New Books in Literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interview debut Toronto author, Nadia Ragbar, about her novel, The Pugilist and the Sailor (Invisible Publishing, 2025).  The Pugilist and the Sailor follows conjoined twins, Bruce and Dougie. Dougie is an ambitious amateur boxer, having dragged his brother into the ring since childhood. Bruce is a bookkeeper who has become smitten with Anka. Unaware of the facts of the twins' physicality an epistolary relationship unfolds between Anka and Bruce, as he wrestles with broaching the topic of separation with Dougie. Dougie's sole focus is the Heavyweight Amateur Boxing title as one half of "The Reuben Beast," though he is trying to ignore his mysterious blackouts and severe headaches. Anka is, specifically, navigating through her grief over her parents' deaths, but also, generally, reconciling her understanding of being a first-generation Canadian without her Guyanese parents as an anchor. A character-driven story with an ensemble cast, told across multiple points of view and time periods, examines the unique relationships between conjoined brothers, parents, crushes, and unexpected mentors. A story about the intertwined nature of longing and belonging, compromise and connection, this is ultimately a consideration of family and finding your unique place in it, and in the world. Nadia Ragbar lives in Toronto with her partner and son. Her short fiction has appeared in Broken Pencil and This Magazine, among other outlets. Her flash fiction appeared in The Unpublished City, an anthology curated by Dionne Brand, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Toronto Book Award. The Pugilist and the Sailor is her first novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Susan Glimore about her wonderful novel, The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush (Blair, 2025).  Young Leonard Bush buries his lost leg and saves his whole East Tennessee town in this winsome and miracle-making novel. When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events--upending the lives of Leonard's rigidly God-fearing mother, June; his deeply conflicted father, Emmett; and his best friend, Azalea, and her mother, Rose, who is also the town prostitute. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening. Susan Gilmore's love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She's the daughter of a revival preacher's son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a "homespun Pilgrim's Progress." Susan Gregg Gilmore is the author of the novels The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, and The Funeral Dress. She has written for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. Born in Nashville, she lives in Tennessee with her husband. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Emily Adrian is the author of Seduction Theory (Little, Brown, 2025) Daughterhood, The Second Season, and Everything Here Is Under Control, as well as two critically acclaimed novels for young adults. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Point, Joyland, EPOCH, Alta Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Millions. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Emily currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut. Recommended Books: Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent Justin Taylor, Reboot Erin Somers, Ten Year Affair Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Listen to Ori Gersht speak about his novel Ham's Heaven (Warbler Press, 2025). Inspired by the true story of the first great ape in space, it explores the friendship of an ape and his trainer to examine what we do with animals in the name of progress. Drawing on careful research and echoing the existential questions of Kafka's “Report to an Academy,” Ham's Heaven takes us on a journey that is as thrilling as deeply moving—a testament to the bonds that define us, and the progress that so often divides us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Mona's Eyes (Europa Editions, 2025) is an enchanting debut novel written by art historian Thomas Schlesser. It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in Paris who briefly loses her vision. After much testing, the doctor suggests that Mona might benefit from seeing a psychiatrist, and Mona's grandfather offers to take her to her appointment each week. Instead, every Wednesday afternoon for an entire year, he takes her to visit masterpieces of art from the past five hundred years, now displayed in the great museums of Paris. Henri, Mona's grandfather, carefully explains each piece, shares the history of its creator, and emphasizes a lesson to be learned from it. He hopes that if her blindness returns, she will have internalized the colors, emotions, and beauty of 52 of the world's finest and most influential pieces of art. Thomas Schlesser is the director of the Hartung-Bergman Foundation in Antibes, France. He teaches Art History at the École Polytechnique in Paris and is the author of several works of nonfiction about art, artists, and the relationship between art and politics in the 20th century. Thomas received a PhD in History and Civilizations from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and obtained the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR), a specific academic qualification in France, authorizing him to supervise doctoral research (as professor at École Polytechnique in Paris). He is the grandson of André Schlesser, known as Dadé, a singer and cabaret performer who founded the Cabaret L'Écluse. Mona's Eyes is Thomas's second novel and his American debut. It has been translated into thirty-eight languages, including Braille. Thomas was awarded 2025's Author of the Year by Livres Hebdo. In his spare time, Thomas loves cooking and organizing aperitifs, dinners, and festive gatherings. He's also passionate about retro gaming and pop culture, and he enjoys wandering and exploring at a leisurely pace. He constantly reflects on his many flaws and tries to work on them, although it's not easy. He listens to others, and if he has one message to share, it's that life is about patching things together — rigid, overly normative, and definitive frameworks should be approached with caution. He'll add that the cause of animal welfare and the rights of people with disabilities are very dear to him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

This interview is with one of the translators, M. Lynx Qualey. A girl must save herself and her family after discovering her society's secrets in this sci-fi novel in translation. I Want Golden Eyes (U Texas Press, 2025) is set on the Comoros Islands at the end of this century in a futuristic city called Quartzia, the home of a genetically privileged minority called the Golden Eyes. The rest of the population, the Limiteds, live in a cavity called the Hive beneath the city. Dalia is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives in the Hive but works with her family in Quartzia at Professor Adam's house, where she cleans, her sister grows organic food in the garden, and her deaf father works as the cook. Because books are forbidden in the Hive, Dalia secretly borrows math texts from the professor's library and smuggles them to read in the Hive. When Professor Adam, who is famous for engineering embryos with enhanced genes, discovers Dalia's crime, he enslaves her for two years in his library. Dalia seeks to flee the city with her family after overhearing the professor being ordered to design genetic traits for the president's expected baby and realizes that Golden Eyes are not privileged by nature's selection, as she was led to believe, but by authority and money. Maria Dadouch is a Syrian novelist, screenwriter, and children's book author. She is the author of The Planet of Uncertainties, I Want Golden Eyes, The Heart is Behind the Rib, and other books, for which she has won several prestigious prizes. M. Lynx Qualey is a writer, publisher, editor, translator, and speaker. She is the founder of ArabLit. Her translated works include Wild Poppies, Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands, and the Thunderbird trilogy. Sawad Hussain  is a translator from Arabic. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Kavya is an Indian-American professor and single mother struggling with debilitating panic attacks. Bombarded by flashbacks of cruelty and violence that disrupt her everyday life, she is left with no choice but to confront the intergenerational trauma tormenting her. At first,  Kavya finds some relief in piecing together the legacies of her family's experiences with colonialism, colorism, and casteism. But just as she starts to recover, explosive confessions threaten to bring her world crashing down. Tilt: A Novel on Intergenerational Trauma (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) is an unflinching feminist novel about the devastating histories that haunt us and the unexpected beauty of facing our pasts. Meghana V. Nayak is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Women's and Gender Studies at Pace University-NYC. Pamela Fuentes historian and editor of New Books Network en español Communications officer- Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Ahead of looming layoffs within the ongoing decimation of media, Jacob Goldberg, a culture writer in New York, knows what will save him: a podcast. Not just any podcast, but something that will demonstrate his singular thoughtfulness in an oversaturated, competitive market. When Jacob learns the true, tragic circumstances behind the mysterious death of Seth, one of his best friends from high school, his world is turned completely upside down. But when the dust settles, he realizes he has an idea worth digging into. Of course, it's not so simple. Learning the truth--or at least, the beginning of it--sends Jacob spiraling. His increasing obsession ultimately leads him back home to Chicago, where he tracks down Lee, a once up-and-coming musician who probably knew Seth best at the end of his life. As his investigation deepens, Jacob's drive to find out the truth--and whether there's a deeper story to be told about the fault lines of our memories, life and death on the internet, and the people we never forget--grows into a desperation to discover whether it even matters. If not, can he make it? A poignant and funny novel about grief, loneliness, memory, and the unique existential questions inherent to the digital age, See Friendship: A Novel (Harper Perennial, 2025) introduces a new voice in fiction--a writer known for his pitch-perfect cultural criticism, with a depth of literary talent. Jeremy Gordon is journalist and senior editor, currently at the Atlantic covering music and culture. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Jonas Hassen Khemiri is the author of six novels, seven plays, and a collection of short stories and essays. His work has been translated into more than thirty-five languages. The Family Clause was a finalist for the National Book Award for translated literature, and Invasion! Won an Obie Award for best script. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other publications. He lives in Brooklyn with his family and teaches creative writing at New York University. In this interview we discuss his latest book, The Sisters (FSG, 2025). Recommended Books: Brian Boyd, Nabokov: The American Years Selma Lagerlöf, The Treasure Dantiel Moniz, Milk, Blood, Heat Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Beauty and the Hell of It and Other Stories (Guernica, 2025) conjures up images of women who struggle through difficult transitions, unpleasant encounters, or ghastly boyfriends and husbands. One woman is a lesbian who sees the man who raped her a decade before, another suffers from bipolar disease, and a third is harassed by her professor. Some of them are grieving and others want vindication but few of them are living the lives they'd imagined. And then there's Liam, who is devastated by his young son's death, and who'd always loved the daughter of one of his father's wives. These are beautifully written, sensitive stories about a range of human reactions to the harsh realities of life and death. Lynda Williams is a freelance copyeditor and short fiction writer based in Calgary, Alberta. Her stories have appeared in Grain, The Humber Literary Review, and The New Quarterly, among others. Her literary influences include Raymond Carver, Pam Houston, and Lorrie Moore. Born and raised on a dairy farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Lynda arrived in Calgary after a 40-hour trip on a Greyhound bus, after which she took the best shower of her life. She has called Alberta home ever since. When she's not writing, Lynda can be found experimenting with gluten-free baking and bingeing New Girl on one of many streaming services. She has been married to her partner in crime for 12 years, and they share their home (and food) with the world's most adorable mini–Australian Shepherd, Cooper. She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. For more information about Lynda and her work, visit her website here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Moscow Underground (HarperCollins, 2025) by Dr. Catherine Merridale is a sweeping novel of life, death and politics in the quicksand world of Stalin's tyranny. Moscow's glittering new subway is under construction at last. The first line will run through the centre of the city, cutting deep through Moscow soil. But futures cannot be created without digging up the past. Though Russia's leaders want to build a glorious Soviet capital, what holds them in a fatal grip is history: old mud and bones. Anton Belkin is an Investigator at the Procuracy, a sensitive job at a dangerous moment on the road to the Show Trials. He is also someone who needs to keep his head down. His artist father was once the darling of the revolutionary avant-garde, a painter whose work could inspire devotion and great sacrifice. But now his dreams are out of place, too loud and red in Stalin's world of sterile rules and rubber stamps. Anton is dragged into a murder case. A prominent archaeologist, working alongside the subway dig, has been killed in a deserted mansion. Though Anton doesn't want the job, his former lover, Vika, who is now a powerful member of the secret police, browbeats him into paying a visit to the site with her. Against his better judgement he is drawn to follow though, embarking on investigations that will almost certainly get him killed. Deep underground, he finds a priceless secret that could genuinely unlock the future but links him to a vicious internecine fight for power in the young Soviet state. In the process, he is forced to reconsider the history he shares with Vika and the bonds that bind them both. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Lily Lloyd Burkhalter speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Raffia Memory,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. Lily talks about traveling to the Cameroon Grassfields to research the rituals and production of ndop, a traditional dyed cloth with an important role in both spiritual life and, increasingly, economic life as well. She also discusses the book-length project she's working on, which explores loss, grief, fabric, sewing, and weaving. Lily Lloyd Burkhalter is a writer living in Lille, France. She is a Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow and holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can be found in Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is represented by Audrey Crooks at Trident Media Group. She learned to sew in Cameroon and learned to weave in Chicago. ­­Read Lily's essay “Raffia Memory” in The Common here. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford was the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In Go On Pretending (History Through Fiction, 2025) Rose Janowitz is surprised to get a production job with a radio soap opera and stunned to fall in love with the show's African American leading man. She's a pioneer of the 1950s golden age of television, challenged to hide Jonas Cain's identity and their romance, especially from her boss Irna Phillips, the woman who invented soap operas. Years later in the 1980s, Rose's daughter, Emma Kagan leaves the USSR where she was born and struggles to survive in America after the Soviet union collapses. Then it's 2012, and Emma's daughter Libby joins the women's revolution in Syria. Rose flies to join her granddaughter and shares secrets she's buried for a lifetime about her involvement in the Spanish civil war and her dreams of a fair society. Alina Adams is the NYT best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. Her 1995 Regency Romance, "The Fictitious Marquis," was named a first #OwnVoices Jewish Historical by the Romance Writers of America. Her Soviet-Jewish historical fiction includes "The Nesting Dolls," "My Mother's Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region" and the May 2025 release, Go On Pretending. She was a Contributing Editor for "Kveller," and has written for "NY Jewish Week," "Interfaith Family Magazine" and "Today Show Parenting," among many others. She is currently a Contributing Writer to "Soap Hub." Alina was born in Odessa, USSR and moved to the US with her family in 1977. She currently lives in New York City with her husband and three children, where her hobbies include musical theater, tracking down classic television episodes on YouTube, and writing about the underachieving American educational system, with a focus on NYC, for "The 74 Million," "The Advance," "The NY Post" and "The NY Daily News." Learn more at her website.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations.Almost forty years later, in a poor barrio of Caracas, María, a single mother, ekes out a precarious existence as a housekeeper, pouring her love into Eloy, her young son. Her devotion will not be enough, however, to keep them from disaster. On the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Eloy is wounded by a stray bullet, fracturing her world. Amid the chaos at the hospital, María encounters Stanislavo, now a newspaper editor. Even as the country itself is convulsed by waves of unrest, this twist of fate forces a belated reckoning for Stanislavo, who may yet earn a chance to atone for old missteps before it's too late.With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, Freedom Is a Feast announces a major new talent. Alejandro Puyana has delivered a wise and moving debut about sticking to one's beliefs at the expense of pain and chaos, about the way others can suffer for our misdeeds even when we have the best of intentions, and about the possibility for redemption when love persists across time. Alejandro Puyana moved to the United States from Venezuela at the age of twenty-six. In 2022, he completed his MFA at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His work has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The American Scholar, New England Review, Idaho Review, among others, and his story “The Hands of Dirty Children” was selected by Curtis Sittenfeld for Best American Short Stories 2020. He lives with his wife and daughter in Austin, Texas. Recommended Books: John Hickey, Big Chief Ibrahim Nasrallah, Time of White Horses Julio Cortázar, Literature Class Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. On this show, we interview authors writing in, around, and about the Asia-Pacific region.King Lear, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, starts with Lear dividing up his kingdom between his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Goneril and Regan win the kingdom through flattery, Cordelia's honesty is rewarded with exile. That opening–and the other developments in Lear's tragic story–hold special resonance for Nan Z. Da, who uses Shakespeare's play as a way to grapple with China's history, and her own personal experiences with it. The result is The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear (Princeton UP, 2025)Nan Z. Da is associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Intransitive Encounter: Sino-US Literatures and the Limits of Exchange (Columbia University Press: 2018) You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the stirring autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, a mother and fugitive, detailing her harrowing escape from enslavement, seven years hiding in an attic crawl space, and the racism she faced in freedom. Forgotten for decades after its original, 19th century publication, Jacobs' story was so harrowing and so brave it was thought to be fiction. Only through the research of historian Jean Fagan Yellin in the 1980s was it proven, once and for all, to be a brilliant and compelling work of nonfiction. Incidents is routinely cited by historians and fiction writers alike as one of the most influential texts of our time and our history. In this latest edition published by W.W. Norton (2025), Jacobs' characters come alive for a new generation of readers, and re-readers, this time contextualized with a new introduction and explanatory notes by Evie Shockley. Dr. Evie Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is a two-time winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a finalist for the LA Times Book Review Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. You can find her on Instagram. You can find host Sullivan Summer at her website, on Instagram, and on Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Nell Stevens is an award-winning author of memoir and fiction. Her work has been awarded the Somerset Maugham Award, longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted by the BBC National Short Story Award. She is the author of two novels, The Original and Briefly, a Delicious Life, and two memoirs: Bleaker House and Mrs Gaskell & Me. Her writing is published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Granta and elsewhere. Nell is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. Nell lives in Oxfordshire with her wife and two children. Recommended Books: Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead Ali Smith, Gliff Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Dime Museum (Unbridled Books, 2025) is a novel spanning several generations, told in stories that begin in the early 1900s and end during the 2020 pandemic. Set in Chicago, Reading and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Europe, the linked stories tell an overall tale of how the rich and the poor survive in a challenging modern world. Charlie, who's interested in the writing of Ezra Pound, appears in most of the stories, and is a wealthy American college graduate living in Venice. Min (Minerva), his Dominican ex-girlfriend is overwhelmed as a nurse even before the pandemic takes hold. Charlie's great-great grandmother is the source of his wealth, and his great aunt controlled his upbringing. Hinnefeld's characters strive for happiness, struggle to be connected, heal from heartbreak, seek refuge, and find solace in planting gardens, poetry and art. JOYCE HINNEFELD is the author of the short story collections Tell Me Everything (winner of the 1997 Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize in Fiction) and The Beauty of Their Youth (2020), the novels In Hovering Flight (2008) and Stranger Here Below (2010), and other short stories and essays. She is Emerita Professor of English at Moravian University in Bethlehem, PA, director of the Moravian Writers' Conference, and a Program Facilitator with Shining Light, an organization that provides reentry-based programming for incarcerated people throughout the U.S. Find her online at joycehinnefeld.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Faithful Ones (Invictus Press, 2025) chronicles a rarely explored intersection in World War II history—the entanglement of the U.S. military, conscientious objectors, and state mental institutions. The novel unfolds in 1941, where the working-class in Port Richmond, Philadelphia, debate duty to country versus loyalty to conscience. Despite his pacifist convictions, Edward Hohlfeld complies with Uncle Sam's call, reporting for duty with a conflicted heart. However, his principled stance on the basic training firing range sets off a chilling chain of events, landing him in a barbaric state asylum. Branded mentally unfit and abandoned by the very institutions meant to protect him, Edward becomes a prisoner within his own country. His mysterious downfall drives his younger sister, Mary, on a decades-long quest to uncover the truth and reclaim her brother's stolen honor. Kathleen (Kate) Joyce Waites is a Philadelphia native, former nun, scholar, author, and emerita professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Social injustice and institutional corruption are themes in her scholarly publications and creative work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Sixteen and living in a small Michigan town, Gertie is harboring a secret heavy enough to fracture her closest friendship. She and Cindy have been bonded since birth by the fact their fathers are addicts, and their unsteady home lives are a little easier when they're together, sprawled on a trampoline with pilfered vodka and dreams of moving to New York.After an accident involving a bonfire and an aerosol canister sends Gertie to the hospital, she finds herself with nowhere to go but to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to live with her newly sober father. She sees it as a chance to escape the hometown drama she's caused, but drama finds her all the same: parties without curfews, boys without boundaries, a compromising photo, tragedy back home . . . and her father, once again teetering on the edge of oblivion. Terrified of the consequences of being honest with Cindy, her sole refuge is the fantasy novel she's writing, a portal to another world and the story of a young girl roaming a strange land, trusting her wits to survive.Years later, when ghosts of the past surface, Gertie decides to write again about that explosive summer from the stabler shores of adulthood. Powered by the fierce imagination of her youth, Gertie finally allows herself the grace to tell a version of her narrative that she always hoped would be true.Written with the feel and power of a ticking time bomb, Atomic Hearts is an unforgettable story of the ways we can be saved by friendship, love, and imagination. Megan Cummins is the author of If the Body Allows It, awarded the 2019 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her stories and essays have appeared in A Public Space, Guernica, One Teen Story, Ninth Letter, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She edits Public Books, a magazine of arts, ideas, and scholarship. Recommended Books: Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows Denne Michelle Norris, When the Harvest Comes Nick Fuller Goggins, The Frequency of Living Things Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and lives in Australia on unceded Gadigal land. She writes fiction but has also published a short book about Shirley Hazzard's work. Theory & Practice, her seventh novel, recently won Australia's Stella Prize for writing by women. Theory and Practice is set in 1986, when “beautiful, radical ideas” are in the air. Its narrator is a young woman originally from Sri Lankan who arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a “deconstructed relationship.” They become lovers, and the narrator's feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf's diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray. What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is shamed when the truth is told? Michelle de Kretser's new novel offers a spellbinding meditation on the moral complexities that arise in the gap between our values and our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A bold, unforgettable novel of war, imagination, and survival. Thirteen-year-old Kamiran is fleeing the collapse of Syria when his body begins to harden literally—turning to chalk. As his transformation unfolds, he pours his memories, secrets, and darkly funny confessions into a piece of chalk he stole at school. Through the eyes of this precocious, resilient boy, Safe Corridor explores what it means to survive the unthinkable—with tenderness, fury, and imagination. Written by acclaimed Kurdish-Syrian novelist Jan Dost and translated by Marilyn Booth—winner of the 2019 International Booker Prize—Safe Corridor is a searing, surreal journey through displacement, coming of age, and the cost of war. Winner of the 2024 Bait AlGhasham DarArab International Translation Prize. Jan Dost, born in 1966, is a native of Kobani in the Aleppo region of Syria. A student of natural sciences at the University of Aleppo (1985-89), he embarked on a career in journalism in the roles of reporter and editor, currently for the Kurdistan Chronicle (published in English in Erbil, Iraq) He is editor-in-chief of the Arabic-language magazine Kurdistan. Marilyn Booth is professor emerita, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Magdalen College, Oxford University.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In the 200 years since Blake's death, the visionary artist, poet and writer has become a household name, often beloved. Yet many struggle to comprehend his kaleidoscopic ideas; how they speak to human longings and the challenges of living in anxious times. Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon provides a fresh route into Blake, taking him at his word. Exploring this brilliant thinker's passionate writings, arresting artworks and fascinating life, Vernon illuminates Blake's vivid worldview. Like us, he lived in a tumultuous era of war, discontent, rapid technological change, and human estrangement from nature. He exposed the dark sides of political fervour and social moralising, while unashamedly celebrating love and liberty. But he also conversed with prophets and angels, and was powerfully, if unconventionally, religious. If we take this seriously--not easy, in secular times--then Blake can help us to unlock the transformative power of imagination. Written for both longstanding fans and unfamiliar readers, Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination (Hurst & Co., 2025) reveals Blake as an invigorating and hopeful guide for our modern age. Mark Vernon is a London-based psychotherapist, writer and former Anglican priest. A keen podcaster and a columnist with The Idler, he speaks regularly at festivals and on the BBC. He has a PhD in Philosophy, and degrees in Theology and Physics. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Deena stepped out of the shower and opened her towel in the steam. “Does my breast look weird?” These words irrevocably change the lives of writer Ariel Gore and her wife. As they descend into a world of doctors and tests, medications and insurance, sickness and treatments and hope and pain and more, they discover just how little they truly knew—despite the awareness campaigns and hyper-visible pink ribbons—about the reality of breast cancer. Over the four years following Deena's terminal diagnosis, Ariel Gore does what she always does, no matter how difficult or personal the subject: she writes about it. Written with keen insights, empathy, and humor, Rehearsals for Dying braids together the story of Deena's experience, her own role as a caretaker, narratives from others living with breast cancer, literary reflections on illness, and reportage on the history of breast cancer and the $200 billion industry that capitalizes on and profits from breast cancer screenings and treatments. Rehearsals for Dying investigates and challenges everything we think we know about breast cancer. It goes beyond awareness to knowledge, presenting a rich, nuanced, heartbreaking, and hopeful portrait of what it is to be diagnosed with, treat, and live with breast cancer in the twenty-first century. Our guest is: Ariel Gore, who is the founding editor and publisher of the Alternative Press Award–winning magazine Hip Mama and the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including Rehearsals for Dying. She teaches writing online at Ariel Gore's School for Wayward Writers at the Literary Kitchen. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who works as a writing coach and developmental editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Memoir playlist for listeners: In The Garden Behind the Moon Once Upon A Tome The Names of All the Flowers The Translators Daughter Whiskey Tender My What-if Year Sitting Pretty We Take Our Cities With Us Black Boy Out of Time Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In 2019, famed journalist and writer Aatish Taseer was thrown out of India. Soon after he wrote a cover article for Time calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the country's “divider in chief,” New Delhi decided to revoke his residency. That sent Aatish on a journey across the world–to places like Turkey, Spain, Mexico and Sri Lanka–to explore identity, both his own and of different nations. The result is his latest book, A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile (Catapult: 2025). Aatish is the author of the memoir Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands (Canongate: 2009) and the acclaimed novels The Way Things Were (Pan Macmillan: 2014), a finalist for the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize, The Temple-Goers (Viking: 2010), short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award, and Noon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2011); and the memoir and travelog The Twice-Born (Hurst: 2019). You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of A Return to Self. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was, Therí Alyce Pickens investigates the complex structures of Black storytelling. Addressing topics ranging from Black life, popular culture, and history to individual encounters with emotion, love, and chronic disability, Pickens crafts and questions the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we want to be. Throughout, Pickens mines the formal structures and the play of Black English within the lives and afterlives of Harriet Tubman, Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim, Breonna Taylor, and figments of our collective imagination. Her singular poetic voice effortlessly flows between what she knows and what she's heard and between everyday Black conversation and her work in cultural criticism and disability studies. Traveling at the speed of thought, Pickens explores a praxis of storytelling governed by the places where truths and fables kiss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Hidden Heroes (Anthem Press, 2025) offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the lives of ordinary North Koreans through a collection of short stories by renowned DPRK authors. Spanning from the 1980s to the present, these works explore the theme of the “hidden hero,” a popular moniker in the DPRK to describe the average citizen who navigates the complexities of daily life with quiet dedication for their work and country. In this interview, Dr. Kim and Dr. Berthelier discuss the appeal of North Korean literature, their approach to translating the collection, and how sharing stories reminds readers of our shared humanity. Dr. Benoit Berthelier is a senior lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Sydney. His research interests include North Korea's cultural industries and digital technologies. View his university profile here.  Dr. Immanuel Kim is The Korea Foundation and Kim-Renaud Professor of Korean Literature and Culture Studies at George Washington University. His research focuses on the changes and development, particularly in the representations of women, sexuality, and memory, of North Korean literature from the 1960s to present day. View his university profile here.  Leslie Hickman is an Anthropology graduate student at Emory University. She has an MA in Korean Studies and a KO-EN translation certificate from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. You can contact her at leslie.hickman@emory.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery chats with the wonderful Saad Omar Khan about his debut novel, Drinking the Ocean (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). The day after his thirty-third birthday, Murad spots a familiar face at a crowded intersection in downtown Toronto. Shocked, he stands silently as Sofi, a woman he'd fallen in love with almost a decade ago, walks by holding the hand of a small child. Murad turns and descends the subway steps to return home to his wife as the past washes over him and he is taken back to the first time they met. Moving between Lahore, London and Toronto, Drinking the Ocean is a story of connections lost and found and of the many kinds of love that shape a life, whether familial, romantic or spiritual. As Murad's and Sofi's lives touch and separate, we see them encounter challenges with relationships, family and God, and struggle with the complexities facing Muslims in the West. With compassion and elegance, Saad Omar Khan delicately illuminates the arcs of these two haunted lives, moved by fate and by love, as they absorb the impact of their personal spiritual journeys Saad Omar Khan was born in the United Arab Emirates to Pakistani parents and lived in the Philippines, Hong Kong and South Korea before immigrating to Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics and has completed a certificate in Creative Writing from the School of Continuing Studies (University of Toronto) where he was a finalist for the Random House Creative Writing Award (2010 and 2011) and for the Marina Nemat Award (2012). In 2019, he was longlisted for the Guernica Prize for Literary Fiction. His short fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories 2025 and other publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Innermost House: A Memoir (Bright Leaf, 2024) is a stunning account of year-round life on the windswept shores of Cape Cod, threaded with meditations on memory, forgetting, and identity. About The Innermost House, Publishers Weekly writes, “Salt air and the limits of memory animate this heartrending debut. . . . Readers will be captivated.” Shelf Awareness calls the book “Enthralling” adding that “Blakeley is an evocative writer who captures the lush beauty of a ‘half feral' childhood spent immersed in the natural world while never losing sight of the precarity and violence that permeated it.” Foreword Reviews calls the book “a distinctive memoir with a keen sense of place and renewal.” Raised in a nineteenth-century saltbox house in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Cynthia Blakeley was both surrounded by generations of immediate and extended family and isolated by the mysteries locked inside her affectionate yet elusive mother and short-fused father. While she and her sisters and cousins roamed the Outer Cape—drinking in the dunes, swimming in kettle ponds, and dancing in Provincetown—Blakeley also turned to the inner world of her journals as she contended with her own secrets and memories. Over-identifying with her unconventional and artistic mother, Blakeley felt certain that the key to understanding her mother's drinking and distractions, her generosity and easy forgiveness, was the unexplained absence of two of Blakeley's half-siblings and their connection to her mother's unhappy first marriage. Blakeley kept her distance, however, from her disciplinarian father. Though he took his daughters sailing and clamming and beachcombing, he was the chill to their mother's warmth, the maker, not the breaker, of rules. Slipping through these dynamics in that small house and evocative landscape, Blakeley eventually crossed the bridge and left home, only to return later in search of the family stories that would help her decode her present. Blakeley's captivating memoir moves fluidly through time, grappling with the question of who owns a memory or secret and how our narrative choices not only describe but also shape and change us. In this insightful and poignant account of tenacious year-rounders on Cape Cod, Blakeley contends that making sense of ourselves is a collaborative affair, one that begins with understanding those we came from. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Sanjana Satyananda, the main character of Sanjena Sathian's novel, Goddess Complex (Penguin Press, 2025), is a bit of a mess. She's back in the States after a spell in India, ending her marriage with her actor husband when he wanted kids…and she didn't. Her friends are starting to settle down–and wondering when Sanjana will do the same. And, distressingly, others in her life swear they've seen her back in India, still married to her husband, and happily pregnant. This question–who is the woman that's encroaching on Sanjana's life–motivates Goddess Complex, with the novel eventually returning to India to explore the pressure to have children, the rise of social media and mommy bloggers, and the strange appeal of cults. Sanjena Sathian is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Goddess Complex and Gold Diggers, both published by Penguin Press. Goddess Complex, released in March of 2025, was named a top anticipated book of the year by TIME and has been named a New York Times Editor's Choice. Gold Diggers was named a Top 10 Best Book of 2021 by the Washington Post and longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Sanjena can be followed on Substack at: https://sanjena.substack.com/ You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Goddess Complex. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Mariah Rigg speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Target Island,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. “Target Island” is a story from her short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, out August 5 from Ecco; both focus on the islands of Hawai'i. Mariah talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the collection as a whole, and why reflecting contemporary Hawai'i is important to her work. Mariah also discusses playing with time and narrative flow in her stories, and working on a new project—her first novel. Mariah Rigg is a Samoan-Haole who was born and raised on the island of O‘ahu. She is the author of the short story collection Extinction Capital of the World, which is forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins on August 5th. Her chapbook, All Hat, No Cattle was published by Bull City Press in 2023. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MASS MoCA, Oregon Literary Arts, VCCA, The Mount, and Lambda Literary, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In fall 2025, she will be a visiting fellow at Mount Holyoke College. ­­Read Mariah's story “Target Island” in The Common at thecommononline.org/target-island. Order her story collection in all formats from Ecco/Harper Collins. Learn more about Lucas at www.mariahrigg.com. Follow Mariah on Instagram at @riggstah. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her writing appears in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interviews author and academic James Cairns about his collection of essays, In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” Have we reached a breaking point, arrived at the moment of truth? If so, what now? If not, why do so many people say we're living through a period of unprecedented crises? Drawing on social research, pop culture and literature, as well as on his experience as an activist, father and teacher, James Cairns explores the ecological crisis, Trump's return to power amid the so-called crisis of democracy, his own struggle with addiction and other moments of truth facing us today. In a series of insightful essays that move deftly between personal, theoretical and historical approaches he considers not only what makes something a crisis, but also how to navigate the effect of these destabilizing times on ourselves, on our families and on the world. James Cairns lives with his family in Paris, Ontario, on territory that the Haldimand Treaty of 1784 recognizes as belonging to the Six Nations of the Grand River in perpetuity. He is a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies, Law and Social Justice at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his courses and research focus on political theory and social movements. James is a staff writer at the Hamilton Review of Books, and the community relations director for the Paris-based Riverside Reading Series. James has published three books with the University of Toronto Press, most recently, The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity, and Hope (2017), as well as numerous essays in periodicals such as Canadian Notes & Queries, the Montreal Review of Books, Briarpatch, TOPIA, Rethinking Marxism and the Journal of Canadian Studies. James' essay “My Struggle and My Struggle,” originally published in CNQ, appeared in Biblioasis's Best Canadian Essays, 2025 anthology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with author Greg Rhyno about his new mystery novel, Who By Water (Cormorant Books, 2025).  After barely surviving her last case, Dame Polara trades her part-time detective gig for the safer — though no less chaotic — life of a single, working mother, picking up toys instead of picking locks, chasing after her two-year-old instead of chasing crooks. But when her ex-husband inexplicably drowns, and Dame becomes the prime suspect in his murder investigation, she must work alongside the woman who ruined her marriage to unravel the mystery of the man they both loved. Dame's sleuthing takes her to dive bars, industrial ports, and eventually, Toronto Island, where her ex spent his final days with a community of secretive and temperamental artists. As she comes closer to the complicated truth, Dame realizes that in order to clear her name and protect her family, she'll have to re-examine everything she thought she knew about the people she loved and left behind. About Greg Rhyno: Greg Rhyno is the author of Who by Fire, first of the Dame Polara Mysteries, and To Me You Seem Giant, which was nominated for a ReLit Award and an Alberta Book Publishing Award. His writing has appeared in a number of journals, including Hobart, Riddle Fence, The Quarantine Review, and PRISM International. He completed an MFA at the University of Guelph and lives with his family in Guelph, Ontario. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Superhero violence and graphic action sequences are prevalent on the screen and on the page, but this book takes an alternative route with practical guidance, frameworks, and tools for incorporating the principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence into compelling fiction. By mapping a path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, in n A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism (Bloomsbury, 2025) Dr. Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact nonviolent heroism in their characters, model civil resistance in their stories, and create worlds around a mythos that champions redemptive nonviolence. With concepts applicable to writing for fiction, drama, the screen, and narrative poetry, A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace deconstructs the necessity for violence in popular works, explores key concepts in peace studies, and helps writers establish their own peace poetics. Focused around the narrative craft techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features numerous creative writing prompts and examples from key works. These include films such as Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, and Frozen and literature ranging from Shakespeare's plays to Dickens' A Christmas Carol to Julia Quinn's Bridgerton novels. A timely and important expansion to any writer's toolkit, A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace allows storytellers to understand the complex dynamics of, and the damage caused by, violent perspectives and actions, giving them a way into considering nonviolence as powerful and preferable. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

From the bestselling author of Born Survivors, a novel inspired by the powerful true story of a man who risked everything to protect children in Auschwitz. Fredy built a wall against suffering in their hearts . . . Amid the brutality of the Holocaust, one bright spot shone inside the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. In the shadows of the smokestacks was a wooden hut where children sang, staged plays, wrote poetry, and learned about the world. Within those four walls, brightly adorned with hand-painted cartoons, the youngest prisoners were kept vermin-free, received better food, and were even taught to imagine having full stomachs and a day without fear. Their guiding light was a twenty-seven-year-old gay, Jewish athlete: Fredy Hirsch. Being a teacher in a brutal concentration camp was no mean feat. Forced to beg senior SS officers for better provisions, Fredy risked his life every day to protect his beloved children from mortal danger. But time was running out for Fredy and the hundreds in his care. Could this kind, compassionate, and brave man find a way to teach them the one lesson they really needed to know: how to survive? The Teacher of Auschwitz shines a light on a truly remarkable individual and tells the inspiring story of how he fought to protect innocence and hope amid depravity and despair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

A writer at Dateline NBC tries her hand at a different kind of mystery, perfect for fans of Chandler Baker's Whisper Network, where a cynical TV news producer sells out her principles to rise to her network's top job, and comes face-to-face with what appears to be her idealistic teenage self.Everleigh Page is on the cusp of greatness. Executive producer of an award-winning primetime news magazine, she's just been offered a role never attained by a woman at her network: president of the news division. It will be her job to shape coverage of world events and mold the journalists of tomorrow.Too bad in order to get here she's sold out most of the principles she held as an idealistic young reporter. Too bad she's just, at the direction of her boss, fired two of her best staffers and killed an important investigative story that could save lives. As a woman, she knows, you have to play ball to get to the top. Even if it means bending your moral code or breaking up with your boyfriend. Sean may be the love of her life, but his large, complicated family has started taking up too much of her time.Her younger self wouldn't recognize her. Or will she?When a college reunion takes a mystical twist, Everleigh finds herself defending her choices to the toughest critic in the world and confronting a crucial question: can she possibly right all the wrongs she was willing to tolerate just an hour ago? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

From the mind of acclaimed reporter Gary Baum comes In Pursuit of Beauty (Blackstone, 2025), a striking debut novel that examines the nature of truth and allure in our modern world. What would you endure to fulfill your dreams? What would you do to have the perfect body? For Dr. Roya Delshad, the answers are anything and everything. A sought-after Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Roya is also the highest example of her craft. She's had every inch of her own body sculpted, one procedure at a time. All to escape a painful and lonely past. But when Roya gives the gift of beauty to those who can't afford the cost, the media labels her "the Robin Hood of Roxbury Drive," and she soon finds herself pleading her case from inside a prison cell. Hoping to resurrect her reputation and obscure a trail of unhappy clients, Roya tells her story with the help of the blithely handsome Wes Easton, a journalist and failed screenwriter who agrees to ghostwrite her memoir. In a twistingly tense pas de deux, Wes struggles to tell fact from fiction, and Roya seeks to explode his notions about aspiration and desire, sending their collaboration off the rails. A bold, stylish, and provocative thriller about surfaces and their hidden depths, In Pursuit of Beauty explores what it means to become exactly who you once yearned to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

What if our society's deepest prejudices weren't about race, gender, or sexuality—but height? In his groundbreaking allegorical novel, acclaimed Jordanian author and activist Fadi Zaghmout imagines just such a world, crafting a powerful meditation on discrimination and desire that speaks directly to our contemporary debates about identity and inclusion. The Man of Middling Height (Syracuse University Press, 2025) follows a short dressmaker whose life is upended when she meets Tallan, a man whose middle height places him outside the rigid tall/short binary that governs their society. As their forbidden romance blossoms, they must navigate a world where height determines everything from social status to romantic possibilities. Through their story and those of surrounding characters—including a short person in a polyamorous relationship with two tall partners, and a tall activist who scandalously loves another tall person—Zaghmout deftly reframes contemporary discussions about gender identity and sexuality through the lens of height discrimination. Fadi Zaghmout is a Jordanian author and sexual freedoms and body rights advocate. He has published five novels, including The Bride of Amman, Heaven on Earth, Laila, and Hope on Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It's the early 1900s and Brigid is restricted by straightlaced Irish society and a difficult stepmother, but her father is loving and supportive. She and her cousin Molly dream of life in Yankeeland, a.k.a. America, but only Brigid gets the chance once she's married, and a lifetime of correspondence follows. While Molly thrives back in Ireland, Brigid's dream of having a child leads to unexpected problems in a society that values women for their childbearing capabilities. With little to no help available for the problem of infertility, her mental health suffers. Irish author Lacy Fewer based this moving historical story on the letters she inherited from her great-aunt who emigrated in 1908. Lacy Fewer is the recipient of the Literary Titan Book Award for her debut novel Yankeeland, a powerful story of family secrets and societal change. Fewer, born and raised in Ireland, has nearly three decades of experience working in the financial services sector. She earned numerous degrees and certifications, including: QFA from Institute of Bankers; CFP master's degree from them as well; a Master of Science in Financial Planning and Services, and then a professional diploma in Fintech, both from University of College in Dublin. She recently earned a Certificate in ESG Investing from CFA. Fewer enjoys theatre, reading literature, storytelling, travel and studying history. A proud Dubliner, she resides, with her husband, in a small village close to Dublin City, in Co. Meath. They have three children. You can find her at http://www.linkedin.com/in/annmarie-lacy-fewer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Alexis von Koniglow about her new novel, The Exclusion Zone (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025).  About The Exclusion Zone:  She would harness fear. And this terrifying place would help her do it. Renya, a scientist who studies how people react to fear, flees a troubled marriage to conduct research on the scientists working in the “exclusion zone” around Chernobyl. In the eerily silent forests surrounding the research station, she finds more is haunting her than the dangers of radiation exposure. As she gathers data from her colleagues and probes historical records of the Chernobyl disaster, unsettling questions rise to the surface. Who is funding her research? Why are all the scientists' findings off? And what do those who stalk the ruins of the abandoned city nearby want? In this atmospheric tale, Alexis von Konigslow deftly weaves the struggles of women in science with the impact of politics, both past and present, on people and on the environment. Part ghost story, part literary thriller, The Exclusion Zone is a mesmerizing story that reminds us all to listen to our hearts as well as the earth. ABOUT THE AUTHORAlexis von Konigslow is the author of The Capacity for Infinite Happiness. She has degrees in mathematical physics from Queen's University and creative writing from the University of Guelph. She lives in Toronto with her family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Alpha Nkuranga about her deeply powerful and unforgettable memoir, Born to Walk: My Journey of Trials and Resilience (Goose Lane Editions, 2024). “My grandparents used to tell me Rwanda is a country unlike any other, and I knew they spoke the truth. Blessed with majestic mountains and breathtaking valleys, it is a sacred and spiritual land. And yet Rwandan men drenched the land in blood in acts of hate so horrific that the stains of those three years will not fade in one hundred lifetimes.” At the age of eight, Alpha Nkuranga made a fateful decision. With war raging around her, she grabbed the hand of her younger brother, Elijah, and ran from her grandparents' home. When they came to a swamp, they hid until it was safe to escape. Weeks later, they joined a group of refugees, who were fleeing to Tanzania. “If I kept walking,” Alpha remembers thinking, “I could tell my story.” Nkuranga emigrated to Canada more than a decade later. She now works with women and children who face abuse and homelessness. In Born to Walk, she tells a remarkable story of resistance and survival. About Alpha Nkuranga: Alpha Nkuranga fled her village as an eight-year-old during the Rwandan Civil War of 1994 and subsequently lived in refugee camps in Tanzania and Uganda, where she overcame the odds to graduate high school and attend university. She came to Canada as a refugee in 2010 and currently lives in Kitchener, Ontario, where she works for Women's Crisis Services of Waterloo Region. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

How to Dodge a Cannonball is a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War, hilariously questioning the essence of the fight, not just for territory, but for the soul of America.How to Dodge a Cannonball (Henry Holt, 2025) is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future―as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus.Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler―until he's captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate―until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. While visibly white, he claims to be an octoroon, and they claim to believe him. Only then does his life get truly strange.His new brothers are even stranger, including a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war. Dennard Dayle's satire spares no one as doomed charges, draft riots, gleeful arms dealers, and native suppression campaigns test everyone's definition of loyalty.Uproariously funny and revelatory, How to Dodge a Cannonball asks if America is worth fighting for. And then answers loudly. Read it while it's still legal. You can find author Dennard Dayle at his newsletter. And I am your host, Sullivan Summer. You can find me online, on Instagram, and on Substack, where she and Dennard went to talk about Cannonball spoilers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature