"Sometime This Century"

Coming soon from Harper Perennial: Sometime This Century: A Regency Rom-Com by Samantha Silva.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riotous rom-com meets a swoon-worthy Regency comedy of manners in this heartfelt time-travel story about sisters, love, identity—and how Jane Austen just might change your life.

Annabel Blake was born in the wrong century. An Austen-loving book nerd, she dreams of being a writer herself, with a just-penned Regency novel to prove it. Her hopes sink when her hot author crush rejects her: The novel reads like she’s never been in love. Ouch.

Annabel sees a chance to rewrite it when her ex-pat boss sends her to England to sort out her family’s “crumbling old pile” of a country house. Tempted by an invitation tucked in an antique writing desk and a “period” coachman at her door, Annabel’s whisked away to a local Regency Society ball—cue candlelight, costumes, dancing—that might be just the inspiration she needs. There’s even the achingly perfect—and wildly out of her league—Henry Leighton D’Evercy.

When Annabel’s audacious influencer sister crashes the party with her super-chill ex-boyfriend, the unlikely trio wake to find themselves trapped in the actual Regency era. No Wi-Fi, lattes, cellphones—just a world where manners, money, and marriage rule.

As Annabel falls deeply for D’Evercy, she must decide: write her perfect love story…or live it.

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shakespeare's Scholars"

New from Princeton University Press: Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts by Sean Keilen.

About the book, from the publisher:

What Love’s Labor’s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest can teach us about discovery, growth, and change

Shakespeare was a keen and discerning reader who was mocked by writers who, unlike him, had been to university—so it’s not surprising that his portrait of scholarly life is critical. As Sean Keilen shows in this engaging book, Shakespeare’s scholars lack humility, shun wisdom, underestimate people who are not scholars, and, by keeping aloof from society, fail to see themselves clearly. In examining Shakespeare’s scholars, Keilen finds parallels in the modern academy.

Keilen examines three plays with scholars as protagonists, tracing these characters’ arduous paths to self-knowledge and meaningful connection with others. In Love’s Labor’s Lost, four noblemen, seeking fame for knowledge and virtue, establish an academy—but the real purpose of their studies is to exclude women, scorn men of inferior standing, and treat each other with hostility. In Hamlet, the prodigiously intelligent Prince of Denmark retreats to the solitude of his own thoughts, with unfortunate results. And in The Tempest, Prospero abandons his duty to others for the rapture of secret studies, a choice that leads him to seek the false consolation of self-protective bitterness. In each play, Keilen finds important lessons about humility, wisdom, and self-knowledge. Inspired by these, he argues for a new approach to teaching literature—one that views literary education not as an esoteric discipline but as the renewal of an intellectual heritage all readers hold in common.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Confession Artist"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Confession Artist: A Thriller by Christine Carbo.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A Montana ex-cop becomes the target of a vengeful killer’s viral guessing game in a propulsive novel of suspense by a bestselling and award-winning author.

A killer dubbed the Confession Artist is posting sketches of potential victims on social media. And paranoia spreads as strangers across the nation admit to their sins―fearing the consequences: You have six days to confess or die.

Then former cop and first-year PI Crosbie Mitchell sees a sketch that bears a striking resemblance to her. How can that be? She’s a nobody from Flathead Valley, Montana. Crosbie dismisses it as an unnerving coincidence. If not for one unmistakable detail that makes the threat hard to ignore. When the FBI is contacted, they are convinced that Crosbie is the next target. So is she.

Crosbie has six days left to fess up online to something plaguing her conscience. But even if she wanted to play the killer’s game, she has more than one secret. And if she ever dares to expose them for the world to see, the truth will destroy her. That’s exactly what the Confession Artist wants.

Visit Christine Carbo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Becoming Boundless"

New from Stanford University Press: Becoming Boundless: Indian Transnational Entrepreneurs in the Global Economy by Manashi Ray.

About the book, from the publisher:

How do Indian men and women migrant entrepreneurs play a part in repositioning India as a pivotal actor in the twenty-first century's multipolar world order? In Becoming Boundless, Manashi Ray draws on ethnographic and archival research to uncover how they create and participate in transnational networks, and how these networks in turn drive the growth of global capitalism. Ray pays particular attention to the expansive global networks of transnational Indian entrepreneurs between the United States and India and across several other nations.

Covering a 10-year period in India's post-reform era, Ray deftly highlights complex connections between the social and spatial mobility of this diverse, bi-cultural population, and uniquely theorizes the intersection of class, caste, and gender. She questions whether migration reinforces dominant forms of social inequality or transforms it through the redistribution of valued goods and life chances, especially for women in male-dominated sectors. The book therefore recasts contemporary migration as a crucial part of the emergence of transnational economic spaces, and analyzes the ways that these spaces are fragmented and hierarchical.

Visit Manashi Ray's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"We Want So Much to Be Ourselves"

Coming June 9 from Bellevue Literary Press: We Want So Much to Be Ourselves by Stephen O'Connor.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A German psychoanalyst, his Jewish wife, and their young daughter are swept up in the rising tide of fascism

Günter Zeitz, psychoanalyst-in-training and the son of a Catholic country doctor, and Josine Rosen, Sigmund Freud’s patient and the daughter of a Jewish shipping magnate, first meet in 1924, in Freud’s Viennese waiting room. As their intense affair develops, Freud arranges for Günter’s appointment to the newly created Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. Shortly after the move, their daughter Hannah is born. But less than a decade later, all their hopes and ideals are profoundly challenged by political realities so horrific that they are, initially, beyond comprehension.

A heartrending story of love in a time of hatred, an absorbing investigation into the Nazis’ exploitation of psychoanalysis, and a cautionary tale about self-deception and the failures of a people to recognize the lies of their charismatic leader, We Want So Much to Be Ourselves examines the ways science can be corrupted and one’s very identity transformed by historical circumstance.

Visit Stephen O'Connor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control"

New from Yale University Press: Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control by Jeffrey Hoelle.

About the book, from the publisher:

An exploration of the concept of cultivation, as conducted on both the land and the body, which expands our understanding of it as practice, aesthetic, and ideology. In this book, Jeffrey Hoelle traces the imprint of cultivation across the naturally growing covers of the land and body—plants and hair. The book builds from research in the agricultural fields and cattle pastures at the edge of the Amazon rainforest to domestic landscapes and hair salons and shops in the frontier cities of Brazil and beyond. In spaces where the tangled forest once stood, clean pastures and ordered rows of crops now sit on properties with geometric edges. From rural spaces to immaculate lawns and cemeteries in the city, the imprint leads to the body, where hair, like plant growth, is cut, trimmed, and otherwise managed. Seemingly separate domains of agriculture, landscaping, and personal grooming are governed by a similar aesthetic of control. This unique pairing of land and body expands our understanding of cultivation as a practice and as an ideology that operates in frontier Amazonia—but also closer to home, influencing how we conceptualize and interpret the covers that grow on and around us, and our imagined relations with nature in the future. Hoelle argues that we must understand this system of thought and the overlooked role it plays in environmental destruction and social inequality.

Visit the Hoelle Lab website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Pollock's Last Lover"

New from William Morrow: Pollock's Last Lover: A Novel of Art and Deception by Stephen P. Kiernan.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Set in New York City in alternating time periods—the 1950s and the early 2000s—Pollock’s Last Lover is the engrossing tale of two women whose lives collide as they contend with the art and legacy of the brilliant, tragic painter Jackson Pollock.

In 2006, Sotheby’s sells a painting by Jackson Pollock for $140 million—the highest sum ever paid for a work of art. Two weeks later, an older woman named Ruth Kligman, in high heels and a dusty fascinator, contacts a smaller, less prominent auction house to announce that she was Pollock’s lover, and that he gave her his last painting. She declares that it was selfish to keep it in her apartment for fifty years, and that people should see this masterpiece in galleries and museums the world over. The bidding will start at $50 million.

Gwen, an up-and-coming associate at the firm, is assigned the task of verifying the painting’s authenticity. For Gwen, an ambitious woman in a field often dominated by men, it is her biggest project yet. And the company must have absolute certainty. Yet each step of the investigation raises larger questions—about Ruth’s cunning climb in the art world, and even about what caused Pollock’s sudden and violent death.

What follows, in alternating chapters and time periods, is a multigenerational portrait of women’s ambition set against the life and work of Jackson Pollock. From smoky Greenwich Village dive bars to glitzy art auctions, from the empty studio of a man once known for his artistic stamina to the fine museums where his works hang, Ruth’s controversial painting provides a window into two eras—and the ongoing struggle of women to develop power and freedom on their own terms.

Visit Stephen Kiernan's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Curiosity.

The Page 69 Test: The Curiosity.

Writers Read: Stephen P. Kiernan (April 2017).

My Book, The Movie: The Baker's Secret.

The Page 69 Test: The Baker's Secret.

My Book, The Movie: The Glass Château.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beyond Squid Game"

New from the University of Texas Press: Beyond Squid Game: Korean Media and the Netflix Paradigm by Benjamin M. Han.

About the book, from the publisher:

Examining Netflix’s global influence through its complex global-local dynamics in Korean media.

Korea is a global entertainment powerhouse, thanks in no small part to Netflix. Analyzing the artistry and industry behind Netflix-produced Korean hits like Squid Game, The Glory, and Narco-Saints, Benjamin Han argues that Korea is ground zero for an emerging “Netflix Paradigm.” The US-based streaming platform generates massive profits by erasing boundaries of foreign and domestic production, even as it underscores the resilience of the national media within global popular culture.

Beyond Squid Game breaks down the intricate and often ambivalent relationship between Netflix and the Korean media business, drawing on interviews with creative workers navigating the streaming giant’s ever-increasing economic and cultural power. Challenging narratives that present Netflix as a revolutionary disruptor, Han shows how the company has replicated abroad the precarious labor conditions and tensions over intellectual property from which US studios have long benefited. At the same time, Beyond Squid Game underscores the complex dynamics of a globalized media industry in which cultural imperialism thrives on localization and perceived authenticity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Night Objects"

New from Grand Central Publishing: Night Objects: A Novel by Eli Raphael.

About the novel, from the publisher:

This suspenseful novel transports readers to the windswept coast of Washington State and a boarding school steeped in privilege and deadly secrets—a remarkable story of grief, power, and the dangerous price of belonging.

It is true that I wished him dead dozens of times. Hundreds, even. But I, Lenny Winter, did not kill that boy.

Lenny Winter is fifteen years-old when she moves with her parents to an aging houseboat off the rugged coast of Washington. She imagines a quiet life spent charting constellations and chasing her dream of becoming an astronomer. Instead, a sudden tragedy shatters her world and catapults her to Blanchard, a renowned boarding school for the Pacific Northwest's elite, where wealth and tradition rule.

Blanchard is dazzling, insular—and haunted by its own legends. At its heart lurks the Pascalianum Club, a secret society known to shape the school's greatest and most notorious students, and whose influence stretches far beyond campus walls. Hungry to belong, Lenny is drawn into its orbit, even as she senses that the club feeds on the very vulnerabilities she is desperate to hide.

As privilege collides with grief and loyalty warps into obsession, Lenny’s choices will lead to an unforgettable reckoning—and a murder investigation that will test every story she tells herself about guilt, power, hope, and who she is becoming.

Sweeping, thrilling, and deeply moving, Night Objects is both a gripping mystery and a profound coming-of-age story—asking what we risk, what we become, and who we hold dear when the need to belong eclipses everything else.

Visit Eli Raphael's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Under the Guise of Protection"

New from the University of Virginia Press: Under the Guise of Protection: Eugenics and Wayward Girls in Twentieth-Century Virginia by Erin N. Bush.

About the book, from the publisher:

A shocking story of social engineering in the era of Jim Crow

The eugenics movement, in which the state claimed the right to determine who could and who could not have children, was a dark, shameful chapter in American history. Virginia was infamous as an epicenter of eugenic thought; the case of Buck v. Bell, which resulted in one of the Supreme Court’s most notorious decisions, originated there. In Under the Guise of Protection, Erin Bush describes how state programs designed for “delinquent” young women like Carrie Buck―whose sterilization took place while she was an inmate at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded―developed in Virginia’s distinctive environment of “progressive” ideology and racial segregation.

Buck was far from alone. Between 1910 and 1942, the commonwealth’s public welfare bureaucrats and charity workers confined more than 2,300 adolescent white and African American girls at juvenile reformatories. By examining the programs developed at these segregated institutions, in both rural and urban areas, this groundbreaking book sheds new light on the connections between juvenile justice, racial politics, and the tendentious use of “science” in the development of social reforms in the early twentieth century.

Visit Erin N. Bush's website.

--Marshal Zeringue