"Living Diaper to Diaper"

New from the University of California Press: Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood by Jennifer Randles.

About the book, from the publisher:

A revealing account of parenting in a country that neglects the needs of poor families—through the humble diaper.

Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families with young children struggle to get enough diapers.

Drawing on interviews with mothers dealing with this overlooked issue, Jennifer Randles shows how diapers have unique practical and symbolic significance for the well-being of families. Tracing the social history of diapering, Randles unravels a complex story of caregiving inequalities, the environmental impacts of child-rearing, and responsibility for meeting children’s basic needs. Yet it is also a hopeful story: the book chronicles the work of people who manage diaper banks as well as the growing diaper distribution movement.

A hard-nosed yet nuanced tale of parenting, Living Diaper to Diaper is an eye-opening examination of inequality and poverty in America.

Writers Read: Jennifer Randles (April 2017).

The Page 99 Test: Proposing Prosperity?.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If A Face Could Kill"

New from Severn House: If A Face Could Kill by Becky Masterman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The hunt for a neighbor’s killer . . . reveals chilling secrets close to home.

Former FBI agent Brigid Quinn hasn’t forgiven herself for the testimony that led to young mother Nicole Gleason being convicted for the manslaughter of her abusive husband.

Now out of jail early on parole, Nicole is living in a group home for felons in Brigid’s Arizona neighborhood. But while Brigid hopes to make amends with Nicole, not everyone in the community is happy to have criminals on their doorstep.

When outspoken local resident Dorita Gordino is grotesquely murdered, suspicion soon falls on Nicole. Brigid is determined to catch Dorita’s killer and prove Nicole’s innocence—even if it means one of her own darkest secrets comes to light...

This addictively dark thriller featuring Brigid Quinn, “one of the most memorable FBI agents since Clarice Starling” (Publishers Weekly), is perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Lisa Gardner, Lisa Jewell, and Tess Gerritsen.

Visit Becky Masterman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Rage Against the Dying.

The Page 69 Test: Rage Against the Dying.

My Book, The Movie: Fear the Darkness.

The Page 69 Test: Fear the Darkness.

My Book, The Movie: A Twist of the Knife.

My Book, The Movie: We Were Killers Once.

The Page 69 Test: We Were Killers Once.

The Page 69 Test: Her Prodigal Husband.

--Marshal Zeringue

"K-Pop Fandom"

New from the University of Michigan Press: K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today by Areum Jeong.

About the book, from the publisher:

An autoethnography of the K-pop fandom and its evolution

K-Pop Fandom insists that K-pop fan practices and activities constitute a central productive force, shaping not only K-pop's explosive global popularity, but also K-pop's cultural impacts, politics, and horizons of possibility. Over the past three decades, the K-pop fandom and its activities have expanded, intensified, and diversified along myriad dimensions, assuming novel social, technological, and economic forms, some of which are unique to K-pop, and some of which reflect broader cultural and industrial logics of globalized mass entertainment culture. Areum Jeong argues that K-pop fans, in performing deokhu—a Korean term connoting an "avid fan"—perform a materialization of affective labor that also seeks to produce good relationships between asymmetrically positioned actors in the K-pop ecosystem.

Through an autoethnography of becoming a K-pop deokhu, Jeong connects their experiences to generations of K-pop fans, showing simultaneously how fandom practices have shifted over time and the intricacies of fan labor participation. This personal connection paved the way for participant-observation and co-performer witnessing methodologies in the study, which crucially allowed for collaborating with fans whose communal pursuits have been stigmatized by dominant discourses that denigrate their activities as solely addictive, uncritical, and wasteful. Jeong's genre-spanning corpus of fan activities and analyzing its contexts and contents represents an important contribution to the making of a fan archive that is also an archive of affective labor.

Visit Areum Jeong's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Island of Ghosts and Dreams"

New from Pegasus Books: Island of Ghosts and Dreams: A Novel by Christopher Cosmos.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A woman from a small Greek village finds herself swept up in the long and storied history of her island—and its far-reaching impact—in this unforgettable story of love, passion, and resistance.

Chania, Crete; 1941.

When mainland Greece falls to the Germans after incredible and heroic resistance, the Greek government flees south to Crete: an ancient island of Gods and Kings, and Myths and Minotaurs.

Maria is a villager whose husband has been away fighting with the Greek army, and after she finds a British soldier that washes up on a secluded beach near her home, and helps nurse him back to health, the Germans then turn south and invade Crete, too.

Occupation, tragedy, and betrayal follow. The lives of Maria and her family change in an instant and she finds herself in a role she never thought she'd have to play—and one that generations of Cretans have had to assume before her.

Steeped in history and filled with unforgettable characters, Island of Ghosts and Dreams is a profoundly moving and decades-spanning tale of passion, honor, family, the great and enduring sacrifices all generations must make for freedom, and our sacred and immortal obligation to follow the strength and power of our heart, no matter where it might lead us.

Visit Christopher Cosmos's website.

The Page 69 Test: Once We Were Here.

Q&A with Christopher Cosmos.

The Page 69 Test: Young Conquerors.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Laboring in the Shadows"

New from Stanford University Press: Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work by Bianca J. Baldridge.

About the book, from the publisher:

Youth workers are essential to the fabric of society. Schools, families, and many of our social institutions rely heavily on their work, yet their contributions often go unrecognized. Laboring in the Shadows explores the critical role of Black youth workers, especially in the lives of vulnerable youth, and the challenges they face in their unstable, underappreciated position.

Bianca J. Baldridge situates the experiences of Black youth workers within the broader context of anti—Blackness and historical inequities. Drawing on rich interview data from across the United States, Baldridge offers a nuanced analysis of how the precarity of this work—marked by high turnover rates, low wages, and housing insecurity—compounds the challenges these workers face. She highlights how Black youth workers resist these structural harms by adopting and implementing innovative pedagogical practices alongside practices of "freedom dreaming" and joy as forms of resistance and pathways to agency for youth despite their precarious roles.

Positioning Black youth workers within a broader network of informal care workers in the United States, Baldridge underscores the significance, fragility, precarity, and power of these dedicated professionals, their essential work, and the possibilities they create for youth.

Visit Bianca J. Baldridge's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Only Spell Deep"

Coming soon from St. Martin's Griffin: Only Spell Deep: A Novel by Ava Morgyn.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Rebecca meets The Craft in this dark, atmospheric novel of one witch rediscovering her power while on the run from another willing to kill her for it.

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Bane Witch!

Judeth Cole has always had certain uncanny abilities. But when she arrived at Solidago, her grandfather’s estate by the sea, she was forced to keep them secret. There she lived a harsh life under his rule and the haunting legacy of her late grandmother, Aurelia. Until the fateful day she ignited a fire with her magic. It was the last time she saw her family alive.

Seventeen years later, she’s living in Seattle as Jude Clark, and failing at life, when she makes a last detour through her favorite bookstore, selecting a book to read as she waits to die. But when she pulls it from the shelf, an invitation to her for a clandestine midnight meeting slips out.

Jude is quickly swept up into a world of secrets and magic, discovering a circle of powerful new companions led by the mysterious, enigmatic Arla. The source of their magic, Arla tells her, is an entity, trapped and bound, that they call The Fathom. But Jude swiftly realizes Arla wants this power all to herself, and that she’s willing to kill for it.

Terrified, Jude turns to Levi, the handsome bookseller who’s seen her at her worst. With his help, she begins a research journey that leads her all the way back to Solidago, the house she swore to never return to. Now, the Fathom threatening to break free and Arla on the hunt, Jude must finally face her past to save her future.

Ava Morgyn's Only Spell Deep is a novel that takes readers on a journey into a dark, glittering world of magic, a place where power should never be caged and misplaced trust can have deadly consequences.

Visit Ava Morgyn's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bane Witch.

Q&A with Ava Morgyn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Amends for Historic Wrongs"

New from Oxford University Press: Making Amends for Historic Wrongs: Reparative Justice and the Problem of the Past by Mayo Moran.

About the book, from the publisher:

Once considered implausible, the demand to make amends for old wrongs has become a pressing contemporary problem. Legal expert Professor Mayo Moran utilizes landmark cases to demonstrate how innovative private law claims have begun to employ reparative justice to frame claims to redress grievous historical wrongs, tracing the evolution from early Holocaust litigation and transitional justice to contemporary claims involving colonial violence, slavery, and institutional abuse.

Drawing on ground-breaking cases involving looted art, institutional child abuse, and involuntary sterilization, the book highlights the shifting understanding of the past. It examines the pivotal role of private law in the effort to rectify historical injustices. Post-Holocaust legal developments, the rise of transitional justice, and the strategic use of domestic civil law by human rights advocates helped to shape these novel redress claims. Moved by survivor narratives and in the face of evolving legal norms, courts, governments, and institutions all began to consider how to respond to grievous old wrongs.

Moran analyzes the design of redress mechanisms and the key role of legal practitioners, showing how jurisdictions have responded through settlements and compensation programs. Using a wide array of examples, Moran outlines the pitfalls and opportunities of law as a tool for addressing past wrongs.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Concert Black"

Coming soon from Blackstone: Concert Black by Michael O'Donnell.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Above the Fire comes Concert Black, a hauntingly elegant novel that unspools a tale of music, obsession, and the fragile architecture of legacy.

Ellen Wroe, a celebrated biographer known for her piercing insight, sets her sights on Cecil Woodbridge, the legendary conductor whose name reverberates through concert halls and conservatories. But Woodbridge, imperious and elusive, rebuffs her approach and conspires to thwart her efforts. Undeterred, Wroe embarks on a relentless pursuit, trailing the maestro across continents—through the archives of his correspondence, into the confidences of his colleagues, and deeper still into the long shadow of his past.

Maestro, cellist, king of the baton—Woodbridge is a man enshrined in myth and bristling with contradictions. Beneath the grandeur lies a hidden lattice of ambition, betrayal, and sorrow. As Wroe attempts to chart his ascent, she uncovers not only the cost of genius but the wreckage it often leaves behind.

With lyrical precision and atmospheric sweep, Concert Black echoes the psychological depth of Ian McEwan’s Atonement and the philosophical resonance of Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time. From the frostbitten avenues of postwar London to the symphonic stages of Boston and Chicago, biographer and subject circle each other in an elegiac dance—until they collide in a reckoning neither can escape.

A novel of ambition and artistry, Concert Black is a symphony of human complexity: piercing, poised, and unforgettable.

Visit Michael O'Donnell's website.

Q&A with Michael O'Donnell.

The Page 69 Test: Above the Fire.

Writers Read: Michael O'Donnell (December 2023).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Predicament of Privilege"

New from the University of Washington Press: The Predicament of Privilege: Inequality and Ambivalence in Contemporary Scandinavian Culture by Devika Sharma.

About the book, from the publisher:

Is privilege a problem? Scandinavians ask, Is this okay?―and wrestle with the answer

A twenty-first century paradox has emerged in contemporary Scandinavian societies: the region’s deeply ingrained egalitarian ideals exist uneasily alongside its undeniable global privilege. In The Predicament of Privilege, Devika Sharma examines this tension, exploring how a well-intentioned desire to “do good” collides with an unsettling realization: the very structures that enable ethical consumption, charitable donations, and humanitarian action are themselves embedded in a system of exploitation.

Through an incisive analysis of contemporary Scandinavian cultural texts, The Predicament of Privilege introduces the concept of skeptimentality―a pervasive moral ambivalence about virtuous emotions like compassion and generosity. As Sharma demonstrates, this sentiment does not necessarily lead to action but creates a vacuum, leaving privilege-sensitive publics with a crisis of conscience but no clear path forward. Sharma’s book challenges both the self-image of Nordic societies and the broader assumptions of humanitarian ethics. A necessary read for scholars, cultural critics, and anyone engaging with the politics of privilege, this book offers a bold new perspective on the unfinished business of equality.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Slow Burn"

New from Candlewick Press: Slow Burn by Bethany Rutter.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sporty, feel-good, body-positive rom-com pits a plus-size teen against her bullies to prove what she already knows—that she has exactly the right stuff.

Sixteen-year-old Ruby has worked hard to be happy in her body, even when other people—including her brother and her PE teacher—insist there's something wrong with her for being fat. All Ruby cares about is hanging out at the skate park this summer with friends. But her brother’s bullying words get under her skin, and in order to prove to him (and her impressionable little sister) that fat girls can do anything, Ruby finds herself signed up for the annual 5K Dawson Dash. There’s just one problem: She can’t run. The cute new boy next door can, however, and when Ollie offers to help her train, Ruby takes him up on it, even if it means he'll see her at her sweatiest and most vulnerable. Young athletes of all stripes, especially those marginalized in sports due to body differences, will find a hero in good-humored Ruby. With its all-audience appeal, her joyful story delivers upbeat romance and affirmation that our bodies are just right, just the way they are.

Visit Bethany Rutter's website.

--Marshal Zeringue