"Territorial Discontent"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: Territorial Discontent: CHamorus, Filipinos, and the Making of the United States Empire in Guåhan by Kristin Oberiano.

About the book, from the publisher:

This one-hundred-year history of the island of Guåhan, also known as Guam, charts how Indigenous CHamorus and Filipino migrants navigated and negotiated the expansion of US imperialism and militarism in the Pacific. Throughout the twentieth century, CHamorus and Filipinos living in Guåhan expressed their discontent with the inequities created by the US empire. Instead of partaking in outright anticolonial movements, they advocated for liberal solutions such as individual rights, land ownership, economic opportunities, and US citizenship. In Territorial Discontent, Kristin Oberiano unravels this entangled history and exposes the limitations of liberalism in anticolonial resistance.

Tracing the long history of CHamoru-Filipino relations, from the exile of Filipino revolutionaries to Guåhan to the burgeoning CHamoru self-determination movement, Territorial Discontent grapples with the varied motives that propelled CHamorus and Filipinos to rely on the limited liberal promise of freedom. Oberiano reveals that implementing these solutions for one group too often required the continued colonization of the other, entrenching US colonialism in Guåhan and enflaming tensions between CHamorus and Filipinos. Examining these antagonisms, Oberiano argues that building relationships with the CHamoru virtue of inafa’maolek—“to make good”—can nurture CHamoru-Filipino solidarities and illuminate alternative possibilities for Guåhan’s ongoing decolonization movement.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Good Guys"

New from Melville House: Good Guys by Mindy Misener.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In a small New England town in 2008, two estranged sisters become embroiled in a war crime involving a local hero …

Georgie and Jo are sisters, but they aren’t close. The situation seems worse once Jo goes off to college, making it obvious she’s happy about leaving Curtisville and Georgie and their disabled father behind.

Then, Gary Clemmons dies in the Iraq War. Gary—the son of their pastor, the hero of their hometown, and the brother of Georgie’s secret girlfriend—was famous for being a good guy.

But Georgie stumbles on a dark secret about Gary, and once Jo finds out, things begin to spiral out of control. The fallout will change both sister’s lives forever.

In the end, Good Guys uncovers the underbelly of a small town—the darkness of patriotism and masculinity, the harm caused by blind religious fervor, and the ways these dynamics can destroy families.

Visit Mindy Misener's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The First Woman Judge"

New from the University of California Press: The First Woman Judge: The Life and Legacy of Florence Allen by Tracy Thomas.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story of Florence Allen, the first woman judge in the United States, and women’s transformation of the legal system.

Florence Allen was the first woman judge many times over―first federal appellate court judge, first elected to a state supreme court, and first shortlisted for the U.S. Supreme Court. During Allen’s forty years on the bench, the country swung between progressivism and conservatism, with passage of a constitutional amendment for women’s voting rights, two world wars, the Red and Lavender Scares, and the New Deal.

Amid these changes, women used their new political standing to transform the courts, first by becoming active agents in the justice system, and then by developing theories of public law, social justice, and fair process. Exploring Allen’s fascinating legal life, Tracy Thomas recounts the larger history of how women infiltrated the legal system as judges, lawyers, jurors, and legislators to demand a more representative system of justice for the welfare of all.

Visit Tracy Thomas's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch"

Coming October 20 from Lake Union: The Pilgrimage of Primrose Honeychurch: A Novel by Laura Jensen Walker.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of Death of a Flying Nightingale comes the moving story of a solitary seventy-year-old curmudgeon embracing the connection of family and daring to follow her dreams.

Primrose Honeychurch doesn’t really “get” people. Books, though, make perfect sense.

At seventy, the sharp-tongued recluse prefers to keep company with her own routines. But when a life-altering diagnosis leaves her worried she’ll never be missed, she decides it’s finally time to do something to leave her mark: something no one will ever forget.

Clutching her mother’s ashes and the book of her heart, Primrose hops on a plane, bound for Hay-on-Wye, the legendary Welsh “Town of Books.” Unfortunately, her literary pilgrimage just won’t follow the plot. After an accident derails her trip, she finds herself staying awhile with estranged family. But she senses a kindred spirit in the niece she’s getting to know, who uncannily understands the world much the same as Primrose herself does.

As rolling green hills and book-lined streets frame an unexpected season of discovery, what began as an unwelcome detour becomes something more profound. For the first time in her life, Primrose begins to glimpse the beauty―and courage―of true human connection.

Visit Laura Jensen Walker's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Q&A with Laura Jensen Walker.

The Page 69 Test: The Alphabet Sleuths.

Writers Read: Laura Jensen Walker (February 2026).

My Book, The Movie: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

The Page 69 Test: The Postmistress of Puddlington.

--Marshal Zeringue

"We Have the Rights"

New from Cambridge University Press: We Have the Rights: Protest and Democracy in Three African Cities by Marcus Walton.

About the book, from the publisher:

Does democracy matter for urban protest? Africa is the fastest urbanizing region in the world, with more citizens every day requiring access to goods like housing, energy, food, and transportation. At the same time, citizens across the continent have also indicated declining satisfaction with democracy. Thus, many citizens have turned to strategies like protest to meet their basic needs. Yet for urban communities fighting for access to these goods, does democracy still make a difference? Drawing on a decades-long comparison of urban protest in Cairo, Lagos, and Johannesburg, We Have the Rights challenges the conventional wisdom of the social movement literature, by showing that even when democratization has not altered the prevailing forms of protest, it can significantly improve protest outcomes. These findings suggest that democracy can empower urban communities, not by enclosing citizen participation, but by expanding the avenues and boundaries of institutional engagement.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Cursed Diamond"

Coming November 3 from Park Row Books: The Cursed Diamond A Novel by Anna Rasche.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In New York City a century apart, two women’s fates are bound by the dark legacy of the Midnight Diamond

2010. Jennie is working as a runner in the Diamond District when a friend’s sudden death leaves her with a cryptic note: “Not Safe.” Her search for answers leads her to an antique jewelry box, a clue to a century-old mystery and the legend of the Midnight Diamond—a rare blue gem rumored to bring ruin to all who possess it. As Jennie is pulled deeper into a world of secrets and danger, she realizes she is not just chasing a lost treasure; she is uncovering a story that was meant to stay buried.

1910. On an ocean liner bound for New York, heiress Marcella Porter returns home after being disgraced by scandal in London. Her path collides with a charismatic nobleman and the magnificent Midnight Diamond, which she unknowingly smuggles into the city. Mesmerized by its brilliance, Marcella feels an irresistible pull toward the diamond, and when the glittering façade of her charmed life begins to crack, Marcella must decide whether the Midnight Diamond is her salvation—or her doom.

Can Jennie break the centuries-old curse before it brings more ruin? Inspired by history’s most captivating gemstone, The Cursed Diamond is a thrilling mystery about fate, obsession, and the deadly costs of ambition.

Visit Anna Rasche's website.

Q&A with Anna Rasche.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Home Team Away"

New from the University of Michigan Press: Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China by Yuan Gong.

About the book, from the publisher:

Home Team Away calls for a rethinking of sport fandom that is divorced from an attachment to location. As the first comprehensive account of the European football fandom in China, this book explores how the Chinese middle class subjectivity is formed through the cross-cultural, digital consumption of the Big Five leagues. Yuan Gong captures the embodied experiences of fans and fan clubs, fan discourses and activities unfolding on digital platforms on Weibo, Weixin, and Hupu, combining fieldwork in Shanghai and virtual ethnography. Gong argues that Chinese fans’ decisions to follow and engage with European football result from their material conditions, ideological contestation, and technology appropriation as a new demographic bloc arising during China’s transition to authoritarian digital capitalism. By engaging with their home teams away, the Chinese middle class fans perform as citizens with a global vision despite the resurgence of the nationalist and anti-Western sentiments.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sutra Americana"

Coming October 20 from the University of Wisconsin Press: Sutra Americana by Monona Wali.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In 1960 S. K. Sharma, a brilliant young astrophysicist at the beginning of his academic career, has finally succeeded in bringing his wife, Sushila, from India to America. Intensely drawn to one another as star university students, the couple pursue an unlikely affair and marriage that crosses caste lines. Their sweeping, decades-long story of love, forgiveness, and coming of age takes place in a country that is both fascinated by and shuns them. The United States, with its exaltation of individualism, offers immense opportunities, but its looser sexual mores threaten to undermine the family’s happiness and devotion to one another.

As their three daughters become young women, they must navigate the tumultuous decades of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the women’s liberation movement. In their journeys of self-discovery, they upend their parents’ hold on them to craft radically new identities for themselves. As they discover their parents’ faults they grow increasingly puzzled by their devotion to one another, eventually learning how love and forgiveness have the power to overcome the most uncomfortable truths.

Visit Monona Wali's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Legacies of War"

New from Oxford University Press: Legacies of War by Kathrin Bachleitner.

About the book, from the publisher:

Legacies of War explores how war transforms societies. To map these legacies, the book focuses on three populations currently living through war: Ukrainians, Syrians, and Palestinians. Its empirical sections explore, first, people's narratives of conflict; second, their sense of national attachment; and third, their visions of a peaceful future. Together, these elements constitute a war legacy: as individuals interpret conflict, process collective emotions, and imagine the future, new political and social visions emerge that outline possible horizons for peace.

Visit Kathrin Bachleitner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Void Dragon"

New from Orbit: The Void Dragon (The Shattered Lands, 2) by Annabel Campbell.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Void Dragon continues the epic fantasy tale that began with The Outcast Mage, following a young woman whose strange powers may destroy the world, and packed with intrigue, adventure and dragonfire.

Naila has escaped the chaos that engulfed her home city of Amoria, but at a terrible cost. Her allies have splintered and there’s a power growing inside of her that she doesn’t understand. It feels dangerous. It feels hungry.

Hunted by dragonriders, Naila must seek sanctuary at the great library of Awasef. Perhaps here she will find some answers―if they don’t kill her first.

But the land of Dahran is on a knife edge. The Queen’s advisor, the Wazira, is abducting mages and forcing them to join her cause. Worse still, Haelius Akana – Naila’s friend and the greatest wizard of his age―is among them.

As political conspiracies slide towards civil war, Naila’s power threatens to consume her and everyone she holds dear. Haelius may be the only person who can help her.

But only if he betrays his new master to stand at Naila’s side.

Visit Annabel Campbell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"White Knuckling"

New from Cambridge University Press: White Knuckling: Holding On in America's Racialized Political Economy by Tess Wise.

About the book, from the publisher:

In White Knuckling, Tess Wise combines political economy, political development, and ethnography to develop a theory of systemic racism as a political process. Using a Racialized Political Economy (RPE) lens, she links institutions, material conditions, culture, and contestation to demonstrate how systemic racism both benefits and harms white middle-class families. Drawing on interviews with families and bankruptcy court records, she follows individuals under economic strain and experiencing 'white knuckling' as they work through debt to explore how financialization turns hardship into revenue. She reveals that the promised rehabilitation often fails, operating as hidden public-private welfare that can preserve some assets while entrenching precarity. Tracing scripts of deservingness and responsibility, Wise demonstrates how racism in political economy helps and hurts white middle-class Americans, blinding them to their racial privilege and undermining the mechanisms that would lead to race and class solidarity.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Spiral"

Coming October 27 from Crooked Lane Books: The Spiral: A Thriller (A Nina Esposito Mystery) by Rosanne Limoncelli.

About the novel, from the publisher:

When Nina finds the dead body of a woman who could easily be her twin, she must divide the men in her life into two groups: the ones she can trust and the ones who might be the killer.

A refreshing new take on the noir-thriller genre, The Spiral is perfect for fans of Tana French and Stieg Larsson.

It’s 1979, and nineteen-year-old Nina Esposito survives gritty Greenwich Village by tending bar with plenty of sarcasm and elbow grease. She can navigate the lewd customers, dirty streets, and danger-after-dark of NYC until a serial killer arrives on the scene targeting women who look exactly like her. Now survival for Nina means finding the killer before he finds her.

She has the constant feeling that she is prey surrounded by predators and every man she meets could be the killer: the guy following her on the subway, her leering acting coach, the restaurant owner pressuring her for a date. But is she really a target, or are the demons of her past clouding her judgment? Detective Frankie Lopez seems to be on her side—but she knows that trusting the wrong person could make her the next victim.

Set in crime-ridden New York City, when the subways were covered in graffiti and the burned-out buildings of the East Village were homes for squatters and punk rock teens, this psychological thriller is a dark murder mystery, one that will keep you guessing until the very end when the final twist is revealed.

Visit Rosanne Limoncelli's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Four Queens of Crime.

The Page 69 Test: The Four Queens of Crime.

Q&A with Rosanne Limoncelli.

Writers Read: Rosanne Limoncelli (July 2026).

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Medieval Art of Fear"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Medieval Art of Fear by Ravinder S. Binning.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold new approach to medieval art and architecture’s shaping of psychosomatic experience.

In the medieval world, experiences of fear attained a mystical significance: monks, urban publics, and even emperors pursued horror and grief to explore the limits of fantasy, sensation, and catharsis. In this book, Ravinder S. Binning examines an expansive archive ranging from poetry and scientific treatises to artistic works in ivory and crystal to recover an aesthetic tradition centered on optical tension, spatial suspense, and tactile experience.

Moving between early monastic spaces in Egypt and major urban centers like Constantinople from the fourth through the thirteenth centuries, The Medieval Art of Fear shows how the psychosomatic experience of fear became the deliberate object of mystical practices, meditation, and other embodied techniques across the medieval world. The result is a powerful exploration of the aesthetic effects behind some of the medieval world’s most ambitious works, whose influence extends well beyond the Middle Ages.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Rally"

New from Union Square & Co.: The Rally: A Novel by Carla Vass.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A young tech entrepreneur―ousted from her start-up and reeling―escapes to Europe for a glamorous car rally, where she must contend with the excesses of the über-rich, betrayal, and love. Perfect for fans of The Wedding People and The White Lotus.

Charlotte "Charlie" Walker has spent the last four years building the dating app Flutter. Despite her own lack of dating experience (!), Flutter is instantly successful. Perhaps too successful. After rejecting the romantic advances of her cofounder, Charlie finds herself unceremoniously ousted. Dispirited, she impulsively joins her BFF on the Rally―an extravagant European road trip featuring luxury cars, lavish parties, and breathtaking destinations.

Although she feels out of place, Charlie embraces her new freedom, indulging in the Rally’s hedonism. But just as she begins to regain her footing, Charlie realizes she can’t outdrive her past: Instead she must reckon with the fallout from her ouster, her company’s buried secrets, and an unexpected attraction that complicates everything.

Visit Carla Vass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Old in the Game"

New from the University of California Press: Old in the Game: Aging in and with Hip-Hop by Murray Forman.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first study of hip-hop and aging, featuring insights from over twenty hip-hop pioneers and veterans.

Hip-hop is now in its sixth decade. How are the culture’s oldest innovators aging in, and with, hip-hop? In In Old in the Game, Murray Forman examines how hip-hop artists, audiences, and entrepreneurs negotiate the cultural process of aging.

Featuring commentary from hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Caz, Grandwizzard Theodore, and Sha-Rock as well as veterans like Chuck D, LL Cool J, Ice-T, Pepa, and Yo-Yo, Forman reveals age as an essential component of identity and a mode of expression through which hip-hop–identified heads comprehend the world and present themselves. The book covers themes of generational difference and dissonance, ageism, memory and nostalgia, and retirement and death and offers a new way of understanding hip-hop as generations of hip-hop elders come of age, mature, and learn to grow old within the culture.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Fist of Memory"

Coming soon from DAW: The Fist of Memory by Wole Talabi.

About the book, from the publisher:

A strange alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky in this electrifying, action-packed first contact novel set in near-future Nigeria from award-winning author Wole Talabi

A hard science-fiction novel featuring an assassin-for-hire, a witchdoctor, and an astronomer, this fast-paced thriller is perfect for fans of Arrival

When a non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky, global powers are thrown into turmoil.

But for Tope, a principled Nigerian assassin with a talent for lethality in the employ of the mysterious witchdoctor known as "Baba," it’s all just business as usual. At least until a job goes wrong, and Tope is caught in the scramble—a high stakes game of power and politics for the future that is to come. Joined by Itumeleng, a South African astronomer plagued by mysterious dreams, they must find a way to survive, navigate their complicated pasts, and come to understand how they, and all of humanity, are connected to the alien craft before it lands and the world changes forever. But it won’t be easy. There are sinister forces marshalled against them, including a strange assassin obsessed with a single memory.

The Fist Of Memory is a first contact thriller unlike any other; a meditation on the nature of reality, memory and connectedness.

Visit Wole Talabi's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Echoes of Brazil"

New from Oxford University Press: Echoes of Brazil: The Musical Experiences of Brazilian Ancestry in West Africa by Juan Diego Díaz.

About the book, from the publisher:

The stretch of coast between Accra and Lagos is home to four distinct national communities who identify as descendants of Brazilians: the Tabom in Ghana, the Brésiliens in Togo, the Agudas in Benin, and the Amaros in Nigeria. These communities were established by people who migrated from Brazil to West Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, forming what is arguably Brazil's oldest diaspora. Despite their historical, cultural, and physical separation from Brazil, they maintain a strong sense of Brazilianness through music, dance, and religious practices. Echoes of Brazil explores how these communities use music and dance to preserve, celebrate, and negotiate their complex allegiances--to Brazil, to the ethnic groups they have integrated into, to their West African nations, and to the broader Black Atlantic community.

Juan Diego Díaz argues that music is an ideal medium for the emergence of experiences where sound, emotion, and discourse about Brazilian ancestry can coalesce and reinforce one another. The diasporic condition of Brazilian-descendant communities in West Africa is therefore primarily grounded in deeply embodied experiences, rather than solely in discourse. To support this argument, Díaz adopts a phenomenological approach, focusing on people's embodied experiences during both inter- and intra-community musical encounters. He documents how musicians from these communities deploy their signature genres--agbe, burrinha, and the characteristic combination of gbókùs and meboi--at home, during visits to each other, and even on trips to Brazil.

This is the first study to examine these four communities in tandem rather than separately. Echoes of Brazil underscores the importance of transnational connections within West Africa, Brazil, and the Black Atlantic, challenging conventional notions of home and diaspora.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Way We Become"

New from Margaret K. McElderry Books: The Way We Become (Part of The Way I Used to Be) by Amber Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

Eden and her fellow survivors look to the future in this powerful story of justice, autonomy, and healing told in multiple points of view—the powerful conclusion to the Way I Used to Be trilogy from internationally bestselling author Amber Smith.

Eden struggled to find her voice for years after her brother’s friend Kevin raped her. It wasn’t until Kevin’s ex-girlfriend Gen and his sister, Amanda, came forward, that Eden knew she wasn’t alone. Determined to do everything in their power to pursue justice, Eden, Amanda, and Gen testified against Kevin in a trial that turned their lives inside out.

In the wake of the judge’s decision, they are now expected to move on—all while grappling with the hurt and grief that are never far behind. Amanda is adrift finishing high school, Eden is still learning what it means to be in a healthy relationship, and college dropout Gen is struggling to find direction at all. On three different paths toward healing, each girl has to chart her own course forward to discover the woman she’ll become.

Visit Amber Smith's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Country House at War"

New from Yale University Press: The Country House at War: A Story of Loss, Reinvention and the Birth of a New Britain by Judith S. Lewis.

About the book, from the publisher:

The story of how English country houses were repurposed during the Second World War, told through the lives of those who lived and worked in them

In the Second World War, country houses across England were requisitioned by the government for the war effort. These homes opened their doors to evacuated children, were transformed into hospitals, and played host to training camps for the armed forces. The care of the estates was often left to young women and the elderly, who had to completely change the running of their homes to accommodate essential wartime activities.

In this fascinating history, Judith S. Lewis explores the lives of country houses during the Second World War. Some homes were requisitioned for intelligence operations, like Audley End, which was used as the headquarters of the Polish Section of SOE, whereas others, like West Wycombe, were used to house artefacts of national importance. Examining the long legacy of the war, Lewis reveals why some houses survived, whether as family homes, museums, or public parks, while others simply disappeared altogether.

Follow Judith S. Lewis on Facebook.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dark Messiah"

Coming soon from Navigator: Dark Messiah: A Novel by Sara Z. Carson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A riveting debut novel telling the story of a teenage girl and her mother caught in the web of a sinister cult leader whose optimistic vision of hope descends into apocalyptic horror in the jungles of South America.

In 1975 San Francisco, 15-year-old Nell’s world has been ripped apart by her younger sister’s sudden, tragic death and her parents’ subsequent divorce. As her mother desperately reaches out for solace from any quarter―new hobbies, new philosophies, new relationships―a boyfriend leads her into the cult of a charismatic man known as Father. His message of peace and healing proves irresistible, and soon Nell and her mother join his mysterious Church of the People.

As they are drawn increasingly into the vortex of the Church, the community comes to consume their lives, and Nell’s concerns begin to build. She becomes enrolled in the school they operate, is intimidated into adopting their ways of dressing and acting, and is removed from her home.

At the same time, the dangers lurking in the cult’s shadows emerge: threats, physical abuse, and the sudden disappearances of members to Father’s new “utopian” community deep in the jungles of South America. When Nell is secreted there alongside their fellow followers, they come under Father’s power as never before―with horrific and devastating consequences.

By turns sensitive and shocking, powerful and poignant, Dark Messiah is a story of a girl becoming a woman as her life is stolen from her―and a mesmerizing debut from a new voice in contemporary fiction.

Visit Sara Z. Carson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Chekhov's Antidotes"

New from Stanford University Press: Chekhov's Antidotes: Prescriptions for an Age of Unrest by Yuri Corrigan.

About the book, from the publisher:

A rousing tour through Chekhov's stories and plays, with lessons for managing troubled times

For all his immense literary fame, Anton Chekhov is underappreciated as a thinker. Widely regarded as a purveyor of gloom and indecision, Chekhov was in fact a reparative moral philosopher who fought back against the pathologies of a divided and dysfunctional age. In the face of emergent revolution and civil war, Chekhov wrote about the polarization, apathy, and fanaticism that were driving his society towards self-destruction. In Chekhov's Antidotes, Corrigan offers a bold reassessment of why Chekhov's thought matters, both for his own time and for ours.

Telling the story of Chekhov's career in a new light, Corrigan approaches the plays, letters, and short stories as puzzle pieces in larger reparative meditations. New readings of "House with a Mezzanine" and Uncle Vanya yield practical reflections on how to heal and resist culture war. In "The Student" and The Cherry Orchard, Corrigan probes Chekhov's thoughts for alleviating modern strains of sloth, loneliness, and despair. And, tracing Chekhov's monumental study of the dangers of unskilled empathy through such works as "Breakdown," "Ward Six," and "The Wife," Corrigan discerns a call for a new concept of activism in the face of what cannot be repaired. Chekhov emerges from these readings as a voice of sanity and wisdom for an age of unrest.

Chekhov offers no panaceas for the pathologies of modern life, only pragmatic meditations on how to salvage an irreparably broken world, and on how to cultivate meaning, dignity, and integrity as incurably fragmented human subjects―lessons we can all use in our current divisive era, in the shadow of our own looming crises.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Night of the Mallrats"

New from Harper Perennial: Night of the Mallrats: A Novel by Nicolina Torres.

About the book, from the publisher:

Five friends travel back to the 1990s to solve the brutal murder and disappearance of two of their high school peers in this thrilling debut novel from a promising new voice in horror—a murderous, nightmarish romp that is nostalgic, terrifying, and impossible to put down.

Shop ’til you drop . . . dead

Colleen’s life feels as hollow as the abandoned Beechnut Mall—the 90s hangout where neon lights and endless laughter defined her teens thirty years before. When her old high school clique reassembles for one last night of rebellion inside the now condemned building, she joins them, never expecting the mall to give something back. The reunited friends do not know that inside its darkened halls, the past is waiting, and it’s not all Glamour Shots, Beanie Babies, and Lisa Frank.

Faced with their lost youth, they are drawn back into the mystery of Beth Packard—a schoolmate who vanished in 1994—and without warning, they find themselves transported to the mall in its heyday on the very night Beth disappeared. Thrust back three decades, the former mallrats must unravel the secrets hidden beneath memories, lies, and betrayals before time snaps shut around them. But each step closer to the truth of Beth’s disappearance brings them within reach of exposing ugly, fatal truths about each other.

Haunting, wistful, pulse-pounding fun, Night of the Mallrats is a time-travel thriller that asks a question with an unforgettable answer: What really happened to Beth Packard?

Visit Nicolina Torres's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Recognizing Reality"

New from Northwestern University Press: Recognizing Reality: German Realism and the Mediation of Presence by Jessica C. Resvick.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reveals how literary scenes of recognition stage the process of coming to know reality

In this deeply researched and thought-provoking study, Jessica C. Resvick traces nineteenth-century German realist writing’s paradoxical investment in mediated accounts of the world and the direct, unfiltered experience of reality. Focusing on the motif and operation of recognition in its Aristotelean sense, Resvick examines self-reflexive narratives in which the authors struggle to resolve this tension between the media they choose and the immediacy they hope to create.

Through close readings of key works by canonical authors such as E. T. A. Hoffmann, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller, and Wilhelm Raabe, Resvick demonstrates the medially influenced and historically contingent ways in which they represent reality. Each chapter focuses on a different form of recognition, reconstructing the techniques that allow these authors to generate an effect of presence. Exploring the history and poetics of knowledge exchange, Recognizing Reality: German Realism and the Mediation of Presence expands on recent media histories of realism, examining the material bases for realist aesthetics while also investigating media’s epistemological accomplishments, and astutely elaborates the role of recognition as a medium-specific tool.

Visit Jessica C. Resvick's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Beneath the Edelweiss"

Coming October 20 from Little A: Beneath the Edelweiss: A Novel by Elizabeth Noel.

About the book, from the publisher:

From a poetic new voice in historical fiction comes a story of resistance, community, and survival set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Austrian Alps and the heartbreaking onset of World War II.

Growing up on a farm, high among the flowering slopes of Carinthia, Mitzi Hausler has never fit in―not even with her own family. At thirteen, she’s no taller than a six-year-old, and her peers’ taunts of “Witchy Mitzi” follow her everywhere. Thankfully, she has her loyal pup for comfort. And Oma, the grandmother who raised her.

But Oma, a gifted herbalist, won’t be around forever. She vows to pass on her knowledge before it’s too late, sharing her mysterious alpine remedies with Mitzi. With no marriage prospects, herbs may be Mitzi's only path forward. Indeed, when resources grow tight, her resentful older sister sends Mitzi away to Talend to care for a grieving widower and his sickly young child.

In the town, against all odds, Mitzi’s life gradually blooms into something unexpected and she discovers she belongs. But when political violence and Nazi eugenic policies come to town, she’s forced to make a life-altering choice.

Visit Elizabeth Noel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Walden Experiments"

New from Princeton University Press: The Walden Experiments: The Science of Henry David Thoreau by Robert Thorson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Reading Thoreau as a scientist for modern times

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden stands as the foundational text for the environmental movement and as a model for the practice of nature writing. In The Walden Experiments, Robert Thorson tells the story of how, after several discarded drafts of social critique, Thoreau resuscitated Walden with a sharp swerve toward science. Thorson invites us to read—or reread—Walden to discover the observations, empirical thinking, and scientific explanations supporting this canonical work of literature. Chapter by chapter, he guides us through Walden’s relevance for such contemporary scientific concerns as climate change, ecological collapse, water supply, agriculture, artificial intelligence, and technology.

Thoreau's first “experiment” of living deliberately took place in a one-room house at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847. This was followed from 1851 to 1852 by a little-known second experiment of trying to live deliberately in the midst of society as a sojourning scientist. Thorson’s account of a science-revitalized version of Walden helps us appreciate Thoreau's masterpiece not only for its prophetic, lyrical, uplifting, witty, and timeless advice on living sustainably, but also as a historic benchmark for anchoring our modern solutions. Exploring the science that underlies Walden enhances our understanding of the deeper meanings Thoreau draws from nature.

Visit Robert Thorson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Vengefully Matched"

New from Atria Books: Vengefully Matched: A Novel (Book 2 of 2: Hallowcross) by Audrey Goldberg Ruoff.

About the book, from the publisher:

From the author of the “colorful, sweet, and swoony” (Mallory Marlowe, USA TODAY bestselling author) Hopelessly Teavoted comes a witchy, sapphic rom-com about a mischievous runaway bride and her prim-and-proper Witchery Council rival who must fake-date in order to catch a would-be murderer—and accidentally fall in love.

Priscilla Hart does not do regret—except maybe for the spectacularly disastrous choice of fleeing her own wedding in a cloud of magical fireworks. Now the town’s most infamous runaway witch, she’s determined to rebuild her reputation on the Witchery Council and prove she’s more than a scandal in designer heels.

Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin, the newly elected council president, is everything Priscilla can’t stand: composed, proper, and infuriatingly perfect. But when a string of dangerous magical explosions points to Priscilla as the culprit, Agatha makes an impulsive move—announcing that they’re dating—to save her from exile.

Faking a relationship in public should be simple even for such opposites…until late-night arguments turn into slow-burn attraction, and the two discover that something wicked is brewing in Hallowcross. To survive the magic—and their feelings—they’ll have to stop pretending and risk falling for real.

Can they outwit a magic powerful enough to destroy them, or will trust be the most dangerous risk of all?

Visit Audrey Goldberg Ruoff's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America"

New from the University of Illinois Press: Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America by Nick Mathews.

About the book, from the publisher:

The crisis of rural news consumers abandoned by corporate owners

The devastation of local news organizations has left rural areas of the US marooned in information deserts. Nick Mathews offers a boots-on-the-ground examination of the human toll of local news’s erosion by the winds of de-localization and corporate indifference.

It is no secret that ownership transfers, corporate mergers, and hedge fund takeovers have relentlessly consolidated and closed local news organizations. Mathews exposes the impact of that process on journalism, journalists, and news consumers hungry for outlets that tell their stories. A fundamental breakdown within journalism itself, the abandonment of community news has left disgruntled and disconnected locals to piece together news and information themselves. Mathews draws on the personal experiences of news gatherers and consumers to illuminate why local news cannot be scaled. Mass-produced content inevitably severs ties to communities while distant ownership is indifferent to local concerns.

Nuanced and sympathetic, Deserted provides a vivid portrait of the people and places forsaken by journalism’s corporate owners.

Visit Nick Mathews's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Holmes Away From Home"

Coming October 6 from Severn House: Holmes Away From Home (An Althea Adler Mystery) by Samantha Larsen.

About the book, from the publisher:

Introducing Althea Adler, accomplished thief and daring heroine with a mysterious link to Sherlock Holmes.

A heart-racing game of wits, murder and romance is about to commence...

London, 1911. Althea Adler receives a mysterious postcard with just four words, ‘Holmes away from home.’ Surely her mother, notorious thief and opera star Irene Adler, is instructing her to break into Sherlock Holmes’s safe? But when she does, Althea makes a shocking discovery...

Still reeling from events at 221b Baker Street, Althea accepts an invitation to a party at Twickenham Towers, the ancestral home of Lord Slough, where a murder throws her into further turmoil―as does handsome fellow guest William, the Marquess of Sheffield, who has been tasked with staking out Slough by the British Government.

Althea and William form an unlikely alliance as they set about catching a killer. But can they trust each other when they both have something to hide?

Visit Samantha Larsen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Shakespeare and the Making of English Whoredom"

New from Oxford University Press: Shakespeare and the Making of English Whoredom by Stephen Spiess.

About the book, from the publisher:

How does one know a whore is a whore? Upon what terms, standards, interpretive logics, and material practices does such knowledge depend? In Shakespeare and the Making of English Whoredom, Stephen Spiess pursues these questions and, in so doing, discovers the extraordinary cultural labor necessary to produce and sustain the fiction of the “whore” as a fixed, coherent, and readily apprehensible category of sexual knowledge. This work, he shows, unfolds across a variety of historically situated social, textual, and linguistic processes, from the writing of dictionary entries, character sketches, and lyric poems to public proclamations, conversion rituals, and dramatic representations. It also extends into the present era, where scholars continue to shore up whoredom's incoherences and to reproduce moralized distinctions between “real” prostitutes and “discursive” whores.

Charting a different approach in this book, Spiess argues that the ambiguities, incoherences, and impasses that attend the meanings and makings of English whoredom are essential to understanding how that category operates, both in that historical culture and our own. Establishing whoredom as a knowledge relation and a material process, he reveals the analytical benefits of lingering in sites where sexual knowledge breaks down, and of tarrying with the complexities and consequences of the material practices, cultural logics, and social affects that emerge to mediate these impasses. Applying the methods and insights of queer epistemology to a topic of vital feminist concern, Spiess locates new sites for discursive contestation while resisting the identitarian or ontological logics that disciplinary categories seek to install in the first place. Shakespeare and the Making of English Whoredom thus delivers a new analytical framework for understanding the social, textual, and representational histories of illicit sexual figures in early modern England.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dear Future Occupants"

New from the University of Wisconsin Press: Dear Future Occupants by Keith Stahl.

About the book, from the publisher:

It is 1979 and patriarch Bud relocates his family to his conservative hometown of Greenhill, Connecticut. Despite dubious restaurant experience, he uses his wife’s inheritance to purchase a diner in hopes of proving himself. Things begin to fall apart when police find an all-too-literal skeleton in the family’s basement. A series of misfortunes, accidents, and comedic events follow, including the creation of a vending-machine-sandwich/drug-dealing business and a protest-turned-siege at the local hospital.

Charting one family’s rise to subversive glory in a genteel New England town, this colonial gothic novel is told through found documents and multiple perspectives, including those of Bud; Victor, the middle son; and Herman, the ahead-of-their time, nonbinary, eldest child whose journal entries serve as a kind of Greek chorus throughout. In this breathless, exuberant work, Keith Stahl brilliantly captures the foundational dichotomies at the heart of the American experience: a puritanical distrust of anything fun and a nearly anarchic love of pleasure and freedom. Moving and bitterly humorous, Dear Future Occupants is a paean to the working class and the diversity that holds a family together.

Visit Keith Stahl's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crimes Against Feeling"

New from University of Massachusetts Press: Crimes Against Feeling: Piracy, Sympathy, and Ocean Politics in Antebellum American Legal Culture by Mark B. Kelley.

About the book, from the publisher:

Demonstrating how emotion became central to the legal and literary meanings of piracy in nineteenth-century America

Pirates have long occupied a central yet unstable place in American law and national identity. In the decades leading up to and including the U.S. Civil War, the charge of piracy was leveled against an unusually wide range of figures: foreign heads of state, imperial filibusters, transoceanic enslavers, enslaved mutineers, radical abolitionists, and others who challenged established forms of authority. Early American literature reflects this instability, portraying pirates who vary dramatically in politics, race, gender, and allegiance. As Mark B. Kelley shows, these characters are united less by ideology than by their challenge to landed social norms and fixed national belonging. The pirate, in both law and literature, emerges as an individual defined by multiplicity rather than political coherence.

Crimes Against Feeling examines how Americans made sense of this ambiguous figure by turning to emotion. Drawing on legal materials including treaties, trial transcripts, congressional debates, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, as well as popular sentimental fiction (often written by women), Kelley argues that piracy was codified as an offense against moral feeling rather than being a singular political position. Legal thinkers and writers such as John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Maria S. Cummins relied on shared affective frameworks―sympathy, sentiment, and domestic vulnerability―to render piracy legible and punishable. American pirate law, Kelley demonstrates, was shaped by the same emotional logics that structured the era’s popular fiction.

By tracing piracy across debates over domestic sovereignty, global enslavement and abolition, imperial expansion, postbellum reparations, and international copyright, Crimes Against Feeling reveals the pirate as a key figure for understanding gender, home, family, and nation in early America. Reading law and literature together, the book shows how emotional judgment―not political consensus―became a foundational tool for managing oceanic violence and transnational disorder in the nineteenth-century United States.

Visit Mark B. Kelley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Falling Like Snow"

Coming October 6 from Margaret K. McElderry Books: Falling Like Snow (Part of Bramble Falls) by Misty Wilson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A girl juggles planning her town’s first-ever winter festival and untangling her complicated feelings for both her best friend and the star hockey player in this charming book in the swoony Bramble Falls series that started with the New York Times bestselling Falling Like Leaves.

After Bramble Falls’s wildly successful Falling Leaves Festival, Sloane Sullivan is looking forward to some downtime—especially kicking back and marathoning Nora Ephron movies with her best friend, Asher. But they barely make it through Sleepless in Seattle before Sloane’s mom calls an emergency tourism department meeting; it’s all hands on deck—Bramble Falls is having its first ever Falling Snow Festival!

Sloane may still be recovering from the last seasonal event, but she’s also excited. After all, Christmas is the best time of year! And she’ll have her whole crew by her side, including her cousin Ellis and, of course, Asher. But when irresistible, hockey-playing Micah catches Sloane’s attention, she finds herself a bit distracted. The emotions her unexpected flirtation brings up make Sloane feel confused about Micah…and Asher.

She’s never thought of Asher as more than her best friend, but even if Sloane is seeing Asher in a new light, what does that mean for her and Micah? Uncertain and more than a little overwhelmed, Sloane throws herself into festival preparations, hoping to get a little Christmas magic in return that will help her figure out where her heart lies.

Visit Misty Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Whiteness Between Us"

New from the University of Chicago Press: The Whiteness Between Us: Early Modern Playbooks of Racial Triangulation by Noémie Ndiaye.

About the book, from the publisher:

A theorization of the representational juxtapositions, frictions, and connections between Black people and other non-white people in early modern European theatre.

Over the course of the seventeenth century, European drama was an important tool for whiteness to imagine itself at the top of an aspirational structure of power relations. Indeed, that structure could only be aspirational at a time when Europeans were profoundly divided along easily racializable religious and ethnic lines, and when their sovereignty was threatened by the Ottoman empire. It was to strengthen this emerging consciousness of racial whiteness, Noémie Ndiaye argues, that European drama engaged in a form of racial triangulation, fitting Muslim, Jewish, Indigenous, Romani, and Asian characters into a spurious black/white racial binary.

Focusing on English, Spanish, and French drama from 1580 to 1715, The Whiteness Between Us shows how plays became a crucial tool to position not only black people but any non-white community in the new racial architecture that white supremacy sought to build. Ndiaye reveals the stage of this era as a space for wish fulfillment, enabling participants to imagine and work towards a whiter future.

The early modern playbooks of racial triangulation that Ndiaye brings to light can and have been reactivated for white supremacist purposes in our own day and age. Partly in response to the contemporary threat of white nationalism, scholars and students have sought to unearth the early modern roots of racial whiteness and white supremacy. Ndiaye’s book participates in this wave of interest, offering several innovations, including its capacious transnational claims.

Visit Noémie Ndiaye's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hanging and Burning"

Coming October 20 from Little, Brown and Company: Hanging and Burning: A King Oliver by Walter Mosley.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A dying gangster’s plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America’s coasts—unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way—in this engrossing new novel from one of the most celebrated and acclaimed crime writers at work today.

Joe King Oliver is the big man you call to solve the most delicate and dangerous of problems. Fresh off unraveling the mystery of his own parents’ fates, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer.

Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing.

As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right?

Visit Walter Mosley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Claiming the Nation"

New from the University of California Press: Claiming the Nation: The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Brazil by Andre Pagliarini.

About the book, from the publisher:

Time and again, in heated debates over Brazil's political economy and democracy, one disputed concept emerges: nationalism. Claiming the Nation traces the contested history of the nationalist label in twentieth-century Brazil, examining how both progressive and conservative forces invoked national interest to advance divergent political agendas. Focusing on the period from the 1920s through the end of military rule in 1985, Andre Pagliarini demonstrates how progressive reformers linked nationalism to social justice, economic sovereignty, and mass participation, while right-wing elites often used it to justify hierarchy and technocratic governance. Through detailed analysis of political debates, media, and activism, the book shows how competing attempts to define and claim nationalism in the public square shaped Brazil’s civic identity, development, and political trajectory during the past one hundred years. Ultimately, Pagliarini unveils the enduring ways in which control over nationalist discourse became a proxy for determining who legitimately represented the nation and its future.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House Built on Alligator Bones"

New from Dutton: The House Built on Alligator Bones: A Novel by Sophia Huneycutt.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The Greers built their fortune on alligator bones.

Dartrine Beaumont believes her mother’s sudden death has left her alone in the world—until she learns of long-lost wealthy relatives living in Florida. Confused but delighted by the possibility of extended family, Dart travels to her grandmother’s stately Gilded Age mansion on Amelia Island for answers, just in time to stake a claim on an unusual inheritance: an alligator farming empire.

Her arrival at Greer House isn’t everything she hoped. Without warning, Dart finds herself in fierce competition with her grandmother’s arrogant heir apparent, and tensions rise as threats escalate on one of the farms. More unsettling is her hostile grandmother’s fanatical belief that the danger stems from a curse; according to legend, a larger-than-life alligator hunted down by a bloodthirsty ancestor haunts the family. Yet Dart can’t deny that the farm’s alligators hiss only at Greers, or that a shadowy figure creeps through the mansion’s halls.

As Dart uncovers the truth about her violent birthright, she faces a terrible choice: accept her place in her family’s grim legacy or forge a new path by slaying a different beast entirely.

Visit Sophia Huneycutt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Without Masters"

New from Duke University Press: Without Masters: Autogestión, Anarchist Ethics, and Mexico City Punk by Livia K. Stone.

About the book, from the publisher:

Without Masters is an anthropological history of the radical ethical and political principle of autogestión as it traveled around the world in the twentieth century and came to be popularized in Mexico City in the early 2000s. A political term that first arose in 1962 Algeria traveled across continents until it landed in Mexico City’s anarcho-punk scene in the 1980s, where it eventually came to be associated more with zines, music, art, and Zapatismo than with its origins in anarchism or syndicalism. Without Masters brings the true history of autogestión and the quiet radicalism of Mexico City’s autogestive collectives to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Along the way, Stone brings together diverse materials, from punk zines and political fliers to Beat novels and Zapatista parables, that tell an alternate history of radical politics throughout the world in the second half of the twentieth century which serves as a reminder of Mexico’s formative role in the creation of modern social theory.

--Marshal Zeringue

"'Twas the Night"

Coming October 13 from William Morrow Paperbacks: 'Twas the Night: A Novel by Kevin Johnson.

About the book, from the publisher:

A young reporter follows a string of disappearances into the middle of a terrifying Christmas cult inspired by our favorite holiday classics.

You better watch out. You better not cry.

It’s Christmas in the village of Yule, Maine.

In fact, it’s always Christmas in Yule. Here, Santa Claus isn’t a storybook figure. He’s an icon. A god. The villagers don’t just believe in him—they worship him. And the world is better for it.

Halley Belanger hates Christmas, and she doesn’t have much love for Santa either. But when a string of child disappearances across Maine seems to spare only the village of Yule, Halley—a sharp, skeptical reporter—decides to investigate.

What she finds is a town that guards its secrets with gingerbread smiles and a snow globe sheen. Outsiders aren’t welcome. She isn’t welcome. And something sinister is keeping the Christmas spirit alive.

As Halley digs deeper, she begins to uncover the horrifying truth behind Yule’s eternal cheer. Christmas comes at a grisly cost. And Santa Claus is no saint.

Visit Kevin Johnson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Filial Lines"

New from Cambridge University Press: Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form by Emmy Waldman.

About the book, from the publisher:

This is the first book to place the autobiographical projects of canonical comics authors Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel alongside each other, focusing on new and neglected works (and with an epilogue on the Pulitzer Prize-winning tour-de-force debut of Tessa Hulls). The book offers a lively cast of five formal tropes-boxes, spirals, tic-tac-toe, mirrors, and webs-through which to model fundamental elements of the comics grammar and its material processes. Built around rich close readings, it shows what makes the comics form particularly suited to negotiate complex familial and creative inheritances and manage layered, relational identities. Interweaving accounts of Jewish identity, female embodiment, legacies of modernism, and feminist practice, the book traces how contemporary graphic memoirists visually work and rework their filiations and affiliations through form, situating the medium as a privileged site and staging ground for arguments about the enabling possibilities of form now.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Stolen Women"

Coming October 27 from Park Row Books: The Stolen Women: A Novel by Alysandra Dutton.

About the book, from the publisher:

A case of missing noble women and a determined young warrior who sets out to bring them home in this new and exciting ancient historical set just before the founding of Rome, for fans of The Song of Achilles, Circe, and A Thousand Ships.

Safinia is fine to focus on her training as a warrior, providing for her sisters, and minding her own business. She feels no great need to meddle in anyone else's, until women in her town, including her former lover, begin disappearing. Quietly, at first, but disappearing just the same. All of the missing women have vanished from powerful households, but their formidable fathers are in utter denial, claiming their daughters are off on trips, sure to be back shortly, with perfectly reasonable explanations for their absences.

Dissatisfied with the half-hearted attempts to hand wave away the alarming and mysterious cases of the vanishing women, Safinia takes matters into her own hands, embarking on a journey to a neighboring village in search of answers or at the very least clues that might unearth threads she can begin to pull at. Along the way, she meets an unlikely yet helpful search partner, a historian who calls himself Livy. But despite his eerie sense of knowledge, Safinia is unable to uncover to missing women, thwarted more often than not by the girls' fathers themselves. As war with Rome looms on the horizon, Safinia must face the reality that the only one she can trust to bring them home is herself.

Alysandra Dutton has crafted an expertly researched and indepth look at the Sabine women, one of history's most overlooked yet crucial stories that has inspired countless works of art throughout the centuries. It's a fresh, page-turning adventure, perfect for readers of Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes.

Visit Alysandra Dutton's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Hate Speech"

New from the University of California Press: Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma by Samantha Barbas.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of the battles over regulation of hate speech in the United States.

The United States has no hate speech laws; hate speech is generally considered to be free speech under the First Amendment. In this crisp guided history, acclaimed legal historian Samantha Barbas chronicles the country’s legal and cultural battles over the regulation of hate speech in the last hundred years. Charting the historical context for current debates, she ultimately argues that, however emotionally appealing they may seem, hate speech laws undermine civil rights and democracy.

The American policy on hate speech evolved from influences such as the civil rights movement, which contended that the most effective way to combat hate speech wasn’t through proposed laws. Rather than imposing restrictions, the US has developed an array of mechanisms other than law, including counterspeech and public education, that have been relatively effective at dealing with hate speakers and hate groups. Though not perfect, our method of addressing hate is less dangerous than government censorship and less likely to be weaponized against the powerless.

Visit Samantha Barbas's website.

The Page 99 Test: Laws of Image.

The Page 99 Test: Newsworthy.

The Page 99 Test: The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst, Free Speech Renegade.

The Page 99 Test: Actual Malice.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Dog Days of Planet Earth"

Coming October 27 from ECW Press: Dog Days of Planet Earth: A Novel by Theresa Shea.

About the book, from the publisher:

For fans of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These and Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes this unforgettable and fiercely compassionate novel

Immediately upon his release from a 25-year prison sentence, former veterinarian Trevor Westmore gets his first surprise as a free man: A guard gives him a German shepherd puppy. While Trevor anxiously tries to build a new life, his dog, Libby, provides the routine and responsibility he needs to navigate his re-entry into society.

All Trevor wants is to earn a living, to stay out of trouble, and to be left alone — until he meets and falls for local veterinarian Laura Fenway. But they both have their secrets. When she learns the truth of Trevor’s past will she consider a future together? And when he discovers the lengths she’ll go to rescue dogs, will he jeopardize his long-awaited freedom?

Weaving together major environmental and political issues of the mid- to late-20th century that remain urgent today, Dog Days of Planet Earth asks what we’re willing to risk for our personal convictions in a world where powerful and unjust forces often oppose them.

Visit Theresa Shea's website.

--Marshal Zeringue