NBN Book of the Day

Since the release of Jordan Peele's Academy Award-winning horror hit Get Out (2017), interest in Black horror films has erupted. This renewed intrigue in stories about Black life, history, culture, or "Blackness" has taken two forms. First, the history and politics of race have been centered in the horror genre. Second, Black horror has become an increasingly visible topic in mainstream discourses with scholars, critics, and fans contending that Black horror is seeing its so-called renaissance. However, critical attention to Blackness in horror has primarily focused on the U.S. and western world, despite Black stories having featured prominently in the genre-as actors, screenwriters, directors, producers-globally and across cultures.The essays in this handbook explore global Black horror cinema by interrogating Blackness and the ways in which it manifests in films across the diaspora and around the world. Chapters pose and answer questions including how taxonomies of race are presented; who is considered "Black?"; how is Blackness constructed in the culture in which it is produced and/or distributed?; How is horror defined and represented globally and/or culturally?; and what textual role does Blackness play in horror?Sophisticated, innovative, argument-driven research that brings to bear the most enlightened reflections upon Black horror's place in the world drives this handbook. Significantly, The Oxford Handbook of Black Horror Film (Oxford UP, 2024) presents expansive scholarship about Blackness, expanding the ways in which researchers, critics, and fans see and make meaning of Black experiences. In this volume, leading scholars from around the world contribute provocative, worthy examinations of the popular genre of horror in all its rich and empowering possibility.
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Chunmei Du is an Associate Professor of History at Lingnan
University. Her work focuses on the social and cultural history of
modern China, specifically looking at cross-cultural encounters and the lived experiences of ordinary individuals during periods of profound political transition.

In this New Books Network episode, we chat with Du about her latest book, Everyday Occupation: American Soldiers and Chinese Civilians in the Aftermath of World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2025).

While many Anglophone histories about the “loss of China” focus on high-level diplomacy and grand strategy, Everyday Occupation zooms in the street-level micropolitics of a brief period between 1945–1949 when American troops were stationed in post-WWII China.

The book explores the daily friction between American soldiers and Chinese civilians—from traffic accidents involving jeeps to the sensory shocks from urban odors—and their impact on Chinese sentiments towards the US. Du reveals how these everyday encounters helped pave the way for the communist takeover of China, and continue to cast a shadow over modern US-China relations.

Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a
publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater.
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What if in the age of AI generated content, the most important part of being visible online is just being a human? In this episode of The Publishing Playbook, host Sarah Russo sits down with Louise Brogan to talk about how the most powerful book marketing tool accessible to authors isn't Instagram or TikTok — it's LinkedIn. Louise is a LinkedIn expert, digital marketing strategist, author of "Raise Your Visibility Online," and host of a YouTube channel with the same name. Sarah and Louise discuss how authors can stop overlooking LinkedIn and start using it strategically. And they cover it all, from optimizing your profile and beating the algorithm to repurposing book content and building a newsletter audience. Louise also explains that as AI content grows on social media, authentic human voices matter more than ever.

If you work in publishing marketing or PR — or you're an author trying to build your platform — this episode is essential listening. For more information on Louise’s work, visit her website: Louise's Website

Books mentioned in this episode:

“Raise Your Visibility Online” by Louise Brogan

“The Barbecue at No. 9” by Jennie Godfrey

Key Moments

01:11 — How Louise Brogan Built a LinkedIn Empire 🚀

Louise shares how she accidentally became a LinkedIn expert in 2017, when she decided to niche down to the one platform nobody else wanted.

03:16 — Why Most People Are Afraid to Post on LinkedIn 😰

Louise reveals that only 3% of LinkedIn users are creators — and explains why fear of judgment is keeping the other 97% silent.

04:30 — LinkedIn Is Like Your Favorite Industry Conference 🎤

Louise breaks down her signature analogy for understanding LinkedIn: showing up, making conversation, and not leaving without talking to anyone.

07:28 — The Profile Mistakes You're Probably Making ⚠️

Louise walks through the most common LinkedIn profile errors she sees, including why burying your key information and skills is killing your visibility.

13:20 — Why a LinkedIn Newsletter Is More Powerful Than a Substack 📬

Louise explains how publishing a LinkedIn newsletter automatically notifies your entire network — and lands directly in subscribers' email inboxes.

21:16 — Your Book's Chapters Are Your Content Strategy 📖

Louise outlines her "Create Once, Publish Everywhere" methodology and explains why authors who already have a book have everything they need to show up consistently on LinkedIn.

Find Louise Online:

Louise Brogan's Website

Louise's YouTube

Find Louise on LinkedIn

Louise’s book: Link

Follow Sarah on LinkedIn:

Sarah Russo
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There’s a familiar story about us humans: we went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages and cities, clans and chieftains to states and kings. But Lost Worlds offers a new narrative of humanity’s deep history. In Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World (HarperCollins, 2026) beloved podcast host Dr. Patrick Wyman focuses on the 10,000-year span between the end of the Ice Age and the decline of the Bronze Age—the period when civilization as we understand it emerged, introducing social hierarchies, urbanism, complex political organizations, and the written word.

In this nuanced retelling, human progress is no longer a straight march from caves to cities: Farming didn’t always replace foraging, villages didn’t automatically spark agriculture, and cities didn’t necessitate rigid hierarchies. For thousands of years, humans merely improvised. By the end of the Bronze Age, the world had become unrecognizable: mammoths and giant sloths replaced by cattle and sheep, scattered nomadic bands replaced by millions living in cities, and farming on nearly every continent. Dr. Wyman argues that the rise of states and steady food production wasn’t inevitable, but rather, the outcome of countless choices that reshaped the planet and made us who we are today.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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This episode features a conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder Equality Labs and author of The Trauma of Caste. We discussed her own coming to consciousness of caste as the child of Dalit parents who were “passing” and how her work as an organizer has involved sustained engagement with anticaste thought, Black feminism, and Indigenous epistemologies. The conversation then turned to the practice of solidarity as the building of meaningful and not just transactional relationships and the importance of recognizing the potential of political alignments that may be foreclosed at one moment, only to be given new life in another. Finally, we addressed the need, in our current moment of dying empires and failing democracies, to both work with and beyond the law in order to open new horizons of political imagination and practice.

Guest bio

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is founder of the Dalit feminist organization, Equality Labs, and author of The Trauma of Caste.

References

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste

Shramanic faiths: ancient Indian traditions focusing on asceticism, self-reliance, and liberation from the cycle of rebirth that rejected the authority of the Vedas and Brahmanical authority.

Ravidassia: religion based on the teachings of Guru Ravidas, a 14th century Indian saint. It was considered a sect within Sikhism until 2009 when it was proclaimed a distinct religion.

Bhopal gas tragedy: On 3 December 1984, a leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resulted in what is considered the world’s worst industrial disaster.

Reservation: India’s system of caste-based affirmative action.

Linda Burnham: activist and writer who co-founded the Women of Color Resource Center and was a leader in the Third World Women’s Alliance.

Combahee River Collective: pioneering Black lesbian feminist organization formed in Boston in 1974.

Gloria Anzaldúa: American philosopher and scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory

Iyothee Thass: Tamil anti-caste thinker and writer who converted to Buddhism and called upon members of his own Paraiyar caste to do the same.

Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule: anti-caste social reformers and pioneers of women’s education from Maharashtra.

Ruth King: Founder of the Mindful of Race Institute

Rhonda Magee: Professor Emerita at University of San Francisco and teacher of mindfulness

Resmaa Menakem: psychotherapist and creator of Somatic Abolitionism.

Eduardo Duran: Native American clinical psychologist, scholar, teacher and healer

Collective Future Fund: a philanthropic intermediary fund that works with movements mobilizing toward a collective future free from violence.

Kolar Gold Fields: former gold mining region in Karnataka, India

Equality Labs: a South Asian Dalit civil rights organization.

BAPS: The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey is the largest modern Hindu temple outside India. It is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Dalit workers from India accusing the temple of human trafficking and labor exploitation.
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