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
Martha Conway, “Sugarland: A Jazz Age Mystery” (Noontime Books, 2016)
It’s 1921, and Prohibition is in full swing, but you wouldn’t know it from the nightclubs and speakeasies of Chicago, where bathtub gin mingles with homemade…
- New Books in Literature
Mark R. Andryczyk, “The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian History” (U. of Toronto Press, 2012)
In The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction (University of Toronto Press, 2012), Mark R. Andryczyk takes his readers to an intriguing territory of…
- New Books in Literature
Jan Schwarz, “Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust” (Wayne State UP, 2015)
In Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 2015), Jan Schwarz, Associate Professor of Yiddish studies at Lund…
- New Books in Literature
Ellen Widmer, “Fiction’s Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai, and the Business of Women in Late-Qing China” (Harvard UP, 2016)
Ellen Widmer’s new book tells a story of the life and work of a literary family in China, in order to open out into a fascinating discussion of the…
- New Books in Literature
Isabelle Hesse, “The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016)
In The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), Isabelle Hesse, Lecturer in…
- New Books in Literature
Robert K. Elder, et. al. “Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park” (Kent State UP, 2016)
Before the war, before the novels, before the four marriages and the safaris, the plane crashes and the bullfighting fascination, Ernest Hemingway was simply a…
- New Books in Literature
John Jodzio, “Knock Out” (Soft Skull Press, 2016)
John Jodzio, oft and rightly compared to George Saunders, is lauded by Chuck Klosterman as “the best best kind of modern fiction writer: a thematic…
- New Books in Literature
Amy Wright, “Cracker Sonnets” (BrickRoad Poetry Press, 2016)
My grandmother, who’s now ninety-eight, lived most of her life in a little town in Southwestern Ohio called Waynesville. The town has reinvented itself in the…
- New Books in Literature
Mark R. E. Meulenbeld, “Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015)
Mark R. E. Meulenbeld’s new book looks closely at the relationship between vernacular novels and vernacular rituals in Ming China. Focusing on a particular…
- New Books in Literature
John Alba Cutler, “Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature” (Oxford UP, 2015)
In Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015), John Alba Cutler provides a literary history of Chicano/a…
- New Books in Literature
Bert Ashe, “Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles” (Agate Bolden, 2015)
What’s missing from contemporary discussions of aesthetics and representation within the natural hair movement? Bert Ashe generously offers a response in…
- New Books in Literature
Fox Frazier-Foley and Erin Elizabeth Smith, “Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity” (Sundress Publications, 2016)
Readers gather around: Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity (Sundress Publications, 2016) is an anthology for a new era. As Cathy…
- New Books in Literature
Pi-Ching Hsu, “Feng Menglong’s ‘Treasury of Laughs’: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Traditional Chinese Humour” (Brill, 2015)
The Treasury of Laughs was compiled by Feng Menglong in the 1610s. It includes more than 700 humorous skits and jokes from elite and popular sources, rewriting…
- New Books in Literature
Ramez Naam, “Apex” (Angry Robot, 2015)
In the fictional battles between humans and machines, the divide between good and bad is usually clear. Humans, despite their foibles (greed, impulsiveness…
- New Books in Literature
Kristen Harnisch, “The California Wife” (She Writes Press, 2016)
Sara Thibault and her new husband, Philippe Lemieux, grew up in Vouvray, amid the French vineyards that dot the Loire Valley. But when the phylloxera blight of…
- New Books in Literature
Janice A. Lowe, “LEAVING CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal” (Miami University Press, 2016)
“Poems of Nomadic Dispersal” This latter phrase in the title of Janice A. Lowe‘s new book–LEAVING CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal (Miami University Press…
- New Books in Literature
Rodrigo Toscano, “Explosion Rocks Springfield” (Fence Books, 2016)
What is explosion? What does language look like when it mimics a gas leak, a bang, or rubble? What does language look like when it orbits other sounds…
- New Books in Literature
Robert S. Boynton, “The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project” (FSG, 2016)
The inspiration for Robert S. Boynton‘s new book began with a photograph in the New York Times in October 2002. In the photo, two middle-aged Japanese couples…
- New Books in Literature
Adam Rakunas, “Windswept” (Angry Robot, 2015)
Padma Mehta, the hero of Adam Rakunas’ Philip K. Dick Award-nominated novel Windswept, is part Philip Marlow, part Norma Rae, part Jessica Jones. Theres no…
- New Books in Literature
Diane McKinney-Whetstone, “Lazaretto” (Harper, 2016)
A hundred years before Ellis Island became a processing center for immigrants wishing to enter the United States, Philadelphia had the Lazaretto, a quarantine…
- New Books in Literature
Laini Giles, “The Forgotten Flapper: A Novel of Olive Thomas” (Sepia Stories, 2015)
A ghost haunts the New Amsterdam Theatre, near Times Square in New York. She wears a green outfit in flapper style, and she’s just a little annoyed to realize…
- New Books in Literature
Matthew Quirk, “Cold Barrel Zero” (Mulholland Books, 2016)
The next time you head to the beach or settle in for a long plane ride, you may not want your imagination filling with images of rogue operatives planting…
- New Books in Literature
Minsoo Kang, trans. “The Story of Hong Gildong” (Penguin Classics, 2016)
Minsoo Kang‘s new translation of The Story of Hong Gildong (Penguin Classics, 2016) is a wonderful rendering of a text that is arguably the “single most…
- New Books in Literature
Marguerite Reed, “Archangel” (Arche Press, 2015)
Marguerite Reed‘s Archangel (Arche Press, 2015) introduces a hero not often found at the center of science fiction: a mother, who takes cuddling…
- New Books in Literature
Weina Dai Randel, “The Moon in the Palace” (Sourcebooks, 2016)
In four thousand years of Chinese history, Empress Wu stands alone as the only woman to rule in her own name. She died in her eighties after decades of…
- New Books in Literature
Eubanks, Abel and Chen, eds., “Verge: Studies in Global Asias 1.2: Collecting Asias” (U of Minnesota Press, 2015)
Verge: Studies in Global Asias is an inspiring and path-breaking new journal that explores innovative forms for individual and collaborative scholarly work. I…
- New Books in Literature
PJ Manney, “(R)evolution” (47North, 2015)
PJ Manney‘s fast-action novel (R)evolution (47North, 2015) has all the ingredients of a Hollywood thriller: a terrorist attack using nanotechnology, a…
- New Books in Literature
Patrick Madden, “Sublime Physick: Essays” (U of Nebraska Press, 2016)
After I read Patrick Madden‘s fascinating new collection of essays, entitled Sublime Physick: Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), I found myself…
- New Books in Literature
Mary Doria Russell, “Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral” (Ecco Books, 2015)
The Wild West of Zane Grey and John Wayne movies, with its clear divisions between good guys and bad guys, cowboys and Indians (never called Native Americans…
- New Books in Literature
James D. Stein, “L.A. Math: Romance, Crime, and Mathematics in the City of Angels” (Princeton UP, 2016)
Romance. Crime. Mathematics. These things do not go together. Or do they? James D. Stein thinks they do, and he admirably shows us how in his wonderful…
- New Books in Literature
Will Buckingham, “Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes” (Earnshaw Books, 2015)
Will Buckingham‘s new book is a wonderful cycle of stories that are inspired by and speak back to the Chinese Yijing, the Classic of Changes. Sixty-Four Chance…
- New Books in Literature
Brenda Cooper, “Edge of Dark” (Pyr, 2015)
This episode features author and futurist Brenda Cooper and is the second of my conversations with nominees for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award. Cooper’s novel…
- New Books in Literature
Tina Escaja, “Free Fall/Caida libre” (Fomite Press, 2015)
Tina Escaja‘s, Free Fall/Caida libre, translated by Mark Eisner (Fomite Press, 2015), is an exceptional example of poetry in translation as artistic…
- New Books in Literature
Anjali Mitter Duva, “Faint Promise of Rain” (She Writes Press, 2014)
In 1530, Babur the Tiger, the self-proclaimed ruler of Afghanistan, moved south and conquered the northwest section of what was then known as Hindustan. Babur…
- New Books in Literature
Douglas Lain, “After the Saucers Landed” (Night Shade Books, 2015)
In today’s episode, I talk with Douglas Lain, one of six authors whose works were nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. Lain’s novel, After the…
- New Books in Literature
Joan Schweighardt, “The Last Wife of Attila the Hun” (Booktrope Editions, 2015)
Long before Genghis Khan set off to conquer the known world, the pattern of steppe warriors attacking–and often defeating–settled empires was well established…
- New Books in Literature
David B. Coe, “His Father’s Eyes,” (Baen, 2015)
David B. Coe just finished a busy year in which he published three novels, two of which we discuss in this episode of New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy…
- New Books in Literature
James Franco, “Directing Herbert White” (Graywolf Press, 2014)
Every poet has their obsessions and for James Franco they are childhood, gender, sex, innocence, and the work place he knows best: the film industry. Within…
- New Books in Literature
J. Robert Lennon, “See You In Paradise” (Graywolf Press, 2014)
J. Robert Lennon is a novelist, actually–better known for his longer work (Mailman, Familiar, Happyland). His most recent book, though, collects his short…
- New Books in Literature
Mary Meriam, Lillian Faderman, Amy Lowell, “Lady of the Moon” (Headmistress Press, 2015)
In Lady of the Moon (Headmistress Press, 2015), the reader is graced not only with the poetry of Amy Lowell, but with sonnets in response and a scholarly essay…
- New Books in Literature
Courtney J. Hall, “Some Rise by Sin” (Five Directions Press, 2015)
The reverberations of Henry VIII’s tumultuous reign continued to echo long after the monarch’s death. England teetered into Protestantism, then veered back…
- New Books in Literature
Anders Carlson-Wee, “Dynamite” (Bull City Press, 2015)
Dynamite (Bull City Press, 2015) is transit distilled. Anders Carlson-Wee‘s poems employ movement as mechanism and movement as reverence in a journey that most…
- New Books in Literature
Jane Lindskold, “Artemis Invaded” (Tor, 2015)
At a time when science fiction is more likely to portray ecosystems collapsing rather than flourishing, Jane Lindskold‘s Artemis series is an anomaly. Its…
- New Books in Literature
Ryan Ridge, “American Homes” (University of Michigan Press, 2014)
Ryan Ridge‘s American Homes (University of Michigan Press, 2014) is at odds with category: it doesn’t really fit neatly, or even at all, into any preconceived…
- New Books in Literature
Melinda Snodgrass, “Edge of Dawn” (Tor, 2015)
What do the jobs of opera singer, lawyer and science fiction writer have in common? Answer: Melinda Snodgrass. The author of the just published Edge of Dawn‘s…
- New Books in Literature
Abeer Hoque, “The Lovers and Leavers” (Fourth Estate, 2015)
In her first novel, The Lovers and the Leavers (Fourth Estate, 2015), Abeer Hoque undertakes a literary challenge that I suspect even the most seasoned writer…
- New Books in Literature
James L. Cambias, “Corsair” (Tor Books, 2015)
For his second novel, James L. Cambias chose one of the most challenging settings for a science fiction writer: the near future. Unlike speculative fiction…
- New Books in Literature
Peter Oberg, ed., “Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep” (Affront Publishing, 2015)
There’s far more to Swedish literature than Pippi Longstocking and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s the message Anna Jakobsson Lund and Oskar Kallner…
- New Books in Literature
Porochista Khakpour, “The Last Illusion” (Bloomsbury USA, 2014)
Porochista Khakpour moved to an apartment with large picture windows in downtown Manhattan shortly before September 11, 2001, giving her a painfully perfect…
- New Books in Literature
Mark Ehling, “River Dead of Minneapolis Scavenged by Teens” (New Carriage, 2015)
If you’re a reader, then you know the joy of discovering books. You also know that some of those discoveries stand out. Yes, there’s the pleasure of finding a…
- New Books in Literature
Ferrett Steinmetz, “Flex” (Angry Robot 2015)
Ferrett Steinmetz first built an audience as a blogger, penning provocative essays about “puns, politics and polyamory” (among other things) with titles like…
- New Books in Literature
Meg Elison, “The Book of the Unnamed Midwife” (Sybaritic Press, 2014)
Despite the odds, Meg Elison did it. First, she finished the book she wanted to write. Second, she found a publisher–without an agent. Third, she won the…
- New Books in Literature
Ken Liu, “The Grace of Kings” (Saga Press, 2015)
Short story writing, novel writing, and translating require a variety of skills and strengths that are hardly ever found in a single person. Ken Liu is one of…
- New Books in Literature
Michael Gorra, “The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany” (Princeton UP, 2006)
Despite being Germany’s most famous literary lion, in 1786 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had to jump on a mail coach incognito to begin his travels to Italy (of…
- New Books in Literature
David Hull (trans.), Mao Dun, “Waverings” (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014)
David Hull‘s new translation of Mao Dun’s Waverings (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014)(Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong…
- New Books in Literature
Jennifer Marie Brissett, “Elysium, or the World After” (Aqueduct Press, 2014)
Jennifer Marie Brissett‘s first novel, Elysium, or the World After (Aqueduct Press, 2014), portrays a fractured world, one whose seemingly irreversible…
- New Books in Literature
Rod Duncan, “The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter” (Angry Robot, 2014)
While science fiction often seeks to imagine the impact of new science on the future, Rod Duncan explores an opposite: what happens when science remains frozen…
- New Books in Literature
Ben H. Winters, “World of Trouble” (Quirk Books, 2014)
It’s no surprise that when scientists in Ben H. Winters‘ The Last Policeman series declare that a 6.5-mile asteroid is going to destroy life as we know it on…
- New Books in Literature
Kameron Hurley, “The Mirror Empire” (Angry Robot, 2014)
Kameron Hurley has been honored for her mastery of numerous forms. Her first novel, God’s War, earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the…
- New Books in Literature
Alex London, “Guardian” (Philomel, 2014)
This week’s podcast was an experiment. Rather than record the conversation with author Alex London over Skype, I decided to take the subway to Brooklyn and…