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by Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.comSubscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
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- Yesterday54 min
Memories of Colonisation in Medieval and Modern Castile: Rereading and Refashioning al-Andalus with Rebecca De Souza (Oxford UP, 2024)
Memories of Colonisation in Medieval and Modern Castile: Rereading and Refashioning al-Andalus (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Rebecca de Souza traces the evolving memory of a dominant al-Andalus in medieval Castilian and, later, modern Spanish literature. It presents a series of close readings of neomedievalist literary works that look back to the socioeconomic apogee of al-Andalus, the tenth-century Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, but were written centuries later, from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. These works rewrite what has become known as the story of the siete infantes de Lara, although it is their Andalusi half-brother, Mudarra, who takes centre stage from the early modern period on. In its earliest form, it is a story of a weak, conflictual county of Castile, dependent socioeconomically and morally upon Andalusi intervention. Memories of Colonisation asks why Mudarra and the infantes continue to reappear in medieval chronicles, from the Estoria de España to lesser-known regional historiography, early modern ballads, comedias, and nineteenth-century Romantic poetry and prose. By examining how each of these texts remembers tenth-century Iberia’s fluid geographical and interracial boundaries and Castilian disempowerment, it explores how they support or challenge dominant contemporary discourses of collective identity, race, and nation; from the neogothic aspirations of thirteenth-century Castile to the antisemitism of fifteenth-century Toledo, expansion in the Mediterranean, the Islamophobia of the morisco expulsion, and the partisan manipulation of al-Andalus under nineteenth century liberalism. It also examines how each text exposes the task of reconstructing historical memory in the present and thereby challenges the notion of a stable, incontestable past for Castile and Spain.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago47 min
The Brightness with Chad Harbach (Little, Brown and Co., 2026)
From the bestselling author of literary sensation The Art of Fielding comes an urgent, deeply felt story of friendship, art, love, and grief, following two young women on the brink of irrevocable change.Parties and weddings, messy hookups and marred friendships, art and love and grief—The Brightness follows the electric, chaotic, everything-can-happen lives of Pella and her best friend, Irma, as they fumble their way out of sleepy, Midwestern Westish College and into a larger world that will upend their connection and everything they thought they understood about their own place within it.At 27, Pella’s life looks settled: she’s a recent college grad, engaged to Mike, her longtime boyfriend, and helping her friend Owen pull off his own destination wedding on Block Island. But over that wild wedding weekend, Pella’s past and present collide spectacularly, blowing up her plans and sending her spiraling toward an unplanned future in New York City. Meanwhile, back at Westish College, 21-year-old Irma’s involvement with a politically charged prank—one that has roiled both the campus and the world beyond—threatens to derail her brilliant future. As Irma and Pella cycle through possibilities and identities, both navigate the heights and depths of passion and ambition, and the incalculable wages of love and loss.In stunning scenes and spectacular characters—each drawn with an almost superhuman vividness and humanity—Chad Harbach captures that specific, shimmering anxiety of your twenties when life still feels wide open, even as hard and irreversible choices start closing in.Energetic, funny, and deeply human, this much-anticipated follow-up to The Art of Fielding confirms Chad Harbach as one of the most accomplished and deep-seeing writers of our time.Recommended books:Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast CompanyChad Harbach is the author of the bestselling novel The Art of Fielding, which has been translated into more than twenty languages, and a founder of n+1. He was raised in Racine, Wisconsin, and educated at Harvard and the University of Virginia. He lives in Northern California with his son Ansel, and their dog, Curtis.Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago40 min
The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays with Andrew Forbes (Invisible Publishing, 2026)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Andrew Forbes about the 10th anniversary edition of his book, The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays (Invisible Publishing, 2026).Spitball literary essays on the off-kilter joys, sorrows and wonder of North America’s national pastime.A collection of essays for ardent seamheads and casual baseball fans alike, The Utility of Boredom is a book about finding respite and comfort in the order, traditions, and rituals of baseball. It’s a sport that shows us what a human being might be capable of, with extreme dedication—whether we’re eating hot dogs in the stands, waiting out a rain delay in our living rooms, or practising the lost art of catching a stray radio signal from an out-of-market broadcast.From learning about America through ball-diamond visits to the most famous triple play that never happened on Canadian soil, Forbes invites us to witness the adult conversing with the O-Pee-Chee baseball cards of his youth. Tender, insightful, and with the slow heartbreak familiar to anyone who’s cheered on a losing team, The Utility of Boredom tells us a thing or two about the sport, and how a seemingly trivial game might help us make sense of our messy lives.Read “Defunct” over at Eephus Magazine.Andrew Forbes is the author of the story collections Lands and Forests (Invisible Publishing, 2019) and What You Need (2015), which was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and named a finalist for the Trillium Book Prize. He is also the author of The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays (2016) and The Only Way Is the Steady Way: Essays on Baseball, Ichiro, and How We Watch the Game (2021). Forbes lives in Peterborough, Ontario.Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Hollay was also featured on the cover of issue 10 of The Ampersand Review. Learn more about Hollay here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago12 min
Love and Other Incurable Ailments with Linda K. Sienkiewicz (Regal House Publishing, 2026)
Serenity Tomczyk is in her thirties and works in her aunt’s Michigan décor shop, but in her free time she agonizes about her health and possible demise. She’s depressed, trying to figure things out in group therapy, and yearns for the love she never got when her parents were alive. Then she finds a box of passionate letters in the dumpster. She fantasizes about meeting the bereft lover who wrote the letters and suddenly picks up her life to move to where he lives: Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. When she finds the letter writer, he isn’t what she imagined, but she makes new friends and starts to enjoy island life. Then it all nearly unravels, and Serenity must decide if running away or standing firm is the best way to move forward. Love and Other Incurable Ailments (Regal House 2026) is a charming novel about resilience, friendship, and finding your place in the world.Linda K. Sienkiewicz is an author and artist whose work blends humor, heart, and the quieter struggles we often keep to ourselves. Her stories reflect a deep understanding of how anxiety, grief, and community shape our lives. She grew up south of Cleveland, Ohio, scribbling stories in the margins of books before she even knew the alphabet. A scholarship student at Cooper School of Art, she spent many years working in graphic arts before turning her focus to writing. Her short stories, poetry, and art have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner; Clackamas Literary Review; Paterson Review; New Ohio Review; Dunes Review; Spoon River Poetry Review; Permafrost; CALYX, Rattle; The MacGuffin ; A Twist of Noir; and Idol Talk: Women Writers on the Teenage Infatuation that Changed Their Lives.Her essays on writing have been published in Women Writers, Women’s Books; The Feminine Collective; Jane Friedman; Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Detroit Working Writers. Her debut novel, In the Context of Love, was a finalist for multiple awards, including the Hoffer Award and Sarton Women’s Fiction Award. Other awards include a Heartland poetry chapbook award and a Pushcart Prize Nomination. She has published five poetry chapbooks and a children’s picture book which she wrote and illustrated. Linda holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, serves as Honorary Director of Detroit Working Writers, and is a member of Authors’ Guild, Poetry Society of Michigan, Michigan Writers, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Over the years she has worked in graphics arts, founded an adult ADHD support group, taught calligraphy, participated in pet therapy with her chocolate Lab, and worked as a picture framing designer trained in conservation. She volunteers for Neighborhood House, a non-profit, and lives in southeast Michigan with her husband and their corgi, Cowboy, who aspires to be a champion agility dog, if only he could learn not to pee in the ring. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 3 days ago37 min
Cinderella: A Cultural History with Michelle Anya Anjirbag (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2026)
A glass slipper, a fairy godmother, a transformed pumpkin, lizard footmen and seamstress mice: these familiar images evoke a very particular story, one where hopes and dreams for a new life might come true. Adaptations of Cinderella branch out through history and across the world, from early illustrated books to modern children’s and young adult novels, and contemporary films. Cinderella: A Cultural History (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2026) by Dr. Michelle Anya Anjirbag aims to answer the question, why does Cinderella still inspire so many of us with her story?Beginning with the literary versions of the tale that were popularized by collectors and writers such as Basile, Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, this book looks back at the folktales that informed them, out to the various countries and cultures that share similar stories, and then forwards to what writers, illustrators, filmmakers and other storytellers continue to do with the Cinderella narrative. Instead of taking a strictly historical approach, it explores the ways heroes, villains, helpers and symbols appear in different interpretations, illustrations and adaptations. It draws connections between the historical and contemporary preoccupations, concerns and hopes that the Cinderella story still addresses in the 21st century, and celebrates our enduring desire for enchantment and transformation.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 6 days ago27 min
Almost True: Stories from Jerusalem
Most people know Israel through headlines. In Almost True: Stories From Jerusalem, Tal Shalev invites readers to discover it through stories.Set in Jerusalem and across Israel, these twenty-two stories introduce unforgettable characters navigating friendship, marriage, family, love, loss, and the quiet absurdities of everyday life. A wedding guest faces an impossible social dilemma. A husband struggles to save his marriage. Neighbors misunderstand one another, while parents and children search for common ground.With humor, compassion, and keen observation, Shalev captures the moments that reveal who we are-not only as Israelis, but as human beings. Beyond the headlines are ordinary people confronting extraordinary choices, finding grace in unexpected places, and discovering that life's deepest truths often arrive disguised as its smallest moments.Warm, witty, and deeply humane, Almost True: Stories from Jerusalem offers a rarely seen portrait of Israel while celebrating the complexity, resilience, and quiet beauty of everyday life.Host: Renee GarfinkelGuest: Tal Shalev Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago44 min
11.3 “Thank god for editors”: Imbolo Mbue and Sarah Dimick (RB)
In this episode, novelist Imbolo Mbue and critic Sarah Dimick dive into the literary ecosystem from an author’s perspective. Imbolo recalls her formative experiences in public libraries when she first emigrated from Cameroon to the United States, and how her encounters with American literature, especially Oprah’s Book Club picks, shaped her sense of literary possibility. Imbolo’s first novel, Behold the Dreamers, was itself an Oprah’s Book Club selection. In a conversation that moves across Imbolo’s career, from Behold the Dreamers to How Beautiful We Were to the newly released Every Story Is a Love Story, Imbolo and Sarah probe multiple dimensions of the literary ecosystem. They take up networks of literary production: how Imbolo writes both with and against readers’ expectations and desires; how her reading shapes her writing, particularly the memoirs of forgiveness (or the lack thereof) that informed Every Story Is a Love Story; the editorial pressures against which she has been glad to stand her ground, and the ones that have shaped her work for (in her assessment) the better, including a critical intervention from Random House’s Andy Ward that moved Every Story is a Love Story away from punishment and toward the urgent if unsexy problem of forgiveness. They also address what Sarah suggests is another unity across Imbolo’s fiction, in addition to a formal and thematic interest in aftermath: namely, the energy infrastructures—oil, transit, cars—that allow characters to move forward through the world even as they enact extractive harm. Mentions:Oprah's Book ClubNgũgĩ wa Thiong'oChinua AchebeToni MorrisonJonathan FranzenJunot DíazSalman Rushdie's Knife: Meditations After an Attempted MurderMichelle Obama's BecomingYiyun Li's Things in Nature Merely GrowRoxane Gay, "Why I Can’t Forgive Dylann Roof"Random House's Andy WardVerdi’s AidaArundhati Roy's Mother Mary Comes to Me Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago42 min
The Resurrected with Joost Hiltermann (Afsana Press, 2026)
Anfal is an Arabic word from the Quran meaning "the spoils of war." Saddam Hussein gave the name to his 1988 campaign against Iraq's Kurds — eight stages of chemical attack, mass arrest and mass execution that killed some hundred thousand people, and that a later tribunal would call genocide.Joost Hiltermann helped document the genocide for Human Rights Watch. His first novel, The Resurrected (Afsana Press, 2026), is a fictionalized version of those events. It follows two men who survived a mass grave and made their way home to Kurdistan, and eventually to Virginia, giving voice to victims, perpetrators and bystanders alike.Joost Hiltermann is Special Adviser for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, where he previously directed the MENA program for a decade. He is the author of A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja. Joost, welcome to the show.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Resurrected. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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About New Books in Literature
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.comSubscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetworkSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
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