New Books in Literature

In her new book, Caring for Red: A Daughter’s Memoir (Vanderbilt University Press, 2016), Mindy Fried shares her experiences with providing care for her father at the end of his life. With rich stories and memories of her father, the book introduces the reader to Manny “Red” Fried, in addition to Mindy as a daughter as caregiver. The book really focuses on how families can preserve the dignity of older family members as they age, as well as how we can keep older family members active and engaged into their later years. Red’s personal history is important throughout the book—he was a labor organizer and once pursued by the government during the McCarthy era. This historical time influences not only Red’s life and experiences but also that of his family. By combining “activism with acting,” he led a rich life and was interested in being engaged until the end. With friends and family having “Mondays with Manny,” his community was able to provide support and continue to keep his tie to the theatre community. In this book, Fried also provides important insights into her role as a caregiving adult child, a common role for many Americans as their parents age. Fried takes a wide view of her father’s care and provides insights and stories into the assisted living facility in which he lived, as well as the role of a hired caregiver in their lives. Although this book is labeled a memoir, Fried is a sociologist and ties in many important ideas and theories into the book, including activity theory and continuity theory. This book will be of interest to sociologists in general, but especially those in the area of aging and family caregiving. In addition, adult children currently providing care for a parent may find the book insightful and interesting, along with practitioners in the caregiving sector. The use of theory and a sociological lens throughout the book makes it accessible in many ways, and would be good for a graduate level Sociology class on Aging or Death and Dying. Sarah E. Patterson is a Sociology post-doc at The University of Western Ontario. You can tweet her at @spattersearch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

It takes courage to walk into a classroom when students don’t look like you. It takes courage to return every day to teach a class when students devalue education. Media has portrayed the scenario in films like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds with white teachers symbolizing the great white hope to a class of minority students. Well, Michelle Kuo is not the great white hope, but she becomes hope and maintains hope for young black students in Mississippi Delta, specifically Patrick. Kuo writes about her journey in the memoir Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship (Random House, 2017). Her story focuses on race, justice and education in the rural south where she taught American History through black literature. Kuo, a Harvard graduate born to Taiwainese parents, wanted to work in a place where she was needed. Thus, she was assigned to an alternative school, which the local administration used as a dumping ground for the so-called “bad kids”—where rabble-rousers who had already been expelled from mainstream schools now given a final chance before being permanently ejected from the public education system. Her memoir navigates the terrain of teacher speaking to students through books and poems they can understand. Reading with Patrick points to a teacher who breaks the rule, choosing favorites. The memoir includes effective teaching tools Kuo used in the classroom. Most importantly, the memoir illustrates humanity when Kuo leaves Helena for a law school but returns after discovering her favorite student, Patrick, has gone to jail. Michelle Kuo teaches in the History, Law and Society program at the American University of Paris. She and Patrick share the royalties from this book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

If you’ve ever wondered how your favorite writers go about crafting their written works, or if you’ve ever been interested in writing a book yourself, chances are you’ve wandered into a bookstore or a library, scanning the shelves for some kind of guidance. Books on writing typically fall into two camps: some are more centered on writing as philosophy, a way of life. Less about how to write and more about the author, and their specific writing journey, like Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life and Stephen King’s On Writing, which are both fascinating and inspiring, but not necessarily all that helpful if you’re looking for some quick and dirty tips on revising a story. Many other books on writing—I would venture to say even most—act as coaches: they preach writing regimens and keeping daily journals—finding the time and making the space. The strategy with these is often to write as much as you can as quickly as possible, because the goal is to get your foot in the door: to actually sit there and write something. But what comes after that? You’ve sat and written and maybe you have enough for a novel, or a memoir. The story is all there, but still somethings not quite right, and you cant be sure how to diagnose the problem. The characters don’t relate to one another like real people, the dialogue feels stiff, the sentences just don’t flow the way you’ve seen them do in your favorite Annie Dillard or Stephen King books, and maybe by now the self-doubt is starting to set in, and you’re wondering, am I really cut out for this? Enter Dinty W. Moore, the longtime editor of the online publication Brevity, a journal of concise literary nonfiction, and the author of numerous books on writing including his latest, called The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press, 2016). Often, Moore says, when people write their stories, they tend to place the blame for the writings shortcomings on themselves. The Book Doctor, however, believes that whatever is ailing a novel or memoir in progress is not about the writer, it is about the story: how well we understand it, how well we tell it, and how well we enable it to come alive in the reader’s mind. With my cohost Eric LeMay and I today on the New Books Network is Dinty W. Moore, dispeller of the pervasive myth that good writing should be effortless, and a staunch believer that anyone is capable of writing, and, with practice, of writing well.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this episode, Rob Wolf speaks with Stephen Baxter, author of The Massacre of Mankind (Crown, 2017), the alliteratively titled sequel to H. G. Wells‘ alliteratively titled classic, The War of the Worlds. Baxter is the author of over 20 novels and dozens of short stories. He’s won the John W. Campbell Award, the Philip K. Dick Award twice, and numerous British Science Fiction Association awards. Few books (science fiction or otherwise) have had as large an impact on the modern imagination as The War of the Worlds. Since it appeared as a serial in a British magazine in 1897, it has been adapted for movies (at least seven times), comics, television, video games and, most famously, in 1938 for a radio drama by Orson Welles that reportedly caused some listeners, who confused fictional news for real, to panic. In The Massacre of Mankind, Baxter envisions new technologies adapted from salvaged Martian equipment, the takeover of much of Europe by Kaiser Wilhelm, and, of course, the eventual return of the Martians, now vaccinated against the Earth-bound bacteria that vanquished them the first time. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

For some reason, books occasionally arrive in pairs—meaning that out of nowhere a topic that has received little attention convinces two or more writers that it is novel-worthy, and those authors produce their finished products at more or less the same time. In this case, we decided to address the issues addressed by combining two shorter interviews into a single podcast. Both books explore the ramifications of Hitler’s decision to invade France, then attack Britain. Both examine the wartime leadership and postwar political defeat of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Both are set in Europe, especially the United Kingdom, between 1938 and 1946. Beyond that, they tell very different stories. In When It’s Over (She Writes Press, 2017), Barbara Ridley traces the experiences of Lena Kulkova, a young Czech woman who accompanies her socialist boyfriend from Prague to Paris, then follows him to Britain just before the Nazi forces invade the French capital. As Lena copes with life in a new country, itself threatened by war and increasingly suspicious of strangers, she yearns to reconnect with the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia. But only after the war, as socialism strengthens its hold on the British working class and threatens the political career of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, does Lena discover the fate of those she loves. Wickwythe Hall (Black Opal Books, 2017), focuses on a crucial decision in the summer of 1940. When Hitler invaded France and the Vichy government agreed to collaborate with the Nazis, the British feared that the French navy would be coopted and turned against them. Churchill issued an ultimatum to the French: turn over their fleet, sail it to a distant port, or see it annihilated. When the French, insisting they would not hand over their ships to the Germans, refused to negotiate, the British navy destroyed the fleet at Marseilles, with great loss of life. Through three overlapping and intertwined narratives, Judithe Little reveals the short-term and long-term effects of this decision and the war of which it formed a part, on individual lives. C. P. Lesley is the author of seven novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, and forthcoming in December 2017—The Vermilion Bird), a historical fiction series set in 1530s Russia, during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

For some reason, books occasionally arrive in pairs—meaning that out of nowhere a topic that has received little attention convinces two or more writers that it is novel-worthy, and those authors produce their finished products at more or less the same time. In this case, we decided to address the issues addressed by combining two shorter interviews into a single podcast. Both books explore the ramifications of Hitler’s decision to invade France, then attack Britain. Both examine the wartime leadership and postwar political defeat of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Both are set in Europe, especially the United Kingdom, between 1938 and 1946. Beyond that, they tell very different stories. In When It’s Over (She Writes Press, 2017), Barbara Ridley traces the experiences of Lena Kulkova, a young Czech woman who accompanies her socialist boyfriend from Prague to Paris, then follows him to Britain just before the Nazi forces invade the French capital. As Lena copes with life in a new country, itself threatened by war and increasingly suspicious of strangers, she yearns to reconnect with the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia. But only after the war, as socialism strengthens its hold on the British working class and threatens the political career of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, does Lena discover the fate of those she loves. Wickwythe Hall (Black Opal Books, 2017), focuses on a crucial decision in the summer of 1940. When Hitler invaded France and the Vichy government agreed to collaborate with the Nazis, the British feared that the French navy would be coopted and turned against them. Churchill issued an ultimatum to the French: turn over their fleet, sail it to a distant port, or see it annihilated. When the French, insisting they would not hand over their ships to the Germans, refused to negotiate, the British navy destroyed the fleet at Marseilles, with great loss of life. Through three overlapping and intertwined narratives, Judithe Little reveals the short-term and long-term effects of this decision and the war of which it formed a part, on individual lives. C. P. Lesley is the author of seven novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, and—forthcoming in December 2017—The Vermilion Bird), a historical fiction series set in 1530s Russia, during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Since their establishment, the Nebula Awards have proven a trusty guide to what the next generation will consider a classic. Take for example, the inaugural award for Best Novel, which went to Frank Herbert for Dune in 1965. Dune‘s impact can be measured in countless ways–not only in the loyalty of critics and fans (who have left in excess of half a million ratings on Goodreads) but in the proliferation of sequels, prequels, movies, TV shows, games, and more. The 2015 Best Novel winner, Naomi Novik (for Uprooted), joins the ranks of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest authors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, William Gibson, Octavia E. Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson and many more. But the Nebulas, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, recognize more than novels. Award categories include stories, poems, and dramatic presentation. The abundance of categories and nominees posed a challenge for Julie E. Czerneda, the editor of the newly-released Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 (Pyr, 2017), which anthologizes the winners of the 2015 awards. Although Czerneda had free reign to decide what to include in the anthology, she still had to fit everything within a strict word count. Fortunately, Czerneda knows a thing or two about getting a book to print. As an accomplished anthology editor and author–her ninth and final novel in The Clan Chronicles series, To Guard Against the Dark, is out this month–Czerneda relished the freedom she had as editor of the showcase. Every editor gets to put their stamp on it. “I’m the first one to put in novel excerpts for all the novels nominated,” Czerneda says. Another first for the current anthology: the winners in all the major categories are women. In addition to Novik for Best Novel, Alyssa Wong won for Best Short Story, Sarah Pinsker for Best Novelette, Nnedi Okorafor for Best Novella, and Fran Wilde received the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. The Damon Knight Grant Master, which recognizes a distinguished career, was C.J. Cherryh. This year’s editor, of course, is also a woman. For Czerneda, editing the showcase allowed her to celebrate a field to which she herself has made significant contributions. The publication of her new book, To Guard Against the Dark, marked to the exact day the launching of her career as a writer in 1987 with the publication of A Thousand Words for Stranger. As it turned out, A Thousand Words became the first book in The Clan Chronicles. “Nine books, 1.6 million words later, I’m finishing it,” Czerneda says. “I like to leave possibilities, but I like to get to a good ending.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Pungently sensual, Claude Lalumiere‘s Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment (Guernica Editions, 2017), is a carnal carnival ride, circling around the central conceit. There’s a city-state by the name of Venera, a place where an opium-like drug called vermillion grows. Lalumiere’s work is reminiscent of the French poet, Rimbaud, who write in his poem Larme, “What did I draw from the gourd of the wine? Some golden liquor, pale, which causes sweating.” The novel consists of a collection of stories, linked by people’s experiences of Venera and its inhabitants. The stories are visceral, intense, and tinged with melancholy. Though almost uniformly erotic, the sexual configurations rarely seem based on romance or love, although love is alluded to. Instead there is an almost reflexive instinct in the various protagonists to give themselves over to their appetites. The regular values of a bourgeois society—the accumulation of property, the maintenance of family, the adherence to tradition—are so absent as motivation for any of the drifting travelers, that it’s noticeable. This is indeed a strange tribe, united only by their occult, amorous, and sometimes terrible experiences in Venera or at the hands of Venerans. An interval piece, describing fantasy writers’ conventions, recalls Hunter S. Thompson, now swallowed into the looking glass all together. Lalumiere can be sardonic about the world of fantasy writers, and their work. Does writing describe reality, or is it an ephemeral collection of impressions? Through reading about a series of bewildering and erotically charged encounters, we ourselves are challenged to find out the truth about Venera. Gabrielle Mathieu is the author of the historical fantasy Falcon series (The Falcon Flies Alone, and the upcoming The Falcon Strikes.) She blogs about travel and her books at http://gabriellemathieu.com/. You can also follow her on Twitter to get updates about new podcasts and more: @GabrielleAuthor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Emilia Bassano loves many things: music, poetry, Latin, herbs. Born to a family of Italian musicians living in sixteenth-century London, Emilia benefits from early fostering in the household of a countess, where she acquires a love of books along with a top-flight education. A terrible assault leaves Emilia convinced she can never marry, and she becomes the mistress of a much older nobleman—Lord Hunsdon, the son of Mary Boleyn and King Henry VIII. Lord Hunsdon offers security, comfort, love, and protection from being dubbed a “masterless maid,” an illegal status in Elizabethan England. Emilia repays him with affection and respect, but it is when she meets the poet and playwright William Shakespeare that she discovers her passion: not only for the poet but for poetry itself. In Dark Lady: A Novel of Emilia Bassano Lanyer (She Writes Press, 2017), Charlene Ball builds on the true story of a remarkable woman, one of Europe’s early feminists as well as the possible model for the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets—reimagining and enhancing Emilia’s biography with her own copious knowledge of the period and the literature. The result is a fascinating glimpse of a world that at times appears reassuringly past and at others all too jarringly present. C. P. Lesley is the author of seven novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, and–forthcoming in December 2017–The Vermilion Bird), a historical fiction series set in 1530s Russia, during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible. Find out more about her at http://www.cplesley.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Artificial intelligence has long been a favorite feature of science fiction. Every robot or talking computer or starship operating system has contributed to our idealized image of the bits-and-bytes brain. In (ID)entity (47North, 2017), PJ Manney further expands our vision of A.I. by uploading her human protagonist to a server; from there, he is replicated and downloaded, re-emerging in everything from a sex-bot to a vegetative man. Published this month by 47North, (ID)entity is the second book in Manney’s fast-paced, plot-twisting Phoenix Horizon series. As the follow-up to the Philip K. Dick Award-nominated (R)evolution, her new novel is both an exploration of transformative technology and a thriller, set in a world where nations (including the U.S.) have collapsed, swathes of humanity face enslavement, and the future of civilization hangs in the balance. One of Manney’s ambitions as a writer (in addition to entertaining readers) is to prepare the public for the possible impacts of new technology. “If we know that these things are coming, we can start forming opinions about what to do,” she says. “Because here’s the thing: nothing gets banned. [If] it gets banned in one country, it doesn’t get banned in another country. There’s no way that technology stops from happening.” Manney likens the idea of transforming a human incrementally–gradually swapping cells for bits–to the thought experiment known as Theseus’s paradox, which asks: if you restore every piece of Theseus’s ship with an entirely new piece, is the final result still Theseus’s ship? “I’m positing, yes it is,” she says, with regard to her protagonist’s transformation from man to super-sophisticated CPU. While (ID)entity is set in the near future, Manney doesn’t expect that people will be able to save themselves to their hard drives soon. “Uploading is farther off than we think.” The third and final book in the series, (CON)science, is scheduled for release in November 2018. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. He worked for many years as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform, and now serves as director of communications for a think tank in New York City. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature