"Intentionally Infecting Humans: Is it Ethical?"

New from Oxford University Press: Intentionally Infecting Humans: Is it Ethical? by Seema K. Shah.

About the book, from the publisher:

In controlled human infection (CHI) research, researchers intentionally expose people to pathogens to gain scientific insights. During the COVID-19 pandemic, proposals to use CHI research to speed up vaccine development captured public imagination and bioethicists’ attention, with more papers written on the ethics of CHI research than ever before.

Intentionally Infecting Humans: Is it Ethical? argues that ongoing ethical controversy about CHI research is fuelled by fundamental confusion. This book draws on past uses and abuses of CHI research, the experiences of volunteers, and social psychology research to help explain the status of these studies in the public imagination. It then provides an ethical framework for these studies, demonstrating that the biggest ethical challenge with this research is when scientists determine how to infect humans for the first time in a novel CHI model. Once a model has been shown to be safe and reliable, it is much less controversial to use CHI models in studies that can, for example, test new vaccines and treatments. Furthermore, given the time it takes to create a safe and reliable model, CHI research is not the "silver bullet" for vaccine development some promised during the COVID-19 pandemic but still may be a smart investment in the longer term. Distinguishing types of CHI research that raise more and less ethical concern also helps clarify when CHI research can be used by low- and middle-income countries embarking on new research programs, and for populations traditionally considered "vulnerable." The book leaves the reader with a richer understanding of the history that feeds into ongoing controversies over CHI research, ways that CHI research could be deployed ethically to enhance preparedness for future pandemics and address neglected diseases, and ideas to help resolve longstanding debates in research ethics more generally.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Faces of the Dead"

New from Severn House: The Faces of the Dead (A Cathy Marsden Thriller) by Chris Nickson.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sergeant Cathy Marsden investigates the death of a local gangster in WWII Leeds.

Leeds, 1944. Cathy Marsden’s happiness at her boyfriend Tom’s brief leave from the army and marriage proposal is short-lived as she embarks on a new case in the Special Investigation Branch.

Eric Carr, a local gangster, is dead after crashing his car on the outskirts of Leeds. Not only that, but an alarming discovery is made in the boot: weapons, including guns, stolen from a US military base, to be sold on the black market.

Was the crash simply an accident, or something more sinister? One thing’s for sure – Eric’s death has set a chain of murder and gangland chaos in motion. As the number of people disappearing increases, and men start dying, Cathy must work out who is pulling the strings, and why.

This fast-paced and twisty World War II thriller is perfect for fans of Kate Quinn, Rhys Bowen and Kelly Rimmer.

Visit Chris Nickson's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Constant Lovers.

The Page 69 Test: The Iron Water.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Psalm.

Q&A with Chris Nickson.

The Page 69 Test: The Molten City.

My Book, The Movie: Molten City.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (August 2021).

The Page 69 Test: Brass Lives.

The Page 69 Test: The Blood Covenant.

The Page 69 Test: The Dead Will Rise.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2023).

The Page 69 Test: Rusted Souls.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2023).

The Page 69 Test: The Scream of Sins.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2024).

The Page 69 Test: Them Without Pain.

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (September 2024).

Writers Read: Chris Nickson (March 2025).

The Page 69 Test: No Precious Truth.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Bacon"

New from the University of Georgia Press: American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon by Mark A. Johnson.

About the book, from the publisher:

In American Bacon, Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse? Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, Civil War, Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization. For Johnson, bacon’s story from “most dangerous food in the supermarket” to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Harmless"

New from Dutton: Harmless: A Novel by Miranda Shulman.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A twisty novel of sisterhood, friendship, and obsession that asks: Can we ever really outrun what haunts us most?

Two years ago, Bea’s life was upended when her beloved twin sister died. Audrey was captivating, an extrovert, their mother’s golden child. Bea was “different,” too intense, and chronically lonely.

Now, in her late twenties, Bea is back home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, her spirits finally buoyed by her plan to start a dog kennel. Inspired by the childhood dream she once shared with Audrey and old, now-estranged friends Tatum and Layla, she’s sure this will be the perfect ode to her sister’s memory.

But as they reintegrate into one another’s lives, Audrey’s absence is keenly felt by all. Soon, simmering tensions and attractions emerge, and a sinister darkness breaks through to the surface. What do they really want? What happens when old secrets come to light? And when is it best to bury a dream, or a cherished friendship?

Visit Miranda Shulman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"God Bless the Pill"

New from the University of North Carolina Press: God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion by Samira K. Mehta.

About the book, from the publisher:

Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it would usher in a sexual revolution. But a surprising number of religious Americans in the mid-twentieth century also saw contraception as part of God’s plan—a tool to create happy, prosperous American families in the post–World War II era.

In God Bless the Pill, Samira K. Mehta traces the remarkable story of how mid-twentieth-century Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish voices promoted the use of birth control and made it more accessible for many Americans. They hoped birth control methods would curb divorce rates by encouraging sexually dynamic marriages and families unstrained by “too many” children—thereby creating a postwar upwardly mobile middle class. Religious leaders also promoted this understanding of the family as tied to Cold War capitalism and encouraged neither racial nor gender equity.

But then came the backlash, both from the Right—which failed to anticipate the feminist potential of contraception—and from the Left, where women, particularly women of color, sought to ensure that birth control was a tool of liberation rather than one rooted in patriarchal and racial oppression. Ultimately, Mehta offers compelling new insights into the way religion accommodates itself to social, technological, and medical change.

Visit Samira K. Mehta's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Porcupines"

New from Summit Books: Porcupines: A Novel by Fran Fabriczki.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A fresh and witty debut about a young immigrant mother and her increasingly inquisitive daughter, who wakes up one day and decides to find out who her father is.

Sonia is a Hungarian immigrant who is raising her daughter, Mila—her beloved Milosh—on her own in sunny Los Angeles. Her days are a blur of not-quite-illegal business activities, dodging PTA moms, and baking birthday cakes laced with rum—minor mistakes that nevertheless continually remind her of everything she doesn’t understand about America and parenthood. Mila, meanwhile, is juggling violin and swimming lessons and navigating the treacherous social politics of school with the help of a less-than-helpful guidebook on how to be cool in the sixth grade—all the while trying to get her secretive mother to share something, anything, about her past.

Sonia is sure that their bond, stitched from drive-through dinners, extracurricular activities, and a lot of exasperated affection for each other—will be enough to satisfy her daughter. But her guarded lifestyle has left Mila lonely, isolated, and ready to write herself into a bigger story. When she stumbles across emails between her mother and a man she’s never met, Mila decides to take matters into her own hands and forms a plan that will implode their carefully constructed lives.

Moving between Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall; Washington, DC, in the tense years of the Cold War; and the bright sunshine of early aughts Los Angeles, Porcupines is an irresistible novel about mothers and daughters, secrecy and loneliness, belonging and reinvention—and what happens when the truth can’t be held back any longer.

Visit Fran Fabriczki's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Bad Poor"

New from LSU Press: The Bad Poor: Race, Class, and the Rise of Grit Lit by Mitch Ploskonka.

About the book, from the publisher:

The Bad Poor examines the rise of Grit Lit, a movement in contemporary southern literature written by and about poor southern whites. Examining issues of genre, race, and culture, Mitch Ploskonka traces the emergence of this iconoclastic mode through its major authors to reveal a literary-cultural identity rooted in difference, marked by resistance to respectability and class performance, and shaped by reckoning with the legacies of whiteness and regional memory.

For those long dismissed as “white trash” and denied an active voice in their own representation, Grit Lit confronts the parallel concerns of finding a way to describe themselves and the means to communicate it appropriately. Beginning with Harry Crews and progressing chronologically to the present—including discussions of key works by Larry Brown, Dorothy Allison, Rick Bragg, and Tom Franklin, among others—Ploskonka examines how Grit Lit authors forge self-representations by experimenting with genres and engaging with identity politics. Through the ongoing search for a usable, unshameful identity, Grit Lit enacts a painful but heartening narrative of grappling with the realities of people and place by acknowledging difference.

As stories about the gritty or rough South proliferate across media, The Bad Poor relates an important story of literary self-fashioning by analyzing a body of literature that speaks to larger cultural discourses regarding racial identity, social justice, disability, and class divisions.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Sing Down the Moon"

New from Mercer University Press: Sing Down the Moon by Robert Gwaltney.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye yearns to escape Good Hope, the remote Georgia coastal barrier island where she resides. Leontyne's heritage is bleak. Tasked with tending Damascus, an ancient fig tree beguiling haints across the river with its wind chime song, Leontyne's mother, Eulalee, disintegrates into tufts of hair, teeth, and memory. This affliction befalls all Skye women, a fatal consequence of distilling Redemption, an addictive drug made from the figs of Damascus imbued with the essence of haints. Leontyne also tumbles apart, her memories and hand lost in a life-altering accident suffered two years back during an event known as Tribulation Day. Through unreliable recollections of her trusted friends the Longwood twins, Leontyne stitches a dubious understanding of who she was before she fell "the long-long ways." In the aftermath of Eulalee's death, Leontyne is pressured by the Longwoods to render Redemption, continuing the legacy upon which Good Hope depends.

Visit Robert Gwaltney's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Figures of Crisis"

New from Yale University Press: Figures of Crisis: Alberto Giacometti and the Myths of Nationalism by Joanna Fiduccia.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major reevaluation of a towering figure in twentieth-century art and the relationship of his sculpture to the crisis of nationalism in modern Europe

In 1935, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) abruptly abandoned his surrealist experiments and devoted himself to sculpting portrait busts and minuscule figurines, many no larger than a fingernail. Joanna Fiduccia traces the origins and progression of Giacometti’s notorious artistic crisis, revealing its connection to a broader crisis of national identity in modern Europe. In this decade-long interval, the central features of his artworks—their turbulent surfaces, unsettling generality, severely reduced scale, and compulsive repetition—gave form to the experience of social breakdown and war, even as they laid the groundwork for his iconic postwar sculpture. Pursuing a concept of crisis as both an irreducible encounter with uncertainty and the clarification of a conflict, Fiduccia reimagines this fragmentary and inconspicuous body of work as the pivotal phase in the artist’s career as well as a vital episode in the history of modern sculpture. This fresh account, told through the philosophical, political, and aesthetic thought of Giacometti’s time, shows how ideologies of nationalism helped generate the problems of selfhood at the heart of modernism.

Visit Joanna Fiduccia's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Morsel"

New from Tor Nightfire: Morsel by Carter Keane.

About the novella, from the publisher:

Carter Keane's Morsel is a delicious folk horror debut about learning to bite back when the world is determined to eat you alive.

Lou did what the children of parents with backbreaking, poorly paying jobs are supposed to do: pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office gig with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multilevel marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment.

When Lou accepts a property appraisal assignment in the rural hills of Ohio, she knows it's her last chance to save her job and keep making rent. But she quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, her dog, and someone--or something--stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods.

If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll see firsthand that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.

Morsel is The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.

Visit Carter Keane's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Powered by Smart"

New from NYU Press: Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI by Sarah Murray.

About the book, from the publisher:

A critical feminist history of the techno-cultural evolutions that make AI possible

Powered by Smart traces the techno-cultural evolutions that made artificial intelligence feel more familiar than futuristic. From wearables and streaming platforms to home voice assistants and AI toasters, smart is an inescapable feature of postdigital life. Today, thousands of products and platforms define smart as routine automation and friendly digital kinship. Yet smartness was not always so digital. Sarah Murray uncovers the century-long process through which smart became synonymous with seamless interaction between bodies and machines, showing how this intimate interfacing helped to normalize today’s algorithmic world.

Offering a critical, feminist prehistory of everyday AI, Powered by Smart reveals how the pursuit of convenience, comfort, and efficiency has long been a gendered campaign. Smartness has often been associated with women ― from early switchboard operators and industrial designer Lillian Gilbreth’s test kitchens to Jane Fonda’s Jazzercise empire and Disney’s computer-housewife PAT in Smart House. These moments illuminate how machine intelligence has already been made ordinary, and how the smart ideal was built over time through domesticity, discipline, and desirability.

Moving across factory floors, suburban kitchens, exercise trends, and digital homes, Murray shows how twentieth-century innovations in wearability, solutionism, and recognition laid the groundwork for our contemporary tolerance of ― and attachment to ― AI. Far from a sudden technological revolution, everyday AI emerged through decades of cultural conditioning of smart life as a caring, attentive endeavor that cast human–machine harmony as both natural and necessary. Powered by Smart reframes artificial intelligence not as the next frontier of progress, but as the logical extension of a much older dream of efficiency made ordinary and personal.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Stay for a Spell"

New from Ace: Stay for a Spell by Amy Coombe.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A cursed princess must discover what her heart truly longs for in this charmingly cozy romantic fantasy for everyone who’s ever lost – or found – themselves in a bookshop.

Princess Tanadelle of the Widdenmar is disillusioned with life as a princess. She longs for real conversation, the chance to build a life of her own making, and uninterrupted reading time.

During a routine royal visit to the town of Little Pepperidge, Tandy’s dream comes true when she finds herself cursed to remain in a run-down bookshop until she unlocks her heart’s desire. Certain that someone will figure out how to break the curse eventually, and delighted by the prospect of an entire bookstore of her own, Tandy settles into life among the stacks. She finds it easy to exchange balls and endless state dinners for teetering piles of books and an irritatingly handsome pirate who seems bent on stealing her stock.

She even starts to believe she's stumbled into her very own happily ever after.

There's just one, minor problem: as Tandy's royal duties go unfulfilled, her frantic parents start sending princes to woo her, each one of them certain their kiss will break the curse. After all, what more could a princess want but a prince?

Visit Amy Coombe's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"This Vast Enterprise"

New from Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster: This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark by Craig Fehrman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: For the first time in a generation, This Vast Enterprise offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes in American history, humanizing forgotten figures and shattering long-held myths.

In 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their journey—having led the Corps of Discovery across eight thousand miles of rapids, mountains, forests, and ravines—they bring an incredible tale starring themselves as courageous explorers, skilled survivalists, underrated scientists, and peaceful ambassadors. While there is truth in those descriptions, there is also distortion.

From one of the most exciting new historians to emerge in the past decade, This Vast Enterprise offers a novel take on the expedition: a gripping narrative that draws on lost documents, stunning analysis, and Native perspectives. Craig Fehrman spent five years visiting more than thirty archives, interviewing more than a hundred sources, and collecting oral history passed down over centuries. He came to see that the success of Lewis and Clark depended on much more than just Lewis and Clark. We all know Sacajawea, and some of us know York, the Black man Clark enslaved. But here we meet John Ordway, a working-class soldier who fought grizzlies and towed the captains’ hulking barge. We hear from Wolf Calf, a Blackfoot teenager who watched his friend die in a battle with Lewis and his men.

Each chapter moves to a different person’s point of view, describing their desires and contradictions. We see Thomas Jefferson operating in an age of bitter partisan unrest—his secret political maneuvers to fund the expedition, revealed here for the first time, are a case study in presidential power. We witness the strategy and strength of Black Buffalo, completely upending our understanding of Lakota-American diplomacy. York, in his chapters, finds ways to wield power and make choices in an era that didn’t allow him much of either. Clark is not a folksy Kentuckian but a student of the Enlightenment. (Fehrman discovered his college notebook; no previous biographer even realized that he went to college.) Lewis is someone willing to sacrifice everything for his country and his mentor, Jefferson.

In the end, the captains are men who needed help—from Sacajawea, from the Corps, and from each other. Mile after mile, the expedition pushes on through hailstorms and flash floods, frostbite and infections, rattlesnakes and rabid wolves, with the Spanish cavalry in fierce pursuit. Fehrman balances the story’s adventure with the humanity of its protagonists. The result is a thrilling reminder that even the most familiar moments in history can still surprise us.

Visit Craig Fehrman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Left and the Lucky"

New from Harper: The Left and the Lucky: A Novel by Willy Vlautin.

About the book, from the publisher:

The acclaimed Willy Vlautin returns with a heartbreaking and tender novel about two young brothers, the vicissitudes of fate, and unexpected connection—a beautiful and bittersweet portrait that illuminates the power of friendship and how it can save lives in multiple ways.

Eddie Wilkens is a workaholic house painter in his early forties. His wife has left him to her regret, and his main employee, Houston, is a loafer and scoundrel who barely shows up for work. Unassuming and self-reliant, Eddie is thoughtful man who rarely gets angry, despite life's frequent provocations, but he is ruled by a guilt that he has carried for nearly twenty years.

Next door, a woman and her two sons move in with her frail and aging mother. The youngest boy, Russell, eight-years-old, is quiet and small for his age and lives in constant terror of his increasingly lost and troubled fifteen-year-old brother, Curtis. As their mother struggles to keep the family together and the grandmother’s health begins to faulter they find themselves unable to protect Russell and themselves from Curtis’s cruelty, which threatens to explode in frenetic violence.

Though neither knows it, Russell and Eddie will become each other’s saving grace.

While Russell’s home life disintegrates he begins waiting in Eddie’s backyard for him to get off work. Eddie offers the boy small acts of kindness: he feeds him, gives him jobs to do, listens to his dreams of escape, and offers Russell a glimpse into a world of hope and humor. A world of misfit painters, a derelict muscle car, an old dog, and the comradery and companionship of Eddie and his crew. In return, Russell gives Eddie a reason to carry on and helps him lay to rest the guilt that has plagued him for half of his life.

Together, this makeshift father and son begin to build better life, daring to trade the bleakness and cynicism around them for hope and friendship.

From a writer revered for his thoughtful and compassionate portrayal of realistic American life, The Left and the Lucky is a heartbreakingly honest examination of how circumstance shapes our lives, and how the luck of finding someone who needs us can transcend bitter loneliness and prevent us from giving up on dreaming of a better life.

Visit Willy Vlautin's website.

Writers Read: Willy Vlautin.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Blue Power"

New from Basic Books: Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves by Stuart Schrader.

About the book, from the publisher:

A history of police unions that reveals how American law enforcement built a political movement that made cops untouchable.

In America today, police enjoy unmatched power. On the streets, officers employ violence at their own discretion. Behind closed doors, they are even more powerful. In city halls, police strong-arm local leaders and nullify attempts at public oversight. And in state legislatures and Washington, DC, police lobbyists and union leaders zealously uphold a bipartisan consensus against even mild reform. Yet as recently as fifty years ago, police still served at the pleasure of democratically elected politicians, not the other way around. In Blue Power, Stuart Schrader narrates the rise of a bottom-up movement of rank-and-file officers who lifted policing above the law.

Organizers launched their campaign in the 1960s, courting a public backlash to urban uprisings and civil rights. City by city, county by county, they formed unions and other organizations and won control over working conditions, impunity from oversight, and insulation from lean budgets. By the 2000s, this movement had triumphed nationally, shoring up the power of the police to overrule the public interest in the name of law and order.

Through deep archival detective work, Blue Power reveals how police forced American democracy to back the blue.

Visit Stuart Schrader's website.

The Page 99 Test: Badges without Borders.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Kill Dick"

New from Red Hen Press: Kill Dick: A Novel by Luke Goebel.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles, where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.

At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be coasting: she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to home: her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.

Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.

Dark, satirical, and razor—sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self—destruction.

Visit Luke Goebel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Backcountry Resistance"

New from the University of South Carolina Press: Backcountry Resistance South Carolina's Militia and the Fight for American Independence by Carl P. Borick.

About the book, from the publisher:

The extraordinary story of a war fought by ordinary people

In Backcountry Resistance, Carl P. Borick delivers a groundbreaking account of the citizen militias that defied British forces in South Carolina's volatile Backcountry during the pivotal Southern campaign of the Revolutionary War.

Focusing on rank-and-file militiamen, Borick explores how these ordinary men were recruited, armed, fed, and motivated. Drawing on underused pension records and state claims, he reconstructs their everyday realities and their battlefield experiences. He also examines the war's devastating effects on civilians, including enslaved people and women, who played crucial roles in the struggle.

Richly detailed and grounded in the human experience of warfare, Backcountry Resistance offers the most comprehensive portrait to date of South Carolina's militia during the decisive years of the American War of Independence.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Spirits"

New from Simon & Schuster: American Spirits: A Novel by Anna Dorn.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A love letter to pop music, American Spirits charts an icon’s fall—and an obsessive fangirl’s rise.

Thirty-eight-year-old Blue Velour has finally achieved the critical acclaim she’s long been chasing. Over the last decade, she’s released six studio albums to mixed reviews, landing her somewhere between performance artist and niche legend. But her latest album, Blue’s Beard—a cheeky reference to the subreddit fanatically dedicated to her suspected secret relationship with longtime producer Sasha Harlow—has rocket-launched her reputation. Blue hires nerdy superfan Rose Lutz as her assistant to handle the pressures of the upcoming tour.

When the pandemic shuts down the tour, however, Blue decides to hole up in the redwoods with Sasha to make another album. An aspiring singer herself, Rose is frothing at the mouth to be isolated in a cabin with these two legends, but what begins as a creative retreat spirals into a flurry of chaos and betrayal—culminating in a tragic act that changes their lives forever.

Smart, entertaining, and edgy, American Spirits is a compelling exploration of the dark side of fame.

Visit Anna Dorn's website.

Q&A with Anna Dorn.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Modernism After the Ballets Russes"

New from Oxford University Press: Modernism After the Ballets Russes: Movement in the British Theatre by Gabriela Minden.

About the book, from the publisher:

Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes holds a renowned position in the history of modernism across various arts. The company's daring productions brought together leading artists working in diverse fields - from Igor Stravinsky to Pablo Picasso, from Bronislava Nijinska to Coco Chanel - redefining the possibilities of artistic collaboration and shaping the trajectories of dance, music, fashion, and the visual arts. But what of the Ballets Russes's role in the text-based theatre? Despite the intrinsic link between dance and theatre as performance arts, the company's contributions to dramatic literature and dramaturgy have remained surprisingly elusive. This book establishes the Ballets Russes as a powerful force in the development of modernist theatre in Britain, revealing how the company's avant-garde repertoire inspired the creation of new composition strategies and performance techniques that privileged the immediacy of expression offered by the moving, dancing body.

Modernism After the Ballets Russes examines the philosophical conditions of early twentieth-century Britain's theatrical landscape, marked by growing interest in Nietzschean interpretations of classical drama and Wagnerian notions of the Gesamtkunstwerk, to illuminate the allure of the Ballets Russes's re-centring of dance as the foundation of theatre art. It shows that Diaghilev ballets provided new ways of thinking about the relationship between the literary and embodied aspects of dramatic performance, fueling collaborations between eminent dramatists and theatre practitioners - Harley Granville Barker, J. M. Barrie, Terence Gray, and W. H. Auden - and lesser-known choreographers: Cecil Sharp, Tamara Karsavina, Ninette de Valois, and Rupert Doone. Through the prism of the Ballets Russes, this group of artists crafted distinctive new theatrical forms, including a whimsical terpsichorean fantasia and a politically subversive poetic dramatic satire, as well as new methods of staging Shakespearean comedy and Attic tragedy. Together, this book contends, these literary and dramaturgical innovations represent a previously neglected strand of modernism: one that saw the dramatic power of the moving body expand the expressive resources of the period's theatrical arts.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Delivery"

New from The Mysterious Press: The Delivery (Mercury Carter Thrillers) by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Freelance courier Mercury Carter races against time and across New England to rescue a trafficking victim in this new thriller from the author of The Mailman.

Merc Carter is not your typical deliveryman. A former postal inspector, he specializes in moving sensitive or dangerous packages—of all sorts—from point A to B. And sometimes he needs his gun to do so. Carter’s current mission leads him to Providence, Rhode Island, but his delivery is interrupted when he comes across a woman badly injured in a car wreck in the pouring rain. Then a man with a gun appears warning Carter away from the scene and Carter leaps into action, disarming the attacker and rescuing the crash victim.

Just as Carter thinks the danger has passed, he discovers a deeper mystery stemming from the crash, a deadly puzzle involving a memorable pair of grifters, a crooked ex-cop, stolen identities, human trafficking, and murder. And it appears that Carter’s next assignment will put him right in this conspiracy’s perilous center . . .

The follow-up to last year’s acclaimed hit, The Mailman, which launched the Mercury Carter series, The Delivery is a fast-paced, unpredictable thriller following a memorable protagonist whose resourcefulness is matched only by his quick wit and determination to never miss a delivery.

Visit Andrew Welsh-Huggins's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Empty Grave.

Q&A with Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The Page 69 Test: An Empty Grave.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (April 2023).

My Book, The Movie: The End of the Road.

The Page 69 Test: The End of the Road.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (November 2024).

My Book, The Movie: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: Sick to Death.

The Page 69 Test: The Mailman.

Writers Read: Andrew Welsh-Huggins (March 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue

"Racializing the Ummah"

New from the University of Minnesota Press: Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White by Rhea Rahman.

About the book, from the publisher:

A robust ethnography of Islamic Relief explores difficult questions about the extensive reach of white supremacy

An ethnography of Islamic Relief (IR), the largest Islamic NGO based in the West, Racializing the Ummah explores how a Muslim organization can do good in a world that defines Muslimness as less than human. Rooted in more than a decade of international research, Rhea Rahman’s study on the organization’s projects, methods, and limitations reveals how racial capitalism permeates all aspects of humanitarianism.

Beginning with a counterhistory of Muslims in the United Kingdom following World War II, Rahman analyzes IR’s mission and transnational activities in and across places including the UK, South Africa, and Mali in the broader context of global white supremacy. She shows how IR’s approaches often effectively secularize Islam to evade anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia, implicating concepts such as the “good” Muslim aid worker, who complies with War on Terror surveillance while attending to victims of Western colonialism. Meanwhile, Rahman theorizes the tactics of aid workers on the ground, who creatively draw on an Islamic Black radical tradition to drive real change.

Through her engagement with IR and other organizations, Rahman paints a frank, nuanced portrait of the constraints Islamic aid entities face in the effort to disentangle themselves from neocolonialism and Western hegemony. Yet she also locates the possibility of escape from the all-encompassing dictates of racial capitalism in alternative visions of doing good—ones that are grounded in Islam as the foundation of a revolutionary praxis.

--Marshal Zeringue

"To the End of Reckoning"

New from The Mysterious Press: To the End of Reckoning by Joseph Moldover.

About the novel, from the publisher:

After a traumatic brain injury alters a curmudgeonly psychiatrist’s mind—leaving him agitated and confused but obsessively observant—he enlists his reluctant son to help investigate a colleague’s mysterious suicide...

Twenty-three-year-old Lukas Moore has returned to his hometown of Faith, New York, and left his burgeoning acting career behind to care for his father. Dr. Richard Moore is a psychiatrist known for being nearly as misanthropic as he is brilliant, but a recent traumatic brain injury has left him dependent on his begrudgingly attentive son and has changed his worldview in unexpected ways. Attuned to the slightest detail, Dr. Moore now sees mysteries where other people see settled facts—nowhere more so than in the disappearance of his former colleague and neighbor Dr. Jason Grant.

One year ago, Jason’s shoes, watch, and car were found beside a nearby lake and no trace of him has been found since. The obvious conclusion was suicide, despite Jason’s youth, wealth, and successful career as a child psychiatrist. Only two people question his fate: Richard, obsessed with fragments of memory, and Misty, Jason’s younger sister and Lukas’s high school girlfriend.

When Misty asks for the Moores’ help in finding out what really happened to her brother, Lukas takes the chance to resolve his father’s obsession and to reconnect with someone he may still have feelings for. As Lukas, Richard, and Misty are drawn into the puzzle, however, they are forced to confront the secrets behind both Jason’s disappearance and Richard’s injury. Sometimes the deepest mysteries are found in the people we think we know best.

Visit Joseph Moldover's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Truth About Natural Law"

New from Oxford University Press: Truth About Natural Law: History, Theory, Consequences by Brian Z. Tamanaha.

About the book, from the publisher:

Long sidelined in legal discourse, natural law is undergoing a major resurgence in the United States, with dozens of books and articles on the topic, and several sitting judges referring to it in judicial decisions or legal writings. Yet its century-long dormancy has left many jurists and laypeople with a limited and superficial understanding of what natural law is about. Truth About Natural Law addresses this gap, offering an accessible yet critical exploration of the theory, history, and contemporary relevance of natural law.

Brian Z. Tamanaha draws on a wealth of original material to explore the diverse natural law and natural rights positions of prominent past and contemporary authorities. Highlighting the syncretic nature of this tradition, he engages critically with contemporary Aristotelian-Thomists and John Finnis' New Natural Law Theory, offering a critical evaluation of natural law's claims to truth. Rooted in ancient myths of divine law and later adopted by both Catholic doctrine and Western legal thought, Tamanaha demonstrates how natural law played a formative role in shaping Western legal systems-while also being used to justify slavery, the subordination of women, and imperialism. This book offers a vital, timely reappraisal of natural law's legacy and its place in today's legal and political debates.

/>The Page 99 Test: Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Maybe Tomorrow I'll Know"

New from Norton Young Readers: Maybe Tomorrow I'll Know: A Novel by Alex Ritany.

About the book, from the publisher:

A boy is trapped in a time loop―and in a girl’s body―in this heartfelt and wryly humorous love story.

Laurie wakes up in a girl’s body with no memories, driving down an unknown highway, and promptly crashes the car. Thankfully, a handsome stranger named Gideon comes to his rescue. It’s awkward for Laurie to pretend that he’s a girl, but at least this is the scariest thing he’ll ever have to deal with.

Except the next morning―and every morning after―Laurie wakes up barreling down that same highway. He re-meets Gideon every day, with no idea who this girl whose body he’s inhabiting even is. Only one thing is clear: he’s on a countdown. Laurie has been given only one hundred days to get back in the right body, break the time loop, and not fall for Gideon while he does it.

Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know is a funny, deeply felt exploration of love, identity, and what it means to move through the world in a body that is truly yours.

Visit Alex Ritany's website.

Q&A with Alex Ritany.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Citizen and the Vagabond"

New from the University of Minnesota Press: The Citizen and the Vagabond: A Politics of Mobility by Tim Cresswell.

About the book, from the publisher:

An expansive treatise on the power relations that govern our movement

The Citizen and the Vagabond develops a theoretical approach to the study of mobility and its relationship to the production, maintenance, and transformation of social and cultural hierarchies. Expanding upon his foundational work on the subject, Tim Cresswell examines human movement from around the globe to better understand the various forms of inequality and injustice that shape our lives.

Establishing a framework for movement in terms of rhythm, speed, routes, and friction, Cresswell extends these themes to address the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, exploring what this turbulent period reveals to us about the politics of mobility. He demonstrates that while flexibility and ease of movement are typically considered markers of personal freedom, increased mobility brings with it new modes of control and surveillance. As he investigates the hierarchies and embodied experiences that emerge amid these tensions, Cresswell employs two figures: the citizen, whose mobility within and across borders is expected and accepted, and the vagabond, whose perpetual mobility is deemed suspect and in need of ordering.

In conversation with the work of theorists such as Mimi Sheller, Zygmunt Bauman, Paul Virilio, Henri Lefebvre, Ivan Illich, and Anna Tsing, Cresswell reaches beyond geography to incorporate insights from the humanities and social sciences. An interdisciplinary intervention into the study of mobility and citizenship, The Citizen and the Vagabond provides a new set of coordinates from which to grasp the shifting dynamics of movement and power.

Visit Tim Cresswell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Leave Your Mess at Home"

New from Pamela Dorman Books: Leave Your Mess at Home: A Novel by Tolani Akinola.

About the novel, from the publisher:

The Longe siblings are really botching their parents' American Dream.

Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She’s a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren't doing much better.

Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.

Sola’s unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents' Thanksgiving table, a decade’s worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.

In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other. Big-hearted, hilarious, and wise, Leave Your Mess At Home is a poignant exploration of forgiveness, unconditional love, and becoming who you want to be, asking the question: what do we owe to our families, and what do we owe to ourselves?

Visit Tolani Akinola's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making Care Work"

New from the University of California Press: Making Care Work: Why Our Economy Should Put People First by Nancy Folbre.

About the book, from the publisher:

A bold critique of conventional economics that reveals why the time and money we devote to care work is vital to our economic future.

Our economy is much bigger than the dollar value of things we buy and sell. It depends on us—our health, our creativity, and our moral commitments. These capabilities don't have price tags but are crucial to a sustainable future. We need to acknowledge and reward the value of caring for ourselves and others, especially our children, our elderly, and those experiencing illness or disability.

From leading feminist economist Nancy Folbre, Making Care Work provides a compelling historical and economic account of care provision in the United States. Folbre traces the long and colorful history of resistance to bogus claims that only paid work "counts" and that employees in care services are always paid what they deserve. Explaining why care providers remain economically vulnerable today, she argues that more attention to the public benefits of care provision could help build the political coalitions needed to implement policies that put people first.

In this comprehensive and bold book, Folbre upends conventional economic thinking and maps a hopeful path toward a more equitable and sustainable economy.

Visit Nancy Folbre's website.

--Marhsal Zeringue

"Storm Warning"

New from William Morrow: Storm Warning: A Novel of Suspense (Alex Carter Series, 5) by Alice Henderson.

About the novel, from the publisher:

Wildlife biologist Alex Carter jumps at the chance to work with hawksbill turtles in Hawaii, only to face an unthinkable threat that endangers countless lives in the captivating latest entry of the acclaimed series by Alice Henderson.

Alex Carter is thrilled to be in lush, tropical Hawaii for her new assignment: to study and protect hawksbill turtles. From global warming to poaching to the simple fragility of a turtle’s nest, these creatures are under constant threat. And as excited as Alex is to swim, explore, and relax, she’s also ready to be these turtles’ fiercest protector.

Alex looks forward to a break from the danger of her past assignments, but soon finds that environmental crime can happen anywhere, even in a Hawaiian paradise. As a massive hurricane approaches, armed thieves storm onto the beach where Alex and her volunteers are desperately trying to move turtle eggs to safety out of the storm surge.

When the gunmen take one of her volunteers hostage and Alex tracks them to a nearby paleontology museum, Alex suspects that there’s more to these mysterious criminals than meets the eye and that the repercussions of their success will extend far beyond the shores of the Big Island. Whatever their treacherous plot may be, Alex must scramble to protect the turtles, her friends, and the world at large… before irreversible damage is done.

Visit Alice Henderson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Vanishing Kind.

My Book, The Movie: The Vanishing Kind.

Q&A with Alice Henderson.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Making the Miami Cubanita"

New from the University of Nebraska Press: Making the Miami Cubanita: A Pop Cultural Genealogy by Paula Davis Hoffman.

About the book, from the publisher:

At the end of the nineteenth century, William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal glorified cubanas as “the most feminine and simple women in the world.” Ever since, the stereotype of Cuban femininity as chaste and dutiful has informed Cubans’ racial, social, and ethnic identity in the dominant American imagination, and this gendered and deracialized narrative has taken different forms and served various purposes throughout the Cuban diaspora.

In Making the Miami Cubanita Paula Davis Hoffman examines the cultural precepts and political aims underlying the construction of Cuban femininity in pop culture outlets produced by, for, and about Cuban Americans of the Cuban diaspora. By incorporating academic texts, oral interviews, and elements of popular culture as well as personal accounts of growing up in a first-wave Cuban exile family, Hoffman discusses the historical forces that molded vacillating constructions of Miami Cuban women. Organized by decade, this book traces internal and external articulations of Cuban American culture and examines how Cuban American exceptionalism played into the evolution of the term chonga, originally an insult disciplining young cubanas who performed stigmatized ethnic signifiers that has today become a label some proudly own. Not only does Hoffman fill a gap in academic research surrounding the subculture of Cuban American women, she further demonstrates how migration, race, gender, and sexuality are informed by popular culture and political agenda within the diverse context of South Florida.

Visit Paula Davis Hoffman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton"

New from St. Martin's Press: The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton: A Novel by Jennifer N. Brown.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A dual-timeline murder mystery set in an English country manor, when an ambitious professor discovers the long-lost manuscript of a Reformation-era prophetess

Historian Alison Sage has made a groundbreaking archival discovery—she found a manuscript containing the prophecies of a 16th century nun, Elizabeth Barton. Barton’s prophecy condemning Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution and the destruction of all copies of her prophecies—or so the world believed.

With Alison’s discovery, she is catapulted to academic superstardom and scores an invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, a week of research among a select handful of fellow historians at a crumbling manor in England, located next to the ruins of the priory where Elizabeth herself once lived.

What begins as a promising conference turns into a nightmare as the eerie house becomes the site of a murder. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect, and it seems that answers lie at the root of a local legend about centuries-old hidden treasure. Alison’s research makes her best-suited to solve the mystery—but when old feelings resurface for a former colleague, and the stakes of the search skyrocket, everyone's motives become murky.

Alison’s cutthroat world of academia is almost as dangerous as Elizabeth Barton’s sixteenth-century England, where heretics are beheaded, visions can kill, and knowing who to trust is a deadly art. The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton is a thrilling novel, crackling with the voices of the past and propelled by a mystery that will leave readers in suspense until the very last page.

Visit Jennifer N. Brown's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"American Literature's War on Crime"

New from Columbia University Press: American Literature's War on Crime: Novels and the Hidden History of Mass Incarceration by Theodore Martin.

About the book, from the publisher:

While the United States was building the world’s largest prison system, Americans were reading crime novels. What did it mean to read crime fiction in a “tough-on-crime” era? How were fictional stories about crime linked to cultural narratives about criminality, class, and race? What did novels have to do with the making of mass imprisonment in America?

Theodore Martin offers a groundbreaking account of the ways that reading habits and crime politics intersected in the age of mass incarceration. He shows how the War on Crime was waged on the page, arguing that fiction made the policies and ideologies of crime control legible to diverse readerships. American Literature’s War on Crime analyzes dozens of novels―from best-sellers and prize winners to cult classics and forgotten mass-market paperbacks―by authors including Mary Higgins Clark, James Ellroy, Ralph Ellison, Donald Goines, Sue Grafton, Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes, Stephen King, Walter Mosley, and Sister Souljah.

Rewriting the history of one of the past century’s most popular genres, this ambitious book reveals how the rise of mass incarceration transformed American crime fiction―and how crime fiction became a key battleground in the War on Crime.

Visit Theodore Martin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Live Through This"

Coming soon from Thomas & Mercer: Live Through This by Douglas Corleone.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A crime novelist reunites with old college friends to solve a decades-old murder in a riveting novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of Falls to Pieces.

Crime writer Gregg Dryer returns to his Pennsylvania campus for Homecoming weekend to revisit the death of his girlfriend Jess. During their freshman year, everyone assumed she took her own life when she fell from the roof of D’Amelio Hall―everyone except Gregg. After thirty years of struggling with grief, guilt, and personal demons, Gregg still has his doubts about how and why Jess really died that night.

His search for answers is also a chance to reconnect with four friends from his college class. Most of them have moved on from that terrible tragedy. Not Gregg. Nor Jess’s mother, who is convinced to this day that her daughter was murdered. As Gregg’s investigation leads deeper into a past he doesn’t recognize, the trail grows darker and more dangerous with each new revelation.

As a reunion among old friends becomes one of secrets and suspicions, Gregg must confront his own troubled history―and a truth with which he may not be able to live.

Learn more about the book and author at Douglas Corleone's website.

The Page 69 Test: Good as Gone.

My Book, The Movie: Payoff.

The Page 69 Test: Gone Cold.

My Book, The Movie: Gone Cold.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (August 2015).

The Page 69 Test: Falls to Pieces.

Writers Read: Douglas Corleone (March 2025).

My Book, The Movie: Falls to Pieces.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark"

New from Yale University Press: Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing by James K. A. Smith.

About the book, from the publisher:

A philosopher journeys back to the mystics to learn how to live with uncertainty in the twenty-first century

How do we live when we don’t know what to believe, or who to believe, or how we could even know? In this deeply felt book, philosopher James K. A. Smith explores how radical uncertainty can be liberating, opening us to another way of being. The pain of his own profound uncertainty led Smith to a surprising source for modern consolation: the mystical experiences of St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. These mystics testify to a deeper truth beneath distraction, anxiety, and fear: love.

Drawing on ancient traditions of contemplation as well as on contemporary novels, poetry, film, and paintings, Smith speaks to the fundamental yearnings that persist in late modernity, including the philosophical quest for knowledge and certainty. He shows us how the gifts of the Christian contemplative tradition and the riches of creative works embody a liberating spirituality that recovers the fullness of being human.

In bringing a philosopher’s questions to the mystics, Smith brings a mystical heart back to philosophy.

Visit James K. A. Smith's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"When You're Brave Enough"

New from Viking Books for Young Readers: When You're Brave Enough by Rebecca Bendheim.

About the book, from the publisher:

A heartfelt, gorgeously written debut middle grade novel about best friends, first crushes, and coming out—perfect for fans of Kyle Lukoff and Jake Maia Arlow.

Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo: Lacey-and-Grace, best friends since they were toddlers. Grace and her moms were practically family. But at school, being lumped together with overeager, worm-obsessed, crushes-on-everyone Grace meant Lacey never quite fit in—and that’s why at her new middle school, Lacey plans to reinvent herself. This time, she’s going to be cool. She’s going to be normal.

At first, everything seems to go as planned. Lacey makes new friends right away, she finds a rabbi to help her prepare for the bat mitzvah that got deprioritized by her parents in the chaos of the move, and she even gets cast in the lead role of the eighth-grade musical. Which is when things start to get stressful, because it turns out the students at her new school have a long-standing, unofficial tradition: No matter what the show is, in the final performance, the leads always kiss for real.

Lacey’s never kissed anyone before—she’s not even sure she’s ever had a crush. And in Bye, Bye, Birdie, there are a few different co-lead kiss possibilities for Lacey to choose from. There’s confident, cocky Andre. There’s sweet, friendly Jaden. And then there’s the other new girl at school: dryly funny, impossibly cool Violet.

But while her new friends and older sister create whiteboard wall charts and botched field trip schemes to help her decide, suddenly Lacey can’t stop thinking about Grace, who she was so sure she wanted to leave behind. When Grace comes back into her life, Lacey needs to decide if she's brave enough to be who she really is, in front of the person who matters most.

Visit Rebecca Bendheim's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Irrational Decision"

New from Princeton University Press: The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us by Benjamin Recht.

About the book, from the publisher:

How the computer revolution shaped our conception of rationality—and why human problems require solutions rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment

In the 1940s, mathematicians set out to design computers that could act as ideal rational agents in the face of uncertainty. The Irrational Decision tells the story of how they settled on a peculiar mathematical definition of rationality in which every decision is a statistical question of risk. Benjamin Recht traces how this quantitative standard came to define our understanding of rationality, looking at the history of optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning. He explains why, now more than ever, we need to resist efforts by powerful tech interests to drive public policy and essentially rule our lives.

While mathematical rationality has proven valuable in accelerating computers, regulating pharmaceuticals, and deploying electronic commerce, it fails to solve messy human problems and has given rise to a view of a rational world that is not only overquantified but surprisingly limited. Recht shows how these mathematical methods emerged from wartime research and influenced fields ranging from economics to health care, drawing on illuminating examples ranging from diet planning to chess to self-driving cars.

Highlighting both the power and limitations of mathematical rationality, The Irrational Decision reveals why only humans can resolve fundamentally political or value-based questions and proposes a more expansive approach to decision making that is appropriately supported by computational tools yet firmly rooted in human intuition, morality, and judgment.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Inheritance"

New from Pegasus Books: Inheritance by Jane Park.

About the novel, from the publisher:

A young woman returns to the prairies, where she revisits her immigrant childhood and confronts a haunting guilt, in this debut novel by a brilliant new talent.

Anne Kim is a lawyer in New York, her success built on forgetting the past. When her father dies, she returns to Edmonton for the funeral and is shocked to discover he was from North Korea and left his brother behind.

As she reads the undelivered letters her father wrote to his brother about life in Canada, she is transported back to her childhood in the 1980s and 90s. She recalls the struggles her parents faced as immigrants who ran a grocery store in a rural prairie town. Anne and her brother, Charles, felt the weight of their father’s expectations: Anne was driven to excel and overachieve, whereas Charles rebelled, determined to pursue his own dreams. His rebellion created a rift that culminated in a devastating act, irrevocably shattering their family and leaving Anne overwhelmed by an inescapable guilt.

Inheritance explores the immigrant experience, the sacrifices made by both parents and children, and how trauma transfers to the next generation. As Anne journeys to the past, she emerges to finally define life on her own terms, and her story will resonate long after the final page.

Visit Jane Park's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Spinoza, Atheist"

New from Princeton University Press: Spinoza, Atheist by Steven Nadler.

About the book, from the publisher:

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Steven Nadler, a fascinating historical and philosophical narrative that unravels the mystery of whether Spinoza was an atheist

In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was accused of unspecified “horrifying heresies,” but the precise reasons for his expulsion remain a mystery. When he published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, which was condemned as “the most atheistic book ever written,” he began to reveal to the world what his heresies may have been. Yet ever since the eighteenth century, most readers and scholars have assumed that Spinoza was a pantheist—even a “God-intoxicated man,” as the poet Novalis put it. After all, how could a person whose books are suffused with talk of God be an atheist? In Spinoza, Atheist, Steven Nadler, one of the world’s leading authorities on the philosopher, aims to settle the question and show that that’s exactly what he was.

Nadler makes a powerful case that there is no real divinity for Spinoza. God is Nature, and isn’t an object of worshipful awe or religious reverence but can only be understood through philosophy and science. There is nothing supernatural—no mystery, ineffability, or sublimity. Spinoza does speak of “blessedness” and “salvation,” but these, too, are to be understood in natural and rational terms, as the peace of mind and happiness that come from understanding ourselves and the world.

Whether Spinoza believed in God is a fascinating and enduring controversy. Spinoza, Atheist promises to transform our understanding of his views and to make clear just how radical a thinker he was and remains.

The Page 99 Test: The Best of All Possible Worlds.

The Page 99 Test: A Book Forged in Hell.

Writers Read: Steven Nadler (April 2013).

The Page 99 Test: The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter.

The Page 99 Test: The Portraitist.

--Marshal Zeringue