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
Karl Schroeder, "Stealing Worlds" (Tor Books, 2019)
To catch the people who killed her environmentalist father, the main character of Karl Schroeder’s Stealing Worlds (Tor Books, 2019) disappears into a virtual…
- New Books in Literature
Emily Strelow, "The Wild Birds" (Rare Bird Books, 2018)
An orphaned young woman disguises herself as a boy in order to escape the dangers of being alone in 1870’s San Francisco. A group of castoffs destroy the bird…
- New Books in Literature
Kimberly Dark, "Fat, Pretty, and Soon to Be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society" (AK Press, 2019)
In her new book Fat, Pretty, and Soon to Be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society (AK Press 2019), sociologist and storyteller Kimberly Dark considers what it…
- New Books in Literature
Franny Choi, "Soft Science" (Alice James Books, 2019)
Franny Choi’s book-length collection of poetry, Soft Science (Alice James Books 2019), explores queer, Asian American femininity through the lens of robots…
- New Books in Literature
Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong…
- New Books in Literature
Phil Christman, "Midwest Futures" (Belt Publishing, 2020)
What does the future hold for the Midwest? A vast stretch of fertile farmland bordering one of the largest concentrations of fresh water in the world, the…
- New Books in Literature
Sarah Fawn Montgomery, "Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir" (Mad Creek Books, 2018)
If you live in America, chances are good you’ve heard the term “mental health crisis” bandied about in the media. While true that anxiety, depression, and…
- New Books in Literature
Gabrielle Mathieu, "Girl of Fire" (Five Directions Press, 2019)
In the fantasy medieval land of Trea—a conservative society that despite its worship of the goddess Amur respects her human daughters only as wives and…
- New Books in Literature
Kristen Millares Young, "Subduction" (Red Hen Press, 2020)
Kristen Millares Young’s debut novel, Subduction (Red Hen Press, 2020), provides a lyrical exploration of cultural encounters in the Pacific Northwest. After a…
- New Books in Literature
Michael Zapata, "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau" (Hanover Square Press, 2020)
In 1916, Adana Moreau’s parents are killed by American Marines. She flees to Santo Domingo and then to New Orleans. There, she marries a pirate, Titus Moreau…
- New Books in Literature
Nino Cipri, "Homesick: Stories" (Dzanc Books, 2019)
When Nino Cipri entered the Dzanc Short Story Collection Contest, they had no expectation of winning, so when they won, they were shocked. The prize came with…
- New Books in Literature
Martín Prechtel, "The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun" (North Atlantic Books, 2005)
Today I interview Martín Prechtel, whose work ranges from painting and drawing to overlooked histories and living languages to farming and blacksmithing and…
- New Books in Literature
Abdullah Qodiriy, "Bygone Days" (Bowker, 2019)
Mark Reese’s recent translation of Abdullah Qodiriy’s 1920s novel O’tkan Kunlar (Bygone Days) brings an exemplary piece of modern Uzbek literature to…
- New Books in Literature
Brad Balukjian, "The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)
Today we are joined by Brad Balukjian, author of the book The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife (University of Nebraska, 2020). A…
- New Books in Literature
Joan Schweighardt, "Gifts for the Dead" (Five Directions Press, 2019)
Last summer, massive fires in the Amazon rain forest provoked environmental concerns around the world. But the history of exploitation—of the natural world of…
- New Books in Literature
Sarah Kozloff, "The Nine Realms" (Tor, 2020)
Sarah Kozloff does her world building gradually and carefully, introducing you to a few characters you get to know and care for, before moving on to other…
- New Books in Literature
Kameron Hurley, "The Light Brigade" (Saga Press, 2019)
Some war stories emphasize heroism and a higher purpose; others emphasize brutality and disillusionment. The first kind of story got Dietz, the narrator of…
- New Books in Literature
Lowell Mick White, "Burnt House" (Buffalo Times Press, 2018)
After her parents' divorce, Jackie Stalnaker is sent to her grandmother’s dilapidated house in a tiny town in West Virginia. It’s a hot, mid 1970’s summer in…
- New Books in Literature
Christina Adams, "Camel Crazy" (New World Library, 2019)
Today I’m speaking with author Christina Adams, and Adams has something of a surprising muse: camels. That’s right, camels. One hump, two humps, crossing the…
- New Books in Literature
Katharine Dion, "The Dependents" (Back Bay Books, 2019)
Gene is newly widowed and haunted by his memories. As he bumbles through long days, he questions his wife Maida’s sudden death, his daughter’s motives, and the…
- New Books in Literature
Priya Sharm, "Ormeshadow" (Tor.com, 2019)
A slim volume you can swallow in one melancholy winter afternoon, best with sips of a mellow amber whisky with undertones of peat, Priya Sharm's Ormeshadow…
- New Books in Literature
Becca Klaver, "Ready for the World" (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)
Becca Klaver writes in the poem 'Hooliganism Was the Charge,' It offered reassurance which said, “You are not alone; I can hear you.” Her forthcoming…
- New Books in Literature
Mike Chen, "A Beginning at the End" (MIRA, 2020)
The end of the world is no excuse for eating French fries. That’s a lesson 7-year-old Sunny Donelly learns from her father, Rob, who tries to give her as…
- New Books in Literature
Mark Barr, "Watershed" (Hub City Press, 2019)
It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and the…
- New Books in Literature
Serena Burdick, "The Girls with No Names" (Park Row Books, 2020)
Effie Tildon loves her older sister, Luella. Sixteen to Effie’s thirteen, Luella has long taken the leading role in deciding what the two sisters do, even when…
- New Books in Literature
Donald Morrill, "Impetuous Sleeper" (Mid-List Press, 2009)
Usually on the New Books Network we do exactly what our name says: we talk about new books. Today, however, we’re doing something a little different. I’m…
- New Books in Literature
Jason Brown, "A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed" (Missouri Review, 2019)
The ten linked stories in Jason Brown's A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed (Missouri Review, 2019) follow John Howland…
- New Books in Literature
Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon, "Night and Day: A Novel" (Academic Studies Press, 2019)
Christopher Fort’s new translation of Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon’s Night and Day: A Novel (Academic Studies Press, 2019) (Kecha va Kunduz) gives…
- New Books in Literature
Seanan McGuire, "Middlegame" (Tor.com, 2019)
Science fiction and fantasy often feature characters who seek absolute control (over a kingdom, country, world, galaxy or universe), but few break down the…
- New Books in Literature
Jim Rossi, "Cleantech Con Artists: A True Vegas Caper" (2019)
After Jim Rossi began writing his M.A. thesis in History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the project took an unexpected turn. His research on the solar…
- New Books in Literature
Christopher Brown, "Rule of Capture" (Harper Voyager, 2019)
Donny Kimoe, a wise-cracking lawyer who used to work for the prosecution and has kept his security clearance, believes in the legal system. His work as a…
- New Books in Literature
Joyce Ashuntantang, "A Basket of Flaming Ashes" (African Books Collective, 2010)
Joyce Ashuntantang talks about her experiences as a traveler and a poet, from her childhood Cameroon to her years studying in Great Britain and the United…
- New Books in Literature
Katherine Kayne, "Bound in Flame" (Passionflower Press, 2019)
Leticia Liliuokalani Lang, better known as Letty, has good intentions, but her strong will and quick temper tend to get in her way. Banished from her Hawaiian…
- New Books in Literature
K Chess, "Famous Men Who Never Lived" (Tin House, 2019)
Famous Men Who Never Lived (Tin House, 2019) is set in two Brooklyns. In one, people ride in trams; in the other, they take subways. In one, the swastika is a…
- New Books in Literature
Nora Gold, "The Dead Man" (Inanna Publications, 2016)
An intelligent, middle-aged feminist and pitch-perfect musician cannot recuperate from a brief affair with a narcissistic and possibly psychopathic married but…
- New Books in Literature
Dan Burns, "Grace: Stories and a Novella" (Chicago Arts Press, 2019)
Personal and insightful stories about our connections to each other and the world, our attempts to weave the past and present into a meaningful future, and our…
- New Books in Literature
Mary Fleming, "The Art of Regret" (She Writes Press, 2019)
Trevor McFarquhar was traumatized by the silence following the deaths of his sister and father. He was again traumatized when his mother moved him and his…
- New Books in Literature
Olga Zilberbourg, "Like Water and Other Stories" (WTAW Press, 2019)
The phenomenon of the Russian emigre writer is nothing new. Exile seems almost as necessary a commodity as ink to many of Russia's most celebrated writers…
- New Books in Literature
Sarah Pinsker, "A Song for a New Day" (Berkley, 2019)
Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for a New Day (Berkley, 2019) explores how society changes following two plausible disasters: a surge in terrorism and a deadly…
- New Books in Literature
Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne, "Holding Onto Nothing" (Blair, 2019)
Lucy Kilgore has her bags packed for her escape from her rural Tennessee upbringing, but a drunken mistake forever tethers her to the town and one of its…
- New Books in Literature
Emily Skaja, "Brute" (Graywolf Press, 2019)
Winner of the Walt Whitman Award, Emily Skaja’s Brute (Graywolf Press, 2019) is a stunning collection of poetry that navigates the dark corridors of trauma…
- New Books in Literature
Craig DiLouie, "Our War" (Orbit, 2019)
In science fiction, “near future” usually refers to settings that are a few years to a few decades off. But Craig DiLouie’s Our War (Orbit, 2019)—about a…
- New Books in Literature
Steven Moore, "The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Solider" (U Georgia Press, 2019)
Popular public conception of war has a long and problematic history, with its origins in ancient texts like The Art of War to bestselling books like Tim…
- New Books in Literature
Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books…
- New Books in Literature
Johanna Stoberock, "Pigs" (Red Hen Press, 2019)
In her new novel Pigs (Red Hen Press, 2019), Johanna Stoberock has written a lyrical fable about an island that receives all the world’s garbage. That garbage…
- New Books in Literature
Tamara J. Madison, "Threed, This Road Not Damascus" (Trio House, 2019)
Tamara J. Madison, both on the page and in voice, is magical. In her most recent collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus (Trio House, 2019), she seamlessly…
- New Books in Literature
Charles Todd, "A Cruel Deception" (William Morrow, 2019)
Writing novels—never mind entire series—takes determination, persistence, imagination, and craft. Charles Todd has added to those natural challenges the joys…
- New Books in Literature
H. G. Parry, "The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep" (Redhook, 2019)
While all fiction writers can pull characters from their imaginations and commit them to the page, most readers can’t do what Charley Sutherland can: pull…
- New Books in Literature
Emily Roberson, "Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters" (FSG, 2019)
Welcome to New Books in fantasy and adventure, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Today we’ll be talking with Emily Roberson about her debut YA novel…
- New Books in Literature
Julie Justicz, "Degrees of Difficulty" (Fomite Press, 2019)
Ben Novotny was born with a rare chromosomal abnormality that caused profound mental retardation and seizures. He is severely limited but forms a tight bond…
- New Books in Literature
Talia Carner, "The Third Daughter" (William Morrow, 2019)
As revealed by the title of Talia Carner’s latest novel, The Third Daughter (William Morrow, 2019), her heroine, Batya, has two older sisters. Both ran off…
- New Books in Literature
Jason Bayani, "Locus" (Omnidawn Publishing, 2019)
"Poetry gave me back a way to find my culture, my history,” says Jason Bayani while discussion his new book Locus (Omnidawn Publishing 2019), which blends…
- New Books in Literature
Oren Harman, "Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World" (FSG, 2018)
“There are only two ways to live your life,” said Albert Einstein, “One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.”…
- New Books in Literature
Alan Bradley, "The Flavia de Luce Mystery Series" (Random House, 2009-19)
Alan Bradley’s first mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, came out in 2009, and received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, the…
- New Books in Literature
Wiley Cash, "The Last Ballad" (William Morrow, 2017)
Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash discusses his novel, The Last Ballad (William Morrow, 2017) writing fiction inspired by the…
- New Books in Literature
John Birmingham, "The Cruel Stars" (Del Rey, 2019)
After writing more than 30 books, including memoirs, military science fiction, alternate histories, and a book of writing advice, John Birmingham was ready to…
- New Books in Literature
K. C. Maher, "The Best of Crimes" (RedDoor Publishing, 2019)
A man turns himself into the police for kidnapping an underage girl. The police chief tell him to go home but Walter insists on being arrested and charged…
- New Books in Literature
Sofia Grant, "Lies in White Dresses" (William Morrow, 2019)
Francie Meeker and her best friend, Vi Carothers, bought into the promise offered to middle-class, especially white, women in the mid-twentieth-century United…
- New Books in Literature
Nicholas Walton, "Singapore Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency" (Hurst, 2019)
Nicholas Walton’s Singapore Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency (Hurst, 2019) is far more than a portrait of the rise of a resource-poor nation that has…
- New Books in Literature
Annalee Newitz, "The Future of Another Timeline" (Tor, 2019)
Amid a wave of time travel books published this year, Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline(Tor, 2019)stands out for its focus on a woman’s right to…