New Books in Literature

Ever since Donald Trump was elected President, he’s created a non-stop torrent of news, so much so that members of the media regularly claim that he’s effectively trashed the traditional news cycle. Whether that’s true or not, it is hard to keep up with what’s going on in the White House, and each new uproar makes it difficult to remember what’s already happened. Take Trump’s first cabinet meeting, way back on June 12, 2017. Remember that? It began with Trump proclaiming, “Never has there been a president….with few exceptions…who’s passed more legislation, who’s done more things than I have.” This, despite the fact that he had yet to pass any major legislation through Congress. Then it got odder. Trump listened as members of his Cabinet took turns praising him. Mike Pence started it off, saying, “The greatest privilege of my life is to serve as vice president to the president who’s keeping his word to the American people.” Alexander Acosta, the Secretary of Labor, said, “I am privileged to be here–deeply honored–and I want to thank you for your commitment to the American workers.” And Reince (Rein-ze) Priebus, still then the President’s Chief of Staff, said, “We thank you for the opportunity and the blessing to serve your agenda.” As all of the praise rained down on him, Trump just looked on, smiled, and nodded approvingly. Whats going on? Not only here but in the endless praise disguised as press releases that’s coming from the White House and Trump’s own Twitter account? Is this just good old fashioned ass-kissing or is there something more sinister happening? In their new book, Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy (University of Virginia Press, 2017), Mark and Deborah Parker explore this phenomenon of excessive flattery–why people do it and how it alters the social world that we all must share. The Parkers look at examples from literature, politics, and other disciplines to give us a portrait of this false-faced, slickly tongued, morally odious character, the sycophant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Rie is a more than a hundred years old, and sometimes she feels like it, even if she looks like any other human girl. After uncovering a plot to create war between the nine realms, she and her friends are hunted, and her mentor, a distant faery relative who remains on earth to maintain peace, is seriously wounded. While the High Elves want segregation and dominance, half-human Rie has a network of alliances which span the realms. In Megan Haskell‘s Sanyare: The Rebel Apprentice (Trabuco Ridge Press, 2017)–the third installment of this engaging series–we find her on the run with hunky strawberry-blonde Prince Daenor, her own personal troop of three-inch pixie warriors, a horse-dragon, and her friend, a water fae, who almost dries up and dies during the course of their journey. Rie’s challenges include finding out which high faery was behind experiments that turned fae and elves into killers, rescuing heartthrob Prince Daenor from his own grandmother, and making an alliance with the Daemon world, a place where restless ghosts roam. You can jump into Haskell’s series with this book, but it’s helpful to know some background. The current Truthseeker, Sanyaro, Rie’s teacher and ancestor, who uses the human name Greg, is a mediator. Rie is his apprentice. She’s also a warrior, but one who’s still doubtful of her leadership abilities. Rie’s universe consists of nine worlds, including the human one, which seems to be a handy place to escape to, when you have hordes of faery warriors on your trail. There is an autumn realm, a summer realm, and a Daemon realm, among others. Fans of Sarah Maas will appreciate Haskell’s world-building, and her feisty sword-wielding heroine. 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

Malka Older‘s Centenal Cycle is set in the latter half of the 21st century and yet, like all good science fiction, it speaks to the current moment. Null States (Tor, 2017), the second book in her series, builds on the first, Infomacracy, which introduced readers to a near future in which the Earth is crisscrossed by a network of small but stable democracies. But in Null States, efforts to strengthen and expand this world order are threatened by unknown plotters. What makes Older’s books so timely is that they address some of the most vexing challenges of the Trump era, including the difficulty of separating truth from lies and the uphill effort to foster trust in government. Drawing on more than a decade of experience working for organizations that provide humanitarian aid and development, Older’s books introduce the idea of mini-nations known as microdemocracies. These tiny states are capped at 100,000 citizens in an effort to ensure that the minority always has a voice. Each microdemocracy can vote for any government around the world, so that coalitions of micro-sovereignties are not massed in one geographic location but scattered around the globe. In a dense city, this means that different microdemocracies can arise every few blocks, with one (for example) under-girded by Rastafarianism and the next guided by the principles of Chabad. In order to ensure the efficient and fair administration of this system, an organization called Information provides expert advice, education and resources. Older describes Information as a cross between Google and the United Nations. Perhaps Information’s most important function is to constantly stream verified, annotated facts to every citizen as an antidote to fake news, a term that has grown increasingly popular in recent years even though the underlying problem, as Older points out, has been “going on probably for as long as we can trace history and politics.” For Older, science fiction is an opportunity to explore neither dystopia nor utopia but the real world in between — a place where her policy-minded imagination can explore practical solutions. “I wanted to show some ideas I’d been thinking about that would improve things in some ways, but they could also make some things worse,” she says in her New Books interview. “There is no perfect system. We’re not aiming to find some system that will work for every case and every country and every group of people and then we’re done. I think what’s really important is the process and the struggle.” Related links: * Older’s short story Narrative Disorder and her essay The Narrative Spectrum appear in Fireside Fiction. Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe and The Escape. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from The New York Times to the literary journal Thema. Follow him on Twitter @RobWolfBooks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Even a novelist with thirty-five books under her belt would find it difficult to finish someone else’s series, set in a relatively unfamiliar part of the world and a century earlier than the fictional world one has created for oneself. More difficult still if the author was a close friend. So it’s no surprise that Joan Hess initially said no when the agent she shared with Elizabeth Peters suggested that Hess complete the manuscript for The Painted Queen (William Morrow, 2017). Fortunately for fans of Amelia Peabody, Radcliffe Emerson, and their numerous and ever-expanding family, the agent supplied enough vodka and carrot cake to swing the deal. In this last adventure, set in 1912, Peabody and Emerson have barely set foot in Cairo before the first death occurs: an unknown man wearing a monocle who collapses just inside the door of the bathroom where Peabody is soaking off the grime of her train ride from Alexandria. There is no question that the death is murder, and discovering the identity of the corpse, the reason for his carrying a card bearing the single word Judas, and the hand behind the knife that has dispatched the unwanted visitor consumes Peabody and Emerson even as they devote some of their attention to the excavation that has brought them to Egypt. The culprit could be the Master Criminal, defending Peabody from harm. Or it could be the representative of a secret society of monocle wearers. As Peabody and Emerson, with help from the junior members of their extended family, strive to figure out what’s going on, they must also deal with less deadly intrusions from a missionary named Dullard and the ineffable Ermintrude de Vere Smith, writer of racy romance novels, as well as a disappearing archeologist and an apparently nonstop succession of forgeries purporting to be statues of Nefertiti–the Painted Queen. It all makes for a deliciously entertaining sendoff to a much beloved series, one that Peabody and Emerson fans should not miss. C. P. Lesley is the author of six novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, and The Swan Princess), 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

Underground Airlines (Mulholland Books, 2016) is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we’d like to believe. In an alternative world, a gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service. He’s got plenty of work. This may sound like a story from the United States of today, but in this version of America, slavery continues in four states called the Hard Four. On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn’t right with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself. Choosing to ignore his past, Victor suppresses his memories of his childhood on a plantation, and works to infiltrate the local cell of an abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines. Tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he’s hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who wont reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw’s case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child who may be Victor’s salvation. Victor himself may be the biggest obstacle of all though his true self remains buried, it threatens to surface. Author Ben H. Winters, the author of nine novels, grew up in suburban Maryland and attended Washington University in St. Louis. Beyond Underground Airlines, his other works include the highly-regarded Last Policeman trilogy. Winters is the winner of numerous literary awards, including a NPR Best Book of 2013, the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, and the Edgar Award. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife Diana, a law professor, and their three children. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Blessings Series continue with a heartwarming novel, Chasing Down a Dream (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2017), about what makes a family when trials test relationships. And in Henry Adams, Kansas, there’s never a dull day. After a horrendous storm, Gemma finds a young boy and his little sister walking on the side of the road. She takes them in and quickly falls in love with the orphaned siblings. But when Gemma contacts Social Services to try to become their foster mother, she’s told a white woman cannot foster African-American children. Tamar July has never had a great relationship with certain members of her family. In fact, she’d characterize it as a “hate/hate relationship.” But when her cousin calls her with the news that she’s dying and wants Tamar to plan the funeral, she’s shocked but is willing to drop everything for her. In the midst of these trials, Jack and Rocky are trying to plan their wedding. The entire town comes together to lend a helping hand. Although the residents of Henry Adams face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, each of them discovers family comes in many forms, especially during the most trying of times. Beverly Jenkins is the recipient of the 2017 Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the 2016 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance. She has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature, was featured both in the documentary Love Between the Covers and on CBS Sunday Morning. Since the publication of Night Song in 1994, she has been leading the charge for multicultural romance, and has been a constant darling of reviewers, fans, and her peers alike, garnering accolades for her work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and NPR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Mykola Soroka’s Faces of Displacement: The Writings of Volodymyr Vynnychenko (McGill-Queens University Press, 2012) is a compelling investigation of the oeuvre of one of the Ukrainian writers whose dramatic literary career offers insights not only into the nature of writing but also into the contextual environments that happen to shape writers’ reputations. Born and educated in Ukraine, Vynnycheko had to leave his homeland shortly after the emergence of the Soviet Union: his political vision considerably differed from the developments introduced and supported by the Soviet leaders. Extensively traveling across Europe, Vynnychenko was trying to maintain a fragile connection with his homeland: this connection was primarily constructed and nourished by the writers imagination. In spite of persecution, Vynnychenko ventured a few intermittent returns to Soviet Ukraine; however, he never had a chance to settle down in his home country again. France became one of the places where he attempted to develop a new sense of home and belonging; but this attempt was always imbued with the writers longing and nostalgia for Ukraine. Detailing the trajectory of Vynnychenko’s traveling/wandering, Mykola Soroka introduces the concepts of homeland and hostland, contributing to the discussion of exile literature. Negotiating the notions of exile, expatriate, nomad, diaspora, Soroka’s research offers a notion that includes different shadows of writers and the works they produce outside their homelands–displacement. Vynnychenko’s life and literary career exemplifies displacement that, in fact, can hardly be described as stable and concrete. Although inherently including some negative connotations (displacement hints at leaving a comfort zone), displacement is also nourished by change, movement, and transformation. As Soroka’s research demonstrates, Vynnycheko’s style changes and develops as he travels and as he attempts to adjust to new environments. Faces of Displacement is structured around two major stages of Vynnycheko’s balancing between his homeland and hostland(s): 1907-1914 and 1920-1951. Soroka provides detailed accounts of the writer’s negotiations with his multiple selves that arise as the external environments change. Astute artistic and psychological observations are accompanied by historical and political considerations that contribute to the proliferation of the research discussion. Reconstructing an intricate system of overlapping layers, Faces of Displacement offers new perspectives for the exploration of Vynnychenko’s works and for the investigation of literature that emerges on the edges of consciousness when homelands and hostlands intersect. In addition to an insightful analysis of works that establish Vynnychenko’s literary reputation (The Black Panther and the Polar Bear (1911), The Solar Machine (1928), The Leprosarium (1938), to name but a few), Faces of Displacement also considers the writer’s political activity and love of painting as one of significant factors. This consideration allows to present Vynnychenko’s works in the context of interdisciplinary investigations: Vynnychenko’s political aspirations appear to have been informed by his ethic and aesthetic principles; conversely, political and ideological nuances are part of the writer’s literary vision. In Ukraine, Vynnychenko’s works were banned for a few decades. His final novel, Take the Floor, Stalin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Mercy Journals (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016) is the third novel by Claudia Casper and her first work of science fiction. Set in 2047, it tells the story of Allen Quincy through his journals. Quincy–nicknamed Mercy–is a former soldier struggling with memories of his long-lost family and the traumas he suffered during the third World War. The story touches on complex issues such as genocide, climate change, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But it’s largely a book about one man’s struggle for survival and his attempt to find meaning in a world turned upside down. The Mercy Journals won the coveted Philip K. Dick Award, which means it’s destined to be a classic, read for years to come. Related to the interview: * Claudia Casper’s essay, “Attending a Literary Award Ceremony in an Alternate Universe,” was published on Literary Hub. Rob Wolf is the author of the science fiction novels The Alternate Universe and The Escape. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from The New York Times to the literary journal Thema, and his work has been singled out for excellence by the New York Public Library, The Missouri Review, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Ragnvald Eysteinsson is returning from years raiding in Ireland under the leadership of Solvi and focused on winning a contest with his fellow sailors when Solvi attacks. Ragnvald falls into the fjord and is given up for dead. But a fisherman pulls him out, and when Ragnvald recovers enough from his wounds and near-drowning to reach his home in southern Norway, he learns that his own stepfather paid Solvi to ensure that Ragnvald would never survive to reclaim the lands left him by his father. Cut off from home and family, denied the bride he was promised, Ragnvald sets out to recoup his fortunes and avenge his wrongs by swearing service for a year to Hakon, lord of a neighboring kingdom. Meanwhile, Ragnvald’s sister has her own issues with their stepfather–most notably, his plans to marry her off to a rich elderly neighbor. A handsome young seafarer catches her eye. Unfortunately for them both, the seafarer is Solvi… In The Half-Drowned King (Harper, 2017),the first book in a trilogy, Linnea Hartsuyker provides a richly detailed and captivating portrait of three young people whose hearts war with their loyalties in the turbulent period leading up to the establishment of the first united Norwegian kingdom. C. P. Lesley is the author of six novels, including Legends of the Five Directions (The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, and The Swan Princess), 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

Michael Allan‘s In the Shadow of World Literature: Sites of Reading in Colonial Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2016) challenges traditional perceptions of world literature: he argues that the disciplinary framework of world literature levels the differences between different types of literature. He uses colonial Egypt as a geographic focus of inquiry and demonstrates how literary traditions changed the act of reading: his examples include the Rosetta Stone and translations of the Qur’an. He thus demonstrates that literary reading (to be distinguished from how reading was conceptualized in Egypt before the colonial period) requires different ethical capacities and sensibilities and how they were gradually institutionalized by different genres of texts. NA Mansour is a graduate student at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies working on the global intellectual history of the Arabic-language press. She tweets @NAMansour26 and produces another Middle-East and North Africa-related podcast: Reintroducing.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature