Culture
October 2022's Must-Read Book Releases
I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton by Lynn Melnick - University of Texas Press, October 4
The Dolly Parton cultural obsession has reached new and always-deserving heights. Now, there’s a memoir told in and around the life, legacy, and lyrics of the icon. Lynn Melnick rearranges her life in the context of the great singer; when Melnick’s life fell apart, she flees to Dollywood. She draws parallels between Parton’s dual identities as sex symbol and feminist icon and her own life as it relates to rape culture, loss, and trauma. We’ll be needing an accompanying playlist, stat.
University of Texas Press
The Enhancers by Anne K. Yoder - Meekling Press, October 4
Told from multiple POVs, this novel follows three teenagers as they come of age in a techno-pharmaceutical society that values humanity on our ability to process so much information. Yoder’s concerns are societal and bodily, but contends with profound coming-of-age questions such as, how do we come to know ourselves, especially with so much distraction?
Meekling Press
House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography Of Female Neurosis In Horror And Exploitation Films by Kier-La Janisse - Fab Press, October 4
First published a decade ago, Kier-La Janisse’s definitive work combines genre film analysis with memoir writing to explore films about women who lose their minds. Now, the book has been expanded to include 100 more films, as Janisse explores the way women are portrayed as dangerous obsessives prone to paranoia, hysteria, and tantalizingly destructive emotions. It’s essential reading for anyone intrigued/mystified by the Fleabag-Ottessa Moshfegh-Sally Rooney “sad girl” era.
Fab Press
Feral City by Jeremiah Moss - Penguin Random House, October 4
Author and social critic Jeremiah Moss discovered something beautifully surprising about New York City after the pandemic lockdown: an economic class abandoned by the city, leaving it filled with vibrancy, protests, and spontaneity, from queer BLM marches to outdoor dance parties. It gave him a renewed sense of place as a transgender man and reaffirmed his faith in public spaces and society. If there’s any pandemic-related book we’ll ever be excited for, it’s this one.
Penguin Random House
The Choreography of Everyday Life by Annie-B Parson - Verso Books, October 11
Annie-B has choreographed for the Davids (Bowie and Byrne), St. Vincent, Spike Lee, and Lorde, among others — giving movement to artists for whom movement is as essential to their work and melodies. Now, she’s exploring how dance functions in everyday life, both in her own and on a societal level. In this illustrated work, Parson distills movement into text, exploring movement in feminist art to protests.
Verso Books
Hallyu! by Rosalie Kim - V&A Publishing, October 18
A new book edited by curator Rosalie Kim charts the rise of Korean culture, from 2012’s Open Gangnam Style crazy to Squid Game to BTS to Parasite, exploring the world’s obsession with Korean media, fashion, and technology.
V&A Publishing
Lech by Sara Lippmann - Tortoise Books, October 18
In this lewd debut novel billed as a Jewish gothic (obsessed), a wild cast of characters converges at a vacation property in upstate New York. Like a Jewish version of White Lotus, we meet a woman recovering from an abortion, a grief-stricken Hasid, an eccentric aging landlord, a scheming real estate agent, and others contending with family, loss, and growth.
Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin - Penguin Random House, October 18
These seven surreal stories are about seven houses; wherein each one is missing a person, a memory, or everything. But they’re equally filled: with ghosts, with trespassers, with a child’s first encounter with the darkness. This new novel from a widely celebrated Latin American author will make you feel tense and in awe, like a house collapsing in on you.
Sex, Health and Consciousness by Liz Goldwyn - Sandman Books, October 25
Liz Goldwyn, founder of the online platform and podcast The Sex Ed, just wants you to feel good. So she’s giving us a much-needed lesson on pleasure — going beyond the severely lacking sex ed 101 not even all of us got — covering spiritual and energetic influences on sexuality, along with social and biological factors.
Sandman Books