DIJKSTRA AGENCY HOT LIST
Spring – Summer 2019
Sandra Dijkstra Elise Capron * Jill Marr * Thao Le Andrea Cavallaro * Roz Foster Jessica Watterson * Suzy Evans Jennifer Kim * Haneen Oriqat
www.dijkstraagency.com
COMING THIS FALL FROM ERIC FONER
THE SECOND FOUNDING: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (Norton, September 2019)
From New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize– winning historian, an authoritative story of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation.
The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. The federal government, not the states, was put in charge of enforcement. By grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, the amendments marked the second founding of the United States.
Eric Foner’s rich, insightful history conveys the dramatic origins of these revolutionary amendments in citizen meetings and political negotiations. He explores the momentous court decisions that then narrowed and even nullified the rights guaranteed in these amendments. Today, issues of birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection are still in dispute, the ideal of equality yet to be achieved.
Praise for Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, awarded the American History Book Prize by New-York Historical Society: “Illuminating…an invaluable addition to our history.” — Kevin Baker, New York Times Book Review
“Foner’s gripping account of slaves’ struggles to free themselves reveals the immense risks they, and their sympathizers, took to escape bondage.” —Publishers Weekly
“Intellectually probing and emotionally resonant, Gateway to Freedom reminds us that history can be as stirring as the most gripping fiction.” — Wendy Smith, Los Angeles Times
Eric Foner is the preeminent historian of his generation, highly respected by historians of every stripe―whether they specialize in political history or social history. His books have won the top awards in the profession, and he has been president of both major history organizations: the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. He has worked on every detail of Give Me Liberty!, which displays all of his trademark strengths as a scholar, teacher, and writer. A specialist on the Civil War/Reconstruction period, he regularly teaches the nineteenth-century survey at Columbia University, where he is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History. In 2011, Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer Prize in History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize. 2 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
JOY LUCK CLUB 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
THE JOY LUCK CLUB Amy Tan (Viking, May 2019)
Includes a new preface by the author. The 30th anniversary of the New York Times bestselling, internationally beloved tale of mothers and daughters, which influenced a generation of readers and writers.
“From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational.” —Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
“You see the lives of these women, and you think about all the women who came before you… It’s among the canon of Asian American stories that are feminist and that are true to our being. It’s a book that has stayed with me and lived in me.” —Margaret Cho
"Powerful as myth." —The Washington Post Book World
"Beautifully written...a jewel of a book." —The New York Times Book Review
"Powerful...full of magic...you won't be doing anything of importance until you have finished this book." —Los Angeles Times
"Wonderful...a significant lesson in what storytelling has to do with memory and inheritance." —San Francisco Chronicle
In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mah jong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan’s debut novel—now widely regarded as a modern classic—examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters.
Amy Tan is the internationally bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Valley of Amazement, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, and two children’s books. Her books have been sold in thirty four countries. Tan was also a co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club. She lives with her husband and their dogs in California and New York.
3 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
SPECIAL 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF A CLASSIC
STIFFED: THE ROOTS OF MODERN MALE RAGE Susan Faludi (Harper Collins, October 2019)
Includes a new foreword by the author. The 20th anniversary edition of the New York Times bestselling author of Backlash and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of In the Darkroom.
"Brilliant, important book…Faludi's reportorial and literary skills unfold with breathtaking confidence and beauty... She goes a long way toward eliminating the black and white, good and evil, male and female polarities that have driven the sexes in the past three decades..." –Time
"A fair-minded and energetically reported book." —The New York Times
"A sprawling combination of reportage, cultural analysis and pop psychology, is both a trenchant critique of American culture and an embodiment of its most pernicious aspects." —The Los Angeles Times
In 1991, internationally renowned feminist journalist Susan Faludi ignited a revival of the women’s movement with her revelatory investigative reportage: Backlash was nothing less than a landmark, uncovering an “undeclared war” against women’s equality in the media, advertising, Hollywood, the workplace, and government—a war that is still being fought today. Stiffed may be even more essential than Backlash to understanding the cultural riptides that led to Trumpian America. Here, Faludi turns her attention to the so- called “Angry Male” politics plaguing the nation. Through deeply researched, nuanced, and empathetic character studies of distressed industrial workers, laid-off aerospace engineers, combat veterans, football fans, evangelical husbands, suburban and inner-city teenage boys, and Hollywood and porn actors, Stiffed goes beyond the easy explanations of male misbehavior—that it’s driven by chromosomes or hormones—to lay bare the powerful social and economic forces that have shattered the postwar compact defining American manhood. Faludi’s vivid storytelling illuminates the historic and traumatic paradigm shift from a “utilitarian” manliness, grounded in civic and communal service, to an “ornamental” masculinity shaped by entertainment, marketing, and performance values. Read in the light of Trumpian politics and the #MeToo movement, Faludi’s analysis speaks acutely to our present crisis, and to a foreboding future. Stiffed delivers a searing portrait of modern-day male America, and traces the provenance of a gender war that continues to rage, unabated.
Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and the author of the bestselling Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. In her most recent book, The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America, she examines the post-9/11 outpouring in the media, popular culture, and political life. Faludi's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Nation, among other publications.
4 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
FALL 2019 NON-FICTION HIGHLIGHTS
DOUBLE CROSSED: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War Matthew Avery Sutton (Basic, September 2019)
The untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II. Sutton’s previous book, Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with Documents, provided an up-close look at the motivations and aspirations of the Religious Right.
THE ACCUSATION: Blood Libel in An American Town Edward Berenson (Norton, September 2019)
A fascinating investigation of America’s only alleged case of blood libel, and what it reveals about anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe. Berenson’s previous book, The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story, tells the little-known stories of the statue's improbable beginnings, transatlantic connections, and the changing meanings it has held for each successive American generation.
AMERICA FOR AMERICANS: A History of Xenophobia in the United States Erika Lee (Basic, November 2019)
An award-winning historian reframes our continuing debate over immigration with a compelling history of xenophobia in the United States and its devastating impact. Lee’s previous book, the definitive history of Asian Americans, The Making of Asian America: A History, was chosen for best non-fiction by Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times Book Review, and The Los Angeles Times.
THE WINTER ARMY: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors Maurice Isserman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2019)
The epic story of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, whose elite soldiers broke the last line of German defenses in Italy’s mountains in 1945, spearheading the Allied advance to the Alps and final victory. Isserman’s previous book, Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering, was a 2016 National Outdoor Book Awards Honorable Mention in the outdoor literature category.
MUCH LOVE: Portrait of a Writer Carol Sklenicka (Simon & Schuster, December 2019)
From the acclaimed author of Raymond Carver, which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2009 by The New York Times Book Review, the first full-scale popular biography of Alice Adams (1926-1999), whose fiction chronicled the sexual revolution and women’s lives from the 1950s to the 1990s. Sklenicka’s previous book, Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life, was reviewd by Publishers Weekly as, “earnest and carefully researched…the writing is most compelling.”
5 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
NEW FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR LISA SEE
THE ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN (Scribner, March 2019)
The new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island.
“A stupendous multigenerational family saga... A mesmerizing achievement. See's accomplishment, acclaim, and readership continue to rise with each book, and interest in this stellar novel will be well stoked.” —Booklist Reviews (starred)
“Exposing the depths of human cruelty and resilience, See’s lush tale is a wonderful ode to a truly singular group of women.” —Publishers Weekly
“See demonstrates her skill in weaving complicated histories with the dramatic generational sagas of her characters. In The Island of Sea Women, she uses evocative prose to craft a compelling narrative, bringing timeless human experiences into historical events. Her rendering of an unraveling friendship demonstrates that forgiving is not the same as forgetting.” —TIME
“This novel spans wars and generations, but at its heart is a beautifully rendered story of two women whose individual choices become inextricably tangled.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of A Spark of Light and Small Great Things
"No one writes about female friendship, the dark and the light of it, with more insight and depth than Lisa See." —Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times bestselling author of The Invention of Wings
"Lisa See has created an enthralling, compelling portrait of a unique culture and a turbulent time in history…. Compelling, heart-wrenching, and beautifully written, The Island of Sea Women will plunge you into a world and a story you've never read before and remind you how powerful women can and must be to survive." —Kristin Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Alone
The Island of Sea Women is an epic story spanning the period of the Japanese occupation in Korea in the ’30-‘40s, World War II, the Korean War, and into present day. This is a novel of friendship, of war, of tradition, of loyalties, and of love. It illuminates a world turned upside down, and introduces readers to the fierce and unforgettable female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.
Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the History Maker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum.
6 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
FICTION
THE GREAT EASTERN Howard A. Rodman (Melville House, June 2019)
“A weird and wondrous adventure, chock full of rich, commanding prose detailing the clash between arrogant geniuses of considerable ego, and the historical ripples such a clash imparts. Reminiscent in all the best ways of Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett books." —Chuck Wendig, New York Times Bestselling author of Wanderers
"An absolutely ingenious premise propels this audacious adventure into surprising and thrilling territory, where history twists and braids itself like the transatlantic cable at the heart of this epic narrative. Howard Rodman's powers of invention, connective synthesis, and grim humor are matched only by his literary ventriloquism and psychological insight. Seems to me this kaleidoscopic tall tale is a ready-made binge- read!" —Steven Soderbergh, director of Schizopolis
"Seriously, this is the sort of thing that readers of China Mieville or Alan Moore or Eleanor Catton should gobble up (it also has hints of my beloved George MacDonald Fraser, but I realize that’s not a name anyone throws around anymore). A historical phantasmagoria and ripping adventure done as a game of hide-and-seek. It’s like twelve of your favorite movies at once, in full sensurround." —Jonathan Lethem
“Not another scrivener alive or dead but Rodman – lyrical and witty, erudite and passionate, dare we say rapturous, dare we say obsessed – could have charted let alone helmed this singular, exhilarating flying-dutchman of an epic.” —Steve Erickson
“Wildly inventive and richly imagined historical fiction that mashes up fact with the fantastic to create a singular, original reading experience. I loved it.” —Mark Haskell Smith
“Howard Rodman's The Great Eastern is a book of confabulations, real and imagined. Surprises on every page. A splendid and notable achievement.” —Ricky Jay
“For anyone with a weakness for Herman Melville, Jules Verne, 19th century nautical hijinx, or just a helluva great story, The Great Eastern is for you.” —Jake Gyllenhaal
A sprawling adventure pitting two of literature's most iconic anti-heroes against each other: Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab. Caught between them: real-life British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the century's greatest ship, The Great Eastern. But when he's kidnapped by Nemo to help design a submarine with which to fight the laying of the Translatlantic cable - linking the two colonialist forces Nemo hates, England and the US - Brunel finds himself going up against his own ship, and the strange man hired to protect it, Captain Ahab, in a battle for the soul of the 19th century.
Howard A. Rodman is Past President of the Writers Guild of America West; a professor of screenwriting at USC's School of Cinematic Arts; and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs. Rodman's previous novel, Destiny Express, was dubbed by Thomas Pynchon: "daringly imagined, darkly romantic--a moral thriller."
7 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
MYSTERY/THRILLER/SUSPENSE
CITY OF WINDOWS Robert Pobi (St. Martin’s Press, August 2019)
“A tough, wise, knowing narrative voice, a great plot, a great setting, and even better characters — I loved this.” —Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author
“A stunner. One of the most impressive, compelling thrillers I’ve read in a long while. The plot moves at bullet velocity. The writing has an electric surge. Robert Pobi delivers a fresh, exciting new voice to thriller fiction.” ―David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine Art and First Blood: Rambo
"City of Windows is that rarest of gems—a page-turner painted with soaring prose that makes you want to read every sentence twice. In Dr. Lucas Page, Robert Pobi has created a unique and modern protagonist, as irascible as he is brilliant. He’ll be back and so will I.” —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan X
"Robert Pobi has written a winner with City of Windows, a novel that should establish him as an authentic, distinctive and entertaining new voice in crime fiction." —John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author
"I don't have space to list the many things that are done expertly in City of Windows. Just read it and start watching for Robert Pobi's next book." —Thomas Perry, Edgar award-winning and New York Times bestselling author
In the tradition of Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme and David Baldacci’s Amos Decker, City of Windows introduces Lucas Page, a brilliant, reluctant investigator, matching wits with a skilled, invisible killer. When Manhattan is buried by the worst blizzard to hit the East Coast in a century, it is not the lunar temperatures or the six feet of snow blanketing the concrete eco-system that paralyzes the city--it is the sniper targeting law enforcement officers. After computer model results show that the killer is somehow bending the laws of physics, university professor (and former FBI agent) Dr. Lucas Page is coaxed out of retirement to put his legendary skill set against both man and nature. But after joining the investigation, Page learns that the FBI is focusing in the wrong direction, and that someone inside the bureau might actually be orchestrating the killings. There is nothing more difficult than trying to hide from a man with a rifle in a City of Windows.
Robert Pobi’s suspense novels published by Thomas & Mercer, Bloodman (2012), Mannheim Rex (2013) and American Woman (2014) have garnered great reviews and pulled in a legion of loyal fans from around the globe, hitting best-seller lists overseas. Reviewers have compared his writing to the likes of Thomas Harris and Stephen King. Oprah’s magazine selected Bloodman for their 2012 summer reading list.
8 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
AMERICAN HISTORY
EQUALITY: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896 Charles Postel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2019)
An in-depth study of American social movements after the Civil War and their lessons for today by a prizewinning historian.
The Civil War unleashed a torrent of claims for equality―in the chaotic years following the war, former slaves, women’s rights activists, farmhands, and factory workers all engaged in the pursuit of the meaning of equality in America. This contest resulted in experiments in collective action, as millions joined leagues and unions. In Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866–1886, Charles Postel demonstrates how taking stock of these movements forces us to rethink some of the central myths of American history.
Despite a nationwide push for equality, egalitarian impulses oftentimes clashed with one another. These dynamics get to the heart of the great paradox of the fifty years following the Civil War and of American history at large: Waves of agricultural, labor, and women’s rights movements were accompanied by the deepening of racial discrimination and oppression. Herculean efforts to overcome the economic inequality of the first Gilded Age and the sexual inequality of the late-Victorian social order emerged alongside Native American dispossession, Chinese exclusion, Jim Crow segregation, and lynch law. Now, as Postel argues, the twenty-first century has ushered in a second Gilded Age of savage socioeconomic inequalities. Convincing and learned, Equality explores the roots of these social fissures and speaks urgently to the need for expansive strides toward equality to meet our contemporary crisis.
Rave reviews for The Populist Vision, winner of the Bancroft Prize and Frederick Jackson Turner Award: "[A] meticulously researched study..." ―New York Times Book Review
"It is rare that a book comes along with the power to redefine the parameters of a major historiographical debate....This is the most important book on Populism in thirty years, and a brief review cannot hope to do it justice. Masterfully researched in an astonishingly broad array of primary and secondary sources, and written in a clear, compelling style, The Populist Vision propels its author into the first rank of American political historians." ―Journal of American History
"[E]xcellent intellectual history of Populism....The significance of Charles Postel's work lies in its national scope and its focus on the ideas and the writings of key leaders....[T]his well-written and deftly argued work....[A]n excellent book. This is the best intellectual history of Populism since the work of Norman Pollack…Scholars should read this stimulating, provocative, and exemplary study." ―The Historian
Charles Postel is the author of The Populist Vision, which received the 2008 Bancroft Prize and the 2008 Frederick Jackson Turner Award from the Organization of American Historians. He is a professor of history at San Francisco State University, and was elected to the Society of American Historians in 2018.
9 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
CURRENT EVENTS
THE TRANSPACIFIC EXPERIMENT: How China and California Collaborate and Compete for our Future Matt Sheehan (Counterpoint, June 2019)
“Sheehan cuts right to the heart of the relationship between Silicon Valley and China: the tangled history, the current tensions, and the uncertain future. The Transpacific Experiment is a must-read.” —Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China and founder of Sinovation Ventures
Tensions between the world’s superpowers are mounting in Washington D.C. and Beijing. But between these hubs of high-level politics, an entirely new reality is emerging. China and the state of California maintain robust socio-economic exchanges and interdependencies that reverberate across the globe, and these interactions make California a microcosm of the most important international relationship of the 21st century.
Matt Sheehan served as the first China correspondent for The Huffington Post, and is currently a non-resident fellow at The Paulson Institute, where he researches the growing ties between the two places he has called home: California and China. Matt grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and spent over five years living in mainland China. His writing has been published in Vice News, Foreign Policy, and The Atlantic. He is based in Oakland, California.
WOMEN’S HISTORY
FLORA TRISTAN: Feminism in the Age of George Sand Sandra Dijkstra (Verso, Feminist Classics Series, July 2019)
"The world simply doesn’t know enough about Flora Tristan, renowned socialist thinker and activist, firebrand grandmother of Paul Gauguin, world traveler as comfortable in Paris as in Arequipa, Peru. But here is Sandra Djikstra to recount this pilgrim’s story—this riotously liberal yet intensely focused life—filled with its 19th century spirit of possibility. Nowhere is that story told with the care and detail Dijkstra brings to this eye-opening book." —Marie Arana
"Flora Tristan was the pioneer social explorer of the early Victorian world, chronicling the condition of women and labor from the sugar plantations of Peru to the salons of the July Monarchy and the satantic mills of industrial England. In this brilliant study, Dijkstra restores Tristan to her rightful but complex place in the histories of socialism and feminism." —Mike Davis
“Thanks to Dijkstra, we come to know Tristan as a pioneer feminist before the word was invented; as an indefatigable socialist whose ideas influenced Marx and Engels; and as an unforgettable personality." —Marilyn Yalom
Based in Southern California, Sandra Dijkstra began her career as a feminist scholar and professor in the ’70s. Since the mid ’80s, she has championed books that make a difference as founder and lead agent at the Dijkstra Agency. 10 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
WOMEN’S HISTORY
SUFFRAGE: The Epic Struggle for Women's Right to Vote Susan Poulson (ABC Clio, July 2019)
What was it like to be among the founders of the women's movement in the middle of the 19th century, with no script to follow and self-doubt dogging their every move? Suffrage: The Epic Struggle for Women’s Right to Vote shows how lasting political change comes about through a combination of working from within the system and outside of it, and deftly illustrates the tensions within the movement. Although the vote was finally won in 1920, it was not without tremendous sacrifice.
Susan Poulson lays bare the strategies that led to the single-minded focus on the vote and the consequences of postponing action on so many other issues that remained for later generations to address, including reproductive freedom, labor rights, and equal pay.
Susan L. Poulson is professor of U.S. history at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in women's history and 20th century US history. She is coeditor of Challenged by Coeducation: Women's Colleges Since the 1960s and Going Coed in the Twentieth Century: Women's Experiences in Formerly Men's Colleges as well as author of several chapters and scholarly articles.
HEALTH
THE VAGINA BIBLE: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth from the Medicine Dr. Jen Gunter (Kensington, August 2019)
Does eating sugar cause yeast infections? Does pubic hair have a function? Should you have a vulvovaginal care regimen? Will your vagina shrivel up if you go without sex? What’s the truth about the HPV vaccine? So many important questions, so much convincing, confusing, contradictory misinformation!
In this age of click bait, pseudoscience, and celebrity-endorsed products, it’s easy to be overwhelmed—whether it’s websites, advice from well-meaning friends, uneducated partners, and even healthcare providers. So how do you separate facts from fiction? OB- GYN Jen Gunter, an expert on women’s health—and the internet’s most popular go-to doc—comes to the rescue with a book that debunks the myths and educates and empowers women. From reproductive health to the impact of antibiotics and probiotics, and the latest trends, including vaginal steaming, vaginal marijuana products, and jade eggs, Gunter takes us on a factual, fun-filled journey.
Jen Gunter, MD, is an OB/GYN and a pain medicine physician. She has been called Twitter’s resident gynecologist, the Internet’s OB/GYN, and one of the fiercest advocates for women’s health. In addition to her academic publications, her writing has appeared in places like The New York Times, The Cut, USA Today, The Hill, and Self.
11 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
BUSINESS
CASCADES: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change Greg Satell (McGraw Hill, April 2019)
"Greg Satell's Cascades is among the most useful, engaging, and well-crafted books ever written on how to start and sustain large-scale change. Satell does a masterful job of weaving cases, stories, and evidence to illustrate the nuances of his simple formula--small groups, loosely connected, but united by a common purpose―and to show when and how leaders can use these elements to spread ideas and change organizations for the better." —Robert Sutton, bestselling author of Good Boss, Bad Boss and Scaling Up Excellence
"One of the great puzzles of history is how enduring business, political, and social orders can crumble without warning, seemingly overnight. In Cascades, Greg Satell lucidly combines insights from network science, historical case studies, and his own experience living through Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, to deliver a thought provoking account of this profound phenomenon. Cascades is essential reading for policy makers, business leaders and social activists alike.” —Duncan J. Watts, author of Six Degrees
Greg Satell is a writer, speaker, innovation adviser, and one of today's most recognized experts on transformational change. As co-CEO of KP Media, a $100 million enterprise, he managed a portfolio of Ukrainian media brands, including the Kyiv Post and Korrespondent, two news organizations that played pivotal roles in the Orange Revolution.
BUILDING A BUSINESS WITH A BEAT: Leadership Lessons From Jazzercise—An Empire Built on Passion, Purpose, and Heart Judi Sheppard Missett with Susan Carol McCarthy (McGraw Hill, June 2019)
Proven methods for turning any passion into major profits – from the legendary entrepreneur who turned her idea into a $100 million global powerhouse.
For the first time ever, the founder and CEO of Jazzercise, Inc., reveals the secrets to her staggering success. In Building a Business with a Beat, Judi Sheppard Missett describes the principles that made―and continue to make―Jazzercise the worldwide women-owned enterprise it is today. You’ll learn how to build a business devoted to excellence and communal satisfaction, while being inspired by the author’s story of turning a class of 15 people in a Chicago dance studio into the world’s leading dance fitness program.
Judi Sheppard Missett founded and serves as CEO of Jazzercise, Inc., where she has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands. Sheppard Missett has won many prestigious awards, including the Presidential Commendation for Top Woman Entrepreneur, Working Woman and Inc. magazines’ Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Committee of 200’s Entrepreneurial Champion Luminary Award, and Women Presidents’ Organization’s Mary Lehman MacLachlan Award for Economic Empowerment. 12 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
MEMOIR MAGICAL REALISM FOR NON-BELIEVERS: A Memoir of Finding Family Anika Fajardo (Univ. of Minnesota Press, April 2019)
"Fajardo revisits interactions and places with intricately remembered emotion, making for a delicious dive into the complicated, beautiful messes that love can make...Teen readers will undoubtedly latch onto Fajardo's adolescent identity quest and her journey toward understanding her father and brother."—Booklist Reviews
"Incredibly well written and compelling…a remarkable memoir about the search for a father, a culture, a self. I felt like I was reading about my own life and the price I paid for assimilation and acculturation. I simply couldn’t put it down." —Pablo Medina, author of The Island Kingdom and Cubop City Blues
"A rare read, you know the kind: you don’t want it to end but you can’t put it down. Bewitching and beautiful, bound to move anyone who was ever a parent or a child, and just as compelling (and magical) the second time around." —Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade
A young woman from Minnesota searches out the Colombian father she’s never known in this powerful exploration of what family really means. Vivid and heartfelt in the telling, Fajardo’s story is powerfully compelling in its bridging of time and place and in its moving depiction of self-transformation. Family, she comes to find, is where you find it and what you make of it.
Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. A writer, editor, and teacher; she is based in Minneapolis.
IN THE BELLY OF HER GHOST Colin Dayan (LARB, May 2019)
A tale of love and resentment, In the Belly of Her Ghost is a memoir and meditation on the author’s dead mother ― a Haitian woman attempting to assimilate into white Southern belle high society during the Civil Rights era. A literary ghost story, In the Belly of Her Ghost grapples with our complicated notions of race, identity, and femininity.
"Colin Dayan understands what it is to be haunted: by history, by race, by family, by what presses on the definitions of one’s life. In pages at once strikingly evocative, allusive, and embodied…[In the Belly of Her Ghost] is a volume appearing undeniably in its necessary moment, and it is precisely necessary because the truths it speaks are as old as our troubles, as required as our joys. —Andrea Luka Zimmerman
Colin (Joan) Dayan is the Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt. She is the author of Haiti, History, and the Gods, The Story of Cruel and Unusual, The Law is a White Dog, and With Dogs at the Edge of Life. Her memoirs of growing up in Georgia have been published in The Yale Review, Southwest Review, The Arizona Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Boston Review. In 2012 she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
13 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
MYSTERY/THRILLER/SUSPENSE
SUCH A PERFECT WIFE Kate White (Harper, May 2019)
In this thrilling next installment of The New York Times bestselling author Kate White’s Bailey Weggins series, Bailey comes face to face with a serial killer in her most dangerous case to date.
"Mystery fans’ apprehension will skyrocket, as the compelling plot, with multiple suspects, thunders to a conclusion...One of the stronger entries in an always- entertaining series." —Michele Leber, Booklist Reviews
"Intrepid—and stylish!—crime reporter Bailey Weggins finds herself on the front line of a murder investigation in White's latest... A grown-up Nancy Drew for grown-up girl detectives." —Kirkus Reviews
"Bestseller White’s highly entertaining eighth Bailey Weggins novel... Readers will cheer her every step of the way." —Publishers Weekly
"Readers who appreciate investigative reporters caught up in dramatic stories, such as James Ziskin’s Ellie Stone series or Thomas Kies’s Geneva Chase mysteries, will savor this intense page-turner that never lets up." —Lesa Holstine, Library Journal Advance Review (starred)
Must be blonde, green-eyed, and a good Catholic girl…
On a sunny morning in late September, Shannon Blaine sets off for a jog along the rural roads near her home in Lake George, New York. It’s her usual a.m. routine, her “me time” after dropping the kids off at school…except on this day she never returns. Is her husband lying when he says he has no clue where she is? Could Shannon have split on her own, overwhelmed by the pressures of her life? Or is she the victim of a sexual predator who had been prowling the area and snatched her before she knew what was happening. True crime writer Bailey Weggins, on assignment for the website Crime Beat, heads north from New York City to report on the mysterious disappearance. An anonymous tip soon leads Bailey to a grisly, bone-chilling discovery. Every town has its secrets, Bailey reminds herself, and nothing is ever as perfect as it seems. She keeps digging for answers until—when it’s almost too late—she unearths the terrifying truth.
Kate White, the former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, is the New York Times bestselling author of the standalone psychological thrillers The Secrets You Keep, The Wrong Man, Eyes on You, Hush, and The Sixes, as well as six previous Bailey Weggins mysteries. White is also the author of several popular career books for women, including I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: How to Ask for the Money, Snag the Promotion, and Create the Career You Deserve and Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do. She is the editor of the Anthony and Agatha Award nominated The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook.
14 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
MYSTERY/THRILLER/SUSPENSE
MY DETECTIVE Jeffrey Fleishman (Blackstone, April 2019)
The Los Angeles "renaissance" is booming. Money is pouring in. Buildings are going up. But someone is killing architects. Detective Sam Carver works the streets of the City of Angeles, where homeless, hipsters, producers, immigrants, politicians, movie stars and cops collide in unexpected ways. Every move Carver makes is anticipated by the killer, Dylan Cross. She has hacked his computer and knows his secrets. She sees in him a kindred and damaged spirit, a man who can understand her crimes and one day heal her scars and possibly even love her.
My Detective is a story of obsession set against vengeance and prayers of forgiveness in a city that is as cruel as it is fantastical. It captures modern LA in real time where winds gust high above the San Gabriel Mountains and neighborhoods stretch toward the ocean. It speaks to our sense of beauty in a new century and the demons we rouse when we dare to create a new metropolis.
Jeffrey Fleishman is a culture writer and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a former Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. He is the author of Promised Virgins (Arcade, 2009) and Shadowman (Steerforth, 2012), which was selected as an Indie Next List Book.
LOOKING FOR GARBO Jon James Miller (Amphorae, April 2019) "Blending hard-boiled noir and romance into a compelling historical tale, Looking for Garbo is filled with heart and action." —Foreword Review
Stuck making documentaries in Los Angeles, James Main places an ad looking for anyone alive who knew Greta Garbo. He’s delighted when Seth Moseley, an old tabloid reporter, replies with the promise of an untold story. Dying of emphysema, Seth tells the story of when he was a paparazzo stow away aboard the S.S. Athenia, intent on getting a candid photo of Garbo. Instead, the newshound falls hard for the enigmatic star. But when war in Europe unexpectedly breaks out while the Athenia is still steaming across the Atlantic, Seth has to single-handedly save the movie star in the middle of an open ocean swarming with Nazis. Their daring escape brings Garbo’s film career to a premature end, and shatters the lives of both star and reporter. Unbeknownst to James, hearing their story decades later will change his own life forever.
Debut novelist Jon James Miller is a screenwriter, and frequent presenter of live webinars on the craft of writing. His presentations can be found at SCRIPT Magazine, The Writers Store and Writers Digest University online.
15 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
TRUE CRIME
BLONDE RATTLESNAKE: Burmah Adams, Tom White, and the 1933 Crime Spree that Terrorized Los Angeles Julia Bricklin (Lyons Press, August 2019)
Los Angeles, 1933. Nineteen-year-old Burmah Adams is spending her honeymoon on a crime spree. She and her new husband, Tom White, an ex-con, have robbed twenty people in downtown L.A. at gunpoint over the past eight weeks. The worst of their crimes, however, is the shooting of a popular elementary school teacher, Cora Withington, and a former publisher, Crombie Allen. Days later, a watchful pair of patrolmen called their detective colleagues at the Los Angeles Police Department; they’ve spotted a car that looks like one the duo had stolen days before. Dressed as mechanics, two detectives stake out the apartment building until Burmah and Thomas appear. As police swarm the building, Burmah tries to hurl herself out of a third–story window, while Thomas shot at officers and is immediately killed. Revealing the events that brought Adams and White together, Blonde Rattlesnake details the crime spree they committed in the sweltering hot days and nights of Los Angeles in the height of the Great Depression, as well as the outrage directed at the female half of the duo, dubbed the “Blonde Rattlesnake” by the press, and exploited by politicians, creating sensation while trying to make sense of her crimes.
Julia Bricklin is the author of Polly Pry: The Woman Who Wrote the West (2018, TwoDot). In addition to serving as associate editor of California History, the publication of the California Historical Society, she is a professor of history at Glendale Community College.
16 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
CHILDREN’S
I AM A WOLF by Kelly Leigh Miller (Dial, May 2019)
In this pet adoption story that's as laugh-out-loud funny as it is heart-tugging, a dog who insists she's a wolf finds the perfect home with a young girl who sees past her prickly personality.
"Newcomer Miller creates her cartoon characters with emphatic swatches of matte color against generous white space. Lovable." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
When a particularly growly pup finds herself in an animal shelter, she insists that she is a wolf--a lone wolf. After all, she's not sweet, she's not cute, and she is just fine on her own! Luckily, there's one little girl at the shelter who knows that sometimes, good dogs act bad when they feel afraid and that extending a little kindness can help even the most wolfish pup at the pound let down her guard.
Kelly Leigh Miller is an author/illustrator living in Chicago, IL with Frankie, the lovable bad-dog-turned-good, who inspired Wolf. This is her debut picture book.
SEAGULL AND SEA DRAGON by Sydni Gregg (Simon Aladdin, June 2019)
Meet Seagull. Meet Sea Dragon. One comes from the sky. One comes from the sea. And both are scared of the other’s world. But when they meet, they discover they might have more in common than they ever imagined.
Debut author-illustrator Sydni Gregg has always loved the water, so it only makes sense that Seagull & Sea Dragon takes place in and above the sea.
SPENCER’S NEW PET by Jessie Sima (Simon & Schuster, August 2019)
From the creator of Not Quite Narwhal comes a classic tale of a boy and his dog—except in this unique story, one of them is a balloon!
Spencer excitedly takes his new pet to the park, the veterinarian's office, and a birthday party, but for a pet balloon, those places are full of danger.
Jessie Sima is the author and illustrator of Not Quite Narwhal, Harriet Gets Carried Away, and Love, Z.
17 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
MIDDLE GRADE
ARU SHAH AND THE SONG OF DEATH Roshani Chokshi (Rick Riordan Presents, April 2019)
Best-selling author Roshani Chokshi’s sequel to Aru Shah and the End of Time, the second book in the Pandava Sisters series, presented by Rick Riordan
“Chokshi seamlessly weaves Indian cosmology and pop culture into a refreshingly feminist plot laced with witty dialogue. The most compelling feature of the novel, however, is the complexity of its characters, who, despite their divinity or semidivinity, are at their core very human. This will leave fans enthralled and clamoring for more.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Also available in paperback:
ARU SHAH & THE END OF TIME (Rick Riordan Presents, March 2019) -A New York Times and Indie bestseller -Named a best book of 2018 by Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Popsugar, Amazon.com, A Mighty Girl, and Minnesota Public Radio.
"[Just] as her heroine learns to wield a bow and arrow, Chokshi has her own weapons: a skill for crackling prose, and a main character who, despite her lies, is both endearingly funny and self-aware....With Aru at the helm, this roller coaster through Hindu culture never feels forced or pedantic, but instead like a new kind of myth — where a hero takes a hammer to the world to shine a light through its cracks."—New York Times
Roshani Chokshi is the New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen, A Crown of Wishes, The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and the End of Time.
THE SPINNER OF DREAMS K.A. Reynolds (Harper Children’s, July 2019)
“A magnificent and fantastical journey expertly woven with magic, imagination, and hope. Reynolds gently draws the reader to a place where fragile dreams are realized, where broken hearts are made whole. Readers will be utterly captivated.” —J.C. Cervantes, New York Times bestselling author of The Storm Runner
Inventive, empathetic, and strange in all the best ways, The Spinner of Dreams draws from the author’s own experiences to create a story that feels timeless and universal. As she did in her debut The Land of Yesterday, K. A. Reynolds thoughtfully explores mental health and crafts an adventure that fits right alongside middle grade classics like The Phantom Tollbooth.
K. A. Reynolds is a poet and author from Winnipeg, Canada, currently residing in Maine. Her debut novel is The Land of Yesterday.
18 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
YOUNG ADULT
WICKED SAINTS Emily A. Duncan (Wednesday Books, April 2019)
“Prepare for a snow-frosted, blood-drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare.” —Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves
"Full of blood and monsters and magic—this book destroyed me and I adored I t. Emily is a wicked storyteller, she’s not afraid to hurt her characters or her readers. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a villain you will fall hard for this book." —Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval
In this stunning Joan of Arc-inspired debut, a peasant girl who can speak to the gods must find a way to work with a deadly adversary to turn the tide of the war and assassinate the mad king. In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy.
Debut novelist Emily A. Duncan works as a youth services librarian in Ohio.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT SWEETIE Sandhya Menon (Simon Pulse, May 2019) A 2019 Junior Library Guild Selection
“There's something about the way Sandhya Menon writes love stories. I'm head-over- heels for this charming, funny, romantic, life-affirming book.” —Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Leah on the Offbeat
"A thoroughly delightful romance featuring a spirited, confident, and lovable heroine and an unexpectedly dashing romantic hero. Add to your must-read shelves!” —Melissa de la Cruz, New York Times bestselling author of Alex & Eliza and Love & War
"Menon, as always, champions teens by allowing them the space and pace to make decisions, succeed or fail, learn, and blossom. This companion book to her successful debut, When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), hits all the right notes and delivers a joyful relationship that discards society’s dictates about appearance in favor of loving the whole person. Give this to readers who love a good rom-com with a message." —Booklist Reviews (starred)
Sandhya Menon is the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi and From Twinkle, with Love.
19 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
ROMANCE/COMMERCIAL FICTION
FUMBLED Alexa Martin (Berkeley, March 2019)
In this follow-up to Intercepted, named by NPR and Amazon as a best book of 2018, a second chance for single-mother Poppy Patterson doesn't guarantee a touchdown.
"Martin expertly captures the struggle between the need for a quiet, ordinary life and the demands of an all-star career path that invites gossip, grudges, and jealousy. In this delicious follow-up to Intercepted (2016), Martin once again draws on her own experience as an NFL wife to create a winning sports romance." —Booklist Reviews (starred)
"Readers will laugh, swoon, and grow to love every character in this entertaining contemporary romance." —Publishers Weekly
Alexa Martin is a writer and stay at home mom. She lives in Colorado with her husband, a former NFL player who now coaches at the high school where they met, their four children, and a German Shepherd. When she's not telling her kids to put their shoes on...again, you can find her catching up with her latest book boyfriend or on Pinterest pinning meals she'll probably never make. Her first book, Intercepted, was inspired by the eight years she spent as an NFL wife.
HOW TO HACK A HEARTBREAK Kristin Rockaway (Harlequin, July 2019)
"Smart, fun, fast-paced. Rockaway seamlessly blends the trials of modern dating with the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated workplace." —Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient
"A current and clever read, impossible to put down... Rockaway has masterfully painted the current dating landscape so many are navigating these days." —Renée Carlino, USA TODAY bestselling author of Blind Kiss
Swipe right for love. Swipe left for disaster.
Set in the male-dominated tech and start-up world, How to Hack a Heartbreak follows Mel Strickland, an underemployed helpdesk tech at a startup incubator. Fed up with the behavior of men both in her professional and personal life, Mel designs a dating app that allows users to log the names of serial online harassers, in the name of creating a safe space for women. The app’s overnight success puts Mel’s career, love life, and relationships at risk.
Kristin Rockaway is a native New Yorker with an insatiable case of wanderlust. After working in the IT industry for far too many years, she traded the city for the surf and chased her dreams out to Southern California, where she spends her days happily writing stories instead of software.
20 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
FICTION PAPERBACK HIGHLIGHTS
SONG OF A CAPTIVE BIRD by Jasmin Darznik (Ballantine, Feb 2019)
A Los Angeles Times bestseller Longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A spellbinding debut novel about the trailblazing Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, who defied society’s expectations to find her voice and her destiny
“A complex and beautiful rendering of [a] vanished country and its scattered people; a reminder of the power and purpose of art; and an ode to female creativity under a patriarchy that repeatedly tries to snuff it out”—The New York Times Book Review
GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER by Shobha Rao (Flatiron, March 2019)
Named a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, Washington Post, Lit Hub, Paste Magazine, Shelf Awareness, and Amazon.com Longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
An electrifying debut novel about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstance but relentless in their search for one another.
“Incandescent...A searing portrait of what feminism looks like in much of the world.” ―Vogue
“A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies.” ―The Huffington Post
SOPHIA OF SILICON VALLEY by Anna Yen (William Morrow, April 2019)
Sharp, dramatic, and full of insider dish, Sophia if Silicon Valley is one woman’s story of a career storming the corridors of geek power and living in the shadow of its outrageous cast of maestros.
“A much-needed professional coming-of-age story….Glossy, fun, and ambitious.” —Kirkus Reviews
“With uncanny parallels to the Silicon Valley narratives we know and love, Anna Yen manages to break the mold with this fresh debut about being a young woman coming up in tech. Told with sharp wit and unforgettable detail, Sophia of Silicon Valley is a remarkably entertaining story and one of my favorite books in years!” —Jon M. Chu, Film Director, Crazy Rich Asians
21 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019
NON-FICTION PAPERBACK HIGHLIGHTS
HITLER IN LOS ANGELES: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America Steven J. Ross (Bloomsbury, March 2019) A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History
"A terrifying, revelatory and inspiring masterpiece that probes the flourishing fascism of 1930s America, and the power of popular resistance to combat an alliance of Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan and other homegrown paramilitary groups." —Jury for Pulitzer Prize in History
ENGINEERING EDEN: The True Story of a Violent Death, a Trial, and the Fight Over Controlling Nature Jordan Fisher Smith (The Experiment, March 2019) Recipient of the silver medal in the Commonwealth Club of California Book Awards
"An intensely reported, rousingly readable and ambitiously envisioned book...Mr. Smith cuts between subjects as if he were writing a long, braided essay; the overall effect is a little like watching the best narrative television, which each thread creating suspense...[Engineering Eden] is a thrilling read. "—Wall Street Journal
TO THE PROMISED LAND: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice Michael Honey (W.W. Norton, April 2019)
“Michael Honey’s very cogent book shows that King intended from the start of his public career to work to end racial discrimination and poverty for all Americans.… To the Promised Land’s thorough treatment of King’s efforts to support black unionism and to forge an alliance between the black and the white working classes reveals the arduous effort that he put into this project, most heartbreakingly in his final years.” —New York Review of Books
DENMARK VESEYS GARDEN: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts (The New Press, April 2019)
One of Janet Maslin’s Favorite Books of 2018, The New York Times One of John Warner’s Favorite Books of 2018, Chicago Tribune Named one of the “Best Civil War Books of 2018” by the Civil War Monitor
“A fascinating and important new historical study.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
BECOMING MYSELF: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir Irvin Yalom (Basic, May 2019) A Guardian Best Book of 2017
"When Yalom publishes something--anything--I buy it, and he never disappoints. He's an amazing storyteller, a gorgeous writer, a great, generous, compassionate thinker, and--quite rightly--one of the world's most influential mental healthcare practitioners."―Nicola Barker, Guardian
22 | Sandra Dijkstra & Associates S p r i n g – Summer 2019