The Annotated Arabian Nights will be the first English translation by a woman, and will include female protagonists that have previously been omitted. Read more
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Category: New Books
The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age
Replete with accounts of Polly’s many court battles, newspaper headlines, mobster dealings and society gossip, “Madam” is a breathless tale told through extraordinary research. Indeed, the galloping pace of Applegate’s book sometimes makes the reader want to pull out a white flag and wave in surrender — begging for her to slow down. Read more
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How—and Why—America Criminalizes Poverty
Court fines and fees have been a part of the American court system since the beginning. Civil rights icon Rosa Parks, for instance, was fined $10, plus an additional $4 in court costs, when she was cited for a municipal ordinance violation in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 for sitting on a bus reserved for whites. After the Great Recession, lawmakers increasingly turned to fines and fees to fund court services and other elements of government. “Over time, lawmakers started to use the courts as a piggy bank,” Foster said. “The results are truly staggering.” Read more
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Five Decembers by James Kestrel
Heartfelt, enduring images of war and the pain and damage it reaps are sprinkled throughout Kestrel’s vivid, richly detailed narrative, which carries McGrady to the end of WWII. This tale of love, courage, hardship, and devotion is unforgettable. Read more
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In ‘Something More Than Night,’ Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff are a winning crime-fighting duo
For more than 30 years, Britain’s Kim Newman has been producing thoroughly entertaining, startlingly original fiction. He has remained something of a cult figure on both sides of the Atlantic, but that situation could — and should — change with the publication of his immersive new horror thriller, “Something More Than Night.” Read more
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The Novel That Riveted France During Lockdown Arrives in the U.S.
“The Anomaly,” by Hervé Le Tellier, sold more than a million copies during an anomalous time. Now the genre-bending novel is translated into English. Read more
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The real-life demons that drove Dostoevsky to write his masterpiece
The creditors whom Kevin Birmingham relied on to write “The Sinner and the Saint” — a dexterous biblio-biography about how “Crime and Punishment” came to be born — include a formidable array of scholars as well as Dostoevsky himself. Yet the biographer betrays no sign of panic. The tale he tells is rich, complex and convoluted, and though he must have struggled in constructing it, Birmingham writes with the poise and precision his subject sometimes lacked. (Though it worked out all right for him.) Read more
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How H.G. Wells Predicted the 20th Century
…Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), a towering genius successful in many genres, knew, influenced or was admired by virtually every major writer and thinker of his time, between the publication of his first novel, “The Time Machine,” in 1895 and the end of World War II. Read more
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American Comics: A History
There are several recent histories of comics; however, none are as comprehensive or well-researched as this one. Dauber’s book sets itself apart, and comics enthusiasts will be enthralled. Read more
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The Library: A Fragile History
Despite its subtitle, this history of libraries is anything but fragile. At more than 500 pages, it is a robust, near definitive effort, tracing the evolution of the institution from the clay tablets of the Assyrian Empire to the wired libraries of today … Much of this material is familiar, though in a welcome way, comprehensive like the rest of the authors’ admirable effort. Though its primary audience will likely be academics, the book is so accessible and well written that it may also find a general readership among all those who love libraries. May their numbers be legion. Read more
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