Shows / New Books Network

New Books Network
Interviews with Authors about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Episodes
New Books NetworkThe Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries with Andrew Hui (Princeton UP, 2026)
With the advent of print in the fifteenth century, Europe’s cultural elite assembled personal libraries as refuges from persecutions and pandemics. Andrew Hui…
New Books NetworkWomen in Comics: Iconic Characters and Influential Creators 1923-Today with Susan E. Kirtley and Nhora Lucía Serrano (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)
Susan E. Kirtley and Nhora Lucía Serrano's Women in Comics (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026) is a richly illustrated, essential guide to the importance of women in…
New Books NetworkAll Around Is Fairy Ground: Pleasure and the Regency Garden with Timothy Mowl (Reaktion, 2026)
Regency gardens dazzled with colour, invention and theatricality: trellises heavy with roses and jasmine, shrubberies designed for intrigue and lawns enlivened…
New Books NetworkEpiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue with Cyprian Consiglio (Orbis Books, 2025)
Tune in to this discussion of Epiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue (Orbis Books, 2025) These moving and eloquent…
New Books NetworkIf Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes and Other Stories with Malon Edwards (Fireside Fiction Company, 2023)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Malon Edwards about his book, If Wishes Were Obfuscation Codes (Fireside Fiction Company, 2023). “Electric…
New Books NetworkSoviet Blocks: The Bizarre Puzzle of How Tetris Embraced Western Values with Julien Mailland (MIT Press, 2026)
A geopolitical and legal history of the bestselling videogame Tetris—the stunningly successful game that began in a Soviet research lab monitored by the KGB…
New Books NetworkThe Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory, 1924-2024 with Amy King (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In this episode, I speak with Dr Amy King of Bristol University about her book, The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory…
New Books NetworkThe Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East with Nicholas Morton (Pegasus, 2026)
From their foundational era in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an…
New Books NetworkThe Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts with Michael Khodarkovsky (Yale UP, 2026)
What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar…
New Books NetworkWeapons
A true dark comedy, Zach Cregger’s Weapons (2025) combines a satire of suburbia, a study of addiction, and the satisfaction of a fairy tale. The film works so…
New Books NetworkBernardo de Gálvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution with Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia (UNC Press, 2026)
Although Spain was never a formal ally of the United States during the American Revolution, its entry into the war definitively tipped the balance against…
New Books NetworkCreatures of Story and Song: Tracing Britain's Lost Species with Lee Raye (Reaktion, 2026)
Lee Raye joins Jana Byars to talk about their new book, Creatures of Story and Song: Tracing Britain's Lost Species (Reaktion, 2026). Discover why a beaver was…
New Books NetworkEcotexts in the Postcolonial Francosphere with Nsah Mala, Richard Watts and Giulia Champion
Through a postcolonial lens, Ecotexts in the Postcolonial Francosphere (Liverpool, 2025) explores the various ways in which francophone writers, visual artists…
New Books NetworkOur Common Life: Folksong from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall with Stephen Wade
Our Common Life: Folk Song from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall (U Illinois Press, 2026) by Stephen Wade is part memoir, part meditation on American…
New Books NetworkThe Hypocrisy Trap: How Changing What We Criticize Can Improve Our Lives with Michael Hallsworth (MIT Press, 2026)
In our increasingly distrusting and polarized world, accusations of hypocrisy are everywhere. But our attempts to stamp out hypocrisy may backfire, creating…
New Books NetworkThe Stitches Between Us with Taylor D Lott (Hawes & Jenkins, 2025)
Taylor D. Lott's The Stitches Between Us (Hawes & Jenkins, 2025) tells the story of Theo, a quiet, imaginative boy growing up in a home where sensitivity is…
New Books NetworkWickhills with Premee Mohamed (Tor Books, 2026)
The novel Wickhills follows Ferec, an experienced secret agent with an encyclopedic knowledge of his home city, the titular Wickhills. His job is a dangerous…
New Books NetworkWill AI Make Human Labor Obsolete? with Garrison Lovely
Today I’m speaking with Garrison Lovely, technology journalist and author of the new book, Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us — and…
New Books NetworkBeyond Incremental Reform: Rethinking the United Nations with Augusto López-Claros
As the United Nations faces mounting geopolitical tensions, financial pressures, and new global challenges, what would meaningful reform actually look like? In…
New Books NetworkLives, Land, and Labour: A Social History of Eighteenth-Century Sri Lanka with Luc Bulten (Brill, 2026)
The "Thombos" are a rather unique collection of eighteenth-century land and population registers detailing the lives lived, lands held, and labour provided by…
New Books NetworkRacist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control with Kelly Lytle Hernández (Norton, 2026)
Kelly Lytle Hernández joins Michael Stauch to discuss how the US immigration system has always been “racist by design.” Many Americans’ understanding of the…
New Books NetworkStill with Joanna Cockerline (The Porcupine's Quill, 2025)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Joanna Cockerline about her acclaimed novel, Still (The Porcupine's Quill, 2025). Longlisted for the…
New Books NetworkThe Colombo Plan: Development Internationalism in Cold War Asia with David Lowe (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Conceived in 1950, the Colombo Plan for Co-operative Development in South and Southeast Asia was a unique experiment in foreign relations. Meeting annually…
New Books NetworkThe Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa with Adam Rovner (U California Press, 2025)
This vivid reconstruction of one man’s life reveals the harsh realities and moral ambiguities of colonial power. The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of…
New Books NetworkThe Real Pain of Punishment: Prison, Belonging, and the Quest for Humanized Justice with Federica Coppola (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The Real Pain of Punishment: Prison, Belonging, and the Quest for Humanized Justice (Cambridge UP, 2026) highlights the concept of 'belonging' as an…
New Books NetworkTreasures on Earth: Buried Wealth in Landscape and Legend with Jeremy Harte (Reaktion, 2026)
Jeremy Harte, President of the Folklore Society, joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book Treasures on Earth: Buried Wealth in Landscape and Legend…
New Books NetworkA Mellified Redemption? Learning to Live with a Pest Through Spotted Lanternfly Honey
Rosi Song of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective hosts authors Eve Z. Bratman and Anna Purchase in a discussion of their newly published research article on…
New Books NetworkCredit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930 with Rebecca Kobrin (Harvard UP, 2026)
From a leading historian, the story of how entrepreneurial Jewish immigrants transformed commercial banking and enabled the economic and social advancement of…
New Books NetworkIndefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing with Rahim Kurwa (U California Press, 2025)
In this episode, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Rahim Kurwa about his book Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (U California Press…
New Books NetworkIndia, China, and Climate Change Governance: Leadership and Responsibility in the Asian Global South with Amit Ranjan and Agnieszka Nitza-Makowska (Routledge, 2026)
Can we expect leadership and responsibility from the Asian Global South in climate change governance? India, China, and Climate Change Governance: Leadership…
New Books NetworkInto the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945 with Prit Buttar (Osprey, 2025)
Enriched by extraordinary first-hand accounts, Prit Buttar's Into the Reich: The Red Army’s Advance to the Oder in 1945 (Osprey Publishing, 2025) is a…
New Books NetworkRhetorical Powers: How Rising States Shape International Order with Sasikumar Sundaram (Columbia UP, 2026)
Recent years have seen a striking resurgence of anti-imperial and anticolonial rhetoric on the international stage, from Global South to Global North and from…
New Books NetworkThe Best 100 TV Shows of the 21st Century
It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and the New York Times has published its list of the best 100 television shows of the 21st Century. We react to this list…
New Books NetworkThe Integrity Compass: Leading with Ethics in a Changing World with Massoud Amin (Wisdom Editions, 2026)
The Integrity Compass: Leading with Ethics in a Changing World is a practical, readable guide to ethical decision-making for engineers, technologists…
New Books NetworkWho Gets to Write History? Wikibiases.org by Shlomit Aharoni Lir
Most of us use Wikipedia without thinking very much about it. A name comes up in conversation, an argument breaks out, or we suddenly need to know what…
New Books NetworkAarthi Vadde has a Platform (JP)
It is fair to say Aarthi Vadde's wonderful new book, We The Platform, demostrates "how literature changes our perspective on the internet." But you also need…
New Books NetworkAllama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination with N.S. Gundur
Engages with the life and ideas of the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu. In his last, profoundly innovative work Allama Prabhu…
New Books NetworkAlone in Japan: A Journey to the Future with Tom Feiling (Allen Lane, 2025)
Japan has been aging for decades. The country’s birth rate first fell below the replacement rate in 1974, long before phrases like the “demographic transition”…
New Books NetworkAssassins and Secret Listeners: Britain's Invisible Armies, 1939-45 with Alistair Moffat (Birlinn, 2026)
Throughout Britain, all day, every day and in the dead of night, the secret listeners went about their solitary work. Hands on headphones, these men and women…
New Books NetworkBorn Again: Romanticism and Fundamentalism with Jeffrey Champlin (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Born Again: Romanticism and Fundamentalism (U Toronto Press, 2025) examines the deep historical roots of fundamentalism in Protestantism and the imaginative…
New Books NetworkCool Heat: Anita O'Day and Her Dangerous Jazz Life with James Gavin (Equinox, 2026)
How did Anita O'Day-the legendary jazz singer who, along with Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz, led the so-called "cool school" of modern…
New Books NetworkHow Girls Achieve
How Girls Achieve points out a simple and overlooked truth: most schools never had girls in mind to begin with. That is why the world needs what Dr. Sally…
New Books NetworkKennedy’s Only Hero: How JFK’s Obsession with Winston Churchill Defined His Presidency with Joel Nelson (Public Affairs, 2026)
President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill remain two of the most iconic figures of the twentieth century and Joel Nelson’s new book…
New Books NetworkLet the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary America with Nicholas P. Wood (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
David N. Gellman interviews Nicholas P. Wood on Let the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary America In Let the Oppressed Go Free…
New Books NetworkMadhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night with Julian Sancton
I spoke with writer and The Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton about his New York Times bestselling book, Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s…
New Books NetworkThe Generative Organization: AI Playbook for Exponential Leaders
How Do AI & Innovation Cohabitate? Bryan Cassady is an author, professor, and all-around innovator, whether in book form or in classrooms, real and virtual…
New Books NetworkThe Range of the River: A Riverine History of Empire Across China, India, and Southeast Asia with Iftekhar Iqbal (Stanford UP, 2025)
Six great Asian river systems have their origins in the Tibetan glacial region: the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Red and the…
New Books NetworkIlan Stavans on Building Restless Books and Publishing in Translation
How does an independent press survive by publishing the books the Big Five overlook? Amherst College professor and Spanglish scholar Ilan Stavans joins Sarah…
New Books NetworkHow to Stay Human Forever: On America's Digital Technology Crisis with James Poulos
Many Americans have a constant dread of impending doom. Glued to the screens of our computers and smartphones, we sense that some total catastrophe is just…
New Books NetworkOperation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the North American Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War with Jason Bell (Hanover Square Press, 2026)
Historians have always known that the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day in June 1944 depended on deceiving the Germans about where the…
New Books NetworkStrong State, Weak Links: Eugenics and the Southern Politics of Welfare with Anna Krome-Lukens (UNC Press, 2026)
In the early twentieth century, most US states established eugenics programs to improve the human race through selective breeding. North Carolina ran one of…
New Books NetworkThe Immortal Woman with Su Chang (House of Anansi Press, 2025)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Su Chang, author of The Immortal Woman (House of Anansi, 2025). A sweeping generational story of…
New Books NetworkThe Quake That Drained the Desert with Mary Elizabeth Reynolds (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
On May 3, 1887, an earthquake struck near the U.S.-Mexico border. Forty-three people died in Bavispe, Mexico; sixty miles north in Arizona, buildings swayed…
New Books NetworkThe Romans: A People’s History with Paul Chrystal (Reaktion, 2026)
The Romans loom large in the imagination, credited with roads, aqueducts, politics, plumbing and empire – yet these familiar achievements tell only part of the…
New Books NetworkTransient Becoming: Self-Improvement and Capitalist Virtuousness in Contemporary China with Gil Hizi (NUS Press, 2026)
How do individuals seek to become better persons in contemporary China? How do they navigate the complex demands of personal growth given the fragmentation of…
New Books NetworkCompromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Postconflict Power Sharing in Africa with Alexander Noyes (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
When an election turns violent and neither side will concede, why is the usual answer to put both sides in the same government? Alex Noyes has spent nearly two…
New Books NetworkDo We Really Need To Choose Between Jobs and the Environment?
Host Licia Cianetti talks to Lorenzo Feltrin about his recent book Workers and the World: Fighting Ecological Crisis from Within (Verso, 2026). They discuss…
New Books NetworkGreat Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger with A. Wess Mitchell (Princeton UP, 2025)
Great Power Diplomacy. The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger (Princeton UP, 2025) is a captivating history of diplomacy—and an urgent…
New Books NetworkHow Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain
There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath…
New Books NetworkLife's Chemical Secret: The Origin of Purpose and Mind with Addy Pross (MIT Press, 2026)
How the ground-breaking discovery of a new material form in chemistry—matter in a dynamic kinetic state—is helping to explain life’s unique characteristics…