"The Irrational Decision"

New from Princeton University Press: The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us by Benjamin Recht.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality—and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment

In the 1940s, mathematicians set out to design computers that could act as ideal rational agents in the face of uncertainty. The Irrational Decision tells the story of how they settled on a peculiar mathematical definition of rationality in which every decision is a statistical question of risk. Benjamin Recht traces how this quantitative standard came to define our understanding of rationality, looking at the history of optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning. He explains why, now more than ever, we need to resist efforts by powerful tech interests to drive public policy and essentially rule our lives.

While mathematical rationality has proven valuable in accelerating computers, regulating pharmaceuticals, and deploying electronic commerce, it fails to solve messy human problems and has given rise to a view of a rational world that is not only overquantified but surprisingly limited. Recht shows how these mathematical methods emerged from wartime research and influenced fields ranging from economics to health care, drawing on illuminating examples ranging from diet planning to chess to self-driving cars.

Highlighting both the power and limitations of mathematical rationality, The Irrational Decision reveals why only humans can resolve fundamentally political or value-based questions and proposes a more expansive approach to decision making that is appropriately supported by computational tools yet firmly rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Inheritance"

New from Pegasus Books: Inheritance by Jane Park.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A young woman returns to the prairies, where she revisits her immigrant childhood and confronts a haunting guilt, in this debut novel by a brilliant new talent.

Anne Kim is a lawyer in New York, her success built on forgetting the past. When her father dies, she returns to Edmonton for the funeral and is shocked to discover he was from North Korea and left his brother behind.

As she reads the undelivered letters her father wrote to his brother about life in Canada, she is transported back to her childhood in the 1980s and 90s. She recalls the struggles her parents faced as immigrants who ran a grocery store in a rural prairie town. Anne and her brother, Charles, felt the weight of their father’s expectations: Anne was driven to excel and overachieve, whereas Charles rebelled, determined to pursue his own dreams. His rebellion created a rift that culminated in a devastating act, irrevocably shattering their family and leaving Anne overwhelmed by an inescapable guilt.

Inheritance explores the immigrant experience, the sacrifices made by both parents and children, and how trauma transfers to the next generation. As Anne journeys to the past, she emerges to finally define life on her own terms, and her story will resonate long after the final page.

Visit Jane Park's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spinoza, Atheist"

New from Princeton University Press: Spinoza, Atheist by Steven Nadler.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Steven Nadler, a fascinating historical and philosophical narrative that unravels the mystery of whether Spinoza was an atheist

In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was accused of unspecified “horrifying heresies,” but the precise reasons for his expulsion remain a mystery. When he published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, which was condemned as “the most atheistic book ever written,” he began to reveal to the world what his heresies may have been. Yet ever since the eighteenth century, most readers and scholars have assumed that Spinoza was a pantheist—even a “God-intoxicated man,” as the poet Novalis put it. After all, how could a person whose books are suffused with talk of God be an atheist? In Spinoza, Atheist, Steven Nadler, one of the world’s leading authorities on the philosopher, aims to settle the question and show that that’s exactly what he was.

Nadler makes a powerful case that there is no real divinity for Spinoza. God is Nature, and isn’t an object of worshipful awe or religious reverence but can only be understood through philosophy and science. There is nothing supernatural—no mystery, ineffability, or sublimity. Spinoza does speak of “blessedness” and “salvation,” but these, too, are to be understood in natural and rational terms, as the peace of mind and happiness that come from understanding ourselves and the world.

Whether Spinoza believed in God is a fascinating and enduring controversy. Spinoza, Atheist promises to transform our understanding of his views and to make clear just how radical a thinker he was and remains.

The Page 99 Test: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

The Page 99 Test: A Book Forged in Hell.

Writers Read: Steven Nadler (April 2013).

The Page 99 Test: The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter.

The Page 99 Test: The Portraitist.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Summer I Found You"

New from Crooked Lane Books: The Summer I Found You: A Novel by Jennifer O'Brien.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A recently divorced single mom returns to her family’s fixer-upper beach house and finds romance amidst the heartbreak—and truths buried under generations of lies—in this summertime romance, perfect for fans of The Beach House and Nora Goes Off Script.

When Dahlia Newberry escapes her terrible marriage and returns to Long Island’s North Fork to put her family’s beach house on the market, she discovers the property has fallen into disrepair, and she has no idea how she’ll get it from fixer to fabulous in a month’s time.

Things start to look up when she discovers her neighbor is Noah, a handsome reality TV star known for his Hamptons-set home renovation series. Noah turns out to be quite handy and pitches in to help Dahlia with the renovations and, as chemistry sparks between them, her self-discovery too.

Meanwhile, Dahlia discovers a letter from her Aunt Lil, whose dying wish was for Dahlia to find a key that unlocks a mystery spanning three generations. Soon Dahlia is unearthing mysterious clues buried in the garden that threaten to upend everything she believes about her world.

The truth is supposed to set her free, but excavated secrets have a way of shattering an already fragile life—unless Dahlia can find a way to bloom into the woman she was always meant to be.

This debut novel by an accomplished home design influencer is perfect for fans of HGTV shows and steamy summer romances.

Visit Jennifer O'Brien's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mental Illness Stigma and the Moral and Social Community"

New from Cambridge University Press: Mental Illness Stigma and the Moral and Social Community by Abigail Gosselin.

About the book, from the publisher:

Although mental health is a better understood, more widely discussed topic in our society today, a degree of stigmatization persists, especially in severe cases with links to homelessness, job loss, poverty and human rights. It is also still present in environments such as the workforce, healthcare settings and educational environments, and often internalized by the sufferer themselves. This book provides a philosophical account of what mental illness stigma is, why it persists, what harms it causes to people subject to public stigma or who internalize stigma in themselves, and what can be done about it. It analyzes the process of stigmatization, both public and internalized, in the twenty-first century Western culture, especially in the United States - including the process of stereotyping, the expressive harm of stereotypes, the role of social norms in creating adaptive preferences and shaping behaviour, the moral distancing and status loss involved with social exclusion and dehumanization, and the harm of discrimination.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If Only the Rain Would Come"

New from the University Press of Kentucky: If Only the Rain Would Come by Natalie Sypolt.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the center of this gritty novel-in-stories is Hazel. A teacher at the local elementary school, she is intelligent, introspective, and lonely. When Hazel's secret lover, Walker, dies and his identical twin, Sam, comes home from Afghanistan looking just like the dead, Hazel's world is shaken. But her life appears the same to strangers—having exchanged one married twin in her bed for another.

As Hazel's relationship with Sam deepens, the community and their intertwined lives rise to the forefront: Andy, a teenager struggling with his father's death; Rachel, an outsider concealing trauma from her youth; Gina, a girl searching for belonging in the wake of placing her child for adoption; and Sam, a veteran haunted by ghosts of the past. As the residents of Warm, West Virginia, cope with addiction, grief, poverty, and abandonment, Hazel must confront her own life choices and weigh their cost.

Revealed through a brilliant chorus of voices with dialogue that sings off the page, Natalie Sypolt's If Only the Rain Would Come is unflinchingly honest and deeply human.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Land is Your Land"

New from Simon & Schuster: This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly Gage.

About the book, from the publisher:

Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage takes the ultimate road trip into the American past.

Ride along with Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn—and fight—about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon—or live up to—those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history—to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it—in the places where it happened.

Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country. Toss the book in the back seat—or listen on audio with the windows down—and join the journey.

Visit Beverly Gage's Yale faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: The Day Wall Street Exploded.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Into the Blue"

New from Ballantine Books: Into the Blue: A Love Story by Emma Brodie.

About the book, from the publisher:

An epic, decades-spanning love story that blazes through the worlds of acting and comedy and charts a connection unlike any other.

“The truth is there’s no such thing as a normal life. There’s just the time you get and how you spend it.”

In the summer of 2000, AJ Graves dreams of writing for Saturday Night Live; instead, she’s stuck working in a video rental store, with slim odds of escaping her small Massachusetts town. Then in walks Noah Drew, the enigmatic and intense scion of the Drew acting dynasty, and her life changes forever. Despite wildly different upbringings, the two forge a deep, cosmic bond, first as friends, then as acting partners—until one day, Noah disappears without a word.

Seven years later, in New York City, AJ is shocked to find herself cast in the same intergalactic TV production as Noah, by then a well-known Hollywood heartthrob. As their on-screen characters grow closer every day, the lines between reality and acting begin to blur. Unable to stay away from each other, AJ and Noah are forced to confront the truth of what happened years ago—and the devastating secret that will send their lives careening apart, even as fate continues to draw them together.

Blending unforgettable characters, explosive chemistry and yearning, and profound emotion, Into the Blue is a journey unlike any other—one that asks: What does it mean to diverge from the script to forge your own story?

Visit Emma Brodie's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How to Read Hegel Now"

New from the University of Chicago Press: How to Read Hegel Now by Shannon Hoff.

About the book, from the publisher:

A powerful exploration of how Hegel’s ideas about freedom can speak to social injustice today.

One might be forgiven for feeling that the philosophical tradition, notoriously replete with seemingly aloof and problematic men like Hegel, has little to offer contemporary conversations about justice. Yet for Shannon Hoff, Hegel’s ideas about freedom in particular contain vital resources for efforts to redress racism, sexism, colonialism, ableism, and capitalism today.

In How to Read Hegel Now, Hoff rereads the German philosopher alongside our most compelling thinkers about how oppression disavows our common humanity, including Frantz Fanon, Jessica Benjamin, Saba Mahmood, la paperson, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Canguilhem, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. Along the way, Hoff recovers in Hegel a new vision for human freedom that challenges the heritage of modern liberalism he helped to construct.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crossing the Bronx"

Coming June 2 from Fig Tree Books: Crossing the Bronx by David Hirshberg.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Crossing the Bronx is an historical literary novel set primarily in the 1950s in The Bronx. It is a modern retelling of the Jacob and Esau story from Genesis. The narrative that propels the story forward concerns the destruction of a neighborhood in the guise of progress. Jay and Eric, the sons of Ike (an Italian Jew), and Rebekeh, (a Mountain Jew), are estranged-as are their parents-and find themselves on opposite sides of a bitter struggle that pits those in power against the defenseless people of a local community.

Eric has aligned himself with his father Ike, who by day is a cop-and at other times works surreptitiously for a mobbed-up construction company engaged in major projects transforming New York City-while his younger brother Jay is allied with his mother and with a neighborhood group fighting to preserve its very soul. Their fractious relationship speaks to the issues of how families split apart, and whether or not the pieces can ever be put back together.

In addition to sustained tension-filled action, Crossing the Bronx is a story of romance, commitments, beliefs, and triumphs over adversities (lies, theft, murder, concealment, prejudice). Through vivid descriptions, perceptive insights, humor and sensitivity, the reader identifies with the characters who come to life in a realistic fashion to illustrate who we are, how we behave, and what causes us to change.

The novel is fast-paced, with uncompromising realism, reflecting the unrelenting tension between antagonists and the anxieties that overwhelm those without power. The underbelly of the criminal and political world is evidenced by brutality, rapaciousness, and a never-ending desire to seek retribution. A love story between Jay and his girlfriend Francesca counter-balances the grimness to show how some people can overcome the odds stacked against them by their birth and places of origin. Smart, savvy women (Francesca, Rebekah, Francesca's grandmother "Nonna Ebrea"-who thinks she is descended from Conversos-and Jay's therapist Dr. Leah Silverman) provide a strong counterbalance to the lies, thefts, beatings, concealments, murders, and prejudice evidenced by the men.

It is populated by colorful Italian, Irish, Black, Puerto Rican, and Jewish characters from a variety of different backgrounds; the novel sparkles with dialogue that is representative of their respective cultures.

The book can be read on three levels: (1) The story of what it was like to have lived through the Depression and World War II era, and into the one that emerged after 1945-a society that was being altered almost unknowingly into something that would turn out to be significantly different in terms of social activism and ethnic politics; (2) A metaphor for what is going on in cities today, in terms of the conflicts between 'ordinary people' and powerful politicians and business interests; and (3) How a Jewish family emerges from dysfunction to find its way despite daunting implacable obstacles in its way.

Visit David Hirshberg's website.

--Marshal Zeringue