"The Best Revenge"

New from MIRA: The Best Revenge by Amy Carol Reeves.

About the book, from the publisher:

Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Beach Read in this wickedly funny romantic comedy with a delicious jilted-lover-gives-just-deserts twist.

Librarian Hannah is furious when her freeloading boyfriend, Chad, steals her book idea, leaves her for his agent, and becomes wildly successful. She teams up with other women Chad has wronged (and there are a lot of them!) to get revenge—just a little comeuppance.

The fabulous news is Hannah has a new boyfriend. Unfortunately, Hannah has to hide her schemes from her hunky Scottish love, James, who claims to hate revenge plots of any kind. But it gets harder to hide her increasingly elaborate plans—even as he hides his own messy past…

And everything goes hilariously wrong.

Visit from Amy Carol Reeves's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Zoo Lady"

New from the University of Nebraska Press: The Zoo Lady: How Belle Benchley Built the San Diego Zoo by Sandra E. Bonura.

About the book, From the publisher:

The struggling San Diego Zoo received a miracle in 1927: Belle Jennings Benchley, a middle-aged, newly divorced mother, reluctantly accepted a temporary job she openly “dreaded.” Small in stature and matronly in appearance, she charmed everyone she met―but beneath that gentle demeanor lay a leader of steel.

Benchley was just as likely to be found nurturing a vulnerable infant animal or calming fighting primates as she was wrestling a rattlesnake. Through these hands-on encounters, she won the deep affection of staff and visitors alike. Despite her lack of scientific credentials, the “Zoo Lady,” as she was fondly called, relied on curiosity and common sense to help build what would become a world-class institution. Drawing insights from the animals themselves rather than the era’s rigid authorities, she pioneered conservation practices guided by her “animal instinct,” a term she coined.

Benchley authored four best-selling books that humorously illustrated that animals are not so different from people. Even as she faced relentless pressure to “stay in her place,” she met every challenge with unshakable courage. Over nearly three decades, Benchley transformed the San Diego Zoo into a global landmark, inventing groundbreaking educational programs that mentored generations of conservation leaders.

A true trailblazer, Benchley paved the way for future icons like Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, becoming the world’s first woman director of a major zoo and the first woman elected president of the national association now known as the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The Zoo Lady tells the extraordinary story of a woman whose courage and compassion forever changed zoology and reshaped the way we see―and care for―the animal world.

Visit Sandra E. Bonura's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Sugar King of California.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle?"

New from Blackstone: Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle? by Melanie Moore.

About the book, from the publisher:

A brilliant debut from Melanie Moore, Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle? will have you laughing, crying, and aching with the frustrations and joys of taking huge risks and falling in love big time.

Mandy Boyle is thirty-five, still living with her stepfather in his rent-stabilized apartment, and still stuck as a copy editor at The New York Times, awaiting the next big layoff. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but ten years ago, she put her journalism career on hold and moved back to the city to care for her dying mother. Of course, she can’t be salty about that.

Then everything changes when Mandy wins a one-hundred-plus-year-old newspaper in Vermont and the apartment over it—a New Yorker’s dream! The only catch? She must run The Liberty Eagle for one year and can’t sell it to a conglomerate until that year is up. Sounds great, until Mandy discovers the Eagle is definitely old school, definitely not profitable, and that she is definitely in way over her head.

Suddenly she’s a city girl thrust into a quaint Vermont town at Christmastime, where everyone knows everything about each other. One plus? The mechanic in the next building, Greg Stewart, who keeps trying to sell her snow tires, is very easy on the eyes. Mandy would like to know more about him, but he’s plenty guarded. As she struggles to right the sinking newspaper, she bonds with people in the town, including a young woman who is losing her own mother to cancer, an emotional connection that cracks open Mandy’s own guarded heart.

Through it all, Mandy is drawn to Greg. He just may be her best friend. Maybe the love of her life. But how can two such guarded hearts ever fully fall for each other—especially when Mandy is sure she’ll be leaving by the time next Christmas rolls around?

Visit Melanie Moore's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Justice Was Her Calling"

New from the University of California Press: Justice Was Her Calling: The Fierce and Fascinating Life of Dorothy Kenyon by Jennifer L. Brinkley.

About the book, From the publisher:

Before Ruth Bader Ginsburg persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down sex discrimination, Dorothy Kenyon drew the legal blueprint.

Justice Was Her Calling is the first full-length biography of the New York judge, lawyer, and civil liberties champion whose litigation strategies helped transform the Equal Protection Clause into a powerful tool for women’s rights. Across decades, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal and into the rise of second-wave feminism, Dorothy Kenyon stood at the forefront of reform.

A longtime ACLU national board member, the only woman appointed by the League of Nations to study women’s legal status worldwide, and a US delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, Kenyon pushed equality onto the global stage long before it was widely embraced. Her career was nearly undone when Senator Joseph McCarthy named her first on his list of alleged communists, a spurious accusation that cast a lasting shadow.

Drawing on letters, speeches, and fresh archival research, Jennifer L. Brinkley restores Kenyon to her rightful status as a legal pioneer and reminds us that civil liberties endure only when defended.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Prairie Oyster"

New from the University of Iowa Press: Prairie Oyster by Sophie Robinson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Pearl is a thirty-something filmmaker balanced precariously on the edge of an addiction-fueled breakdown. But when she is invited to interview her idol and crush, lesbian cult filmmaker Mitch Meyer, her stilted life restarts.

Buoyed and seduced by Mitch’s interest in her and her work, Pearl swaps alcoholism for romantic obsession and London for a summer in New York with Mitch. All the while she is haunted by a project she has been toying with for years: a film about Veronica Lake, a 1940s film star who drank herself into obscurity.

Follow Sophie Robinson on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Interrogating Nazism"

New from Cambridge University Press: Interrogating Nazism: Spies, Soldiers and War Criminals in Second World War Britain by Artemis Photiadou.

About the book, from the publisher:

Behind the front lines of the Second World War raged a different kind of battle. In secret camps across Britain, thousands of enemy spies, soldiers, and war criminals were interrogated in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany and the ideology that drove it. Drawing on extensive British archival sources, Artemis Photiadou uncovers the methods, motives, and moral tensions behind this vast machinery of questioning. Within it, officers, scientists, and linguists sought to extract military intelligence, as well as to grasp why individuals fought Hitler's war and, eventually, to assess their complicity in the regime's crimes. The resulting interactions expose the complexity of those who were questioned, the assumptions of their interrogators, and the ethical contradictions of a liberal state at war. This is a vivid account of how Britain attempted to comprehend the enemy it was fighting.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Vanishing Beauties"

Coming December 1 from S&S Books for Young Readers: Vanishing Beauties by Becca Fitzpatrick.

About the book, from the publisher:

A teen investigates the history of disappearances on her island home and uncovers a dark, magical secret in this “wickedly alluring” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) romantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga, Becca Fitzpatrick.

A teen beauty queen has vanished from idyllic Tea Kettle Island, and all evidence points to the girl’s ex-boyfriend, Sascha Sinner. When a local vigilante group posts a hefty reward for his capture, seventeen-year-old Bunny decides to go after it—and him—hoping the prize money will help her save her grandmother’s failing farm.

Sascha, however, insists he didn’t do it. And he wants Bunny to help him prove his innocence. Bunny’s less sure, but when yet another disappearance reveals a hidden history of missing girls—a history that includes her own mother—she has to admit something is at play.

Her search for the truth takes her to the very edges of town, into its darkly magical past, and dredges up secrets the other townsfolk would rather not surface. All the while, there are devilish creatures stalking the woods, devilishly handsome young men with more than their fair share of darkness, and the very devil to pay if Bunny can’t figure out what, exactly, is taking the girls of Tea Kettle Island…

Follow Becca Fitzpatrick on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The UPS Man"

New from NYU Press: The UPS Man: James E. Casey and the Creation of Modern Logistics by Marc Levinson.

About the book, from the publisher:

How a little-known executive revolutionized the delivery business

James E. Casey was a most improbable revolutionary. Shy and soft-spoken, in his day he was all but unknown to the public at large. Drawing little attention to himself, he laid the foundation of an industry that is fundamental to the modern world economy―the industry that manages businesses’ long-distance supply chains and allows consumers to obtain almost anything from anywhere with just a credit card and a couple of days’ patience.

In The UPS Man, Marc Levinson provides the first-ever biography of the self-taught executive who started a bicycle messenger service in 1907 and built it into a giant of modern logistics. Casey was associated with United Parcel Service for seventy-six years, introducing innovation after innovation into the stodgiest of industries as UPS conquered the retail delivery market, then reshaped itself into the first company able to collect packages from hundreds of thousands of senders and deliver them when promised to recipients far away, and then changed itself yet again to move parcels around the globe. That more than three hundred thousand packages are delivered somewhere in the world every minute of every day is a monument to Casey’s accomplishments.

While Casey was an inspiring leader, he was also a ferocious competitor and a demanding boss. Under his leadership, UPS frequently acted in ways that it prefers not to include in its corporate mythology. Some of these actions were dubious. Others were flat-out illegal. Certainly some of these actions might not make current employees proud, yet were indispensable to UPS’s emergence as a powerful force in freight transportation. Drawing on previously neglected sources, The UPS Man offers a nuanced portrait of an entrepreneur and executive whose obsession with small parcels still affects our lives today.

Visit Marc Levinson's website.

-Marshal Zeringue

"Salt Water Blood"

New from Sarah Barley Books / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Salt Water Blood by Manuia Heinrich.

About the novel, from the publisher:

An Indigenous teen who hears the sea’s prophetic thoughts must rely on the gift she’s always feared to save her brother, and her island home, in this “gripping Polynesian mystery laced with Indigenous cultural knowledge, for fans of Angeline Boulley and Ari Tison” (School Library Journal, starred review).

Eighteen-year-old Moe hears the sea’s prophetic thoughts—not just hears them…she feels them. That’s how she experienced her father’s death before he did and how she felt her mother’s relief when she abandoned Moe and her younger brother, Tao, months after.

So when the sea warns Moe that Tao will drown, she’s determined to get in fate’s way and secures them passage off their island home. But those plans are ruined when Tao’s girlfriend goes missing and Tao is found where she was last seen, with blood on his hands—and no memory of what happened.

Moe will do anything she can to clear her brother’s name, even if it means swallowing her pride and teaming up with her annoyingly clever school rival, Temanea. And even if it means relying on the sea’s prophecies. Because her dreaded gift may be the only way to save her brother—and uncover the truth behind the sickness poisoning her community.

Visit Manuia Heinrich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mother Tongue and English"

Coming November 30 from Cambridge University Press: Mother Tongue and English: The Politics of Language in Indian Higher Education by Christina P. Davis and Chaise LaDousa.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first of its kind, this book ethnographically examines mother tongue, a pervasive concept in South Asian social life, yet one that is rarely questioned in policy and educational institutions. In recent education policy, the Indian government advocates for mother tongue education but makes little mention of English despite its centrality at all levels of education. Through interviews with students at three Indian higher educational institutions, the authors analyze how the recent policy recommendations resonate with students' understandings and usage of language. Presenting the notion of language ideology in an engaging and accessible manner, this book highlights the changing views and attitudes toward mother tongue in light of the increased desire to learn English. It also stresses the importance of students' voices in the critique of language and education policy. It is essential reading for scholars and students of language policy, multilingual education, linguistic and cultural anthropology, and South Asian studies.

Visit Christina P. Davis's website and Chaise LaDousa's faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: The Struggle for a Multilingual Future.

--Marshal Zeringue