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Editor’s Choice :: Notes by John Murphy

Notes by John Murphy book cover image

Notes by John Murphy
The Lake, February 2025

The poems in this John Murphy’s newest poetry collection, Notes, focus on artists and producers in the popular music industry, covering all major genres: rock, jazz, and blues, as well as influential record producers.

Artists featured in the poems include Joni Mitchell, John Mayall, Cleo Laine, Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Paul McCartney, Tubby Hayes, Phil Spector, Blossom Dearie, Graham Nash, Bob Harris, and more.

“Notes takes us on a journey of appreciation of some of the key figures who made significant contributions to popular music in the 20th century… he writes not only as a poet but also as a seasoned musician of many years standing.” —David Mark Williams, author of The Odd Sock Exchange and Papaya Fantasia

“Notes interweaves two of John Murphy’s loves drawn from a lifetime as a poet and musician… Choosing exemplars from Doris Day to Dylan his writing honours its massive contribution to contemporary culture.” —Pippa Little, author of Time Begins to Hurt

“Murphy’s ear is true…he re-animates the great singers and songwriters, in his own affectionate tributes.” —Hannah Stone, editor of Dream Catcher.

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Editor’s Choice :: Why We Eat Fried Peanuts

Why We Eat Fried Peanuts: A Celebration of Family and Lunar New Year Traditions by Zed Zha, illustrated by Sian James book cover image

Why We Eat Fried Peanuts: A Celebration of Family and Lunar New Year Traditions by Zed Zha, illustrated by Sian James
becker&mayer! kids (Quarto), January 2025

Readers are invited to join Mèng, a Chinese American girl, as she prepares for the Lunar New Year with her family. Through Mèng’s conversation with her father, readers will learn about the rich significance of ancestral stories, the history of the Mandarin language, and the traditional foods that make the holiday so special. Mèng’s father shares the inspiring tale of Tài Nǎi Nai, Mèng’s great-grandmother, whose act of bravery a century ago left a lasting legacy and offers timeless lessons for today’s generation. As Mèng learns, food plays a vital role in the celebration, with fried peanuts serving as a special snack tied to the family’s traditions. The story concludes with a simple, fun recipe for fried peanuts, offering a hands-on way for readers to bring the spirit of the Lunar New Year into their own homes.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Meet Me at the Library

Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy by Shamichael Hallman book cover image

Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy by Shamichael Hallman
Island Press, October 2024

Libraries have a unique opportunity to bridge socioeconomic divides and rebuild trust. But in order to do so, they must be truly welcoming to all. They and their communities must work collaboratively to bridge socioeconomic divides through innovative and productive partnerships.

Shamichael Hallman argues that the public library may be our best hope for bridging divides and creating strong, inclusive communities. While public libraries have long been thought of as a place for a select few, increasingly they are playing an essential role in building social cohesion, promoting civic renewal, and advancing the ideals of a healthy democracy. Many are reimagining themselves in new and innovative ways, actively reaching out to the communities they serve. Today, libraries are becoming essential institutions for repairing society.

Drawing from his experience at the Memphis Public Library and his extensive research and interviews across the country, Hallman presents a rich argument for seeing libraries as one of the nation’s greatest assets. As an institution that is increasingly under attack for creating a place where diverse audiences can see themselves, public libraries are under more scrutiny than ever. Meet Me at the Library offers a revealing look at one of our most important civic institutions and the social and civic impact they must play if we are to heal our divided nation.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine

Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine by Loretta Barrett Oden with Beth Dooley book cover image

Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine by Loretta Barrett Oden with Beth Dooley
The University of Oklahoma Press, October 2023

Corn Dance: Inspired First American Cuisine tells the story of Loretta’s journey and of the dishes she created along the way. Alongside recipes that combine the flavors of her Oklahoma upbringing and Indigenous heritage with the Southwest flair of her Santa Fe restaurant, Loretta offers entertaining and edifying observations about ingredients and cooking culture. What kind of quail might turn up in your vicinity, for instance; what to do with piñon nuts, sumac, or nopales (cactus paddles); when to add a bundle of pine needles or a small branch of cedar to a braise: these and many practical words of wisdom about using the fruits of the forest, stream, or plain, accompany Loretta’s insights on everything from the dubious provenance of fry bread to the Potawatomi legend behind the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash, the namesake ingredients of Three Sisters and Friends Salad, served at Corn Dance Café and now at Thirty Nine Restaurant at First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, where Oden is the Chef Consultant.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Teach Truth

Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education by Jesse Hagopain book cover image

Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education by Jesse Hagopain
Haymarket Books, January 2025

In just the last few years, scores of states have introduced or passed legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about structural racism and other forms of oppression. Books have been cut from curricula and pulled from school library shelves. Teachers have been fired and threatened with discipline.

Long-time organizer, writer, and high school teacher Jesse Hagopian argues in Teach Truth that our democracy is at stake, not to mention the annihilation of entire systems of knowledge that challenge the status quo. Hagopian explores the origins, philosophy, and manifestations of these attacks, and the Right’s effort to regulate knowledge as an attempt to maintain its power over the American capitalist system, now and into the future.

Yet the struggle for a liberatory education has a long history in the United States, from the days when it was illegal for Black people to be literate, to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, to Black Lives Matter at School today. Teachers, students, and their allies are already building a movement – in the classroom, on campus, and in the streets – to defend antiracist education.

Editor’s Choice :: Home, Rewritten Anthology

Home Rewritten anthology cover image

Home, Rewritten: Celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Voices
Fleeting Daze Magazine, May 2024

“Created in 1992, AAPI Heritage Month celebrates the immense culture and history fostered in the AAPI community. With the growing population of the AAPI community, AAPI media has been embedded into American society and heavily influenced its culture. However, AAPI artists constantly face stigmatization and microaggression in their work, especially when Asian artists deviate from the traditional ‘Asian ideal.’ This unwelcoming environment diminishes the diverse voices representing the AAPI community, leaving the American population vulnerable to homogeneity and narrow-mindedness. As editors-in-chief stemming from an AAPI background, we felt motivated to use the platform we’ve created to uplift AAPI youth voices undermined in society. We realized that allowing Asian artists to express their heritage genuinely and candidly brings true representation that society is working towards.”

“This project has been a long time in the making,” say Editors-in-Chief Rosie Hong and Caroline Zhang, “and we are so proud to be able to highlight AAPI voices and share with the world how we have redefined our homes and families through our experiences growing up.”

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: White Poverty

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove book cover image

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Liveright / W. W. Norton, June 2024

One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty—along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps—as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?

These are among the questions that the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, a leading advocate for the rights of the poor and the “closest person we have to Dr. King” (Cornel West), addresses in White Poverty, a groundbreaking work that exposes a legacy of historical myths that continue to define both white and Black people, creating in the process what might seem like an insuperable divide. Analyzing what has changed since the 1930s, when the face of American poverty was white, Barber, along with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, addresses white poverty as a hugely neglected subject that just might provide the key to mitigating racism and bringing together tens of millions of working class and impoverished Americans.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Rendered Paradise

Rendered Paradise by Susanne Dyckman and Elizabeth Robinson book cover image

Rendered Paradise by Susanne Dyckman & Elizabeth Robinson
Apogee Press, April 2024

In Rendered Paradise, poets Susanne Dyckman and Elizabeth Robinson invite the reader into the worlds of three major women artists: Vivian Maier, Agnes Martin and Kiki Smith. Dyckman and Robinson bring a radical collaborative approach to this gathering: through their shared vision, contemplation, and creation, each artist’s works are encountered as unique presences coming alive in fresh and unexpected ways. “We have seen so many instance of men writing about men,” says Editor Edward Smallfield, “and have had many fewer opportunities to read women writing about women. The writing changes as the poets move from one artists to another, so that the focus of the language is the work of art, not the preferred vocabulary of the poets.” This remarkable book isn’t “about” the artworks it engages with, but is its own work of art, new and wondrous.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Killer Insight by Karoline Anderson

Killer Insight by Karoline Anderson book cover image

Killer Insight by Karoline Anderson
Flare Books, September 2024

When a local woman’s body is found in a shallow grave on one of Seattle’s pristine hiking trails, Detective Kaitlyn Kruse and her partner Joe Riley are under pressure to find her killer as swiftly as possible. But more than one body is recovered at the site, and – alarmingly – they all look a bit like Kaitlyn.

Fortunately, Kaitlyn has a secret weapon. She dreams of her past lives, and their memories are always eager to help her solve the crime at hand. But Kaitlyn’s dreams are getting more desperate every night, like one of her past selves is trying to tell her something, and a shady black sedan is tracking her every move. It may be too late to stop the inevitable – but Kaitlyn is determined to get justice for the dead before she becomes one of them.

In this rousing crime debut with a touch of the supernatural, the first in her Detective Kaitlyn Kruse series, Karoline Anderson proves she’s got a knack for the thrill.

Killer Insight is Karoline Anderson’s debut novel as well as the inaugural publication from Flare Books, an imprint of Jessica Powers’ Catalyst Press founded in 2017.

Editor’s Choice :: 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology

2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology book cover image

2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
Rattle, May 2024

The 2024 Rattle Young Poets Anthology curates another year of delightful and insightful poetry that happens to be written by young people. As always, this is not a book of poems for children, but the other way around—these are poems written by children for us all, revealing the startling insights that are possible when looking at the world through fresh eyes.

This 36-page chapbook is mailed to all Rattle subscribers along with the Summer 2024 issue of Rattle poetry magazine. Eighteen poets age 15 or younger contributed to the 2024 volume, offering their perspectives on life in an impressive variety of poetic forms, including an abecedarian, a ghazal, a contrapuntal poem, and a haiku series.

Cover art: “Rainbow Cake” by Amy DiGi (2022, Oil on panel)

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Cemetery Citizens

Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds by Adam Rosenblatt book cover image

Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds by Adam Rosenblatt
Stanford University Press, April 2024

Across the United States, groups of grassroots volunteers gather in overgrown, systemically neglected cemeteries. As they rake, clean headstones, and research silenced histories, they offer care to individuals who were denied basic rights and forms of belonging in life and in death. Cemetery Citizens is the first book-length study of this emerging form of social justice work. It focuses on how racial disparities shape the fates of the dead, and asks what kinds of repair are still possible. Drawing on interviews, activist anthropology, poems, and drawings, Adam Rosenblatt takes readers to gravesite reclamation efforts in three prominent American cities.

Cemetery Citizens dives into the ethical quandaries and practical complexities of cemetery reclamation, showing how volunteers build community across social boundaries, craft new ideas about citizenship and ancestry, and expose injustices that would otherwise be suppressed. Ultimately, Rosenblatt argues that an ethic of reclamation must honor the presence of the dead—treating them as fellow cemetery citizens who share our histories, landscapes, and need for care.

Adam Rosenblatt is Associate Professor of the Practice in International Comparative Studies and Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. He is the author of Digging for the Disappeared: Forensic Science after Atrocity (2015).

Editor’s Choice :: A Nice Safe Place by Andrew Madigan

A Nice Safe Place: A Cutler Series Book 1 by Andrew Madigan book cover image

A Nice Safe Place: A Cutler Series Book 1 by Andrew Madigan
Next Chapter, August 2024

One day, Amy Snyder disappears. Her father Wayne starts looking for her because the sheriff can’t be bothered. Who took her? There are a few sketchy people around: Jason, Amy’s boyfriend; Lupo, the middle-aged drug dealer who dates teenage girls; the creepy minister, Pastor Stone. Wayne searches all over the county but doesn’t find answers. As Wayne slowly discovers, Belvue isn’t the nice, safe place he thought it was.

Amy suddenly returns, but that’s just the beginning of her story. She’s quiet, thin, traumatized. She says a man kept her locked in a basement along with several other girls. Wayne takes her to the sheriff to make a statement, and she sees her captor’s face in a book of mug shots. Ray Loris, a cutler. Loris is arrested, but a few days later he’s released. There’s no material evidence at his home, no girls, not even a basement. And one more thing: Amy’s pregnant. She swears Loris isn’t the father, and neither is Jason, but she won’t say who is.

A Nice Safe Place follows Wayne as he searches for his daughter while other sections of the novel shift from the point of view of Amy to Loris to Pastor Stone. It is a story about a girl, her family, and a town that’s struggling through hard times. It’s also a story of family secrets and the terrible things people can do to one another, and a story of what it takes to heal.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Unnie by Yun-Yun

Unnie by Yun-Yun book cover image

Unnie by Yun-Yun
Libre Books, April 2024

On the morning of April 16, 2014, a passenger ferry carrying 476 people was en route from Incheon, South Korea to the island of Jeju. After a dangerous turn against a strong current, the boat began to capsize, with hundreds trapped inside.

The sinking would take the lives of 306 passengers, including 250 schoolchildren and 11 teachers from the outskirts of Seoul onboard for a field trip. The excessive death toll has been largely attributed to the failure of the Korean Coast Guard to mobilize sufficiently, leading to a highly publicized court case and jail time for members of the crew, who abandoned the ship and all aboard.

The tragedy caused public outcry around the world. But none were so bereft as the families left behind, like the main character, Yun-young. As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, they wait for news of Yun-young’s Unnie (the Korean word for “older sister”), a teacher now missing. As Yun-young embarks on an unfamiliar journey to understand Unnie’s life, she finds herself entangled in a blend of memories and unforeseen revelations, stirring an irresistible yearning. From Korea to America and back again, past and present overlap, as Yun-young tries to piece together the life of her enigmatic older sister.

“I’m a high school teacher in Korea,” writes author Yun-Yun. “At times, when I observe my students immersed in laughter with their peers, I feel a sudden wave of sadness, reminded of all the young lives taken away too soon. I imagine they, too, would have laughed just like that. Writing Unnie, my first novel, I was surprised at how easily the words flowed from me. To this day, I can’t shake the feeling that the lost students were guiding me as I wrote.”

Originally published in 2022, this edition is revised and re-released in honor of the 10-year anniversary of the event.

Editor’s Choice :: Eating Peru by Robert Bradley

Eating Peru: A Gastronomic Journey by Robert Bradley book cover image

Eating Peru: A Gastronomic Journey by Robert Bradley
The University of Oklahoma Press, September 2023

In Eating Peru: A Gastronomic Journey, wine merchant–turned–archaeologist and art historian Robert Bradley shares his past twenty-five years of personal discovery about the food of Peru and the history that led to its current culinary fluorescence today. Journeying from coasts to highlands and back again, the author introduces readers to the most interesting aspects of Peruvian cuisine that he encounters along the way, with several recipes included. Bradley sizzles about Peruvian ceviche, pisco and the pisco sour, and the country’s best restaurants—two ranked in the top ten by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023. He does this all while sampling food lore, Andean anthropology, history, linguistics, and the pleasures and perils of travel within Peru.

Robert C. Bradley started out as a wine merchant for New York City’s most acclaimed restaurants. A trip to Central America put him on the path to studying Mesoamerican art history and archaeology at Columbia University. He is now an associate professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Editor’s Choice is not a paid promotion; selections are made solely at the discretion of the editor. To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: New Book :: Slim Blue Universe

Slim Blue Universe: Poems by Eleanor Lerman book cover image

Slim Blue Universe: Poems by Eleanor Lerman
Mayapple Press, February 2024

Slim Blue Universe is acclaimed author Eleanor Lerman’s seventh collection of poetry. Her work speaks to readers in different voices – the Woodstock generation grown older, social activists still raging at the powers that be, lovers remembering days of paradise, and lonely dreamers still dreaming of better days to come – that weave together both the joys of life and its many afflictions. The poems in this collection ache with longing for what has been lost along the journey through a life shaped by the volatile middle years of the 20th century and with a yearning to look beyond the human horizon to whatever mysterious pathways may lie just up ahead.

Eleanor Lerman established a fifty-year history of published works, including numerous award-winning collections of poetry, short stories, and novels. One of the youngest people ever to be named a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry, she also won the inaugural Juniper Prize from the University of Massachusetts Press and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Poets, among other accolades for poetry as well as fiction.

Editor’s Choice is not a paid promotion; selections are made solely at the discretion of the editor. To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Editor’s Choice :: Tandem

Tandem: A Novel by Andy Mozina book cover image

Tandem: A Novel by Andy Mozina
Tortoise Books, October 2023

In Andy Mozina’s novel Tandem, Mike Kovacs is an economics professor who’s trying to get over a bitter divorce. He is barely on speaking terms with his only child. And he has just killed two bicyclists in an inebriated hit-and-run at a deserted Michigan beach.

Claire Boland’s daughter is one of the victims. She’s racked with guilt over what she might have done differently as a parent. Her marriage is buckling under the weight of the tragedy. And yet there’s one person who seems to understand the magnitude of her grief—her neighbor, Mike Kovacs.

Tandem is a dark comedy about two lives that intersect in the most awful way possible. Mozina’s novel details the absurd lengths people go to avoid uncomfortable truths. It’s an exploration of the weight of guilt and the longing for justice—and the extreme lengths we will go to for love.

Andy Mozina is the author of the novel Contrary Motion (Spiegel & Grau) and two story collections: Quality Snacks was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award, and The Women Were Leaving the Men won the GLCA New Writers Award. He teaches literature and creative writing at Kalamazoo College.

Editor’s Choice is not a paid promotion; selections are made solely at the discretion of the editor; descriptions are from the publisher’s website. To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as our Books Received monthly roundup. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!