New Books In Literature

We have a collective memory of a primeval world embodied in myth. It is a world where spirits lived in the trees, water, and mountains, and nature was sacred. Was such a world ever possible, or was it doomed as soon as humans spread? What went wrong with our planet and whose fault is it? Are innovators, who look to science for answers, agents of positive change, or merely heedless apologists for human greed? These are some of the many questions that Bell’s new novel, Appleseed (Custom House, 2021) provokes. No doubt a few literature students will be inspired to write papers. Bell’s ambitious and original triptych of interlocking stories explores man’s relationship with the wilderness through three timelines, set in the past, the near future, and the far future, after a cataclysmic catastrophe. Snow Piercer has nothing on this chilly future world, bereft of any life. Such a novel is a challenge to reduce to a synopsis. In one time period, the late 1800s, a faun, Chapman, suppresses his identity out of love for

Kin by Miljenko Jergović (Archipelago Books, 2021) is a family story that covers more than a century; it takes readers to various geographical places and introduces them to a kaleidoscope of historical perturbations. The narrator seems to sincerely try to tell a truthful story, but acknowledges from the very beginning that it would probably be impossible to provide only true facts. Thus, the reader has no other choice than to rely on the narrator’s sincerity and make their way through the labyrinthine narrative in which everything seems to have its own story: places, objects, names, food, houses, etc. Gradually, the novel turns into an attempt to provide evidence for everything that the narrator seems to know and remember: family members and friends, wars and conflicts, marriages and adulteries, devotion and betrayal, happiness and despondency. The novel chapters resemble vignettes which lure the reader into a magical world in which nothing can be lost. In this interview, Russell Scott Valentino, translator o

Jeanne de St.-Rémy has a grudge against the world. Born into the French royal family—if admittedly by a somewhat labyrinthine route—she spends years of her childhood so disinherited and ignored that at the age of six she is begging in the streets of Paris. A lucky accident brings her to the attention of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, who adopts the little waif, raises her as a daughter, and helps her prove her claim to be considered a relative of King Louis XV through a legitimized descendant of the previous royal family, the Valois. The marquise even helps Jeanne secure a pension, but Jeanne remains unsatisfied. She will settle for nothing less than full acceptance into the court at Versailles. Through a series of affairs and a forced marriage to Nicolas de La Motte, who becomes Jeanne’s loyal partner if not the husband of her heart, Jeanne ploughs through all obstacles on her path. Her greatest conquest is the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan, a high-ranking aristocrat whose campaign to regain his influence

Helen Sword, writing champion, brings us into the word gym. Or maybe kitchen. Either way, The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose (U Chicago Press, 2016) is a short, sharp introduction to great writing based around 5 principles: --use active verbs whenever possible; --favour concrete language over vague abstractions; --avoid long strings of prepositional phrases; --employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence;  --reduce your dependence on four pernicious “waste words”: it, this, that, and there. There are examples of the good - William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King Jr., John McPhee, A. S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins, Alison Gopnik, and well, the bad. But you can fix the bad - really Dr Sword's point.  Dr Helen Sword received her doctorate in comparative literature from Princeton University and has lived since 2001 in New Zealand, where she is a Professor of Humanities at the University of Auckland and runs a private writing consultancy, Writ

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I interview Martín Prechtel, who's written a book about horses called The Mare and the Mouse (North Start Press of Saint Cloud, 2021). Actually, he's written three books about horses. The subtitle of this one is called Stories of My Horses, Volume 1, and there are two more volumes to come. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "I'm not a horse person." Well, I'm not a horse person either. And if you aren't, it doesn't matter. You'll love hearing what Martin has to say. He's an amazing storyteller and a profound teacher. And if you are a horse person, I suspect you'll find Martín's vision of horses moving, rambunctious, insightful, deeply learned, and richly experienced. He may even change the way you understand your horse and, as importantly, he may also give your horse a better chance to understand you. Here's my conversation with the extraordinary and invaluable Martín Prechtel. Eric LeMay is on the creative writing faculty at Ohio Universit

Today I interview Martín Prechtel, who's an author and so much more than an author. He's a teacher, a musician, a farmer, a cook, a silversmith, a horseman, and...and...and... so much more, including a guiding light for many of us hoping to live as true human beings. He's got a new book called Rescuing the Light: Quotes from the Oral Teachings of Martín Prechtel (North Atlantic Books, 2021). His teaching now happens at his school in Northern New Mexico. It's called Boland's Kitchen, and that name in itself is a riddle that, over the course of our interview, lights the way to wisdom. I deeply admire and love Martín and all the work he does and I'm delighted to share our conversation with you. One note before we start: Martín doesn't use computers and doesn't really like using phones, for reasons you'll hear about. Toward the end of our conversation, our connection cut out, and I didn't have the chance to thank him on the air. I'm happy to do so now. Thank you, Martín, for your words and your wisdom. Jump up an

Today we are joined by Greg Larson, author of Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir (University of Nebraska, 2021). In Clubbie, Larson shares his unique perspective from his two-year stint as clubhouse attendant for the Aberdeen IronBirds, a Class A short-season affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. Larson’s starry-eyed perceptions about the game were quickly erased by the reality of a job that was time-consuming and thankless. Larson brings the reader into the minor-league clubhouse, showing how young baseball professionals are literally playing for their jobs on a day-to-day basis. As the clubhouse attendant, Larson was charged with doing laundry, making sure the players had food after the game, and keeping players supplied with equipment. He writes about the scams run by food concession officials, and also describes some of the ingenious ways he added to his own bank account. Players had to pay clubhouse dues on a limited salary, and while Larson made more than the players, broken bats, deals with beer dis

An edgy and ambitious debut by a powerful new voice in contemporary literary fiction Monday, Kierk wakes up. Once a rising star in neuroscience, Kierk Suren is now homeless, broken by his all-consuming quest to find a scientific theory of consciousness. But when he's offered a spot in a prestigious postdoctoral program, he decides to rejoin society and vows not to self-destruct again. Instead of focusing on his work, however, Kierk becomes obsessed with another project--investigating the sudden and suspicious death of a colleague. As his search for truth brings him closer to Carmen Green, another postdoc, their list of suspects grows, along with the sense that something sinister may be happening all around them.  The Revelations (Overlook Press, 2021), not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive, challenging and disarming. Bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today, The Revelations is

Fifth in the Henrietta and Inspector Howard Mystery Series, A Child Lost (She Writes Press, 2020) begins in 1935, with Henrietta’s younger sister, Elsie, falling in love with Gunther, a German refugee. He has come to America to locate Liesel, the mother of a little girl he’s been caring for, and has been working in maintenance at Elsie’s school. Elsie begs Henrietta and Clive to help find Liesel, which leads to the old Dunning Asylum on Chicago’s north side. The little girl, who has been having epileptic fits, is also spirited away to the horrible place. Henrietta and Clive brave filth and chaos to get her out, but Henrietta later realizes that everything wasn’t as it seemed. Meanwhile, Clive is assigned to investigate a spiritualist living on the north shore, who might be robbing people of their valuables. It seems like a boring case until Henrietta starts falling for the spiritualist’s visions. Michelle Cox holds a B.A. in English literature from Mundelein College, Chicago and is the author of the multiple

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Good Donkey,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Kolluri talks about writing fiction from the perspectives of different animals, and where the inspiration for those stories comes from. She also discusses how being mixed race can complicate conversations about race and identity in the U.S., how books and literature are making space for those conversations, and how she balances writing with a full-time job as an attorney. Talia Lakshmi Kolluri’s short fiction has appeared in The Minnesota Review, Ecotone, and Southern Humanities Review. She was born and raised in Northern California and now lives in the Central Valley, where she is at work on a collection of short stories and a novel. Read her story in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-good-donkey. Read more about Talia and her work at taliakolluri.com. Below is a list of books and writers that Talia recommended in the podcast. On the Palestinia

Daniel Shapiro was a successful attorney in his early forties when his wife, Susan, suffered a brain bleed and a diagnosis that her future was uncertain. Stunned, and with three young children, the couple made the most of the few years that followed, before a massive second hemorrhage changed everything. Physically, Susan was badly compromised in her ability to speak, see, and walk. Mentally, she spiraled into depression and experienced a drastic personality change. The Thin Ledge: A Husband’s Memoir of Love, Trauma, and Unexpected Circumstances (River Grove Books, 2021) is about coping (often unsuccessfully) with the wreckage left in the wake of an illness that destroys a loved one. Shapiro addresses the questions that people living through unspeakable tragedy may never mention, but almost always ask. Daniel P. Shapiro completed his undergraduate degree as a member of Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Illinois, and earned a J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School. He grew up in the northern Chicago su

What would it feel like to wake up inside the head of someone who writes about science for a living? John Horgan, acclaimed author of the bestseller The End of Science, answers that question in his genre-bending new book Pay Attention: Sex, Death, and Science (MIT Press, 2020), a stream-of-consciousness account of a day in the life of his alter ego, Eamon Toole--a blogger, college professor, and divorced father. This work of fact-based fiction, or "faction," follows Toole as he wakes up in his rented apartment in upstate New York, meditates with the mantra "Duh," commutes via train and subway to an engineering school in New Jersey, teaches a William James essay on consciousness to freshmen, squabbles about Thomas Kuhn with colleagues over lunch, takes a ferry to Manhattan and spends the evening with his bossy, Tarot-reading girlfriend, Emily, on whom he plans to spring a big question. Throughout the day, Toole struggles to be rational while buffeted by fears and yearnings. Thoughts of sex and death keep intru

Gautam Bhatia’s debut novel The Wall (Harper Collins, 2020) is set in Sumer, a city enclosed in an impenetrable, unscalable barrier that seems sky high. To its inhabitants, whose ancestors have lived there for 2,000 years, the place is more than a city or even a country—it’s their universe. Sumer’s residents know something is on the other side but have no desire to explore beyond the wall. They are content with what they have, living comfortably with the resources, rules and hierarchies that have sustained them for centuries. But every couple generations, some people crave more. In this generation, a group calling themselves the Young Tarafians are determined to breach the wall once and for all. “It's not that there is some kind of very visible and wretched oppression that's keeping people down,” Bhatia says. “At the end of the day, the resources are distributed in a way that everyone has enough for at least a decent standard of life. So it's not meant to be a dystopia, and that's part of the point. … Rebelli

This interview features a candid conversation with Greg Bailey, seasoned scholar of Sanskrit narrative Literature, on his multi-decade work on the Purāṇas and Mahābhārata, and on his new novel In Search of Bliss: A Tale of Early Buddhism (Vanguard Press, 2019). About the novel: Kshemapala is a monk from the North who has been tasked with an important scholarly mission: fill in the gaps in the history of the monk, Ananda, the Buddha's close companion, about whom there are legends but few facts. To achieve this he must journey south, towards the source of many of the stories and also towards experiences which will challenge his perception of his practice and of himself. Highly trained in Buddhist meditation techniques and detachment, he must take in and study the evidence, and understand the behaviour and choices of a monk from the past who seems to have done things rather differently. Along the way, Kshemapala is assisted by old and new acquaintances and teachers, and thrown into peril by his confrontation wit

Guest Gina Warren discusses her newest book Hatched: Dispatches from the Backyard Chicken Movement, published May 2021 by University of Washington Press. Warren chronicles her experience in starting a backyard chicken flock from bringing home day old chicks, feeding and housing them, and eventually butchering and cooking them as meat. Rather than offering practical advice or a how-to-guide to raising chickens, Warren instead demonstrates thoughtful grappling with what it means to be an ethical eater in a capitalist society. Warren’s journey with ethical eating begins as a vegetarian seeking alternative ways to acquire animal protein while causing the least amount of harm to animals and the environment and taking an active role in producing her own food. Warren states her mission clearly: “I chose to increase the overlapping territory in the Venn diagram between what I consume and what goods I can understand as part of a continuous process.” While raising a small flock of egg-laying chickens, Warren interrogat

Ron Nyren’s The Book of Lost Light—winner of Black Lawrence Press’s 2019 Big Moose Prize and finalist in the 2020 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction—tells the story of Joseph Kylander, whose childhood in early 20th-century San Francisco has been shaped by his widowed father’s obsessive photographic project and by his headstrong cousin Karelia’s fanciful storytelling and impulsive acts. The 1906 earthquake upends their eccentric routines, and they take refuge with a capricious patron and a group of artists looking to find meaning after the disaster. The Book of Lost Light explores family loyalty and betrayal, Finnish folklore, the nature of time and theater, and what it takes to recover from calamity and build a new life from the ashes. Ron Nyren’s fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, Glimmer Train Stories, Mississippi Review, and 100 Word Story, among others, and his stories have been shortlisted for the O. Henry Awards and the Pushca

In 2016, the German government announces a new prize for Hebrew writers around the world, the Berlin Prize for Hebrew Literature, which will return the Hebrew Literary Center to it. Chezi, an Israeli guy of Iraqi descent who came to Berlin following his love for his German wife Helena, is the first winner of the award - for his book "Staying in Baghdad". On the morning of the victory, while Helena is having an abortion, a political storm arises in Israel due to his winning the prize. The Prize (Pardes Publishing, 2021) is a wild, honed and poignant satire about the literary industry - from the time the book was written to the days it was published, including editing and translating, distributing, publishing and submitting awards - and at the same time a touching novel about love and parenting, adolescence and identity. Shemoelof moves between these two axes - the soft and the sharpened - with admirable virtuosity, as he mobilizes alongside him a surge of humor, wisdom and daring. Mati Shemoelof is an Arab-Jew

I only ever asked you for one thing,' my father said, a quiver in his voice. 'Just this one thing.' It was as though I had smashed the Ten Commandments. 'Oh father,' I cried, grovelling at his ankles while my mother and siblings looked on. 'The one thing you asked of me - is everything.' Bani Adam has known all his life what was expected of him. To marry the right kind of girl. To make the House of Adam proud. But Bani wanted more than this - he wanted to make his own choices. Being the first in his Australian Muslim family to go to university, he could see a different way. Years later, Bani will write his story to his son, Kahlil. Telling him of the choices that were made on Bani's behalf and those that he made for himself. Of the hurt he caused and the heartache he carries. Of the mistakes he made and the lessons he learned. In this moving and timely novel, Michael Mohammed Ahmad balances the complexities of modern love with the demands of family, tradition and faith. The Other Half of You is the powerful,

Ravi Shankar speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “The Five-Room Box,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conversation, Shankar talks about constructing this essay on identity, family, and fitting in from an excerpt of his memoir, Correctional, about his time spent in prison. He also discusses how that time changed the course of his academic work, what it’s like to transition from poet to prose-writer, and the privilege and profiling Asian-Americans experience as the ‘model minority.’ Ravi Shankar is a Pushcart Prize-winning poet, translator, and professor. He has published fifteen books, including W.W. Norton’s Language for a New Century, Recent Works Press’s The Many Uses of Mint, and the Muse India Award-winning Tamil translation The Autobiography of a Goddess. He has taught and performed around the world and appeared in such venues as The New York Times, NPR, the BBC, and PBS NewsHour. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney, and his memoir Correctional is out

Poet Ariana Brown searches for new origins in her debut book We Are Owed. (Grieveland Press, 2021). Brown has had over ten years of experience writing, performing, and teaching poetry that struggles towards freedom for all Black peoples. She identifies on her website as a “queer Black Mexican American poet” whose lived experiences within anti-Black cultures and societies have forced her to spin language into liberation. We Are Owed. achieves that goal by centering scenes of Black Mexican American life, history, and feeling. The title is a call to action, a demand, a recognition, a reparation, a reorientation, and a reclamation. Brown ushers in a new grammar that reaches beyond nation and builds from the foundational understanding that colonial and neocolonial nation-states, and the theory of borderlands set forth by Anzaldúa, are limiting to Black peoples. Jonathan Cortez is currently the 2021-2023 César Chávez Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmout