New & Noteworthy Books

New & Forthcoming Books from
Independent & University Presses

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Posted on 10 May 2012

The Color of War

How One Battle Broke Japan
and Another Changed America

Nonfiction by James Campbell

Crown Publishing Grp, May 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0307461216

Hardcover: 512pp; $30.00

James Campbell’s new book tells the story of the critical battle for Saipan, where for the first time in WWII black troops were sent to the frontlines to fight side-by-side with white Marines. It also details the massive and little-known explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Ammunition Depot, northeast of San Francisco, in July 1944. The men who died in the blast were predominantly black sailors. They had toiled in obscurity loading munitions ships with ordnance essential to the US victory in Saipan. Yet instead of honoring the sacrifice these men made for their country, the Navy blamed them for the accident and, when the men refused to handle ammunition again, launched the largest mutiny trial in US naval history.

Crow-Blue, Crow-Black

Poetry by Chip Livingston

NYQ Books, May 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-935520-57-3

Paperback: 94pp; $14.95

Chip Livingston confronts and immerses himself in new cultural territories in his second poetry collection, an examination—critical, colloquial, and personal—of identity in terms of geography, experience, and blood quantum. Crow-Blue, Crow-Black crosses traditional Native American narrative and incantatory styles with the quick-witted street poems of the New York School. From rural coastal roots to urban urgency and back to the rhythm of rivers and ocean, these poems map the continents of the Americas.

Dirge for an Imaginary World

Poetry by Matthew Buckley Smith

Able Muse Press, April 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0-9878705-0-6

Paperback: 68pp; $16.95

Dirge for an Imaginary World from Matthew Buckley Smith is the winner of the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. These are poems of breathtaking craftsmanship that find inspiration in the simplicity of the quotidian, or the perplexity of the grand. Smith is equally at ease musing about Neanderthals or God as he is with a ballet exam or highway medians.

The Guilty Ones

Fiction by Joanna Crispi

NYQ Books, August 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-935520-50-4

Paperback: 342pp; $21.95

Set in Rome at summer's end, The Guilty Ones tells the story of three individuals: Juliet, who abandoned her career as a criminal defense attorney for life with François, a wealthy Parisian banker, and Mike Chase, a New York prosecutor whose career is about to take off with a high-profile international case. All three are skilled at manipulating the world around them until they find themselves in a situation they cannot control. Then, only the truth suffices.

Mother Was a Tragic Girl

Poetry by Sandra Simonds

CSU Poetry Center, March 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-880834-96-1

Paperback: 74pp; $15.95

Sandra Simonds is the author of Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2008), which was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have been published in several journals including Poetry, The Believer, The Colorado Review, FENCE, The Columbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street, New Orleans Review, Court Green, and Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion. She earned a PhD in Literature from Florida State University and lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Riding Fury Home

A Memoir

Nonfiction by Chana Wilson

Seal Press, April 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1580054324

Paperback: 384pp; $17.00

In 1958, when Chana Wilson was seven, her mother held a rifle to her head and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and she was taken away to a mental hospital. On her return, Chana became the caretaker of her heavily medicated, suicidal mother. It would be many years before she learned the secret of her mother’s anguish: her love affair with another married woman, and the psychiatric treatment aimed at curing her of her lesbianism. Riding Fury Home spans forty years of the intense, complex relationship between Chana and her mother and is a powerful story of healing, forgiveness, and redemption.

Surrender When Leaving Coach

Poetry by Joel Lewis

Hanging Loose Press, July 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-934909-26-3

Paperback: 124pp; $18.00

This is Joel Lewis' fourth poetry collection. He edited Bluestones and Salt Hay, an anthology of New Jersey poets, as well as Reality Prime, the selected poems of Walter Lowenfels, and On the Level Everyday, the selected talks of Ted Berrigan. A social worker by day, he has taught writing at The Poetry Project, The Writer's Voice, and Rutgers University. He and his wife, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, a cinema professor at Rutgers, live in Hoboken.

Walking the Clouds

An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction

Anthology Edited by Grace L. Dillon

Univ of Arizona Press, March 2012

ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-2982-7

Paperback: 260pp; $24.95

In this first-ever anthology of indigenous science fiction, Grace Dillon collects some of the finest examples of the craft, with contributions from Native American, First Nations, Aboriginal Australian, and New Zealand Maori authors. The collection includes seminal writers such as Gerald Vizenor, historically important contributions often categorized as "magical realism" by authors like Leslie Marmon Silko and Sherman Alexie, and names like William Sanders and Stephen Graham Jones that may be more recognizable to science fiction fans. Dillon's engaging introduction situates the pieces in the larger context of science fiction and its conventions.

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