"Peripheral Citizenship"

New from the University of California Press: Peripheral Citizenship: Popular Movements and the Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil by Daniel McDonald.

About the book, from the publisher:

How is citizenship constructed from the margins? Peripheral Citizenship examines this question by placing the urban outskirts of South America’s most populous city, São Paulo, amid processes that transformed twentieth-century Latin America: rural-urban migration and rapid urbanization, the advent of liberation theology, and the rise and fall of military dictatorships. Drawing on oral histories and grassroots archives, Daniel McDonald traces the emergence of a remarkable bottom-up rights campaign through the lives of rural migrants, progressive clergy, and allied activists in São Paulo during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–1985) and the subsequent democratic transition. He unveils how popular movements, aligned with the progressive Catholic Church and leftist political parties, forged a vision of citizenship that combined rights grounded in everyday life with innovative forms of participatory democracy. In the process, they reshaped the city, the Church, and the nation from the periphery.

Visit Daniel McDonald's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fire Power"

New from Little, Brown and Company: Fire Power: A Novel by Mir Benitz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Fourth Wing meets Formula One in this enemies-to-lovers sports romantasy about a stubbornly ambitious dragon rider who goes up against her childhood friend-turned-racing rival in the ultimate dragon race.

The Silverscale Grand Prix is the national championship of dragon racing—a high-speed, often deadly, elite sport with an unimaginably big cash prize.

Asta and her dragon Carmine are unlikely competitors. No sponsors, no high-tech gear, no fans out in the stands. Not to mention that a female rider hasn't won the Prix for nearly sixty years. The odds are stacked against them, but Asta is determined to prove everyone wrong: the training school that kicked her out for fighting a classmate, her family who wished she'd never left the farm, and, most of all, her infuriatingly arrogant childhood-best-friend-turned-rival Felix, the poster-boy heir to the Seraphin racing dynasty and reigning tournament champion.

Raw talent alone won't be enough to get Asta and Carmine through these races—and it soon becomes clear that the risks Asta has taken to get to Silverscale could have devastating consequences. Time to think fast, or die trying.

Visit Mir Benitz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Media Making as Peacemaking"

New from Rutgers University Press: Media Making as Peacemaking: Israel/Palestine by Yuval Katz.

About the book, from the publisher:

The horrific events of October 7 and the devastating war in Gaza have brought Israel/Palestine to the headlines once again. We have seen this all play out before: another ambitious peace plan, which secured a ceasefire, is imagined as the dawn of a new era of peace in the Middle East. But is it? Critiquing traditional state-centered approaches to peace, which usually highlight the work of diplomats and politicians, and which historically failed miserably in Israel/Palestine, Media Making as Peacemaking shifts our attention to the experiences of ordinary people. Investigating the idea of media encounters, this book shows how the collaboration of Palestinian and Jewish media practitioners and the popular texts they create together in television dramas, digital activism and mainstream journalism offer a new and exciting way to think about peace—a peace which does not maintain a repressive status quo, but seeks to deliver equality and justice to all people, Palestinians and Jews, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Visit Yuval Katz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Three Graces of Pearl Street"

New from Atria Books: The Three Graces of Pearl Street: A Novel by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this wise and warm debut novel, an Italian American grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter all named after the Roman myth of the Three Graces find their lives—and their secrets—colliding when, after years apart, they come to live under the same roof.

Graziella, a ninety-six-year-old former nun, spends her days running the parish’s food kitchen, convinced it is her responsibility to keep everyone fed in their working-class New York neighborhood. Her daughter, Grace, a respected psychology professor, appears accomplished and composed, yet finds herself unmoored as her personal life falters. Ella—Graziella’s granddaughter and Grace’s daughter—is weary of defending her vegan diet and anti-capitalistic lifestyle; blind to her own brilliance, she longs, above all, for a place to belong. Living together again, the three Graces reckon with the distances that have shaped them, and with what it means, at last, to be fully known.

“Truly captivating” (Annabel Monaghan, New York Times bestselling author) and populated by unforgettable characters, The Three Graces of Pearl Street explores the delicate balance between tradition and modernity, and the quiet courage it takes to move through the world with true grace.

Visit Elizabeth Wellington Rollins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Betting on Education"

New from Rutgers University Press: Betting on Education: The Costs of Schooling for Cambodian Youth by Jennifer Estes.

About the book, from the publisher:

Educational credentials are one of the most reliable tickets to a middle-class livelihood across the globe today. But as the costs of schooling rise, young people increasingly wonder whether their investment will pay off. Betting on Education: The Costs of Schooling for Cambodian Youth follows the experiences of rural secondary school students navigating Cambodia’s semiprivatized state education system. It reveals that when students are compelled to speculate about the value of their education, the “winners” of this gamble are the ones already most securely part of the middle class. The rest are left behind. In the process, the very meaning of education is transformed, as schooling becomes less about learning and more about its potential financial returns. By situating these stories in the wider global logics of neoliberal capitalism, Betting on Education challenges readers to consider what is at stake when young people must wager so much on the promise of schooling.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Promise Me Never"

New from Bantam: Promise Me Never: A Novel by Liv Constantine.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Next Mrs. Parrish comes an unmissable thriller about a woman who becomes embroiled in the mystery of her husband’s deceased first wife—and after moving to his remote house in the woods, uncovers terrifying secrets.

Aspiring writer Savannah’s scheme to meet superstar horror novelist Bennett Bryson turns out better than she ever imagined: not only does her charming and handsome literary idol offer to read her work, he is instantly smitten with her. After a whirlwind romance, Savannah says "yes" to marriage, and the two settle into Bennett's secluded upstate home.

But just as Savannah thinks she has it made, cracks appear in her perfect new life. Bennett's behavior becomes dark and controlling: he criticizes Savannah’s writing, dictates her permitted activities, and spends most of his time locked in his office, forbidding her from entering. And everywhere, Savannah cannot escape the shadow of Bennett's first wife, the free-spirited and passionate artist Poppy, who died in a tragic accident, but who seems still to be Savannah’s rival for Bennett's affection.

Then comes an enigmatic warning: Bennett is not who he seems. The women that came before Savannah have disappeared. And Savannah could be next.

Isolated and unsure whom to trust, Savannah tries to piece together the mystery of the man she married, and the woman he married first. But Savannah has no idea what her husband is really hiding. And someone out there knows Savannah has secrets of her own. As these two writers will learn the hard way—past really is prologue.

With memorably complicated characters, deliciously devious betrayals, and truly shocking twists, this edge-of-your-seat novel from one of today's most original writers will keep you guessing until the last page.

Visit Liv Constantine's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Valerie Constantine & Zorba.

Coffee with a Canine: Lynne Constantine & Greyson.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Mrs. Parrish.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Time I Saw You.

My Book, The Movie: The Wife Stalker.

My Book, The Movie: : The Stranger in the Mirror.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Unrest"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Unrest: Art in the Aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots by Rose Salseda.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first book to examine the visual art legacy of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

On April 29, 1992, a jury’s acquittal of four white Los Angeles police officers who had beaten Rodney King, a Black man, incited five days of intense protests. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots resulted in nearly four thousand fires, over $1 billion in property damage, fourteen thousand arrests, two thousand injuries, and sixty-three deaths. While many scholars have studied the period leading up to and following the riots, few have focused on how contemporary artists reacted to and continued to respond to this traumatic event.

In Unrest, Rose Salseda provides the first major art historical account of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots that chronicles the works of two generations of artists. Closely examining visual art that explores overlooked cross-racial, immigrant, and intergenerational experiences of the events, Salseda provocatively frames unrest as an act of the bereaved that makes visible the unrelenting experiences of injustice. She provides important insights into how we process violence through imagery; how the criminal justice system visualizes race and tolerates racial and xenophobic violence; and how we adapt racialized modes of viewing, normalize violence and oppression, and perhaps unwittingly contribute to these injustices. Ultimately, Unrest highlights how the experience of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots has driven artists to address the King beating and related episodes of racial violence for over thirty years―underscoring unrest as the inability to rest in the face of state-sanctioned violence, which persists to this day.

Visit Rose Salseda's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Fatal End"

New from Severn House: The Fatal End (A Teigan Craft forensic mystery) by A.J. Cross.

About the book, from the publisher:

Meet Professor Teigan Craft, a neurodivergent forensic psychologist getting into the minds of Birmingham’s most twisted killers.

Even in the safest of places, a killer lurks...

Young nurse Riley McCarthy never made it home after her late hospital shift in the Cardiac Unit. When forensic pathologist Professor Teigan ‘Tig’ Craft and Detective Chief Inspector Steve Thompson of West Midlands Police find Riley’s body, their focus quickly turns to her colleagues in the unit. Everyone is under suspicion, and almost everyone has a secret, including Riley herself . . .

As Craft and Thompson unravel the lives of Riley and her colleagues, they uncover scandal and dangerous ambitions, but what led to Riley’s terrible fate? One thing is clear: in a place where lives are saved every day, someone was determined to end hers.

This page-turning, suspenseful and mazey forensic mystery series set in the West Midlands is perfect for fans of Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell.

My Book, The Movie: Something Evil Comes.

The Page 69 Test: Something Evil Comes.

Writers Read: A. J. Cross (December 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hit Doctors"

New from the University of California Press: Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival by Sarah Brothers.

About the book, from the publisher:

As overdose deaths continue to mount and debates rage over harm reduction, drug policy, and homelessness, Hit Doctors offers a crucial on-the-ground perspective pointing to a humane future.

Finding a vein is difficult. As veins collapse and scar over, it becomes almost impossible. For the millions of Americans who inject drugs and can’t do it alone, the solution is to find someone who can. Enter the “hit doctor.” Though uncredentialed, hit doctors develop expertise through necessity, providing injection assistance and addressing needs that dominant medical systems exclude or criminalize. They share the same conditions as the people they serve: sleeping in encampments and alleys, living in cramped single-room-occupancy hotels, suffering from untreated illness and trauma, and grieving friends who keep dying.

Sarah Brothers spent more than seven years observing and interviewing hit doctors and their clients across San Francisco. Hit Doctors is an intimate portrait of the daily lives, relationships, and ethical worlds of people managing extraordinary hardship at a pivotal moment, when fentanyl arrived and thousands began dying annually. Brothers’s long-term ethnography yields critical insights. People seeking help strongly prefer women hit doctors, perceived as more careful and less likely to turn violent. But even as their expertise is valued, hit doctors are targets for abuse, and they suffer as the people they care for decline and die. That is the cost of trying to keep each other alive when formal systems of support have failed.

Visit Sarah Brothers's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lords of Serendipity"

New from Mariner Books: Lords of Serendipity: A Novel – A Moving Campus Satire of Strivers, Gatekeepers, and University Dreams by Randy Boyagoda.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An epic campus novel about the hopes and hypocrisies of 21st-century higher education, from one of Canada’s most celebrated literary novelists.

Devi is a Sri Lankan village girl who dreams of going to Harvard. Katrina is a middle-class American girl whose life has been designed to get her into an elite liberal arts college. Devi’s father cleans toilets in a five-star hotel to pay for his daughter’s Indian tutor, who might not be the Oxford student he claims to be on WhatsApp. Katrina’s father teaches extra courses at a mediocre technical university to pay for his daughter’s academic lifestyle experiences. Meanwhile, his tech-bro TA expertly extorts money from international students worried about flunking and getting deported.

Set between contemporary Sri Lanka and the United States, Lords of Serendipity is a wry, moving, and sharply observed story about how rich and poor alike try to get ahead by going to university. It’s about dreams and ambition meeting corruption and hypocrisy. It’s about what parents are willing to do for their children, and about what strivers and hustlers are willing to do when they meet gatekeepers.

This is the 21st-century global campus novel, a story about two teenage girls from opposite sides of the world with the same dream: four years in a quadrangle-shaped paradise that offers lots of super amazing courses and super amazing protests. The novel couldn’t be more timely in this absurd and perilous-feeling moment for both American life and higher education.

Visit Randy Boyagoda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Governor of the Northern Province.

--Marshal Zeringue