NONFICTION

Fibre Strands of Luxurious Abrasion
by Simon Gaspeth
Surfaces—cheap carpet, a linoleum countertop after bread has been sliced, wet Astroturf—are what interest Gaspeth, an essayist and lecturer in material culture at King’s College London. His deceptively simple argument, that every day our sense of touch is the most constantly challenged of the senses, is supported by pristine prose aimed at describing a sample of the tactile experiences felt on a single day. Through his BBC appearances, Gaspeth is well known to British readers, but for Americans unfamiliar with his work, a spoiler alert: he is blind.

Fontenoy
by Arthur Overchkek
Among military historians of eighteenth-century Europe, Overchkek is a sort of Bill James figure—an amateur debunker constantly challenging the established wisdom of the old pros. Through his self-published newsletter, he’s taken up unlikely causes and faded reputations: sticking up for the duc du Noailles, debunking the myth of Cyrus Trapaud, and generally upsetting academic applecarts. In this first of a projected three books for Yander Press, Overchkek offers a delightfully contrarian take on the Battle of Fontenoy, which he asserts was a messy, ill-conceived disaster for both sides. Partisans of “Flanders Billy” may not be able to read past page ten unless mildly sedated.

Rhode Island in the ’70s
by Jason Okes
Some historians paint in swaths on a huge canvas; others work in miniature. Count Okes—an assistant professor at SUNY Stonington—among the latter. In this probing work, he argues that a distinct culture, based around the Newport Creamery, an “I-95 aesthetic,” and a transformed Providence, contributed to the emergence of a new, unrestrained Rhode Island that made itself felt musically, socially, politically, and sexually.

Fire Fire You’re a Liar
by Nick Dubbin
Dubbin’s book reads like a terrifying fable told by a cruel teacher. At age seven, barely able to read, the author took a friend’s dare too far and burned down his elementary school. His efforts since then to make amends—and to understand the boy he was thirty years ago—are the subject of this haunting memoir.

Whole Hog
by Arthur Allens
Allens, a self-proclaimed “unrepentant carnivore,” shows his willingness to stare his meat in the face as he follows a single Iowa pig from his first day’s suckling, through his corn-dosed adolescence, to his ultimate fate: divvied up among Korean wholesalers, makers of artisanal bacon, and an agribusiness conglomerate that serves...