"Dead Dharma"

New from Oxford University Press: Dead Dharma: The Grateful Dead and the American Quest for Transcendence by Casey Rae.

About the book, from the publisher:

What can the Grateful Dead teach us about impermanence, interconnection, and the quest for meaning?

Dead Dharma: The Grateful Dead and the American Quest for Transcendence explores how the Grateful Dead and their cultural orbit became unlikely guides for America's spiritual journey. Blending spiritual sociology, musicology, and cultural history, Casey Rae situates the Dead within a lineage of seekers--from Transcendentalists and Beats to psychedelic pioneers and spiritual radicals shaped by Eastern philosophies and Indigenous wisdom.

The book reveals how the band functioned as a living mandala: their concerts as psychedelic ritual spaces, their vast archive as sacred artifacts, and their ethos as a fusion of improvisation and awakening. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and lived experience, Dead Dharma illuminates how the Dead's improvisational soundtracks echo Buddhist concepts of impermanence, interdependence, and open awareness.

Tracing the band'a evolution from the Beat-fueled San Francisco Renaissance to their enduring presence in contemporary culture (where for some they verge on religion,) Rae connects their musical and social experiment to the spiritual and philosophical currents of their era and beyond. In doing so, he shows how the Dead embodied both the promise and paradox of American transcendence. Blending cultural, musical, literary, and spiritual inquiry with polyphonic biography, Dead Dharma offers a vivid exploration of how the Dead's ecstatic experiment in sound and community resonates with timeless questions of social transformation, individual liberation, and what it means to be human in a world on fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Firefly Hour"

New from Lake Union: The Firefly Hour: A Novel by Annie Rains.

About the book, from the publisher:

For a fractured family, a beloved inn becomes a place of healing in a bittersweet novel about loss, transformation, and second chances by a USA Today bestselling author.

After a hurricane barrels down the North Carolina coast, three estranged siblings reunite to repair their late grandmother’s bed-and-breakfast. The Shelter Inn still stands, suffused with childhood memories of pink-lemonade days and firefly-dotted nights. But the bonds between Amelia, Maggie, and Duncan are broken.

Amelia, the high achiever of the family, disapproves of Maggie’s aimless life, which has left her without a job, home, or vision for the future. Maggie resents Amelia’s need to control everything. Duncan, usually the peacekeeper, is preoccupied with his own problems―he’s been hiding a devastating secret from his stepsisters, and time is running out for closure.

Luckily, Grandma Laverne left behind a box of recipe cards offering wisdom on everything from curating the perfect summer day to mending a broken heart. As the family rebuilds the storm-damaged inn, the recipes help them come to terms with life’s misunderstandings―and missed connections. Can they let go of the past and forgive one another before another storm shakes them apart?

Visit Annie Rains's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sonic Infrastructures"

New from the University of California Press: Sonic Infrastructures: Mediating National Cinemas in West and South Asia by Claire Cooley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sonic Infrastructures traces how sound shaped the transregional movement of cinema across the Middle East and South Asia from the early twentieth century to the 1970s. Drawing on archival research in Egypt, India, and Iran, Claire Cooley shows how sonic infrastructures―including gramophone records, radio, early sound cinema, and film festivals―enabled sound to circulate across regions while also regulating how it was heard. These infrastructures informed national cinema imaginaries even as they sustained circuits of exchange that unsettled political boundaries. Foregrounding sound as both historical object and method, the book centers the gendered labor of female performers whose embodied voices moved across colonial and postcolonial worlds. Bringing feminist film history into conversation with sound studies and critical infrastructure studies, Sonic Infrastructures reveals how sound functioned at once as a technology of national containment and a medium of solidarity and dissent.

Visit Claire Cooley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"For the King"

Coming December 1 from William Morrow: For the King: An Epic Arthurian Fantasy of Told Through Fresh Eyes by Carissa Weiser.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The first installment of the For the King trilogy, a comprehensive retelling of King Arthur’s legend that breathes new life into the classic tale, from cohost of the Myths and Legends® podcast, Carissa Weiser.

Logris is a land torn asunder, plagued by invasions, assassinations, and anarchy. Rulers rise and fall, and so the tide turns. The land lies in wait for one strong enough to truly bear the crown, one who will pull a sword from a rock.

But there is another being, rumored to be half-demon and half-man, who braids together these threads of destiny. He goes by the name of Merlin, and he shapes kingdoms like clay, only to destroy them between his fingers. And so fate proceeds…

Morgan is a princess unlike her sisters. Intent on learning the mystic arts, she flees her comfortable yet predictable life to find Merlin’s fabled cave, a place of knowledge where she longs to become an apprentice. She is not the only one with such a dream, and what she discovers inside the workroom is beyond anything she could have imagined.

And then there is Arthur, the boy king remembered throughout time. Perhaps he can prove his worth and bury his past before those closest to him understand the extent of his rise to power, as he rules with a sword in his hand and Merlin in his ear.

Meanwhile, the currents of Avalon, and of the Ladies of the Lake, swirl beneath them all.

A story of loyalties tested and lives lost, of characters both familiar and fresh, For the King is the first installment in a trilogy that will knit the scramble of Arthurian legend into a kaleidoscopic journey through time, perspective, and the trappings of one’s own destiny. The adventure awaits—if you so choose.

Visit Carissa Weiser's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Creole"

New from LSU Press: Making Creole: Women and the Creole Community in Early Jim Crow New Orleans by Natasha L. McPherson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between 1880 and 1910, as Jim Crow’s legal apparatus transformed Louisiana’s complex racial landscape into a stark binary, Creole women fought to preserve their community’s distinctive identity through the most ordinary acts of daily life. In their households, they cultivated kinship arrangements that prioritized mutual care over conventional family structures. In workshops and factories, they navigated the degradation of traditional occupations while strategically avoiding associations with Black women’s labor. In churches, they deployed Catholic sacraments to formalize social bonds and secure legal protections. In courtrooms, they exploited Louisiana’s racial ambiguities to defend their families and assert their claims to elevated status. Through these seemingly mundane spheres of daily existence, Creole women resisted the racial order that sought to collapse all people of African descent into a single category of Blackness.

Making Creole: Women and the Creole Community in Early Jim Crow New Orleans examines how Creole women took action against the systematic erosion of their privileges. As Louisiana moved from recognizing the legal status of free people of color to enforcing rigid Jim Crow segregation, Creole women became the primary architects of sociocultural preservation. Before the Civil War, Louisiana law had distinguished all free persons of African descent as legally separate from both enslaved persons and white people, granting them specific rights and privileges based on their “free” status rather than their complexion alone. The end of slavery eliminated this legal distinction. By the early twentieth century, Jim Crow legislation systematically forced all people of African descent into a single racialized category of Blackness, erasing the complex racial hierarchies that had previously structured Louisiana society. In this context, Creole women’s labor in managing complex kinship networks, preserving Franco-Catholic traditions, policing community boundaries, and strategically navigating legal institutions constituted essential political work that sustained not just families but an entire ethnic community under siege.

Using an innovative “speculative demography” methodology, Natasha L. McPherson analyzes more than nine thousand transcribed records from census data, court documents, and Catholic church registers, including materials from the Sisters of the Holy Family, to reconstruct patterns of Creole women’s resistance between 1880 and 1910. Making Creole moves beyond traditional narratives of political organizing to illuminate how women’s everyday practices became mechanisms of ethnic identity formation and cultural survival, revealing resistance from the intimate spaces where it actually occurred.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blood Is Thicker"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Blood Is Thicker by Iris Voss.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A sinister psychological thriller where three women bound by blood must take their secrets to the grave or risk shattering the illusion of a perfect life.

Blood Is Thicker is a fast-paced and twisty novel that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth.

Claire Walters has curated an enviable life. On camera, she is the face of Silverton’s morning news. Off camera, she seemingly has it all: a handsome husband, a promising teenage daughter, an adorable young son. After a trying childhood and her sister’s endless run-ins with the law, Claire’s life is finally stable.

Until one fateful night changes everything.

It was an accident! It was dark…Claire shouldn’t have taken a sedative before bed, shouldn’t have been driving with her inebriated sister, Viola, and daughter, Molly, in the car. If only she’d backed into her driveway more slowly. If only that poor person wasn’t dead, under her car…

Come daylight, the scandal would destroy them. So the trio hatches a plan to cover up the crime—literally—and bury the body deep in the woods. It’s a decision that will forever bind them in secrecy and guilt.

But all three women are hiding things from each other and must decide how far they’ll go when someone threatens to reveal what happened. Strangled in blackmail’s grip, their fragile alliance begins to splinter as a devastating revelation transforms the accident into something much darker. Will the truth bring this family closer—or ruin their lives forever?

With high stakes and clever plotting, this thriller will hook its claws into readers everywhere.

Follow Iris Voss on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wagner: Philosophy and Revolution"

New from Princeton University Press: Wagner: Philosophy and Revolution by Brian O'Connor.

About the book, from the publisher:

Wagner as revolutionary philosopher: a new reading of a trilogy of texts written by the composer in the aftermath of the failed Dresden Uprising

Forced into exile to avoid arrest after taking part in the failed Dresden Uprising in 1849, Richard Wagner turned to philosophical writing, producing in rapid succession three theoretical works. In this compelling study, Brian O’Connor traces Wagner’s emergence in these texts as a radical political thinker with a distinctive revolutionary vision. O’Connor describes Wagner’s transformation from publicly engaged commentator to active insurrectionist, showing how revolution’s failure redirected Wagner’s energies toward systematic philosophical reflection. For a crucial period, this theoretical work took precedence over musical composition.

At the heart of O’Connor’s account is Wagner’s philosophical imagination. He explores Wagner’s conception of aesthetic spontaneity as a model of individual freedom and his belief in collective artistic creation as the foundation of a liberated society. By situating Wagner’s philosophy within the turbulent political and intellectual context of the time, O’Connor challenges its marginalization in previous accounts, restoring it to its proper place in nineteenth-century political thought. He shows how Wagner reworked ideas drawn from the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach into an original and provocative form of aesthetic materialism, and examines the interplay between these ideas and Wagner’s dramatic works. O’Connor also offers a straightforward treatment of the unavoidable subject of Wagner’s antisemitism, as expressed in an essay from 1850 about “Jewishness” in music.

O’Connor argues that Wagner’s philosophical writing is not only significant in its own right, but it also offers unique and invaluable insights into his music dramas—particularly the composer’s most celebrated work, the Ring cycle—illuminating their themes, characters, and revolutionary affinities.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Eternity's Tomb"

New from Angry Robot: Eternity's Tomb by Dan Moren.

About the book, from the publisher:

The score of a lifetime is out there, just waiting to be claimed… An irreverent sci-fi novel, perfect for fans of Guardians of the Galaxy.

“I WOULD LIKE YOU TO HELP ME RECOVER THE BIGGEST UNDISCOVERED TREASURE TROVE IN THE HISTORY OF THE GALAXY: THE TOMB OF IKANTO…”

It’s a wild offer. Especially when made by a floating brain in a jar. But Z’s an ex-con who’s short on money and options—and happens to know just the crew who could pull the job off.

Meet Graham, Z’s ursine partner in past crimes; Trix, an expert pilot and Z’s ex (it didn’t end well); and Whistler, a genetically engineered murder bird. Together with Ayex, the floating brain, they’re half dream team, half fever dream.

If they can overcome their differences and learn to trust each other, find a tomb hurtling through space towards a black hole, survive the tomb’s no doubt lethal defences, and escape, then maybe, just maybe, they can come away with riches to exceed even their wildest imagination.

Visit Dan Moren's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Generation Denied"

New from the University of Texas Press: Generation Denied: The Broken Promise of Education in Iran by Reza Khanzadeh.

About the book, from the publisher:

An examination of the struggles of Iran’s youth when education promises success only through loyalty to the regime, and how that loyalty manifests through ideological capital within regime-imposed parameters.

Education is highly prized in Iranian society, touted as the key to success and influence. After all, the state’s top leaders are themselves scholars and experts in Islamic thought, history, and law, and graduates of elite institutions like Sharif University enjoy better job prospects than their peers. Yet the promise of a return on investment from education is a ruse: What unlocks opportunity is not academic development but loyalty to the regime. Generation Denied shows how the education system, from middle school through university, relies on standardized tests to funnel students into politically quiescent STEM fields, limiting their potential and quashing intellectual opposition to the regime. Students then graduate into a job market dominated by regime-affiliated entities, who hire applicants on the basis not of skills but of political agendas. Those who resist discover that the future they want in Iran does not exist, resulting in compelled migration. Closely following five young men who chose to be outsiders by pursuing education while rejecting political conformity, Reza Khanzadeh situates Iran within a broader global context, offering groundbreaking insight into the roles of education and employment in non-democratic governments.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Loba"

New from Angry Robot: Loba by Valentina Cano Repetto.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The Hacienda meets The Haunting of Alejandra in this split timeline gothic horror novel set in a remote lighthouse on the edge of Uruguay, following one woman's escape from an abusive marriage... and into a haunting.

She’s not the first lighthouse keeper to lose her mind on the shores of Cabo Polonio, but she’s determined to be the first to survive it.

Delmira Torres knows fleeing to Brazil is the only way she’ll be free of her abusive husband. But to get there she’ll need money; it’s why she takes a posting at a lighthouse in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay, a small town where time doesn’t seem to move quite right.

There, she has only a month until her husband and her secrets catch up to her. But the position comes marred by the legend of La Loba, who stalks the lighthouse and the nearby fishing village, and by the spiraling visions that begin to plague Delmira.

A century earlier, Amalia arrives at the same lighthouse. Held captive and desperate to escape her dire situation, her story may hold the answers to Delmira’s torment.

Both of them, desperate for freedom and determined to survive, must find a way to outlive the horrors of Cabo Polonio.

Visit Valentina Cano Repetto's website.

--Marshal Zeringue