New Books Network
Biography
LGBTQ+ Studies November 30, 2020

Confessions of a Gay Priest

A Memoir of Sex, Love, Abuse, and Scandal in the Catholic Seminary

Tom Rastrelli

Hosted by John Marszalek
Tom Rastrelli is a survivor of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse who then became a priest in the early days of the Catholic Church’s ongoing scandals. Confessions of a Gay Priest: A …

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Malcolm X and Black Nationalism November 30, 2020

Malcolm X

The FBI File

Clayborne Carson

Hosted by Kirk Meighoo
This is a Special Series on Malcolm X and Black Nationalism. We delve into the background of Malcolm X's action and thought in the context of Black Nationalism, correcting the …
Performing Arts November 30, 2020

Lot Six

A Memoir

David Adjmi

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Lot Six (Harper 2020) is a moving and hilarious memoir from playwright David Adjmi. The book traces Adjmi’s search for his identity, during which he becomes an observant yeshiva student …
Psychoanalysis November 25, 2020

Freud

The Making of an Illusion

Frederick Crews

Hosted by Cassandra Seltman
The figure of Sigmund Freud has captivated the Western imagination like few others. One hundred and twenty-five years after the publication of Studies on Hysteria, the good doctor from Vienna …
Performing Arts November 24, 2020

Martha Graham's Cold War

The Dance of American Diplomacy

Victoria Phillips

Hosted by Renee Garris
Dr. Victoria Phillips adeptly tells the story of Martha Graham's role as diplomat, arts innovator, and dancer. Her book Martha Graham's Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy (Oxford UP …
History November 23, 2020

George III

Madness and Majesty

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of what would become the United States, George III inspired both hatred and loyalty and is now best known for …
Intellectual History November 19, 2020

No Future in This Country

The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner

Andre E. Johnson

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
No Future in this Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner by Andre E. Johnson, an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at the University of Memphis …
History November 18, 2020

The Last Brahmin

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War

Luke A. Nichter

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the grand-son of Woodrow Wilson’s senatorial antagonist, did. In the postwar era, perhaps only …
Biography November 16, 2020

Isabel “Lefty” Alvarez

The Improbable Life of a Cuban American Baseball Star

Kat D. Williams

Hosted by Mark Klobas
For many of its participants, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) offered them an opportunity to change their lives, yet few were as transformed as that of Isabel “Lefty” …
East Asian Studies November 16, 2020

The Art of Persistence

Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan

Charlotte Eubanks

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2019) examines the relations between art and politics in transwar Japan, exploring these via …
Christian Studies November 13, 2020

The Life and Times of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles

A Forgotten Scholar

Timothy C. F. Stunt

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
For the sixty years in which he has made a distinguished contribution to the religious history of the nineteenth century, Timothy Stunt has been working on the life and times …
Asian Review of Books November 12, 2020

Stranger in the Shogun's City

A Japanese Woman and Her World

Amy Stanley

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“To mother, from Tsuneno (confidential). I’m writing with spring greetings. I went to Kanda Minagawa-chō in Edo—quite unexpectedly—and I ended up in so much trouble!” This letter, hidden in an …
Russian and Eurasian Studies November 12, 2020

Journey Into the Land of the Zeks and Back

A Memoir of the Gulag

Julius Margolin

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Julius Margolin was a Polish Jew caught between the twin 1939 invasions of Poland by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. He spent the years 1940-1945 in Soviet labor camps, finally …
Film November 11, 2020

Cary Grant

The Making of a Hollywood Legend

Mark Glancy

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Cary Grant: The Making of a Hollywood Legend (Oxford University Press, 2020) tells the incredible story of how a sad, neglected boy became the suave, glamorous star many know and …
Russian and Eurasian Studies November 11, 2020

Stalin

Passage to Revolution

Ronald Grigor Suny

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Ronald Suny’s recent biography of the young Stalin, Stalin: Passage to Revolution (Princeton, 2020) covers “Soso” Jughashvili’s life up to the 1917 Revolution. Suny provides a wealth of detail as …
Genocide Studies November 11, 2020

The Struggle for Understanding

Elie Wiesel's Literary Works

Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith

Hosted by Yakir Englander
An in-depth look at Elie Wiesel’s writings, from his earliest works to his final novels. Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was one of the most important literary voices to emerge from the …
Japanese Studies November 10, 2020

The Iconoclast

Shinzo Abe and the New Japan

Tobias Harris

Hosted by Steven Wills
Abe Shinzō is seen today through many lenses: as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan; as a pragmatic leader with a consistent policy vision and a commitment …
Middle Eastern Studies November 9, 2020

Ibn Taymiyya

Jon Hoover

Hosted by Elliot Bazzano
Ibn Taymiyya is one of the most prolific and influential Islamic thinkers to date, and was even the only pre-modern Muslim author cited in the 9/11 Report. His supporters and …
Biography November 4, 2020

Christobiography

Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels

Craig Keener

Hosted by Jonathan Wright
Are the canonical Gospels historically reliable? The four canonical Gospels are ancient biographies, narratives of Jesus’s life. The authors of these Gospels were intentional in how they handled historical information …
Architecture October 27, 2020

Louis Kahn

Architecture as Philosophy

John Lobell

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
For everyone interested in the enduring appeal of Louis Kahn, this book demonstrates that a close look at how Kahn put his buildings together will reveal a deeply felt philosophy …