“Cámara’s novel and Grandin’s history prompt us to reimagine the forms of politics and ethics that are possible if we teach and understand more capacious accounts of where we’ve been.” Nathan Motulsky on Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s We Are Green and Trembling and Greg Grandin’s America, América.

“Danielewski stretches and extends himself, the postmodern tics and tropes becoming a form of aesthetic striving. He is not reining himself in, the difficulty of his subject matter demanding the style of his text.” New at PB: Max Lawton grapples with Mark Z. Danielewski’s cumbersome Tom’s Crossing.

“It's hard to get reviewed. It's hard to get influencers on you. It's hard to get whatever it may take for a book to achieve the exit velocity that could have happened before.” In a new episode of Novel Dialogue, @willevans.bsky.social discusses challenges writers face in the publishing industry.

“The Western myth of technocratic modernity asserts that humans have risen above nature through reason and control. … But in reality, a genuinely modern society … would have built systems that acknowledge the fundamental entanglement between humans, nonhumans, technologies, and environments.”

“If we inhabit a post-empire era of no Great American Novels, then is a little entertainment too much to ask for? Long Live the Golden Age of TV.” New at PB: Max Lawton presents a scathing criticism of contemporary fiction in a review of “Tom’s Crossing” by Mark Z. Danielewski.

“By depicting Meursault’s steady decline and showing how he is responsible for his own reversal of fortune, Ozon complicates Meursault’s strangeness and proves that being a stranger worked to his benefit until he refuses to assimilate with his own.”

“Over more than 600 pages, Grandin illuminates in captivating terms many competing theologies and politics that have shaped the Americas since Columbus’s voyages.” New at PB: Nathan Motulsky reviews Greg Grandin’s America, América and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s We Are Green and Trembling.

“A Sega Genesis. A Sega Saturn and Dreamcast. A Nintendo 64 and a DS. PlayStation 2. A few ancient handheld games, and a Gameboy that still turned on, its tinted screen ghostly green, faded with age.” New at PB: Janet Vertesi reflects on the rebelliousness of retro gaming.

“Rather than saying that he killed a man, the fact that Meursault also specifies, in French, that he killed ‘an Arab’ establishes a separation between him and the other inmates. Even in custody, Meursault is a Pied Noir before he is a prisoner.”