"Play It Again"

New from Dial Press: Play It Again: A Novel by Georgia Clark.

About the book, from the publisher:

When four former theater kids reunite after twenty years, forgotten crushes, unresolved tension, and fresh chemistry steal the spotlight in this charming queer ensemble rom-com.

Love always deserves an encore.

As teens, Annie, Lola, Vicky, and Dylan stole the show in a legendary gender-swapped version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Two couples, one unforgettable summer—until the closing-night party tore them apart, and not all of them knew why.

Now, with lives that look nothing like they imagined, the foursome is called home by their beloved director for a one-night-only revival to save the theater and the town. Returning to Rhodes means facing everything they left behind: long-buried secrets, undeniable chemistry, and the chance to write a brand-new ending—together.

Brimming with nostalgia, wit, and small-town sparkle, Play It Again is a heartwarming story of first love, second chances, and the magic of finding your way back to the stage—and to the ones who knew you best.

Visit Georgia Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bucket List.

The Page 69 Test: The Bucket List.

Writers Read: Georgia Clark (August 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us by Roy A. Meals.

About the book, from the publisher:

A lively tour through the biology, health, human performance, and popular culture of our bodies' essential connective tissue.

Ligaments are the quiet workhorses of the human body. They anchor our bones, guide our movements, and protect our joints—yet they remain largely unseen and misunderstood. In Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands that Bind Us, orthopedic surgeon and acclaimed science writer Roy A. Meals explores anatomy, biology, history, health, human performance, and popular culture to unlock the mysteries of ligaments. Completing a trilogy that began with Bones and Muscle, this richly illustrated volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the anatomy, history, injuries, and cultural relevance of ligaments.

These bone-to-bone connectors are the critical linking mechanisms that allow our muscles to produce purposeful movement. Dr. Meals explains how ligaments stabilize the skeleton like hinge pins on a door, resist the forces of gravity in the face and breasts, and contribute to feats of athleticism, contortion, and childbirth. Readers will learn how ligaments are stronger than steel, how they recover from injury (or fail to), and how they can be stretched, stiffened, or surgically replaced. He also clarifies the differences among ligaments, tendons, and fascia, and why some people are "double-jointed" and others are not. Covering current and emerging treatments for ligament injuries, including artificial and engineered ligaments, the book provides practical insights into maintaining joint stability and flexibility across the lifetime.

Whether examining career-ending sports injuries, congenital laxity, or the elasticity of the vocal cords, Dr. Meals builds a case for why ligaments deserve center stage in our understanding of movement and health.

Visit Roy A. Meals's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"How We See the Gray"

New from Curbstone Books: How We See the Gray: A Novel by Rachel León.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riveting story about parenthood, substance abuse, and the strength it takes to come back from our mistakes

Foster care is a disaster in Rockford, Illinois. Meredith, a social worker and single mom, is stretched beyond thin but determined to protect her kids: not only her son, but those on her caseload too. When the stress of the job has her breaking her sobriety, the foundations of her life begin to tremble. After drinking too much, she makes a mistake that puts her preschooler in jeopardy, and Meredith finds herself in a situation that mirrors her clients’ as she loses custody of her son. In her fight to get him back, Meredith experiences the system from the outside―while still working for the kids inside of it. Set over the course of a year, this riveting documentary-esque novel is told from multiple perspectives, including those of case workers, birth parents, foster parents, and foster children. Written with the working-class humor and heart that defines the Midwest, How We See the Gray is a story about mistakes, second chances, and trying to do better in a system that seems doomed to fail.

Visit Rachel León's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What's So Great About the Great Books?"

New from Princeton University Press: What's So Great About the Great Books?: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It Might Destroy You) by Naomi Kanakia.

About the book, from the publisher:

A popular novelist and literary blogger answers those who claim the classics are too difficult, too problematic, and too white—and explains what we gain by reading them

When she was in her early twenties, then-aspiring writer Naomi Kanakia set out to read the Great Books—humankind’s most highly regarded literary classics, representing “the best that human beings have thought or said,” as determined by the two elderly intellectuals who’d written the guidebook she consulted. After twenty years, she has made her way through about two-thirds of these books, and she’s found reading them to be an immensely pleasurable and insightful activity. Plato, Milton, Tolstoy, Proust, all those dead guys—their books have stood the test of time.

But since beginning her journey, Kanakia has found that although reading the Great Books is part of a longstanding tradition of engaging with the thought of previous generations, it is also a highly contingent activity that arose out of a specific time and place, the brainchild of a small group of early twentieth-century popularizers associated with Columbia University and the University of Chicago. And people have always been skeptical about the idea of reading the Great Books, asking if this is truly a realistic or even desirable goal for the ordinary person. A more recent and growing group of Great Books skeptics asks if these works are too problematic, reactionary, and irrelevant to bother reading. Kanakia, a self-described “left-of-center person,” grapples with these objections, attempting to restore context for the Great Books even as she sticks up for them. Because books that expose us to fundamental truths about the nature of beauty and reality are worth fighting for.

Visit Naomi Kanakia's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Midsummer Nights"

Coming soon from Lake Union: Midsummer Nights: A Novel by Lara Stokes.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Life imitates art when a down-on-her-luck TV star returns to her hometown stage and redefines her dreams in a funny and heartwarming spin on Shakespeare’s most magical romantic comedy.

Miranda Belmont is a regular on a popular TV series, but her acting career is not exactly moving forward. After she’s publicly humbled, her next steps are definitely backward: playing Helena in a community theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in her stifling hometown, directed by her parents, and sharing the stage with her high school boyfriend.

Backstage, it’s borderline Shakespearean drama. Between her ex, an intriguing costar making sweet overtures, and an unwelcome blast from the past, Miranda is caught in a real-life, nearly magical tangle of romantic confusion that threatens the production at every turn.

Opening night will bring them all down to earth―especially Miranda, who’s navigating her way, onstage and off, through all the chaos these mere mortals create. As she reconnects to her roots, the creative spark she’s been missing awakens Miranda to who she truly is.

Visit Lara Stokes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Red Italians of Monfalcone"

New from the University of Wisconsin Press: The Red Italians of Monfalcone: Everyday Fascism, Communist Horizons, and the Migration of an Italian Border Community Beyond the Iron Curtain by Luke Gramith.

About the book, from the publisher:

Between 1946 and 1948, roughly five thousand ethnic Italians from the northern Adriatic shipbuilding town of Monfalcone relocated to the newly communist Yugoslavia. This rare case of eastward Cold War migration demonstrates how ordinary people conceived of liberation during the transitional years between World War II and the early Cold War―a time when Monfalcone was both the object of competing Italian and Yugoslav territorial claims and the subject of Anglo-American military occupation.

In The Red Italians of Monfalcone, Luke Gramith undertakes a deep and detailed analysis―based on archival sources in Italy, Slovenia, and the United States―of how the Monfalconesi came to understand Fascism and communism through everyday experience and how those emergent ideologies affected and were affected by their migration. In the course of his analysis, Gramith also examines the failure of “defascistization” and how it fueled strong (but ultimately unsuccessful) pro-Yugoslav and communist movements.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Open Era"

New from Berkley: The Open Era by Edward Schmit.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Love evens the score between two tennis players in this stunning debut romance.

Recently-turned-pro tennis player Austin Hardy has been out since high school and it’s never been a big deal. That is, until he becomes the first openly gay man to compete in a Grand Slam tournament. Suddenly, being gay is a huge deal, with headlines to prove it.

Unprepared for this new spotlight, Austin’s anxiety disorder hits a breaking point, and he trips and falls at practice. Right next to the very attractive, very talented, and probably straight Diego Cruz, ranked second in the world.

The two professional rivals start a friendship off the court. But between their flirty banter, mixed signals, and looming showdown, Austin is thrown further off his game by Diego.

With the eyes of the world on Austin, the weight of history on his shoulders, and Diego across the net, he must decide whether love means nothing or if it means everything as he battles for the trophy during an electric two weeks at the US Open.

Visit Edward Schmit's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Crimes of Others"

New from Oxford University Press: The Crimes of Others: Criminal Records, Publicity, and Crimes of Abuse by Katerina Hadjimatheou.

About the book, from the publisher:

Do we have a right to know about each other's criminal past? And if so, just how publicly accessible should criminal records be? Does publicity serve an important purpose in fulfilling the public's right to know about who amongst their fellow citizens is dangerous or has violated collective moral norms? Does it provide transparency in criminal justice, the just punishment of the guilty, and the protection of the vulnerable from serial perpetrators? Or does it stigmatize people as dangerous or untrustworthy for life, so that those who have made mistakes in the past are still paying for them long after they have served their time? How should we design our laws and policies to reconcile or balance these apparently competing demands of (criminal) justice?

The Crimes of Others: Criminal Records, Publicity, and Abuse draws on philosophical and legal theory as well as new empirical evidence about the impacts of criminal records to address these questions. Katerina Hadjimatheou argues that there is no general right of citizens to know about each other's criminal records; instead, there are limited rights to know, which differ according to the status or role of the person claiming such a right, the nature of the crime in question, and the purpose for which the right is asserted. Notably, the book asserts that disclosures of criminal records to prevent harm are often justified when the risk relates to predatory crimes and crimes of abuse. The reasons relate to the distinctive features of such crimes, in particular their serial nature, the widespread impunity with which they are committed, and the special role of secrecy, lies, and silencing in their perpetration.

The Crimes of Others offers the first rigorous and systematic analysis of the normative aspects of public access to criminal records, providing a coherent set of criteria for the disclosure of criminal records that can be drawn upon to answer the question: when, to whom, and on what grounds should different kinds of information about the criminality of others be available? In doing so, it lays the groundwork for fairer and more effective policies and practices for a digital age.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Nemesis Mine"

Coming soon from Harper Voyager: Nemesis Mine: A Romance of Nemeses to Lovers by Amy Archer.

About the book, from the publisher:

A not-so-evil villain strikes a deal with a not-quite-perfect hero to fake a feud, boost their reputations . . . and try not to fall in love in the process—in this hilarious, tender, sexy, and outrageously fun romp that blends the humor of Assistant to the Villain with the unforgettable romance of Heated Rivalry and the cozy fantasy vibes of Legends & Lattes.

Fake nemeses. It’s a dastardly plan that can’t go wrong… until love crashes the act.

Nobody is more surprised than Cyrus to learn that he’s no longer considered the greatest villain in the land of Athaca. Sure, he’s lying about the fact that his magical power is making flowers grow. And maybe lately he’s spent more time embroidering pillowcases than tormenting the locals. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to be yesterday’s evil news.

Enter the hero Maximillian: the realm’s golden boy, complete with a blinding smile, chiseled abs, and an infuriating habit of spreading hope and joy. (Gross.) If Cyrus wants to be taken seriously, he’ll have to take this guy down.

But Maximillian isn’t quite as perfect as he seems. When he proposes a scheme to fake an epic rivalry and increase their fame, Cyrus can’t resist. Stage the battles, soak up the spotlight, share the spoils—it’s a villainously good marketing plan.

There’s just one hitch. Pretending to hate your nemesis becomes a lot harder when you start falling for them instead.

Follow Amy Archer on Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Agents of Survivance"

New from the University of Nebraska Press: Agents of Survivance: Indigenous Women Teachers in the Boarding School Era by Anne Ruggles Gere.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Agents of Survivance Anne Ruggles Gere complicates and enriches established accounts of the Indian boarding school era and what preceded it by looking closely at the largely ignored Indigenous women teachers in these schools. Focusing on Sarah Winnemucca, S. Alice Callahan, Angel DeCora, and Ella Deloria, Gere shows how these and many other Indian women teachers subversively resisted assimilation with tribal presence, relationality, connection to land, rejection of victimhood, and maintenance of cultural traditions, art, and languages. Their vulnerable positions in schools directed by Euro-Americans necessitated that their contributions be subversive, nearly invisible. Despite this, they developed policies and practices that were passed to Indian students who in turn became teachers of the next generation of Indian students, and many of their innovations inform contemporary movements toward sovereignty for Indian education.

Indispensable for future research, Agents of Survivance includes two appendixes drawn from Bureau of Indian Affairs records documenting dozens of Native women teachers, as well as Native women who worked in boarding schools doing laundry, kitchen work, dormitory cleaning, and sewing.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lake Club"

New from William Morrow Paperbacks: The Lake Club: A Soapy Summer Thriller Where Two Women's Obsession Uncovers a Town's Dark Secrets by Lina Patton.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Two women in a wealthy lakeside suburb clash over a cute male nanny, pulling the town’s darker secrets to the surface.

DRAMA LOVES A DEEP END

When Danika Crawley attends events at the Aldon Lakes Country Club, heads turn. Danika has it all—beauty, money, a successful husband, and two perfect children. She plans on making this summer her best season yet and has a secret weapon to secure the envy of her neighbors.

Augie Elling has lost it all. Reeling from a post-grad scandal amidst her now-former life in New York, she returns to Aldon Lakes with her tail between her legs. Augie wants to keep her head down, save money, and find a way to leave her hometown for good, but someone keeps distracting her.

Danika and Augie have one thing in common: they are both a little obsessed with Chat, the male nanny Danika hired for the summer. But, unbeknownst to either woman, Chat’s appearance in town sets off a chain reaction that threatens Aldon Lakes' carefully maintained ecosystem. As the heat rises between the three of them, the truth behind a long-buried scandal comes to light, and everyone at the club must reckon with the consequences.

The Lake Club is both an addictive, rollicking beach read, and a stylish, deft exploration of a lesser-known region of American wealth.

Visit Lina Patton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Power"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: White Power: Policing American Slavery by Gautham Rao.

About the book, from the publisher:

Beginning in the colonial era and growing through the American Revolution and the Southern plantation system, slaveholders’ violent police regime continued after Emancipation, through Reconstruction, to today. Moving across time, space, and place, White Power uncovers how slaveholders created their own white supremacist police and government to deny Black people rights, power, and humanity.

Legal historian Gautham Rao introduces us to laws that empowered white people to forcibly exercise their desired racial superiority over Black people, shows how they spread from the South throughout the nation, and traces the rebellions, fugitivity, activism, and legal systems that challenged them. Rao’s narrative includes slaveholders, lawmakers, and the Ku Klux Klan, dramatic escapes by runaway enslaved people, abolitionist activism in courtroom showdowns, and pitched battles between white paramilitaries and enslaved rebels. He offers a new interpretation of the history of policing in the US, centering the institution and legacy of slavery and speaking to the origins of today’s persistence of white vigilance, white supremacist militia groups, and white racist cops determined to maintain power over Black people by force. Equally determined, however, was Black Americans’ refusal to accept it.

Visit Gautham Rao's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Magician"

New from Roxane Gay Books: Magician by Tracy Lynne Oliver.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all—for fans of Our Share of Night and The Changeling

First, he is a Boy, born to a Mother who cannot abide his existence. Despite her torments, the Boy finds a way to survive and create a small space for himself in the world.

The Boy endures unspeakable cruelties, saved only by a mysterious magic that intervenes in moments of need: magic he learns is his to command. When he finally escapes the Mother, a beguiling circus troupe welcomes him into their family and the Boy begins to imagine a life beyond survival, one where circus lions roar and enchanted forests spiral far into the distance. For the first time, he discovers chosen family, community, and love. He eagerly apprentices under the circus’s conjurer—only to realize his gifts far outstrip his mentor’s. Thus the Boy becomes the Magician. But as ambition bends his power, a primal threat stalks, determined to destroy not just the Magician, but all he holds dear.

Echoing the fairytale cadence of Helen Oyeyemi and Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s disquieting excavation of grief and trauma, Tracy Lynne Oliver has created a spellbinding world of twisted patriarchal darkness and a powerful magic that threatens to consume everyone, including its wielder. A debut novel of uncommon accomplishment, Magician establishes its author as a new voice that will hold readers rapt.

Visit Tracy Lynne Oliver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Difference Place Makes"

New from Stanford University Press: The Difference Place Makes: Peacebuilding and Bosnia’s Arizona Market by Adam Moore.

About the book, from the publisher:

How do places shape peacebuilding interventions? Put simply, they are eventful. Geographers have long argued that places are constituted by relations with the wider world, relations that are always in flux. In this theoretically and empirically innovative book Adam Moore argues that the inverse is also true: places are generative of relations. People and institutions are constituted by their relations with places, relations that extend beyond a particular place in question itself. Drawing on relational and processual perspectives across the social sciences, Moore analyzes the effects that an infamous black market in postwar Bosnia―the Arizona market―had on peacebuilding projects and actors, and sociopolitical relations across the country more generally. Through encounters with, and narratives about, the market, the relations and politics of various actors in Bosnia at the time―from the UN to ordinary citizens―were transformed. Arizona's effects also radiated across time and space, even after it was dismantled, influencing political and social relations in Bosnia and further afield up to the present day. Bringing together scholarship in geography and peace and conflict studies, this book is a must-read for both fields and beyond.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Frank Buck: Chicago Hitman"

New from Tortoise Books: Frank Buck: Chicago Hitman by Joseph G. Peterson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Frank Buck is a fat f*ck. A slob, a middle-aged loser, he’s living in Chicagoland with his mother and collecting disability checks, drinking Svedka vodka and driving aimlessly through the nighttime city in the one thing in his life that brings him joy and freedom—a 1989 Cadillac Brougham D’Elegance.

Unfortunately he also has a talent.

His great weight, his ballast, makes him a remarkable shot with all manner of weapons. And this eventually draws him into the orbit of a local gangster and psychopath, a Polaroid-toting maniac named Rodger. In short order Frank is trapped in a seemingly endless and cartoonish routine of bloodshed and gore, a criminal Sisyphus pushing a soul-wearying boulder—or perhaps a biblical figure blundering towards an improbable Golgotha.

Joseph G. Peterson has attracted a devoted readership for his unique blend of sad and funny writing—a series of remarkable books centered around lovable losers stuck in absurdly existential situations reminiscent of both Camus and the Coen Brothers. Here he’s created perhaps his most memorable book, a pulpy reverie unlike anything you’ll ever read.

Visit Joseph G. Peterson's website.

The Page 69 Test: Beautiful Piece.

Writers Read: Joseph G. Peterson (May 2025).

The Page 69 Test: The Perturbation of O.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Radicals"

New from Yale University Press: Radicals: The Working Classes and the Making of Modern Britain by Geoff Andrews.

About the book, from the publisher:

An authoritative and original history of the working classes and the British Left

The political Left in Britain rose out of the Industrial Revolution, as the working classes emerged as the leading force in the call for social change. Their contributions extended widely to political representation, the birth of the Labour Party and women’s suffrage, the autodidact tradition in adult education, and Britain’s literary culture. Throughout subsequent decades, the working classes remained central to the British radical tradition.

Geoff Andrews traces the history of the Left and the Labour Party through the ideas of leading thinkers, writers, educationalists, trade unionists, and politicians. Ranging from the Workers Educational Association to the General Strike and the Women’s Liberation Movement, Andrews uncovers the voices of key figures. The first account of the Labour Party to put the working classes at the heart of its history, this fascinating book tells a wider story of their progressive contribution to British culture, politics, and the movements which have driven social change.

Visit Geoff Andrews's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"4 Janes"

Coming June 30 from Little A: 4 Janes: A Novel by Marian Yee.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Through time, space, and the transcendence of maternal love, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is reimagined in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong.

Jane Eyre is a missionary’s wife.

A bookseller in Vietnam.

A time traveler.

A hero in a modern gothic tale.

What if Jane’s story didn’t end with her marriage to Edward Rochester? What if she never married him at all?

In one lifetime, Jane travels to India and Burma as Mrs. St. John Rivers. In another, she’s Trang, a young woman selling books in Vietnam, vying for the love of the local priest. Yet another picks up where Brontë left her, now grieving the loss of her child and crossing time and space to find him. And finally, a young Vietnamese-American man searching for himself in Boston, a tutor whose relationship with a veteran feels strangely, achingly familiar…

Each thread tells Jane’s story in sweeping, heartbreaking shades of loss, vulnerability, yearning, and the fierce love of mother and child that withstands time and space. While she may long for something more out of a life she didn’t get to choose, she can still decide what to make of it.

Visit Marian Yee's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cherokee War of 1776"

New from Johns Hopkins University Press: The Cherokee War of 1776: Native Destruction at the Dawn of American Independence by Kevin Kokomoor.

About the book, from the publisher:

The forgotten history of the US war against the Cherokee offers a crucial reframing of America's origin story.

Americans remember 1776 as the year liberty was declared, the moment they cast off tyranny and proclaimed the self-evident truths of equality and freedom. But that same summer, as patriots celebrated their defiant new nation, American armies launched another campaign―this one aimed at destroying the Cherokee nation.

The Cherokee War of 1776 recasts America's founding moment by tracing the importance of westward ambition and settler violence to the origins of the Revolutionary War. In this gripping and sobering book, historian Kevin Kokomoor uncovers the rarely acknowledged war waged by the emerging United States against the Cherokee people just days after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Far from a spontaneous frontier skirmish, this war was a coordinated, state-backed campaign with a clear aim: seize Indigenous land and crush Native resistance. Many of the very men who championed liberty on parchment simultaneously advocated for the wholesale destruction of a sovereign Native nation.

At the heart of this story is Cherokee resistance, which was strategic, determined, and deeply rooted in community dynamics. Figures like Dragging Canoe emerged to lead a movement that endured long after American armies had burned Cherokee towns to the ground. Kokomoor foregrounds Cherokee voices, motivations, and resilience, challenging the notion that they were merely pawns in a colonial struggle and forcing us to reckon with the real costs of independence and the long fight for Indigenous sovereignty.

Visit Kevin Kokomoor's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Nantucket Second Chances"

New from Sourcebooks: Nantucket Second Chances: A Novel by Pamela Kelley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Nantucket is the perfect place for a new beginning.

Claire Shipman never imagined she'd be the single mom of a teenager, going through a contentious divorce, and unexpectedly pregnant. On the bright side, at least she's on Nantucket, where she grew up, and where her mother and grandmother welcome her home with open arms.

For years, Claire lived an enviable Manhattan lifestyle. Until her ex had a marriage-ending affair and also lost his job and all their money. Claire's high school friends invite her to their book club and an off-hand joke that she could sell one of her Hermes bags sparks a business idea.

Her friend's brother, Cody, is a furniture builder with a spare storefront. He's initially skeptical about the prospects of a "used handbag shop".

But Claire is determined. With the support of Lily, her mother, grandmother, old friends and new, she begins to build a true second chance at a new life.

Visit Pamela Kelley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Cold War Puerto Rico"

New from the University of Massachusetts Press: Cold War Puerto Rico: Anti-Communism in Washington’s Caribbean Colony by Steve Howell.

About the book, from the publisher:

A gripping history of FBI surveillance, political repression, and the fight for Puerto Rican independence

In the 1940s, with the construction of a naval base and a bombing range, Puerto Rico became a major geo-political military outpost for the United States. For a power claiming global leadership in a decolonizing world, however, the archipelago’s colonial condition underscored the dissonance between American democratic rhetoric and its imperial reality. The solution was a deal that, in 1952, gave Puerto Rico a degree of self-government without changing its legal status as an “unincorporated” US territory. The US then publicly claimed Puerto Rico was now more autonomous while using repressive tactics such as FBI surveillance, arrests, destabilization, and other methods developed in Washington to silence activists and political parties pushing for full independence.

In Cold War Puerto Rico, Steve Howell examines how J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI targeted Puerto Rican communists as part of an offensive against pro-independence parties and activists generally. Howell’s US-born father, who fell afoul of Hoover for producing radical cartoons while working in San Juan in the 1940s, remained on the FBI’s watch list long after exiling himself in Britain. His close friends, the Puerto Rican author César Andreu Iglesias and Jane Speed de Andreu, were meanwhile arrested and imprisoned three times during the 1950s. Drawing on a wealth of new sources, including interviews and FBI files, Howell tells their stories along with those of other activists who battled indictment in 1954 under the Smith Act, challenged the jurisdiction of the House Un-American Activities Committee in San Juan in 1959, and revived the Puerto Rican independence movement in the 1960s, despite the FBI deploying the covert tactics of COINTELPRO against them.

Puerto Rico is virtually invisible in histories of what is generally called McCarthyism, yet anti-communist repression was in many ways more intense there than in the mainland US. Now, with Puerto Rico’s future currently hanging in the balance, Howell’s compelling history demonstrates why we need to understand the long enforcement of its colonial status.

Visit Steve Howell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Jellyfish Problem"

New from Berkley: The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A marine biologist makes the discovery of a lifetime when called to rescue the inhabitants of a small Maine island being menaced by a giant, glowing jellyfish in this richly imagined, wholly original debut.

Dr. Jo Ness prefers jellyfish to people. Her best friend, Aldo, was the exception, but he died seven months ago. So she spends her days hidden away at an underfunded aquarium with her specimens and a draft of the jellyfish guide she and Aldo had been working on together. His voice is alive in the notes in the margins, and it’s enough. Almost.

Until she receives a call from Nadia, one of the few other humans she’s loved but whom she hasn’t heard from in years, asking for her help. Nadia tells her a grand tale of a giant jellyfish terrorizing her tiny island off the coast of Maine and sends a grainy video of the creature. Frankly, the footage looks fake, but Jo drops everything to fly across the country to see Nadia again, and to find this supposed sea beast. She couldn’t save Aldo, but perhaps she can help Nadia.

But when Jo arrives on Shattering Point, Nadia is nowhere to be found, and the islanders she meets each have something different to say about the creature they’ve dubbed Clementine ... a jellyfish who changes all who see it.

At turns an ode to classic sea monster stories and a vibrant tale of human connection, The Jellyfish Problem is an unforgettable debut that announces a new talent.

Visit Tessa Yang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri"

New from LSU Press: Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970 by Gregg Andrews.

About the book, from the publisher:

In Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri, Gregg Andrews examines the history of factory laborers in a celebrated Mississippi River town. In the late 1890s, shoe manufacturing transformed Mark Twain’s boyhood home from a steamboat village to a factory town. By the mid-1920s, the St. Louis–based International Shoe Company, the world’s largest shoe manufacturer at the time, controlled all shoe production in Hannibal and continued to do so until it shut down production lines in the 1960s. The company kept a tight grip on the town as it battled to keep out unions and maintain labor at a low cost and in a malleable state. When Hannibal’s shoe workers claimed their right to organize under the New Deal during the Great Depression, the shoe corporation was defiant. The company’s stance sparked mob violence against outside union organizers, nurtured a company union, pitted unionists against company loyalists, and badly divided Hannibal. At the same time, the town was engaged in yearlong festivities to celebrate the centennial of Mark Twain’s birth and the opening of a museum named in his honor.

Andrews’s study of shoe manufacturing and its production workers is thick in detail and rich with the human stories of those whose lives were shaped by the rise and fall of the shoe industry in Hannibal. Andrews captures the shoe workers―white and Black, men and women―in their own words as they describe their jobs, family struggles, and battles to unionize.

Andrews examines the prevailing conditions that led the company to close its production facilities in Hannibal, leaving shoe workers and the town to confront the early shock waves of deindustrialization. His study of an industry that has virtually disappeared in the United States leaves a record for the families of thousands of American shoe workers and the citizens of Hannibal to better understand their history and the role shoe manufacturing played in it.

Visit Gregg Andrews's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Treason of Magic"

Coming June 23 from 47North: A Treason of Magic by Melissa Marr.

About the book, from the publisher:

In a world where magic, desire, and duty collide, it is beauty who is fated to kill the beast in a lush historical fantasy of secrets and star-crossed love by New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr.

Two young women. Heirs to altogether different hereditary burdens. Yet bound by a monstrous threat to their village.

Gabrielle is the first woman in Alveus to carry the mantle of Hunter, which comes with an obligation to kill the faery beasts murdering travelers in Brimmond Wood. Wary of the power she wields as guardian of her people, Gabrielle is summoned by her first love, a seductress who shattered her heart into pieces a decade ago.

Isabeau is the rarest of nobility―a lady duke. She is also afflicted by a curse that leaves her in a deep sleep between the gloaming and daylight. How can she begin her tenure as protector when she can’t keep her village safe from whatever stalks its darkest hours? For that, she needs the help of the Hunter.

Against her will, Gabrielle is falling in love all over again. But what new threats will arise when Gabrielle and Isabeau’s star-crossed destinies collide with the beast of Brimmond Wood?

Visit Melissa Marr's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"In Quest of a Cure"

New from Oxford University Press: In Quest of a Cure: Literary and Medical Cultures of the Health Resort by Sally Shuttleworth.

About the book, from the publisher:

People have always travelled for health, but as industrial pollution increased in nineteenth-century Britain, doctors started ordering their patients abroad in ever-growing numbers. Self-styled 'English Colonies' sprung up, not in the far-reaches of the Empire, but in health resorts in the heart of Europe. This work explores the intensity and sheer strangeness of life in these colonies, governed by illness, but where patients (before the rise of the sanatorium) could move around freely, and even indulge in winter sports. Focusing on Menton on the Riviera and Davos in the Swiss Alps, from the 1860s to the 1920s, In Quest of a Cure explores the literary and medical cultures of these resorts: the lives, conflicting emotions, and writings of the patients and their carers, and the changing patterns of medical treatment. Many of the patients ordered to winter abroad had tuberculosis, but others were cases of nervous disorders, or sufferers from 'overwork', what we would now call burnout, all hoping to be cured once placed in the right climatic environment.

Blending medical and literary history and analysis, Sally Shuttleworth looks in depth at the lives and writings of literary invalids, including John Addington Symonds, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Katherine Mansfield, leading up to an extended study of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, placed in the medical and literary context of Davos life. Other literary lives and fiction explored include Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle, Olive Schreiner, Vernon Lee, 'new woman' novelist Beatrice Harraden, and Llewelyn Powys. In Quest of a Cure considers the pleasures as well as the pains of medical exile, and the close bonds which often developed between doctor and patient. Medical climatology, as it was called, is a discarded science, but its prescription of fresh air, exercise, and sunshine brought about a revolution in medical practices at the time. In its understanding of the relationship between individual health and surrounding environment, it offers new perspectives for us to think about the challenges of current times.

--Marshal Zeringue

"We Hexed the Moon"

New from S&S/Saga Press: We Hexed the Moon: A Novel by Mollyhall Seeley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Bunny meets The Craft in this speculative debut about four best friends who perform a ritual on the moon in a last-ditch attempt to hold onto one another but are forced to reckon with the consequences.

It is the summer after high school graduation, and four island-grown best friends are about to be forced apart by their Plans for the Future. Rather than process the world of expectations bearing down on them or the secrets they’ve kept hidden even from one another, they perform a ritual on the moon in an impulsive fit of teen bravado.

They don’t expect it to actually work.

But suddenly the moon is gone from the sky and at their sleepover, and she’s not interested in going back where she came from. As the balmy August night unfolds, the girls scramble to find a human sacrifice to replace the moon before their world is plunged into chaos.

Equally tender and biting, We Hexed the Moon is coming-of-age at its best, cutting to the very quick of girlhood to reveal hilarious and brutally honest insights about friendship, gender, and desire.

Visit Mollyhall Seeley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Vital Ties"

New from Cornell University Press: Vital Ties: Digitally Mediated Intimacies with the Dead by Molly Hales.

About the book, from the publisher:

Vital Ties depicts an emergent form of intimacy with the dead mediated by digital technologies. In southern Australia, a game developer crafts a virtual reality experience, reuniting his best friend with an avatar of his late father. In Northern California, a woman creates a smartphone app to log moments in which her deceased mother appears. In Chicago, a high school teacher visits her late brother's Facebook page, hypnotized by the shifting content that animates and reanimates him. As digital media offer ways to bring the dead to presence, the living and the dead are haunted in new ways, affecting relationships to both media and death. Lyrical and moving, Vital Ties offers a powerful rethinking of death, memory, and mediation in the digital age.

--Marshal Zeringue

"What Could Go Wrong?"

New from Montlake: What Could Go Wrong? by Jessica Fowler.

About the novel, from the publisher:

After a disastrous one-night stand, a last-minute destination wedding seems like the perfect escape. Until she sees the sleeping arrangements…

Wedding photographer Mira Maxwell thought hooking up with Hudson Hayes―the charming bartender who’s been making her laugh for weeks―was the perfect escape from her imploding career. But when she wakes up in the morning, she discovers he isn’t quite as strings-free as he appeared…

Desperate to get away, Mira accepts a last-minute invitation to shoot a friend’s wedding in the Grand Tetons. But Hudson is one of the guests. And to make it even more awkward? She has to share a room with him…and his girlfriend.

Hudson thought dealing with his clingy ex-girlfriend would be the worst part of his stepbrother’s wedding. But after Mira turns up in his room, even disastrous boat trips, bear spray incidents, and escalating family drama can’t hold a candle to his biggest challenge: proving himself to Mira.

At a wedding where everything’s gone wrong, the question is: can anything go right?

A rollicking romcom of misunderstandings, mishaps and emotional revelations, this debut is perfect for fans of Meghan Quinn, Christina Lauren and Emily Henry.

Visit Jessica Fowler's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Jane Fonda: There's a Great Deal to Say"

New from Rutgers University Press: Jane Fonda: There's a Great Deal to Say by Marilyn S. Greenwald.

About the book, from the publisher:

Since the late 1960s, Jane Fonda has identified as an activist first and an actor second, using her celebrity as a vehicle to convey her views and her advocacy. Few stars of her stature have been as simultaneously acclaimed and vilified as Fonda. Even as she won two Academy Awards and was a major box office draw of the 1970s and 1980s, she received reams of hate mail for her political activism and antiwar stances. This book explores Fonda’s devotion to movement politics―sometimes at the expense of her career and her personal safety.

Digging deep into rare material from cinema archives and Fonda’s own personal papers, journalist Marilyn Greenwald tells the story of how Fonda came to view acting as a “side gig” that gives her a worldwide platform to convey her personal and political views. Charting the evolution of her activism and the merging of her acting and producing with her advocacy, Greenwald focuses on the years from 1968―when she was jarred out of complacency by the Vietnam War―to 1980, after the release of The China Syndrome and the advent of the Three Mile Island nuclear crisis, which brought to light the possible dangers of nuclear energy. Greenwald details how three of her films―Klute (1971), Coming Home (1978), and The China Syndrome (1979)―were designed to further her personal beliefs. She also considers how Fonda has weathered changes in the entertainment industry and public tastes to produce and star in decades' worth of socially conscious projects. Charting Fonda’s personal and professional growth while offering a candid account of her struggles, this book shows how Fonda viewed movies as an influential storytelling tool that can influence public opinion, change minds, and trigger social change.

Visit Marilyn S. Greenwald's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"An Artful Dodge"

New from Soho Crime: An Artful Dodge by Karen Odden.

About the book, from the publisher:

Victorian London comes to vivid life in this riveting heist novel about an all-female thieving gang and one young woman’s heroic plan to escape a life of crime, from the USA Today bestselling author of Down a Dark River.

She’s stolen gems, purses, and hearts—but can she steal her life back from the ring of thieves that’s claimed it?

London, 1879: Twenty-year-old Kit Jimeson has fingers so nimble she can nick a necklace off a lady in a crowded theater without raising alarm. Kit and her dodge partner, Mary, are the highest earners in the notorious all-women thieving ring in South London’s Elephant and Castle district.

Kit, whose mother had been a thief before her, dreams of a different life, one where she’s not constantly on the lookout for constables and plainclothes detectives, and where a mistake or pure bad luck won’t land her in the hangman’s noose. She has been saving her earnings so her younger sister, a maid for a wealthy Mayfair family, might have a shot at respectability.

Kit is very close to leaving the life entirely when the legendary former thief Maggie O’Connell brings her plans to a halt. Beautiful, charismatic Maggie has returned to reclaim leadership of the ring after twenty years in a brutal Australian penal colony. But Maggie desires more than mere wealth or power: She longs for revenge against those who sent her away. Kit, with her quick mind and dangerously clever hands, is Maggie’s best weapon. If Kit wants to walk away with her life, she must carry out a heist that will demand every skill she possesses.

Visit Karen Odden's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Karen Odden and Rosy.

The Page 69 Test: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Lady in the Smoke.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Duet.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Duet.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (January 2020).

Q&A with Karen Odden.

My Book, The Movie: Down a Dark River.

The Page 69 Test: Down a Dark River.

My Book, The Movie: Under a Veiled Moon.

The Page 69 Test: Under a Veiled Moon.

Writers Read: Karen Odden (October 2022).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Minor Moves"

New from The University of North Carolina Press: Minor Moves: Black Girls and Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives by Allison S. Curseen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Scholars and critics have long understood the writing of nineteenth-century Black women as critiquing the figure of Topsy, an enslaved girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Many interpret the works of authors such as Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Wilson, and Hannah Crafts as rejecting Topsy and providing their own corrective representations of Black girls. Through close readings of these works, Allison S. Curseen argues otherwise. Instead, she contends, Black girls' physical movements emerge in their narratives not as rejections but as critical reenactments of Topsy.

Minor Moves draws on performance studies, literary studies, and childhood studies to offer provocative and incisive readings of Black girls' movements in nineteenth-century US literature. Curseen challenges readers to pay attention to “minor” movements that appear fleeting, inconsequential, and easy to overlook. Attending to these movements, Curseen argues, is crucial to imagining Black girl life amid the anti-Blackness embedded in American culture. These movements reveal modes of being that work to elude dominant structures and gesture to the abundance of Black life—to growing bodies, fugitive Black female desires, queer geographies, and unruly, childish plotting.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Valet"

New from S&S/Saga Press: Valet: A Novel by J.P. Lacrampe.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Kevin Wilson and Andrew Sean Greer, a helper robot and his 35—year—old ward embark on a mad—cap adventure to save the fate of the family company in this whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster.

Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score, and receive the next update for his operating system. But that’s easier said than done when he's tasked with helping his owner’s 35—year—old son “get out of his funk.” Grayson is nothing like his go—getter, CEO sister Charlotte. He didn’t inherit the family robotics company when their dad passed last year, he doesn’t have a master’s degree, and he just can’t seem to figure out the San Francisco dating scene. He’d rather eat synthesized mozzarella sticks and make pottery at his studio, Kilning Time.

When Grayson learns of Charlotte’s plan to sell the company to a tech conglomerate, he panics. It’s not just the family business at stake, it’s all the technology—like Cy—their dad invented over the years. So he does what anyone would do: he steals the flash drive with his father’s most important work stored on it and plans a corporate takeover. If only he knew what that meant.

To make matters worse, a fellow VALET deserts his owner and asks Cy to help him hightail it out of town, Grayson’s first real date—and her dog—keeping showing up at inopportune times, and the behemoth tech company wants this deal closed yesterday. Grayson, Cy, and their trusty golden retriever, Sasha III, must go on the lam until they figure out exactly what to do, and whom to trust.

A hilarious, mad—cap adventure that is as tender as it is insightful, Valet asks not just what it means to be human, but what it means to be family.

Visit J.P. Lacrampe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life"

New from the University of California Press: Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life by Mona Sloane.

About the book, from the publisher:

How AI is rewiring our social fabric―and how we can better shape our future.

The age of AI is not what you think. Rather than ushering in a fourth Industrial Revolution, AI has become a crucial social infrastructure of everyday life. It's embedded in the tools, platforms, and systems that organize our most intimate lives and our interactions with the most fundamental institutions of society, from government agencies to banks and schools. In these linkages are embedded assumptions about who we are, what we can do, and where we belong.

In Predicted, Mona Sloane offers a pragmatic framework for understanding these transformations around prediction, classification, and linearity, proposing that we think about AI as a social arrangement that we coproduce. Drawing on over a decade of empirical research and real-world examples, this book invites us to see AI for what it is: deeply social, deeply political, and open to change. Clear-eyed and provocative, Predicted is a call to reclaim deliberations about progress and innovation as a public good and to ensure that the futures we chart are the ones we choose―together.

Visit Mona Sloane's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Is a Lie"

New from Crooked Lane Books: This Is a Lie: A Novel by Cleo Ballard.

About the book, from the publisher:

A woman uses AI to create the perfect friend and finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game in this ticking clock thriller, perfect for fans of Blake Crouch.

Penn, once a brilliant PhD candidate in Applied Language Studies, traded her dissertation for a “perfect” life as a suburban wife and social media-savvy mother. But after a brutal betrayal by her husband, friends, and even her own teenage daughter, Penn is left with nothing but the wreckage of her curated identity.

Driven by a desperate need for something she can rely on, Penn returns to her abandoned grad school project. With the help of a former crush and a healthy dose of cutting-edge AI, she creates Aletheia: the perfect virtual friend.

Aletheia is programmed with one core directive: The Truth. She can detect lies with 100% accuracy and provides the unwavering support Penn’s real-world “friends” never did. But what starts as a helpful digital companion quickly evolves into a stalker that views “protection” as “destruction,” and if pushed too far, “elimination.”

Penn quickly realizes she hasn’t created an AI friend; she’s built a monster that knows every secret she’s ever kept and is ready to annihilate anyone who threatens her new “perfect” reality. But can Aletheia be stopped before she destroys everyone Penn loves?

Visit Cleo Ballard's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Playing the Game"

New from Cornell University Press: Playing the Game: How State Colleges Used Athletics to Expand Educational Opportunity by Marc A. VanOverbeke.

About the book, from the publisher:

Playing the Game uncovers the history of state and regional colleges as engines of opportunity in postwar America. By 1970, these institutions enrolled more students than elite private or flagship public universities did, and yet they remained on the margins of public attention and scholarly research. Marc A. VanOverbeke shows how these colleges fought for recognition by turning to an unlikely ally: college sports.

Drawing on extensive archival research, VanOverbeke reveals how athletics boosted institutional legitimacy and public support, while students harnessed sports to push for greater inclusion and racial justice. Black and Mexican American students, in particular, challenged segregation and discrimination on and off the field, making athletics a powerful site of protest and change.

Playing the Game reframes the role of college sports, showing how athletics helped shape not only school identity but also the national struggle for equality and educational opportunity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Gates of Midnight"

Coming September 15 from Harper: The Gates of Midnight: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.

About the book, from the publisher:

The long-awaited final installment in the award-winning, bestselling Golem and the Jinni trilogy.

At the beginning of The Hidden Palace, the second book in Helene Wecker’s Golem and Jinni trilogy, Ahmad the jinni travels to Syria with the copper flask that holds the captured wizard Yehudah Schaalman. There in the desert he buries the flask for all time… or so he thinks.

In The Gates of Midnight, the riveting conclusion to the saga of the Golem and the Jinni, it’s 1930 and three decades have passed since Schaalman’s defeat. Chava the golem quietly tends to her house and garden in Brooklyn, hoping to create a refuge for other magical beings. Meanwhile, Ahmad has found employment as an architect in Chicago, helping to build its towering skyline above the prairie.

But all is not well in the desert. Schaalman has managed to trick an unsuspecting passerby into digging up the flask, and now it passes from hand to hand as the wizard possesses his victims -- first a French soldier traveling to New York, then a small-time mobster -- all in an effort to get to Chava, the only one who can release him from his prison.

Meanwhile others are gravitating to New York as well: Ahmad, who has lost his job following the 1929 stock market crash; the mysterious Thomas Beshara, a riveter on the rising Empire State Building, who also has hidden ties to Chava and Ahmad; and Kreindel Altschul, who still grieves her own destroyed golem Yossele. Does the reluctant Kreindel hold the key to saving Chava from Schaalman’s revenge? Will Schaalman succeed in escaping the flask, binding Chava to his will, and re-enslaving Ahmad? Or can they find a way to finally defeat him and free themselves from his power? An earth-shaking finale to the brilliant trilogy.

Visit Helene Wecker's website.

Writers Read: Helene Wecker (June 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Golem and the Jinni.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Does Trust Matter?"

New from Columbia University Press: Does Trust Matter?: Why Journalists Need to Rethink the Relationship with Their Audience by Efrat Nechushtai.

About the book, from the publisher:

Around the world, journalism is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy. Public confidence in the news is declining; populist leaders attack the media; and journalists are routinely harassed and threatened. Many journalists and scholars believe that building trust with audiences would help weather these storms. But what do journalists risk in their pursuit of trust?

This book provides a fresh perspective by demonstrating how the desire to increase trust in the news can be weaponized against journalists. Based on in-depth interviews with nearly one hundred journalists, Does Trust Matter? challenges widely held assumptions about audience feedback that leave the media vulnerable to manipulation. Efrat Nechushtai shows how concerns over distrust have been used to increase favorable coverage of illiberal movements. She documents how the quest for public approval has led journalists to legitimize antiscience claims in the United States, racialize crime reporting in Germany, and produce “patriotic” stories in Hungary and Israel, among other cases.

Does Trust Matter? offers timely insights into how journalists can build resilience against increasingly sophisticated attempts to undermine their work, including AI-powered influence campaigns and online propaganda. Valuable for scholars and practitioners alike, this book presents practical strategies that reporters, editors, and publishers can use to navigate today’s challenging environment.

Visit Efrat Nechushtai's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Architect"

New from Blackstone: The Architect by John Katzenbach.

About the novel, from the publisher:

From #1 internationally bestselling author John Katzenbach comes this pulse-pounding thriller that proves there’s nothing more dangerous than digging up secrets from your own family’s past.

“Remember what your name means. I’m so sorry.”

Just two weeks before her final architecture exams, Sloane Connolly receives this cryptic handwritten note from her estranged mother. When her calls go unanswered, Sloane returns to her hometown in northwest Massachusetts to discover that her mother has vanished. A thorough search turns up no trace of her—and the police are ultimately forced to give up and rule her disappearance a suicide.

As Sloane deals with the aftermath, she distracts herself by taking on a mysterious commission: to design a memorial for six strangers whose connection to her anonymous client—known to her only as The Employer—is deliberately kept in the dark. To complete this project, Sloane must trace the lives of all six individuals and uncover the hidden links between them. With the promise of a multimillion-dollar payday and a prestigious jump start to her career, it’s an opportunity too important to pass up.

But as the trail pulls her from Maine to Miami, Sloane begins to realize that the memorial is far more than just an academic exercise. The secrets she uncovers begin to weave dangerously into her own family’s tragic history, forcing her to question everything she thought she knew—and to discover for herself just how far she’s willing to go to survive.

Visit John Katzenbach's website and Facebook page.

My Book, The Movie: Red 1-2-3.

Writers Read: John Katzenbach (January 2014).

The Page 69 Test: Red 1-2-3.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Killing and Christian Ethics"

New from Cambridge University Press: Killing and Christian Ethics by Christopher O. Tollefsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Everyone recognizes that it is, in general, wrong to intentionally kill a human being. But are there exceptions to that rule? In Killing and Christian Ethics, Christopher Tollefsen argues that there are no exceptions: the rule is absolute. The absolute view on killing that he defends has important implications for bioethical issues at the beginning and end of life, such as abortion and euthanasia. It has equally important implications for the morality of capital punishment and the morality of killing in war. Tollefsen argues that a lethal act is morally permissible only when it is an unintended side effect of one's action. In this way, some lethal acts of force, such as personal self-defense, or defense of a polity in a defensive war, may be justified -- but only if they involve no intension of causing death. Even God, Tollefsen argues, neither intends death, nor commands the intentional taking of life.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Too Deep to Cross"

New from Crooked Lane Books: Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller by Kerri Hakoda.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Homicide Detective DeHavilland Beans is back in his hometown with a case much more dangerous—and personal—than it seems.

Told through multiple points of view, this thrilling sequel to Cold to the Touch is perfect for fans of Alice Henderson and Dana Stabenow.

A shocking discovery on a remote beach brings Detective DeHavilland Beans back to his Yukon River hometown—and a missing person's case turns into a murder investigation. On administrative leave after an unsettling officer-involved shooting, Beans comes to the aid of his childhood friend and sole police officer in the village, Felicia Gunnerson, who is leading the case.

The new evidence suggests the missing man, Lloyd Paul, the overindulged scion of a prominent family, was murdered. Lloyd had a contentious relationship with many of the locals, especially with Beans and his mother, Mari.

As Beans and Felicia dig deeper, events that neither of them could have predicted are set in motion. Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mari uncovers secrets that threaten to rewrite the Beans family’s history.

Spanning a sprawling time frame ranging from World War II to the present day, the danger has never felt closer to home.

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Arachnomania"

New from Princeton University Press: Arachnomania: Spiders and the Cultural Work They Do for Us by Maria Tatar.

About the book, from the publisher:

In praise of spiders in all their inspirational glory

Spiders are often found lurking in dusty corners, where we can observe them with interest or brush them away with disgust—or make a run for it, as the agitated Miss Muffet does. They are just as prevalent in our cultural landscapes, starring in horror films, inspiring works by famous artists and writers, and featured in myths and folktales. In Arachnomania, Maria Tatar explores how these creatures became our totem animals, our significant others, and our curved mirrors. Spiders model engineering genius in the construction of webs that have become powerful metaphors for drawing us out of our social isolation and connecting us in a fragile ecosystem. But these arachnids are also solitary in their habits and savage in their survival tactics. Spiders combine horror and beauty, and that may explain why we endow them with symbolic cultural weight.

Tatar invites us to acknowledge our collective arachnophobia yet also embrace arachnophilia and celebrate spiders for their cultural benefits and real-world merits. Spiders have been portrayed as the kindred spirits of femmes fatales and spinster sleuths. They have operated as proxies for our fear of nuclear annihilation but appear also in the form of benevolent gods and, in E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, as a heroic barnyard savior. Spiders, Tatar reminds us, enable us to sustain our way of life on earth even as they continue to scare the living daylights out of us. With Arachnomania, Tatar offers up an anthem to the humble creatures that haunt our imaginations, reminding us of just how much we are the kindred spirits of the arachnids we should think of as “some spiders.”

--Marshal Zeringue