NBN Book of the Day

Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Yuan Gong calls for a rethinking of sport fandom that is divorced from an attachment to location. As the first comprehensive account of the European football fandom in China, this book explores how the Chinese middle class subjectivity is formed through the cross-cultural, digital consumption of the Big Five leagues.
Dr. Gong captures the embodied experiences of fans and fan clubs, fan discourses and activities unfolding on digital platforms on Weibo, Weixin, and Hupu, combining fieldwork in Shanghai and virtual ethnography. Dr. Gong argues that Chinese fans’ decisions to follow and engage with European football result from their material conditions, ideological contestation, and technology appropriation as a new demographic bloc arising during China’s transition to authoritarian digital capitalism. By engaging with their home teams away, the Chinese middle class fans perform as citizens with a global vision despite the resurgence of the nationalist and anti-Western sentiments.
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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In this episode of the Books for Better Understanding series from Notre Dame Press, David Carlson hosts Jonathan A. Anderson and James Elkins for a discussion of Anderson's new book, The Invisibility Of Religion In Contemporary Art (U Notre Dame Press, 2025). Order your copy here

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Rongbin Han is a Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, where he studies Chinese politics and the internet. Han’s latest book—and the topic of this New Books Network episode—is Make China Great Again: Online Alt-History Fiction and Popular Authoritarianism (Columbia UP, 2026).
Make China Great Again delves into a subgenre of Chinese web novels that attempt to re-imagine the country’s history in ways that align with Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream” and the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. In these novels, characters might go back in time to foment a communist revolution decades before the PRC’s establishment, industrialize the late Ming dynasty, or bring elements of democratic elections to the Song dynasty.
Given the popularity of web novels in China—almost half of Chinese netizens read internet literature—such alternate histories provide a window into how an authoritarian state can negotiate the consent of its citizenry using popular culture.
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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Two women, bound by blood and betrayal, must break silence across centuries--or be silenced forever, in the dazzling new novel by New York Times bestselling author Madeline Martin. Lilith Legare's life is unraveling. Since her mother's death, strange things have been happening - plants turn toward her touch, animals linger in her path, and the birthmark on her arm has started tingling. Worse still is her recurring nightmare of being burned alive at the stake. Her search for answers brings her from Savannah to England, to the decaying Brackenmere Manor where the past blurs with the present. There, Lilith discovers a legacy she never asked for and along with it, the threat of peril. History must be rewritten, or she too will die. In 1645 Suffolk, Sybil Brantham stands accused as a witch. An educated, wealthy widow, she is branded a threat by men who fear her independence. As arrests begin and suspicion abounds, Sybil must protect her younger sister, even as betrayal takes root within her household. Across centuries, Lilith and Sybil are bound by blood and by danger. To save themselves, and each other, they must confront the silence that has stolen women's power for generations--and dare to claim their voices before it's too late. Listen to this interview about A Time of Witches (Hanover Square Press, 2026)

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Eating Grasshoppers: Chapulines and the Women Who Sell Them (U Texas Press, 2025) is an approachable ethnography of how grasshoppers are harvested, sold, and consumed in Oaxaca.
Chapulines (toasted grasshoppers) are not a delicacy in Oaxaca. They are just food—good food—and a protein-rich seasonal snack that is the product of a long-standing industry based overwhelmingly on the labor of women. Jeffrey Cohen has interviewed dozens of these chapulineras, who harvest insects from corn and alfalfa fields, prepare them, and sell them in urban and rural marketplaces. An accessible ethnography, Eating Grasshoppers tells their story alongside the broader history of chapulines.
For tourists, chapulines are an experience—a gateway to the “real” Oaxaca. For locals, they are ordinary fare, but also a reminder of Indigenous stability and rural survival. In a sense, eating chapulines is a declaration of independence from a government that has condemned eating insects as backward. Yet, while chapulines are a generations-old favorite, eating them is not an act of preservation. Cohen shows that the business of this traditional food is thoroughly modern and ever evolving, with entrepreneurial chapulineras responding nimbly to complex and dynamic markets. From alfalfa fields to online markets, Eating Grasshoppers takes readers inside one of the world’s most fascinating food cultures.

Jeffrey H. Cohen is a professor in the department of anthropology at Ohio State University and the author or coeditor of several books, including Eating Soup without a Spoon: Anthropological Theory and Method in the Real World (UT Press, 2015).
Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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