like paying caregivers for work on behalf of their families and collecting statistical documentation of gendered labor that currently goes unrecognized. Heggeness also offers advice for women so they can thrive in an economy that was not built for them.

Visit Misty L. Heggeness's website.

--Marshal Zeringue