"The House That Family Money Built"

New from the University of California Press: The House That Family Money Built: How Inequality Governs Debt and Wealth Management by Allison Anna Tait.

About the book, from the publisher:

At both ends of the wealth spectrum, the laws governing credit and debt hardwire patterns of both privilege and poverty. They drive financial extraction by creating a flow of assets from the pockets of low-income families into the bank accounts of high-wealth ones. In short, some families are legally enabled as they accumulate and preserve great fortunes that get passed down through generations―while others are locked into a cycle of scraping by, just hoping to find affordable housing and put food on the table.

This book traces the joint forces of law, geography, and narrative that have built this superstructure of inequality and extraction: "the house of family money." Allison Anna Tait reveals how this monumental piece of economic architecture can be deciphered by the blueprints that guided its construction, navigated by maps that reveal its hidden shortcuts, and ultimately renovated by lasting reforms.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Death by Misadventure"

New from Lake Union: Death by Misadventure: A Novel by Jane Bitomsky.

About the novel, from the publisher:

April 29, 1585. Coroner John Derrick is summoned to the cozy village of Bramley to investigate a naked dead man found beneath a waterwheel. An unfortunate drowning, by all indications. But upon closer inspection, the case takes a macabre turn: The deceased is missing a certain piece of his anatomy.

Impelled by the grisly discovery to uncover the culprit, John must contend with bumbling villagers in his quest for the truth. Only sixteen-year-old maid Rebecca Laurence seems to offer any help.

In Elizabethan England, servants rarely get a second glance. Rebecca prefers it that way, moving quietly through her world, picking up secrets like dirty clothing. Knowledge is power at a time when women are afforded little, and she deftly wields hers to protect her own clandestine affairs.

Visit Jane Bitomsky's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Business of Bigotry"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: The Business of Bigotry: John Van Evrie's Nineteenth-Century Racist Media Empire by Michael E. Woods.

About the book, from the publisher:

Amid nineteenth-century America’s fierce battles over slavery and freedom, few proslavery partisans argued more vehemently for the supremacy of the white race than John Van Evrie (1814–96). A New York–based propagandist, writer, book publisher, and editor of the New York Day Book, Van Evrie leveraged the era’s rapidly expanding media and communications landscape to advance his cause. Throughout his career, he promoted pseudoscientific justifications for racism, proclaimed slavery as beneficial to society, and created a media network criticizing abolitionists, Republicans, and Democrats alike. Despite the Civil War’s defeat of Van Evrie’s cause, his success in cultivating an audience and market for his views allowed him to continue publishing during Reconstruction, rallying support among white readers for policies and practices that would continue to subordinate Black Americans.

Tracing Van Evrie’s failures and chilling successes over a career of some forty years, Michael E. Woods reveals the stunning resilience of racist ideology before and after the Civil War. In doing so, Woods demonstrates how the era’s print media, business systems, and political alliances allowed ideas like Van Evrie’s to flourish, even as Reconstruction promised a new birth of freedom for Americans of all races.

The Page 99 Test: Arguing until Doomsday.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Whale Harbor"

Coming October 20 from Scribner: Whale Harbor: A Novel by Mary Beth Keane.

About the book, from the publisher:

From New York Times bestselling author of the “magnificent” (Fresh Air), “propulsive” (People), and “profound” (Vogue) Ask Again, Yes, a sweeping multigenerational saga inspired by the author's own family history, following eleven brothers as they are set on different paths between Ireland, England, Montana, and New York.

1960s, Ireland. In the wake of tragedy, a father makes choices for his eleven grieving sons. The older brothers will emigrate to England for work, while the younger ones will stay behind. The second eldest, Macdara, is offered a job on a Montana cattle ranch and sets off. His spirited younger brother Rian begs to come along and Mac promises to bring Rian to America as soon as he’s old enough. But then one day Mac gets a call that Rian has gone missing. His disappearance will haunt Mac and his family across decades.

Spanning lifetimes and continents, Whale Harbor is “tender, immersive, and exquisitely written” (Florence Knapp, author of The Names) with award-winning author Mary Beth Keane’s signature wit, eloquence, and attention to the emotional resonance of family, brotherhood, and the choices that echo across generations.

Visit Mary Beth Keane's website.

The Page 69 Test: Fever.

Writers Read: Mary Beth Keane (March 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Empire by Association"

New from Yale University Press: Empire by Association: Agriculture and the Reorganization of the Rural Economy in Colonial Korea by Holly Stephens.

About the book, from the publisher:

How governmental associations shaped agricultural production in Korea during Japan’s colonization

Drawing on the diaries of everyday farmers, Holly Stephens examines the introduction of scientific and commercial agriculture in Korea from the late nineteenth century through liberation from Japanese rule in 1945. After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, colonial bureaucrats introduced numerous agricultural policies as they sought to turn Korea into a useful imperial possession. In particular, the colonial government hoped to establish Korea as a source of raw materials. To support the necessary increase in cultivation, it created policies introducing new cultivars, new farming methods, and new procedures for crop sales. Yet nature and farmers alike defied the expectations of colonial planners.

To demonstrate how the colonial infrastructure of scientific agriculture was experienced and interpreted by ordinary farmers, Stephens traces the implementation of colonial agricultural policies through a series of semi-governmental associations, which were the main agents of the colonial state in the rural economy. As these associations became embedded within the rural economy, they took on significance not just as a representation of the government but also as a conduit of new exchange networks and understandings of agriculture based on scientific and commercial principles, issues that would continue to influence agricultural production even after liberation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Finalist"

New from Grand Central Publishing: The Finalist by Faith Gladwin.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Seven ballerinas. One fallen primadonna. The audition of a lifetime. And a mysterious house that swallows the weakest one by one...

There is no performance art as punishing as ballet―and no top-tier ballerina is as punished as Eden. While others practice their steps over and over, Eden waits, knowing her body can perform only so many times before it breaks. But Eden will need to be perfect―or even better―at Deveraux Manor, secluded amid snowy mountains, where she and six other hopefuls are sequestered in a month-long audition for the mysterious, alluring, tragic former ballerina Leanora Karagianni.

Only one finalist will join Leanora's company and dance the lead. Eden wants it more than anything, but not more than anyone. Her competitors will take every advantage they can. And the cursed house twisting around them will push each ballerina to the bloody edge―and over it. As Eden fights her attraction to the seductive Leonora and the stakes turn lethal, she'll discover that only the dancer who pays the house’s terrible price can become the finalist.

Visit Faith Gladwin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Forms of Suffering"

New from Cornell University Press: Forms of Suffering: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Chaucerian Pity by Jessica Hines.

About the book, from the publisher:

Forms of Suffering demonstrates how Geoffrey Chaucer transformed pity into a central ethical and aesthetic concern in English literature by tracing his reformulations of trans-European pity discourses for an English audience. In these reformulations, Chaucer brought to the fore the modes and effects of pity's work in challenging, even overturning, traditional power structures such as social status, gender, and race. Critically, his consideration of pity also explores its precarity: the ways that pity could easily slide from transformative justice into a weapon of unjust oppression.

Jessica Hines describes how Chaucer's writing was formative in shaping an English pity discourse increasingly critical of the sociopolitical capacity of pity to act as a tool for challenging injustice and reforming oppressive social structures. Forms of Suffering makes clear the profound appeal of pity's ability to challenge structures of power in Chaucer's writing, as well as the ways that pity itself could be―and was being―manipulated by the powerful for their own ends.

Visit Jessica Hines's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Strange Bedfellows"

New from Atria/Emily Bestler Books: Strange Bedfellows: A Novel by Amanda Mortlock.

About the book, from the publisher:

A dark and steamy debut novel about a girl, who is sometimes a cat, the witch she loves, and the toxic secrets from her past that are threatening to unravel the delicate balance of her future.

Cleo is a willfully aloof college student with an impossible secret. When she meets Wes, a brooding musician, at a Halloween party, their connection is instant, electric, and impossible to ignore. Their romance takes a mystical turn when Wes discovers what Cleo’s been hiding: sometimes she takes the form of his pet cat.

Enter Bailey and Ollie—their magical counterparts—who reveal a deeper tie between Cleo and Wes: he’s a witch, and she’s his familiar. As past secrets collide with their entangled present, Cleo faces her greatest fear—losing Wes. With long-gone threats returning and danger looming, Cleo must confront her role in their dark and violent shared history and decide if she’s willing to fight for their future.

Visit Amanda Mortlock's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Buscando la gozadera / Seeking Pleasure"

New from Wesleyan University Press: Buscando la gozadera / Seeking Pleasure: Timba Culture and Community by Sarah Town.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores the forging of global community through Caribbean music and dance

Buscando la gozadera / Seeking Pleasure traces the rise and global journey of timba music and culture from its beginnings in 1980s Havana to its vibrant presence in 2010s New York City and beyond. Alongside timba, Cuba's most popular social dance―rueda de casino―began to spread internationally in the 1990s as the island reopened to tourism and foreign investment after years of limited global contact. Through bold performances and shared energy, timba and casino brought musicians and dancers together in moments of joyful intensity known as la gozadera. For Cubans, la gozadera was a form of resilience; for outsiders, it became part of the island's long tradition of offering powerful musical experiences to the world. Buscando la gozadera weaves together history, ethnography, and music and dance analysis to explore interactivity and improvisation. It also examines themes of race, gender, and neoliberalism, while probing issues of labor, economy, and virtuosity in the pursuit and circulation of pleasure through popular music and social dance. Sarah Town is a musician and dancer embedded in the Cuban dance communities she researches. She highlights the importance of grassroots networks of musicians and dancers that inhabit the margins, showing how they refuse narratives of scarcity to immerse themselves in communal pleasure.

Follow Sarah Twon on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Trust Fall"

New from S&S Books for Young Readers: Trust Fall by Lynn Painter.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies, Lynn Painter, comes a rags-to-riches rom-com about a small-town girl whose family inherits a fortune and moves to New York City, where she meets a big-city boy hiding an explosive secret.

Julia is just a small-town girl from Nebraska who loves her peaceful life. But when her elderly next-door neighbor—who just happens to be a secret multi-millionaire—leaves everything to Julia and her family after his passing, Julia is swept away to live in a historic brownstone in New York City and attend an elite private school for the super-rich.

It should be a dream come true. Wrong. Julia doesn’t fit in at her new school; worse, she’s failing. Enter Damion, the mysterious and handsome tutor who will get Julia back on track. Except Damion has a secret. He is the great-nephew of the man who left everything to Julia’s family. Damion doesn’t buy for a second that the person who was like a father to him would leave his home to strangers. And he’s determined to prove it.

To uncover the truth, Damion schemes to earn Julia’s trust. Not an easy task with Julia unsure about this rich boy with a rebellious personality. But the more time Damion spends with Julia, the more his plan begins to backfire. Because he is falling for the enemy—and the enemy is falling for him.

As Damion and Julia figure out where they belong, can they see past their differences and act on their feelings, or will the trust Damion has worked so hard to gain fall apart?

Visit Lynn Painter's website.

Q&A with Lynn Painter.

--Marshal Zeringue