"A Killer Motive"

New from MIRA: A Killer Motive: A Novel by Hannah Mary McKinnon.

About the book, from the publisher:

You never know who’s listening.

To Stella Dixon, sneaking her teenage brother out of their parents’ house for a beach party was harmless fun—until Max disappeared without a trace.

Six years later, Stella’s family is still broken, and she can’t let go of her guilt. The only thing that keeps her going is helping other families find closure through A Killer Motive, her true crime podcast.

In a bid to find new sponsors and keep making episodes, Stella goes on a local radio show. But when she says on air that if she had just one clue, she’d find Max and bring whoever hurt him to justice, someone takes it as a challenge.

A mysterious invitation to play a game arrives, with the promise that if Stella wins, she’ll get information about what happened to Max. Stella thinks it’s a sick joke…until Max’s best friend vanishes. And she’s given new instructions: tell nobody or people will die.

Desperate and unable to trust anyone, Stella agrees. But beating a twisted, invisible enemy seems impossible when they make all the rules…

Visit Hannah Mary McKinnon's website.

Q&A with Hannah Mary McKinnon.

The Page 69 Test: Sister Dear.

My Book, The Movie: You Will Remember Me.

The Page 69 Test: You Will Remember Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The New Public Safety"

New from the University of California Press: The New Public Safety: Police Reform and the Lurking Threat to Civil Liberties by Shawn E. Fields.

About the book, from the publisher:

Efforts to reduce reliance on police have gained momentum since 2020, driven by a growing recognition that public safety is better served when addressed by experts in medicine, mental health, houselessness, and behavior intervention. But this rush to reimagine public safety carries a serious risk: a long history of abuse exists within social welfare systems, and the laws protecting us from police who perpetrate these types of abuses largely do not apply to EMTs, social workers, and other nonpolice responders. While commending efforts to remove police from places they do not belong, The New Public Safety: Police Reform and the Lurking Threat to Civil Liberties raises the alarm on the dangers these reforms can pose if undertaken without proper restraints and protections and offers practical, achievable solutions to address these threats.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You’ve Goth My Heart"

New from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: You’ve Goth My Heart by L.C. Rosen.

About the book, from the publisher:

A blood-curdlingly spooky and darkly funny romance about how falling in love is scary AF, perfect for fans of Wednesday and Heartstopper.

When Gray gets a text from a wrong number, he’s pretty sure it’s a serial killer—or worse, his ex—on the other end of the line. But, the anonymous texter shares his same taste in music and movies, and Gray’s bored while stuck at home all summer, so why not respond? Being anonymous actually helps them open up to each other, and Gray finds himself hopeful that this could be his dream goth crush. All they have to do is meet—on Halloween, the night of Sleepy Hollow’s big house-decorating contest, and the perfect opportunity for Gray to show his mystery texter his true feelings.

But between Gray’s closeted ex coming back into the picture, a cute but obnoxious new goth kid vying to win the contest, and a maybe serial killer lurking around and killing local gay teens, Gray’s prospects are looking grim. Come Halloween, he’ll either get his dream guy or die trying…

You’ve Goth My Heart is the romantic and hilarious accidental-connection romance you don’t want to miss!

Visit Lev AC Rosen's website.

The Page 69 Test: Camp.

Writers Read: Lev AC Rosen (November 2022).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Surgeon's Battle"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War by Lindsay Rae Smith Privette.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between May 1 and May 22, 1863, Union soldiers marched nearly 200 miles through the hot, humid countryside to assault and capture the fortified city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Upon its arrival, the army laid siege to the city for a grueling forty-seven days. Disease and combat casualties threatened to undermine the army’s fighting strength, leaving medical officers to grapple with the battlefield conditions necessary to sustain soldiers' bodies. Medical innovations were vital to the Union victory. When Vicksburg fell on July 4, triumph would have been fleeting if not for the US Army Medical Department and its personnel.

By centering soldiers' health and medical care in the Union army’s fight to take Vicksburg, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette offers a fresh perspective on the environmental threats, logistical challenges, and interpersonal conflicts that shaped the campaign and siege. In doing so, Privette shines new light on the development of the army’s medical systems as officers learned to adapt to their circumstances and prove themselves responsible stewards of soldiers' bodies.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Belles"

New from Atria Books: The Belles: A Novel by Lacey N. Dunham.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this richly atmospheric, dark academia debut novel, a young woman with a secretive past will risk everything—including her life—to fit in.

Belles never tell...

It’s 1951 at the secluded Bellerton College, and Deena Williams is an outsider doing her best to blend in with her wealthy and perfectly groomed peers. Infamous for its strict rules as much as its prestige, attending Bellerton could give Deena the comfortable life she’s always dreamed of.

She quickly forms an alliance with the five other freshmen on her floor, and soon they are singled out by the president’s wife as the most promising girls of their class, who anoints them: The Belles. They walk the college’s halls in menacing unison, matching velvet ribbons in their hair. But no sisterhood comes without secrets, and the Belles are no exception. Playing cruel pranks on their dormitory housemother and embarking on boundary-shattering night games, the Belles test the limits of the campus rules.

But as Deena begins to piece together the sinister history of Bellerton, her own past threatens to come to light, forcing her to make a dangerous choice. A chilling and seductive coming-of-age story, The Belles is an excavation of the dark side of girlhood, the intricacies of privilege, and the unbridled desire to belong at any cost.

Visit Lacey N. Dunham's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Absence of National Feeling"

New from the University Press of Mississippi: Absence of National Feeling: Education Debates in the Reconstruction Congress by Michael J. Steudeman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Before the start of the Civil War, the US Congress seldom took up the question of education, deferring regularly to a tradition of local control. In the period after the war, however, education became a major concern of the federal government. Many members of Congress espoused the necessity of schooling to transform southern culture and behavior, secure civil rights, and reconstruct the Union. Absence of National Feeling: Education Debates in the Reconstruction Congress analyzes how policymakers cultivated a rhetoric of public education to negotiate conflicts over federalism and civic belonging in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Reconstruction Era advocates embraced education as a way to orchestrate the affective life of Americans. They believed education could marshal feelings of hope, love, shame, and pride to alter Americans’ predispositions toward other citizens. The most assertive educational advocates believed that schools would physically bring together children divided by race or religion, fostering shared affinities and dissolving racial hierarchies. Schooling promised to be an emotional adhesive, holding together the North and South and facilitating US expansion into the West.

Through protracted debates over national education funding, the fate of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and school desegregation, members of Congress negotiated schools’ potential as a vehicle for social change. By Reconstruction’s end, most members of Congress accepted schooling as an element of national reconciliation. To reach this tenuous consensus, though, legislators sacrificed their call for schools to intervene in the feelings of prejudice, resentment, and superiority that sustained the culture of slavery. Rejecting a transformative educational vision, Congress took another tragic step in its abandonment of Reconstruction.

Focusing on the words spoken in the Reconstruction Congress, Absence of National Feeling contends that educational rhetoric appealed to legislators debating whether the federal government could, or even should, alter public feeling. Tracing congressional transcripts between 1865 and 1877, author Michael J. Steudeman illustrates that these debates lastingly helped to both define and delimit the possible trajectories of education policy.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kaplan's Plot"

New from Flatiron Books: Kaplan's Plot: A Novel by Jason Diamond.

About the book, from the publisher:

Buried secrets. Healing. Reflection. When his business fails, Elijah returns home where past and present collide and a riveting family mystery unravels. Delving into generational trauma and Chicago’s dark history, this is a suspenseful and haunting read.

Elijah Mendes was hoping for a more triumphant return to Chicago. His mother, Eve, is dying of cancer, his business flamed out, and he has nowhere else to go. So he returns to Chicago feeling listless and shattered, worried about how he’s going to help his mother despite their chilly relationship. He finds some inspiration when he discovers that their family owns a Jewish cemetery and that a man he’s never heard of, his great-uncle Solomon Kaplan, is buried in a plot there. With a new sense of purpose—and an excuse to talk more deeply with his mother—Elijah begins pursuing a family mystery of extraordinary proportions.

Elijah discovers his grandfather Yitz, Eve’s father, was a powerful gangster in the 1920s. She was ashamed and never spoke about him to Elijah. As secrets unravel, the past and present become intertwined, and Yitz’s story forces Elijah and Eve to bond in ways they never have before and begin to accept each other, not as who they wish they were but as they both are.

Kaplan’s Plot is an astonishing balancing act between the ruthless and the tender, the superficial and the truth, by a writer with tremendous promise.

Visit Jason Diamond's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Movement's Promise"

New from Stanford University Press: A Movement's Promise: The Making of Contemporary Palestinian Theater by Samer Al-Saber.

About the book, from the publisher:

Starting in the 1970s, Palestinian theater flourished as part of a Palestinian cultural spring. In the absence of local radio, television, and uncensored journalism, theater production became the leading form of artistic expression, and Palestinian theater artists self-identified as a movement. Although resistance was not their sole function, these theater makers contributed to an active cultural resistance front. With this book, Samer Al-Saber tells the story of the Palestinian Theater Movement over nearly three decades, as they created plays and productions that articulated versions of Palestinian identity, critiqued social norms, celebrated and extended Palestinian cultural values, and challenged the power disparity created by the Occupation. The struggles between Palestinian theater artists and Israeli authorities form the central relationships in this history. Al-Saber juxtaposes the agency of Palestinian theater artists, in their determination to perform against immense challenges, with the power of Israeli authorities to grant or deny permission to theatrical productions. The legal structure of institutionalized censorship prevented Palestinian artists from expressing their chosen message, and the theater movement's search for permission to perform illuminates the disparity in power between the occupier and the occupied. In writing the first history of the Palestinian Theater Movement, Al-Saber amplifies necessary voices in this Palestinian cultural history, told from below.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bees in June"

New from Harper Muse: Bees in June: A hope-filled historical novel set in a 1960s small town and infused with magical realism by Elizabeth Bass Parman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Uncle Dixon always told Rennie to tell the bees everything, but somewhere along the way, Rennie forgot. Now, with her life at its lowest, she begins to see the bees in a new light. Will she believe again in the magic of the hives, and will she listen as the bees try to guide her home? Perfect for fans of Sarah Addison Allen, Margaret Renkl, and Rachel Linden.

It's 1969, and the town of Spark Tennessee, is just as excited about the moon landing as the rest of the country. Rennie Hendricks is grieving and trying to heal from the unimaginable loss of her infant son. She had hoped a child would repair the cracks in her marriage to her husband, Tiny, but the tragedy has only served to illuminate his abusive character. Trying to relieve some of the financial stress that inflames Tiny's anger, Rennie accepts a position cooking at the local diner. Hidden away in a kitchen making delicious food, she rediscovers the joy she finds in cooking for others, and as she spends more time with her new boss, she realizes there are more options for women than she thought possible.

One of the benefits of her new job is that she can bring meals to her beloved Uncle Dixon, the man who practically raised her along with her late Aunt Eugenia, a woman unkindly labeled as a witch by most of the town. What those people didn't understand is that Eugenia was a healer and connected to power they couldn't grasp.

Rennie thinks her elderly uncle is confused when he talks about communicating with his bees, but then she starts to see them glow, leading her toward safety time and time again. Could it be that these bees, discovered long ago by her Aunt Eugenia, are magical and trying to tell her something? And what about the new neighbor, Ambrose Beckett, who seems to understand the bees too. Is he being truthful about why he has moved to Spark, or is there more to him than meets the eye?

Hope-filled and infused with magical realism, Bees in June captures Rennie's journey back to her true self, creating a rewarding life that the bees showed her was possible if she only believed in herself and the magic that surrounds her.

Visit Elizabeth Bass Parman's website.

Q&A with Elizabeth Bass Parman.

The Page 69 Test: The Empress of Cooke County.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Red Harbor"

New from the University of Washington Press: Red Harbor: Radical Workers and Community Struggle in the Pacific Northwest by Aaron Goings.

About the book, from the publisher:

Brings to life Grays Harbor's fiery legacy of class conflict

In the early decades of the twentieth century, Grays Harbor was the Lumber Capital of the World. While thousands of lumber and maritime workers fought for higher wages and decent conditions, employers unified to protect their interests, often through violent and corrupt means. They spied on unionists, expelled them from their own towns, vilified them in the press, and physically assaulted labor activists. But with deep roots in their communities, radical workers continued to meet in their halls and immigrant neighborhoods―and to influence the wider labor movement well into the 1930s.

In Red Harbor, Aaron Goings resurrects the forgotten history of lumber workers in a bastion of labor radicalism, examining the conflict as workers faced down an alliance of employers, police, and violent anti-radicals, including the Ku Klux Klan. But he goes beyond these clashes to illuminate the vital roles of families, immigrants, and working-class women in the labor movement, revealing how people fought not only for labor rights but also for the good of their communities. The Industrial Workers of the World (or Wobblies) in particular adopted views and tactics from socialist Finnish immigrants while authoring programs responsive to local needs and supported by the people―radical and otherwise.

Vivid and revealing, Red Harbor shines a light on lumber workers and the pursuit of justice in the Pacific Northwest.

Visit Aaron Goings's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Maiden and Her Monster"

New from Tor Books: The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Maiden and Her Monster is a gorgeous, atmospheric debut fantasy rooted in history, folklore, and sapphic romance—perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten, and Naomi Novik.

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.

As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood’s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to protect heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.

Visit Maddie Martinez's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sisters of the Jungle"

Coming September 23 from Douglas & McIntyre: Sisters of the Jungle: Women Who Shaped the Science of Wild Primates by Keriann McGoogan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sisters of the Jungle explores the history of primatology, a rare scientific discipline led primarily by women, from pioneers like Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey to author Keriann McGoogan’s own adventurous field studies.

Since the 1970s, the science of primatology has been dominated by women—a unique reversal, as men usually outnumber women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Today, one of those women is primatologist Keriann McGoogan, who has traveled to the far corners of the earth in search of wild primates. In Sisters of the Jungle, McGoogan combines stories about her own studies of howler monkeys (the loudest living primate) and lemurs (the most endangered group of animals on the planet) with those of the women who paved the way: intrepid scientists like Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas, and Alison Jolly who broke boundaries, made astonishing discoveries and ultimately shaped the trajectory of an entire branch of science.

Visit Keriann McGoogan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Life, and Death, and Giants"

New from St. Martin's Press: Life, and Death, and Giants: A Novel by Ron Rindo.

About the book, from the publisher:

A heart too big for this world. A life that changes everyone.

Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.

But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets.

Life, and Death, and Giants is a moving story of faith, family, buried secrets, and everyday miracles.

Visit Ron Rindo's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Just People"

New from Oxford University Press: Just People: Virtue, Equality, and Respect by Mark LeBar.

About the book, from the publisher:

We often think of justice as a virtue that belong to states, societies, and institutions. It has not always been that way. Justice began as something between individual people, and only recently has its application to larger groups become predominant. In Just People, Mark LeBar makes a case for recovering the original priority of justice in and between individual people, as a virtue of character.

The model for this virtue comes from Aristotle, whose own notion of the virtue of justice has notable shortcomings. Just People argues that we should understand justice in people as a matter of recognition of and respect for equal authority to obligate one another. That is, we should see one another as having equal capacity to obligate others through our persons and choices. This is a form of equality that is usually overlooked in discussions of equality, but here it is the cornerstone of justice, vindicating Aristotle's thought that justice is itself a matter of a kind of equality.

LeBar rethinks a number of popular assumptions, including that we can make sense of justice in societies or institutions without thinking of the implications for our aspirations to be just people -- a thought that is long overdue. His book is a reformulation of justice, with the potential to fundamentally change the way we treat one another.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Anarchists in Love"

Coming September 30 from Douglas & McIntyre: Anarchists in Love: A Novel by Robert Hough.

About the book, from the publisher:

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman bring revolutionary idealism to attempts at love, political violence, and utopia in this compelling novel based on a true story.

New York City, 1890. The “Gilded Age” is not golden for all. Emma Goldman has just fled a loveless marriage to join the fight for women’s liberation; Alexander “Sasha” Berkman is studying a new system of thought called anarchism. Both are young immigrants, terribly poor, and ready to take radical steps to free the working class from misery and exploitation. After they meet by chance at a café, a passionate and tumultuous romance begins. When the shocking news arrives that industrialist Henry C. Frick ordered the fatal shootings of striking steelworkers, Emma and Sasha’s shared belief in the “propaganda of the deed” draws them into a bold and violent plan.

Anarchists in Love is the first work of fiction about this captivating and ultimately tragic love affair. Robert Hough (The Final Confession of Mabel Stark) uses his expertise in “fiction that is thoroughly researched and possessed with a vibrant moral heartbeat” (The National Post) to cast light on the desperation and insurgence of this politically charged historical moment—and illuminate the striking similarities to our present day.

Visit Robert Hough's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Novel and the Blank"

New from the Johns Hopkins University Press: The Novel and the Blank: A Literary History of the Book Trades in Eighteenth-Century British America by Matthew P. Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

Explores American colonial print culture's diverse output and how these texts shaped public life and modernity.

In The Novel and the Blank, Matthew P. Brown uncovers the vibrant, overlooked world of the eighteenth-century British American print shop. Printing more than just novels and pamphlets, these workshops produced a kaleidoscope of printed materials―from legal blanks and almanacs to runaway slave ads and chapbooks―that reflected the complexities of colonial life.

Brown paints a rich cultural history of the time, identifying and describing the steady sellers that stabilized the trade and the print surges ignited by religious revivals of the 1730s-1740s and political upheavals of the revolutionary era. He explores the connections among commercial caution, literary expression, and oppressive structures like the slave trade. The book advances our knowledge of early modern culture in several ways: by providing a rounded portrait of colonial and early national literary culture; by examining a steadily popular canon rarely read by modern scholars; and by depicting the lived religion of readers, writers, and printers who participated in this literary culture.

With a sharp focus on everyday texts and readers―rather than on the canon of works constructed by modern scholars―Brown reimagines the public sphere of the eighteenth century as a vivifying experience. Through an innovative blend of historical rigor and cultural insight, The Novel and the Blank reveals how ordinary print shaped extraordinary shifts in religion, secularism, and the ways we understand modernity itself.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beth Is Dead"

Coming January 6 from Sarah Barley Books / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Beth Is Dead by Katie Bernet.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beth March’s sisters will stop at nothing to track down her killer—until they begin to suspect each other—in this debut thriller that’s also a bold, contemporary reimagining of the beloved classic Little Women.

When Beth March is found dead in the woods on New Year’s Day, her sisters vow to uncover her murderer.

Suspects abound. There’s the neighbor who has feelings for not one but two of the girls. Meg’s manipulative best friend. Amy’s flirtatious mentor. And Beth’s lionhearted first love. But it doesn’t take the surviving sisters much digging to uncover motives each one of the March girls had for doing the unthinkable.

Jo, an aspiring author with a huge following on social media, would do anything to hook readers. Would she kill her sister for the story? Amy dreams of studying art in Europe, but she’ll need money from her aunt—money that’s always been earmarked for Beth. And Meg wouldn’t dream of hurting her sister…but her boyfriend might have, and she’ll protect him at all costs.

Despite the growing suspicion within the family, it’s hard to know for sure if the crime was committed by someone close to home. After all, the March sisters were dragged into the spotlight months ago when their father published a controversial bestseller about his own daughters. Beth could have been killed by anyone.

Beth’s perspective told in flashback unfolds next to Meg, Jo, and Amy’s increasingly fraught investigation as the tragedy threatens to rip the Marches apart.

Visit Katie Bernet's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"People v. The Court"

New from Cambridge University Press: People v. The Court: The Next Revolution in Constitutional Law by David L. Sloss.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Constitution divides power between the government and We the People. It grants We the People an affirmative, collective right to exercise control over the government through our elected representatives. The Supreme Court has abused its power of judicial review and subverted popular control of the government. The Court's doctrine divides constitutional law into rights issues and structural issues. Structural constitutional doctrine ignores the Constitution's division of power between the government and We the People. The Court's rights doctrines fail to recognize that the Constitution grants the People an affirmative, collective right to exercise control over our government. People v. The Court presents an indictment of the Supreme Court's constitutional doctrine. It also provides a set of proposals for revolutionary changes in the practice of judicial review that are designed to enable We the People to reclaim our rightful place as sovereigns in a democratic, constitutional order.

The Page 99 Test: Tyrants on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sharpe's Storm"

Coming December 2 from Harper: Sharpe's Storm: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gripping novel featuring the legendary Richard Sharpe from Bernard Cornwell, the internationally bestselling master of historical fiction widely recognized as “the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today” (Wall Street Journal).

War against Napoleon rages across Europe. As Britain prepares to invade France for the first time, the formidable Richard Sharpe and his men brace themselves for a cold, hard winter.

Before them, across flooded rivers and fortified bridges, lies the fiercest French army they have ever encountered. There is only one way forward for Wellington's army, and it will be bloody. . . .

Major Sharpe may be in for his toughest winter yet.

Visit Bernard Cornwell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Targeted"

New from NYU Press: Targeted: Corporations and the Police Surveillance Economy by Kelly Gates.

About the book, from the publisher:

How video transformed policing and security

Video cameras are everywhere: attached to buildings, drones, and dashboards; embedded in smartphones, laptops, and doorbells; worn on police uniforms and sunglasses. In Targeted, Kelly Gates argues that the resulting avalanche of video has transformed the landscape of policing and security in the twenty-first century. Video production, analysis, and archival management are now central to the ways police power is exercised, criminal law enforced, and spaces of human habitation securitized.

Gates examines the primacy of video in four key areas of policing and security: the field of digital multimedia forensics, private video surveillance infrastructure development, police body-worn camera systems, and video analytics for automated surveillance (Video AI). Case studies of two companies illustrate the role of corporations in these far-reaching media-technological changes. Target Corporation has integrated its retail security operations with law enforcement, expanding its surveillance beyond its stores and parking lots and into the criminal legal system. Axon Enterprise is leveraging the growing volume of police body-cam video to build a large-scale proprietary platform for policing.

Targeted reveals the role of video infrastructure development in the increasingly entangled relationship between the modern police and the modern corporation, in the long wake and ruins of neoliberalism.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Place for People Like Us"

Coming September 29 from Guernica Editions: A Place for People Like Us by Danila Botha.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Hannah meets Jillian, their connection is instant and addictive. Both unique and talented, but equally adrift in trying to determine and then pursue their goals, they become each other’s anchor until Jillian’s lies threaten to unravel the lives they’ve built.

In this insightful exploration of friendship and identity, Judaism and cults, and hypocrisy and family Danila Botha brings her signature empathy and nuance into worlds few are intimately familiar with, with riveting results. Poignant and moving, A Place for People Like Us is a story that will stay with you for a long time.

Visit Danila Botha's website.

Writers Read: Danila Botha (May 2011).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Death to Order"

New from Yale University Press: Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination by Simon Ball.

About the book, from the publisher:

A deeply researched history of assassination in the modern world, from Franz Ferdinand to Osama bin Laden

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Leon Trotsky, Reinhard Heydrich, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Osama bin Laden, Qasem Soleimani: assassination—the murder of a specific individual by an organised conspiracy in pursuit of political ends—has rarely failed to grip the imagination.

In this incisive new history, Simon Ball shows how targeted political murder has become a tool of democratic states but also a key strategy of those who wish to topple them. Ball introduces us to the techniques of assassination and those who wield them, as well as the security regimes that have developed to prevent this violent practice. From the First World War and the age of empire to terrorism and the development of pilotless drones, Death to Order places assassination at the heart of modern political history—and shows how it continues to impact our world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"One of Them"

New from Harper: One of Them: A Novel by Kitty Zeldis.

About the book, from the publisher:

The beloved author of Not Our Kind and The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights returns with a story of secrets, friendship, and betrayal about two young women at Vassar in the years after World War II, a powerful and moving tale of prejudice and pride that echoes the cultural and social issues of today.

Anne Bishop seems like a typical Vassar sophomore—one of a popular group of privileged WASP friends. None of the girls in her circle has any idea that she’s Jewish, or that her real name is or that her real first name is Miriam. Pretending to be a Gentile has made life easier—as Anne, she no longer suffers the snubs, snide remarks, and daily restrictions Jews face. She enjoys her college life of teas, late-night conversations, and mixers. She turns a blind eye to the casual anti-Semitism that flourishes among her friends and classmates—after all, it's no longer directed at her.

But her secret life is threatened when she becomes fascinated by a girl not in her crowd. Delia Goldhush is sophisticated, stylish, brilliant, and unashamedly Jewish—and seems not to care that she’s an outcast among the other students. Knowing that her growing closeness with Delia would be social suicide if it were discovered, Anne keeps their friendship quiet. Delia seems to understand—until a cruelty on Anne’s part drives them apart and sends them scattering to other corners of the world, alone and together.

Kitty Zeldis is the pseudonym for a novelist and non-fiction writer of books for adults and children. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

My Book, The Movie: Not Our Kind.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis (December 2018).

Coffee with a Canine: Kitty Zeldis & Dottie.

The Page 69 Test: Not Our Kind.

The Page 69 Test: The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything Evolves"

New from Princeton University Press: Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics by Mark Vellend.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence

Everything Evolves reveals how evolutionary dynamics shape the world as we know it and how we are harnessing the principles of evolution in pursuit of many goals, such as increasing the global food supply and creating artificial intelligence capable of evolving its own solutions to thorny problems.

Taking readers on an astonishing journey, Mark Vellend describes how all observable phenomena in the universe can be understood through two sciences. The first is physics. The second is the science of evolvable systems. Vellend shows how this Second Science unifies biology and culture and how evolution gives rise to everything from viruses and giraffes to nation-states, technology, and us. He discusses how the idea of evolution had precedents in areas such as language and economics long before it was made famous by Darwin, and how only by freeing ourselves of the notion that the study of evolution must start with biology can we appreciate the true breadth of evolutionary processes.

A sweeping tour of the natural and social sciences, Everything Evolves is an essential introduction to one of the two key pillars to the scientific enterprise and an indispensable guide to understanding some of the most difficult challenges of the Anthropocene.

Visit Mark Vellend's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Please Don't Lie"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Please Don't Lie: A Thriller (Crystal River) by Christina Baker Kline and Anne Burt.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this stylish, twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline and award-winning author Anne Burt, a young woman heads to the Adirondacks with her new husband for a fresh start―but the past won’t let her go.

Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family’s tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh start in the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation.

But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined.

Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends―a free-spirited couple living on the property―can help Hayley shake the creeping sense that something is off.

As winter edges closer, Hayley discovers that her sanctuary is anything but safe. Trapped and isolated, she faces a terrifying truth: in trying to escape her past, she may have run straight into something far more dangerous.

Visit Christina Baker Kline's website and Anne Burt's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Christina Baker Kline & Lucy.

The Page 69 Test: Bird in Hand.

Writers Read: Christina Baker Kline (March 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Just the Facts"

New from the University of California Press: Just the Facts: Untangling Contradictory Claims by Joel Best.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why can’t we seem to agree on facts? In this succinct volume, sociologist Joel Best turns his inimitable eye toward the social construction of what we think is true. He evaluates how facts emerge from our social worlds—including our beliefs, values, tastes, and norms—and how they align with those worlds’ standards. He argues that by developing a sociological perspective toward what we think we know, we can better parse the use of facts and untruths around us.

This book examines how facts are created and supported through science, government, law, and journalism, revealing that facts are actually claims. These claims are malleable and can change over time through fact-checking, revision, and sometimes rejection. Best guides us through these processes so that we can question our assumptions and understand why disputes happen in the first place. In a time of increasing social and political divide, Just the Facts urges us to resist defensiveness over our facts and approach disputes in critical new ways.

Visit Joel Best's website.

The Page 99 Test: Everyone's a Winner.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Artificial Truth"

Coming December 1 from Amazon Crossing: Artificial Truth: A Novel by J.M. Lee, translated by Sean Lin Halbert.

About the book, from the publisher:

From J.M. Lee, a bestselling phenomenon in Korea, comes a haunting and mind-bending novel about the revolutionary possibilities of AI and the infinite mysteries of what it means to be human.

In the virtual city of Alegria, fantasies are made real, innumerable lifetimes are lived, and even death itself is a survivable experience. An escape from reality that changed the landscape of artificial intelligence, it is home to more than one hundred million people. Though it’s been six years since Alegria’s creator―revolutionary tech genius KC Kim―died of cancer, his legacy is alive in the pinnacle of KC’s genius: an AI named Allen who surges with KC’s memories.

As hard as KC’s widow, Minju, and her new husband, Junmo, try to move on, Minju can’t shake the unnerving feeling that somehow, from somewhere, KC is watching. She sees a stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to him. A pair of KC’s custom-made shoes arrive at her doorstep. And someone has booked a Tokyo hotel room where she and KC shared happier times. Certain of nothing except KC’s mad innovation, Minju can only imagine what he is accomplishing without even existing.

If KC is reaching out from an infinity of memories, what are his plans for Minju and Junmo, and how can they hope to escape KC’s all-seeing grasp? And whose plans are they, really? The possibilities are frightening.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Building Social Mobility"

New from Cambridge University Press: Building Social Mobility: How Subsidized Homeownership Creates Wealth, Dignity, and Voice in India by Tanu Kumar.

About the book, from the publisher:

Which policies can help households improve their economic, social and political status? Building Social Mobility is an in-depth exploration of how policies to subsidize homeownership in low- and middle-income countries shape beneficiaries' decision-making in nearly every facet of their lives. Tanu Kumar develops a multidimensional and cross-disciplinary theory that argues that these initiatives affect how citizens invest in the future, climb out of poverty, develop agency in their social relationships, and exert power in local politics. Kumar supports the theory using a multi-method study of three policies in India. Evidence includes a natural experiment, original surveys, paired qualitative interviews, and an 18-year matched panel study. Building Social Mobility is a book about both housing and behavior. It goes beyond assessing the effects of an important policy to provide deep insights about how upwardly mobile citizens make decisions and the interactions between wealth, dignity, and voice in low- and middle-income countries.

Visit Tanu Kumar's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Day I Lost You"

Coming December 2 from Harper Perennial: The Day I Lost You: A Novel by Ruth Mancini.

About the book, from the publisher:

The internationally bestselling author of The Woman on the Ledge returns with a twisty thriller about a missing child and three adults whose shared secrets and hidden history could prove deadly.

“I need to report a crime. My baby has been stolen.”

All Lauren wants is a new life in Spain. She’s suffered an unimaginable loss, but at last she has found a home in the pretty seaside town of Mantilla de Mar. Everyone deserves a new start, and Lauren needs to put her past firmly behind her.

Hope has everything: an interesting career as a therapist, an attractive husband, a dream home in the countryside - and, finally, the baby she always longed for. Sam. Her beautiful boy.

But Sam has gone missing.

So when the police tell her that a woman has been found in Spain with a child matching Sam’s description, Hope thinks that her nightmare might be coming to an end.

But Lauren is insisting Sam is her baby. She even has his passport and birth certificate to prove it.

So what really happened to Baby Sam? And who still has secrets to hide?

One child. Two mothers. And a past that won’t let them go.

Follow Ruth Mancini on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Monumental"

New from The MIT Press: Monumental: How a New Generation of Artists Is Shaping the Memorial Landscape by Cat Dawson.

About the book, from the publisher:

How recent shifts in social politics have dramatically changed our relationship to monuments.

For centuries, monuments have telegraphed the values and origin myths of dominant culture in public space and on massive scale. They have signaled both who is part of a culture and who is not, often overlooking histories that complicate the stories they tell. Yet in the last 50 years in the United States, the role of monuments has changed significantly. Numerous historical monuments have been removed or toppled, bringing to the fore a long-repressed conversation about the relationship between the monumental landscape and national identity. In Monumental, Cat Dawson takes up the social, political, and art historical causes and ramifications of this important shift.

Examining the conditions that have led to and define this new era, Dawson reveals that these interventions are as indebted to the monumental tradition as they are to representational strategies that grew out of twentieth-century social justice efforts, from the Civil Rights movement to queer organizing during the AIDS crisis.

Since 2014, a new generation of artists has established a groundbreaking role for monuments, calling into question the very notion of what a monument is through novel investigations of how symbolic structures can be made and what stories they can tell. This book tells the important story of that sea change.

Visit Cat Dawson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Season of Fear"

New from Christy Ottaviano Books: Season of Fear by Emily Cooper.

About the book, from the publisher:

Night of the Witch meets The Handmaid's Tale in this queer Gothic horror debut set against the monstrous Bavarian forest of Hexenwald.

In the Bavarian village of Heulensee, women feed their terror to an ancient Saint of Fear. In return, it protects them from the monsters of the Hexenwald, the haunted forest on their doorstep. Born unfearing, Ilse Odenwald has felt like an outsider all her life. When the Saint discovers Ilse’s divergence, it levels a threat: she must find her fear, or the Saint will devour her sister, Dorothea—the only person who loves Ilse unconditionally.

Unwilling to lose Thea, Ilse enters the Hexenwald. She hopes that its horrors will finally unleash her fear and, in turn, save her sister. But during her quest Ilse inadvertently uncovers something more sinister than the monsters that hunt her: a darkness within herself. As the forest closes in, Ilse’s hopes for a normal future begin to slip away, as well as the chance to save not just Thea, but all women in Heulensee.

Bewitching and timely, this gripping debut novel is a dark fairy tale about the fate of girls and women in a world grown accustomed to sacrificing them.

Visit Emily Cooper's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Legal Plunder"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Legal Plunder: The Predatory Dimensions of Criminal Justice by Joshua Page and Joe Soss.

About the book, from the publisher:

A searing, historically rich account of how US policing and punishment have been retrofitted over the last four decades to extract public and private revenues from America’s poorest and most vulnerable communities.

Alongside the rise of mass incarceration, a second profound and equally disturbing development has transpired. Since the 1980s, US policing and punishment have been remade into tools for stripping resources from the nation’s most oppressed communities and turning them into public and private revenues. Legal Plunder analyzes this development’s origins, operations, consequences, and the political struggles that it has created.

Drawing on historical and contemporary evidence, including original ethnographic research, Joshua Page and Joe Soss examine the predatory dimensions of criminal legal governance to show how practices that criminalize, police, and punish have been retrofitted to siphon resources from subordinated groups, subsidize governments, and generate corporate profits. As tax burdens have declined for the affluent, this financial extraction—now a core function of the country’s sprawling criminal legal apparatus—further compounds race, class, and gender inequalities and injustices. Legal Plunder shows that we can no longer afford to overlook legal plunder or the efforts to dismantle it.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What About the Bodies"

New from Atlantic Crime: What About the Bodies by Ken Jaworowski.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this propulsive crime novel from Edgar Award nominee Ken Jaworowski, three lives collide in a gritty rust-belt town—a single mother covering up a deadly mistake, a young man on a mission to honor a dying wish, and a musician racing to escape a violent debt.

Carla, a single mom poised to finally break free from her cycle of poverty, must risk it all, including her morality, to help her son hide a terrible secret.

Reed, an autistic young man, sets out on a journey to keep a deathbed promise to the mother he just lost. Along the way he’ll encounter both kindhearted residents and a cold-blooded nemesis.

And Liz, an aspiring musician on the cusp of a breakthrough, needs to quickly come up with the cash she owes a brutal ex-con. If she can’t pay him, both her dream and her life will be in grave danger.

As these three compelling characters intersect, the novel ignites into a story filled with explosive twists, hair-raising chills, and boundless love.

Visit Ken Jaworowski's website.

Q&A with Ken Jaworowski.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wheat at War"

New from Oxford University Press: Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War by Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast.

About the book, from the publisher:

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers of France, Britain, and Italy faced a fundamental problem: keeping their soldier and civilian populations safe from starvation.

Wheat at War describes how, faced with this immense challenge, the Allies devised a multilateral institution--the Wheat Executive--to do what no state could do alone. Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast examine the difficult considerations made by the allied powers when ceding authority to an international body that would make decisions for them. Beyond successfully managing wheat shipping and distribution, they argue, the Wheat Executive proved to have significant influence in the evolving landscape of interstate cooperation. As a case study, the Wheat Executive improves our understanding of international institutional design, the importance of commodities during wartime, economic coordination amongst wartime coalition members, and the legacies of international cooperation during the First World War. As one of the first great experiments in supranationalism, the Allies' management of wheat while at war provides lessons about the emergence of international organizations and their contours.

The Page 99 Test: How States Pay for Wars.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Girl in the Green Dress"

New from Minotaur Books: The Girl in the Green Dress: A Mystery Featuring Zelda Fitzgerald by Mariah Fredericks.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of The Lindbergh Nanny comes an evocative mystery about the 1920 murder of the gambler Joseph Elwell, featuring New Yorker writer Morris Markey and Zelda Fitzgerald.

New York, 1920.

Zelda Fitzgerald is bored, bored, bored. Although she’s newly married to the hottest writer in America, and one half of the literary scene’s "it" couple, Zelda is at loose ends while Scott works on his next novel, The Beautiful and the Damned.

Meanwhile, Atlanta journalist Morris Markey has arrived in New York and is lost in every way possible. Recently returned from the war and without connections, he hovers at the edge of the city’s revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first big story.

When notorious man-about-town Joseph Elwell is found shot through the head in his swanky townhouse, the fortunes the two southerners collide when they realize they were both among the last to see him alive. Zelda encountered Elwell at the scandalous Midnight Frolic revue on the night of his death, and Markey saw him just hours before with a ravishing mystery woman dressed in green. Markey has his story. Zelda has her next adventure.

As they investigate which of Elwell’s many lovers—or possibly an enraged husband—would have wanted the dapper society man dead, Zelda sweeps Markey into her New York, the heady, gaudy Jazz Age of excess and abandon, as the lost generation takes its first giddy steps into a decade-long spree. Everyone has come to do something, the more scandalous the better; Zelda is hungry for love and sensation, Markey desperate for success and recognition. As they each follow these ultimately dangerous desires, the pair close in on what really happened that night—and hunt for the elusive girl in the green dress who may hold the truth.

Based on the real story of the unsolved deaths of Joseph Elwell and New Yorker writer Morris Markey, Mariah Fredericks’s new novel is a glittering homage to the dawn of the Jazz Age, as well as a deft and searing portrait of the dark side of fame.

Visit Mariah Fredericks's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Girl in the Park.

The Page 69 Test: A Death of No Importance.

My Book, The Movie: Death of an American Beauty.

The Page 69 Test: Death of an American Beauty.

Q&A with Mariah Fredericks.

The Page 69 Test: The Lindbergh Nanny.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kindergarten Panic"

New from Princeton University Press: Kindergarten Panic: Parental Anxiety and School Choice Inequality by Bailey A. Brown.

About the book, from the publisher:

How school choice reproduces inequality by creating gendered and socioeconomic decision-making labor for parents

School choice policies have proliferated in recent years, with parents forced to navigate complex admission processes. In New York City, families have more options than ever before, but the search for the right school has proven to be time-consuming, painstaking, and anxiety-provoking work. In Kindergarten Panic, Bailey Brown examines the experiences of parents as they search for elementary schools, finding that socioeconomic inequalities and persistent disparities in resources, information access, and decision-making power contribute to broad variation in how families develop and manage their school-choice labor strategies. The labor that parents invest in searching for schools is unevenly distributed, and shaped by gender, socioeconomic background, and neighborhood contexts.

Drawing on interviews with more than a hundred parents of elementary school students in New York City, Brown shows how inequality manifests itself as parents and students deal with the uncertainties of the school choice process. By conceptualizing school decision making as labor, she makes visible the often-unseen work that goes into making educational decisions for children. Brown argues that recognizing school choice as labor both deepens our theoretical understanding of the challenges families confront and identifies vast disparities in parents’ labor across socioeconomic and gender divisions. If parents continue to be charged with searching for schools, we must take seriously how school choice policies reproduce the kind of inequality they are intended to reduce—and we must invest in providing equitable access to high-quality public schooling for all families.

Visit Bailey Brown's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Behind These Four Walls"

Coming January 1 from Thomas & Mercer: Behind These Four Walls by Yasmin Angoe.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of Not What She Seems, Yasmin Angoe’s thriller explores revenge, morality, corruption, and wealth as a woman sets out to uncover the truth behind her friend’s disappearance and expose the powerful family behind it.

Isla Thorne had a rough start in life. Orphaned young, she spent her formative years in a group home where she met her best friend, Eden Galloway. At sixteen, they decide to run away to LA…but Eden never makes it.

It’s been ten years since Eden vanished. And Isla’s determined to find her.

She begins at the last place Eden visited: the Corrigan mansion in Virginia. Eden claimed to have unfinished business there. Posing as an aspiring journalist, Isla insinuates herself into the wealthy family’s home and begins searching for the truth.

The more she digs, the more Isla discovers Eden isn’t who she thought she was. Was she even a victim, or did Eden plan this all along? Desperate for answers and to keep her identity hidden, Isla finds an ally in one of the Corrigan sons. But as she wades deeper into this power-hungry family’s secrets and lies, she finds herself in the crosshairs of a bloodline that’s more lethal than loyal.

Visit Yasmin Angoe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bringing Law Home"

New from Stanford University Press: Bringing Law Home: Gender, Race, and Household Labor Rights by Katherine Eva Maich.

About the book, from the publisher:

The personal nature of domestic labor, and its location in the privacy of the employer's home, means that domestic workers have long struggled for equitable and consistent labor rights. The dominant discourse regards the home as separate from work, so envisioning what its legal regulation would look like is remarkably challenging. In Bringing Law Home, Katherine Eva Maich offers a uniquely comparative and historical study of labor struggles for domestic workers in New York City and Lima, Peru. She argues that if the home is to be a place of work then it must also be captured in the legal infrastructures that regulate work. Yet, even progressive labor laws for domestic workers in each city are stifled by historically entrenched patterns of gendered racialization and labor informality. Peruvian law extends to household workers only half of the labor protections afforded to other occupations. In New York City, the law grants negligible protections and deliberately eschews language around immigration. Maich finds that coloniality is deeply embedded in contemporary relations of service, revealing important distinctions in how we understand power, domination, and inequality in the home and the workplace.

Visit Katherine Eva Maich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"At Last"

New from Simon & Schuster: At Last: A Novel by Marisa Silver.

About the book, from the publisher:

Set in midcentury America, At Last explores a rich family saga centered on two fierce and competitive matriarchs whose intertwined lives reflect the complexities of family, tradition, and personal ambition. “Whole lives course down the decades, and every minute is conveyed with Silver’s signature combination of toughness and grace,” (Laird Hunt).

Helene Simonauer and Evelyn Turner are two formidable women whose paths cross when their children marry. Both women are sharp, cunning, and unwavering in their conflicting beliefs about marriage, responsibility, and family and, most pressingly, their efforts to vie for the love of their shared granddaughter.

At Last paints a vivid portrait of the American Midwest, capturing the essence of a time and place where societal norms and personal aspirations often clashed. Marisa Silver’s narrative weaves together the lives of Helene and Evelyn, from their vastly different childhoods through the pivotal events that define them. Both intimate and expansive, and capturing the complexities of ambition and love with humor and insight, At Last is a testament to what happens when an unintended, even unwanted relationship turns out to be a central one that defines a life.

Visit Marisa Silver's website.

The Page 69 Test: The God of War.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gettysburg"

New from Oxford University Press: Gettysburg (Great Battles) by Adam I. P. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

How did Gettysburg become the most famous battle of the American Civil War and one of the most consequential in world history? Why is the most visited battlefield, the place where veterans came in the greatest numbers, where Presidents pay homage, and millions of families have vacationed? What was it about this three-day struggle in July 1863 in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania that made it seem the "turning point of the war", or the "high-water mark" of the Confederate rebellion?

Gettysburg explains the battle's place in the Civil War, why two vast armies clashed there, and how, in the century and a half since, it has been re-imagined, re-created and re-enacted. It is the story of a battle which no one planned but which became the bloodiest encounter of the war, and one with dramatically high stakes. The postwar romanticisation of Gettysburg as the place of "might-have-beens" is based on a kernel of reality.

But it also suited the interests of both the winners and the losers for Gettysburg to become the Civil War in miniature: a glorious, storied, tragic tale small enough to comprehend, but large enough to be inspirational. If this was the battle that determined the war, Confederates could tell themselves that if only they had made different tactical choices, they would have won their independence, while Northerners could credit valour for their victory, without the unromantic need to invoke superior resources.

Yet there was only a war because of slavery, and Gettysburg's importance lies in its role in ending it. In the speech Abraham Lincoln gave there, four months after the battle, he expressed the hope that Union victory would inaugurate a "new birth of freedom". The history of the battle has been shaped by a contest over what that means.

Visit Adam I. P. Smith's website.

--Marshal Zeringue