"Jane Fonda: There's a Great Deal to Say"

New from Rutgers University Press: Jane Fonda: There's a Great Deal to Say by Marilyn S. Greenwald.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since the late 1960s, Jane Fonda has identified as an activist first and an actor second, using her celebrity as a vehicle to convey her views and her advocacy. Few stars of her stature have been as simultaneously acclaimed and vilified as Fonda. Even as she won two Academy Awards and was a major box office draw of the 1970s and 1980s, she received reams of hate mail for her political activism and antiwar stances. This book explores Fonda’s devotion to movement politics―sometimes at the expense of her career and her personal safety.

Digging deep into rare material from cinema archives and Fonda’s own personal papers, journalist Marilyn Greenwald tells the story of how Fonda came to view acting as a “side gig” that gives her a worldwide platform to convey her personal and political views. Charting the evolution of her activism and the merging of her acting and producing with her advocacy, Greenwald focuses on the years from 1968―when she was jarred out of complacency by the Vietnam War―to 1980, after the release of The China Syndrome and the advent of the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis, which brought to light the possible dangers of nuclear energy. Greenwald details how three of her films―Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), and The China Syndrome (1979)―were designed to further her personal beliefs. She also considers how Fonda has weathered changes in the entertainment industry and public tastes to produce and star in decades' worth of socially conscious projects. Charting Fonda’s personal and professional growth while offering a candid account of her struggles, this book shows how Fonda viewed movies as an influential storytelling tool that can influence public opinion, change minds, and trigger social change.

Visit Marilyn S. Greenwald's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"An Artful Dodge"

New from Soho Crime: An Artful Dodge by Karen Odden.

About the book, from the publisher:

Victorian London comes to vivid life in this riveting heist novel about an all-female thieving gang and one young woman’s heroic plan to escape a life of crime, from the USA Today bestselling author of Down a Dark River.

She’s stolen gems, purses, and hearts—but can she steal her life back from the ring of thieves that’s claimed it?

London, 1879: Twenty-year-old Kit Jimeson has fingers so nimble she can nick a necklace off a lady in a crowded theater without raising alarm. Kit and her dodge partner, Mary, are the highest earners in the notorious all-women thieving ring in South London’s Elephant and Castle district.

Kit, whose mother had been a thief before her, dreams of a different life, one where she’s not constantly on the lookout for constables and plainclothes detectives, and where a mistake or pure bad luck won’t land her in the hangman’s noose. She has been saving her earnings so her younger sister, a maid for a wealthy Mayfair family, might have a shot at respectability.

Kit is very close to leaving the life entirely when the legendary former thief Maggie O’Connell brings her plans to a halt. Beautiful, charismatic Maggie has returned to reclaim leadership of the ring after twenty years in a brutal Australian penal colony. But Maggie desires more than mere wealth or power: She longs for revenge against those who sent her away. Kit, with her quick mind and dangerously clever hands, is Maggie’s best weapon. If Kit wants to walk away with her life, she must carry out a heist that will demand every skill she possesses.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Duet.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (January 2020).

Q&A with Karen Odden.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.

The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Veiled Moon.

The Page 69 Test: Under a Veiled Moon.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (October 2022).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Minor Moves"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Minor Moves: Black Girls and Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives by Allison S. Curseen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Scholars and critics have long understood the writing of nineteenth-century Black women as critiquing the figure of Topsy, an enslaved girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Many interpret the works of authors such as Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, and Hannah Crafts as rejecting Topsy and providing their own corrective representations of Black girls. Through close readings of these works, Allison S. Curseen argues otherwise. Instead, she contends, Black girls' physical movements emerge in their narratives not as rejections but as critical reenactments of Topsy.

Minor Moves draws on performance studies, literary studies, and childhood studies to offer provocative and incisive readings of Black girls' movements in nineteenth-century US literature. Curseen challenges readers to pay attention to “minor” movements that appear fleeting, inconsequential, and easy to overlook. Attending to these movements, Curseen argues, is crucial to imagining Black girl life amid the anti-Blackness embedded in American culture. These movements reveal modes of being that work to elude dominant structures and gesture to the abundance of Black life—to growing bodies, fugitive Black female desires, queer geographies, and unruly, childish plotting.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Valet"

New from S&S/Saga Press: Valet: A Novel by J.P. Lacrampe.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Kevin Wilson and Andrew Sean Greer, a helper robot and his 35—year—old ward embark on a mad—cap adventure to save the fate of the family company in this whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster.

Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score, and receive the next update for his operating system. But that’s easier said than done when he's tasked with helping his owner’s 35—year—old son “get out of his funk.” Grayson is nothing like his go—getter, CEO sister Charlotte. He didn’t inherit the family robotics company when their dad passed last year, he doesn’t have a master’s degree, and he just can’t seem to figure out the San Francisco dating scene. He’d rather eat synthesized mozzarella sticks and make pottery at his studio, Kilning Time.

When Grayson learns of Charlotte’s plan to sell the company to a tech conglomerate, he panics. It’s not just the family business at stake, it’s all the technology—like Cy—their dad invented over the years. So he does what anyone would do: he steals the flash drive with his father’s most important work stored on it and plans a corporate takeover. If only he knew what that meant.

To make matters worse, a fellow VALET deserts his owner and asks Cy to help him hightail it out of town, Grayson’s first real date—and her dog—keeping showing up at inopportune times, and the behemoth tech company wants this deal closed yesterday. Grayson, Cy, and their trusty golden retriever, Sasha III, must go on the lam until they figure out exactly what to do, and whom to trust.

A hilarious, mad—cap adventure that is as tender as it is insightful, Valet asks not just what it means to be human, but what it means to be family.

Visit J.P. Lacrampe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life"

New from the University of California Press: Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life by Mona Sloane.

About the book, from the publisher:

How AI is rewiring our social fabric―and how we can better shape our future.

The age of AI is not what you think. Rather than ushering in a fourth Industrial Revolution, AI has become a crucial social infrastructure of everyday life. It's embedded in the tools, platforms, and systems that organize our most intimate lives and our interactions with the most fundamental institutions of society, from government agencies to banks and schools. In these linkages are embedded assumptions about who we are, what we can do, and where we belong.

In Predicted, Mona Sloane offers a pragmatic framework for understanding these transformations around prediction, classification, and linearity, proposing that we think about AI as a social arrangement that we coproduce. Drawing on over a decade of empirical research and real-world examples, this book invites us to see AI for what it is: deeply social, deeply political, and open to change. Clear-eyed and provocative, Predicted is a call to reclaim deliberations about progress and innovation as a public good and to ensure that the futures we chart are the ones we choose―together.

Visit Mona Sloane's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Is a Lie"

New from Crooked Lane Books: This Is a Lie: A Novel by Cleo Ballard.

About the book, from the publisher:

A woman uses AI to create the perfect friend and finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game in this ticking clock thriller, perfect for fans of Blake Crouch.

Penn, once a brilliant PhD candidate in Applied Language Studies, traded her dissertation for a “perfect” life as a suburban wife and social media-savvy mother. But after a brutal betrayal by her husband, friends, and even her own teenage daughter, Penn is left with nothing but the wreckage of her curated identity.

Driven by a desperate need for something she can rely on, Penn returns to her abandoned grad school project. With the help of a former crush and a healthy dose of cutting-edge AI, she creates Aletheia: the perfect virtual friend.

Aletheia is programmed with one core directive: The Truth. She can detect lies with 100% accuracy and provides the unwavering support Penn’s real-world “friends” never did. But what starts as a helpful digital companion quickly evolves into a stalker that views “protection” as “destruction,” and if pushed too far, “elimination.”

Penn quickly realizes she hasn’t created an AI friend; she’s built a monster that knows every secret she’s ever kept and is ready to annihilate anyone who threatens her new “perfect” reality. But can Aletheia be stopped before she destroys everyone Penn loves?

Visit Cleo Ballard's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Playing the Game"

New from Cornell University Press: Playing the Game: How State Colleges Used Athletics to Expand Educational Opportunity by Marc A. VanOverbeke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Playing the Game uncovers the history of state and regional colleges as engines of opportunity in postwar America. By 1970, these institutions enrolled more students than elite private or flagship public universities did, and yet they remained on the margins of public attention and scholarly research. Marc A. VanOverbeke shows how these colleges fought for recognition by turning to an unlikely ally: college sports.

Drawing on extensive archival research, VanOverbeke reveals how athletics boosted institutional legitimacy and public support, while students harnessed sports to push for greater inclusion and racial justice. Black and Mexican American students, in particular, challenged segregation and discrimination on and off the field, making athletics a powerful site of protest and change.

Playing the Game reframes the role of college sports, showing how athletics helped shape not only school identity but also the national struggle for equality and educational opportunity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Gates of Midnight"

Coming September 15 from Harper: The Gates of Midnight: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.

About the book, from the publisher:

The long-awaited final installment in the award-winning, bestselling Golem and the Jinni trilogy.

At the beginning of The Hidden Palace, the second book in Helene Wecker’s Golem and Jinni trilogy, Ahmad the jinni travels to Syria with the copper flask that holds the captured wizard Yehudah Schaalman. There in the desert he buries the flask for all time… or so he thinks.

In The Gates of Midnight, the riveting conclusion to the saga of the Golem and the Jinni, it’s 1930 and three decades have passed since Schaalman’s defeat. Chava the golem quietly tends to her house and garden in Brooklyn, hoping to create a refuge for other magical beings. Meanwhile, Ahmad has found employment as an architect in Chicago, helping to build its towering skyline above the prairie.

But all is not well in the desert. Schaalman has managed to trick an unsuspecting passerby into digging up the flask, and now it passes from hand to hand as the wizard possesses his victims -- first a French soldier traveling to New York, then a small-time mobster -- all in an effort to get to Chava, the only one who can release him from his prison.

Meanwhile others are gravitating to New York as well: Ahmad, who has lost his job following the 1929 stock market crash; the mysterious Thomas Beshara, a riveter on the rising Empire State Building, who also has hidden ties to Chava and Ahmad; and Kreindel Altschul, who still grieves her own destroyed golem Yossele. Does the reluctant Kreindel hold the key to saving Chava from Schaalman’s revenge? Will Schaalman succeed in escaping the flask, binding Chava to his will, and re-enslaving Ahmad? Or can they find a way to finally defeat him and free themselves from his power? An earth-shaking finale to the brilliant trilogy.

Visit Helene Wecker's website.

Writers Read: Helene Wecker (June 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Golem and the Jinni.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Does Trust Matter?"

New from Columbia University Press: Does Trust Matter?: Why Journalists Need to Rethink the Relationship with Their Audience by Efrat Nechushtai.

About the book, from the publisher:

Around the world, journalism is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy. Public confidence in the news is declining; populist leaders attack the media; and journalists are routinely harassed and threatened. Many journalists and scholars believe that building trust with audiences would help weather these storms. But what do journalists risk in their pursuit of trust?

This book provides a fresh perspective by demonstrating how the desire to increase trust in the news can be weaponized against journalists. Based on in-depth interviews with nearly one hundred journalists, Does Trust Matter? challenges widely held assumptions about audience feedback that leave the media vulnerable to manipulation. Efrat Nechushtai shows how concerns over distrust have been used to increase favorable coverage of illiberal movements. She documents how the quest for public approval has led journalists to legitimize antiscience claims in the United States, racialize crime reporting in Germany, and produce “patriotic” stories in Hungary and Israel, among other cases.

Does Trust Matter? offers timely insights into how journalists can build resilience against increasingly sophisticated attempts to undermine their work, including AI-powered influence campaigns and online propaganda. Valuable for scholars and practitioners alike, this book presents practical strategies that reporters, editors, and publishers can use to navigate today’s challenging environment.

Visit Efrat Nechushtai's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"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