"Sisters of a Halved Heart"

New from Algonquin Books: Sisters of a Halved Heart: A Novel by Nayantara Roy.

About the book, from the publisher:

The electric story of two sisters and an unthinkable betrayal.

Mira Guhathakurta is a poetry editor at a distinguished literary magazine in New York, a dream job that has given her nearly everything she's always wanted. And then she reconnects with Jack from college—kind, funny, intelligent Jack—and suddenly Mira feels as if she might have found her soulmate. They've woven their lives together so thoroughly; all that remains is for Jack to meet her family: her beloved father and dear sister Joy. But when Joy commits an unthinkable act of betrayal, the sisters are impossibly fractured and their father's heart is broken. As the sisters navigate their tumultuous relationship and Mira starts over, it turns out that Joy isn't the only one who has been—or continues to be—dishonest.

In a propulsive story of love and passion and the ultimate pull of family, Sisters of a Halved Heart examines the lengths we will go to in order to make our own narratives of love work out, the lies we tell ourselves, and the ways in which the truth, often right in front of you, can be impossible to see.

Visit Nayantara Roy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Settling Debt"

New from Cornell University Press: Settling Debt: Antislavery and Colonial by Cameron Seglias.

About the book, from the publisher:

Settling Debt overturns the familiar tale of early antislavery as a pure moral triumph by revealing its uneasy ties to colonial ambition and economic anxiety. Cameron Seglias shows how, from the late seventeenth century through the American Revolution, settlers and religious writers condemned slavery as a threat to their own prosperity and salvation. Debt, understood both as money owed and moral obligation, anchored their vision of freedom and shaped how they justified seizing Indigenous lands while denouncing racial bondage.

Drawing from neglected books, pamphlets, poems, and dramatic protests, like the radical acts of Benjamin Lay, Seglias weaves literary close readings with sharp historical insights to expose how freedom and dispossession were two sides of the same coin. At once readable and provocative, Settling Debt compels us to see how the language of moral debt masked the building of a colonial order rooted in inequality. In revisiting this past, Seglias offers a timely reminder: The debts of America's founding have yet to be settled.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Play It Again"

New from Dial Press: Play It Again: A Novel by Georgia Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

When four former theater kids reunite after twenty years, forgotten crushes, unresolved tension, and fresh chemistry steal the spotlight in this charming queer ensemble rom-com.

Love always deserves an encore.

As teens, Annie, Lola, Vicky, and Dylan stole the show in a legendary gender-swapped version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Two couples, one unforgettable summer—until the closing-night party tore them apart, and not all of them knew why.

Now, with lives that look nothing like they imagined, the foursome is called home by their beloved director for a one-night-only revival to save the theater and the town. Returning to Rhodes means facing everything they left behind: long-buried secrets, undeniable chemistry, and the chance to write a brand-new ending—together.

Brimming with nostalgia, wit, and small-town sparkle, Play It Again is a heartwarming story of first love, second chances, and the magic of finding your way back to the stage—and to the ones who knew you best.

Visit Georgia Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bucket List.

The Page 69 Test: The Bucket List.

Writers Read: Georgia Clark (August 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us by Roy A. Meals.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively tour through the biology, health, human performance, and popular culture of our bodies' essential connective tissue.

Ligaments are the quiet workhorses of the human body. They anchor our bones, guide our movements, and protect our joints—yet they remain largely unseen and misunderstood. In Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands that Bind Us, orthopedic surgeon and acclaimed science writer Roy A. Meals explores anatomy, biology, history, health, human performance, and popular culture to unlock the mysteries of ligaments. Completing a trilogy that began with Bones and Muscle, this richly illustrated volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the anatomy, history, injuries, and cultural relevance of ligaments.

These bone-to-bone connectors are the critical linking mechanisms that allow our muscles to produce purposeful movement. Dr. Meals explains how ligaments stabilize the skeleton like hinge pins on a door, resist the forces of gravity in the face and breasts, and contribute to feats of athleticism, contortion, and childbirth. Readers will learn how ligaments are stronger than steel, how they recover from injury (or fail to), and how they can be stretched, stiffened, or surgically replaced. He also clarifies the differences among ligaments, tendons, and fascia, and why some people are "double-jointed" and others are not. Covering current and emerging treatments for ligament injuries, including artificial and engineered ligaments, the book provides practical insights into maintaining joint stability and flexibility across the lifetime.

Whether examining career-ending sports injuries, congenital laxity, or the elasticity of the vocal cords, Dr. Meals builds a case for why ligaments deserve center stage in our understanding of movement and health.

Visit Roy A. Meals's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How We See the Gray"

New from Curbstone Books: How We See the Gray: A Novel by Rachel León.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riveting story about parenthood, substance abuse, and the strength it takes to come back from our mistakes

Foster care is a disaster in Rockford, Illinois. Meredith, a social worker and single mom, is stretched beyond thin but determined to protect her kids: not only her son, but those on her caseload too. When the stress of the job has her breaking her sobriety, the foundations of her life begin to tremble. After drinking too much, she makes a mistake that puts her preschooler in jeopardy, and Meredith finds herself in a situation that mirrors her clients’ as she loses custody of her son. In her fight to get him back, Meredith experiences the system from the outside―while still working for the kids inside of it. Set over the course of a year, this riveting documentary-esque novel is told from multiple perspectives, including those of case workers, birth parents, foster parents, and foster children. Written with the working-class humor and heart that defines the Midwest, How We See the Gray is a story about mistakes, second chances, and trying to do better in a system that seems doomed to fail.

Visit Rachel León's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What's So Great About the Great Books?"

New from Princeton University Press: What's So Great About the Great Books?: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It Might Destroy You) by Naomi Kanakia.

About the book, from the publisher:

A popular novelist and literary blogger answers those who claim the classics are too difficult, too problematic, and too white—and explains what we gain by reading them

When she was in her early twenties, then-aspiring writer Naomi Kanakia set out to read the Great Books—humankind’s most highly regarded literary classics, representing “the best that human beings have thought or said,” as determined by the two elderly intellectuals who’d written the guidebook she consulted. After twenty years, she has made her way through about two-thirds of these books, and she’s found reading them to be an immensely pleasurable and insightful activity. Plato, Milton, Tolstoy, Proust, all those dead guys—their books have stood the test of time.

But since beginning her journey, Kanakia has found that although reading the Great Books is part of a longstanding tradition of engaging with the thought of previous generations, it is also a highly contingent activity that arose out of a specific time and place, the brainchild of a small group of early twentieth-century popularizers associated with Columbia University and the University of Chicago. And people have always been skeptical about the idea of reading the Great Books, asking if this is truly a realistic or even desirable goal for the ordinary person. A more recent and growing group of Great Books skeptics asks if these works are too problematic, reactionary, and irrelevant to bother reading. Kanakia, a self-described “left-of-center person,” grapples with these objections, attempting to restore context for the Great Books even as she sticks up for them. Because books that expose us to fundamental truths about the nature of beauty and reality are worth fighting for.

Visit Naomi Kanakia's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Midsummer Nights"

Coming soon from Lake Union: Midsummer Nights: A Novel by Lara Stokes.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Life imitates art when a down-on-her-luck TV star returns to her hometown stage and redefines her dreams in a funny and heartwarming spin on Shakespeare’s most magical romantic comedy.

Miranda Belmont is a regular on a popular TV series, but her acting career is not exactly moving forward. After she’s publicly humbled, her next steps are definitely backward: playing Helena in a community theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in her stifling hometown, directed by her parents, and sharing the stage with her high school boyfriend.

Backstage, it’s borderline Shakespearean drama. Between her ex, an intriguing costar making sweet overtures, and an unwelcome blast from the past, Miranda is caught in a real-life, nearly magical tangle of romantic confusion that threatens the production at every turn.

Opening night will bring them all down to earth―especially Miranda, who’s navigating her way, onstage and off, through all the chaos these mere mortals create. As she reconnects to her roots, the creative spark she’s been missing awakens Miranda to who she truly is.

Visit Lara Stokes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Red Italians of Monfalcone"

New from the University of Wisconsin Press: The Red Italians of Monfalcone: Everyday Fascism, Communist Horizons, and the Migration of an Italian Border Community Beyond the Iron Curtain by Luke Gramith.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between 1946 and 1948, roughly five thousand ethnic Italians from the northern Adriatic shipbuilding town of Monfalcone relocated to the newly communist Yugoslavia. This rare case of eastward Cold War migration demonstrates how ordinary people conceived of liberation during the transitional years between World War II and the early Cold War―a time when Monfalcone was both the object of competing Italian and Yugoslav territorial claims and the subject of Anglo-American military occupation.

In The Red Italians of Monfalcone, Luke Gramith undertakes a deep and detailed analysis―based on archival sources in Italy, Slovenia, and the United States―of how the Monfalconesi came to understand Fascism and communism through everyday experience and how those emergent ideologies affected and were affected by their migration. In the course of his analysis, Gramith also examines the failure of “defascistization” and how it fueled strong (but ultimately unsuccessful) pro-Yugoslav and communist movements.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Open Era"

New from Berkley: The Open Era by Edward Schmit.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Love evens the score between two tennis players in this stunning debut romance.

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam tournament. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it.

Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked second in the world.

The two professional rivals start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and looming showdown, Austin is thrown further off his game by Diego.

With the eyes of the world on Austin, the weight of history on his shoulders, and Diego across the net, he must decide whether love means nothing or if it means everything as he battles for the trophy during an electric two weeks at the US Open.

Visit Edward Schmit's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Crimes of Others"

New from Oxford University Press: The Crimes of Others: Criminal Records, Publicity, and Crimes of Abuse by Katerina Hadjimatheou.

About the book, from the publisher:

Do we have a right to know about each other's criminal past? And if so, just how publicly accessible should criminal records be? Does publicity serve an important purpose in fulfilling the public's right to know about who amongst their fellow citizens is dangerous or has violated collective moral norms? Does it provide transparency in criminal justice, the just punishment of the guilty, and the protection of the vulnerable from serial perpetrators? Or does it stigmatize people as dangerous or untrustworthy for life, so that those who have made mistakes in the past are still paying for them long after they have served their time? How should we design our laws and policies to reconcile or balance these apparently competing demands of (criminal) justice?

The Crimes of Others: Criminal Records, Publicity, and Abuse draws on philosophical and legal theory as well as new empirical evidence about the impacts of criminal records to address these questions. Katerina Hadjimatheou argues that there is no general right of citizens to know about each other's criminal records; instead, there are limited rights to know, which differ according to the status or role of the person claiming such a right, the nature of the crime in question, and the purpose for which the right is asserted. Notably, the book asserts that disclosures of criminal records to prevent harm are often justified when the risk relates to predatory crimes and crimes of abuse. The reasons relate to the distinctive features of such crimes, in particular their serial nature, the widespread impunity with which they are committed, and the special role of secrecy, lies, and silencing in their perpetration.

The Crimes of Others offers the first rigorous and systematic analysis of the normative aspects of public access to criminal records, providing a coherent set of criteria for the disclosure of criminal records that can be drawn upon to answer the question: when, to whom, and on what grounds should different kinds of information about the criminality of others be available? In doing so, it lays the groundwork for fairer and more effective policies and practices for a digital age.

--Marshal Zeringue