"In Latin America You Could Be Free"

New from Basic Books: In Latin America You Could Be Free: An African American History by Yesenia Barragan.

About the book, from the publisher:

A hemispheric history of how free and fugitive antebellum African Americans sought freedom in Latin America.

Fifty years before the United States went to war over the issue, Chile abolished slavery. Colombia followed in 1821, and Mexico soon after. Black Americans took note. As plantation slavery terrorized their communities, Latin America emerged as the place they could be free.

Many have written about the Underground Railroad and northward migration to Canada, but for thousands of African Americans, freedom lay to the south. Abolitionists from Boston to San Antonio celebrated anti-slavery efforts in Latin America.

Freed and fugitive slaves began to see the region as a viable place to migrate, a land where they could find stability, safety, and opportunity. Some went on their own initiative. Others were motivated by organized political movements, like a Lincoln-backed colony in Panama and hotly debated proposals for mass emigration to Central America.

Drawing on travelogues, runaway slave ads, and hundreds of other archival sources across the Americas, Yesenia Barragan rewrites conventional histories of slavery in the antebellum era to prove that emancipation was a hemispheric effort. Eloquent and cutting-edge, In Latin America You Could Be Free is a powerful account of how African Americans pursued freedom in the darkest of circumstances.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When They Find Me"

New from Poisoned Pen Press: When They Find Me: A Novel by Carter Wilson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Some secrets don't fade. They hunt.

Expanse, Colorado. Population 313. A town so remote it barely exists on a map―the perfect hiding place for Annie Wolfe and her daughter, Coral. Their cabin is nearly off the grid, and Annie has done everything to keep them safe. Everything. But she knows the people hunting her don't forget. And they don't forgive.

Riven knows about survival. She and her family have lived off the land for years, moving like shadows through the wilderness. Now her father has led them to this forgotten town, tracking the man he swears destroyed their lives. The plan is simple: strike fast, take revenge, and disappear.

But when Riven knocks on Annie's door, their worlds collide. What follows is darker, stranger, and more dangerous than either woman ever imagined―because the hunt isn't just for vengeance. It's for the truth. And in Expanse, Colorado, the truth can kill.

Visit Carter Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Remix, Reuse, Recycle"

New from Oxford University Press: Remix, Reuse, Recycle: Music, Media Technologies, and Remediating the Environment by Kate Galloway.

About the book, from the publisher:

How do we remix the environment? What do the sonic landscapes of video games, friendship bracelets made and shared by Taylor Swift fans, and experimental music composed from the sonification of climate change data have in common? They are examples of environmental remix, a creative and political practice of reshaping, translating, and recycling environmental knowledge into sound media.

Organized around a series of case studies ranging from the well-known to the rare and fascinating, Remix, Reuse, Recycle explores how artists work with sound technologies to remediate and repackage environmental information, including climate change data, soundscape field recordings, sensory experiences of nonhuman nature, and environmentalism discourse into sound-work that can be understood by a non-specialist audience. Author Kate Galloway argues that practices of remixing, reusing, and recycling are interpretive tools through which artists challenge conventional ways of communicating pressing environmental issues and aesthetic experiences of sonic environments to the public.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wood You Be Mine"

New from Berkley: Wood You Be Mine (Lovewell Lumberjacks) by Daphne Elliot.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The first time I met the grumpy lumberjack next door, I almost burnt down his cabin.
The second time, I was in an argument with a moose (don’t ask).
The third time, I was naked.

Henri Gagnon is not just my neighbor and landlord, but a flannel-clad foe who helps run his family’s lumber business. His protective streak clearly does not apply to me, since he’s convinced I won’t make it through the Maine winter.

But I’m going to show Henri and the rest of this small town that they’re wrong. I have one year to prove myself as the elementary school’s principal or I’ll be getting the axe.

So I simply just don’t have time to pine away for the lumberjack next door, no matter how good he looks chopping wood in his suspenders, or the way it makes me feel when he calls me buttercup.

I definitely don’t have time to wonder what would happen if I asked him if he wood be mine...

Visit Daphne Elliot's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"All Eyes on Space"

New from the University of Pittsburgh Press: All Eyes on Space: An Architectural History of Television by Samuel Dodd.

About the book, from the publisher:

In All Eyes on Space, Sam Dodd looks at television and sees architecture: a dynamic system of spatial design, environmental planning, and bodily control operating behind and beyond the small screen. By transmitting images and sounds across vast distances, television brings faraway places into immediate view and, in the process, reshapes how space is imagined and inhabited. Yet, this seemingly effortless presentation of “distant sight” is only possible because of deliberate architectural investments made throughout the second half of the twentieth century. From the 1940s onward, American architects and planners designed stations, studios, towers, cables, and screens while also experimenting with television as a medium for public communication and engagement. Drawing on archival records, original broadcasts, and works of art and design, Dodd plots a history of television architecture in the United States to show how the medium produced a distinctly American spatial logic that tethered expansionist ambitions to the management of visibility and access. Ultimately, this book reveals how a ubiquitous medium commonly understood as immaterial―if not ephemeral―became one of the century’s most consequential built environments.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Deadlock"

Coming November 17 from Margaret K. McElderry Books: Deadlock (The StrangeLoom Trilogy) by Chloe Gong.

About the book, from the publisher:

The danger ramps up as Lia works as a double agent against NileCorp in this second book in the dystopian Strangeloom trilogy, in which humanity has moved to virtual reality to flee their deteriorating world, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Chloe Gong.

One wrong move will end the world…

The nation can’t stop talking about Eirale Ward. After a perilous mission with the enemy, she has been rescued and returned to NileCorp. Her gracious employer cleared her charges of treason and restored her status as an elite soldier.

Once, that would have been enough—but she is not that same Eirale anymore. She is a spy for the Coalition, tasked to take down NileCorp from the inside.

Meanwhile, everyone in Atahua is watching Nik Grant. Though he succeeded in his mission to retrieve Project Wit, he has put a target on his loved ones, and NileCorp will stop at nothing to bring him in. Working for the Coalition was supposed to help him destroy NileCorp, but the Coalition is pushing restraint while he wants action. He’s running out of time.

When Atahua’s charismatic vice president joins the scene at NileCorp, the company grows untouchable. Kieren is unwavering in his belief in Lia and her ability to rupture the power in virtual reality—but NileCorp sees all, and it has long set its trap. Before total and absolute control can land in NileCorp’s hands, Lia must embrace what she was built to do…

Either change the world or burn it all down.

Visit by Chloe Gong's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Culture and Containment"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Culture and Containment: Race, Geographic Mobility, and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Colin Anderson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Movement—who moves, where they move, and how they move—has long been perceived as a racial threat in the United States. To better understand why, Colin Anderson examines how popular culture played a central role in shaping these perceptions during the transformative period of Greater Reconstruction (1845–1900). From sheet music and lithographs to plantation reenactments and Wild West shows, white cultural producers depicted Black and Native mobility as destabilizing. These depictions normalized fears of movement and justified the rise of systems designed to confine these communities, such as Jim Crow segregation and Native American reservations. Using a trans-regional framework spanning the North, South, and West, Anderson places these histories side by side, revealing the shared logic of racial spatial control and reframing nineteenth-century US history as a story of nation-building intertwined with segregation and capitalism.

Yet popular culture was a contested space. Black and Native performers, writers, and activists used the same platforms as white creators to assert agency, resist confinement, and challenge dominant narratives of mobility. By illuminating these dynamics, Culture and Containment reshapes our understanding of nineteenth-century race relations while offering vital insight into enduring legacies—from residential segregation to mass incarceration—that continues to define the racial landscape through the twenty-first century.

--Marshal Zeringue

"An Embodiment of Souls"

New from Union Square & Co.: An Embodiment of Souls: A Novel by Julia Laurel.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this queer political necromantasy, a secret marriage pact for suvival might undo a kingdom...

As the daughter of a foreign ambassador, Rissa hoped living abroad would protect her from home’s puritanical customs where women are forbidden to walk at night or use magic except to support a necromancer’s dual identity.

Alek, the youngest prince of the Memric Isle, hasn’t yet taken his Second body. Fearing he’ll be accused of sin and his body claimed as a Second himself, Alek lives piously while studying abroad, even though he’s distracted by magic―and his handsome roommate, Gable.

When Alek meets Rissa by chance, his quiet life is thrown into chaos. One of Rissa’s fathers has been abducted, and Alek and Gable are witnesses. Alek and Rissa form a secret alliance to find her father and uncover the truth behind the conspiracy, risking life and freedom as they follow clues straight to the heart of the Memric Isle’s government.

Visit Julia Laurel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Settling: Women Who Sued the News"

New from the University of Massachusetts Press: Settling: Women Who Sued the News by Ashley Walter.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of courage and collective action inside the most powerful newsrooms in America

In 1971, Susan Smith, a young researcher at Reader’s Digest, dared to imagine herself as an editor. Her ambition was swiftly dismissed by a hiring manager who told her, “Single girls just don’t do well in this job.” Crushed―and then furious―Smith sought out Harriet Rabb, the attorney who had successfully sued Newsweek for sex discrimination just a year earlier. Their meeting helped spark a class-action lawsuit that ultimately united two thousand women at the magazine and became part of a broader revolt inside American newsrooms. Smith’s experience was far from unique. For much of American history, journalism has been rigidly segregated by gender, with women confined to research, clerical work, or the “women’s pages,” while men dominated reporting, editing, and leadership. That system began to crack in the 1970s, as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the women’s liberation movement emboldened newswomen to challenge daily discrimination. Yet this development has remained largely hidden, buried by editors reluctant to document inequities within their own institutions. Settling recovers this lost story.

Tracing class-action sex discrimination lawsuits at some of the most powerful news organizations in the United States―including The Washington Post, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and Time―Ashley Walter draws on oral histories and long-forgotten documents to reconstruct legal battles at eight major outlets. She argues that meaningful change came not from institutional goodwill but from the courage of women who organized, testified, and risked their careers to demand equality. Their victories reshaped journalism itself. As women assumed reporting and editorial roles, they broadened the scope of who counted as newsworthy, covering women as workers, political leaders, and authoritative sources. With this new illumination of women’s full participation in public life, newswomen shifted social norms and helped build women’s power across American society. By recovering these accounts, Settling reveals how newsroom struggles for gender equality transformed both journalism and the nation, offering urgent lessons for our present moment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Family Friends"

Coming November 17 from Pegasus Books: Family Friends: A Novel by Chloë Ashby.

About the book, from the publisher:

A "sultry and evocative" novel about the secrets and entanglements between a group of friends holidaying in the south of France.

Since they first met at university twenty years ago, Maggie and Will have spent the last two weeks of every summer in France with their close friends, Lydia and Roland. Both families always look forward to this annual ritual—but this summer things are different.

Will has been hiding something from his wife, and is struggling to keep his deceit from seeping into the cracks in their marriage. Maggie is worried about their withdrawn teenage son. Roland is grappling with how to grieve the death of his first wife. Lydia is trying to ignore past chemistry with an old friend while learning to play second fiddle to a ghost.

Into this already conflicted fray steps Issy, Roland’s beguiling, irrepressible daughter from his first marriage. And as the August heat beats down, and the children behave in unexpected ways, the two couples find that tensions they have been trying their best to temper have begun to bubble over…

Family Friends is a deeply atmospheric, sophisticated and compelling novel about what happens when the ties of love and loyalty are stretched to the breaking point, how relationships change (and don’t change) over time, and how we navigate the challenges thrown at us in every season of life.

Visit Chloë Ashby's website.

--Marshal Zeringue