New Books Network

Maria Ingrande Mora's latest fantasy romance A Wild Radiance (Peachtree Teen, 2026) brings readers to the magical industrial revolution. Josephine Haven is about to find out exactly where she fits into the march of Progress. Her outbursts are infamous at the House of Industry, the school for children who can wield radiance, an electricity-like magic. She's tried to follow the rules, but her fiery nature is at odds with the core tenet of the House: Never form attachments. If she is meant to feel nothing, why are her emotions so volatile? No one is surprised when, upon graduation, Josephine is banished from the city to a remote Mission. In Frostbrook, she must work under standoffish Julian, the former golden boy of the House of Industry who seems determined to watch her fail. And then there's Ezra, the flirtatious stranger who's a little too curious about how the Mission operates. But there are bigger problems than Julian and Ezra's secrets. A deadly disease is spreading across the countryside, and in Frostbrook, not everyone is eager to embrace Progress. As Josephine questions the system that raised her--and gives in to desire she's been taught to suppress--she must decide what she's willing to sacrifice to expose not just corruption within the House but the devastating truth about the radiance in her core. 
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Professor Rina Bliss teaches in the sociology department at Rutgers University, and has written on the social significance of genetic studies on intelligence, race, and social factors.  

In What's Real About Race: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society (W.W. Norton, 2025) Bliss explores the history of race as a genetic category, its haphazardness across research, medical, and social contexts, and its implications for knowledge production. In this work, Bliss sheds light on the real impacts of racism on bodies and lives, and on how these myths structure modern science and industries.

This interview is a conversation between Rina Bliss and a group of Princeton graduate students/visiting faculty involved in an interdisciplinary (IHUM) STS Reading group.
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In a world shaken by crises, why does the dollar continue to dominate? In Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It (Policy Press, 2025) Photis Lysandrou explores the interaction between global instability and the enduring strength of the dollar. Drawing on examples from the 2008 Great Financial Crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the author reveals how uncertainty and instability in global trade, production and politics drives investors towards the safety of the dollar, reinforcing its dominance over other currencies. With clear and insightful analysis, Lysandrou reveals the true global financial foundations of dollar dominance, and lays out what it would take for other currencies such as the Euro to challenge its position
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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with J.J. Dupuis about Roanoke Ridge—the first book in his Creature X series published with Dundurn Press, 2020.

There’s been a string of Bigfoot sightings in Roanoke Ridge. Do they have something to do with the body in the woods?When Bigfoot researcher Professor Berton Sorel goes missing in the temperate rainforest of Roanoke Ridge, Oregon, help is summoned in the form of his former star pupil, Laura Reagan, online science populist and avowed skeptic. But what begins as a simple search and rescue operation takes a drastic turn when a body is discovered — and it isn’t the professor’s.Caught in the fallout of the suspicious death, perplexed by a sudden wave of Bigfoot sightings, and still desperately searching for Professor Sorel, Reagan reluctantly admits two things: her old mentor was right about there being secrets hidden in Roanoke Ridge, and it’s up to her to uncover them.

J.J. Dupuis is the author of the Creature X Mystery series. When not in front of a computer, he can be found haunting the river valleys of Toronto, where he lives and works.
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The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in America’s elite research institutions. In From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (JHU Press, 2010), Fabio Rojas explores how this radical social movement evolved into a recognized academic discipline.

Rojas traces the evolution of Black Studies over more than three decades, beginning with its origins in black nationalist politics. His account includes the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, the Ford Foundation’s attempts to shape the field, and a description of Black Studies programs at various American universities. His statistical analyses of protest data illuminate how violent and nonviolent protests influenced the establishment of Black Studies programs. Integrating personal interviews and newly discovered archival material, Rojas documents how social activism can bring about organizational change.

Shedding light on the black power movement, Black Studies programs, and American higher education, this historical analysis reveals how radical politics are assimilated into the university system.

Interview covers the evolution of Black Studies as a subject area and discipline, the historical role of philanthropy in funding and supporting Black Studies, the comparative existence and need of knowledge production coming from Black Studies think tanks and research centers and institutes, and the State of Black Studies in the 21st Century.
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