"Thanks to Life"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra by Ericka Kim Verba.

About the book, from the publisher:

Chilean musician and artist Violeta Parra (1917–1967) is an inspiration to generations of artists and activists across the globe. Her music is synonymous with resistance, and it animated both the Chilean folk revival and the protest music movement Nueva Canción (New Song). Her renowned song “Gracias a la vida” has been covered countless times, including by Joan Baez, Mercedes Sosa, and Kacey Musgraves. A self-taught visual artist, Parra was the first Latin American to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre. In this remarkable biography, Ericka Verba traces Parra’s radical life and multifaceted artistic trajectory across Latin America and Europe and on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Drawing on decades of research, Verba paints a vivid and nuanced picture of Parra’s life. From her modest beginnings in southern Chile to her untimely death, Parra was an exceptionally complex and talented woman who exposed social injustice in Latin America to the world through her powerful and poignant songwriting. This examination of her creative, political, and personal life, flaws and all, illuminates the depth and agency of Parra’s journey as she invented and reinvented herself in her struggle to be recognized as an artist on her own terms.

Visit Ericka Verba's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If Wishes Were Retail"

Coming June 17 from Tachyon Publications: If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw.

About the book, from the publisher:

A pop-up at the local mall meets Alladin in this cozy, chaotic, and deeply funny debut novel where an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living. Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream. Good thing there’s a genie in town―and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall. It’d help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It’d help if he weren't at least as stubborn as Alex. It’d really help if her brother didn’t sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad. When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants. But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.

Visit Auston Habershaw's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Ring.

Writers Read: Auston Habershaw.

My Book, The Movie: The Iron Ring.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Marriage Material"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution Is Changing Same-Sex Relationships by Abigail Ocobock.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cutting-edge study of marriage’s transformative effects on same-sex relationships.

It is no secret that marriage rates in the United States are at an all-time low. Despite this significant decline, the institution of marriage endures in our society amid historic changes to its meaning and practice. How does the continuing strength of marriage impact the relationships of same-sex couples after the legalization of same-sex marriage?

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with LGBTQ+ people, Marriage Material reveals the transformative impact marriage equality has had on same-sex relationships. Sociologist Abigail Ocobock looks to same-sex couples across a wide age range to illuminate the complex ways institutional mechanisms work in tandem to govern the choices and behaviors of individuals with different marriage experiences. Ocobock examines both the influence of marriage on the dynamics of same-sex relationships and how LGBTQ+ people challenge heteronormative assumptions about marriage, highlighting the complex interplay between institutional constraint and individual agency.

Marriage Material presents a bold challenge to dominant scholarly and popular ideas about the decline of marriage, making clear that gaining access to legal marriage has transformed same-sex relationships, both for better and for worse.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kingdom of No Tomorrow"

New from Algonquin Books: Kingdom of No Tomorrow by Fabienne Josaphat.

About the book, from the publisher:

From a PEN/Bellwether Prizewinner, a "beautifully convincing slice of history" novel about the Black Panther Party, perfect for fans of The Love Songs of W. E. B. Dubois (Barbara Kingsolver).

Nettie Boileau joins the Black Panthers’ Free Health Clinics in Oakland in 1968 and is soon swept up in an all-consuming love affair with Melvin Mosley, a defense captain of the Black Panther Party. When Nettie and Melvin head to Chicago to help launch the Illinois chapter of the Panthers, they find themselves targets of J. Edgar Hoover’s famous covert campaigns against civil rights leaders.

As she learns more about the inner workings of the Panthers, Nettie discovers that fighting for social justice may not always mean equal justice for women.

Fabienne Josaphat’s Kingdom of No Tomorrow is a timely story of self-determination and revolution amid injustice.

Visit Fabienne Josaphat's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Our Jackie"

New from New York University Press: Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life by Karen M. Dunak.

About the book, from the publisher:

Tells the story of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis through her evolving public persona, from campaign wife to First Lady to fallen idol to treasured national icon

When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became First Lady of the United States over sixty years ago, she stepped into the public spotlight. Although Jackie is perhaps best known for her two highly-publicized marriages, her legacy has endured beyond twentieth-century pop culture and she remains an object of public fascination today.

Drawing on a range of sources– from articles penned for the women’s pages of local newspapers, to esteemed national periodicals, to fan magazines and film– Our Jackie evaluates how media coverage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis changed over the course of her very public life. Jackie’s interactions with and framing by the American media reflect the changing attitudes toward American womanhood. Over the course of four decades, Jackie was alternatively praised for her service to others, and pilloried for her perceived self-interest. In Our Jackie, Karen M. Dunak argues that whether she was portrayed as a campaign wife, a loyal widow, a selfish jetsetter, or a mature career woman, the history of Jackie’s highly publicized life demonstrates the ways in which news, entertainment, politics, and celebrity evolved and intertwined over the second half of the twentieth century.

Examining the intimate chronicles of this famous First Lady’s life, Our Jackie suggests that media coverage of this enigmatic public figure revealed as much about the prevailing views of women in America– how they should behave and whom they should serve– as it did about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as an individual.

The Page 99 Test: As Long as We Both Shall Love.

Writers Read: Karen M. Dunak (September 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beneath the Poet's House"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Beneath the Poet's House: A Thriller by Christa Carmen.

About the book, from the publisher:

For a grieving writer, the secrets of the past and present converge in a novel of gripping psychological suspense from the author of The Daughters of Block Island.

Unmoored by her husband’s death and suffering from writer’s block, novelist Saoirse White moves to Providence, and into the historic home of Sarah Helen Whitman, the nineteenth-century poet and spiritualist once courted by Edgar Allan Poe. Saoirse’s certain she’ll find inspiration in the quiet rooms, as well as in the tucked-away rose garden and forgotten cemetery at the back of the property.

Saoirse is immediately welcomed by an effusive trio of transcendentalists obsessed with Whitman, the house, and Whitman’s mystic beliefs. Saoirse, emerging from grief and loneliness, welcomes the idea of new friends taking her mind off the past―even as they hope to summon it. When she meets Emmit Powell, a charismatic and charming prize-winning author, Saoirse thinks she’s finally turned a corner.

Emboldened by new romance, Saoirse begins to write again and, through her writing, rediscover herself. But as old fears return, she finds that nothing about her new life is what it seems―and a secret she’s tried so hard to bury may not be the only thing that comes back to haunt her.

Visit Christa Carmen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cinema under National Reconstruction"

New from Rutgers University Press: Cinema under National Reconstruction: State Censorship and South Korea's Cold War Film Culture by Hye Seung Chung.

About the book, from the publisher:

Cinema under National Reconstruction calls for a revisionist understanding of state film censorship during successive Cold War military regimes in South Korea (1961–1988). Drawing upon primary documents from the Korean Film Archive’s digitized database and framing South Korean film censorship from a transnational perspective, Hye Seung Chung makes the case that, while political oppression/repression existed inside and outside the film industry during this period, film censorship was not simply a tool for authoritarian dictatorship. Through such case studies as Yu Hyun-mok’s The Stray Bullet (1961), Ha Kil-jong’s The March of the Fools (1975), and Yi Chang-ho’s Declaration of Fools (1983), the author defines censorship as a dialogical process of cultural negotiations wherein the state, the film industry, and the public fight out a battle over the definitions and functions of national cinema. In the context of Cold War Korea, one cannot fully understand or construct film history without reassessing censorship as a productive feedback system where both state regulators and filmmakers played active roles in shaping the new narrative or sentiment of the nation on the big screen.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Madrigals and Mayhem"

New from Minotaur Books: Madrigals and Mayhem by Elizabeth Penney.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Madrigals and Mayhem, the fourth in Elizabeth Penney's charming Cambridge Bookshop series, Molly Kimball finds that even the holidays can come with a healthy dose of mystery.

Molly is eager to experience her first English Christmas with family and friends now that she's adjusted to her move to Cambridge and her restoration of her family's ancestral bookshop, Thomas Marlowe--Manuscripts and Folios. When local toyshop Pemberly's Emporium reopens, Molly is excited to meet the new owner, Charlotte Pemberly, who is determined to make the toy store a success after unexpectedly becoming her grandfather Arthur's sole heir.

Arthur's new wife Althea Winters and her unpleasant family loathe Charlotte for inheriting what they believe was theirs and have set their sights on a valuable Madame Alexander doll that's gone missing. When Althea's grandson is poisoned by cakes from Tea & Crumpets, Charlotte becomes the top suspect. Molly believes Charlotte was the intended victim and investigates the Pemberly's home, only to discover that Arthur had been murdered.

To get closer to this treacherous family, Molly and her boyfriend Kieran go undercover by volunteering to act and sing for a madrigal dinner directed by Althea and her daughter at St. Hildegard's College. Molly must help her new friend clear her name while searching for the missing doll and wrangling her own family during the chaotic holiday festivities at the bookshop.

Visit Elizabeth Penney's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Children of Solaga"

New from Stanford University Press: The Children of Solaga: Indigenous Belonging across the U.S.-Mexico Border by Daina Sanchez.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this book, Daina Sanchez examines how Indigenous Oaxacan youth form racial, ethnic, community, and national identities away from their ancestral homeland. Assumptions that Indigenous peoples have disappeared altogether, or that Indigenous identities are fixed, persist in the popular imagination. This is far from the truth. Sanchez demonstrates how Indigenous immigrants continually remake their identities and ties to their homelands while navigating racial and social institutions in the U.S. and Latin America, and, in doing so, transform notions of Indigeneity and push the boundaries of Latinidad. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork between Los Angeles, California and San Andrés Solaga, a Zapotec town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, The Children of Solaga centers Indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world, and adds a much-needed transnational dimension to the study of Indigenous immigrant adaptation and assimilation. Sanchez, herself a diasporic Solagueña, argues that the lived experiences of Indigenous immigrants offer a unique vantage point from which to see how migration across settler-borders transforms processes of self-making among displaced Indigenous people. Rather than accept attempts by both Mexico and the U.S. to erase their Indigenous identities or give in to anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant prejudice, Oaxacan immigrants and their children defiantly celebrate their Indigenous identities through practices of el goce comunal ("communal joy") in their new homes.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spell of the Sinister"

New from Bloomsbury YA: Spell of the Sinister by Danielle Paige.

About the book, from the publisher:

In New York Times bestselling author Danielle Paige's wickedly fresh take on beloved tales, the fairy godmothers make the rules. Be careful what you wish for...

Two magical sisters. One more chance at revenge....

Ever since Cinderella disappeared with Prince Mather the queendoms have been in disarray. Now with her magical power completely unchecked, Galatea intends to exact revenge on humans for using the Entente. Her plan? Send Bari off to find a new prince and take over one queendom at a time. But Bari's mission is complicated when South joins her and sparks begin to fly . . .

Meanwhile, Farrow is on her own journey to reunite with Cinderella and Prince Mather in the first Queendom. Amid brewing conflict, Farrow grapples with her feelings for Mather, her friendship with Cinderella, and her loyalty to the Entente's original purpose—to influence with helpful magic, never take total control.

Once as close as sisters, Bari and Farrow now find themselves on opposing sides. Will malice win out, or will the next generation of Entente chart a new path to "happily ever after" for their magical coven of fairy godmothers?

Visit Danielle Paige's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dining at the End of Antiquity"

New from the University of California Press: Dining at the End of Antiquity: Class, Status, and Identity at Roman Tables by Nicholas Hudson.

About the book, from the publisher:

The history of dining is a story that cannot be told without archaeology. Surviving texts describe the opulent banquets of Rome’s wealthy elite but give little attention to the simpler, more intimate social gatherings of domestic invitation dinners. The lower classes, in particular, are largely ignored by literary sources. We can, however, find the voices of the underprivileged by turning to the material detritus of ancient cultures that reflects their social history. Dining at the End of Antiquity brings together the material culture and literary traditions of Romans at the table to reimagine dining culture as an integral part of Roman social order. Through a careful analysis of the tools and equipment of dining, Nicholas Hudson uncovers significant changes to the way different classes came together to share food and wine between the fourth and sixth centuries. Reconstructing the practices of Roman dining culture, Hudson explores the depths of new social distances between the powerful and the dependent at the end of antiquity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Greco"

New from Lake Union: Greco: A Novel by C. G. Cooper.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this unforgettable novel from USA Today bestselling author C. G. Cooper, a college football star struggles to pull himself free from his father’s tangled past.

It’s 1989, and college freshman Michael Greco is ready to leave his dreary small town―and the grief of his father’s death―behind. He has everything he needs for a great year: a starting spot on the football team, new friends, and a promising flirtation with a beautiful grad student.

But just as Greco settles in to campus life, his uncle shows up demanding that he take care of his father’s unfinished business with a powerful Chicago gangster. As Greco is drawn further into this cutthroat world, he struggles to shield his troubled younger brother and spiraling mother from the truth. Can he figure out who he is, and what sort of man he wants to be, before the past extinguishes any hope of a different future?

Unflinchingly honest, C. G. Cooper’s Greco is a complex exploration of identity, alienation, and the weight of atoning for inherited sins.

Visit C. G. Cooper's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Starved for Light"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Starved for Light: The Long Shadow of Rickets and Vitamin D Deficiency by Christian Warren.

About the book, from the publisher:

A wide-ranging history of rickets tracks the disease’s emergence, evolution, and eventual treatment—and exposes the backstory behind contemporary worries about vitamin D deficiency.

Rickets, a childhood disorder that causes soft and misshapen bones, transformed from an ancient but infrequent threat to a common scourge during the Industrial Revolution. Factories, mills, and urban growth transformed the landscape. Malnutrition and insufficient exposure to sunlight led to severe cases of rickets across Europe and the United States, affecting children in a variety of settings: dim British cities and American slave labor camps, moneyed households and impoverished ones. By the late 1800s, it was one of the most common pediatric diseases, seemingly an intractable consequence of modern life.

Starved for Light offers the first comprehensive history of this disorder. Tracing the efforts to understand, prevent, and treat rickets—first with the traditional remedy of cod liver oil, then with the application of a breakthrough corrective, industrially produced vitamin D supplements—Christian Warren places the disease at the center of a riveting medical history, one alert to the ways society shapes our views on illness. Warren shows how physicians and public health advocates in the United States turned their attention to rickets among urban immigrants, both African Americans and southern Europeans; some concluded that the disease was linked to race, while others blamed poverty, sunless buildings and cities, or cultural preferences in diet and clothing. Spotlighting rickets’ role in a series of medical developments, Warren leads readers through the encroachment on midwifery by male obstetricians, the development of pediatric orthopedic devices and surgeries, early twentieth-century research into vitamin D, appalling clinical experiments on young children testing its potential, and the eventual commercialization of all manner of vitamin D supplements. As vitamin D consumption rose in the mid-twentieth century, rickets—previously a major concern for doctors, parents, and public health institutions—faded in its severity and frequency, and as a topic of discussion. But despite the availability of drugstore supplements and fortified milk, small numbers of cases still appear today, and concerns and controversies about vitamin D deficiency in general continue to grow.

Sweeping and engaging, Starved for Light illuminates the social conditions underpinning our cures and our choices, helping us to see history’s echoes in contemporary prescriptions.

--Marshal Zeringue