Shows / New Books in Literature
New Books in Literature
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in Literature
Erin Courtney, "Ann, Fran, and Mary Ann" (53rd State Press, 2020)
Ann, Fran, & Mary Ann (53rd State Press, 2020) is a new play by Erin Courtney, one of the most exciting contemporary American playwrights. This is a play that…
- New Books in Literature
Pamela Hamilton, "Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale" (Koehler Books, 2021)
The name of Dorothy Hale is not well known these days. In the 1920s, she enjoyed a career on Broadway as a dancer, including in a leading role with Fred…
- New Books in Literature
Danielle Geller, "Dog Flowers: A Memoir" (One World, 2021)
Not long ago, the only resource for uncovering our familial pasts was to consult libraries and archives, combing old newspapers for birth announcements and…
- New Books in Literature
Emei Burell, "We Served the People: My Mother's Stories" (Archaia, 2020)
During the Cultural Revolution, many young Chinese in the cities were encouraged — if not ordered — to move to the countryside. Millions of young Chinese in…
- New Books in Literature
Anthony Valerio, "Conversation with Johnny: A Novel of Power and Sex" (2017)
Back in 1997, when Anthony Valerio’s Conversation with Johnny was first published, the world hadn’t yet seen The Godfather, The Sopranos, or Goodfellas. In…
- New Books in Literature
Jennifer Jean, “California” The Common magazine (Fall 2020)
Jennifer Jean speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “California,” which appears on The Common online, in a special portfolio of writing from…
- New Books in Literature
Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, "The Translator of Desires: Poems" (Princeton UP, 2021)
In this ground-breaking work, Michael Sells (the Barrows Professor Emeritus of the History and Literature of Islam and Professor emeritus of comparative…
- New Books in Literature
Vanessa Carlisle, "Take Me with You" (Running Wild, 2021)
Today I talked to Vanessa Carlisle about her new book Take Me with You (Running Wild, 2021). Kindred Powell's youth is marked by a secret that her white mother…
- New Books in Literature
Adrian Tchaikovsky, "The Doors of Eden" (Orbit, 2020)
In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Doors of Eden (Orbit, 2020) the multiverse is filled with parallel Earths where evolution takes different twists and turns. The…
- New Books in Literature
Claire Fuller, "Unsettled Ground" (Tin House Books, 2021)
Set in rural England, award-winning writer Claire Fuller's new novel Unsettled Ground (Tin House Books, 2021) explores what happens to two middle-aged twins…
- New Books in Literature
N+1: "Like Paris Review, but Not Dead"
In this episode, we are talking to Mark Krotov, the publisher and co-editor of n + 1, a magazine of politics, essays and fiction described once: “like The…
- New Books in Literature
Rebecca D’Harlingue, "The Lines Between Us" (She Write Press, 2020)
Today I talked to Rebecca D’Harlingue about her novel The Lines Between Us (She Writes Press, 2020). A widow in 17th century Spain discovers that her beloved…
- New Books in Literature
David Hardin, "Standpipe: Delivering Water in Flint" (Belt, 2021)
A brief, elegant memoir of the author's work as a Red Cross volunteer delivering emergency water to residents of Flint, Michigan, Standpipe sets the struggles…
- New Books in Literature
Stephanie Burt, "After Callimachus: Poems" (Princeton UP, 2020)
Callimachus may be the best-kept secret in all of ancient poetry. Loved and admired by later Romans and Greeks, his funny, sexy, generous, thoughtful, learned…
- New Books in Literature
Alta Ifland, "The Wife Who Wasn't" (New Europe Books, 2021)
An exhilaratingly comical, crosscultural debut novel, The Wife Who Wasn't (New Europe Books, 2021) brings together an eccentric community from the hills of…
- New Books in Literature
Ilaria Bernardini, "The Portrait" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
The Portrait is a story full of ambiguity and suspense, one that works on many different levels and holds the reader’s attention until the very last page…
- New Books in Literature
Zoë Bossiere and Dinty W. Moore, "The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction" (Rose Metal, 2020)
Today I interview Dinty W. Moore and Zoë Bossiere, the editors of the new anthology The Best of Brevity: Twenty Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction (Rose…
- New Books in Literature
Jenny White, "Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence" (Princeton UP, 2021)
The scene is Turkey in the mid-to-late Seventies. A young male college student hops onto a bus. He sits next to a cute female student from his class, but…
- New Books in Literature
David Weill, "Exhale: Hope, Healing, and a Life in Transplant" (Post Hill Press, 2021)
Exhale: Hope, Healing, and a Life in Transplant (Post Hill Press, 2021) is the riveting memoir of a top transplant doctor who rode the emotional rollercoaster…
- New Books in Literature
Loren Stephens, "All Sorrows Can Be Borne" (Rare Bird Books, 2021)
In All Sorrows Can Be Borne (Rare Bird Books, 2021), Loren Stephens tells the story, inspired by true events, of a Japanese woman who survives the bombing of…
- New Books in Literature
Mira Sucharov, "Borders and Belonging: A Memoir" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)
Mira Sucharov’s new book, Borders and Belonging: A Memoir (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020), is a work that takes seriously the feminist adage that the “personal is…
- New Books in Literature
Andrea Stewart, "The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One" (Hachette, 2020)
Today I talked to Andrea Stewart about The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One (Hachette UK, 2020). In a world of floating islands, various…
- New Books in Literature
Deborah Lindsay Williams, “‘You Like to Have Some Cup of Tea?’ and Other Questions About Complicity and Place” (The Common, Fall 2020)
Deborah Lindsay Williams speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her “‘You Like to Have Some Cup of Tea?’ and Other Questions About Complicity and…
- New Books in Literature
Bonnie Macbird, "Three Locks: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure" (Collins Crime Club, 2021)
Sherlock Holmes is one of the rare literary characters who has achieved a kind of cultural immortality. As Bonnie MacBird notes in this interview, display an…
- New Books in Literature
Ginger Smith, "The Rush's Edge" (Angry Robot, 2020)
Space operas take readers far from Earth with stories about alien cultures and battles between good and evil. But while usually set in distant galaxies in the…
- New Books in Literature
Viet Thanh Nguyen, "The Committed" (Grove Press, 2021)
What do you ask a novelist who has won a Pulitzer, a Guggenheim, and a MacArthur genius grant? Cocktail advice, of course. When I had the honor of chatting…
- New Books in Literature
Iván Monalisa Ojeda, "Las Biuty Queens: Stories" (Astra House, 2021)
Drawing from his/her own experience as a trans performer, sex worker, and undocumented immigrant, Iván Monalisa Ojeda chronicles the lives of Latinx queer and…
- New Books in Literature
Serhiy Zhadan, "The Orphanage" (Yale UP, 2021)
The Ukrainian literary scene today is particularly vibrant. The voice of Serhiy Zhadan is distinct, well-known, and easily-recognizable. In 2021, Yale…
- New Books in Literature
Fátima Policarpo, "Her Borders Become Her" (The Common 20, 2020)
Fátima Policarpo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Her Borders Become Her,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine. In this…
- New Books in Literature
Raza Mir, "Murder at the Mushaira: A Novel" (Aleph Book, 2021)
May 1857. The Indian city of Shahjahanabad, today called Delhi, is tense. British officers are worried about rumors of insubordination and rebellion elsewhere…
- New Books in Literature
Carol Cram, "Love Among the Recipes" (New Arcadia Publishing, 2020)
Today I talked to Carol Cram about her new book Love Among the Recipes (New Arcadia Publishing, 2020). After Genna’s husband betrays her, she finds a way to…
- New Books in Literature
Felicia Rose Chavez, "The Antiracist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom" (Breakbeat Poets, 2020)
Felicia Rose Chavez' The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom (Breakbeat Poets, 2020) is a practical and persuasive guide to…
- New Books in Literature
Danielle Rose, "At First & Then" (Black Lawrence Press, 2019)
Alina Stefanescu posits that At First & Then by Danielle Rose is a collection in which “the feminine is reclaimed.” And it is. It is also a collection of…
- New Books in Literature
Joshua Bennett, "Owed" (Penguin, 2020)
Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebratory book…
- New Books in Literature
Phillip Lopate, "The Golden Age of the American Essay: 1945-1970" (Anchor Books, 2021)
The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the rise of…
- New Books in Literature
Ursula Pike, "An Indian Among Los Indígenas" (Heyday Books, 2021)
The western travel narrative genre has a history long tied to voyeurism and conquest. A way to see the world—and its many unique people and places—through the…
- New Books in Literature
Greta Kelly, "The Frozen Crown" (Harper Voyager, 2020)
The horror of the battlefield is fresh for Princess Askia. She’s just been forced to flee her kingdom, the northern country of Seravesh, where her cousin now…
- New Books in Literature
KT Sparks, "Four Dead Horses" (Regal House, 2021)
Today I talked to KT Sparks about her debut novel Four Dead Horses (Regal House, 2021) On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown…
- New Books in Literature
Sarah J. Sloat, "Hotel Almighty" (Sarabande, 2020)
Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande Books) is a book-length erasure of Misery by Stephen King, a…
- New Books in Literature
Bing West, "The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War" (Bombardier Books, 2020)
The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War (Bombardier Books, 2020) is a riveting book of infantry ground combat. As a work of fiction it is superb…
- New Books in Literature
Edgar Garbelotto, "A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy,” The Common magazine (Fall 2020)
Writer and translator Edgar Garbelotto speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy,” which appears in…
- New Books in Literature
Sibbie O'Sullivan, "My Private Lennon: Explorations from a Fan Who Never Screamed" (Mad Creek Books, 2020)
In My Private Lennon: Explorations From a Fan Who Never Screamed (Mad Creek Press, 2020), Sibbie O'Sullivan offers a new point of view from which to consider…
- New Books in Literature
Robbie Arnott, "The Rain Heron" (FSG Originals, 2021)
At the end of its life, the phoenix bursts into flames and a younger bird rises from the ashes. The roc is large enough to carry an elephant in its claws. The…
- New Books in Literature
Alison Stine, "Road Out of Winter" (Mira Books, 2020)
Sometimes you come across a book that pulls you in from every angle. It offers you the space to explore your own fears and hopes all while taking you on a…
- New Books in Literature
Helen Zughaib and Elia Zughaib, "Stories My Father Told Me: Memories of a Childhood in Syria and Lebanon" (Cune Press, 2020)
Family stories are the texture of the human fabric. From every land, from every time, they bring the past to life for young ears. In the beginning of the…
- New Books in Literature
Arthur Koestler, "Darkness at Noon" (Scribner, 2019)
Philip Boehm, who has translated over thirty books from German and Polish into English, has translated a recently discovered German manuscript Darkness at Noon…
- New Books in Literature
F. M. Deemyad, "The Sky Worshipers" (History through Fiction, 2021)
There have been more than a few contenders for the title of “World Conqueror,” but eight hundred years after the fact, Genghis Khan’s claim to the title…
- New Books in Literature
M. I. Devine, "Warhol's Mother's Pantry: Art, America, and the Mom in Pop" (Mad Creek Books, 2020)
In Warhol's Mother's Pantry: Art America and the Mom in Pop (Mad Creek Press, 2020), M.I. Devine introduces readers to a collection of 21st-century multi-genre…
- New Books in Literature
Katherine E. Standefer, "Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life" (Little, Brown Spark, 2020)
As the push for a Universal Healthcare system in the United States becomes more and more popular among the American people, we’re beginning to have more public…
- New Books in Literature
Sari Rosenblatt, "Father Guards the Sheep" (U of Iowa Press, 2020)
In Sari Rosenblatt’s collection, Father Guards the Sheep, (University of Iowa Press, 2020), by turns tender and hilarious, we see fathers who are bullies and…
- New Books in Literature
Casey Walker, “Vigilância,” The Common magazine (Fall, 2020)
Casey Walker speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “Vigilância,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine. In this…
- New Books in Literature
Wendy Voorsanger, "Prospects of a Woman" (She Writes Press, 2020)
When Elisabeth Parker and her husband leave Massachusetts and arrive in California to join her father, she quickly learns that her father is not who she…
- New Books in Literature
Michael Mohammed Ahmad, "After Australia" (Affirm Press, 2021)
After Australia (Affirm Press with the Sweatshop Literacy Movement 2021). No, Australia has not ended - it's a book edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Climate…
- New Books in Literature
James Hadley and Nell Regan, "A Gap in the Clouds: A New Translation of Ogura Hyakunin Isshu" (Dedalus Press, 2020)
Compiled around 1235, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, or Ogura's 100 Poems by 100 Poets, is one of the most important collections of poetry in Japan. Though the…
- New Books in Literature
S. B. Divya, "Machinehood" (Gallery/Saga Press, 2021)
The title of S. B. Divya’s debut novel, Machinehood (Gallery/Saga Press, 2021), refers to an underground band of rebels (or terrorists, depending on your view)…
- New Books in Literature
Te-Ping Chen, "Land of Big Numbers: Stories" (Mariner Books, 2021)
An old farmer, trying to build a plane in his village. A young man that gambles everything on the roaring stock market. A community transformed by a magical…
- New Books in Literature
Vanessa R. Sasson, "Yasodhara and the Buddha" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020)
By combining the spirit of fiction with the fabulism of Indian mythology and in-depth academic research, Vanessa R. Sasson shares the evocative story of the…
- New Books in Literature
Richard Maxwell, "Evening Plays" (Theatre Communications Group, 2020)
Evening Plays (Theatre Communications Group, 2020) collects three plays by experimental playwright Richard Maxwell. The plays are inspired by Dante's Divine…
- New Books in Literature
Katherine Vaz “The Treasure Hunt of August Dias,” The Common magazine (Fall, 2020)
Katherine Vaz speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her short story “The Treasure Hunt of August Dias,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common…
- New Books in Literature
Lauren Willig, "Band of Sisters" (William Morrow, 2021)
Kate Moran, a graduate of Smith College, has been making her living tutoring students in French when her college friend Emmie Van Alden appears out of the blue…