Metropolitan Books

05/07/2020

When Will We Care About Domestic Violence?

"For centuries, men without even the gravitas or tragic flaws of Othello, acting on their ire, have been saying, 'I’ll tear her all to pieces,' and doing it, too, with their bare hands. Will they ever stop?"

Pulitzer Prize–winning Metropolitan author Caroline Fraser in The New York Review of Books on Rachel Louise Snyder's "invaluable, deeply reported" new book NO VISIBLE BRUISES: WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CAN KILL US.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/05/28/when-will-we-care-about-domestic-violence/

As countries around the world have tracked Covid-19, they’ve seen a sharp spike in another scourge, one of far longer duration and with no known cure: domestic violence. In the last weeks and months, confinement necessitated by the pandemic has caused an increase in calls to police and crisis cent...

05/07/2020

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi review – conquest and resistance

"Rashid Khalidi’s account of Jewish settlers’ conquest of Palestine is informed and passionate. It pulls no punches in its critique of Jewish-Israeli policies (policies that have had wholehearted US support after 1967), but it also lays out the failings of the Palestinian leadership."

Stellar review of THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR ON PALESTINE by Rashid Khalidi today in the The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/07/the-hundred-years-war-on-palestine-by-rashid-khalidi-review-conquest-and-resistance

A passionate history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ... does the political will exist to bring about meaningful dialogue?

05/07/2020

The Inner Life of American Communism

"The communist brings to the public life of the ancients the methodism of modern work. In all things be political, says the communist, and in all political things be productive. Anything less is vanity. Like the ancients, the communist looks outward, but her insistence on doing only those actions that yield results is an emanation from within. Effectiveness is a statement of her integrity. The great sin of intellectuals, Lenin observed, is that they “undertake everything under the sun without finishing anything.” That failing is symptomatic of their character—their “slovenliness” and “carelessness,” their inability to remain true to whatever cause or concern they have professed. The communist does better. She gets the job done."

Corey Robin in The Nation Magazine on Vivian Gornick's THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN COMMUNISM and Jodie Dean's COMRADE.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/vivian-gornick-jodi-dean-american-communism-comrades-book-review/

Vivian Gornick’s and Jodi Dean’s books mine a lost history of comradeship, determination, and intimacy.

05/07/2020

The Pandemic Is the Time to Resurrect the Public University

"Public spending, for public universities, is a bequest of permanence from one generation to the next. It is a promise to the future that it will enjoy the learning of the present and the literature of the past. It is what we need, more than ever, today."

Metropolitan author of THE ENIGMA OF CLARENCE THOMAS Corey Robin on the potentially bleak implications of coronavirus for universities in The New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-pandemic-is-the-time-to-resurrect-the-public-university

The coronavirus has revealed to many the geography of class in America, showing that where we live and work shapes whether we live or die. Might it offer a similar lesson about where we learn?

05/06/2020

An Introduction to The Song Poet

"So many stories have never been told in opera. The Hmong story is one of them."

Last month, Minnesota Opera sat down with composer Jocelyn Hagen, stage director Rick Shiomi, and lovely Metropolitan author Kao Kalia Yang to discuss their upcoming production of her acclaimed memoir THE SONG POET, premiering in Spring 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ImbiFSW0PE

On April 16, 2020, members of the MN Opera Education staff sat down with author Kao Kalia Yang, composer Jocelyn Hagen, and stage director Rick Shiomi to dis...

05/06/2020

On Contact: Colonial war on Palestine with Rashid Khalidi

"This is not just a war by the Zionist movement on the Palestinians. It's a war declared by great powers."

Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University Rashid Khalidi visits On Contact with Chris Hedges this week to discuss his Metropolitan book THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR ON PALESTINE.

https://youtu.be/A9_Ox1K6S9M

On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the long, disingenuous role the USA has played in the Israel/Palestine conflict with Professor Rashid Khalidi. ...

05/05/2020

Will American exceptionalism survive the pandemic? | Spectator USA

"In the real world, i.e., everywhere apart from the White House and Mar-a-Lago, anxiety has replaced optimism as the signature quality of the American temperament."

Metropolitan author Andrew Bacevich in Spectator USA last month on the end of American exceptionalism—and what might come after.

https://spectator.us/american-exceptionalism-survive-pandemic/

Dented but afloat, American exceptionalism survived Bush and Obama, with Donald Trump arriving on the scene to put his own ‘America First’ gloss on it

05/05/2020

Astra Taylor on Why Democracy Needs Socialism (Stay At Home #30)

"Without socialists, I really think the democratic project is doomed, because capitalism is antithetical to democracy."

Last week, Astra Taylor appeared on Jacobin magazine's #StayAtHome live series to break down why democracy needs socialism.

Watch and then pre-order the paperback of DEMOCRACY MAY NOT EXIST... coming this May 19th!

https://youtu.be/YlFL7D7jI_g

Today we're joined by documentary filmmaker and author of Democracy May Not Exist but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Astra Taylor, to talk about Democracy's g...

05/05/2020

Announcement of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize Winners

"A sweeping and beautifully written book that probes the American myth of boundless expansion and provides a compelling context for thinking about the current political moment."

Still reeling. BRAVO to beloved house author #GregGrandin for his very well-deserved 2020 #Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction!!! Like all of Greg's books, THE END OF THE MYTH is an audacious, eye-opening, essential work of history we simply couldn't be prouder to publish.

https://www.pulitzer.org/news/announcement-2020-pulitzer-prize-winners

Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy announced the 2020 Pulitzer Prizes via video stream at Pulitzer.org on Monday, May 4. Watch video of the announcement and read the full list of winners. (A short list is available by scrolling down the page.) The Board also announces the election of its two co-c...

04/30/2020

Hot & Bothered Podcast: Debt vs. Democracy, with Astra Taylor | Dissent Magazine

“It’s the cuts that are causing us to be broke and causing us to suffer. . . . We’re not in debt because we live beyond our means, we’re in debt because we’re denied the means to live.”

Astra Taylor joined Dissent Magazine's Hot & Bothered this week to discuss diet and pandemics, debt and democracy, and the impotence and threats of the very institutions meant to offer us paths to recovery.

Taylor's scintillating DEMOCRACY MAY NOT EXIST, BUT WE'LL MISS IT WHEN IT'S GONE appears in paperback on May 19th.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/hot-bothered-podcast-debt-vs-democracy-with-astra-taylor

On this week’s show, Kate and Daniel talk to Astra about what the coronavirus pandemic has to do with eating meat, whether we really need a technocratic savior, and why debt relief is inherently tied to democracy.

04/30/2020

On Our Nightstands: April 2020

"Corey Robin has made a career out of understanding – and helping the rest of us understand – the political ideas that are most morally and intellectually anathema to the left.... His book on Thomas is a remarkable synthesis of biography, jurisprudence, critical race studies, political sociology, institutional history, and so much else. It's also truly an amazing piece of writing."

Thanks to Bécquer Seguín over at Public Books for this glowing note on Corey Robin's THE ENIGMA OF CLARENCE THOMAS!

https://www.publicbooks.org/on-our-nightstands-april-2020/

A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.

04/30/2020

Opinion | Imagine if the coronavirus briefings went like this

—Begin each briefing with the numbers
—Give updates on clinical trials
—Explain the latest scientific research into the coronavirus
—Provide information to help people stay safe
—Talk about major challenges and the federal government’s response

Read on for more details about author of a forthcoming Metropolitan book on public health Dr. Leana Wen's eminently sensible plan to formalize and improve the appallingly chaotic White House #COVID19 briefings.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/29/imagine-if-coronavirus-briefings-went-like-this/

All we're getting now is a daily spectacle followed by a news cycle of rebuttals and political fights.

04/30/2020

Why Humanity Will Probably Botch the Next Pandemic, Too

"So out of this mist, can you find a silver lining? Is there any indication that the destruction of tropical rainforests will stop? That we will stop eating the beef that destroys the forests that protect us from emergent viruses? That we will end factory farming on its present scale? That we will invest a trillion dollars to provide potable water and sanitation to everybody on Earth?

"No, of course not. None of this will happen."

Metropolitan author #MikeDavis talks with New York Magazine about Trump's dangerous dismantling of pandemic warning networks, the criminal disinvestment in American public health, and our urgent need for global scientific collaboration in "an age of pandemics." #COVID19

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/coronavirus-next-pandemic-mike-davis-avian-flu-covid.html

A conversation with Mike Davis, author of 2005’s The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu, about nationalism, capitalism, and COVID-19.

04/30/2020

Mike Davis in the Age of Catastrophe

"Utopia is available to us. If, like me, you lived through the civil-rights movement, the antiwar movement, you can never discard hope. I’ve seen social miracles in my life, ones that have stunned me—the courageousness of ordinary people in a struggle. Eleven years ago, Bill Moyers brought me on his show and presented me as the last socialist in America. Now there are millions of young people who prefer socialism to capitalism.”

Author of Metropolitan books ECOLOGY OF FEAR and THE MONSTER AT OUR DOOR #MikeDavis briefly profiled in The New Yorker last week.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/california-chronicles/mike-davis-in-the-age-of-catastrophe

Once again, reality is catching up with the author’s instinct for prognostication.

04/29/2020

Minnesota Book Awards Winners & Finalists | The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library

Big congratulations to Kao Kalia Yang, whose gorgeous A MAP INTO THE WORLD (Lerner Publishing Group) won the 2020 Minnesota Book Awards for Children's Literature! #mnbookawards

We're thrilled to be publishing SOMEWHERE IN THE UNKNOWN WORLD: A Collective Refugee Memoir, Kalia's next adult book, this coming October.

https://thefriends.org/minnesota-book-awards/minnesota-book-awards-winners/

04/28/2020

‘Homeland’ Showrunner Declassifies the Series Finale

“I was like, ‘Whoa!’ What if Carrie has been spending the last two years writing an expose of the C.I.A.?”

When television imitates life: Bestselling Metropolitan author Edward Snowden's crucial memoir PERMANENT RECORD inspired Sunday night's series finale of Homeland on Showtime!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/arts/television/homeland-series-finale.html

The series’s co-creator Alex Gansa talks about last-minute decisions, adjusting to criticism and the role of Edward Snowden as the writers crafted an ending.

04/27/2020

Opinion | Protesting for the Freedom to Catch the Coronavirus

Nice mention of Metropolitan author Anna Merlan last week in this piece on the cruel individualism of the reopen America protests.

Merlan's REPUBLIC OF LIES is out in paperback this July.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/19/opinion/coronavirus-trump-protests.html

The reopen America protests are the logical conclusion of a twisted liberty movement.

04/27/2020

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

"Extraordinary . . . absorbing . . . Fraser uncovers a life that has been expertly veiled by myth." —The New York Times Book Review

Pulitzer Prize–winning PRAIRIE FIRES by Metropolitan author Caroline Fraser is available for $2.99 this week at Amazon Kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Fires-American-Dreams-Ingalls-ebook/dp/B0727NC3NN/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

04/27/2020

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Deal alert!

This week, bestselling Metropolitan author Atul Gawande's BEING MORTAL is available on Amazon Kindle for just $3.99.

Dive into this vital examination of medicine's ability to comfort and enhance our quality of life, even at the end:

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters-ebook/dp/B00JCW0BCY

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

04/22/2020

The Coronavirus Truthers Don't Believe in Public Health

Intrepid Metropolitan author of REPUBLIC OF LIES Anna Merlan today in VICE on social-distancing protesters' dangerous dismissal of public health measures:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxevj5/the-coronavirus-truthers-dont-believe-in-public-health

Social-distancing protesters, “medical freedom” advocates, and anti-vaccine activists all rely on deeply flawed ideas about how public health measures work—and how safe they are themselves.

04/21/2020

Keep Calm and Draw Together

Check out acclaimed visual artist and Metropolitan author Edel Rodriguez's NEW YORK LOVES YOU POSTER, in this cheering piece on new images of gratitude for medical workers battling Covid-19.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/arts/design/coronavirus-graphic-design.html

With assists from Shepard Fairey and Maira Kalman, graphic designers and illustrators are creating striking visual messages of safety and gratitude.

04/21/2020

Nonfiction Book Review: The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism by Thomas Frank. Metropolitan, $26.99 (310p) ISBN 978-1-250-22011-0

"A fervent and acerbically witty call to action. . . . Liberals will be outraged, enlightened, and entertained." —Publishers Weekly

Pre-order your copy of THE PEOPLE, NO by Thomas Frank now!

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-250-22011-0

Political commentator Frank (Rendezvous with Oblivion) urges liberals to reclaim “the high ground of populism” in this fervent and acerbically witty call to action. Mischaracterized today as

04/19/2020

What states must do about Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

Here's Jennifer Pahlka, founder of Code for America and U.S. Digital Response (USDR) and author of a forthcoming Metropolitan book on technology and governance, with four sensible, urgent actions states should take to rapidly deliver Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

https://medium.com/@pahlkadot/what-states-must-do-about-pandemic-unemployment-assistance-e4a96b6c7db

Tens of millions of people are suddenly out of work. Your Lyft driver, your hairdresser, your barista, the waiters at your favorite…

04/19/2020

The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College

This weekend, we're rereading two recent essays in The New York Review of Books by Corey Robin, Metropolitan author of THE ENIGMA OF CLARENCE THOMAS and "one of the left's leading voices" (Matt Seaton), on Americans' inurement to minority rule and democracy during quarantine.

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/02/21/the-tyranny-of-the-minority-from-iowa-caucus-to-electoral-college/

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/04/13/what-people-power-looks-like-in-a-pandemic-democracy/

Robin was also profiled in yesterday's NYRB newsletter:

https://email.nybooks.com/t/ViewEmail/y/B7B7EC4BAFCF852B/75EAFFDDC463CFF773767151F2435ACA

The problem of minority rule isn’t Trumpian or temporary; it’s bipartisan and enduring

04/17/2020

Detroit’s Health Care Workers Ask: 'How Many Lives Can We Save?'

Author of the highly acclaimed THE POISONED CITY Anna Clark with others yesterday in Huffington Post on the Detroit health care workers risking their lives to fight Covid-19.

Doctors and nurses in one of the nation's poorest, blackest big cities are fighting a raging coronavirus outbreak and a flawed health care system. Here's...

04/16/2020

The Covid-19 pandemic shows we must transform the global food system | Jan Dutkiewicz, Astra Taylor and Troy Vettese

Metropolitan author Astra Taylor, whose Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone publishes in paperback in next month (!), with Jan Dutkiewicz and Troy Vettese in The Guardian today on meat-eating, Covid-19, and why we must change our global food system.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-food-animals

Our global, profit-driven, meat-centered food system is making us sick. We need a radical rethink