Thursday, February 6, 2025

"Nothing Serious"

New from William Morrow: Nothing Serious: A Novel by Emily J. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

A scintillating debut about a disillusioned tech executive who goes into an obsessive spiral when her best friend-—and longtime crush—is implicated in a woman’s death.

Edie Walker’s life is not going as planned. At thirty-five, she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her—and she’s hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He’ll discover how toxic dating app culture is and realize that Edie has been right for him all along.

Except Peter almost immediately lands a date with Anaya Thomas, a gorgeous, whip-smart professor and writer of feminist literature who even Edie—reared in the culture of tech bros—is smitten by. Unlike the women Peter has dated before, Anaya is like an alternate reality version of Edie—one with shampoo commercial hair and a meaningful career, who definitely doesn’t spend her weekends scrolling social media alone in her apartment. It’s only a matter of time before Peter falls head over heels for this woman; Edie herself is infatuated after one meeting.

Then, Anaya is found dead in her apartment. Right after a date with Peter.

Driven by her near-fanatic love of Anaya’s work and a desperate need to prove Peter’s innocence, Edie begins searching for clues to what really happened that night. As her obsession with the investigation grows, so do her doubts in Peter. When the truth finally comes to light, Edie must decide where her loyalties lie, who deserves justice—and who deserves to be punished.

Provocative, tense, and compulsively readable, Nothing Serious is a shrewdly observed, astonishingly heartfelt debut combining a darkly funny takedown of online dating with an honest examination of the challenges women face every day—but don’t dare discuss—from a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction.
Visit Emily J. Smith's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Controlling Contagion"

New from Princeton University Press: Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid by Sheilagh Ogilvie.

About the book, from the publisher:

How human institutions—markets, states, communities, religions, guilds and families—have helped both to control and to exacerbate epidemics throughout history.

How do societies tackle epidemic disease? In Controlling Contagion, Sheilagh Ogilvie answers this question by exploring seven centuries of pandemics, from the Black Death to Covid-19. For most of history, infectious diseases have killed many more people than famine or war, and in 2019 they still caused one death in four. Today, we deal with epidemics more successfully than our ancestors managed plague, smallpox, cholera or influenza. But we use many of the same approaches. Long before scientific medicine, human societies coordinated and innovated in response to biological shocks—sometimes well, sometimes badly.

Ogilvie uses historical epidemics to analyse how human societies deal with “externalities”—situations where my action creates costs or benefits for others beyond those that I myself incur. Social institutions—markets, states, communities, religions, guilds, and families—help us manage the negative externalities of contagion and the positive externalities of social distancing, sanitation, and immunization. Ogilvie shows how each institution enables us to coordinate, innovate and inspire each other to limit contagion. But each institution also has weaknesses that can make things worse. Markets shut down voluntarily during every epidemic in history—but they also brought people together, spreading contagion. States mandated quarantines, sanitation, and immunization—but they also waged war and censored information, exacerbating epidemics. Religions admonished us to avoid infecting our neighbours—but they also preached against science and medical innovations. What decided the outcome, Ogilvie argues, was a temperate state, an adaptable market, and a strong civil society where a diversity of institutions played to their own strengths and checked each other’s flaws.
Visit Sheilagh Ogilvie's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

"Nesting"

New from Algonquin Books: Nesting: A Novel by Roisín O'Donnell.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this beautiful, urgent, and ultimately uplifting novel by a rising Irish literary star comes a heart-pounding, life-affirming story about one woman trying to leave her marriage and start over.

On a bright spring afternoon, Ciara Fay makes a split'second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes off the clothesline, she straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe—and that this time, when she leaves, she must stay away.

On the surface, she has a perfect life: her husband, Ryan, is a good provider, sometimes even kind and attentive, from a nice Irish family, and they have another baby on the way. But he also monitors Ciara's every move, flies into unpredictable rages where he convinces her she can do nothing right, and has isolated her from work, friends, and her beloved family.

Was fleeing the right thing to do? With no job and no support, Ciara struggles to provide a sense of normalcy for her little girls. Facing a broken housing system, they move into a hotel room on a floor reserved for women like her, eating takeout, washing their clothes in the bathroom sink, and building a community with the other residents. Ryan, meanwhile, wages a relentless campaign to win her back, and Ciara wavers. He never hit her, after all, and don't the girls need a stable home?

For fans of Claire Keegan and Louise Kennedy, Roisín O'Donnell’s extraordinary debut creates a devastating and suspenseful portrait of gaslighting and emotional abuse—and even better, a triumphant story about family, love, and finding a new place to nest.
Visit Roisín O'Donnell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Politics of Tranquility"

New from Cornell University Press: Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet by Yasmin Cho.

About the book, from the publisher:

Politics of Tranquility concerns the Tibetan Buddhist revival in China, illustrating the lives of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and exploring the political effects that arise from their nonpolitical daily engagements in the remote, mega-sized Tibetan Buddhist encampment of Yachen Gar.

Yasmin Cho's book challenges two assumptions about Tibetan Buddhist communities in China. First, against the assumption that a Buddhist monastic community is best understood in terms of its esoteric qualities, Cho focuses on the material and mundane daily practices that are indispensable to the existence and persistence of such a community and shows how deeply gendered these practices are. Second, against the assumption that Tibetan politics toward the Chinese state is best understood as rebellious, incendiary, and centered upon Tibetan victimhood, the nuns demonstrate how it can be otherwise. Tibetan politics can be unassuming, calm, and self-contained and yet still have substantial political effects. As Politics of Tranquility shows, the nuns in Yachen Gar have called forth an alternative way of living and expressing themselves as Tibetans and as female monastics despite a repressive context.
--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

"The Mulligan Curse"

New from Lake Union: The Mulligan Curse: A Novel by Diane Barnes.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of All We Could Still Have comes a charming tale about one woman who embraces a family curse, laying bare the dreams we give up―and the chances we take to get them back.

Mary Mulligan has two problems: her wisdom teeth…and everything else. Her only daughter is moving overseas. Her husband would rather go golfing than spend time with her. And Mary’s left to wonder why she abandoned her career ambitions when loneliness is all she has to show for it.

Plus her teeth really, really hurt.

But that’s one problem she can fix―never mind the stories that say if she gets her wisdom teeth removed, the last thirty years of her life will be erased. In fact, Mary wouldn’t mind if the Mulligan curse were actually true.

Turns out, it is.

The world around her hasn’t changed, but Mary is suddenly twenty-four again, with the life she once dreamed of still ahead of her. As she embarks on this new beginning, Mary comes to realize that those dreams aren’t nearly as important as everything she once had. If only she knew how to get it all back.
Visit Diane Barnes's website.

Q&A with Diane Barnes.

The Page 69 Test: All We Could Still Have.

My Book, The Movie: All We Could Still Have.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stomp Off, Let's Go"

New from Oxford University Press: Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi.

About the book, from the publisher:

The revelatory origin story of one of America's most beloved musicians, Louis Armstrong

How did Louis Armstrong become Louis Armstrong?

In Stomp Off, Let's Go, author and Armstrong expert Ricky Riccardi tells the enthralling story of the iconic trumpeter's meteoric rise to fame. Beginning with Armstrong's youth in New Orleans, Riccardi transports readers through Armstrong's musical and personal development, including his initial trip to Chicago to join Joe "King" Oliver's band, his first to New York to meet Fletcher Henderson, and his eventual return to Chicago, where he changed the course of music with the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings.

While this period of Armstrong's life is perhaps more familiar than others, Riccardi enriches extant narratives with recently unearthed archival materials, including a rare draft of pianist, composer, and Armstrong's second wife Lillian "Lil" Hardin Armstrong's autobiography. Riccardi similarly tackles the perceived notion of Armstrong as a "sell-out" during his later years, highlighting the many ways in which Armstrong's musical style and personal values in fact remained steady throughout his career. By foregrounding the voices of Armstrong and his contemporaries, Stomp Off, Let's Go offers a more intimate exploration of Armstrong's personal and professional relationships, in turn providing essential insights into how Armstrong evolved into one of America's most beloved icons.
Follow Ricky Riccardi on Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, February 3, 2025

"We Would Never"

New from Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster: We Would Never: A Novel by Tova Mirvis.

About the book, from the publisher:

A riveting literary page-turner that maps the extremes to which a family will go in order to protect their own.

No one appears more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—has always tried to do what is expected of her and is regarded as the family peacemaker. But is anyone, including Hailey, who she has always seemed to be?

The months leading up to Jonah’s death have been fraught, including a bitter separation and a messy custody battle over their young daughter, Maya. When Hailey files a motion to relocate to Florida so she can be near her family, Jonah retaliates and the divorce begins to spiral dangerously out of control.

Sherry, Hailey’s mother, will stop at almost nothing to keep Jonah from getting what he wants. Nate, Hailey’s impetuous and protective older brother, has tried to keep his distance, but he can’t stand to see his little sister suffer. And then there’s Solomon, the patriarch, who is keeping a secret that threatens the stability and security Sherry has worked so hard to maintain. Soon, they are forced to reckon with who they are as individuals and as a family, and just how far they will go for each other.

Inspired by a true story, We Would Never is a gripping mystery, an intimate family drama, and a provocative exploration of loyalty, betrayal, and the blurred line between protecting and forsaking the ones we love most.
Visit Tova Mirvis's website and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Tova Mirvis (March 2014).

The Page 69 Test: Visible City.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Laughter, American Fury"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 by Eran A. Zelnik.

About the book, from the publisher:

How humor helped white men cast the United States as a nation in which only they were entitled to citizenship.

A joke is never just a joke―not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury, Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally.

Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor―a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry―shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans. It also defined the borders of who could participate in politics, notably excluding those who were not white men. While this anti-authoritarian humor transformed the early United States into a country that abhorred elitism and class hierarchies, ultimately the story is one of democratization gone awry: this same humor allowed white men to draw the borders of the new nation exclusively around themselves.

Zelnik analyzes several distinct forms of humor to make his case: tall tales, "Indian play," Black dialect, riot and revelry, revolutionary protests, and blackface minstrelsy. This provocative study seeks to understand the vexing, contradictory interplay among humor, democracy, and violence at the heart of American history and culture that continues today.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Maya & Natasha"

New from Mariner Books: Maya & Natasha: A Novel by Elyse Durham.

About the book, from the publisher:

This stunning debut novel set in the fascinating world of Cold War Soviet ballet follows the fates of twin sisters whose bond is competitive, complicated, but never broken.

Maya and Natasha are twin sisters born in the midst of the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and immediately abandoned by their mother, a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who would rather die than not dance. Taken in by their mother’s best friend at the Kirov, the girls are raised to be dancers themselves. The Vaganova Ballet Academy—and the totalitarian Soviet regime—is the only world they know.

In 1958, now seniors at the Vaganova at the height of the Cold War, all Maya and Natasha and their classmates want is to dance with the Kirov, and to join the company on its tour to America next year. But a new law from the Kremlin upends Maya and Natasha’s lives: due to fears of defection, family members may no longer travel abroad together. The Kirov can only accept one of them.

Maya, long accustomed to living in her sister’s shadow, accepts her bitter fate, until a new dance partner inspires her to dream bigger and practice harder. For the first time—and at the cruelest possible moment—the sisters are equally matched. And then one sister betrays the other, altering their lives forever and splitting them in two, though neither will stray far from the other’s orbit.

As one of the twins pursues her ballet career and experiences a world outside Russia for the first time, the other is cast in an epic film adaptation of War and Peace, produced and financed by the Soviet State. As the Cold War heats up, Maya and Natasha must confront their loyalties: to East versus West; to the government that saved them versus their dreams of freedom; and, always, to each other.
Visit Elyse Durham's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bacteria to AI"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts by N. Katherine Hayles.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new theory of mind that includes nonhuman and artificial intelligences.

The much-lauded superiority of human intelligence has not prevented us from driving the planet into ecological disaster. For N. Katherine Hayles, the climate crisis demands that we rethink basic assumptions about human and nonhuman intelligences. In Bacteria to AI, Hayles develops a new theory of mind—what she calls an integrated cognitive framework (ICF)—that includes the meaning-making practices of lifeforms from bacteria to plants, animals, humans, and some forms of artificial intelligence. Through a sweeping survey of evolutionary biology, computer science, and contemporary literature, Hayles insists that another way of life, with ICF at its core, is not only possible but necessary to safeguard our planet’s future
--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, February 2, 2025

"Upon a Starlit Tide"

New from Tor Books: Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods.

About the book, from the publisher:

Upon a Starlit Tide is a dark and enchanting historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven.

While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend—and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea.

Immediately drawn in by the stranger’s charm, Luce is plunged into a world of glittering balls and faerie magic, seduction and brutality. Secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface, but as Luce wrestles with warring desires, she finds that her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.

"Magnificent. This is a must-read!”—Juliet Marillier, award-winning author of the Sevenwaters and Blackthorn & Grim series
Visit Kell Woods's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crime Fiction in the Caribbean"

New from Oxford University Press: Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice by Lucy Evans.

About the book, from the publisher:

Crime Fiction in the Caribbean: Reframing Crime and Justice is the first academic book to focus on crime fiction by anglophone Caribbean writers. It explores how contemporary writers experiment with the crime genre in order to convey, contextualize, and comment on crime and justice in Caribbean countries. Lucy Evans reads crime fiction as a versatile mode of writing that can be politically engaged, and that-in a Caribbean context-can expose power structures embedded in the region's multi-layered history of colonial conquest, genocide of Indigenous populations, plantation agriculture, transatlantic slavery, and indentured labour.

This book covers fiction set in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, Grenada, and Haiti, discussing novels by Elizabeth Nunez, Jacob Ross, Marlon James, Harischandra Khemraj, Esther Figueroa, Edwidge Danticat, Cherie Jones, and several others. Evans considers how fiction by anglophone Caribbean writers not only reflects upon the social realities of crime and crime control in the Caribbean, but also at times contests or complicates scholarly, popular, and legal perspectives. She argues that through their engagement with the crime genre, these writers raise pressing questions about what constitutes crime and justice in a Caribbean context, and about accountability. Looking beyond the traditional focus of crime fiction and criminology on individual acts of wrongdoing, their fiction highlights systemic social harms rooted in the region's colonial past. Reading crime fiction through the lens of criminological research, Crime Fiction in the Caribbean brings the study of literary writing into scholarly debate on crime in the Caribbean. At the same time, it extends the global turn in crime fiction studies, focusing on a region that has been sidelined even in studies which examine the genre's international dimensions.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Where the Bones Lie"

Coming March 11 from Datura: Where the Bones Lie by Nick Kolakowski.

About the book, from the publisher:

Centred around the small California town of San Douglas, Where the Bones Lie is an electrifying new mystery noir novel, perfect for fans of Jordan Harper.

Relentless climate change-driven drought has dried up a lake… revealing an old, rusty barrel. Inside the barrel, the local police discover a skeleton belonging to Ken Ironwood, a notorious L.A. smuggler who rubbed shoulders in the 1980s and 90s with gangsters and movie stars. Ken Ironwood’s ultra-hip daughter, Madeline, wants to figure out who killed her father. In her desperation, she turns to Dash McClane, a former Hollywood fixer and bagman for the studios. McClane’s life is spiralling the drain, but he’s willing to help Madeline because her quest seems righteous and he’s looking for a little redemption. Together, they drive to San Douglas and confront crooked cops, stuntmen-turned-thugs, and a mysterious winery owner with something big to hide. As they investigate, Dash and Madeline form a deep bond over their shared losses and a cynical view of the world. They become quite a pair: resourceful, cunning, and relentlessly sarcastic. They’ll need to rely on each other as their situation turns increasingly deadly. Fortunately, McClane knows a little something about unearthing old secrets—and this isn’t the first time he’s had guns fired at him.
Visit Nick Kolakowski's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Playing Possum"

New from Princeton University Press: Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death by Susana Monsó.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom.

With humor and empathy, Susana Monsó tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Monsó, one of today’s leading experts on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own.

Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology, Playing Possum dispels the anthropocentric biases that cloud our understanding of the natural world, and reveals that, when it comes to death and dying, we are just another animal.
Visit Susana Monsó's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Saturday, February 1, 2025

"Never Planned on You"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: Never Planned on You: A Novel by Lindsay Hameroff.

About the book, from the publisher:

A glittering, laugh-out-loud second chance romance that reminds us true love is sometimes the one thing you never planned on.

Ali Rubin has a reputation for spontaneity. Like that time she made a drunken bet in London that led to matching tattoos with a stranger. Her joie de vivre is one of her best qualities; she lives every day to the fullest and follows her dreams wherever they take her. And now, they’re taking her from her career as a chef in New York City back home to Baltimore, where she’s interning as a wedding planner.

Despite the occasional fantasy about her British tattoo twin, Ali never expected to see Graham again. So no one is more surprised than she is when he turns up in Baltimore, ordering a latte at her favorite cafe. When they reconnect during an enchanting evening together, Ali can’t help but wonder if Graham might be someone special.

At the same time, she's desperate to succeed in her new career and prove that she isn’t the family flake. When she gets a job planning a high profile wedding at a historic hotel, it seems like things are finally falling into place. That is, until Graham turns out to be the groom.

Graham’s family owns the once-grand, now struggling Black-Eyed Susan, and he’s returned to Baltimore to help his grandmother get it back on its feet. He’s certain that hosting a wedding at the hotel is just the publicity boost it needs. Ali’s boss agrees, and promises Ali a full-time gig if the affair goes off without a hitch. Unfortunately, Ali and Graham can't seem to ignore their rekindled chemistry, especially when it’s revealed that Graham and his fiancée are planning a marriage of convenience. Still, staying away from each other is the best thing they can do, since giving in to their growing feelings might cost them everything.

Because when it comes to love, all bets are off.
Visit Lindsay Hameroff's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Strike"

New from Yale University Press: Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire by Sarah E. Bond.

About the book, from the publisher:

Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they helped build an empire

From plebeians refusing to join the Roman army to bakers withholding bread, this is the first book to explore how Roman workers used strikes, boycotts, riots, and rebellion to get their voices—and their labor—acknowledged. Sarah E. Bond explores Ancient Rome from a new angle to show that the history of labor conflicts and collective action goes back thousands of years, uncovering a world far more similar to our own than we realize.

Workers often turned to their associations for solidarity and shared identity in the ancient world. Some of these groups even negotiated contracts, wages, and work conditions in a manner similar to modern labor unions. As the world begins to consider the value—and indeed the necessity—of unionization to protect workers, this book demonstrates that we can learn valuable lessons from ancient laborers and from attempts by the Roman government to limit their freedom.
Visit Sarah E. Bond's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Echoes"

New from Knopf: The Echoes: A Novel by Evie Wyld.

About the book, from the publisher:

A ghost haunts his girlfriend's apartment and pieces together the secrets of their fraught relationship in this sharp and tender read.

From the award-winning novelist, a ravishing new novel set between London and rural Australia, both a love story and a ghost story

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him.

In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden. It found expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and an autopsy of a relationship, and spanning multiple generations, The Echoes is a novel about love and grief, motherhood and sisterhood, secrets and who has the right to reveal them—what of our past can be cast away and what is fixed forever, echoing down through the years.
Follow Evie Wyld on Threads and visit her website.

Learn about Wyld's five notable books about farmers.

Coffee with a Canine: Evie Wyld & Juno and Hebe.

The Page 69 Test: After the Fire, a Still Small Voice.

Writers Read: Evie Wyld (May 2014).

My Book, The Movie: All the Birds, Singing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Atrocity: A Literary History"

New from Stanford University Press: Atrocity: A Literary History by Bruce Robbins.

About the book, from the publisher:

Exploring literary representations of mass violence, Bruce Robbins traces the emergence of a cosmopolitan recognition of atrocity.

Mass violence did not always have a name. Like conquest, what we think of now as atrocities have not always invited indignation or been seen to violate moral norms. Venturing from the Bible to Zadie Smith, Robbins explores the literature of suffering, to show how, over time, abhorrence of mass violence takes shape. With it comes the emergence of a necessary element of cosmopolitanism: the ability to look at one's own nation with the critical eyes of a stranger.

Drawing on a vast written archive and with penetrating insight, Robbins takes up such literary representations of violence as Bartolomé de las Casas's account of his fellow Spaniards' atrocities, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Grimmelshausen's 1668 novel Simplicissimus, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Homero Aridjis's short novel Smyrna in Flames, and Tolstoy's Hadji Murat. These essential texts do more than simply testify to atrocious acts. In their literariness, they take the risk of contextualizing and relativizing, thereby extending beyond the legal paradigm of accusation. They recognize atrocity as a moral scandal about which something should be done and can be done, while they also place that scandal within a larger and more uncertain history.
--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, January 31, 2025

"Glitter in the Dark"

Coming April 1 from Mysterious Press: Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna.

About the book, from the publisher:

The search for a kidnapped singer in Prohibition-era New York leads an intrepid reporter from Harlem speakeasies to the dazzling world of the theater, all while grappling with her warring passions.

Ambitious advice columnist Ginny Dugan knows she’s capable of more than solving other people’s beauty problems, but her boss at Photoplay magazine thinks she's only fit for fluff pieces. When she witnesses the kidnapping of a famous singer at Harlem’s hottest speakeasy, nobody takes her seriously, but Ginny knows what she saw―and what she saw haunts her.

Guilt-ridden over her failure to stop the kidnappers and hard-pressed for cash to finally move out of her uptight showgirl sister’s apartment, Ginny resolves to chase down the truth that will clear her conscience and maybe win her a promotion in the process. When private detective Jack Crawford starts interfering with her case, Ginny ropes him into a reluctant partnership but soon finds herself drawn to the kind heart she glimpses beneath his brooding exterior. Equally as alluring is Gloria Gardner, the star dancer of the Ziegfeld Follies who treats life like one unending party. Yet as Ginny delves deeper into the criminal underworld, the sinister plot she uncovers seems to lead right back to the theater.

Then a brutal murder strikes someone close to her, and Ginny realizes the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. This glamorous world has a deadly edge, and Ginny must shatter her every illusion to catch the shadowy killer before they strike again.
Visit Olesya Lyuzna's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Humans: A Monstrous History"

New from the University of California Press: Humans: A Monstrous History by Surekha Davies.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of how humans have created monsters out of one another—from our deepest fears—and what these monsters tell us about humanity's present and future.

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.

In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, this book traces the long, volatile history of monster-making and charts a better path for the future. The result is a profound, effervescent, empowering retelling of the history of the world for anyone who wants to reverse rising inequality and polarization. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.
Visit Surekha Davies's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Killing Plains"

New from Thomas & Mercer: The Killing Plains by Sherry Rankin.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the winner of the CWA’s Debut Dagger Award.

Two victims. Twenty years apart. One elusive killer.


Crescent Bluff, West Texas. Everybody knows everybody. And everybody has a secret.

When a boy is found dead with the skin of a hare’s head in his hand, everyone knows who killed him―Willis Newland, just released from prison after serving twenty years for an identical murder.

But what if everyone’s wrong?

Detective Colly Newland reluctantly agrees to investigate a case that seems to involve the whole town, including her dead husband’s extended family. But the deeper she digs, the more secrets she unearths. And as threats against her escalate, Colly realizes someone is willing to kill to keep theirs…
Visit Sherry Rankin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lady and the Beast"

New from Oxford University Press: The Lady and the Beast: The Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley by Deja Whitehouse.

About the book, from the publisher:

Although Lady Harris is acknowledged as the artist of Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, to date, most studies have focused predominantly on Harris's role as Crowley's 'artist executant', and almost exclusively from Crowley's perspective. Whitehouse argues that Harris's involvement extended far beyond the artwork itself. The Book of Thoth was a collaboration in which each partner fulfilled a variety of roles; building on Crowley's magical theories and practices, and Harris's artistic skills and social awareness that enabled her to promote and exhibit their work as it evolved.

The Lady and the Beast presents a critical analysis of the life and works of Frieda, Lady Harris (1877 - 1962), wife of Sir Percy Harris (1876 - 1952), Liberal MP and party chief whip. Frieda Harris, née Bloxam, fulfilled her parents' expectations of finding a suitable husband, managing the family home and raising a family. She supported her husband's political endeavours, and in return he encouraged her to pursue her own interests, especially her painting. However, research indicates that Harris was already fascinated by mysticism and alternative belief structures prior to her meeting with Crowley in 1937. Her esoteric interests, combined with her demonstrable skills as a painter, made her ideally suited to illustrate Crowley's Thoth Tarot.

In manifesting Crowley's vision of the Occult Tarot, Harris's paintings embody the intersection of art and esotericism. Crowley (1875 - 1847) believed that the Tarot was fundamental to all magical disciplines and his Book of Thoth would become 'a standard Book of Reference, which will determine the entire course of mystical and magical thought for the next 2000 years.' Without Harris, there would be no Book of Thoth. Whitehouse presents a study of Harris's life and works, seeking to assess her true contribution to Western Esotericism.
Visit Deja Whitehouse's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, January 30, 2025

"Get Lost with You"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: Get Lost with You: A Novel (Rock Bottom Love, 2) by Sophie Sullivan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jillian Keller took the long route to her best life, but is now happily settled in her hometown of Smile, raising her little girl alone while helping her brother run Get Lost Lodge. A lover of structure and routine, she doesn’t need anyone disrupting her carefully curated life.

After chasing and achieving his culinary dreams, Levi Bright realizes he’s still missing something he can’t find in a big city. Returning home to Smile, he intends to build a different future for himself, including reconnecting with family and friends, and creating elevated comfort food for a town he loves.

When Levi and Jilly run into each other, past feelings that never had a chance to bloom flare between them… but she’s been hurt before, and falling for her older brother’s best friend seems like a recipe for drama. But sometimes, a second chance at love leads you right where you’re meant to be.
Visit Sophie Sullivan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Pointillistic City"

New from the MIT Press: The Pointillistic City: How Microspatial Inequities Affect Well-Being in Our Communities, and What We Can Do about It by Daniel T. O'Brien.

About the book, from the publisher:

A new paradigm of research, policy, and practice that acknowledges the multiple scales at which we live every day.

The Pointillistic City
explores the multilayer geography of our daily lives—specifically, how we simultaneously live at the scales of addresses, streets, and neighborhoods and how each can be relevant for our well-being. Not unlike the way in which we look at a pointillistic painting, which depicts a full scene through the detailed organization of multiple objects, Daniel T. O’Brien considers the three scales together and the comprehensive understanding of the city they offer. The pointillistic approach to the city contrasts with decades of focus on neighborhoods. As such, it surfaces microspatial inequities, or disparities in experiences between people living in the same neighborhood, even right around the corner from each other. Microspatial inequities have gone largely unnoticed to date, and their recognition offers a new approach to understanding and supporting the diverse population of the city.

This book illustrates the pointillistic perspective on cities with two in-depth case studies—one on crime, the other on environmental justice—in Boston. These studies highlight microspatial inequities and their interplay with broader neighborhood conditions, and they go even further by demonstrating how these insights can be incorporated into a new generation of policies and practices that are science driven and community led, truly addressing disparities both between and within our communities.
Visit Daniel T. O'Brien's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Voice Like a Hyacinth"

New from 47North: Voice Like a Hyacinth: A Novel by Mallory Pearson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Five young women eager for success rely on the unspeakable to make their dreams come true in a chilling novel about martyrdom, ritual, and obsession by the author of We Ate the Dark.

Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses―so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.

In its violent aftermath, things are changing. Jo is feeling unnervingly haunted by something inexplicable. Their paintings, once prodigious and full of life, are growing dark and unhealthy. And their journey together―as women, students, and artists―is starting to crumble.

To right the wrong they’ve done, these five desperate friends will take their obsession a step too far. When that happens, there may be no turning back.
Visit Mallory Pearson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Carnalities"

New from Duke University Press: Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad by Mariana Ortega.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Carnalities, Mariana Ortega presents a phenomenological study of aesthetics grounded in the work of primarily Latinx artists. She introduces the idea of carnal aesthetics informed by carnalities, creative practices shaped by the self’s affective attunement to the material, cultural, historical, communal, and spiritual. For Ortega, carnal aesthetics offers a way to think about the affective and bodily experiences of racialized selves. Drawing on Gloria Anzaldúa, Chela Sandoval, José Esteban Muñoz, Alia Al-Saji, Helen Ngo, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Roland Barthes, and others, Ortega examines photographic works on Latinx subjects. She analyzes the photography of Laura Aguilar, Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas, and Susan Meiselas, among others, theorizing photography as a carnal, affective medium that is crucial for processes of self-formation, resistance, and mourning in Latinx life. She ends with an intimate reading of photography through a reflection of her own crossing from Nicaragua to the United States in 1979. Motivated by her experience of loss and exile, Ortega argues for the importance of carnal aesthetics in destabilizing and transforming normative, colonial, and decolonial subjects, imaginaries, and structures.
--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

"Their Shadows Deep"

New from Lake Union: Their Shadows Deep: A Novel by Peter Golden.

About the book, from the publisher:

The author of Nothing Is Forgotten takes a dark look at power gone too far, imagining the connection between JFK’s presidential campaign and an ex-cop’s investigation into her husband’s murder.

In 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy makes a historic run for the White House. Despite concerns about his Catholicism, Kennedy’s outward charm is winning the country over, but his inner demons are putting his candidacy in danger and risk destroying his political career.

That same year, Caitlin Russo, a former cop turned reporter, is devoting her skills to finding her husband’s killer. His job as a CIA operative posed its fair share of risks, but when Caitlin discovers his notes about the case that led to his death, she knows there’s more to the story than simple tragedy.

As Caitlin and Kennedy search for the people responsible for upending their lives, some ugly truths about American politics and foreign affairs come to light, and Caitlin finds herself in a web of deceit and shattered hopes, realizing that heroes aren’t always who they seem.
Visit Peter Golden's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Words of War"

New from Cornell University Press: Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict by Eric Min.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Words of War, Eric Min pulls back the curtain on when, why, and how belligerents negotiate while fighting.

Of all interstate conflicts across the last two centuries, two-thirds have ended through negotiated agreement. Wartime diplomacy is thus commonly seen as a costless and mechanical process solely designed to end fighting. But as Min argues, that wartime negotiations are not just peacemaking tools. They are in fact a highly strategic activity that can also help states manage, fight, and potentially win wars.

To demonstrate that wartime talk does more than simply end hostilities, Min distinguishes between two kinds of negotiations: sincere and insincere. Whereas sincere negotiations are good faithhonest attempts to reach peace, insincere negotiations exploit diplomacy for some other purpose, such as currying gaining political support or remobilizing forces. Two factors determine whether and how belligerents will negotiate: the amount of pressure that outside parties can place on belligerents them to engage in diplomacy, and information obtained from fighting on the battlefield.

Combining statistical and computational text analyses with qualitative case studies ranging from the War of the Roman Republic to the Korean War, Min shows that negotiations are more likely to occur with strong external pressures. A combination of such pressures and indeterminate battlefield activity, however, will most likely leads to insincere negotiations that may stoke fighting rather than end it. By revealing that diplomacy can sometimes be counterproductive to peace, Words of War compels us to rethink the assumption that it "cannot hurt" to promote diplomacy during war.
Visit Eric Min's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Low April Sun"

New from the University of Oklahoma Press: Low April Sun: A Novel by Constance E. Squires.

About the book, from the publisher:

On the morning of April 19, 1995, Delaney Travis steps into the Social Security office in Oklahoma City to obtain an ID for her new job. Moments later, an explosion shatters the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building into rubble. Her boyfriend Keith and half-sister Edie are left to assume the worst—that Delaney perished in the bombing, despite lack of definitive proof. Twenty years later, now married and bonded by the tragedy, Edie and Keith’s lives are upended when they begin to receive mysterious Facebook messages from someone claiming to be Delaney.

Desperate for closure, the couple embarks on separate journeys, each aiming for an artists’ community in New Mexico that may hold answers. Alongside their quest is August, a recovering alcoholic with a haunting connection to the bombing. Raised in the separatist compound of Elohim City, August harbors secrets about Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the attack, and his own possible involvement in the tragedy. When his path crosses with Edie, he must choose whether to tell anyone about his past.

As the 20-year anniversary of the bombing approaches, fracking-induced earthquakes shake the ground of Oklahoma City, mirroring the unsettled lives of its residents. In their quest for answers, Edie, Keith, and August seek to understand how the shadows of the past continue to darken the present, as the ground beneath them threatens to give way once again.

In Low April Sun, acclaimed author Constance E. Squires has written the first novel to explore the enduring impact of the Oklahoma City bombing. While masterfully weaving a spellbinding mystery, Squires ultimately offers us a moving meditation on grief and forgiveness.
Visit Constance E. Squires's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Immaculate Forms"

New from Basic Books: Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Parts by Helen King.

About the book, from the publisher:

“Never has medical history been more entertaining” (Dr Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible) than in this turbulent history of women’s bodies from classical Greece to the modern age

Breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb. Across history, these body parts have told women who they are and what they should do. Although knowledge of each part has changed through time, none of them tells a simple story. The way they work and in some cases even their existence have been debated. They can be seen as powerful or as disgusting, as relevant only to reproduction or as sources of sexual pleasure.

In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping over these key organs that have been used to define “woman,” illustrating how conceptions of women’s bodies have owed more to imagination and myth than to observation and science. Throughout history, the way we understand the body has always been debated, and it is still shaped by human intervention and read according to cultural interpretations.

Astute and engaging, Immaculate Forms is for everyone who has wondered what history has to say about today’s raging debates over the human body and who is “really” female.
--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

"Loca"

New from Simon & Schuster: Loca by Alejandro Heredia.

About the book, from the publisher:

If Junot Diaz’s critically acclaimed collection Drown and Janet Mock’s Emmy-winning series Pose produced offspring, Alejandro Heredia’s Loca would be their firstborn.

It’s 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he’s held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she’d escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo’s worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other.

Loca follows one daring year in the lives of young people living at the edge of their own patience and desires. With expansive grace, it reveals both the grueling conditions that force people to migrate and the possibility of friendship as home when family, nations, and identity groups fall short.
Visit Alejandro Heredia's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dressing Room"

New from Rutgers University Press: The Dressing Room: Backstage Lives and American Film by Desirée J. Garcia.

About the book, from the publisher:

A recurrent and popular setting in American cinema, the dressing room has captured the imaginations of filmmakers and audiences for over a century. In The Dressing Room: Backstage Lives and American Film, the only book-length study of the space, author Desirée J. Garcia explores how dressing rooms are dynamic realms in which a diverse cast of performers are made and exposed. Garcia analyzes the backstage film, which spans film history, modes, and genre, to show how dressing rooms have been a useful space for filmmakers to examine the performativity of American life. From the Black maid to the wife and mother to the leading man, dressing rooms navigate, shape, and challenge society’s norms. The stakes are high in dressing rooms, Garcia argues, because they rehearse larger questions about identity and its performance, negotiating who can succeed and who cannot and on what terms.
--Marshal Zeringue

"Tell Me What You Did"

New from Poisoned Pen Press: Tell Me What You Did: A Novel by Carter Wilson.

About the book, from the publisher:

She gets people to confess their crimes for a living. He knows she's hiding a terrible secret. It's time for the truth to come out...

Poe Webb, host of a popular true crime podcast, invites people to anonymously confess crimes they've committed to her audience. She can't guarantee the police won't come after her "guests," but her show grants simultaneous anonymity and instant fame―a potent combination that's proven difficult to resist. After an episode recording, Poe usually erases both criminal and crime from her mind.

But when a strange and oddly familiar man appears on her show, Poe is forced to take a second look. Not only because he claims to be her mother's murderer from years ago, but because Poe knows something no one else does. Her mother's murderer is dead.

Poe killed him.

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Dead Girl in 2A and The New Neighbor comes a chilling new thriller that forces the question: are murderers always the bad guys?
Visit Carter Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You Are My Sunshine"

Coming soon from LSU Press: You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song by Robert Mann.

About the book, from the publisher:

In You Are My Sunshine, Robert Mann weaves together the birth of country music, Louisiana political history, World War II, and the American civil rights movement to produce a compelling biography of one of the world’s most popular musical compositions. This is the story of a song that, despite its simple, sweet melody and lyrics, holds the weight of history within its chords.

The song’s journey to global fame began in 1939, when two obscure “hillbilly” groups recorded it. By the century’s end, it was a cultural phenomenon covered by hundreds of artists spanning every genre. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2012.

At the center of this story is Jimmie Davis, who capitalized on his country music stardom to win two terms as Louisiana’s governor. In 1940, Davis became the third artist to record “Sunshine,” after he bought it and claimed it as his composition. The song became his anthem and a staple of his political rallies, radiating warmth and wholesomeness. Its sunny tune encouraged listeners to forget Davis’s earlier recording career, marked by risqué blues recordings that clashed with the upright, gospel-singing image he later cultivated. As “You Are My Sunshine” grew in popularity, so did its link to Louisiana’s “singing governor.” In 1977, the Louisiana Legislature made it a state song.

In this biography, equal parts the story of Davis and the odyssey of his song, we discover that “Sunshine” shaped the early rise of country music but became tangled in Davis’s pro-segregation policies, briefly overshadowing its legacy. You Are My Sunshine explores the song’s contested origins, its rise to legendary status, and its ongoing resonance with millions. This is more than the story of a simple song; it’s a biography of a cultural icon, enduring and ubiquitous as sunshine itself.
Visit Robert Mann's website.

The Page 99 Test: Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, January 27, 2025

"Beartooth"

New from Spiegel & Grau: Beartooth: A Novel by Callan Wink.

About the book, from the publisher:

Two brothers in dire straits, living on the edge of Yellowstone, agree to a desperate act of survival in this taut, propulsive novel reminiscent of the works of Peter Heller and Donald Ray Pollock.

In an aging, timber house hand-built into the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, two brothers are struggling to keep up with their debts. They live off the grid, on the fringe of Yellowstone, surviving off the wild after the death of their father. Thad, the elder, is more capable of engaging with things like the truck registration, or the medical bills they can’t afford from their father’s fatal illness, or the tax lien on the cabin their grandfather built, while Hazen is . . . different, more instinctual, deeply in tune with the natural world. Desperate for money, they are approached by a shadowy out-of-towner with a dangerous proposition that will change both of their lives forever. Beartooth is a fast-paced tale with moments of surprising poignancy set in the grandeur of the American West. Evoking the timeless voices of American pastoral storytelling, this is a bracing, masterful novel about survival, revenge, and the bond between brothers.
Visit Callan Wink's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Judges, Judging, and Judgment"

New from Cambridge University Press: Judges, Judging, and Judgment: Character, Wisdom, and Humility in a Polarized World by Chad M. Oldfather.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Judges, Judging, and Judgment, Chad M. Oldfather offers an accessible, interdisciplinary account of the constraints and pressures on judges in our polarized world. Drawing on law, political science, psychology, and philosophy, Oldfather examines how these constraints have changed over time and the interpretive methodologies that have gained traction in response. The book emphasizes the inescapable need for judges to exercise judgment and highlights the value of selecting judges who possess good judgment and character. The book builds on prior work that emphasizes the importance of judicial character, specifically practical wisdom, and intellectual humility. The work underscores the need to foster a legal culture that values and rewards judges of character. Judges, Judging, and Judgment is a valuable resource for academics, students, lawyers, judges, and anyone else interested in the legal system's inner workings.
--Marshal Zeringue

"The Dollhouse Academy"

New from Flatiron Books: The Dollhouse Academy: A Novel by Margarita Montimore.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the NATIONAL BESTSELLING author of GMA Book Club Pick OONA OUT OF ORDER, a novel about two best friends and aspiring actresses who join the Dollhouse Academy, where stars are made and dangerous secrets are hidden

Ivy Gordon is living on borrowed time. For the past eighteen years, she has been the most famous star at the Dollhouse Academy, the elite boarding school and talent incubator that every aspiring performer dreams of attending. But now, at age thirty-four, she is tired of pretending everything is fine. In secret diary entries, Ivy begins to reveal the truth of her life at the Dollhouse: strange medical exams, mysterious supplements, and something unspeakable that’s left Ivy terrified and feeling like a prisoner.

Ramona Halloway and her best friend, Grace Ludlow, grew up idolizing Ivy. Now both twenty-two, neither has made much headway in showbiz until a lucky break grants them entry to the Dollhouse. They’re enchanted by the picturesque campus and the chance to perform alongside their idols. When Ramona begins to receive threatening anonymous messages, it’s easy to dismiss them as a prank from a rival. Her bigger concern is Grace’s skyrocketing success, while Ramona struggles to keep up with the fierce competition. As the messages grow more unsettling, so does life at the Dollhouse. Can Ramona overcome her jealousy and resentment to figure out what’s really going on? Will Ivy finally find her voice, before another young performer follows her catastrophic path?

With dark academia twists and enormous heart, The Dollhouse Academy is a novel about the complexities of friendship, our desire to be seen and understood, and the true cost of making our dreams a reality.
Visit Margarita Montimore's website.

The Page 69 Test: Oona Out of Order.

The Page 69 Test: Acts of Violet.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Still Lives"

New from the University of Pennsylvania Press: Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany by Ofer Ashkenazi, Sarah Wobick-Segev, Rebekka Grossmann, and Shira Miron.

About the book, from the publisher:

How German Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism

Still Lives is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews’ reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Here, the authors claim that these reactions complement, complicate, and, sometimes, undermine the contents of contemporaneous written sources.

Still Lives develops a new methodology for historians to use while reading and analyzing photographs, and shows how one can highlight an image’s role in a narrative that comments on, and assigns meaning to, the reality it documents. In times of radical uncertainty, numerous German Jews used photography to communicate their intricate, confused, and conflicting expectations, fears, and beliefs. Through careful analysis of these photographs, this book lays the foundations for a new history of the German-Jewish experience during the National Socialist years.
--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, January 26, 2025

"Into the Fall"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Into the Fall: A Thriller by Tamara L. Miller.

About the book, from the publisher:

From debut author Tamara L. Miller comes a suspenseful psychological thriller tracking the mysteries of a seemingly mundane life as they come to light in the vast, unforgiving Canadian wilderness.

For better or for worse, Sarah Anderson has it all: a thriving career, a nice home in Ottawa, two young kids…and a marriage coming apart at the seams.

Then her husband, Matthew, vanishes without a trace during a family vacation up north. Sarah and her children are nearly lost among the slumbering lakes, treacherous cliffs, and brooding forests of the Canadian Shield. A glacier-scraped realm of ancient beauty and terror, it’s a world away from the safety of the suburbs. And a big storm is brewing.

A kind rural lawman comes to their aid and takes an interest in the case. The trail goes cold, however, launching Sarah into a yearlong odyssey to find her husband. On the way, she must reconnect with her estranged sister and duck the suspicions of a slick city police officer. But that’s nothing compared to unearthing the dark secrets buried deep in the granite of her marriage―and in herself.
Visit Tamara L. Miller's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Borders and Belonging"

New from Oxford University Press: Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy by Hiroshi Motomura.

About the book, from the publisher:

A uniquely broad and fair-minded guide to making immigration policy ethical.

Immigration is now a polarizing issue across most advanced democracies. But too much that is written about immigration fails to appreciate the complex responses to the phenomenon. Too many observers assume imaginary consensus, avoid basic questions, or disregard the larger context for human migration.

In Borders and Belonging, Hiroshi Motomura offers a complex and fair-minded account of immigration, its root causes, and the varying responses to it. Taking stock of the issue's complexity, while giving credence to the opinions of immigration critics, he tackles a series of important questions that, when answered, will move us closer to a more realistic and sustainable immigration policy. Motomura begins by affirming a basic concept―national borders―and asks when they might be ethical borders, fostering fairness but also responding realistically to migration patterns and to the political forces that migration generates. In a nation with ethical borders, who should be let in or kept out? How should people forced to migrate be treated? Should newcomers be admitted temporarily or permanently? How should those with lawful immigration status be treated? What is the best role for enforcement in immigration policy? To what extent does the arrival of newcomers hurt long-time residents? What are the "root causes" of immigration and how can we address them?

Realistic about the desire of most citizens for national borders, this book is an indispensable guide for moving toward ethical borders and better immigration policy.
--Marshal Zeringue