"Cloudy with a Chance of Starships"

New from Princeton University Press: Cloudy with a Chance of Starships: How the Drake Equation Reveals the Odds of Life in the Cosmos by Seven Rasmussen.

About the book, from the publisher:

An entertaining tour of the seemingly simple formula guiding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Cloudy with a Chance of Starships takes readers on an irreverent expedition through the marvelous world of astrobiology, using as a guide the most important equation in science since E=mc2. With an irresistible blend of wit, insight, and the latest cutting-edge research, Seven Rasmussen looks at the thrilling possibilities of life in the cosmos through the lens of the Drake equation, a seven-variable mathematical expression that calculates the number of civilizations in our galaxy that humans could potentially contact.

First proposed in 1961 by astrobiologist and SETI scientist Frank Drake, the equation begins with simple and well-known numbers such as the rate of star formation in the Milky Way and the fraction of stars with planetary systems. It then wades into thornier topics such as the number of planets with environments suitable for life, the fraction of suitable planets on which life appears, and the likelihood of intelligent life emerging on a planet and becoming technological. It concludes with the truly unknowable average lifetime of a civilization. While we will never resolve all its variables, the Drake equation offers an invaluable road map to the questions and challenges that lie before us in our quest for alien life.

Cloudy with a Chance of Starships guides readers from the basics of astronomy to the very frontiers of planetary science, along the way covering subjects such as the Big Bang, the formation of solar systems, the origins and evolution of life, and the fascinating methods used by astrobiologists today. This extraordinary book shares a tantalizing vision of the dawning era of space exploration and invites enthusiasts of all ages to join in the discovery.

Visit Seven Rasmussen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Our Cut of Salt"

Coming soon from Tor Nightfire: Our Cut of Salt by Deena Helm.

About the book, from the publisher:

In this lyrical debut, three generations of Palestinian women must put the haunting of their ancestral home to rest, before the secrets of the past drown them all. Our Cut of Salt is a powerful and intimate look at what it means to make a home, to lose it, and to return, only to find it irrevocably changed.

There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart.

And, in return, the house did the same for her.

After Nuhad passes away, her granddaughter, Marina, is determined to visit her grandmother’s home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina's mother, Haifa - named for the city that was lost to their family - reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried.

But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family’s past, the sicker she becomes. Despite Nuhad’s ghostly warnings, Haifa rushes to help her daughter.

As the three women converge in their ancestral home, they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all.

Visit Deena Helm's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Country People"

New from the University of Georgia Press: The Country People: An Agricultural History of the American Revolution by R. Douglas Hurt.

About the book, from the publisher:

Although historians have given considerable attention to the American Revolution, the agricultural history of the American War for Independence exists only in pieces found in scattered articles and passing references in various books dealing with the war. Nonagricultural historians have ignored it or treated it almost as an aside and unworthy of analysis, even when it is related to other war topics. Yet, the revolution had profound effects on American agriculture during the war and after.

The Country People brings the many pieces of this story together in a synthesis that provides an overview of agriculture during the American Revolution―from 1774 until signing of the Peace of Paris on September 3, 1783. In so doing, preeminent agricultural historian R. Douglas Hurt asks (and answers) three essential questions: What did farmers do in their daily lives during the revolutionary years from 1774 to 1783? How did the war affect farmers and planters, and how did they influence the war? And what were the consequences of the war on American agriculture?

--Marshal Zeringue

"Incarnate"

Coming soon from G.P. Putnam’s Sons: Incarnate by Alma Katsu.

About the book, from the publisher:

From beloved horror maven Alma Katsu comes a terrifying reimagining of The Picture of Dorian Gray for the internet age.

Beauty doesn’t fade. It feeds.

Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark as an influencer, she takes a job working for a brilliant coder whose company is focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation.

Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's artistry is brilliant, and Isabella seems so real that she garners millions of followers. But everybody knows overnight success doesn’t just happen. And when someone gets a little too close to the truth, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.

A modern reimagining of a classic tale, Alma Katsu’s Incarnate is an illuminating, haunting tale of algorithmic worship and beauty that can kill.

Visit Alma Katsu's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Taker.

My Book, The Movie: The Hunger.

The Page 69 Test: The Hunger.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (March 2020).

The Page 69 Test: The Deep.

The Page 69 Test: Red Widow.

Q&A with Alma Katsu.

The Page 69 Test: The Fervor.

Writers Read: Alma Katsu (April 2022).

My Book, The Movie: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Red London.

The Page 69 Test: Fiend.

My Book, The Movie: Fiend.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Coffee Culture New Orleans"

Coming soon from LSU Press: Coffee Culture New Orleans by Marielle Songy.

About the book, from the publisher:

Starting in the early eighteenth century, importation was New Orleans’s lifeblood, as coffee and other agricultural goods moved through the city’s port and fanned out to all corners of the emerging nation. New Orleans became the United States’ top coffee importer in the nineteenth century, jockeying for position with larger port cities. As the century progressed, coffee importers and brokers built ever-stronger connections between New Orleans and the national coffee trade.

Because New Orleans was such a coffee town, coffee culture began infiltrating the city’s practices. Coffee exchanges opened, creating spaces to share new ideas and partake in important cultural conversations over coffee. For guests, coffee was prepared at home and served black or café au lait with milk. The French Market and similar venues boasted coffee stands, and enslaved women such as Rose Nicaud bought their freedom by selling coffee from carts in the market.

Heading into the twentieth century, Café du Monde and other coffee stands became integral to New Orleans traditions, and Louisiana coffee brands such as Community Coffee and PJ’s made a name for themselves on grocery shelves across the country. When someone wasn’t enjoying coffee at home, they drank coffee with chicory in the French Market―a tradition now closely associated with New Orleans, despite having its origins in Holland and France. Other cultures have also made an impact on the coffee culture of the Crescent City. The Vietnamese integrated New Orleans coffee practices into their own, using Café du Monde coffee in their traditional coffee preparation.

Modern New Orleans has become more interested in specialty coffee grown on small farms and ethically harvested. Multiple coffee roasters call New Orleans home and import their coffee from small farms in Guatemala, Brazil, and Colombia. The next generation of coffee production is creating a heightened interest in farming practices and sustainability, with coffee consumers gravitating toward brands that provide a living wage to farmers. Coffee Culture New Orleans tells the story of the Crescent City’s flourishing coffee traditions from its founding to the present.

Visit Marielle Songy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Golden Boy"

New from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Golden Boy by A. J. Symon.

About the book, from the publisher:

When the beloved family golden retriever becomes human, a girl’s relationships with her family and herself transform in ways she never thought possible in this “fun, fast-moving” (School Library Journal, starred review) young adult novel.

Science-obsessed, teen-genius Emma Branch is used to being the odd one out—in her family, among her classmates, and in her small town that only ever seems to care about football. She doesn’t mind being all alone; in fact, she prefers it. Besides, who needs friends when she has a best friend already—her golden retriever, Hudson.

But when Hudson gets into an accident, Emma can’t bear to lose her only friend. Luckily, she’s been working on an experimental substance for her school science project that could help him out. All it was supposed to do was heal Hudson, not…turn him human?!

Emma, her family, and the whole town is about to learn just how a golden retriever can change hearts and minds for the better—that is, after causing a big, old mess first.

Visit A.J. Symon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Far from the Model Minority"

New from University of California Press: Far from the Model Minority: Face, Class, and Transnational Chinese Families by Jia-Lin Liu.

About the book, from the publisher:

Far from the Model Minority centers the voices of five undocumented and mixed-status Chinese immigrant families in New York City and their sending communities in Fuzhou, China. Challenging dominant narratives about Chinese Americans and the model-minority myth, these families have experienced multigenerational exclusion from educational pathways and developed mobility strategies focused on attaining “face.”

In China, low social standing led them to prioritize immigration and remittance work over education, as overseas success became the primary way to garner face. Yet in the United States, undocumented status and poverty created new barriers to their and their children's acculturation, and the intersection of undocumented life and the culture of remittances often undermined the intended face gain for families back home and reinforced social stagnation. Based on four years of ethnographic research, Jia-Lin Liu's work explores how these transnational families respond to enduring structural exclusions by reimagining achievement and dignity across borders.

Visit Jia-Lin Liu's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When Squirrels Fly"

New from She Writes Press: When Squirrels Fly: A Novel by D. E. Carr.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Connie Willis, Lucy Lyons, and Janet Evanovich, a debut cozy mystery with a speculative bent, set in Ann Arbor, that’s replete with wormholes, incorrigible pets, and delightfully quirky characters.

When Allie Caldwell gets a rambling middle-of-the-night call from her very excited aunt Mel, she initially curbs her concern; her aunt has always been a bit eccentric, after all. But when Mel disappears before telling anyone what has her so worked up, Allie drops everything –even her better judgement—to fly to Ann Arbor and find her.

In the ensuing days, Allie inexplicably ignores her gut instincts (and some weird dream-based warnings from angry flying squirrels) and accepts help in the search from her aunt’s handsome, enigmatic neighbor George Bennet. In order to discern how virtual reality goggles, innovative migraine research, hidden treasure, attack drones, and a neighborhood trellis are all connected to the case, they’ll need to survive bungled bids of help from Allie’s well-meaning brother, hidden agendas from multiple neighbors, constant interruptions from Mel’s itinerant Chihuahua and his exuberant pit bull puppy pal—and even some attempts on their lives.

Visit D. E. Carr's website.

My Book, The Movie: When Squirrels Fly.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Blackish Press"

New from Oxford University Press: The Blackish Press: Content, Ownership, and Audience of Digital Black News Outlets by Miya Williams Fayne.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the new media age, the Black press has undergone significant changes in content, ownership, and audience. Some digital Black news outlets are foregrounding entertainment over hard news stories, others are not Black owned, many are attracting non-Black audiences, and audience engagement is primarily online. These developments raise the questions: How does entertainment content work for or against the goals of the Black press? In what ways does ownership affect the Black press' content? Who is the audience for the digital Black press? And how do journalists interact with their audience?

The Blackish Press uses interviews with Black press journalists, focus groups with readers, and analysis of web metrics to argue that the digital Black press is adapting to meet the current needs of the Black community. Its content often counters mainstream news narratives and is filtered through a Black lens. Legacy and digital-native Black news publications are advocating for African Americans via both entertainment and hard news content. Readers and journalists prefer Black-targeted outlets to be Black-owned, but they still consider those that are owned by the mainstream as part of the Black press. Additionally, although the digital Black press has a significant non-Black audience, Black press editors intentionally target their Black audience and employ organizational codeswitching to signal authenticity. As such, the digital Black press operates both similarly and differently than its historical predecessors. The Blackish Press provides an in-depth analysis of what it means when the Black press acclimates to the new media landscape and questions what is gained and lost in the process.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Baby Queen"

Coming November 17 from Harper Perennial: Baby Queen: A Novel by Ty Landers.

About the novel, from the publisher:

For lovers of Ozark or Breaking Bad, a page-turning debut involving an Alabama family business, a dead body, a dogged investigator, and three generations of women who are forced to confront the secrets, betrayals, and buried crimes that haunt their family.

When a queen bee can no longer do her job, the worker bees will kill her, producing a new baby queen.

A perfectly preserved but very dead body is found in a barrel of honey, and the town of Noccalula, Alabama, will never be the same.

Natalie Link has inherited the family honey farm from her beloved grandmother Lana, who raised Nat after her mother ran off to Los Angeles chasing stardom. But it turns out Nat has no idea what Lana has been hiding in the hives. Is Nat up to running what turns out to be a business enterprise of questionable repute? Suddenly she is caught between her grandmother’s very frightening partners and the ex-cop with a grudge who’s been looking into her family since she was a kid.

Bob Sauk torpedoed his once promising law enforcement career chasing a lead he couldn’t prove. He has always believed that Lana Link was a murderer. Will he finally get the chance to prove he was right all along? And what happens when Nat’s Hollywood star mom returns to town after twenty-five years?

Full of secrets, murder, and Alabama fried frog legs, Baby Queen is a sharp-as-a-blade tale of family crime.

Visit Ty Landers's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bahamian Islanders on the Maritime Highway"

Coming soon from the University Press of Mississippi: Bahamian Islanders on the Maritime Highway: Wrecking to Make a Reckoning by Lisa Lawlor Feller.

About the book, from the publisher:

Once regarded as a critical maritime highway in the wake of British abolition, the channels of The Bahamas became a crossroads where freedom, commerce, and control collided. As trade relationships shifted and power was renegotiated across the Atlantic world, the archipelago’s porous geography created opportunities for newly emancipated Black people—and, at the same time, for those determined to reassert systems of racial and economic dominance.

In Bahamian Islanders on the Maritime Highway: Wrecking to Make a Reckoning, historian Lisa Lawlor Feller weaves together the microhistories of those who crossed these waters, illuminating a transnational Bahamian history often left at the margins. By placing The Bahamas at the intersection of Caribbean and Atlantic frameworks, she reveals the mobility, resilience, and complexity of everyday islanders whose lives shaped the region in lasting ways.

Colonial records—ships’ logs, governors’ papers, educational reports—may seem dominated by dry statistics, yet careful reading uncovers the subtle presence of these voices. Set against the unique geographic and political position of The Bahamas, these fragments open new dimensions of understanding.

This groundbreaking study calls for a reimagined framework of the “partially free” Atlantic world—one that embraces the fluid, liminal spaces of an archipelago that has long defied simple categorization. Centering Bahamian experience, Lawlor Feller deepens our understanding of the region’s past and affirms the islands’ enduring importance as a site of connection, transition, and cultural insight within Caribbean studies.

Follow Lisa Lawlor Feller on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Freight"

New from Little, Brown and Company: Freight: A Novel by Ryan Lowell.

About the novel, from the publisher:

As a lone semi-truck makes its snowy way to the US-Canadian border, a series of vivid characters are inexorably drawn into a desperate, comedic, and murderous scheme to steal its precious cargo.

Curtis, a newly hired dispatcher with a newly pregnant wife at home, holds a scrap of paper that identifies a semi-truck trailer that shouldn’t exist.

Billy Trask is a weathered and charismatic sociopath, who thinks nothing of quietly killing whomever may come in his way, and carefully guards the coordinates for a truck loaded with $10 million dollars-worth of Canadian pharmaceuticals.

Jimmy, Theo, and Sarah are the not-so-innocent locals poised to stand in Billy's way, none more so than Sarah, a local party girl with the heart and will of a colossus, and who will leave her own trail of mayhem and carnage in her 75-mile-per-hour wake.

In the rough-and-tumble tradition of Dennis Lehane, S.A. Cosby, and classic American noir, Freight is a thrill-ride view of the world of labor, life and love—a searing portrait of men at work and also at their worst.

Follow Ryan Lowell on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Over and Over"

New from Rutgers University Press: Over and Over: Performance, Time, and Resonance in Serial Television Drama by Elliott Logan.

About the book, from the publisher:

How does serial drama earn, keep, and reward our attention for so long―over episodes, seasons, months, and years? While we know that characters are the focus of story and viewer interest in television fiction, scholars have for decades overlooked the way those characters are performed on-screen and the lure of performance as a key formal and thematic aspect of long-form television storytelling. In Over and Over, Elliott Logan offers close readings of performance in some of the most celebrated television dramas of the century, casting new light on the attractions and significance of the medium’s seriality. The book shows how the patterning and expressive resonance of performers on-screen binds together otherwise unconnected episodes of shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men. In doing so, it highlights the provisionality of identity and meaning as crucial to their interest in the sustenance of human relationships over long periods of time. In accounting for the resonance of performance over time in serial drama, this book shows, we find the terms of our own attachment to its compelling depictions of human life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Thief's Folly"

New from Severn House: A Thief's Folly (A Dorothy Martin Mystery, 28) by Jeanne M. Dams.

About the book, from the publisher:

When a thief strikes, Dorothy Martin is quickly on the case...

Dorothy Martin is enjoying a conversation in the garden with her neighbour and best friend, Jane Langland, one perfect June afternoon, when Jane suddenly has a stroke.

Dorothy is devastated when she visits her friend in hospital and discovers that she’s unable to speak yet desperate to tell her something, and is soon convinced there’s something valuable hidden in Jane’s house – but what is it? A thief targeting the house suggests they’ve found it first...

After identifying Jane's treasured – and sadly stolen – item, Dorothy is determined to track it down, even if that means embarking on a trip overseas. One thing’s for sure – in taking on Dorothy Martin, this thief has made a huge mistake!

This twisty, absorbing mystery featuring an Anglophile sleuth is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton and Faith Martin.

Visit Jeanne M. Dams's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Russia’s Rogue Masters"

New from Yale University Press: Russia’s Rogue Masters: Elite Criminal Trials in the Age of Reform, 1866-1884 by Sergei Antonov.

About the book, from the publisher:

Late imperial Russia’s criminal justice system examined through its most prominent public cases

In this book, lawyer and historian Sergei Antonov examines the largest and most prominent criminal cases following the landmark judicial reform of 1864 that introduced the public jury trial. Each case involved elite defendants or victims: nobles, officials, and wealthy merchants. Their crimes ranged from murder and arson to fraud, forgery, and embezzlement.

Antonov argues that, far from a reluctant concession of little consequence within Russia’s autocratic regime, the new courts were a crucial instrument through which the tsar and his government maintained a fragile political and social equilibrium. The new courts punished wayward elites and admonished the rest, teaching them about the limits of permissible violence, the exercise of power, and profit seeking. For the only time in Russia’s history, powerful persons could reliably expect to go on trial for major crimes, while also expecting that trial to be fundamentally fair.

Moreover, for the only time in Russian history, late imperial criminal trials exposed the hidden lives of Russia’s elites to public scrutiny and discussion. But the effects of this panoptic gaze were complex and ambiguous, and the narratives produced during the trials were unintentionally ambivalent―not only about those being prosecuted, but also about the new governing regime itself.

--Marshal Zeringue

"These Vile Hearts"

New from G.P. Putnam's Sons: These Vile Hearts by Melody Robinette.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A delightfully wicked, fizzy debut romantasy--an enemies to lovers tale about a desperate mortal woman and a cursed fae prince

Maddox Sinclair has run out of options. No job means no health insurance —a death sentence for a type one diabetic like herself. She flees to the forest to make a desperate deal with a dryad queen: kill the Redwood King and be cured of the illness that threatens her life.

In the redwood treetops, Prince Castor, is cursed-- anyone who loves him is doomed to die. Like Maddox, he has made an equally unwise pact with his brother, the Redwood King: get a mortal to fall in love with him by solstice and be free of his curse forever.

When Maddox mistakes Castor for the king, sparks fly and troubles ensue. Each must decide what is more important—survival and freedom, or the love they (kind of, almost) feel in their traitorous, vile hearts.

Darkly funny and brimming with magic, These Vile Hearts by Melody Robinette manages to be both wicked and warm, beguiling and moving—a richly woven story of survival and fate.

Visit Melody Robinette's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Frivolity: A Defense"

New from Columbia University Press: Frivolity: A Defense by Jehanne Dubrow.

About the book, from the publisher:

Why must everything be so important―so dour and solemn, so grim and austere? How about a feather boa, some frilly lace, and a bright splash of pink? In Frivolity, Jehanne Dubrow stands up for the seemingly shallow and trifling, calling for a reconsideration of what we find worthy and what we dismiss.

This book is a provocation. It offers a defense of the pursuits, objects, and people denigrated as frivolous, asking why we so readily scorn them and why, in particular, the label is so often tied to femininity and queerness. Its 101 sections move lightly across literature, art, and popular culture, from Susan Sontag, Sei Shōnagon, Jane Austen, and Mozart to Barbie, Nora Ephron rom-coms, exclamation points, and Dubrow’s own “Year of Perfect Skin.” Written in a lyrical style, this book takes both an intimate and a rigorous approach to thinking about the frivolous, blending personal essay with scholarship.

For Dubrow, frivolity is a way of affirming the importance of joy and silliness. And don’t we need a little more of both these things in an era made all too serious by autocracy and terror?

Learn more about the book and author at Jehanne Dubrow's website.

Writers Read: Jehanne Dubrow (April 2010).

Writers Read: Jehanne Dubrow (November 2012).

Coffee with a Canine: Jehanne Dubrow and Argos.

Coffee with a Canine: Jehanne Dubrow & Lola and Bandit.

Writers Read: Jehanne Dubrow (August 2022).

The Page 99 Test: Taste: A Book of Small Bites.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Dance of Burning Blades"

New from S&S/Saga Press: A Dance of Burning Blades (Invoker Trilogy) by M.H. Ayinde.

About the novel, from the publisher:

War rages on in the second heart-pounding novel in M. H. Ayinde’s relentless epic fantasy series The Invoker Trilogy, a sweeping epic of revenge and rebellion set in a richly drawn world of warring clans and ancestor magic.

A DANCE OF RAGE. A DANCE OF RUIN. A DANCE OF BURNING BLADES.

Tension simmers across the Nine Lands. In the capital, the people of Lordsgrave seethe with resentment after the horrors of the greyblood attack. Clan Adatali is in open rebellion against the king, and as war in the Feverlands rages on, a humble tree feller—who looks a lot like missing invoker Jinao Mizito—has not forgotten the promise he made to avenge his brother.

Meanwhile, in the shadows, the king’s daughter Lyela continues to move her pieces across the board. Can the people of the Nine Lands reclaim their stolen history and unlock the secrets that have been kept from them for centuries?

Visit M. H. Ayinde's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"On the Mark"

New from Basic Books: On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World by Florence Hazrat.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively history of punctuation, from ancient times to the age of the emoji.

You know the lively exclamation mark, the controversial semicolon, and the often-omitted apostrophe, but would you recognize a percontation point? How about an obelus? In this irreverent and delightfully intellectual book, Florence Hazrat argues that all punctuation marks, from the most forgotten to the most ubiquitous, are worthy of our attention. After all, the history of punctuation is the history of humankind.

The first punctuation mark was a triangular symbol pressed into clay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Spaces between words were unknown for millennia, until a group of Irish monks pioneered them in the eighth century. Across ages and cultures, amid technological revolutions and radical changes in communication, these dots and dashes have reshaped the societies that created them. From the papyruses of the ancient world to our sprawling internet ecosystem, one thing has remained constant: Punctuation is powerful. These tiny marks can move markets, shift elections, topple political systems, and decide the fate of a precious human life on death row.

Weaving together anthropology, the history of writing, the philosophy of language, psychology, literature, and more, On the Mark masterfully proves that punctuation is at the heart of human communication.

Visit Florence Hazrat's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Shadows That Listen"

Coming August 18 from Orbit: The Shadows That Listen (Angel Ruin, 1) by Louisa Carmody.

About the book, from the publisher:

Angels and daemons are at war, and humanity is caught in the middle. The shadows lengthen, and they listen. Who will survive the night?

From debut author Louisa Carmody comes an unputdownable dystopian romantasy with slow-burn romance and shocking twists, perfect for fans of Crescent City and Shadowhunters.

It's been five years since the world was brought to its knees by an immortal war. Daemons crawled from the depths of hell and the sky bled gold as the angels arrived. Humanity thought it was saved, but the angels did not come to protect us.

Amara is a human warrior working for the Angel Intelligence Agency. She spends her days searching for those who don't make it home after curfew. But when her boyfriend Jeremy goes missing, she decides to venture into the shadows to bring him back. Even if it means death.

Nathaniel is an archangel tasked with leading the destruction of humanity, for which he cares little. He doesn't have time to protect little humans running around in the dark, especially those who stab him in the stomach.

But Nathaniel and Amara will soon realise they share a foe, one that lurks in the shadows and stalks them from the skies. She might long to kill him, but Amara knows that having an angel at her side is the only way she'll survive.

Visit Louisa Carmody's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Remembering the Wars of Religion"

New from Oxford University Press: Remembering the Wars of Religion: Conflict and Coexistence in Early Modern France by David van der Linden.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the aftermath of civil war, often the most daunting task is to reconcile former opponents who continue to demand justice--or even vengeance--for wartime suffering. Remembering the Wars of Religion offers a historical perspective on the painful legacy of civil war by focusing on memories of violence and victimhood after the French Wars of Religion. Officially, these wars ended in 1598, when the Edict of Nantes proclaimed peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, and ordered them to bury the memory of the troubles that had begun in 1562. Below the surface, however, the conflict would simmer for generations, as neither side was able to forgive and forget the violence they had suffered.

Moving away from the corridors of state power in Paris to the cities of Lyon, Montpellier, and La Rochelle, Remembering the Wars of Religion examines the local memory wars between Catholics and Protestants as they resurfaced throughout the seventeenth century. David van der Linden shows that the Wars of Religion left behind a kingdom divided by memory: Catholics and Protestants developed sectarian narratives of the troubles, victimizing their own community while assigning blame to the other. The massacres, looting, material losses, and forced displacement that had punctuated the wars proved impossible to forget, let alone forgive, as vindictive memories were continuously reconstructed by later generations. This constant weaponizing of the past undermined the state-led process of peacebuilding and the practice of toleration in France's biconfessional communities. Ultimately, these memories of victimhood fed a new cycle of violence during the reign of Louis XIV, who in 1685 revoked the Edict of Nantes and forced his Protestant subjects to convert to Catholicism.

Remembering the Wars of Religion thus offers a fresh perspective on the challenge of religious coexistence and reconciliation, both past and present. It shows that besides state policies of intolerance and ideological differences rooted in the Reformation, it was the manipulation of wartime memories by subsequent generations that fuelled long-term animosity.

Visit David van der Linden's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Responsible Party"

Coming August 11 from Henry Holt and Co.: The Responsible Party: A Novel by Claire Carusillo.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A rollicking, "unsinkable," (Sam Lipsyte) and hilarious debut novel about a family of unforgettable women obsessed with securing their legacy, for fans of Geek Love

Claire grew up with the legend of the Unsinkable Mounsey Women. Her great-great-grandmother Fanny made headlines in 1915 for washing ashore in England nearly a year after her ship sank. Fanny’s daughter Sarah went to collect her mother on the equally ill-fated Lusitania―whose sinking she, too, survived. Their improbable endurance led to regional stardom on the Midwestern vaudeville circuit. But Claire never knew the full story―until now.

Listless, jobless, and recently canceled for extolling skin-care advice online that sent a reader to the hospital, Claire is surprised when a knock at the door turns out to be the police, looking for answers about a murder from the 1970s they suspect her mother, Kath, may know something about. As the cops zero in, Claire demands answers from her mother.

Kath’s comically long response, which blossoms into the story of the Mounseys and their descendants writ large, moves from a Liverpudlian poorhouse at the onset of World War I to a Lake Michigan lighthouse in 1971 (when sex was freer and McDonald’s fried their potatoes with beef tallow) to present-day Chicagoland; along the way, it offers Claire a richer understanding of what she inherited from the complicated, resilient women she descends from.

Replete with inappropriately old boyfriends, dubious medical professionals, and more than a few boats, The Responsible Party is the story of several women, in several different timelines, trying to stay afloat.

Follow Claire Carusillo on Instagram.

--Marsal Zeringue

"Ladies of Little Rock"

New from ⁠the University of Georgia Press: Ladies of Little Rock: Black Femininity and Respectability Politics in the Fight to Desegregate Central High School by Misti Nicole Harper.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ladies of Little Rock explores the agency and activism of middle-class Black women and girls who led the movement to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. Misti Nicole Harper argues that these ladies assumed this responsibility as part of a broader legacy of middle-class Black women who wielded respectability politics as social justice strategy. Black women such as Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas state chapter of the NAACP, and the six Black girls of the “Little Rock Nine” proved their politically savvy and imminent respectability in Little Rock and on the international stage. Black ladies threatened the precarious social position of working-class white women and girls whose lone claim to social privilege was their whiteness and who spearheaded massive resistance as a direct reaction to the challenge that middle-class Black ladies posed.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Something like Desire"

New from Blackstone Publishing: Something like Desire by Marie Hoy-Kenny.

About the book, from the publisher:

The debut adult novel from the author of The Girls from Hush Cabin, Something Like Desire is a hilarious, romantic story of family, loyalty, and finding love in the most unlikely of places.

Lexi Callen’s world is turned upside down when her mother announces she’s leaving her father because she’s having an affair. With her sister’s wedding just weeks away, Lexi vows to put an end to the fling before it tears the family apart.

But her plan takes an unexpected turn when she crosses paths with Zach, the son of her mother’s lover, who seems equally determined to break up the relationship. What begins as a blame game and clashing opinions quickly shifts into something more complicated. The more time Lexi spends with Zach, the harder it is to deny the magnetism between them.

As the wedding date looms closer, Lexi is forced to confront more than just her mother’s scandal. Questions about her own future, and her long-term boyfriend, Jayden, begin to surface. Caught between loyalty, desire, and the life she thought she wanted, Lexi must decide how much she’s willing to risk in order to follow her heart.

Visit Marie Hoy-Kenny's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dependency Politics"

New from Cambridge University Press: Dependency Politics: How Foreign Aid Shapes Electoral Behavior by Ryan Jablonski.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ryan Jablonski's Dependency Politics examines how democracy works in aid-dependent countries. He draws on over six years of fieldwork to investigate relationships between donors and politicians, showing how politicians make policy and how aid dependency changes voters' assessments of politician performance. He reveals that voters don't simply reward politicians for aid, rather they condition their votes on beliefs about how politicians influence aid delivery. This leads to a 'visibility-uncertainty' paradox where aid can either enhance or erode democratic accountability. Revisiting assumptions about the effects of foreign aid on political behavior, he also explains how aid can cause citizens to vote against their interests and sometimes benefit opposition candidates over incumbents. Drawing on surveys, interviews, focus groups, and field experiments, Jablonski challenges conventional wisdom about foreign aid and offers lessons for balancing trade-offs over aid effectiveness, political capture and capacity-building.

Visit Ryan Jablonski's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Etna"

New from Scribner: Etna: A Novel by Paul Yoon.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Beloved author and winner of The Story Prize, Paul Yoon, is back with the unforgettable story of a working dog, Etna, who, after a devastating war, embarks on an odyssey in the hopes of returning home.

Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home—to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there.

Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?

This is a novel about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately a novel about finding hope in the most dire of times.

Visit Paul Yoon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Animal Minds, Other Minds"

New from University of Virginia Press: Animal Minds, Other Minds: Nonhuman Intelligence and Narrative Form in American Fiction by Victoria Googasian.

About the book, from the publisher:

How a fascination with animal consciousness, perception, and intelligence shaped American fiction in the twentieth century

Animal Minds, Other Minds upends a common assumption: that the minds encountered in fiction are always in some sense fundamentally human. Readers, writers, critics, and narrative theorists have surmised that when fiction turns its attention to the inner lives of its characters, it does so with the aim of revealing their recognizable humanity. This book tells a different story. The narrative styles of American fiction show a growing awareness that human subjectivity exists within a multispecies ecology of minds. The science of animal minds, argues Victoria Googasian, has played a central role in building fiction’s capacity to imagine cognitive diversity, both within our own species and in the wider world of sentience.

The multispecies world of twentieth-century American literature exhibits a clear recognition that intelligence can take more than one form. From the fragmented personhood of Jack London’s canine heroes, to the associative intelligence of William Faulkner’s Compson family, to the rabid opacity of Zora Neale Hurston’s Tea Cake, to the sociobiological play of Octavia Butler’s shapeshifters, American fiction abounds with characters whose animalized minds structure the narrative techniques that unfold their behaviors.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Five Things I See"

New from Severn House: Five Things I See (A Detective Grace Hartwell Thriller) by Wendy Church.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A city-wide conspiracy. A serial killer on the loose. A detective battling her own demons. Everything comes together in Five Things I See, the first installment in a brand-new thrilling police procedural series by Wendy Church.

If pain is the price of strength, Grace is one of the strongest people you will ever meet.

Five crime scenes connected by a visible pattern.

A serial killer terrorizes the citizens of Jacksonville, and the entire police force is focused on cracking the case―but will they be able to stop the murderer before more bodies are found?

Three suspects who all tell a different story.

Homicide detective Grace Hartwell’s knack for reading people has never let her down―until now. Is the killer playing a clever game or is she losing touch with herself?

One determined detective with a taste for justice.

Grace's life is dedicated to her work. But she has a dark secret―a secret that could jeopardize not only her job but her life...

For fans of MICHAEL CONNELLY, LISA REGAN, RUTH WARE, and VAL McDERMID, and the Netflix miniseries Unbelievable―Five Things I See is a fast-paced and twisty thriller with a complex female detective lead.

Visit Wendy Church's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder on the Spanish Seas.

Q&A with Wendy Church.

My Book, The Movie: Murder on the Spanish Seas.

The Page 69 Test: Murder Beyond the Pale.

Writers Read: Wendy Church.

The Page 69 Test: Knife Skills.

My Book, The Movie: Knife Skills.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Play to Survive"

New from Stanford University Press: Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire by Chika Watanabe.

About the book, from the publisher:

We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change? This question is particularly poignant along the Ring of Fire, a tectonic belt in the Pacific region that routinely faces some of the most devastating disasters in the world. Based on ethnographic research spanning seven years, Play to Survive examines the work of preparedness training in Japan and Chile, two primary nations along the Ring of Fire that experience frequent and intense disasters. Experts from these countries have often collaborated to create some of the most advanced disaster preparedness systems in the world. Chika Watanabe traces how local city officials, NGOs, and members of neighborhood and grassroots organizations are, counterintuitively, using fun, playful methods to teach preparation for our darkest hours. While there are many important studies of post-disaster response, much less is written about the future-orientation of disaster preparedness. This book shows how a transnational group of preparedness experts orient people toward potential disasters in gentle and hopeful ways, focusing on improvisation and repair. In a time of political and environmental destabilization globally, this book offers a unique look at how playful preparedness can reset relationships to environments, to the future, and to each other.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Seeing Red"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Seeing Red (DI Nick Dixon Crime) by Damien Boyd.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From the bestselling DI Nick Dixon crime series, secrets, lies, and a truth buried in a borrowed grave.

A body is found in a newly dug grave in a rural Somerset churchyard. The murder matches a series of brutal attacks blamed on a serial killer in Devon, and a DNA profile neatly points to the same suspect.

Fresh from another bruising encounter with the Professional Standards Department, Acting Detective Superintendent Nick Dixon knows the scene is wrong and the evidence staged―someone else has engineered this killing to silence the victim.

Ordered not to overcomplicate the investigation, and with his judgement under scrutiny, Dixon must choose between the convenient solution or digging deeper to uncover a truth someone is desperate to hide.

Visit Damien Boyd's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rebellious Citizens"

New from University of Nebraska Press: Rebellious Citizens: Social Upheaval and Democracy in Revolutionary Mexico by Ulices Piña.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Rebellious Citizens Ulices Piña shows that democracy in Mexico has never been the exclusive domain of elites, nor confined to the ballot box. Focusing on the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20, Piña explores how citizens forged a substantive democratic culture in the crucible of three successive social upheavals that shook the established social order in the central western state of Jalisco during the 1920s and 1930s―a formative period in the nation’s political history.

Piña examines how ordinary Mexicans actively shaped the political process, made their own history, and fought for equality in the country’s long fight for democracy. The long-term effects of the recurring uprisings in Jalisco were central to the new political system produced by the postrevolutionary state: After each rebellion, authorities consolidated institutional power, elected officials debated the strictures of government, and ordinary people grappled with the promise and limits of political emancipation. Because of the contradictions that arose from the creation of this modern political system, especially those that emerged at the nexus of democratic inclusion and authoritarian rule, seemingly powerless populations claimed equality, exercised participation rights, and demanded respect, even amid the violence and surveillance the state deployed against marginal groups to achieve its goals. Rebellious Citizens brings into focus the struggles of ordinary people to experiment with new ways of doing politics to remake the nation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Meet Me in the Garden"

New from Flatiron Books: Meet Me in the Garden: A Novel by Nina LaCour.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From BESTSELLING, AWARD-WINNING author Nina LaCour comes a GORGEOUS FAMILY STORY about self-discovery and love in all forms, inspired by the author's Creole roots

New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom.

But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.

Profound and expansive, a story of love and longing, art and motherhood, friendship and desire, Meet Me in the Garden is a decades-spanning tour de force, inspired by the author’s family and tracing the history of the Great Migration.

Visit Nina LaCour's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beholden to Beauty"

New from Oxford University Press: Beholden to Beauty: Aesthetic Value and the Authority of Pleasure by Keren Gorodeisky.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beauty surrounds us―in art that captivates, in landscapes that move us, and in countless aspects of life. Yet beauty remains philosophically puzzling. How can something so deeply tied to feeling also demand rational responsiveness? How can aesthetic value be at once personal, social, and universal?

In Beholden to Beauty, Keren Gorodeisky confronts these questions with rigor and insight. She argues that our sense of being beholden to beauty―and its inseparable connection to feeling―is not a paradox but a key to understanding the nature of aesthetic value. Beauty, like admirability or suffering, calls for emotional responsiveness. To be true to beauty is not merely to recognize its worth but to feel a distinctive kind of pleasure―one that belongs to a rational capacity for feeling, a core dimension of human agency. Rejecting views that reduce aesthetic value to the goodness of pleasure or the goodness of the capacity for feeling it, Gorodeisky shows that the pleasure that is responsive to beauty is not opaque to the world but rather revelatory of it. In doing so, she resolves some of the deepest puzzles about beauty, revealing it as intelligible only in light of our shared human capacity for feeling.

Profound, original, and elegantly argued, Beholden to Beauty offers a transformative account of why beauty matters―and why our response to it is essential to who we are.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Just the Good Parts"

Coming September 29 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: Just the Good Parts by Robbie Couch.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow comes a stunningly romantic, speculative novel about a teen looking for his missing dad, who keeps getting pulled into others’ memories and crossing paths with a handsome stranger who also doesn’t belong there.

Caspen Coolsby’s dad is missing. But even though it’s only been a few months, everyone has given up on finding him. Except for Caspen.

He finally gets a break in the case when he meets his new upstairs neighbors and discovers he can somehow transport himself into each of the college students’ memories using candle scents that remind them of important moments. No one loved candles more than his dad, so Caspen is sure there must be clues pointing toward where to find him hidden in the memories.

His thinking hits a snag, though, when a handsome boy named Lars keeps popping up in memories where he also doesn’t belong. As the lines between memory and reality begin to blur, Caspen can’t help but fall for the mysterious boy who keeps chipping away at the rose-colored lens he’s always seen life through. But will Caspen be able to find his dad and his crush outside of these stolen moments if it means reliving the hard truths of his past and not just the good parts?

Visit Robbie Couch's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Tempering Power"

New from Cambridge University Press: Tempering Power: Beyond the Rule of Law by Martin Krygier.

About the book, from the publisher:

What is the rule of law for? What does that take? Why does it matter? There is little clarity and less agreement about any of these questions. That is partly because they are hard, but it is also because we generally do not think especially well about them. Yet they are rarely more important than today, and there are better ways to think. In this seminal book, Martin Krygier combines an account of conventional assumptions, a fundamental critique of them, and an alternative way of thinking about the purpose, the value, and the significance of the rule of law, in light of the goal it should serve: tempering power. In this time of widespread intemperate abuse of power throughout the world, these concerns are not merely analytical, academic, or even legal. They are social, political, and moral, and everyone's business. And the stakes are high.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything That Is Beautiful"

New from Harper: Everything That Is Beautiful: A Novel by Louise Nealon.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The #1 internationally bestselling, award-winning author of Snowflake returns with a luminous portrait of two Irish families riven by one great secret.

For Niamh Ryan, the Foleys are family. Her childhood flew by on their farm, playing with her best friend Peter and his sister Kate—while being doted on by their mother Helen and coached by their father Liam, a legendary former hurling player.

Now, following a distressing series of events, those ties are strained. Niamh receives drunken phone calls and messages from Peter who can’t understand what derailed their burgeoning relationship three years ago. Helen tries her best to escape her life by checking into guesthouses under the names of old classmates. And Kate, living in Belfast, works to maintain her job and a relationship while carrying the weight of the family's secrets.

As a family wedding looms, Niamh, Helen, and Kate find themselves face to face once again—and the knotty love that has bound them might just bring them back together again.

Told through the perspectives of three very different women, Everything That Is Beautiful is an unforgettable story of love and family, heartbreak and hope—and who we might become after we pick up the pieces.

Visit Louise Nealon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Social Influence and the Logic of Collective Action"

New from Princeton University Press: Social Influence and the Logic of Collective Action by Sergey Gavrilets.

About the book, from the publisher:

An integrated quantitative framework for understanding the dynamics of collective action

Collective action has been a fundamental aspect of human societies throughout history, from building irrigation systems and defenses in Neolithic times to coordinated disaster relief and scientific collaborations today. In this book, Sergey Gavrilets explains when and why groups of people cooperate, presenting a quantitative framework that unifies game theory with models of social influence, cognition, and individual and cultural variation. He shows how humans’ deep susceptibility to social influence—grounded in evolutionary need to cooperate and learn from peers, reinforced by deference to parents and elders, and extended to cultural, religious, and political leaders—shapes norms, beliefs, and collective outcomes.

Integrating previously separate literatures, Gavrilets introduces explicit dynamics for norms and beliefs, quantifies the effects of individual and cultural differences, and tests predictions across societies. Drawing on formal, data-based mathematical modeling supported by behavioral experiments and studies of online behavior, he concludes that successful collective action depends on six interacting forces: material payoffs, personal norms and attitudes, social influence, cognition, evolving social norms and beliefs about others, and individual and cultural differences. Lasting cultural change, he argues, depends on norms and institutions that shape behavior through persuasion, nudging, and enforcement. Gavrilets translates this theory into practical, testable strategies for policy and design, including targeted messaging, dynamic norms, and culturally sensitive approaches, and connects it to broader theories of behavior change.

Visit Sergey Gavrilets's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Art of Charming a Changeling"

Coming August 25 from Orbit: The Art of Charming a Changeling (Pigments & Paramours, 1) by Sylvie Cathrall.

About the book, from the publisher:

A cozy slice-of-life romantic fantasy set in a Regency-inspired world where humans and fairies compete for artistic supremacy, from Sylvie Cathrall, author of A Letter to the Luminous Deep.

On her first day working in the prince’s galleries, art conservator Florrie Hyverfell discovers that the most famous portrait in the collection is not only a fake―it’s also inhabited by Vern, a fairy trapped in the forged painting.

Tracking down the stolen original is the only way for Florrie to save her job and for Vern to escape his canvas. Yet as they journey to a famed fairy museum to find the missing artwork, Florrie finds herself taking more than an art historical interest in the changeling painting’s charming inhabitant.

Visit Sylvie Cathrall's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Speak American"

New from the University of Hawaii Press: Speak American: The Politics of Race, Language, and Education in Territorial Hawai‘i by Christine R. Yano.

About the book, from the publisher:

Speak American explores how language tied together race, power, and citizenship in Territorial Hawai‘i from 1924 to 1960 via the public K–12 English Standard School System. In this segregated system, children were tested for spoken English fluency: those who passed were placed in elite classes or schools, while others remained in regular classrooms. Proposed by white mothers, the policy used language as a tool to implement de facto racial separation, privileging those who already spoke English rather than teaching it to those who didn’t. This dynamic was enabled by “listening regimes” (disciplinary practices that trained educators and the public to listen for and reward Standard English), while marginalizing Hawai‘i Creole English, the everyday language of plantation and urban life.

Drawing on archival records, interviews, and school alumni events, the book introduces the concept of the “panauricon”―a listening-based counterpart to Foucault’s visual panopticon―to describe how language surveillance reinforced and extended social hierarchies. A century later, debates over monolingualism and national identity persist, making this study of Hawai‘i’s historic linguistic politics both timely and urgent.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Thousand Painted Hours"

New from Lake Union: A Thousand Painted Hours: A Novel by Barbara O'Neal.

About the book, from the publisher:

An epic, emotionally charged novel about love, art, and survival spanning 1900s colonial India to Blitz-era London by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

In the shadow of the London Blitz, artist Elsie Turner clings fiercely to her canvases, refusing to let war dim the colors that define her. The bombs test her nerve, but the struggle also stirs memories of her golden youth in India and of the long-lost love of her life.

The daughter of a British civil servant in the Himalayan station of Nainital, Elsie crosses cultural divides to forge an unlikely bond with Tanveer Singh, a Sikh prince with hopes, dreams, and far-reaching ideas. What begins as shared sketchbooks and stargazing becomes first love and a secret correspondence. When Elsie’s father is summoned to England, Elsie is severed from the world she knows―and is determined to preserve it through both her art and a connection with Tanveer that endures through the most tumultuous years of their lives.

Across four decades and two continents, Elsie navigates a journey from lush colonial India to war-torn London, amid landscapes of beauty, protest, and peril. As past and present collide, the most impossible choices and sacrifices are yet to be made in the name of love, war, and survival.

Visit Barbara O'Neal's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Acts of Resistance"

New from Vanderbilt University Press: Acts of Resistance: Antibiotic Use and Prescribing Culture in the United States by Katharina Rynkiewich.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Acts of Resistance, Katharina Rynkiewich explores the fight to save the utility of antibiotic medicines amid global antimicrobial resistance. This engaging ethnography follows bacteria, patients, and practitioners as they weave in and out of North American medical institutions. Through an examination of the social dynamics and ethical challenges of everyday antibiotic use, the author expands on the limitations of good intentions in current antibiotic stewardship policy. Her ethnographic account shows the lived experience of multiple central figures as she shifts setting and tone, ultimately deepening our understanding of the global antimicrobial resistance crisis as emergency.

Due to the global scale of impact related to antimicrobial resistance, holding industries and institutions accountable is difficult but essential. With new and reemerging multidrug-resistant organisms making their homes within institutions and in the community, tracing the origins of an infection can be an insurmountable challenge. Rynkiewich demonstrates how “microbial highways” coexist along human highways, providing an apt example of how multidrug-resistant organisms spread across hospitals, communities, and entire regions.

Visit Katharina Rynkiewich's website.

--Marshal Zeringue