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
Terry Baum, "One Dyke’s Theater: Selected Plays 1975-2014" (Exit Press, 2019)
Terry Baum’s book One Dyke’s Theater: Selected Plays 1975-2014 (Exit Press, 2019) collects plays and solo scripts from throughout the career of a “slightly…
- New Books in Literature
Megan Harlan, "Mobile Home: A Memoir in Essays" (U Georgia Press, 2020)
Home is the place many of us have spent our days for the last eight months. During the pandemic, our homes have become our workplaces, our classrooms, and our…
- New Books in Literature
S. J. Hartland, "The 19th Bladesman" (Dark Blade, 2018)
A rich and complex world of sword-wielding fighters and seductive sorceresses, written in percussive, lyrical prose. The 19th Bladesman (Dark Blade, 2018)…
- New Books in Literature
Sarah Wisseman, "The Botticelli Caper" (Wings ePress, 2019)
The Botticelli Caper (Wings ePress, 2019) is set at the Uffizi Galleries during a period, not long ago, when workmen were constantly coming in and out during…
- New Books in Literature
Zaina Arafat, "You Exist Too Much" (Catapult, 2020)
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs…
- New Books in Literature
Rebekah Taussig, "Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body" (HarperOne, 2020)
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a…
- New Books in Literature
Lawrence Osborne, "The Glass Kingdom" (Hogarth, 2020)
Sarah Mullins, an American woman, arrives at the Kingdom: a fading luxury apartment complex in Bangkok. She is there to lay low, after passing over forged…
- New Books in Literature
Michelle Cameron, "Beyond the Ghetto Gates" (She Writes Press, 2020)
The intense interest in the horrors of World War II that has characterized the last few years has tended to overshadow other aspects of the long history of…
- New Books in Literature
Rachel Genn, "What You Could Have Won" (And Other Stories, 2020)
After Henry Sinclair’s supervisor steals his research, he tries to rejuvenate his career by turning his girlfriend into a drug experiment. Astrid is a rising…
- New Books in Literature
P. Djèlí Clark, "Ring Shout" (Tordotcom, 2020)
P. Djèlí Clark’s new novella, Ring Shout (Tordotcom, 2020) is a fantasy built around an ugly moment in American history—the emergence of the second Ku Klux…
- New Books in Literature
Deni Ellis Bechard, "A Song from Faraway" (Milkweed Editions, 2020)
A young man visits his half-brother in Vancouver and steals a book that changes his life. An archeology student is befriended and brought to Iraq by a brother…
- New Books in Literature
Anne Louise Bannon, "Death of the Chinese Field Hands" (Healcroft House, 2020)
When Anne Louise Bannon heard her husband, then archivist for the City of Los Angeles, speak about how early Angelenos dug a large ditch (a zanja) to cull…
- New Books in Literature
Lisa B. Thompson, "Underground, Monroe, and the Mamalogues: Three Plays" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
Lisa B. Thompson is equally renowned as a scholar of African and African-American studies and as a playwright. Her latest book Underground, Monroe, and the…
- New Books in Literature
Heather Lende, "Of Bears and Ballots: An Alaskan Adventure in Small-Town Politics" (Algonquin Books, 2020)
Heather Lende was one of the thousands of women inspired to take a more active role in politics during the past few years. Though her entire campaign for…
- New Books in Literature
Maria Hinojosa, "Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America" (Atria Books, 2020)
Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning journalist who, for nearly thirty years, has reported on stories and communities in America that often go ignored by the…
- New Books in Literature
Shakira Croce, "Leave It Raw" (Finishing Line Press, 2020)
Like a storm waiting to break over a plain, Shakira Croce pulls at tensions and heartstrings in a debut collection filled with longing, wit, and intelligence…
- New Books in Literature
Morris Ardoin, "Stone Motel: Memoirs of a Cajun Boy" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)
In the summers of the early 1970s, Morris Ardoin and his siblings helped run their family's roadside motel in a hot, buggy, bayou town in Cajun Louisiana. The…
- New Books in Literature
Eshkol Nevo, "The Last Interview" (Other Press, 2020)
Eshkol Novo's The Last Interview was published in Hebrew in 2018 and was at the top of Israel’s bestseller list for 30 weeks. It is currently on the short list…
- New Books in Literature
Jennie Fields, "Atomic Love" (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2020)
Inspired by Leona Woods, the only woman who worked on the Manhattan Project, Atomic Love (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2020) tells the story of Rosalind Porter, a…
- New Books in Literature
Melissa Valentine, "The Names of All the Flowers: A Memoir" (The Feminist Press, 2020)
Set in rapidly gentrifying 1990s Oakland, this memoir explores siblinghood, adolescence, and grief in a family shattered by loss. Melissa Valentine and her…
- New Books in Literature
Menna Van Praag, "The Sisters Grimm" (Harper Voyager, 2020)
Today I talked to Menna Van Praag about her new book The Sisters Grimm (Harper Voyager, 2020)... In a set up reminiscent of the show Orphan Black, four feisty…
- New Books in Literature
Jasper Fforde, "The Constant Rabbit" (Viking, 2020)
In Jasper Fforde’s The Constant Rabbit (Viking, 2020), residents of the United Kingdom live among human-sized anthropomorphized rabbits. The rabbits make fine…
- New Books in Literature
Andrew Krivak, “The Bear” (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020)
A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear (Bellevue Literary Press) is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature’s dominion. In an…
- New Books in Literature
P. K. Adams, "Midnight Fire" (Iron Knight Press, 2020)
Most novels about the sixteenth century written in English take place in Italy, France, or England—with the occasional foray into Spain or Portugal. P. K…
- New Books in Literature
Sergio Troncoso, "A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son" (Cinco Puntos Press, 2020)
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press, 2020) is a collection of linked short stories, which Luis Alberto Urrea called “a world-class…
- New Books in Literature
Corey Sobel, "The Red Shirt" (UP of Kentucky, 2020)
At first, Miles Furling plays football to fit in. By eighth grade he realizes that he is both gay and a football player. After an unsuccessful attempt at…
- New Books in Literature
Kelly Harris-DeBerry, "Freedom Knows My Name" (Xavier Review Press, 2020)
In Freedom Knows My Name (Xavier Review Press, 2020), Kelly Harris-DeBerry creates the world anew from scraps of memories and rhythm. She bounces between the…
- New Books in Literature
Carly Israel, "Seconds and Inches" (Jaded Ibis Press, 2020)
Today I interview Carly Israel about her bold new memoir, Seconds and Inches (Jaded Ibis Press). In the opening sentence of her introduction, Israel writes…
- New Books in Literature
Jessica Gross, "Hysteria" (Unnamed Press, 2020)
“But creative writers are valuable allies and their evidence is to be prized highly for they are apt to know a whole host of things between heaven and earth of…
- New Books in Literature
Linda Stewart Henley, "Estelle" (She Writes Press, 2020)
Most people think of Edgar Degas as a French painter of ballerinas. But few have heard that his mother came from New Orleans or that he spent five months in…
- New Books in Literature
Silviana Wood, "Barrio Dreams: Selected Plays" (U Arizona Press, 2016)
Silviana Wood is a legend of Chicano theatre. Through her involvement with Teatro Libertad, Teatro Chicano, and El Teatro Nacional de Atzlán she has created…
- New Books in Literature
Tracy Clark, "What You Don't See" (Kensington, 2020)
Cass Raines left the Chicago Police force after a morally bankrupt cop nearly got her killed. Now she runs her own Private Detective agency. When her old CPD…
- New Books in Literature
Ann Dávila Cardinal, "Five Midnights" (Tor Teen, 2019)
Ann Dávila Cardinal writes stories that thrill you. She writes about lives that face challenge and find a way through, despite the horror that chases them. She…
- New Books in Literature
Diane Cook, "The New Wilderness" (Harper, 2020)
Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness (Harper, 2020) is a poignant portrait of a mother and daughter fleeing the polluted cities of a near-future dystopia for a…
- New Books in Literature
Mark Edward Langley, "Death Waits in the Dark" (Blackstone Publishing, 2020)
While Arthur Nakai is attending a wake for a man he considered a brother with whom he served in the U.S. Marines, he receives a call from an old friend whose…
- New Books in Literature
Premee Mohamed, "Beneath The Rising" (Solaris, 2020)
Premee Mohamed's Beneath the Rising (Solaris, 2020) is simultaneously a far-flung horror story and an exploration of an intimate relationship. At the heart of…
- New Books in Literature
Catherine Adel West, "Saving Ruby King: A Novel" (Park Row Books, 2020)
Two south side Chicago families are bound together by a violence-infused past. Ruby’s mother, Alice King, has been murdered. Her father, Lebanon King, is an…
- New Books in Literature
Assaf Gavron, "The Hilltop" (Scribner, 2015)
Mordantly funny and deeply moving, The Hilltop about life in a West Bank settlement has been hailed as “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and “The…
- New Books in Literature
Yehoshua November, "Two Worlds Exist" (Orison Books, 2016)
Yehoshua November's second poetry collection, Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books), movingly examines the harmonies and dissonances involved in practicing an…
- New Books in Literature
Chantal Bilodeau, "Forward" (Tanlonbooks 2018)
Over the past ten years, Chantal Bilodeau has made a name for herself a playwright singularly dedicated to writing plays about the issue of climate change…
- New Books in Literature
Jack Fredrickson "The Black Cage: A Milo Rigg Mystery" (Severn House, 2019)
In this well-written mystery, The Black Cage: A Milo Rigg Mystery (Severn House Publishers), it’s bitter winter in Chicago, and disgraced crime reporter Milo…
- New Books in Literature
Madeline Ashby, "ReV: The Machine Dynasty, Book III" (Angry Robot, 2020)
Writers and readers of science fiction love stories about artificial intelligence, robots, and mechanical beings whose sentience mirrors, matches or exceeds…
- New Books in Literature
Bryn Turnbull, "The Woman before Wallis" (Mira Books, 2020)
Most modern Americans can identify the names Wallace Simpson and Gloria Vanderbilt. But Simpson was not the first divorced American to win the heart of Great…
- New Books in Literature
Melissa Faliveno, "Tomboyland: Essays" (Topple Books and Little A, 2020)
Writers often evoke the famous que sais-je (“What do I know?”) of Michel de Montaigne, father of the literary essay. Montaigne was known for his deeply…
- New Books in Literature
Yxta Maya Murray, "The World Doesn't Work that Way, But it Could: Stories" (U Nevada Press, 2020)
A trainer of beauty pageant contestants is disappointed after spending a fortune to prepare a beautiful Latina for the Miss USA pageant, only to learn that she…
- New Books in Literature
Satyan Devadoss, "Mage Merlin's Unsolved Mathematical Mysteries" (MIT Press, 2020)
There are very few math books that merit the adjective ‘charming’ but Mage Merlin's Unsolved Mathematical Mysteries (MIT Press, 2020) is one of them. Satyan…
- New Books in Literature
John DeSimone, "Road to Delano" (Rare Bird Books, 2020)
In John DeSimone's Road to Delano (Rare Bird Books, 2020), it's 1968, and Cesar Chavez is organizing the United Farm Workers to fight for decent working…
- New Books in Literature
Laura Ruby, "Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All" (Balzer and Bray, 2019)
Francesca and Toni are brought to the orphanage when their mother suffers a breakdown and dies, and their father gets involved with a new woman. Their story…
- New Books in Literature
Nate Marshall, "Finna: Poems" (One World, 2020)
In Finna: Poems (One World), his new collection of poetry, Nate Marshall examines the way that pop culture influences Black vernacular, the role of…
- New Books in Literature
Sonya Bilocerkowycz, "On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine" (Mad Creek Books, 2019)
It’s been a difficult year in America. From plague, to protests, to politics, there have never been so many lives at stake, nor so many questions about the…
- New Books in Literature
Elsa Hart, "The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne" (Minotaur Books, 2020)
Lady Cecily Kay has just returned to England when she encounters Sir Barnaby Mayne. It’s 1703, Queen Anne is on the throne, and London’s coffee houses are…
- New Books in Literature
Edward A. Farmer, "Pale: A Novel" (Blackstone, 2020)
It’s 1966, and Bernice’s husband has either died or abandoned her. Her brother Floyd invites her to join him as a servant working for white owners of an old…
- New Books in Literature
Erika Rummel, "The Road to Gesualdo" (D. X. Varos, 2020)
The Italian Renaissance introduced—or reintroduced—many valuable concepts to society and culture, giving rise eventually to our modern world. But it was also a…
- New Books in Literature
Premee Mohamed, "Beneath the Rising" (Solaris, 2020)
Premee Mohamed’s debut novel, Beneath the Rising (Solaris, 2020) came out in March, but don’t call her a new writer. “I find it funny that people refer to…
- New Books in Literature
Bill LeFurgy, "Into the Suffering City: A Novel of Baltimore" (High Kicker Books, 2020)
In Bill LeFurgy's Into the Suffering City: A Novel of Baltimore (High Kicker Books), Sarah Kennecott is a brilliant young doctor who cares deeply about justice…
- New Books in Literature
Chelsea Wagenaar, "The Spinning Place" (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019)
In The Spinning Place (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019), Chelsea Wagenaar explores the power of language—in terms of its possibilities and what it fails to…
- New Books in Literature
Chanelle Benz, "The Gone Dead" (Ecco, 2019)
A decrepit house in Greendale, Mississippi once belonged to Billie James’s father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when she was four years old. Her…
- New Books in Literature
Nancy Thayer, "Girls of Summer: A Novel" (Ballantine Books, 2020)
Christina Gessler talks with her friend Nancy Thayer about Girls of Summer: A Novel (Ballantine Books), which was just chosen for O Magazine’s Summer Reading…
- New Books in Literature
Suri Hustvedt, "Memories of the Future" (Simon and Schuster, 2019)
How Do We Write Our Personal History at the Same Time That It’s Written for Us? Today I talked to Suri Hustvedt about this question and others as we discuss…
- New Books in Literature
Jessica Winters Mireles, "Lost in Oaxaca" (She Writes Press, 2020)
After an injury to her hand derails her promising concert career, Camille retreats to her mother’s house and teaches piano to mostly desultory students. The…