FP Staff List: BODY HORROR and April Reads
We’re so excited about our April book, Anne Elizabeth Moore’s “sharp, shocking, and darkly funny”BODY HORROR: CAPITALISM, FEAR, MISOGYNY, JOKES (Publishers Weekly). In celebration of this incredible book, FP apprentice Nyrema Baptiste has gathered a fabulous reading list of 9 other books that hit shelves this month.
Once you finish BODY HORROR, here’s what you can read next!
MONSTERS: A FAN’S DILEMMA
by Claire Dederer (Knopf)
From the publisher: “In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, "What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?" Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss?”
NOT TOO LATE: CHANGING THE CLIMATE STORY FROM DESPAIR TO POSSIBILITY
edited by Thelma Young Lutunatabua and Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
From the publisher: “Not Too Late brings strong climate voices from around the world to address the political, scientific, social, and emotional dimensions of the most urgent issue human beings have ever faced. Accessible, encouraging, and engaging, it's an invitation to everyone to understand the issue more deeply, participate more boldly, and imagine the future more creatively.”
WHO WOULD BELIEVE A PRISONER?: INDIANA WOMEN’S CARCERAL INSTITUTIONS
1848-1920
by the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project (The New Press)
From the publisher: “In this groundbreaking and revelatory volume, a group of incarcerated women at the Indiana Women's Prison have assembled a chronicle of what was originally known as the Indiana Reformatory Institute for Women and Girls, founded in 1873 as the first totally separate prison for women in the United States.”
EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A CLIMATE CHANGE MEMOIR
by Brianna Craft (Lawrence Hill Books)
From the publisher: “Nineteen-year-old Brianna Craft is having a panic attack. A professor's matter-of-fact explanation of the phenomenon known as ‘climate change’ has her white-knuckling the table in her first environmental studies lecture. Out of her father's house, she was supposed to be safe.”
A MAP TO THE DOOR OF NO RETURN: NOTES TO BELONGING
by Dionne Brand (Vintage Canada)
From the publisher: “Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.”
BODIES ON THE LINE: AT THE FRONT LINEs OF THE FIGHT TO PROTECT ABORTION IN AMERICA
by Lauren Rankin (Counterpoint)
From the publisher: “Clinic escorts—everyday volunteers who shepherd patients safely inside to receive care—are fighting on the front lines by replacing hostility with humanity. Prepared to stand up and protect abortion access as they have for decades, even in the face of terrorism and violence, clinic escorts live—and have even died—to ensure that abortion remains not only accessible but a basic human right. Their stories have never been told—until now.”
MOMFLUENCED: INSIDE THE MADDENING, PICTURE-PERFECT WORLD OF MOMMY INFLUENCER CULTURE
by Sara Petersen (Beacon)
From the publisher: “We flock to momfluencers to learn about fashion, wellness, parenting, politics, and to find Brooklyn-designed crib sheets printed with radishes. Chances are, if you're a mother reading this (and maybe even if you're not!), you are an arm's length away from something you've purchased because a momfluencer made it look good.”
THE UGLY HISTORY OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS: ESSAYS ON DESIRE AND CONSUMPTION
by Katy Kelleher (Simon and Schuster)
From the publisher: “In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk.”
ORDINARY NOTES
by Christina Sharpe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
From the publisher: “Christina Sharpe skillfully weaves artifacts from the past—public ones alongside others that are poignantly personal—with present realities and possible futures, intricately constructing an immersive portrait of everyday Black existence. The themes and tones that echo through these pages, sometimes about language, beauty, memory; sometimes about history, art, photography, and literature—always attend, with exquisite care, to the ordinary-extraordinary dimensions of Black life.”