New Books In Literature

In Alternative Kinships: Economy and Family in Russian Modernism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2017), Jacob Emery presents literary texts as intersections of aesthetic, social, and economic phenomena. Drawing particular attention to the texts that emerge under the influence of burgeoning Soviet ideology, Jacob Emery discusses aesthetic developments and repercussions caused and initiated by the programs aimed at the redefinition of economy and society. The spheres of family and economy appear to not only absorb changes and transformations instigated by the strengthening of communist rhetoric, but also to exercise influences on the formation and on the development of Soviet literature, reshaping the aesthetic continuum and revealing the collision of paradigms and epistemes. While focusing on the texts that illuminate the peculiarities of Russian Modernism (Andrei Bely’s Petersburg, Yuri Olesha’s Envy), Alternative Kinships also includes a detailed discussion of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The

The State of Florida might have been designed for Prohibition. Its long coastline, its proximity to the Caribbean sources of rum, and (in 1922) its vast stretches of undeveloped coastline made it a perfect target for smuggling. No wonder that lines of ships lay just outside US waters waiting for the intrepid and criminally minded to ferry each cargo of illicit liquor to land. So Virginia Fitzwilliam discovers firsthand when she travels to the town of Cocoa Beach, then called simply Cocoa, with her two-year-old daughter, Evelyn. Virginia has received news that her estranged husband, Simon, has died in a fire and left his estate and business to her. But when she reaches Cocoa, she soon discovers that Simon’s executors agree on one thing: widows should collect checks and not ask awkward questions, including what really goes on in the company warehouse after dark. Only her sister-in-law shows the slightest sympathy for Virginia and her struggle to understand not only what happened to Simon but what his lega

In The Last Good Man (Mythic Island Press, 2017), Linda Nagata uses a brisk and bracing writing style to immerse us into the lives of private military contractors, in the near future. The team, basically moral individuals, work in conjunction with individually guided, robotic weapons and surveillance equipment. If Katheryn Bigelow, the director of Zero Dark Thirty, wrote a speculative fiction novel, it might be something like this. Wasting no words, the story stays right on track, concentrating on army veteran True Brighton as she and her teammates undertake a dangerous mission, which wakes old wounds. For True, painful memories of her son’s death resurface, while her boss, Lincoln, must come to terms with a past decision he made for the greater good of the unit. True’s anguish and her questions about right action are absorbing and affecting. On another level, the story works as speculative fiction, inviting us to consider a future where AI combat replaces human soldiering more and more. The poin

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s second novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (Cassava Republic Press, 2016), is an excellent addition to the larger, and ever-expanding, genre of Nigerian literature. The novella begins slowly, teasing out details of the main character’s life as she interacts with the people of her San Francisco neighborhood. Morayao Da Silva, the main protagonist, is an elderly Nigerian woman, who is positive, youthful and independent. A fall interrupts her independence and forces her to become dependent on others, which exposes to the reader a hidden loneliness to her cheer and allows Morayo to reflect back on her life of world travel and eventual limitations brought about by age. Each character in this book, from the young mother named Sunshine, to the older African American man visiting his dementia-afflicted wife at the rehabilitation center, allows the reader to get deeper insight into the world of Morayo, while also exploring other character’s insights on the protagon

It’s A Love Story. Set in the 1800s, Ruth’s Redemption (Lift Every Voice, 2012), is an unusual depiction of the lives of slaves and free blacks in pre-Civil War America. Although a slave, Bo is educated. When he gets his freedom, he becomes a property owner of a farm. He purchases slaves only to grant them their freedom. As a man of God and widower, his life changes when the proud and hard-hearted slave girl, Ruth, appears. Ruth has never known a man like Bo. She wants freedom from slavery, from men and from her past. She is drawn to Bo but not to his Godly devotion. Bo is unwillingly attracted to Ruth. Can their relationship and love push through the personal and cultural hardships? Does love really heal all wounds? A gripping novel, Ruth’s Redemption is a story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Surrounding the events of the Nat Turner Rebellion the light of God’s unconditional love shines into the darkness of a woman’s heart, a mans violent mission and a cultures cruel and

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D and D (Nation Books, 2017) by David Kushner and illustrated by Koren Shadmi is a gorgeous depiction of the late E. Gary Gygax’s life and times. Gygax’s story and the tale of D and D’s genesis is ideally suited to the graphic novel format, and Kushner — who met and even gamed with Gygax — conveys these twin narratives well. Shadmi’s illustrations blend the mundane with the fantastical, and the striking cover art alone is sure to win Rise of the Dungeon Master a place on many comic collectors’ shelves. I happily recommend it to anyone looking for a short overview of the subject, and certainly anyone with a love of both comic books and D and D.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josie Flint, known as Jaybird, narrates her story of life in Atlanta during the turbulent South as Jim Crow laws come to an end. Her school desegregates. The country meanders through new ideas brought about by the Civil Rights movement. And the perfect childhood Jaybird treasured is shattered. The narrative alternates between Josie’s childhood and thirty-five years later when her grandmother, Annie Jo, dies. A family secret brings a new heartache for Josie as she struggles to rise against tragedy with grace while maintaining family loyalty. Not only does Jaybird’s Song (Kathy Wilson Florence, 2017) have strong female characters, but also the turbulent 1960s South is its own character. Additionally, for the modern woman, Jaybird’s Song grapples with sexuality and aggression from the opposite sex in a time before trigger warnings and rape culture awareness. Florence notes she too dealt with an embarrassing sexual incident as a child which she has not told her parents, even as an adult. “

Peppa Mueller has a lot going for her. The daughter of a deceased Harvard professor who gave her an eclectic upbringing, she is heir to his fortune, and Radcliffe has accepted her application for undergraduate study in chemistry–her gift and her passion. Too bad that her conventional Swiss relatives cannot imagine why any young lady would want a college education in 1957. Sick of their constraints, she runs away from their home in Basel, even though she cannot collect her inheritance for another two weeks. A house-sitting job draws her to a remote Alpine town, where she becomes the subject of a terrible experiment. Wanted for murder, accused of insanity, and beset by visions of herself as a fierce peregrine falcon, Peppa decides to go after Ludwig Unruh, the man who has victimized her and now holds her precious German Shepherd hostage to force Peppa to participate in his ongoing research into psychedelic plants. But Unruh has far more experience with both chemistry and life than Peppa does, not to menti

The Prey of the Gods, published by Harper Voyager on June 13th, is Nicky Drayden‘s debut novel, though she’s published many short stories. It’s a compassionate work, despite a neglected blood-thirsty goddess and an ancient spirit who assaults women in their dreams, in order to father his brood. Though set in 2064, boys are still boys, impulsive, playful, and needing to be brave. Families are still families, with traditional grandfathers hoping to share their ways with their descendants, although elders and parents often pose the greatest danger. Boisterously mixing mythology and science fiction, the novel moves along from multiple perspectives, keeping the ball rolling. Be sure to pay attention to the old man’s story about the mythological offspring he had; it serves as a framework to understand various characters and their newly acquired powers. Between cross-dressing politicians, a fashion-obsessed demon, and a bot revolution, there’s never a dull moment in Cape Elizabeth. An e

Whether you’re on the right or the left of the political spectrum, I’ll bet that lately the Office of the President isn’t far from your mind. Every day, it seems, I encounter one, two, three, four stories about President Trump, which includes those on Twitter that he posts himself. For me, as the stories keep coming, so do the questions. Who is this guy? How is this guy President? And, by extension, just who can be President–what kind of character or lack of character makes a person right for the Office? My questions aren’t new, even if our current President raises them in new and, for me at least, disturbing ways. Theres an entire subgenre of literature devoted to them. The presidential biography aims to give readers a sense of who a given President is, of the man behind–and before–the Office. These biographies are usually cradle-to-grave tomes or at least cradle-to-end-of-term, written with the idea that a President’s early life somehow shapes his political de

The Gibbs Smith motto is “to enrich and inspire mankind.” Since 1969, the publishing house has become known for creating smart, stylish, sophisticated books. This has included books on architecture and design as well as cooking, holiday and children’s books. Among their most popular series are the BabyLit books, designed to foster a love of great literature at a an early age. Imagine sharing classics like Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, and The Odyssey with the very youngest kids hard to envision, but the BabyLit books do it amazingly well, fulfilling the company’s objective “to create things for brilliant babies.” Publisher Suzanne Gibbs Taylor talks about inspiration for that line and their other books for children. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Boa

It’s January 1935. Prohibition has just ended, but the Great Depression has not, and much of Chicago remains under the grip of the crime lords who profited from the trade in illegal liquor. Eighteen-year-old Henrietta von Harmon, despite her aristocratic name, struggles to keep food on the table for her overwhelmed mother and seven younger siblings. After too many evenings spent cleaning, peddling drinks, and keeping score for dicers at a local bar, Henrietta jumps at the chance to double her income by taking a new job at a nightclub, where she dances with customers for hours. Too bad she cannot share the story with her family, who would be scandalized at the potential damage to her reputation if they knew. Then her boss turns up dead, and the customer to whom she is most attracted reveals that he works as a detective for the Chicago Police. The search for the murderer leads Henrietta into even more unsavory circumstances, and soon she’s wondering whether even the police can keep her safe. In A Gi

Assaph Mehr‘s Murder in Absentia: A Story of Togas, Daggers, and Magic (Purple Toga Publications, 2015) is Egretia, a town in a fantasy world modeled on the Roman Empire, and the occasion is the crime of murder. Felix the Fox, our narrator, is a detective with some extra talents. Not only is he good at winkling out information, watching people and drawing conclusions, but he’s also familiar with magic–both the kind thats allowed in his homeland, and the more dangerous, forbidden kind. Magic can be dangerous. Felix’s former best friend, now an uncanny beggar with frightening eyes, was a talented sorcerer, before things went wrong. When Felix investigates a secret ring of sorcerers that he suspects are responsible for the horrific death of a rich mans son, he is forced to rely on his old friend, as well as a network of associates, his loyal servant, and an alluring damsel or two.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roy Bing Chan‘s new book explores twentieth-century Chinese literature that emphasizes sleeping and dreaming as a way to reckon with the trauma of modernity, from the early May Fourth period through the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s. Informed by theoretical engagements with Russian Formalism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, Marxism, affect studies, and more, The Edge of Knowing: Dreams, History, and Realism in Modern Chinese Literature (University of Washington Press, 2017) considers how time was transformed with the rise of capitalist modernity, and illustrates the significance of a language of dreams and dreaming as writers sought to cope with this transformation and its consequences. Chan offers careful readings of the work of several writers as a way to tell this story, from Lu Xun’s prose poetry to fiction by Mao Dun, Yang Mo, and Zong Pu. Chan concludes by reflecting on how this context might inform how we understand the notion of the Chinese Dream, and arguing that paying atte

As our name makes clear, the New Books Network focuses on books. And as a host who looks at contemporary literature, I have the pleasure of interviewing authors with new books, ones often published by smaller presses without the huge PR machines of larger presses and ones that consequently are often overlooked by larger media outlets. For me, thats one of the rewards of hosting at the New Books Network: I have the chance to showcase important work that you might otherwise miss, work that adds to the richness and diversity of our national literary culture. Now you might be thinking that I’m about to ask you for a donation. I’m not. Though if you want to contribute to the New Books Network and its public mission to widen the intellectual life of America, by all means please do so. We’d appreciate it. No, what I want to do is make the point that, while books from small literary presses are one place that our literary culture thrives, it’s not the only one. Crucial to our national literatu

As an African-American child growing up in the segregated pre-Civil Rights South, Sarah Bracey White pushed against the social conventions that warned her not to rock the boat, even before she was old enough to fully understand her urge to defy the status quo. In her candid and poignant memoir, Primary Lessons (CavanKerry Press, 2013), White recalls a childhood marked by equal measures of poverty and pride–formative years spent sorting through the “lessons” learned from a complicated relationship with her beloved, careworn mother and from a father’s absence engendered by racial injustice and compromised manhood. Although born in Sumter, South Carolina, Sarah spends much of her first five years in Philadelphia in the care of her bighearted Aunt Susie and her husband, Uncle Whitey. As her parents fourth daughter, she has been sent north to ease her family’s financial burden, freeing her mother to work as a schoolteacher. Young Sarah loves her life in Philadelphia, and is devastated

So many people hope to find the perfect soul mate, but suppose you do, only to lose the person you love just as your life together is getting off to a beautiful start? Faye Morgan reacts by tumbling into a new marriage with her first husband’s best friend. After all, the bills pile ever higher, and her husband’s unborn child can’t come into the world without health insurance. The best friend is eager to help, but as time goes by, they both realize it takes more than need and a shared but unexpressed grief to make a partnership. Faye leaps at the chance to resume her career as a photographer, and as she travels around South Carolina’s coastal island, her mourning finds an outlet and hope creeps back into her life. In the old town of Beaufort, she encounters the legend of a lighthouse keeper’s daughter who drowned as a young woman. Compelled to learn more, Faye finds a photograph in the town archives and discovers that the lighthouse keeper looked just like her first, lost husband.

The House of Binding Thorns (Ace, 2017), Aliette de Bodard‘s novel set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war, is the follow up to The House of Shattered Wings, which won the 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award. The books are set in an alternate Paris, where dragons and other sea-creatures drawn from Vietnamese mythology control the river Seine, and the Fallen, ruthless angels expelled from heaven, control everything else. The reader is enveloped in gossamer threads of dread, as she reads about the struggles of various characters to escape domination and cruelty. Both the dragon kingdom and the Houses of the Fallen offer nuanced gradients of aggression; there is no refuge for the powerless. A pregnant Vietnamese woman, an immortal from Asia who lost most of his power, and a French woman who is addicted to the magic found in angel bones, all try to find their way among the shifting alliances, subterfuges, and occasional rewards of a decaying and rotting city. This is low fa

The tragic Tulsa Race Riots plus a smidgeon of romance equals to a compelling historical saga. Marlene Banks weaves fact and fiction together illustrating how law and culture may change but human nature remains the same in her historical novel series Son of a Preacher Man and Greenwood and Archer. Son of a Preacher Man takes place in 1920 Tulsa, Oklahoma, a strictly segregated oil boomtown. The preacher’s son, Billy Ray Matthias and Benny Freeman, daughter of an oil-rich rancher, befriend each other when both want to escape the shadows of their past. Billy Ray’s heart is open for love but Benny’s is fearfully shut. After the devastating race riot, Banks continues the narrative of restoration in the sequel Greenwood and Archer. Lives have been drastically changed since the riot and its citizens defiantly rebuild their piece of prosperity. Tulsa, Oklahoma is as segregated as ever but doesn’t want the whole nation watching. Additional tension festers as prohibition brings Chicago gangster

There’s a phrase that sometimes comes up among those of us who love poetry. Its called the “heresy of paraphrase.” It’s from a book published in 1947 by Cleanth Brooks titled The Well Wrought Urn, but it captures an idea that goes back to Aristotle. And this is the idea: a poem–at least a good poem–is a finally crafted work of art, and the way its crafted, the way its words are structured, is intrinsic to its meaning. You can’t paraphrase a poem. You can’t say it really means or basically means this or that, like you can with other sorts of communication, without distorting it, because how a poem uses language is as important as what its language conveys. In a poem, form and content are inseparable. This view of poetry is the reason those of us who love poetry end up running to our bookshelves in the middle of a dinner party and pulling down our favorite poems and reading them aloud to our unsuspecting guests, because once you mention a poem you love, it doesn&#