"The Island of Last Things"

New from Flatiron Books: The Island of Last Things: A Novel by Emma Sloley.

About the book, from the publisher:

A SOARING, PROPULSIVE, AND UNFORGETTABLE novel about two zookeepers at the last zoo in the world

“Sometimes a new author will sidle up and whisper in your ear, and sometimes she’ll grab you by the neck. Emma Sloley is in the latter camp.” ―REBECCA MAKKAI

Camille has always preferred animals to people. The wild has nearly disappeared, but as a zookeeper at the last zoo in the world, on Alcatraz Island, she spends her days caring for playful chimpanzees, gentle tree frogs, and a restless jaguar. Outside, resistance groups and brutal cartels fight to shape the world’s future, but Camille is safe within her routines. That is, until a new zookeeper, Sailor, arrives from Paris.

From their first meeting, Camille is drawn to Sailor, who seems to see something in Camille that no one has before. They bond over their shared passions and dream up ways to improve their lives. When Sailor whispers the story of an idyllic, secret sanctuary where wild animals roam free, Camille begins to imagine a new kind of life with Sailor by her side.

Sailor knows all too well the dangers beyond Alcatraz, but she increasingly chafes at the zoo’s rigid rules. She hatches a reckless plan to smuggle one of the most prized animals off the island to freedom, and invites Camille to join her. The consequences if they fail would be catastrophic, and Sailor’s contacts at the sanctuary go dark just as the threats from the cartels grow more extreme. Camille must decide if she’s ready to risk everything for the promise of a better world.

Propulsive and fiercely hopeful, with a heart-stopping final twist, The Island of Last Things is an elegy for a disappearing world and a gorgeous vision for the future.

Visit Emma Sloley's website.

Writers Read: Emma Sloley (December 2019).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Type V City"

New from the University of Texas Press: The Type V City: Codifying Material Inequity in Urban America by Jeana Ripple.

About the book, from the publisher:

How building codes shaped material, social, and environmental landscapes in American cities.

Almost every American city contains neighborhoods dominated by wood frame construction—light, cheap, combustible, and requiring the lowest upfront investment of labor and material in the building industry. Known as a Type V (five) construction in the terminology of building codes, these buildings became ubiquitous in the American urban landscape thanks to the abundance of timber, housing affordability aspirations, and the adoption of a uniform code.

In The Type V City, Jeana Ripple examines the social and spatial history of building codes and material patterns in five cities—New York, Tampa, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Seattle—to reframe the stories of America’s building priorities, methods, negotiations, and assumptions. By examining the development of building materials and codes alongside the environmental, social, economic, and political context of each city’s development, Ripple reveals previously overlooked connections between the power structures underpinning regulatory evolution and the impacts that lay just beyond the frame of city builders’ priorities. Handsomely illustrated and informed by both archival research and insights enabled by contemporary data analysis, The Type V City critiques the homogenous construction practices underlying US urbanization and raises pointed questions for future generations of data-driven city planners and architects.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Close Call"

Coming soon from Thomas & Mercer: Close Call (Kate Green, book 3) by Elise Hart Kipness.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a hard-hitting thriller from the author of Lights Out and Dangerous Play, reporter Kate Green courts danger once again when the famous subject of her next story is kidnapped during the US Open.

With a hard-won Emmy now gracing her mantel, sports reporter and former Olympian Kate Green turns her energy to the action unfolding in Flushing Meadows. Working on a feature for her weekly TV show, she spotlights two of today’s biggest female tennis stars: the sunny up-and-comer and the brash veteran. But the project goes sideways when one turns up missing.

Following an interview with Kate, one player receives a sinister text with a disturbing photo of the other woman, bound and gagged. Kate calls on her estranged father, an NYPD detective, for help in launching a search. Although wary he’s hiding something, she’s not sure where else to turn.

Their investigation leads to the victim’s hometown―and a growing list of suspects. The kidnapper threatens to spill secrets that could destroy lives. Tangled up in a deadly web of deceit, Kate races to connect the dots and find the missing player…before it’s too late.

Visit Elise Hart Kipness's website.

The Page 69 Test: Lights Out.

Q&A with Elise Hart Kipness.

The Page 69 Test: Dangerous Play.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Colonization of Names"

New from Columbia University Press: The Colonization of Names: Symbolic Violence and France’s Occupation of Algeria by Benjamin Brower.

About the book, from the publisher:

French colonization dismantled Algerian names. Under the occupation that began in 1830, not only were Algerian towns and streets renamed in honor of French figures, but personal names were forced to follow French conventions and norms. Colonial authorities simplified and transformed Algerian names to suit their administrative and legal purposes, crudely transcribing and transliterating Arabic and Berber. They imposed a two-part name and surname model that stripped away the extended family ties and social context inherent to precolonial naming practices.

This groundbreaking history of personal names in nineteenth-century Algeria sheds new light on the symbolic violence of renaming and the relationship between language and colonialism. Benjamin Claude Brower traces the changes Algerians’ personal names suffered during the colonial era and the consequences for individuals and society. France’s imposition of new names, he argues, destabilized Algerians’ sense of self and place in the community, distorted local identities, and compromised institutions such as the family. Drawing on previously unstudied records, Brower examines different northwestern African naming traditions and how colonialism changed them. With the aid of literary and critical theory, he develops new insights into the name and its relationship to power and subjectivity. A rigorous theoretical and historical account of symbolic violence, The Colonization of Names unveils many unseen forms of harm under colonial rule.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Playback"

New from Rare Bird Books: Playback by Carla Malden.

About the book, from the publisher:

Witty, touching, and insightful, Playback revisits the 17-year-old Mari Caldwell of Shine Until Tomorrow, now 34, to tell the story of a woman obsessed with the past who must risk the future to learn to live in the present “Once upon a time there was a summer.”

That’s the way the bedtime story starts, the one Mari Caldwell tells her little girl. It’s also her secret story of waking up one day in San Francisco, 1967, having time-traveled to the tie-dyed Summer of Love.

But she was seventeen then. Now, at 34, where Mari once saw 60’s idealism, she now sees only disillusionment. Newly divorced and stuck in a settled-for career, Mari’s failed at giving her child the perfect family she’d envisioned. That weird weekend in the sixties— the rock band she crashed with, the musician she loved, the hit song he wrote for her— lives in the way-back of her mind. Did it even happen? She’s not so sure… Until it happens again.

Playback rewinds Mari’s life as she makes a second visit to Haight-Ashbury in 1967, now autumn. The band, Mari’s rival, and her first love all see the 17-year-old girl they met in June. But inside, adult Mari faces both tender and devastating choices. What if, regardless of how the times have a-changed, love changes everything after all? What if it even changes her?

Visit Carla Malden's website.

-Marshal Zeringue

"The God and the Bureaucrat"

New from Cambridge University Press: The God and the Bureaucrat: Roman Law, Imperial Sovereignty, and Other Stories by Zachary Herz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why is Roman law so boring? In this book, Zachary Herz argues that the bureaucratic, positivistic world of Roman law is not a distraction from the violent autocracy of the Roman empire, but an imagined escape. Lawyers, bureaucrats, and even emperors used legal writing to think about worlds that were safer or fairer than the one in which they lived. This archive of political imagination slowly became a law-code, and now guides readers through a legal system about which its authors could only dream. From Augustus to Justinian, this book shows how law symbolized order in chaotic times, and how that symbol eventually took on a life of its own. From the enlightened judgements of Hadrian to the great jurists and child rulers of Severan Rome, Herz reveals what Romans were really talking about when they talked about law.

Visit Zachary Herz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"House of Monstrous Women"

New from Berkley: House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama.

About the book, from the publisher:

A young woman is drawn into a dangerous game after being invited to the mazelike home of her childhood friend, a rumored witch, in this gothic horror set in 1986 Philippines.

In this game, there’s one rule: survive.

Orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, Josephine is alone taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where revolution brews. But an unexpected invitation from her childhood friend Hiraya to her house offers an escape. . . .

Why don’t you come visit, and we can play games like we used to?

If Josephine wins, she’ll get whatever her heart desires. Her brother is invited, too, and it’s time they had a talk. Josephine’s heard the dark whispers: Hiraya is a witch and her family spits curses. But still, she’s just desperate enough to seize this chance to change her destiny.

Except the Ranoco house is strange, labyrinthine, and dangerously close to a treacherous sea. A sickly-sweet smell clings to the dimly lit walls, and veiled eyes follow Josephine through endless connecting rooms. The air is tense with secrets, and as the game continues it’s clear Josephine doesn’t have the whole truth.

To save herself, she will have to play to win. But in this house, victory is earned with blood.

A lush new voice in horror arises in this riveting gothic set against the upheaval of 1986 Philippines and the People Power Revolution.

Visit Daphne Fama's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"House of Diggs"

Coming September 25 from the University of North Carolina Press: House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr. by Marion Orr.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922–1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan's first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till's killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the Congressional Black Caucus. He was also the chief architect of legislation that restored home rule to Washington, DC, and almost single-handedly ignited the American anti-apartheid movement in the 1960s. Drawing on extensive archival research, including Diggs's rarely seen personal papers, FBI documents, and original interviews with family members and political associates, political scientist Marion Orr reveals that Diggs practiced a politics of strategic moderation. Orr argues that this quiet approach was more effective than the militant race politics practiced by Adam Clayton Powell and more appealing than the conservative Chicago-style approach of William Dawson—two of Diggs's better-known Black contemporaries.

Vividly written and deeply researched, House of Diggs is the first biography of Congressman Charles C. Diggs Jr., one of the most consequential Black federal legislators in US history. Congressman Diggs was a legislative lion whose unfortunate downfall punctuated his distinguished career and pushed him and his historic accomplishments out of sight. Now, for the first time, House of Diggs restores him to his much-deserved place in the history of American politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Hunger"

New from Simon & Schuster: What Hunger: A Novel by Catherine Dang.

About the book, from the publisher:

A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nguyen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood, for fans of Jennifer’s Body and Little Fires Everywhere.

It's the summer before high school, and Ronny Nguyen finds herself too young for work, too old for cartoons. Her days are spent in a small backyard, dozing off to trashy magazines on a plastic lawn chair. In stark contrast stands her brother Tommy, the pride and joy of their immigrant parents: a popular honor student destined to be the first in the family to attend college. The thought of Tommy leaving for college fills Ronny with dread, as she contemplates the quiet house she will be left alone in with her parents, Me and Ba.

Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. The family's meals are a tapestry of cultural memory: thick spring rolls with slim and salty nem chua, and steaming bowls of pho tái with thin, delicate slices of blood-red beef. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.

But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended. Her sense of self and her understanding of her family are shattered. A few nights later, at her first high school party, a boy crosses the line, and Ronny is overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for raw meat, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.

What Hunger is a visceral, emotional journey through the bursts and pitfalls of female rage. Ronny's Vietnamese lineage and her mother's emotional memory play a crucial role in this tender ode to generational trauma and mother-daughter bonding.

Visit Catherine Dang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Slavery's Medicine"

Coming August 22 from the University of Virginia Press: Slavery's Medicine: Illness and Labor in the British Plantation Caribbean by Claire E. Gherini.

About the book, from the publisher:

Healthcare and hierarchy in Caribbean plantation slavery

From their inception, British Caribbean sugar plantations generated wealth on the basis of nightmarish systems of labor exploitation, where illness was a constant of enslaved life. Then, in the second half of the eighteenth century, plantation owners tried to “improve” plantation slavery, targeting medicine and healing. But rather than improve rates of illness, they sought instead to make the work of medicine and care more economically predictable and efficient and to hurry the sick back to work. Healthcare became an arena for contests for power, as people struggled with one another over the terms of their work and how they recovered from illness. Slavery's Medicine uses a rich and substantial archival base to document the experiences of the sick, managers, doctors, absentee plantation owners, enslaved healers, and medical advice authors in this new, modern system of body management. Modern medicine ultimately sustained hierarchies among enslaved people and middling whites. Yet modern medicine also encouraged acts of resistance. It was, therefore, the creation of proprietors as well as enslaved men and women themselves.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Mango Murders"

New from Crooked Lane Books: The Mango Murders: A Key West Food Critic Mystery by Lucy Burdette.

About the book, from the publisher:

The turquoise waters of Key West are stained with pink in this explosive 15th installment of the Key West Food Critic mysteries from USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette.

Food critic Hayley Snow’s employer, Key Zest, is throwing the event of the season, a lavish cocktail party catered by Janet Snow, Hayley’s mother. As Hayley boards the luxurious cruise, she anticipates a smooth sailing soirée filled with shimmering cocktails, mouthwatering mango-infused delicacies, and new supporters for the e-zine. But as the boat sets sail, the festivities take a tragic turn when an explosion rocks the vessel, plunging the party guests into chaos.

In the days that follow, Hayley learns that a local culinary entrepreneur died in the explosion and it was no accident–someone on board had a deadly agenda. With the tropical city of Key West as her backdrop, Hayley navigates a web of secrets and lies. Her investigation takes her from the shadowy corners of island politics to fierce competition between high-end event caterers and personal vendettas.

With the clock ticking and the stakes higher than ever, Hayley must rely on her keen intuition to unmask a cunning culprit before they strike again.

Visit Lucy Burdette's website, Twitter perch, and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: An Appetite For Murder.

Writers Read: Lucy Burdette (January 2012).

The Page 69 Test: Death in Four Courses.

The Page 69 Test: A Scone of Contention.

My Book, The Movie: Unsafe Haven.

The Page 69 Test: A Dish to Die for.

The Page 69 Test: A Poisonous Palate.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Assembling Religion"

New from NYU Press: Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America by Kati Curts.

About the book, from the publisher:

How Henry Ford institutionalized a social gospel

Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to American models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the head of the Ford Motor Company have commonly been understood as secular, Ford himself was explicit that his work in engineering and auto production was prophetic and meant to remake the world.

This religious history of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company repositions them within critical studies of religion, examining how Ford transformed American religious practice in the twentieth century. Drawing directly on documents from Ford’s archive, it examines Ford’s mass production methods and bureaucratic reforms as examples of prosperity gospel traditions, illuminating the ways manufacturing and technology intersect with American religious practice. Bridging American religious and industrial history, Assembling Religion offers a new and surprising way to understand Ford’s impact on culture, commerce, and the technology of labor.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cover Girl"

New from MIRA Books: The Cover Girl: A Novel by Amy Rossi.

About the book, from the publisher:

Find them early enough, and they will always be her girls.

Birdie Rhodes was only thirteen when legendary modeling agent Harriet Goldman discovered her in a department store and transformed her into one of Harriet’s Girls. What followed felt like the start of something incredible, a chance for shy Birdie to express herself in front of the camera. But two years later, she meets a thirty-one-year-old rock star, and her teenage heart falls hard as he leads her into a new life, despite Harriet's warnings. Then, as abruptly as it began, it’s over, like a lipstick-smeared fever dream. Birdie tries hard to forget that time—starting over in Paris, in the dying embers of the LA punk scene, in Boston at the height of the AIDS crisis. She’s not that person anymore. At least, that’s what she’s been telling herself.

Decades later, Birdie lives a quiet life. She works modest gigs, takes Pilates and mostly keeps to herself. Maybe it’s not the glamor she once envisioned, but it’s peaceful. Comfortable. Then a letter arrives, inviting Birdie to celebrate Harriet’s fifty-year career. Except Birdie hasn’t spoken to her in nearly thirty years—with good reason.

Almost famous, almost destroyed, Birdie can only make her own future if she reckons with her past—the fame, the trauma, the opportunities she gave up for a man who brought her into a life she wasn't ready for. Just like she’s not ready now. But the painful truth waits for nobody. Not even Birdie Rhodes.

For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Taylor Jenkins Reid, this striking debut novel explores the dizzying fallout of being seen and not heard in a high-stakes industry that leaves no silhouette unscathed.

Visit Amy Rossi's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Screens, Black Dance"

New from Oxford University Press: White Screens, Black Dance: Race and Masculinity in the United States at Midcentury by Pamela Krayenbuhl.

About the book, from the publisher:

White Screens, Black Dance analyzes the film and television dances of male screen stars in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Unpacking the complex physical and visual codes performed by four case studies--the Nicholas Brothers, Gene Kelly, Elvis Presley, and Sammy Davis, Jr.--it argues that each employs Black (Africanist) dance and movement vocabularies in distinct ways, all using them to construct shifting models of masculinity over the course of their careers. In so doing, this book theorizes a practice of appropriation called blackbodying, whereby non-Black performers use Black dance and movement styles without using blackface makeup. Applying methodologies from both film and media studies and dance studies, it offers an interdisciplinary reading of these men's star texts and their screen-dances throughout the midcentury period.

To best understand the nuances of their performances, White Screens, Black Dance considers not only the ever-changing, often ambiguous and contradictory signifiers of racial and gender identity from the 1940s-1960s, but also the ways that class, and the differing industrial and visual environments of Hollywood film vs. broadcast television, further shape how all five men danced their masculinities for the camera(s). It ultimately reveals how these resultant midcentury masculinities have continued to influence danced masculinity ever since.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything We Could Do"

Coming September 15 from TriQuarterly: Everything We Could Do: A Novel by David McGlynn.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set against the backdrop of a small-town Wisconsin NICU, a sweeping story of parenthood, family, and redemption

After a decade of miscarriages, Brooke Jensen is finally pregnant—with quadruplets. When she goes into labor after twenty-three weeks, Brooke and her husband rush to the hospital in the small town of Hanover, Wisconsin. For the 203 days that follow, they’re plunged into the terrifying and mysterious netherworld of the neonatal intensive care unit.

As the babies grow and struggle, fall turns to stark upper-Midwest winter. Brooke bonds with Dash, a senior nurse whose son, Landon, had been a patient in the NICU years earlier and is now straining his parents’ abilities to care for him. Both families bend and edge closer to breaking, and the questions mount: What does love look like? What does it mean to save a life?

A fiercely honest portrait of American parenthood, the American healthcare system, and Rust Belt communities, Everything We Could Do lays bare the ways that families are formed and remade in times of crisis.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Doing Business with Criminals"

New from Cambridge University Press: Doing Business with Criminals: Between Exclusion and Surveillance by Anton Moiseienko.

About the book, from the publisher:

Legitimate companies occasionally find themselves doing business with criminals, wittingly or unwittingly. Past decades have witnessed a dramatic expansion in the array of criminal law and regulatory rules that govern such entanglements. These rules raise fundamental questions about commerce and society, such as: when can someone be excluded from day-to-day commercial interactions? Where is the boundary between legitimate surveillance of suspicious transactions and financial privacy? And, ultimately, what is the point of financial crime rules: are they meant to exclude suspected criminals from the legitimate economy, or help to gather intelligence on them? This book is the first comprehensive account of how these dilemmas shape financial crime rules. Based on a sweeping overview of international experience, it tells a story that will be of interest to a wide audience ranging from the seasoned financial crime expert to the general reader.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Artificial Wisdom"

New from Del Rey: Artificial Wisdom: A Novel by Thomas R. Weaver.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a climate-ravaged landscape where AI and humans vie for political power, a journalist must unravel a murderous plot that will either upend the world or save it.

2050: Investigative journalist Marcus Tully is grieving his wife and unborn child, ten years after they perished in a deadly heat wave that gripped the Persian Gulf.

Now the whole planet is both burning and drowning, and the nations of the world decide to elect a global leader to steer humanity through the climate apocalypse. The final two candidates: a former U.S. president . . . and Solomon, the first artificial intellect to hold political office.

But as Election Day races closer, Solomon’s creator is murdered, and it’s up to Tully to find the culprit.

Soon Tully is unraveling a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels. As the investigation heats up and the planet hurtles ever closer to the brink, Tully must find the truth and convince the world to face it.

Because salvation has a price—but is humanity willing to pay it?

Visit Thomas R. Weaver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Emerson’s Daughters"

New from the University of Massachusetts Press: Emerson’s Daughters: Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and Their Family Legacy by Kate Culkin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ellen Tucker Emerson and Edith Emerson Forbes, the daughters of Lidian Jackson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, grew up in the heart of Concord, Massachusetts’s famed literary community. In a culture that celebrated self-reliance, Ellen and Edith formed a partnership that only strengthened as their paths diverged, with Ellen remaining in the family home and Edith marrying William Forbes, moving to Milton, Massachusetts, and having eight children. The partnership allowed them to tend to the demands and opportunities created by their father’s career, including serving as his secretaries and editors, and helped them shape his posthumous image. It also enabled them to adapt to historical developments stretching from the Civil War to American imperialism as well as personal ones, including Edith’s growing family and travel and study abroad, and inevitable ones brought on by the aging processes of their parents and themselves.

Emerson’s Daughters is a biography of a sisterhood, the first full-length study of Ellen’s and Edith’s lives. Building on archival research into the extensive correspondence between the sisters, it adds to the growing body of work on women’s contribution to Transcendentalism while opening a window onto the rich, and understudied, family life of the “Sage of Concord.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Odds of Getting Even"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: The Odds of Getting Even by Amanda Sellet.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fling with a mysterious stranger leads to a rollicking adventure in the wilds of South Dakota in this madcap and romantic follow-up to Amanda Sellet’s Hate to Fake it to You.

The last thing reluctant resort employee Jean Harrington expected to find on a middle-of-the-night towel run was a bashful scientist in desperate need of company . . . and clothes. Charmed by his awkwardness and endearing tangents about reptiles, she returns the next day to give the handsome mystery guest she knows only as “Charlie” lessons in poker.

He’s reserved and she’s chaotic, but together, the two of them just click. It’s like a honeymoon without the hassle of a wedding, until Jean discovers there’s a lot more to Charlie’s story than shyness and snakes―and she isn’t the only person with a pressing interest in his whereabouts, not to mention his secretly scandalous dating history.

When Charlie has the audacity to abandon her without a word, Jean has a score to settle. She’ll do whatever it takes to get him back―no, get back at him―even if it means chasing him across an ocean to brave the wild west of his remote hometown, and the famous family business he neglected to mention. With flames from their pasts raising the stakes, Jean is gambling she can get the upper hand before Charlie calls her bluff.

The real trick will be remembering what they’re playing for, when the biggest risk is putting all their cards on the table.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

Q&A with Amanda Sellet.

The Page 69 Test: By the Book.

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (December 2022).

Writers Read: Amanda Sellet (August 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Comedy of Computation"

New from Stanford University Press: The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence by Benjamin Mangrum.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this cultural history of the computer, Benjamin Mangrum shows that comedy has been central to how we've made sense of the technology's sweeping effects on public life and private experience. From the first Broadway play to include a computer in the 1950s to popular films like You've Got Mail and joke-telling digital assistants, Mangrum assembles an extensive archive of work by writers, filmmakers, programmers, engineers, and other technologists who have coupled comedy with computation. Many have used comedy to make the computer seem ordinary. Others have tried to stage the assimilation of computers within corporate life as a kind of comic drama. Mangrum describes these and many other ways in which comedy and computation have come together as a new genre of experience: the comedy of computation. The modern world exalts advances in technology, but we are constantly haunted by the specter of falling behind and becoming obsolete. Mangrum examines how comedy serves as a stage for working out these conflicted modes of experience in writing by Dave Eggers, Curtis Sittenfeld, Ishmael Reed, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., among others, arguing that when we look at the comic forms that shape the cultures of computing, we come to better understand the tensions and contradictions internal to the social world we inhabit.

The Page 99 Test: Land of Tomorrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kiss Her Goodbye"

New from Grand Central Publishing: Kiss Her Goodbye (Frankie Elkin Series #4) by Lisa Gardner.

About the book, from the publisher:

A New York Times bestselling author returns with the latest installment in the addictive Frankie Elkin series, in which Frankie is called to Tucson, Arizona, to find a missing Afghan refugee, whose friend suspects she is in grave danger—before it is too late. “Timely and completely gripping.” (Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author)

Recent Afghan refugee and young mother Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. At the insistence of Sabera's closest friend, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search just in time for a video of Sabera to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.

Frankie quickly notes there's much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. The father Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their little girl Zahra has an uncanny ability to remember anything she sees. Which given everything that has happened during the girl's short life, may be a terrible curse.

When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra's life, Frankie realizes she must crack the code of this family's horrific past. Someone is coming for the Ahmadis. And violence is clearly an option.

When everything is on the line, how far would you go to protect the ones you love? Frankie is about to find out.

Visit Lisa Gardner's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Lisa Gardner & Annabelle and Bowie.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Politics of Islamic Ethics"

New from Cambridge University Press: The Politics of Islamic Ethics: Hierarchy and Human Nature in the Philosophical Tradition by Raissa A. von Doetinchem de Rande.

About the book, from the publisher:

Fundamental to Islamic thought is the idea that there is a way that human beings simply are, by nature or creation. This concept is called fiṭra. Rooting her investigation in the two central passages in the Qur'an and Hadith literature, where it is asserted that God created human beings in a certain way, the author moves beyond discussion of the usual figures who have commented on those texts to look instead at a group of classical Islamic philosophers rarely discussed in conjunction with ethical matters. Tracing the development of fiṭra through this overlooked strand of medieval thinking, von Doetinchem de Rande uses fiṭra as an entrée to wider topics in Islamic ethics. She shows that the notion of fiṭra articulated by al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd highlights important issues about organizational hierachies of human nature. This, she argues, has major implications for contemporary political and legal debates.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Open Wide"

New from Abrams: Open Wide: A Novel by Jessica Gross.

About the book, from the publisher:

An increasingly obsessive radio host tests the boundaries of her boyfriend's love in this unforgettable dark comedy that is by turns romantic, horrific, and profound

Olive is desperate to get close to Theo—really, really close. She’s always struggled to connect with people. And now she’s in her thirties, single, and so flustered by relationships that she secretly records her conversations, hoping to decipher social cues and find a way to be less alone.

Then Theo turns up for a shift at the same food pantry where she volunteers. He’s a surgeon fascinated by human organs, a former soccer player, and possibly as weird as Olive.

For the first time, someone seems to crave and understand her. Every recording of Theo is a balm, which just makes Olive more afraid of losing him. The only solution seems to be to bind him to her forever. Luckily, the gap between Theo’s front teeth is just wide enough for something—or someone—to slip inside.

Arresting and immersive, Open Wide explores the complexities of intimacy, love and consent, as universal human impulses bleed into the surreal.

Visit Jessica Gross's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hysteria.

Q&A with Jessica Gross.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics"

New from Yale University Press: Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics by Eike Exner.

About the book, from the publisher:

A groundbreaking story of Japanese comics from their nineteenth-century origins to the present day

The immensely popular art form of manga, or Japanese comics, has made its mark across global pop culture, influencing film, visual art, video games, and more. This book is the first to tell the history of comics in Japan as a single, continuous story, focusing on manga as multipanel cartoons that show stories rather than narrate them. Eike Exner traces these cartoons’ gradual evolution from the 1890s until today, culminating in manga’s explosion in global popularity in the 2000s and the current shift from print periodicals to digital media and smartphone apps.

Over the course of this 130-year history, Exner answers questions about the origins of Japanese comics, the establishment of their distinctive visuals, and how they became such a fundamental part of the Japanese publishing industry, incorporating well-known examples such as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, as well as historical manga little known outside of Japan. The book pays special attention to manga’s structural development, examining the roles played not only by star creators but also by editors and major publishers such as Kōdansha that embraced comics as a way of selling magazines to different, often gendered, readerships. This engaging narrative presents extensive new research, making it an essential read for enthusiasts and experts alike.

Visi Eike Exner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"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