Book reviews

Check out the latest reviews of University of Minnesota Press books.
New Books in Political Science interview with Alexandra Cosmia Budabin and Lisa Ann Richey
Are celebrities “disruptors” who revitalize the development field, or are they just charismatic ambassadors for big business? In Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development (University of Minnesota Press, 2021) the authors argue that celebrities play both roles, and that understanding why and how yields insight into the realities of neoliberal development.
Andrew Jones's Circuit Listening reviewed in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
Jones’s book deserves to be read widely. It is a book that presents an important and urgent intervention in the Euro- and Anglo-centric histories of popular music that dominate the field. At a time when the trope of the “rise of China” is almost omnipresent, this book shows how the Chinese-speaking world has always already been part and parcel of the world of popular music. Review by Jeroen de Kloet.
The Conversation: Environmental disasters are fuelling migration
In her book The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago, Alison Mountz, a geographer at Wilfrid Laurier University, describes the steady development of asylum processing in places far away from physical borders, such as Australia’s offshore processing camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
Minnesota Monthly: The Lessons Jessie Diggins Learned
After a triumphant showing in 2018, the Minnesota native will return for more Olympic gold this year—without sacrificing balance.
Jacobin: Workers Are Dying Because Amazon Treats Human Beings as Disposable
Pioneer Press Literary Pick of the Week: Making Minnesota series launches with 'We Are Meant to Rise'
Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura, who are writers, co-editors of the anthology and long-time activists in promotion of diversity, will be joined by contributors for a live panel discussion via Zoom at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 13.
Pioneer Press highlights four University of Minnesota Press books.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press highlights four University of Minnesota Press books.
Public Books: In Praise of Search Tools
Deirdre Lynch reviews Craig Robertson, The Filing Cabinet, in Public Books.
Wisconsin Public Radio: New book 'Winter's Children' details skiing tradition
Wisconsin and Minnesota have a storied tradition in cross-country skiing. From the Berkie to the Strand Ski Company in New Richland. We talk with the author of a new book, “Winter’s Children,” about the origins of Nordic skiing and how it flourished in America.
Mother Earth News: Naturally Sweet Maple Scone Recipe
Sweet Maple Scone recipe excerpted from Sweet Nature: A Cook’s Guide to Using Honey and Maple Syrup by Beth Dooley and Mette Nielsen.
New Yorker: Money in the Metaverse
Anna Wiener discusses Alenda Chang and Nick Dyer-Witheford in the New Yorker.
Gary Goodman on the Matt McNeil Show
Gary Goodman discusses The Last Bookseller with Matt McNeil on AM950.
ArtZany Radio Interview with Margi Preus
Margi Preus discusses the final Enchantment Lake mystery book, The Silver Box, on KYMN Radio's ArtZany.
Journal of Peace Research: "A timely contribution to the on-going nuclear debate"
PRIO Book Notes: Schwab certainly manages to make her readers acutely aware of the relevance of the legacies of the Manhattan Project in the early twenty-first century.
Food Tank: 19 Cookbooks for Food Justice and Sustainability
Beth Dooley's The Perennial Kitchen in Food Tank.
High Country News: How do you make a movie about a hyperobject?
The film ‘Don’t Look Up’ turns climate change into an allegorical comet.
Minnesota Spokesman Recorder: "The wealth of stories, poetry, and perspectives leaves me filled with gratitude"
In “We Are Meant to Rise,” Minnesota indigenous writers and writers of color reflect on and react to the year 2020: the year that began the COVID pandemic, a year ripped apart by the brutal police murder of George Floyd, a year of isolation and uprising.
ABC Newspapers Op-ed: "The secret to coping is to avoid helplessness"
Director of the Center for School Change Joe Nathan finds inspiration from Mindy Greiling.
School Library Journal: 21 Nonfiction Picture Books
A fascinating look at a truly weird way of promulgating your species. 
SF Chronicle: Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens help writer assume the 'Ecosexual Position'
Visiting Holly Park in San Francisco with Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens one day this fall wasn’t just an afternoon walk; it was fulfilling the prescription for my first ecosexual experience.
New Books in Politics and Polemics: "A groundbreaking collection"
Intolerable: Writings from Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group (1970-1980) (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), edited by Kevin Thompson and Perry Zurn, is a groundbreaking collection of writings by Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group documenting their efforts to expose France's inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Pioneer Press: Gary Goodman writes about his life as a rare sort of bookseller
Goodman makes clear in the tone of his book that he embarked on a life of adventure when he walked into that scuzzy little bookstore on Arcade Street, where the neighboring liquor store sold a quart of Ripple wine for 98 cents.
MPR News: The opioid reckoning in Minnesota
Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released some heartbreaking statistics. Not about COVID-19, but about drug overdose deaths, which reached a new record high during the pandemic.
International Viewpoint: The Dispossessed
Bensaïd’s essay, as contextualized in this volume by Nichols, successfully pushes, especially those of a Marxist orientation, to make the idea of dispossession more central to their theoretical and practical work.
Prairie Public NewsRoom: Interview with Tom Rademacher
Tom Rademacher is an English teacher and Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year in 2014. His new book, “Raising Ollie,” is the story of his nonbinary, art-obsessed child; a new school where Ollie could flourish; and how raising Ollie led the author into insights about himself.
Review of THE MIGRANT'S PARADOX in Ethnic and Racial Studies
This book would be very useful for those interested in areas such as the politics, geography and sociologies of global migration within cities as well as the possibilities of grassroots everyday resistance, migrant solidarities and social change.
Teen Vogue: What Defunding Police Means for Mental Health Care
Conversations about defunding police miss how our mental health infrastructure can mirror the prison system.
Los Angeles Review of Books: Courtiers and Sycophants: Catherine Liu’s Case Against the Professional Managerial Class
AMONG THE pleasures of the HBO series Succession, which satirizes a Murdoch-like media dynasty, is the unembarrassed spectacle used to portray the spiritually dead. Departing from television that fetishizes plutocrats, Succession transports us to their plausibly perverse reality. Virtue Hoarders, Catherine Liu’s polemic against the professional-managerial class (PMC), holds up the mirror to “PMC nature” that Succession doesn’t.
Star Tribune on Liv Arnesen's book: "Wonderfully perplexing."
Amid sundry accounts of other great polar achievements, overwhelmingly by men, Arnesen tells her story almost effortlessly, even chummily, sidestepping the usual tone of turmoil. It's as if she trusts a reader to grasp that, yes, skiing alone for 50 days in subzero cold is one of most difficult ventures on Earth. There, that's settled.
Flash Forward Podcast: "Could Mind Control End Crime?" with Liat Ben-Moshe
Liat Ben-Moshe, author of DECARCERATING DISABILITY, joins the Flash Forward podcast for a discussion of a future where we start putting devices in people's brains to reduce crime.

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