A baker’s dozen of promising new titles.
Thousands of books are published each month. And as much as we’d like to, we can’t read (or review) them all. But what we can do is point out a few we think you might enjoy. In that spirit, here’s a rundown of forthcoming titles that caught our eye and may catch yours, too.
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The MAD Files: Writers and Cartoonists on the Magazine that Warped America’s Brain! by David Mikics (Library of America). What, me worry? A look at how Alfred E. Newman and the Usual Gang of Idiots created today’s sense of humor in the U.S.
Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon Publications). These 21 stories of things that go bump in the night — from an array of authors that includes Laird Barron, Priya Sharma, and Stewart O’Nan — should delight anyone in search of their next white-knuckle read.
Gobsmacked: The British Invasion of American English by Ben Yagoda (Princeton University Press). It’s been said that England and the U.S. are two countries separated by the same language. Certainly, the Brits have embraced any number of Americanisms over the years. Here, Yagoda looks at how the reverse is also true.
Postcards from Scotland: Scottish Independent Music 1983-1995 by Grant McPhee (Omnibus Press). If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap! Okay, maybe not. But still, this oral history makes a compelling case that indie Scot acts like the Jesus and Mary Chain boast a singular sound.
The Spring Before Obergefell: A Novel by Ben Grossberg (University of Nebraska Press). It’s tough to be a gay guy in small-town America, but everyman Mike Breck discovers it might be a little easier if he’s honest about who he is and what he wants.
The Interpretations of Cats: Understanding the Psychology of Our Feline Companions by Claude Béata and David Watson (Scribner). What’s going on in their furry little heads, anyway? Author Béata is a veterinarian and a psychiatrist who interprets many kitty-related mysteries.
I Never Said That I Was Brave: A Novel by Tasneem Jamal (House of Anansi Press). Two Ugandan women who immigrated to Canada long ago find the cultural and personal hurdles they navigated as children are much more complex — and the stakes much higher — now that they’re grown.
The Honey Trap: How the Good Intentions of Urban Beekeepers Risk Ecological Disaster by Dana L. Church (Sutherland House Books). For years, we’ve been told that we’re doomed if we don’t prioritize honeybees. Have we somehow gotten it all wrong?
Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel by Edwin Frank (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). How did some of the most transformative fiction from the last century work its magic? The longtime editorial director of New York Review Books demystifies the alchemy.
The Reason the Dress Is Yellow: Stories by Steve Mitchell (Press 53). In the award-winning author’s third book, characters familiar and enigmatic seek to manage their circumstances and make sense of their challenging, sometimes overwhelming worlds.
California Catastophes: The Natural Disaster History of the Golden State by Gary Griggs (University of California Press). The Golden State sure is a great place to live. It has to be, or else nobody would dare to try.
States of Emergency: A Novel by Chris Knapp (Unnamed Press). An American man and his French wife undergo fertility treatments in Paris during the scorchingly hot summer of 2015. Soon, it begins to feel as if the whole world — and possibly their marriage — is burning.
How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense by Robin George Andrews (W.W. Norton & Company). There are tens of thousands of asteroids out there big enough to literally rock our world, and sometimes they do. NASA is developing technology that could help us avoid going the way of the dinosaurs.
