New Books Network
Literature
The Common Magazine May 7, 2021

You Like to Have Some Cup of Tea?’ and Other Questions About Complicity and Place

Deborah Lindsay Williams

Hosted by Emily Everett
Deborah Lindsay Williams speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her “‘You Like to Have Some Cup of Tea?’ and Other Questions About Complicity and Place,” which appears in Issue …

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Historical Fiction May 4, 2021

Three Locks

A Sherlock Holmes Adventure

Bonnie Macbird

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Sherlock Holmes is one of the rare literary characters who has achieved a kind of cultural immortality. As Bonnie MacBird notes in this interview, display an image of a deerstalker hat …
History April 29, 2021

The Committed

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Hosted by Michael Vann
What do you ask a novelist who has won a Pulitzer, a Guggenheim, and a MacArthur genius grant? Cocktail advice, of course. When I had the honor of chatting with …
Science Fiction April 29, 2021

The Rush's Edge

Ginger Smith

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Space operas take readers far from Earth with stories about alien cultures and battles between good and evil. But while usually set in distant galaxies in the far flung future …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work April 27, 2021

Las Biuty Queens

Stories

Iván Monalisa Ojeda

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Drawing from his/her own experience as a trans performer, sex worker, and undocumented immigrant, Iván Monalisa Ojeda chronicles the lives of Latinx queer and trans immigrants in New York City …
Literary Studies April 26, 2021

The Orphanage

A Novel

Serhiy Zhadan

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
The Ukrainian literary scene today is particularly vibrant. The voice of Serhiy Zhadan is distinct, well-known, and easily-recognizable. In 2021, Yale University Press published his novel titled The Orphanage (Yale …
The Common Magazine April 23, 2021

Her Borders Become Her

Fátima Policarpo

Hosted by Emily Everett
Fátima Policarpo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her essay “Her Borders Become Her,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine. In this conversation, Policarpo talks about …
Asian Review of Books April 22, 2021

Murder at the Mushaira

A Novel

Raza Mir

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
May 1857. The Indian city of Shahjahanabad, today called Delhi, is tense. British officers are worried about rumors of insubordination and rebellion elsewhere in India, while the local residents both …
Performing Arts April 20, 2021

The Antiracist Writing Workshop

How to Decolonizethe Creative Classroom

Felicia Rose Chavez

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Felicia Rose Chavez' The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom (Breakbeat Poets, 2020) is a practical and persuasive guide to revolutionizing the teaching of creative writing. Combining theory …
Literature April 20, 2021

Love Among the Recipes

Carol M. Cram

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Today I talked to Carol Cram about her new book Love Among the Recipes (New Arcadia Publishing, 2020). After Genna’s husband betrays her, she finds a way to spend six months writing …
Performing Arts April 19, 2021

Owed

Joshua Bennett

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebratory book focused on what Bennett calls "the Black quotidian," …
Literature April 16, 2021

An Indian Among Los Indígenas

Ursula Pike

Hosted by Zoe Bossiere
The western travel narrative genre has a history long tied to voyeurism and conquest. A way to see the world—and its many unique people and places—through the eyes of mostly …
History April 16, 2021

The Golden Age of the American Essay

1945-1970

Phillip Lopate

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the rise of public intellectuals, and breakthroughs in …
Fantasy April 15, 2021

The Frozen Crown

A Novel

Greta Kelly

Hosted by Gabrielle Mathieu
The horror of the battlefield is fresh for Princess Askia. She’s just been forced to flee her kingdom, the northern country of Seravesh, where her cousin now rules under the …
Literature April 13, 2021

Four Dead Horses

KT Sparks

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Today I talked to KT Sparks about her debut novel Four Dead Horses (Regal House, 2021) On May 1, 1982, eighteen-year-old Martin Oliphant watches a horse drown off the shore of …
Poetry April 13, 2021

Hotel Almighty

Sarah J. Sloat

Hosted by Andrea Blythe
Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande Books) is a book-length erasure of Misery by Stephen King, a reimagining of the novel's themes of constraint and …
Popular Culture April 9, 2021

My Private Lennon

Explorations from a Fan Who Never Screamed

Sibbie O'Sullivan

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In My Private Lennon: Explorations From a Fan Who Never Screamed (Mad Creek Press, 2020), Sibbie O'Sullivan offers a new point of view from which to consider the Beatles’ impact on society and on …
Literature April 9, 2021

A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy

Edgar Garbelotto

Hosted by Emily Everett
Writer and translator Edgar Garbelotto speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his short story “A Fourteen-Hour Lesson in Theosophy,” which appears in Issue 20 of The Common magazine. The story …
Military History April 9, 2021

The Last Platoon

A Novel of the Afghanistan War

Bing West

Hosted by Jeffrey Bristol
The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War (Bombardier Books, 2020) is a riveting book of infantry ground combat. As a work of fiction it is superb, showing the …
Science Fiction April 8, 2021

The Rain Heron

A Novel

Robbie Arnott

Hosted by Rob Wolf
At the end of its life, the phoenix bursts into flames and a younger bird rises from the ashes. The roc is large enough to carry an elephant in its …