The Nation’s Bold New Bet on Books
The Nation Magazine, known for its long and storied history as a publisher of in-depth political and cultural analysis, has launched a new book imprint with OR Books.
In this week’s newsletter:
A new imprint from the The Nation Magazine and OR Books publisher
Mel Rosenberg’s Favorite Children’s Books
Channel Spotlight: Comics & Graphic Novels
Meet the Press: University of Chicago Press
The Nation and OR Launch a New Imprint
The Nation Magazine, known for its long and storied history as a publisher of in-depth political and cultural analysis, has launched a new book imprint with OR Books. The Nation’s president, Bhaskar Sunkara, and OR Books publisher, Colin Robinson, joined editor Caleb Zakarin to discuss the project and the upcoming slate of books set for publication this year.
Among the three forthcoming books are an edited volume of The Nation’s very best reporting on Supreme Court, an investigation into Silicon Valley from whistleblower Garrison Lovely, and David Griscom’s debut book on the politics of Texas.
Listen to our interview and stay tuned for future discussions with authors on Nation Books’ roster.
Mel Rosenberg’s Favorite Children’s Books
Mel is a scientist, inventor, and musician. He is the founder and a host of the New Books in Children’s Literature channel. To learn more about Mel check out his website here.
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Where the Wild Things Are The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Sophie's Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller
And one that is considerably more “dated”
The Book of Genesis in the Bible - if it would be considered a children's book
Subscribe to New Books in Children’s Literature channel to catch some of Mel’s great interviews with authors and illustrators.
Channel Spotlight: Comics & Graphic Novels
At the height of the Civil War, on May 12, 1862, Robert Smalls—an enslaved harbor pilot in Charleston, South Carolina—carried out one of the most courageous and cunning acts in American history. He disguised himself as a captain and, in the dead of night, commandeered the ship he worked on and sailed it to freedom. Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls (Stranger Comics, 2025) seeks to elevate Smalls to his rightful place in the national consciousness.
Bringing together different approaches and critical perspectives across disciplines, Supervillains: The Significance of Evil in Superhero Comics (Rutgers University Press, 2025) examines overly hero-centered works in comics studies to reconsider the modern American myths of the superheroes.
Eike Exner challenges the conventional wisdom that manga evolved from centuries of prior Japanese art and explains why manga and other comics around the world share the same origin story. In doing so, Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History (Rutgers UP, 2021) offers a new understanding of this increasingly influential art form.
If you’re a fan of comics and graphic novels, subscribe to the channel to listen to interviews with creative, compelling authors!
Meet the Press: University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press was founded in 1890 and publishes books and journals to advance scholarly conversation within and across traditional disciplines, as well as define new areas of knowledge. The Press is committed to increasing the accessibility of knowledge and the intellectual exchange that thrives on it. All of their Open Access titles are available here. To learn more about journals and the Press’s open access initiatives read more here.
Listen to some great interviews with scholars who have published with the University of Chicago Press below!
In Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond, Brook Ziporyn proposes an alternative that avoids both totalizing theomania and atomizing reductionism. What we need, he argues, is a deeper, more thoroughgoing, even religious rejection of God: an affirmative atheism without either a creator to provide meaning or finite creatures in need of it—a mystical atheism.
In Governing the Global Clinic: HIV and the Legal Transformation of Medicine, Carol A. Heimer draws on years of research in HIV clinics in the United States, Thailand, South Africa, and Uganda. She examines how growing norms of legalized accountability have altered the work of healthcare systems and how the effects of legalization vary across different national contexts.
National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell’s Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps and Matter is the first book to combine exquisite cartographical charts of the Moon with a thorough exploration of the Moon’s role in popular culture, science, and myth. Hand-drawn, colorful charts are presented alongside Matthew’s expert commentary, along with the key geological characteristics and interpretations, and contributions from scholars.
Browse all of the University of Chicago Press’s great books on their website here, and subscribe to their NBN channel to hear interviews with their fantastic authors.