"Black Power, White Heat"

New from Oxford University Press: Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic by Alice Echols.

About the book, from the publisher:

A rich history of cross-racial coalitions and alliances of the Sixties' freedom movement, acclaimed historian Alice Echols's Black Power, White Heat reshapes our understanding of the entire era.

One of the most divisive issues in recent progressive politics has been what role, if any, allies might legitimately play in other people's movements. Despite the significance of this debate, it has taken place in a historical vacuum.

In Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, the Sixties historian Alice Echols explores what happened some sixty years ago when whites and Blacks came together in the fight against racism. She tells this story by focusing on two Black-led organizations that bookend the Sixties: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party. In SNCC, whites were, in part, meant to generate a "white heat" so searing it would accelerate change. Results were mixed, and white activists formed new movements, from women's liberation to draft resistance.

By 1967, the Black Panther Party was advancing its own unique brand of "revolutionary nationalism", and seeking out white supporters. Partnering with whites brought the group visibility and resources, but it also put the Panthers at odds with other Black radicals, with unfortunate consequences.

Black Power, White Heat explains how solidarity lost credibility, and not just from within the movement. Here, the FBI played a key role, and so did the discourse of "radical chic", advanced most effectively by the journalist Tom Wolfe. Still, even as Black-white solidarity lost steam, it was not entirely played out. In some of the era's most important political trials, even courtrooms became sites of solidarity as predominantly white juries returned verdicts that suggested they trusted Black Panther defendants more than the District Attorneys prosecuting them. Clear-eyed about the difficulties of solidarity, Black Power, White Heat nonetheless emphasizes the achievements and considerable promise of uniting across difference, and in ways that will inform and deepen current debates roiling progressive politics.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Nightshade and Oak"

New from Orbit: Nightshade and Oak by Molly O'Neill.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An Iron Age goddess must grapple with becoming human in this delightful historical fantasy of myth and magic from the author of the instant hit Greenteeth.

When Malt, the goddess of death, is accidentally turned human by a wayward spell, she finds she's ill-equipped to deal with the trials of a mortal life. After all, why would a goddess need to know how to gather food or light a fire?

Unable to fend for herself, she teams up with warrior Bellis on a perilous journey to the afterlife to try to restore her powers. Frustrated by her frail human body and beset with blisters, Malt might not make the best travelling companion.

But as animosity slowly turns to attraction, these two very different women must learn to work together if they are to have any hope of surviving their quest.

Visit Molly O'Neill's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seeing Matters"

New from Cambridge University Press: Seeing Matters: A Psychology of the Image and Its Politics by Sarah Awad.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Seeing Matters, Sarah Awad offers a psychological exploration of how images shape our actions, perceptions, and identities. She examines how we use images to symbolically and materially influence the world, others, and ourselves, while also revealing how the images around us shape our thoughts, emotions, and memories. Awad investigates the social and political dynamics of visual culture, questioning who is seen, how they are portrayed, and why these representations matter. By using clear language and real-world examples, she makes complex theories accessible to readers, offering diverse methodological approaches for analyzing a wide range of image genres – such as graffiti, digital memes, photojournalism, and caricatures. This comprehensive analysis addresses the politics of visual representation, making the book an essential guide for researchers across disciplines, while providing valuable insights into how images impact society and our everyday lives.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Land of Dreams"

New from Lake Union: Land of Dreams: A Novel by Gian Sardar.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In the 1930s, scandal, secret loves, and murder shatter a woman’s Hollywood dream in a gripping novel by the USA Today bestselling author of When the World Goes Quiet.

It’s 1933, and though the country is stuck in the Great Depression, movies are the ultimate escape. But Hollywood is skilled at selling lies, and nothing is as it seems.

Frankie Donnelly is scrappy, smart, and ambitious. Her knack for spinning any story into stellar publicity has made her an invaluable “fixer” at RCO Studios, where she works under the tutelage of powerful Nico Marconi. Frankie’s latest fix is the upcoming marriage of Hollywood royals Jack Sawyer and June Finney, and millions of fans can’t wait to see their favorite silver-screen lovers tie the knot. But Frankie knows the truth: The marriage is an artful cover for Jack and June’s darkest secrets.

When a shocking murder occurs, allegiances fracture, the tabloids go wild, and a devastated public is left reeling. Frankie uncovers new layers of scandal and deception and is forced to choose which Hollywood player to protect and who to destroy. Now, more than ever, the country needs a happy ending―but at what cost?

Visit Gian Sardar's website.

Q&A with Gian Sardar.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Printing Nueva York"

New from NYU Press: Printing Nueva York: Spanish-Language Print Culture, Media Change, and Democracy in the Late Nineteenth Century by Kelley Kreitz.

About the book, from the publisher:

Uncovers the network of Spanish-language writers and editors in 19th-century New York, whose media innovations fueled anticolonial struggles and democratic ideals

At the end of the nineteenth century, New York City was a vital hub for writers from Latin America, providing a haven of press freedom and the latest printing technology. In Printing Nueva York, Kelley Kreitz reexamines the development of mass media in the United States by highlighting the significant contributions of Spanish-language newspapers and magazines created by US-based Latinx writers, editors, and their allies. This dynamic, hemispheric network of collaborators used a mix of storytelling and strategic media engagement to model democratic principles centered on equality and collective action.

Kreitz's work offers a fresh look at U.S. media and literary history, challenging established narratives that have primarily focused on English-language publications. Through a vivid analysis of innovative figures such as José Martí, Rafael Serra, and Sotero Figueroa, the book uncovers a rich intellectual exchange that crossed national and linguistic borders. Unlike many Anglophone outlets that emphasized passive consumption, these trans-American media networks promoted active participation, cultural exchange, and collective mobilization to address pressing issues of the time, including colonialism, anarchism, and the pursuit of economic, gender, and racial equality.

Printing Nueva York demonstrates how early Latinx writers and editors redefined what democracy could be, offering insights that are highly relevant to our current digital age. The book encourages readers to consider how storytelling, participation, and the transformative power of technology can continue to drive the potential of contemporary media to build a more democratic future.

Visit Kelley Kreitz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Beast You Let In"

Coming April 7 from Sourcebooks Fire: The Beast You Let In by Dana Mele.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone in the rural town of Ashling knows the tale of Veronica Green, a teen who was murdered in the woods. But did a party trick bring her back to claim her revenge? A fast—paced, suspenseful YA horror from the author of Summer's Edge and People Like Us.

There is no one Hazel trusts less than her self—centered twin, Beth. So when Beth abandons her at a party she didn't want to attend in the first place, Hazel decides not to let it ruin her night. She throws herself into flirting and telling ghost stories over a Ouija board. Hazel might not be the popular twin, but she is going to have fun if it kills her.

Except Beth doesn't come home that night, and Hazel's anger morphs into anxiety. It only sharpens when Beth reappears a day later, disoriented and claiming to be Veronica Green, a teen who was murdered in their small town years before. If it isn't a possession, Beth is really good at faking it. Did they accidentally release a vengeful horror during the party?

Hazel must uncover what happened to Veronica all those years ago if she's going to save Beth. But the truth may destroy them both—if they don't destroy each other first.

Visit Dana Mele's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Invention of Rum"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity by Jordan B. Smith.

About the book, from the publsher:

A complex history of rum, from its production to its consumption, and from its origins in the Caribbean to its impact on the Atlantic world

It was strong. It was cheap. It was ubiquitous. Fermented and distilled from the refuse of sugar production, rum emerged in the seventeenth-century Caribbean as a new commodity. To conjure something desirable from waste, the makers, movers, and drinkers of rum arrived at its essential qualities through cross-cultural experimentation and exchange. Those profiting most from the sale of rum also relied on plantation slavery, devoured natural resources, and overlooked the physiological effects of overconsumption in their pursuit of profit. Focusing on the lived experiences of British colonists, Indigenous people, and enslaved Africans, The Invention of Rum shows how people engaged in making and consuming this commodity created a new means of profit that transformed the Atlantic world.

Jordan B. Smith guides readers from the fledgling sugar plantations and urban distilleries where new types of alcohol sprung forth to the ships, garrisons, trading posts, and refined tables where denizens of the Atlantic world devoured it. He depicts the enslaved laborers in the Caribbean as they experimented with fermentation, the Londoners caught up in the Gin Craze, the colonial distillers in North America, and the imperial officials and sailors connecting these places. This was a world flooded by rum.

Based on extensive archival research in the Caribbean, North America, and Britain, The Invention of Rum narrates the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century history of one of the Atlantic world’s most ubiquitous products. Smith casts this everyday item as both a crucial example of negotiation between Europeans, Africans, and Americans and a harbinger of modernity, connecting rum’s early history to the current global market. The book reveals how individuals throughout the Atlantic world encountered―and helped to build―rapidly shifting societies and economies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Tavern at the End of History"

New from Dzanc Books: The Tavern at the End of History by Morris Collins.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Over a span of five days in 2017, two strangers find themselves in a sea—rocked sanitarium on the coast of Maine where, as they gather at an auction for a piece of art stolen in the Second World War, they must reckon with the wounds of inheritance: shame, displacement, and the longing of exiles.

Jacob, grandson of a Holocaust survivor, son of refugees, has lived his life overshadowed by the grief of others. His mistakes have cost him his job and his marriage. So when he meets Baer, an impoverished Holocaust survivor looking for help, Jacob sees an opportunity to redeem himself.

But what Baer wants won’t be easy. A piece of art given to him as a boy—and that disappeared during the war—has resurfaced and is about to go up for auction in a secluded sanitarium for Holocaust survivors and their families on an island off the coast of Maine. The head of the sanitarium is Alex Baruch, a disgraced writer and Kabbalist whose memoir about surviving the Holocaust has been denounced as fraudulent. Baer asks Jacob to go to the auction with his niece, Rachel, and steal back the piece.

Rachel carries grief of her own. She’s mourning her husband, a young Jew trying to separate himself from his ultra—orthodox community, and instead of living the artist's life she dreamed, she’s working in a museum basement answering questions on the phone about paintings she can’t see. Grieving and guilty, she’s eager for an impossible quest.

Together, Rachel and Jacob head to the sanitarium, where they find Baruch and his community of odd and broken souls. But two nights before the auction, in the midst of a storm, a stranger appears—an old man, a ghost or a dybbuk, or just a survivor of the European catastrophe—bearing a secret. As the line between forgery and authenticity blurs, Rachel and Jacob, Baruch and his followers must face the claims the dead make on the living, in a surreal reckoning with the past where no one is who they say they are, but everyone may be telling the truth.

Recalling the warmth and humor of Nicole Krauss and Joshua Cohen, and the wild collage of history and fantasy of Bruno Schulz and Olga Tokarczuk, The Tavern at the End of History is a deeply felt exploration of grief, love, and identity in the long shadow of twentieth—century calamity.

Visit Morris Collins's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Sealed Envelope"

New from Yale University Press: The Sealed Envelope: Toward an Intelligent Utopia by George Scialabba.

About the book, from the publisher:

An award-winning author argues for the necessity of cultural critics and intellectuals to American democracy

This incisive collection of essays investigates the moral imagination of modernism and our intellectual and political inheritance. George Scialabba offers a series of portraits of, and arguments with, American and European thinkers of the past hundred years, ranging from conservatives such as John Gray, William Buckley, and Jonathan Haidt to radicals such as Dwight Macdonald, Christopher Hitchens, and Bill McKibben.

In our moment of democracy under siege, with intellectual work popularly derided as only for “elites,” Scialabba champions such thinkers as Richard Rorty, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Christopher Lasch, with their emphasis on democratic political culture and their faith in the capacities of ordinary people and the importance of intellectual work. This collection passes on these values “in a sealed envelope,” as Rilke says of love between selfish lovers, for future generations to use in crafting their own “intelligent utopia.”

Visit George Scialabba's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Better Mother"

New from Crooked Lane Books: The Better Mother: A Thriller by Jennifer van der Kleut.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman ends up pregnant after a casual fling, but the father's girlfriend has much more sinister intentions in this plot-driven suspense debut.

A modern spin on Fatal Attraction meets The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, perfect for fans of The Last Mrs. Parrish.

Still recovering from a devastating breakup, 34-year-old Savannah Mitchell has finally managed to put her life back together when she gets the shock of her life—after a brief fling with a man named Max, she is pregnant.

When she gets in touch to tell him, he reveals that he’s just gotten back together with his ex, Madison, and he will need time to break it to her. Surprisingly, Madison isn’t upset—in fact, she’s excited, and wants to help.

Max insists Madison has the best of intentions, but Savannah finds her efforts—popping by uninvited, demanding lifestyle changes, and pretty much trying to take over the pregnancy—anything but helpful. When Savannah finally stands up for herself, Madison’s treatment of her goes from casually cruel to downright dangerous.

All Savannah wanted to do was form a friendly co-parenting relationship with the father of her child—but his new girlfriend obviously has much more sinister plans in mind.

She has no plans to co-parent at all.

Visit Jennifer van der Kleut's website.

--Marshal Zeringue