"Now That We Don't Talk"

New from Berkley: Now That We Don't Talk by Rachel Pologe.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A commitment-phobe finds herself stuck spending Hanukkah with her childhood best friend turned nemesis, only for holiday chaos to ensue and complicated feelings to resurface, in this emotionally resonant debut romance.

Norah Gold is a bolter. She avoids emotional situations at all costs, doesn’t do meaningful relationships, and when things get a little too real, she runs. She hasn’t let herself fall in love in nearly a decade, not since her whole world fell apart when her dad suddenly passed away. Desperate to escape a friends-with-benefits situation gone clingy, she returns home to Chicago for the holidays. Her one goal? Avoid Henry Cole, the boy who blew up her life and broke her heart back in high school. Easier said than done when she discovers that their mothers are dating and insist on celebrating the holidays together.

A decade later, Henry Cole is all custom suits and condescension. He is order to her chaos and absolutely insufferable about it. When Norah and Henry get snowed in together and learn just how serious their moms’ relationship is, they call a truce to make it through all eight nights of Hanukkah without setting each other on fire. As they begin to rediscover the foundation that made them so close growing up, Norah is desperate to keep her distance—the last thing she can handle is reopening decade-old emotional wounds. But even though they’ve tried to escape the past, Norah and Henry have unfinished business too pressing to ignore. Can Norah shake off her deep-seated impulse to bolt, or are they destined to flame out just like they did as teenagers?

Visit Rachel Pologe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mothering for Capital"

New from Vanderbilt University Press: Mothering for Capital: Labor, Race, and Child "Value" in Neoliberalism by Maria Kromidas.

About the book, from the publisher:

Mothering for Capital offers a bold new interpretation about the crisis of motherhood in neoliberalism. It documents how the drive of capital stealthily subsumes mothering, tethering women’s work, care, and socialization of children, as well as their wishes, fears, and understandings of themselves as mothers, to the imperatives of value accumulation. Through the framework of “good” parenting that maximizes the odds of a child’s “success” in a precarious future, capital orients mothers to cultivate a set of specific cognitive, social, emotional, and psychological traits that shape children as future labor power, the ideal manageable yet self-managed subject. The child is the site of capital’s most audacious aspirations―to flatten and empty human life of all that is superfluous or dangerous to capital. What is ultimately at stake, Kromidas argues, is the subordination or emancipation of the human subject, and Mothering for Capital tracks this hidden terrain of struggle.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ghost Orchid"

New from Lake Union: Ghost Orchid: A Novel by Dani Cessna.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Deep in the swamps of Florida, a grieving park ranger forms a friendship with a mysterious recluse―and uncovers long-rumored secrets about a plant that raises the dead.

Once ambitious and spontaneous, all park ranger Miranda wants after losing her best friend is stillness. Her new job at Everglades National Park and the rekindled connection with an old flame offer some stability and comfort. But everything changes after a rash decision brings her face-to-face with the so-called swamp witch.

In Estelle, Miranda finds an unexpected friendship. The old woman is feisty, independent, and extraordinarily green-thumbed. Plants, Estelle tells her, have a language of their own. Miranda learns to listen to the whispers of peace lilies and desert roses, and witnesses their uncanny power to heal or reveal hidden truths.

But a hurricane brews off the coast, and tensions rise. Rumors spread about Estelle’s abilities, including her knowledge of the rare ghost orchid said to resurrect the dead―bringing the most dangerous kind of grief to Estelle’s doorstep.

In the lush Everglades, the swamp can grow, transform―or destroy. Miranda discovers that true growth means releasing the grief that keeps us rootbound. And somewhere, in the tangled heart of the swamp, the ghost orchid waits.

Visit Dani Cessna's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wireheads"

New from Yale University Press: Wireheads: An Unnatural History of Technology in the Brain by Mike Jay.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story of the mavericks and scientists, crackpots and artistic visionaries who imagined a future where machines fuse with our minds

As humanity and technology become ever more tightly interwoven, Wireheads explores the final and most intimate frontier: the brain, and the electronic devices, magnetic signals, implants, and computer interfaces that promise to merge it with the world of the machine. Will these technologies eventually direct our thoughts and behaviour―or are they doing so already? Will they maintain us in states of artificial bliss, or connect us to higher intelligences, or replace the world of our senses with simulated realities?

Mike Jay, acclaimed author of Psychonauts, now traces the tangled, paranoid history of these real and fantastical brain technologies. From the fictions of H. G. Wells and Philip K. Dick to The Matrix, the CIA’s Cold War experiments and Elon Musk’s Neuralink, scientists and visionaries have long chased the dream of neural enhancement and control, with wildly varying degrees of success.

Encompassing covert military operations and psychedelic art, moral philosophy and cybernetic theory, Jay has assembled a thrilling narrative out of our attempts to understand and rewire the brain―and a brilliant meditation on what it means to be human in a posthuman age.

Visit Mike Jay's website.

The Page 99 Test: Mescaline.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Eight Ways to Say I Love You"

New from Berkley: Eight Ways to Say I Love You by Amanda Elliot.

About the book, from the publisher:

A spark of attraction burns brighter each year between childhood friends in this sweeping Hanukkah romance by USA Today bestselling author Amanda Elliot.

This Hanukkah, Shira Levinson is returning home to New Jersey riding the high of achieving major milestones. Though she only just graduated from college, she's got her dream job and a perfect Los Angeles apartment—an actual miracle in the city of dreams.

Life has not been quite as kind to Leo David. Not only did he fail out of college, he was forced to move in with his estranged dad, who he still hates for cheating on his mom years ago. The only silver lining? Getting to see Shira, his childhood friend (and crush, though he’ll never tell her that) while she’s home for her family's holiday party.

But that's just the beginning. Over the next eight years, Shira's and Leo's lives spin them in all sorts of directions as they grow and change, taking them places they never imagined going. Sometimes those paths take them farther away from each other, and other times closer together. If they can only time it right, they might uncover a love that burns forever.

Visit Amanda Elliot's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shakespeare's Tragedies: What Makes Them Great"

New from Stanford University Press: Shakespeare's Tragedies: What Makes Them Great by Robert N. Watson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively and provocative introduction to Shakespeare's five major tragedies, revealing their profoundly sympathetic and illuminating exploration of human experience.

Shakespeare's Tragedies illuminates the majestic beauties and subtle insights of the great playwright's greatest works. Building from a helpful introduction of each tragedy, and progressing to advanced new interpretations, Watson reveals what these famous plays offer us as we confront the heartbreaking aspects of life and the redeeming virtues of our flawed humanity.

Watson shows Romeo and Juliet providing dreamy romance, but also exploring the fears of sexual violence that Juliet must heroically overcome, in a play that marries comedy to tragedy, as love and death intertwine. Analyzing Hamlet's centuries-long worldwide fame, Watson shows how it speaks to our Information (and Disinformation) Age, and why the conventional understanding of the most famous six syllables in all of literature―"To be or not to be"―is misguided and even dangerous.

Tracing the intertwined roles of race, religion, and sexuality in Othello, Watson explores the deep psychological roots of villainy, and shows how the play articulates the tragic costs of believing that love (from a person or a deity) must be bought or deserved, rather than embraced as a miracle. King Lear amplifies those warnings, explodes many complacent certainties, and imposes an ending so multiply shocking that it was hidden for 150 years.

Watson demonstrates how the verbal details of Macbeth produce its psychological intensity and its relentlessly haunting aura, while also teaching environmentalist lessons and lamenting the inescapable double-bind of our ambitions, as individuals and as a species. The book concludes with a rousing advocacy for Shakespeare as an enduring force―across races, nations, genders, and generations―for understanding and justice.

The culmination of Robert N. Watson's distinguished career as a scholar and teacher, Shakespeare's Tragedies explains, in fresh, accessible, and moving ways, why multitudes have treasured this playwright's tragic masterpieces for centuries.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fallout"

New from Red Hen Press: Fallout: A Novel by Liz Kay.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Fallout is a gripping Cold War-era domestic thriller that delves into the hidden tensions, loyalties, and secrets of American military families stationed in 1980s West Germany. The story blends coming-of-age drama with high-stakes suspense and rich historical detail.

For the military families who live in Benjamin Franklin Village, family life isn’t just family life, but a vital front in the Cold War. It’s a patriotic act, a performance of the American Way. They have backyard cookouts and go to high school football games and try to live like they aren't in a perpetual state of almost-war. They smile outwardly, join social clubs, and hide the unhappiness that goes on behind closed doors. That is, until the Vaughns arrive.

Still reeling from the loss of her mother, sixteen-year-old Samantha Vaughn is a wild child looking for trouble, but when she finds it, her father’s rank means she’s the only kid who won’t pay some kind of price for it. When her social circle shrinks overnight to prissy but pretty Becky Jennings and surly, anti-social David Williams, the frictions between the three of them turn to dangers that none of them recognize. For the women, sturdy, seasoned Army wives Madge Williams and Abby Jennings, Colonel Vaughn’s second wife, Joanne, pulls them out of their ’50s-era military culture and into the modern age. As a newly liberated Madge pushes at the boundaries of an unhappy marriage and Abby struggles to find her place in their changing friendship, Abby’s tight grip on old loyalties keep her from recognizing the threats circling her own family and her friend’s. And when a mysterious package is left on the front step of one of their homes, someone won’t survive the explosive fallout.

Visit Liz Kay's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stabilizing Empire"

New from the University of California Press: Stabilizing Empire: Psychopharmacy in the US War on Terror by Jocelyn Lim Chua.

About the book, from the publisher:

In 2006, the United States Department of Defense for the first time authorized the use of FDA-approved psychiatric medications in the physical and tactical spaces of military operations including active combat. This policy change overturned a century of military psychiatry orthodoxy, which prioritized non-pathologizing, non-medication treatment for combat stress. Amid an ongoing global war, the US military embraced psychopharmacy as a radical and untested tool for keeping soldiers on the counterinsurgency battlefield and deploying them again and again, even with psychiatric diagnoses. Through powerful storytelling and original analysis, Stabilizing Empire uncovers a quiet revolution during the war on terror: the pharmaceuticalization of battlefield mental health care.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mirror Image"

New from Thomas & Mercer: Mirror Image by Lauren E. Rico.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Award-winning author Lauren E. Rico’s intense psychological thriller plumbs the depths of trauma and identity in an emotional story about twin sisters set against the murky backdrop of the Everglades.

Dr. Jennifer Flores swore she’d never return to Miami―not after her mentor nearly destroyed her career and reputation to save his own. But when he asks the successful psychiatrist to consult on a high-profile case, she reluctantly agrees. This case echoes Jenn’s own twin-related trauma, and no one is better suited for the job.

Separated at birth, identical twins Mary Langston and Samantha Kinski met by chance in college five years ago. Today, they were found deep in the Florida Everglades, one barely alive and the other deceased. Jenn’s evaluation of survivor Mary’s mental status reveals more of the sisters’ extraordinary backstory. They experienced two vastly different childhoods: While adopted Mary thrived in the lap of luxury, Sam faltered in the brutal foster system.

As Jenn digs deeper into the twins’ turbulent bond, a dark picture emerges. Psychological manipulation. Family secrets. Mistaken identity. And as she gets closer to uncovering the truth, she finally confronts her own devastating loss.

Visit Lauren E. Rico's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hidden Terrors"

New from Oxford University Press: Hidden Terrors: The Scourge of Cholera in Jackson's America by Paul Kelton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Drawing on accounts of ordinary Americans, Hidden Terrors offers the first comprehensive history of the enigmatic illness behind the 1830s cholera pandemic--and its profound consequences for the nation.

From 1832 to 1836, cholera erupted across US cities as well as in small towns, rural farms, prisons, and plantations. Its victims experienced ghastly symptoms--vomiting, explosive diarrhea, painful spasms, turning blue, and collapsing into comas--and often perished within hours of first becoming sick. They frequently woke up healthy, began to feel ill by nightfall, and did not live to see another day. Cholera killed people much more quickly than other diseases with which Americans were familiar, and its causes would not be discovered until the later development of bacteriology. It afflicted rich and poor, people of every race, religion, and region.

As Hidden Terrors reveals, many powerful people in the 1830s wanted their contemporaries to understand cholera as anything but a frightful and unknowable predator that took its prey indiscriminately. American moral reformers and medical authorities, among others, attributed the deaths of the impoverished, enslaved, and exploited to individual failings--eating rotten foods, drinking alcohol, neglecting to seek treatment, and living in filth. The experience of these victims, in their view, was a natural consequence of immorality and called for minimal sympathy. Authorities ignored and even covered up the deaths of enslaved African Americans, Indigenous peoples, and Irish immigrants. The disease particularly exploded in crowded housing, work camps, poor houses, hospitals, prisons, along the routes Indigenous people were forced to travel on the Trail of Tears, and within slave coffles. However, the universal nature of the pandemic became more apparent as deaths of supposedly respectable people became shockingly numerous, apparent, and undeniable. It was that terror--the idea of everyone being equally subject to an invisible and mysterious killer--that elites struggled most to keep hidden.

Drawing on family papers, letters, and newspaper accounts written during the pandemic, Hidden Terrors tells the comprehensive story of the first cholera pandemic in the United States. Paul Kelton humanely captures the experiences of ordinary Americans living in fear of a mysterious disease and exposes the disastrous consequences of a deadly germ intersecting with the great injustices of Jacksonian America.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Undercover Lies"

Coming November 3 from Severn House: Undercover Lies (A Secret Lives Mystery, 4) by Mark de Castrique.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Badass 75-year-old former FBI agent Ethel Fiona Crestwater goes undercover tracking down a ruthless network of criminals in this fun and pacy installment in the Secret Lives mystery series.

WWED—What Would Ethel Do?

Seventy-five-year-old retired FBI agent Ethel Fiona Crestwater is almost getting too old for a secret FBI mission—almost! Her expert investigation skills are needed again when her elderly neighbor and close friend Sarah Phelps is found dead at her home, shot in the heart, and with an unknown male body next to her.

Turns out Sarah had a secret boyfriend who apparently killed both her and himself, but evidence points to a more serious crime. Someone is targeting wealthy senior citizens, but as far as Ethel is concerned death is too high a price to pay just for being old.

Seeking justice for her friend and capitalizing on her extensive connections—law enforcement and mobsters alike—Ethel goes undercover to expose an intricate network of lies, threats, and deadly schemes that will put her at high risk—one that might cost her her life .

Visit Mark de Castrique's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sandburg Connection.

Writers Read: Mark de Castrique (October 2011).

Coffee with a Canine: Mark de Castrique & Gracie.

My Book, The Movie: The Sandburg Connection.

The Page 69 Test: The 13th Target.

My Book, The Movie: The 13th Target.

Writers Read: Mark de Castrique (July 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Voicing Aspiration"

New from Wesleyan University Press: Voicing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dreamwork in Contemporary India by Anaar Desai-Stephens.

About the book, from the publisher:

The role of popular music in shaping subjectivity and aspiration in neoliberal India

Voicing Aspiration: Bollywood Songs and Dreamwork in Contemporary India explores how Bollywood music has become a powerful medium for dreaming, striving, and self-making in twenty-first-century India. Once dismissed as escapist fantasy, Bollywood's emotionally charged songs now serve as tools for self-transformation in what has been dubbed "Aspirational India." Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in Mumbai's playback singing schools, reality television studios, and the broader music industry, Anaar Desai-Stephens shows how singers, teachers, producers, and everyday amateurs use film songs to imagine new futures and craft an aspirational selfhood. Through vivid ethnographic stories and sharp cultural analysis, the book reveals how music is a site of both imaginative potential and precarity, promising social mobility while reinscribing inequalities of caste, class, and gender. Desai-Stephens argues that we must take musical dreamwork seriously in order to understand the cultural dynamics of emerging neoliberal economies. Blending media studies, anthropology, and ethnomusicology, Voicing Aspiration offers a compelling account of how popular culture shapes both individual lives and collective futures.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Queen of the Spirit Woods"

Coming November 3 from Atheneum Books for Young Readers: The Queen of the Spirit Woods by Sharon Choe.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea meets The Cruel Prince in this “propulsive” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)dual-POV young adult romantic fantasy following a royal kitchen maid and a prince who get swept up in dangerous palace intrigue, a forbidden love triangle, and the plight of thousands of displaced spirits and deities.

A kingdom on the brink of colonization.
Ten thousand nature spirits and deities seeking a vessel.
A genial nobleman and a grumpy prince uncovering the secrets at Court…
And the girl at the center of it all.

Mirae has a dangerous secret: She has faked her way into a job as a royal kitchen maid with the hope of sending money to her family. And life in the kitchens isn’t easy. The palace is in an uproar after a recent assassination attempt on the king, and Mirae nearly gets fired after inadvertently getting in the crosshairs of Jae, the prickly crown prince, during his investigation.

Her position gets even more precarious when a chance encounter with a witch in the mysterious spirit woods makes her the vessel of ten thousand spirits and deities. When her new powers spill out into the palace kitchens, Wonshik, a kind nobleman, lends a helping hand. Soon Mirae finds herself embroiled in a power struggle between the queen and Wonshik’s best friend, Prince Jae.

With the help of a fellow kitchen maid and a meddlesome ghost, Mirae must untangle the web of lies to find the traitor within the palace. But an encroaching threat from the empire to the east looms ever closer, and the palace is rife with lies and shadowy allegiances. Who can Mirae trust?

Visit Sharon Choe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wharfed Out"

New from the University of Virginia Press: Wharfed Out: Gentrification and Resistance on the Early American Waterfront by Kathryn K. Lasdow.

About the book, from the publisher:

How urban waterfront development in the early republic displaced working-class communities, creating lasting patterns of inequality and resistance

In the early years of American nationhood, civic leaders undertook the construction of thousands of acres of man-made land along urban coastlines―a process known colloquially as “wharfing out,” in which landfilled blocks increased a city’s surface area by pushing outward into deep water. Workers cleared wetlands and dredged harbors in service of ever-expanding ports and waterfront workspace in cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. But not everyone shared in the benefits of these so-called improvements. Poor and working-class people, many of whom had done the hard labor, became physically displaced and economically dispossessed. Many pushed back against this gentrification, organizing protests and launching reclamation efforts.

Drawing on an innovative combination of architectural, social historical, and material culture methods, Kathryn Lasdow is the first scholar to delineate both the gentrification and the contestation of American waterfront landscapes in the early republic. In so doing, she reveals how conflicts over design, development, and access ― and over who gets to tell the story of these places today ― represent not new phenomena but rather the latest iteration of a centuries-old struggle over who should control the future of urban space in America.

Visit Kathryn K. Lasdow's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Village of Noobtown"

Coming November 24 from Harper Voyager: The Village of Noobtown: book two of the Noobtown LitRPG series by Ryan Rimmel.

About the book, from the publisher:

Jim and his shoulder demon, Shart, return in the second installment of Ryan Rimmel’s acclaimed LitRPG series Noobtown, battling not just monsters this time, but also villagers who want little things like food, shelter, and clean water.

Well, it could be better.

Jim and his literal shoulder demon have survived in this new fantasy world--so far--by the skin of their teeth.

After finding a long-abandoned starter village in this gamified land, Jim has begun the process of rebuilding his town. He’s even renamed it Windfall, which feels like a pretty big accomplishment.

Unfortunately for our favorite adventurer, the threats he now faces are far more complicated than bands of monsters assaulting his gates. No, now the poor Noob has to deal with angry townsfolk lined outside his office demanding everything under the sun, trade negotiations with towns disinclined to dealing with this low-level mayor…and a talking badger.

He's not sure if he’d rather fight off the mob of dissatisfied (and, he might say, pretty ungrateful) villagers or the goblins and bandits always sniffing around. The truth is, if Noobtown Windfall is to survive, he’s going to have to do both, and his only advice is going to come from a demon that needs him alive—for now—but wouldn’t be too sad to see him die.

Follow Ryan Rimmel on Facebook.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ghosts of Bandung"

New from the University of California Press: Ghosts of Bandung: Black Power and Palestine in the Global Cold War by Derek A. Ide.

About the book, from the publisher:

Ghosts of Bandung makes the major new argument that the fates of the Black and Palestinian revolutions were bound together through the rise and fall of a larger Third World political project. Drawing on English and Arabic archives, Derek A. Ide shows how Afro-Arab solidarities shaped and were shaped by geopolitics and grand strategy. Through biographical vignettes of forgotten figures and underexplored groups, Ghosts of Bandung interweaves the histories of movement dynamics and those of contending states in the global Cold War. This story binds the United States and the Middle East―Detroit and Damascus, Oakland and Algiers―while spanning the globe. From the Sino-Soviet split to the Beijing-Jakarta Axis, this global retelling of Black Power and the Palestinian Revolution engages China, Cuba, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, and others. At the heart of this broader project is the hitherto untold story of CONEFO, Indonesian President Sukarno’s attempt to construct an alternative United Nations–like organization in Jakarta. Centering on 1965 and the collapse of CONEFO, Ide links the fates of Black Power and the Palestinian Revolution to the fall of Third Worldism and the “Bandung Spirit.”

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Love Operation"

New from Mindy's Book Studio: The Love Operation: A Novel by Melissa R. Collings.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A brilliant spine surgeon gains the power to perfectly recall her past—only to discover that some memories are better left undisturbed. A witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Dr. Cordelia Wren has always been in control—of her surgical career, her emotions, and especially her memories. But when she joins a cutting-edge memory enhancement study at her hospital, she gains an unexpected ability: the power to vividly relive any moment from her past. It seems like the perfect opportunity to analyze her failed relationships and finally understand why every man she’s ever loved has walked away.

There’s just one problem. Actually, three:

1. She may have…borrowed…access to the highly restricted memory study.
2. She’s secretly dating the hospital’s new COO while competing for chief of surgery—a relationship that could destroy both their careers if discovered.
3. Her first love has just reappeared in her life, stirring up feelings she thought she’d buried.

As Cordelia dives deeper into her past, the lines between memory and reality begin to blur. The truth she uncovers forces her to question everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and what it means to be “in control.”

With her career hanging in the balance and her heart pulled in two directions, Cordelia must decide: Should she trust the memories that have shaped her life, or finally let go of the past to embrace an uncertain future?

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, The Love Operation is a witty, emotional story about the intersection of medicine, memory, and the messy reality of loving imperfectly.

Visit Melissa R. Collings's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Charlemagne’s Dream"

New from Basic Books: Charlemagne’s Dream: The Rise and Fall of the Carolingian Empire by James T. Palmer.

About the book, from the publisher:

A sweeping, definitive history of the dynamic, expansionist dynasty that forged the Middle Ages—and Europe—as we know it.

Today, the Carolingians are best known as the dynasty of Charlemagne. In a few remarkable decades spanning the late eighth and early ninth centuries, Charlemagne united much of modern-day Europe through conquest and diplomacy, establishing the continent’s first empire since the fall of Rome.

In Charlemagne’s Dream, historian James T. Palmer looks beyond Charlemagne alone to tell the full story of the rise and fall of the massively consequential Carolingian dynasty—the men and women who laid the foundations for his achievements, and the colorful heirs who squandered his legacy. Carolingian rulers established the royal court as a place of learning, attracting scholars and philosophers and driving a cultural and intellectual renaissance. They fought and traded with power centers as far-flung as Córdoba, Constantinople, and Baghdad. In allying with the pope, they forever changed the relationship between church and state in the West. And they dispatched the first missionaries to northern Europe, expanding Christendom’s reach farther than ever before.

Charlemagne’s Dream details the powerfully human stories of the Carolingians, showing how their pursuit of ever-greater power built one of the world’s great empires.

Visit James T. Palmer's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Upstate"

New from William Morrow Paperbacks: Upstate: A Novel by Kim van Alkemade.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A grieving writer. An abandoned bookshop. A secret love story hidden in letters.

From New York Times bestselling author Kim van Alkemade comes an unforgettable novel about found family, healing, and the power of the past to reshape the present.

Thirty-four-year-old writer Audrey Beacon is grieving alone during lockdown when a post about a bookshop for sale in upstate New York pops into her social media feed like a lifeline. Enthralled by the historic house and the massive barn bursting with books, Audrey impulsively makes an offer. Soon, she’s cashing out her savings, loading her possessions into her dead husband’s van, and fleeing Manhattan for the village of Schuywich, determined to outrun the ghosts of her past.

In 1956, it’s love at first sight when Schuywich librarian Hazel McIntyre meets dashing magazine writer Evelyn Cabot at a summer camp in Maine that discreetly promises a “different vacation for professional women.” By summer’s end, Evelyn has left Greenwich Village to move into an old farmhouse she’s bought in Hazel’s hometown. In her new column, “A Woman’s Place,” Evelyn writes about her adventures renovating a house, tending to sheep, and opening a bookshop in her barn with help from the woman readers know only as her “roommate.” Privately, Hazel chronicles their six-decade love story in a series of letters that abruptly end when they’re forced to abandon the bookshop in 2015.

Reopening the bookshop in the summer of 2020 attracts a quirky community of villagers who continuously interrupt Audrey’s solitude: An unemployed Broadway set designer. An ambitious teenage entrepreneur. A story-telling Adirondack grandmother. Then there’s Sam Rensselaer, the distractingly handsome representative of the agriculture extension. Past and present begin to converge when Audrey finds “A Woman’s Place,” in a stack of old magazines, but it’s the discovery of Hazel’s letters that brings hidden love and long-buried family secrets to light. Will Audrey find the courage to heal the wounds of the past—including her own?

Visit Kim van Alkemade's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Data Are Made, Not Found"

New from the University of Chicago Press: Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census by danah boyd.

About the book, from the publisher:

An eye-opening story of the people who make the census, the United States’ largest and most consequential dataset, and the growing threats to their crucial work.

By many measures, the US census is the government’s largest non-wartime operation, and one of the world’s oldest and biggest data-making endeavors. The 2020 census required more than a decade of planning and technical work―not to mention managing nearly a quarter of a million temporary workers simultaneously―to collect data about the American public. That data was then processed to count each of 331,449,281 residents once―and only once―and in the right place. The operation is also one of the country’s most consequential. Census data determine how political power and federal funding are allocated. Census data make politics, and consequently, politics make census data. In this urgent book, danah boyd explores what it took for the Census Bureau to make the 2020 census, amidst a global pandemic and natural disasters, and while navigating political forces that constrained the budget, micro-managed the schedule, and attacked statisticians’ methods.

With rare insider access to the Census Bureau, boyd observed and interviewed hundreds of government civil servants who made the 2020 census. By documenting the perspectives of government workers, Data Are Made, Not Found provides a rare glimpse into what it takes to make democracy’s data. Each chapter reveals a different challenge―ranging from the last-minute fights about a citizenship question to the not-so-helpful help of well-intended stakeholders to avoid undercounts―and shows how civil servants responded to each problem, controversy, and hurdle. Boyd shows how many of the challenges that the Census Bureau faced in 2020 resulted from decades of political operatives, data users, and various stakeholders playing what boyd calls “Jenga politics,” weakening the administrative state for short-term political gains by removing support and adding more requirements.

Civil servants saved the 2020 census, but future censuses―and other data-making efforts related to elections, health, and the economy―are precarious. Boyd’s message is clear and compelling: protecting democracy means protecting the people and institutions that produce this data.

Visit danah boyd's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cold Read"

Coming November 10 from Park Row Books: The Cold Read: A Novel by Tara Laskowski.

About the novel, from the publisher:

They're there to make a sequel. But someone came for revenge.

A decade ago, the release of the horror film No One Can Hear You Scream catapulted a young no-name cast into Hollywood fame. But below the surface, they were dealing with the fallout of their friend’s tragic death on set.

Now the cast is reuniting at the remote ski resort where the movie was filmed to announce the sequel and get a first glimpse of the screenplay. Cassidy, Jake, Ben, and Ruby—they’ve all followed different paths over the years, and each has their own reason for agreeing to return to a place they had sworn to leave behind.

At first everyone works hard to ignore the shadows of the past and focus on the opportunity ahead. But the reunion takes a dark turn during the midnight announcement to fans when a disturbing incident stirs up a long-buried secret.

Each of them has something to lose. Each of them has something to hide. And if they want to survive the weekend, they'll have to deliver the performance of a lifetime…

Visit Tara Laskowski's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Mother Next Door.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Persecuted: Why We Need Scapegoats"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: Persecuted: Why We Need Scapegoats by Jack Lule.

About the book, from the publisher:

The making of the modern scapegoat.

Who gets blamed when societies feel under threat and why? In Persecuted, journalism scholar Jack Lule examines the deep roots of scapegoating as essential to human society. Scapegoating helps explain how and why people unite, shaping the ways groups define belonging, exclusion, and collective identity.

Drawing on the work of Kenneth Burke and René Girard, Lule argues that scapegoating is not a social malfunction but a core mechanism through which communities are formed. Nations rely on scapegoating to draw boundaries between "us" and "them." What makes the modern era especially volatile, he contends, is the role of media―from early messengers and newspapers to contemporary social platforms―in manufacturing crises, amplifying accusations, identifying targets, and accelerating cycles of blame. Moving fluidly across history, theory, and contemporary politics, the book shows how media systems have increased the reach, speed, and intensity of scapegoating, often transforming local resentments into global networks of hate and hostility. Lule presents a sober analysis of how scapegoating persists precisely because it feels natural, justified, and invisible to those participating in it.

Persecuted is a concise, unsettling exploration of a process that underlies nationalism, moral panics, and political polarization. Its hope―tentative but urgent―is that recognizing the recurring power of scapegoating may help readers identify it in real time and resist its most destructive consequences.

Visit Jack Lule's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Him & I"

Coming November 10 from Montlake: Him & I by Helena Hunting.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In a searing, dark love story steeped in grit, obsession, and secrets, two broken souls keep coming back together―no matter how much they tear each other apart.

Birdie Fast is thriving, with two degrees, a stable fiancé, and her dream job. Her mistakes are in the past, and she’s determined to keep them there.

Jarrod Storm, Birdie’s new CEO, is the man who destroyed her life and stole everything from her. Grown rich and powerful, he’s spent years waiting for her in the shadows.

Now, he wants her back.

Birdie loathes him, but she can’t deny how he makes her feel: safe. He’s the only one who’s ever truly seen her.

If there’s anything Birdie has learned, it’s to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Because you’re never truly safe with a past like hers.

Visit Helena Hunting's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything Is Broken"

New from the University of California Press: Everything Is Broken: Childcare and Inequality in the United States by Jennifer Woltil Bouek.

About the book, from the publisher:

In the United States, childcare is presented in law and policy as a matter of "parental choice." Mothers, however, experience it differently. Instead of empowering families, childcare today often functions as an "invisible system" or a missing market―and one in which mothers find few good options. Yet because most mothers are also employed, they must still find a way to make do.

Based on years of ethnographic and administrative research, sociologist Jennifer Woltil Bouek explores how mothers search for, secure, and maintain care for their children within this complex organizational field―and the heavy costs they bear in the process. Her work illustrates just how the American childcare system sorts and stratifies, leading to disparate (and sometimes surprising) outcomes. Grounded in personal narratives drawn from a diverse sample of mothers, childcare providers, bureaucrats, and policy advocates, Everything Is Broken tells a striking story of access and exclusion from the inside out.

Visit Jennifer Bouek's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"You, Me, & the Conspiracy"

Coming November 10 from Atria Books: You, Me, & the Conspiracy: A Novel by Emma Barry.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Perfect for fans of Jo Segura and Rachel Grant, You, Me, & the Conspiracy is an academic adventure romance that finds two history professors trying to unmask a deadly secret society.

After a bruising book rejection, tenure-track history professor Jessica Wilson is scrambling for something new to publish to secure her spot at the top of the academic food chain. While researching in the archives, she discovers a coded message written by one of the founding fathers with the power to change her—and the world’s—understanding of American history forever. But first, she’s got to prove it’s real.

Desperate for answers, Jess searches out Calloway Morgan, a Harvard PhD student turned adjunct professor. Cal was forced to leave graduate school after presenting theories about a shadowy revolutionary organization. Jess heard his conference presentation and thought his findings were absurd, but now, she believes he was onto something.

With their fates intertwined by their discoveries, the two begin to work together, but danger lurks around every corner. The clandestine fraternity that they’ve uncovered still exists and is ready to kill. With it hot on their heels, the embers of Jess and Cal’s attraction grow. But unless they can make their findings public in this “perfect blend of chemistry, spice, and a historical mystery” (Adriana Anders, author of Whiteout), they’ll soon become the conspiracy’s latest victims...

Visit Emma Barry's website.

My Book, The Movie: Bad Reputation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Penelope and Her Maids"

New from Cornell University Press: Penelope and Her Maids by Emily G. Shanahan.

About the book, from the publisher:

Penelope and Her Maids reconsiders the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. Her decisions have long been considered to be the product of a fractured characterization, with no coherent human psychology possibly explaining everything she says and does. Emily Shanahan investigates this characterization, and all of Penelope's decisions, in context, reading each one of her scenes diachronically. In doing so, Penelope and Her Maids reveals how the pervasive threat of gendered violence in homeric society―a rape culture―constrains what Penelope may say and do openly.

The suitors attempt to fill a power vacuum in Odysseus's absence―by either marrying his wife, Penelope, or alternatively, diminishing his honor, geras, which includes the value of his possessions. As Penelope is an asset in his ledger, the only way to stay safe is to lead the suitors to believe she may become theirs at any moment. Penelope ultimately survives the Odyssey's violence. However, twelve young, enslaved girls in her home do not and ultimately demonstrate the inherent danger that men pose to women in Homer's world.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dark Accords"

Coming November 3 from Severn House: Dark Accords (A Bloody Mackenzie Mystery, 1) by Morgan Cry.

About the novel, from the publisher:

SOMETHING EVIL IS AFOOT . . .

A COUNTRY ABLAZE WITH FEAR

Scotland, 1662. Accused of witchcraft, Jonet and her lover Malcolm flee across a land ruled by fear and superstition. Their path through the Scottish mainland holds peril and an unexpected rescue mission.

A WOMAN IN DANGER

Reaching Dundee they’re granted sanctuary by Sir George Mackenzie, a smart advocate who has defended witches, only to find him facing a crisis of his own. His secret lover Margaret has been abducted by his nemeses, the unscrupulous Blair brothers, and they are claiming she’s a witch!

A MURDEROUS PLOT IN THE MAKING

Is this personal revenge on Sir George or are darker machinations at play? With time running out, Sir George and his loyal allies set out to uncover the chilling truth – a truth that could alter the course of history in its entirety . . .

An intricately plotted and twisty historical thriller based on the real-life seventeenth-century lawyer Sir George Mackenzie – perfect for fans of S. J. PARRIS, ANDREW TAYLOR and JOHN PILKINGTON.

Visit Morgan Cry / Gordon J. Brown's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Future Build"

New from Bloomsbury Sigma: Future Build: How Construction Can Heal Our Planet by Will Arnold.

About the book, from the publisher:

Future Build exposes the devastating environmental impact of modern construction while offering a bold vision for change.

Construction shapes the world we live in, but also leaves one of the heaviest footprints on our planet. From the relentless heat of cement kilns to the towering steel and concrete skeletons of our cities, Future Build reveals how our dependence on five key materials has led to soaring carbon emissions, waste and ecological destruction.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Structural engineer Will Arnold offers a bold vision for change, revealing how every stage of construction - from design to demolition - can be transformed for the better. Through a global journey of pioneering projects and groundbreaking innovations, he showcases buildings that do more than just minimize harm: they actively heal the planet. From schools built of bamboo, to concrete floors designed with plant-like efficiency and houses made from waste, a better future is not only possible, it is already being built.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Treachery of Curses"

Coming November 17 from 47North: A Treachery of Curses (A Treason of Magic) by Melissa Marr.

About the book, from the publisher:

Destiny, love, and duty collide when a Hunter-in-Training must choose between the prince who stole her heart and her duty to protect against the faery realm in this lush historical fantasy by New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr.

I am the Hunter-in-Training, waiting for a fate I do not want to ever inherit.

Rylan Fleuriste comes from a lineage of noble ancestors who’ve safeguarded their lands from monsters. Her duty is to the Hunters. There is no room for heart-mates―no matter the strength of her passion for the crown prince Alaric or the beautiful Anders.

But when Anders is murdered―the second woman to die under the strangest of circumstances―Rylan’s mission becomes personal. And with the Hunter line at risk, Rylan is forced to secure an arranged marriage to continue the line should the beast lurking in the realm defeat her.

As more victims are killed and the palace itself comes under siege, Rylan is plunged into a battle against evil. Now she must choose between a love she has longed for and her duty to the Fleuriste line. Each choice could come with a risk.

Visit Melissa Marr's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Treason of Magic.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Bread: A History"

New from University of California Press: American Bread: A History by Andrew Coe.

About the book, from the publisher:

A fascinating window into America's past via one of our favorite foods.

There is no humbler food than bread, none easier to take for granted. So ancient that it shows up in prehistoric sites, bread is still full of surprises. Heirloom grains and artisan loaves fetch top dollar, while home bakers pour their passion into naan and challah, anadama and pistolet.

In this book, award-winning author Andrew Coe provides the definitive history of American bread, from European settlers' introduction to corn through the COVID-era sourdough craze. Each chapter follows an emblematic loaf that connects flour, water, salt, and yeast to the evolving story of American agriculture, industry, immigration, and ideas about health.

Why did supermarket white become America's dominant bread, and how did rustic old-world bagels, ryes, and rolls find their way into our kitchens? Who was the early nineteenth-century dietary reformer who started the whole-grain revolution? Why not knead? An enriching and enlightening cultural chronicle, American Bread answers these questions and more and offers carefully sourced historical recipes to inspire the home baker.

Follow Andrew Coe on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Falling for a Villainous Vampire"

New from St. Martin's Griffin: Falling for a Villainous Vampire: A Novel by Charlotte Stein.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The third standalone in Charlotte Stein's Sanctuary for Supernatural Creatures series, featuring a blood-pumping enemies-to-lovers romance for the ages!

Marley Maples is sure she's finally evaded her vampire mortal enemy. Halsten has stalked her across oceans of time, and many, many lives. But now she's arrived at the age of thirty in Hollow Brook, with no sign of him. So she’s devastated when he suddenly shows and yet again tries to make her life hell. Until her two witchy best friends suggest a spell to make him forget all about her.

There’s just one issue: he forgets his whole existence with it. All Halsten now remembers is being a big, hot, vampire Viking. And all he sees when he looks at Marley is his beloved little witch, his saviour, the light of his life. He goes from being a horror that haunts her nightmares, to a man who loves her and will protect her at all costs. And as much as she’s skeptical, she can’t help finding his fish-out-of-water, warrior ways and his desire to defend her endearing.

Maybe even a little sexy. In fact, it’s starting feel very sexy indeed.

And if she’s not careful, she’s going to lose herself to a man she swore to hate. A man who might return to her eternal enemy, at any moment…

Visit Charlotte Stein's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Novel Constitutions and the Making of Race"

New from Oxford University Press: Novel Constitutions and the Making of Race: A Literary and Legal History of Slavery in the Anglophone Atlantic, 1688-1818 by Sarah Marsh.

About the book, from the publisher:

Novel Constitutions and the Making of Race argues that Anglo-American racial slavery emerged from a constitutional crisis in seventeenth-century England between divine-right absolutism of the Stuart kings, and their people's claims to an 'ancient constitution': an immemorial, heritable protection of life, liberty, and property under the common law. As Stuart imperial expansion transported these conflicts overseas, Crown jurists and colonial lawmakers developed new procedures for the absolute mastery of human labour that severed kinship ties, alienated labour, and ultimately converted people of African descent into perpetual, inheritable property, while simultaneously transforming some English subjects into colonial slavocrats. These English slaveholders, like the Stuart kings, asserted absolute power over their human subjects.

Sarah Marsh argues that contemporary racial categories in the United States of America took shape through these legal improvisations, which this study names 'novel constitutions': practices that inserted absolutist power into the very constitutional idioms meant to restrain tyranny, turning an old set of English constitutional safeguards into a rationale for owning human beings, and setting that rationale upon the arbitrary logic of human skin colour.

Early modern literary texts are essential to perceiving this history because, in real time, they recorded this constitutional contest between the rights of the king and the rights of the people. Novels, autobiographies, petitions, and even mathematics disclose the moral drama, political conflict, and spiritual struggle through which modern American conceptions of slavery and antislavery were brought into being--often showing, with unmatched nuance, how race was developed at law, challenged, and ultimately exposed as a legal fiction. Reading these texts alongside statutes, slave codes, charters, and landmark legal decisions, Novel Constitutions reframes slavery and antislavery as competing constitutional impulses that shaped the American founding and continue to inflect its unfinished claims to liberty and equality.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dark Country"

New from Grand Central Publishing: Dark Country by Adam Plantinga.

About the book, from the publisher:

Argento finds himself shielding a teenage boy caught up in a manhunt in this explosive installment of the Kurt Argento series, from USA Today bestselling author, Adam Plantinga.

After the bloodshed in Fenton, Arizona, former Detroit cop Kurt Argento had to disappear. He reemerges in the small town of Barton, South Dakota, working under an assumed name as a church handyman. It’s a serene existence of tending to the church grounds and avoiding questions. Until he meets seventeen-year-old Majed, a Syrian refugee trying to build a life in Barton with his single mother, as he’s running for his life.

Two men with hard eyes are close behind. Argento steps in, and Majed’s pursuers retreat with a thin excuse about a stolen wallet. It’s a story Argento doesn’t buy for a second. Digging deeper, he uncovers something far more lethal than a street-level shakedown. Majed isn’t just in trouble―he’s a target. And the hunters are closing in.

To safeguard Majed, Argento hits the road with the boy, pushing west. And along the way it becomes clear that whatever Majed knows―or carries―someone powerful wants it and will kill to get it. But Argento can’t let that happen. Because he’s made a promise. Protect the boy. Or die trying.

Visit Adam Plantinga's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Ascent.

Q&A with Adam Plantinga.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shakespeare and Work"

New from Oxford University Press: Shakespeare and Work by Michelle M. Dowd.

About the book, from the publisher:

What did work mean to Shakespeare? And what does it mean to work in Shakespeare's plays? Work was a quintessential part of early modern society, as it is today. But the meanings attached to different forms of work were changing in important ways during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Developments such as the enclosure movement, the growth of venture capitalism, and the diversification of the wage-labour market transformed England's labour economy and helped reshape the everyday lives of men and women in both rural and urban communities. These socio-economic shifts had a direct effect on the professional theatres of Shakespeare's day. The world of work, including the people at all social levels who performed it, was vital to Shakespeare's drama, both because the theatre was a highly successful business enterprise in its own right and because work significantly influences the plots, language, and structures of Shakespeare's plays throughout his career.

Shakespeare and Work introduces readers to the rich working world of Shakespeare's plays. Opening chapters provide an overview of working conditions in Shakespeare's England and in the theatre and discuss Shakespeare's own practices as a working playwright. Subsequent chapters examine a range of plays from multiple genres, including Twelfth Night, Othello, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour's Lost, Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, 2 Henry VI, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and consider several types of work that are either staged directly (such as service) or, more frequently, alluded to (such as agricultural work). Offering an accessible and wide-ranging account of how Shakespeare engaged with the working world around him, Shakespeare and Work demonstrates that we can come to a richer understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic output and cultural legacy if we attend to how the everyday world of work shapes both the action and the language of his plays.

--Marshal Zeringue

"On the Killer's Trail"

Coming November 17 from Crooked Lane: On the Killer's Trail: A Novel by Alice Openshaw.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A police sergeant investigates the murder of a victim whose life seems eerily similar to her own, perfect for fans of The God of the Woods and Heartwood.

An ordinary wife and mother. A small, idyllic New England town. A crime that shatters the public image.

Thirty-one-year-old Police Sergeant Penny Maclean has fallen into a routine at work. Speaking at school assemblies, chasing runaway dogs—it’s all beginning to feel stale. So when the popular wife of a local doctor is found dead on Halloween night, Penny jumps at the chance to investigate.

But the more she knows, the more unsettled she becomes. She and the murdered woman have a lot in common; they even share a love of rural life and animals. Still, unremarkable as the victim’s life appears at first glance, Penny can’t shake the feeling that the woman had a secret. After all, Penny has her own complicated past.

As she hunts the killer, Penny unearths secrets that pull her into the dark side of rural Maine. She only knows one thing for certain—she must discover the truth before the chain of violence claims another victim.

Visit Alice Openshaw's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ordinary Sites"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Ordinary Sites: Student Resistance and the 1970s Texas School Desegregation Struggle by ArCasia D. James-Gallaway.

About the book, from the publisher:

For nearly a century, legal battles over school desegregation have attracted significant attention. What desegregation meant for the day-to-day lives of Black precollegiate students, however, has remained marginal in this larger narrative. Focusing on the “ordinary” Southern town of Waco, Texas, Ordinary Sites uncovers how the lives of Waco’s Black students changed after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.

ArCasia D. James-Gallaway makes a compelling contribution to education history by showing how Waco’s Black students reckoned with white supremacy and exercised agency as they navigated the implementation of school desegregation in the 1970s. Drawing on extensive original oral history research to reconstruct how Blackness, gender, and class differentiated these students' experiences, Ordinary Sites adds complexity and texture to historical accounts of school desegregation. In other words, James-Gallaway uncovers what has been hiding in plain sight. She introduces new methods for exploring Black geographies and theorizes desegregation as a racialized conflict over space, showing how Waco’s Black students resisted antiBlackness in the hostile spatial environments of desegregated schools.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Bones of Jade, Flesh Like Ice"

New from Viking: Bones of Jade, Flesh Like Ice: A Novel by Gracie Marsden.

About the book, from the pubisher:

A young woman makes a bargain with a shapeshifting demon who promises her power, if she will give up love—a painful price that sets her on a dark journey in this historical fantasy inspired by Taiwanese myth

Eleventh century Kangzhu. In a small village, far from the political conflicts of the royal dynasty, a too-young Yu’er is sold off to be married at the word of a jing, a shapeshifting-demon who prophesizes that her parents will thus gain wealth beyond their imagination. Her new husband Xiaozhu is, like her, barely more than a child himself—but he’s kind, and, over the years, Yu’er heals as they build a home together. They become allies, then friends, then lovers.

Until misfortune befalls them, once again at the hands of a demon. They’re left destitute and estranged. Reeling from loss, and determined to never leave her fate in another’s hands, Yu’er decides to strike her own bargain with a jing: she will have all the agency and riches she desires. She just has to leave Xiaozhu and their home together, forever—a price that will cost her more than she then understands.

Yu’er’s choice sets off a saga that will lead her to the heart of the royal court, and bring her more power than she ever dreamed of, but may kill her humanity along the way, in this sweeping tale of love, revenge, and redemption.

Visit Gracie Marsden's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Family"

New from Pegasus Books: Family: How the Human Need for Connection Forms and Shapes Our Lives by Meredith F. Small.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the acclaimed author of Our Babies, Ourselves comes an illuminating and thought-provoking look at the nature of family across time and cultures.

Family is the most ubiquitous and persistent human social group. Everyone across the world has a family, even if that family has been lost, broken, or transformed. Acclaimed anthropologist Meredith Small, author of Our Babies, Ourselves, examines the very roots of the family and why this particular type of connection is the bedrock of human interaction in all cultures—and how this understanding can help us navigate our rapidly changing world.

Previous books about family are self-help books designed to start, build, or repair broken families. Family: How the Human Need for Belonging Shapes Our Lives is something different. Why do we form families? Why do people place such importance on their family relationships? And what is the reality of family life—does it live up to our expectations? What do families provide for each of us at all the stages of our lives?

Small takes the reader on a journey from the evolutionary roots and fossil evidence of family three million years ago to its present-day varied expression. Across the globe, various forms of marriage, parenting, and types of family differ from the Western template of a family of Mom+Dad+kids. People have always adapted the notion of family to their own worldview, religious beliefs, and economic necessities.

In a narrative that is both sweeping and intimate in scale, we see how family is not a fixed notion, but something has evolved with us as a species, from our days as hunter-gatherers to the establishment of agriculture, and later, cities. Family is as varied as the human experience itself. Illuminating and thought-provoking, Family shows how our innately human need for belonging can be drawn upon to navigate the uncertainties of today's world.

Visit Meredith F. Small's website.

The Page 99 Test: Inventing the World.

--Marshal Zeringue

'The Lost Kingdom of Daughters"

New from Lake Union: The Lost Kingdom of Daughters: A Novel by Weina Dai Randel.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In a distant matriarchal land, a woman’s passions for two American brothers spell love and lust, jealousy and betrayal, in a suspenseful historical novel by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Last Rose of Shanghai.

1950s China. In a land of misty hot springs and star-kissed hills lives Lazo, a woman of the Moso people, who follow a matriarchal tradition where women freely choose their lovers and marriage doesn’t exist. Lazo, beautiful and free-spirited, longs to become a mother.

When two brothers, Noah and Adam Starlings, arrive stranded and starving, they are met with Lazo’s generosity. Adam, a charming artist with a restless heart, is intrigued by the no-marriage custom, but Noah, a physician with a traumatic past, values fidelity above all. As the brothers attempt to make sense of a world where men hold little power, they grow attracted to Lazo, deepening their fraught relationships, even as jealousy, betrayal, and a buried secret threaten to destroy them―and the lives of a generation to come.

Weaving in a multigenerational quest for the truth, this rare novel conjures a spellbinding story of freedom and forgiveness, breathing life into a vanishing culture while charting an inevitable clash between tradition and modernity.

Visit Weina Dai Randel's website.

Q&A with Weina Dai Randel.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Rediscovering Homer"

New from Cambridge University Press: Rediscovering Homer: The Human Experience in the Odyssey and the Iliad by Michael B. Cosmopoulos.

About the book, from the publisher:

A timeless tale of a heroic character's journey through life, Homer's Odyssey has captured the imagination of readers from antiquity to the present day. Michael Cosmopoulos approaches this epic, together with the Iliad, not as remote works of literature, but as a living record of human experience shaped by war, loss, memory, and survival. He offers a poignant exploration of the aspects and consequences of war as captured in the Odyssey, including trauma, leadership and politics, human relations, religion and fate, and the struggle to return home and rebuild after upheaval. Cosmopoulos also situates both the Iliad and the Odyssey within the social conditions and the material realities of Greek society during the Aegean Bronze Age. Based on decades of archaeological field work and study of classical antiquity, and written in an accessible style, his book powerfully demonstrates how the poetry of ancient Greece preserves collective memory across the generations – and why these poems still speak to modern readers.

Visit Michael B. Cosmopoulos's website.

--Marshal Zeringue