"The Architect"

New from Blackstone: The Architect by John Katzenbach.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From #1 internationally bestselling author John Katzenbach comes this pulse-pounding thriller that proves there’s nothing more dangerous than digging up secrets from your own family’s past.

“Remember what your name means. I’m so sorry.”

Just two weeks before her final architecture exams, Sloane Connolly receives this cryptic handwritten note from her estranged mother. When her calls go unanswered, Sloane returns to her hometown in northwest Massachusetts to discover that her mother has vanished. A thorough search turns up no trace of her—and the police are ultimately forced to give up and rule her disappearance a suicide.

As Sloane deals with the aftermath, she distracts herself by taking on a mysterious commission: to design a memorial for six strangers whose connection to her anonymous client—known to her only as The Employer—is deliberately kept in the dark. To complete this project, Sloane must trace the lives of all six individuals and uncover the hidden links between them. With the promise of a multimillion-dollar payday and a prestigious jump start to her career, it’s an opportunity too important to pass up.

But as the trail pulls her from Maine to Miami, Sloane begins to realize that the memorial is far more than just an academic exercise. The secrets she uncovers begin to weave dangerously into her own family’s tragic history, forcing her to question everything she thought she knew—and to discover for herself just how far she’s willing to go to survive.

Visit John Katzenbach's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Red 1-2-3.

Writers Read: John Katzenbach (January 2014.

The Page 69 Test: Red 1-2-3.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killing and Christian Ethics"

New from Cambridge University Press: Killing and Christian Ethics by Christopher O. Tollefsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone recognizes that it is, in general, wrong to intentionally kill a human being. But are there exceptions to that rule? In Killing and Christian Ethics, Christopher Tollefsen argues that there are no exceptions: the rule is absolute. The absolute view on killing that he defends has important implications for bioethical issues at the beginning and end of life, such as abortion and euthanasia. It has equally important implications for the morality of capital punishment and the morality of killing in war. Tollefsen argues that a lethal act is morally permissible only when it is an unintended side effect of one's action. In this way, some lethal acts of force, such as personal self-defense, or defense of a polity in a defensive war, may be justified -- but only if they involve no intension of causing death. Even God, Tollefsen argues, neither intends death, nor commands the intentional taking of life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Deep to Cross"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller by Kerri Hakoda.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Homicide Detective DeHavilland Beans is back in his hometown with a case much more dangerous—and personal—than it seems.

Told through multiple points of view, this thrilling sequel to Cold to the Touch is perfect for fans of Alice Henderson and Dana Stabenow.

A shocking discovery on a remote beach brings Detective DeHavilland Beans back to his Yukon River hometown—and a missing person's case turns into a murder investigation. On administrative leave after an unsettling officer-involved shooting, Beans comes to the aid of his childhood friend and sole police officer in the village, Felicia Gunnerson, who is leading the case.

The new evidence suggests the missing man, Lloyd Paul, the overindulged scion of a prominent family, was murdered. Lloyd had a contentious relationship with many of the locals, especially with Beans and his mother, Mari.

As Beans and Felicia dig deeper, events that neither of them could have predicted are set in motion. Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mari uncovers secrets that threaten to rewrite the Beans family’s history.

Spanning a sprawling time frame ranging from World War II to the present day, the danger has never felt closer to home.

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Arachnomania"

New from Princeton University Press: Arachnomania: Spiders and the Cultural Work They Do for Us by Maria Tatar.

About the book, from the publisher:

In praise of spiders in all their inspirational glory

Spiders are often found lurking in dusty corners, where we can observe them with interest or brush them away with disgust—or make a run for it, as the agitated Miss Muffet does. They are just as prevalent in our cultural landscapes, starring in horror films, inspiring works by famous artists and writers, and featured in myths and folktales. In Arachnomania, Maria Tatar explores how these creatures became our totem animals, our significant others, and our curved mirrors. Spiders model engineering genius in the construction of webs that have become powerful metaphors for drawing us out of our social isolation and connecting us in a fragile ecosystem. But these arachnids are also solitary in their habits and savage in their survival tactics. Spiders combine horror and beauty, and that may explain why we endow them with symbolic cultural weight.

Tatar invites us to acknowledge our collective arachnophobia yet also embrace arachnophilia and celebrate spiders for their cultural benefits and real-world merits. Spiders have been portrayed as the kindred spirits of femmes fatales and spinster sleuths. They have operated as proxies for our fear of nuclear annihilation but appear also in the form of benevolent gods and, in E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, as a heroic barnyard savior. Spiders, Tatar reminds us, enable us to sustain our way of life on earth even as they continue to scare the living daylights out of us. With Arachnomania, Tatar offers up an anthem to the humble creatures that haunt our imaginations, reminding us of just how much we are the kindred spirits of the arachnids we should think of as “some spiders.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"Girl's Girl"

New from The Dial Press: Girl's Girl: A Novel by Sonia Feldman.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A hypnotic debut about the pivotal summer that shatters the delicate balance between three best friends

Fifteen-year-old Mina’s whole world is her two best friends, but after an unexpected kiss, the established dynamics of their trio quickly unravel. Everything that was once shared openly, from clothes to secrets, now feels impossibly fragile. Loyalties shift and tensions simmer across the long days of this pivotal summer, where the girls have nowhere new to go and everything new to feel.

Looking back, an adult Mina traces the undercurrents of longing that shaped her first experience of desire. The rituals of girlhood—gossip, selfies, sleepovers, and videogames—become threads in a delicate, volatile web of intimacy, in which everything feels achingly fleeting and permanently etched. Loving one person, Mina learns, can change the way we love everyone else—including ourselves.

Bold, vulnerable, and sharply observant, Girl’s Girl is a sundrenched and dewy snapshot of modern girl culture set in the blaze of one suburban Midwest summer.

Visit Sonia Feldman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover"

New from Yale University Press: Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by Guy Cuthbertson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A vibrant account of the remarkable novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, tracing its life over the last century

D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is one of the best-known and most resonant works of the twentieth century. Originally considered obscene and unpublishable in numerous countries, its scandalous story of class divide and the English countryside is infamous. But, since the 1920s, we have repeatedly re-created Lady Chatterley, from film and TV to music and tourism.

Guy Cuthbertson tells the colourful story of the novel’s journey through the last hundred years. He examines how the book has been read, adapted, and reimagined across the globe, from the United States to Japan, and explores the 1960 “Chatterley trial”―a key moment in the struggle for freedom of expression. It might have been burnt and derided, laughed at and defaced, but Lawrence’s novel has crept into all walks of life. Whether the book, or its influence, be good or bad, we live in a world that Lady Chatterley’s Lover helped to create.

Visit Guy Cuthbertson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Alan Opts Out"

New fom Little, Brown and Company: Alan Opts Out: A Novel by Courtney Maum.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In this timely and comedic take on ambition, consumerism, and the sticker price of privilege, an ad exec who bombs the biggest pitch of his career decides to forgo capitalism and live off the land of his suburban Connecticut home. Perfect for readers of Rufi Thorpe and Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

Alan Anderson is a powerful advertising executive who has built a successful life and thriving business by making people buy stuff they don’t actually need. He’s up for the biggest pitch of his career and the account everyone wants, US Dairy: cow’s milk sales are plummeting, and the C-Suite wants to see trendy oat milk kicked to the curb. But when an anarchist farmer tanks Alan’s presentation, Alan bombs the pitch but ends the day with an epiphany. No longer will he exploit the insecurities of others in the service of capitalism. Alan is opting out.

This development is anathema to his wife, Vivian. She’s just a few positive affirmations, a swimming pool, and an exacting series of social tests away from finally becoming part of the elite women’s club, the Queen Annes, in their adopted town of Greenwich, Connecticut. As if contending with a daughter who wants to write plays (!) and another who has an unnatural empathy with animals isn’t enough to manage, she can only watch as Alan moves into their backyard playhouse to live off the land and—worse—spend time with the family. But instead of shocking the neighbors, Alan’s commitment to a less-is-more lifestyle seems to be catching on. Could everyone want what Alan’s not selling?

Funny, sexy, intelligent, and poignant, Alan Opts Out is the most ambitious novel to date by celebrated author Courtney Maum, acclaimed for her stories that tackle big, chewy subjects of our post-modern America with wit and heart.

Visit Courtney Maum's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You.

The Page 69 Test: Touch.

The Page 69 Test: Costalegre.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Please Look After This Bear"

New from Oxford University Press: Please Look After This Bear: How Paddington Became British by Melanie Ramdarshan Bold and Aishwarya Subramanian.

About the book, from the publisher:

An exploration of Paddingon the Bear as an international cultural phenomenon

In 1958, a little marmalade-loving brown bear from Peru named Paddington was introduced to the post-war British public. Inspired by his creator Michael Bond's memories of displaced Jewish children in the United Kingdom during World War II, Paddington became a symbol of how to treat refugees with kindness. Author Bond was clear from the outset about Paddington's refugee status. Nearly sixty-five years later, the bear's legacy has evolved into a transmedia phenomenon; his once marginalized image has now been licenced to numerous British organisations -- such as Barbour and Marks & Spencer -- and more recently, even become a symbolic figurehead of national mourning following Queen Elizabeth II's death in 2022.

Please Look After This Bear analyzes the titular character's transformation from displaced Peruvian bear to member of a wealthy, upper-class West London family, raising questions about migration, assimilation, tolerance, and national identity. The first of its kind to trace the publication history of the Paddington stories, this cutting-edge, critical text not only offers a unique sociocultural biography on the series' origins and background, but looks closely at its contemporary adaptations and afterlives, citing its emergence as a British cultural symbol across the globe. To date, Paddington books have been translated into forty languages (including Latin) and have sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

Told in poignant, incisive prose, this book reveals how Paddington evolved from an unassuming Peruvian bear on the printed page to an international transmedia phenomenon and icon of Britishness. With thoughtful nods both to nostalgia and to national identity, this book traces the character's dramatic change across the ever-changing British historical and political landscape of the past nearly-seven decades.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Marion"

New from St. Martin's Press: Marion: A Novel by Leah Rowan.

About the novel, from the publisher:

This fresh retelling of Hitchcock’s Psycho asks, what if the leading lady fought back? This time, Marion refuses to be the victim in this clever spin on a classic horror story.

NORMAN WAS HER FIRST...

Marion is in deep. She's stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. It's late at night, and the only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She pays for a room in cash, and ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's handsome, charming and a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower, scrubbing off the late-summer heat, when the curtain is pulled back...

Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him in the balls, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now, she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run—not just a thief, but a killer, too. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

In Psycho, Hitchcock shocked audiences when he killed off his protagonist. But what if the leading lady had fought back? Marion offers an alternate history of the most famous dead blonde to ever grace the silver screen. Only this time, the knife is in her hands—and she's no victim.

Visit Leah Rowan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Writing for Dark Times"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Writing for Dark Times: A Literary History of Human Rights by Hadji Bakara.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of human rights that places writers and their ideas at its center.

At Amnesty International’s headquarters in London hangs a large copy of Seamus Heaney’s “From the Republic of Conscience,” a poem that touches on neither imprisonment nor torture but instead suggests that acts of literary creation are themselves a form of human rights work, important for bringing new things into the world rather than removing evil from it. Why does a poem about the power of creation stand at the center of an organization known for publicizing atrocity? What can it tell us about human rights?

Hadji Bakara’s Writing for Dark Times tells the story of the writer’s distinct place in the history of human rights. It argues that the relationship between the creative work of writing and the pursuit of universal rights is an important but misunderstood dimension of both literary and human rights history over the past century. Following a diverse cast of writers from the First World War through the end of the Cold War, including Bertolt Brecht, Anna Seghers, Archibald MacLeish, Albert Camus, Czeslaw Milosz, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Seamus Heaney, Nadine Gordimer, and J.M. Coetzee, Bakara shows how their efforts to theorize and support human rights were bound up with changing ideas about the place of their own work in the world––the work of writing. And across the twentieth century, the book reveals, two central ideas about writing took shape around the politics of human rights. Writing creates something new and inspires the will for change.

For those who study human rights, Writing for Dark Times offers both an archive and a method for better understanding the influence of writers on the historical development of the concept. For those in literary studies, the book provides a new account of how human rights shaped the politics of twentieth-century literature. Few books have made as vivid a case for literature’s relevance to our most exalted ideals and institutions.

--Marshal Zeringue