"Bad Asians"

New from Henry Holt and Co.: Bad Asians: A Novel by Lillian Li.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Number One Chinese Restaurant comes an affecting novel about an unforgettable group of friends trying to make their way in the world without losing themselves, or one another.

Diana, Justin, Errol, and Vivian were always told that success is guaranteed by following a simple checklist. They worked hard, got A's, and attended a good university—only to graduate into the Great Recession of 2008. Now, despite their newly minted degrees, they’re unemployed and stuck again under their parents’ roofs in a hypercompetitive Chinese American community. So when Grace—once the neighborhood golden child, now a Harvard Law School dropout—asks to make a documentary about the crew, they agree. It’s not like her little movie will ever see the light of day.

But then the video, Bad Asians, goes viral on an up-and-coming media platform (YouTube, anyone?). Suddenly, millions of people know them as cruel caricatures, each full of pent-up frustrations with the others. And after a desperate attempt at spin control further derails their plans for the lives they’d always imagined, the friends must face harsh truths about themselves and coming of age in the new millennium.

Lillian Li’s novel wryly captures a generation shaped by the rise of the internet and the end of the American dream. An epic tale of friendship and family, Bad Asians asks, Can the same people who made you who you are end up keeping you from who you’re meant to be?

Visit Lillian Li's website.

Writers Read: Lillian Li (June 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Flank"

New from Stanford University Press: White Flank: Organizing White People for Racial Justice by Chandra Russo.

About the book, from the publisher:

White people's participation in racial justice movements has always been fraught, with competing ideas about what meaningful involvement entails. Yet the question of what it will take to get more white people to fight for multiracial democracy is as urgent as ever. Chandra Russo takes up this question in White Flank.

This book tells the story of a new generation of white antiracist efforts in a range of local contexts, from Los Angeles to rural Appalachia. These groups are part of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), which has emerged as the largest U.S.-based effort explicitly seeking to organize white people for racial and economic justice. Beyond just book clubs and discussion circles, and against the seductions of virtue signaling, SURJ invites white communities to take part in antiracist action and equips them to organize for lasting change.

Growing the white flank of a multiracial justice movement is bound to be messy. Russo argues that these groups reorient our understanding of antiracism away from a matter of individual morality and instead towards an emphasis on collective action to change systems. This is a crucial achievement.

Visit Chandra Russo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Misheard World"

Coming February 24 from Solaris: The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An interrogation of a famed spy by a military agent reveals deeper secrets about the beginnings of the war—and about the world itself—in the latest groundbreaking novel from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated Aliya Whiteley.

Before wars are won, they must be witnessed.

Elize Janview is a soldier, one of the few survivors of an unimaginably terrible weapon, which ended the long détente between the North and the South and plunged them back into all-out war. She enlisted with a dream of finding those responsible, of somehow getting revenge for the deaths of everyone she knew, but was posted to guard the prison at Crag, the fortress of the South, which has never fallen to the enemy.

Janview’s life is transformed when a rough wooden box is delivered to Crag, holding the performer and spy Marius Mondegreen, agent of the North: the Misheard Word, who can read minds, breathe fire, and make objects appear and disappear. Janview is to witness Mondegreen’s interrogation by his captor, the beautiful and cruel Allynx Syld, who promises the end of the war. As recorder – and by degrees participant – in the interrogation, Janview comes to question everything she knew about the war, and the very world she lives in…

Visit Aliya Whiteley's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Arrival of Missives.

The Page 69 Test: Skyward Inn.

The Page 69 Test: Three Eight One.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Catholicism Chinese"

New from Oxford University Press: Making Catholicism Chinese: The Catholic Church in a Modernizing China by Stephanie M. Wong.

About the book, from the publisher:

Making Catholicism Chinese examines a little-known chapter of Catholic life in China, when a coalition of foreign-born and Chinese Catholics strove to make the Church indigenously "Chinese." This book demonstrates how the indigenization movement, begun as a bid to render Catholicism a Chinese religion, came to support Chinese state-building instead.

In the first half of the 20th century, China transformed from a faltering and semi-colonized empire to a tentatively pluralistic republic to an increasingly militarized one-party state. Religious communities were driven to "modernize" for the sake of the new nation. In the case of Catholicism, the Belgian-born Lazarist Vincent Lebbe most publicly advocated for a Chinese Church, though the wider movement was guided by an array of Chinese clergy, newspaper magnates, scholar-politicians, artists, and army medics and combatants striving in various ways to be both faithful Catholics and patriotic citizens. Their indigenization project coincided with a national embrace of modernity as an ideal, leading Catholics to take up a variety of causes: promoting Chinese clergy as bishops in opposition to French dominance in the missions, experimenting with new forms of education and mass media, and ultimately joining the right-leaning Nationalist regime's war effort against Japan. Stephanie Wong thoroughly documents this history and definitively shows that the movement failed to establish the local Church as a distinct Chinese religion

--Marshal Zeringue

"No Friend to This House"

Coming March 10 from Harper: No Friend to This House: A Novel by Natalie Haynes.

About the novel, from the publisher:

No Friend to This House is an extraordinary reimagining of the myth of Medea from the New York Times bestselling author of Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes.

This is what no one tells you, in the songs sung about Jason and the Argo. This part of his quest has been forgotten, by everyone but me . . . Jason and his Argonauts set sail to find the Golden Fleece. The journey is filled with danger, for him and everyone he meets. But if he ever reaches the distant land he seeks, he faces almost certain death. Medea—priestess, witch, and daughter of a brutal king—has the power to save the life of a stranger. Will she betray her family and her home, and what will she demand in return? Medea and Jason seize their one chance of a life together, as the gods intend. But their love is steeped in vengeance from the beginning, and no one—not even those closest to them—will be safe. Based on the classic tragedy by Euripides, this is Medea as you've never seen her before...

Visit Natalie Haynes's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Furies.

My Book, The Movie: The Furies.

The Page 69 Test: A Thousand Ships.

The Page 69 Test: Stone Blind.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas"

New from State University of New York Press: Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas: The Affective Politics of Women Killings by Lydia Huerta Moreno.

About the book, from the publisher:

Shows how communities across the Americas transform their grief over murdered and missing trans and non-trans women, girls, and two-spirit people into powerful social movements that challenge state violence and demand justice.

A groundbreaking and transnational examination of gender-based violence, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas reimagines how we understand the relationship between grief and political action. Lydia Huerta Moreno brings together the work of activists, scholars, artists, writers, and influencers from 1994 to 2023 to chronicle the intersection of activism with the rise of social media and the eventual implementation of legislation codifying woman killing as a crime. Expanding the concept of feminicide to encompass trans women, two-spirit people, and missing and murdered women and girls across the Americas, Huerta Moreno illuminates the deep connections between different forms of gender-based violence across the Americas and weaves together questions of race, class, gender, and immigration status. Through innovative and sensitive analysis of postmortem politics, the book reveals how communities transform profound loss into powerful social movements, from Mexico to Brazil to the United States and Canada and beyond. With a foreword by Sayak Valencia, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas is a must-read for activists, scholars, and anyone concerned with human rights, revealing how grief can spark resistance against systemic violence and government inaction.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything Lost Returns"

Coming soon from Flatiron Books: Everything Lost Returns: A Novel by Sarah Domet.

About the book, from the publisher:

The POIGNANT, UTTERLY ORIGINAL story of two women separated across time but united by the arrival of Halley's comet, as blazing and as daring as their stories

1986. The Earthshine Soap Company has given Nona Dixon everything, from making her the brand’s first Earthshine Girl to launching her acting career. It also threatens to be the very thing that causes her to unravel when a group of Jane Does file a class action lawsuit accusing the company of putting harmful ingredients into their products. When Nona begins investigating Bertie Tuttle, the company’s third-generation owner, she uncovers a complicated history involving her benefactor and a mysterious woman named Opal Doucet.

1910. Seventy-six years earlier, Opal Doucet, a rural doctor’s wife, is pregnant, on the run, and desperate to get to Paris and to the charismatic spiritualist who supposedly communed with her first love. To save money, Opal goes to work in the Earthshine Soap factory as an Earthshine Girl where she uses her knowledge of medicine, and the spiritualist’s teachings, to prescribe cures to the women who’ve come down with mystery ailments. As she and Bertie Tuttle secretly partner in a labor strike intended to improve the working conditions at the factory, Opal must decide the cost of her own freedom.

Gorgeously written and intricately constructed, Everything Lost Returns is a story of desire and friendship, guilt and redemption, and the power we have, in our own small way, to change the course of history.

Visit Sarah Domet's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Behind Caesar's Back"

New from Yale University Press: Behind Caesar's Back: Rumor, Gossip, and the Making of the Roman Emperors by Caillan Davenport.

About the book, from the publisher:

A thrilling exploration of what Romans thought about their emperors, and how rumors and gossip—ranging from new taxes to rulers’ sex lives—shaped leadership

Traversing more than seven hundred years of Roman history, this book explores how everyday Romans swapped gossip, spread rumors, told jokes, and chanted protests about their emperors—activity that amounted to much more than idle chatter. Caillan Davenport uses ancient evidence, including letters, graffiti, and songs, to reveal how Romans engaged in politics outside the senate house or imperial council. He argues that the idea of the Roman emperor was shaped not only by the political powers granted to him but also by the debate taking place in the streets, churches, taverns, and markets.

Davenport reveals how Romans spoke about “the emperor” as a figure of stability, as an agent of justice and retribution, or as a fallible human. Although few would ever see an emperor, his face (and therefore his power) was everywhere: on coins, banners, standards, and even dessert molds, as well as in statuary and paintings. While most Romans did not question the transformation of their republic into a monarchical system of government, they were indeed invested in the empire and were in constant discussion about the type of ruler they had, wanted, and deserved.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Birdy"

New from Christy Ottaviano Books: Birdy by N. West Moss.

About the book, from the publisher:

After the death of their mother, Birdy and Mouse are forced to start over in this debut novel about discovering where you belong—for fans of Forever This Summer and The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise.

Eleven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother, Mouse, have always looked out for each other. They make the perfect team: Birdy is realistic and practical, while Mouse is affable and trusting. After their mother dies of cancer, Birdy and Mouse are forced to move out of the city to the country with relatives they’ve never met. Aunt Mitzie and Uncle Shadow’s house is full of organized chaos, and it takes Birdy time to adjust to having adults around. But the kitchen is always stocked, and both kids are allowed to play outside as often as they want. There’s only one problem: it’s all temporary. Their social worker has promised to find them a permanent home by the next school year, whether they want to leave or not. As the summer unfolds, Mouse starts to feel attached to their new life. But Birdy knows better—adults have never been reliable. When Birdy’s fears get the best of her, she makes a big mistake that could jeopardize their future.

Heartfelt and emotionally resonant, this literary coming-of-age novel explores the unbreakable bond between siblings—and how family can be found in the most unexpected places.

Visit N. West Moss's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cattle Trails and Animal Lives"

New from the University of Georgia Press: Cattle Trails and Animal Lives: The Founding of an American Carceral Archipelago by Karen M. Morin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Cattle Trails and Animal Lives remaps the historical and empirical geography of the emergent cattle industry as a series of carceral sites and nodes in the American West, focusing on the experiences of animals living and eventually dying under intense carceral structures, practices, technologies, and tools. This work shifts the narratives of the Old West cattle kingdoms from cowboys, ranchers, and cattle barons to the lived experiences of cattle caught within the rural “carceral archipelago” of the emergent U.S. beef industry. The work focuses on these animals’ forced movement over land and sea—their experiences, lives, and agency as formerly free—roaming animals who were captured, enclosed, moved, and eventually shipped by railroad to slaughterhouses in Chicago and beyond. The spatial nodes and sites of the carceral archipelago include the open range, the ranch, the cattle trail, and the cattle town and the intense human carceral controls enacted within them. The work further interprets how these animal lives are culturally renarrated to contemporary audiences through living history sites, other touristic and artistic re—creations of historic cattle drives, Hollywood westerns, and museum exhibits featuring material carceral artefacts. Together these not only perpetuate heroic myths of the Old West but normalize and even celebrate the carceral experiences of animals.

--Marshal Zeringue