New Releases - August Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

NONFICTION

Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You by Meg Josephson.  In her first book, psychotherapist Josephson explores people's need to regularly confirm that others aren't angry or upset with them. Explaining that she, too, is a person who feels this need, the author unearths different reasons for why one might fear conflict or be inclined to be a people-pleaser. For example, children who live in homes where they are neglected or where there is a high level of dysfunction and conflict may develop sensitivities to others' moods because it helps keep them safe. Josephson explains that behavior that was once protective may no longer be useful once a person is out of that turbulent environment, and she suggests ways to train oneself out of such reactions, including dealing with thoughts mindfully and working through the pain that led to the need for hypervigilance. Josephson also discusses allowing oneself to feel and acknowledge emotions, how to calm down in moments of high emotion, setting boundaries, and becoming more comfortable with uncomfortable situations. Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-century America by David Baron. Decades before Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds triggered a panic among some unsuspecting listeners who thought Martians were invading the Earth, astronomers such as Percival Lowell, Camille Flammarion, and Giovanni Schiaparelli ushered in a cultural fixation on Mars from 1892 to 1916. Science journalist Baron (American Eclipse) explores the fanciful tales surrounding the debate on whether intelligent beings inhabited Mars. He details how tabloid newspapers and popular culture captured the public's imagination with reports about the astronomers who claimed they observed lines crisscrossing Mars. These lines, they believed, were canals engineered by an advanced civilization. Books, theatrical productions, and public lectures flourished as people eagerly awaited news of their Martian neighbors. Baron explains that even inventors like the eccentric Nikola Tesla attempted to build a behemoth radio tower that could receive signals from Mars. The author further frames the Mars debate and the accompanying mania within life's historical and cultural context at the turn of the century. VERDICT This absorbing, illustrated account will transport science fiction and astronomy buffs back to when people dreamed of life on Mars.—Donna Marie Smith Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

Disney Adults: Exploring and Falling in Love With a Magical Subculture by A.J. Wolfe.  This book, by a proud, self-proclaimed "Disney adult," is written with love and warmth but doesn't shy away from the more negative aspects of what it means to be a fan of the House of Mouse. Wolfe, whose popular website The Disney Food Blog offers news, reviews and information about food and restaurants in Disney's parks, resorts, and cruise ships, brings in her personal experience and the contacts she's made through her site to show the different ways the fandom exists, how people became fans, and the joy it's brought to their lives. Wolfe's book goes into the psychology of the fandom, gives thorough descriptions of the subculture, and compares Disney obsessives to other kinds of fans; throughout, she makes the case that the Disney fandom is no monolith but rather is rife with its own divisions and spin-offs. There are also deep dives into how fans have influenced the Disney company over the last few decades and how changes in media and activism continue to shape Disney and its devotees. There's even a tongue-in-cheek quiz at the end for readers questioning whether they qualify as Disney adults. Copyright 2025 LJExpress.

FICTION

The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar.  Children's author Sachar (Holes) makes his adult debut with this cozy fantasy that could also easily be read by teens. Immortal magician Anatole, living in the present, relates a story from his past, when he was a floundering magician to the king of a small kingdom in the south of France in the 1500s. To secure a much-needed alliance, Princess Tullia is betrothed to the prince of a nearby kingdom, but she falls in love with an apprentice scribe, Pito. The king charges Anatole with making Tullia agree to marry the prince, which Anatole hopes to do by crafting a memory potion that will make Tullia forget Pito. However, Anatole must decide whether to save the marriage, the kingdom, and his career or help Tullia and Pito. While an interesting frame to the story, the jumps between past and present in Anatole's narration can be confusing and jarring to the flow of the novel. VERDICT Sachar writes an engaging story from a magician's perspective that feels adjacent to a fairy tale.—Leigh Verburg

Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén.  Bo Andersson is an older man living alone with his beloved dog, Sixten, an elkhound who watches his every move. Bo's wife, Fredrika, is a dementia patient who lives in a nursing home. Depending on his work schedule, Bo's divorced adult son Hans visits him weekly. Daily, caregivers come to Bo's house to help with meals and showers, while Hans wants his father to rehome Sixten with another family because he fears that Bo might fall while taking the dog for walks. Ridzén's engaging novel (Sweden's Book of the Year in 2024) delves into Bo's memories, his disagreements with Hans, and his telephone conversations with his friend Ture, who has his own medical challenges. This moving and crowd-pleasing novel gently depicts aging and its joys and sadnesses through a protagonist who misses his wife and wishes he were not so old but enjoys spending his remaining days with his dog. VERDICT Readers will laugh and cry. In Bo, Ridzén has created a character who can evoke empathy in anyone.—Joyce Sparrow, Copyright 2025 Library Journal.

Indian Country by Shobha Rao.  An immigrant couple finds America a mystery, in more ways than one. Rao’s second novel—following Girls Burn Brighter (2018)—concerns Sagar and Janavi, a young couple from Varanasi, a town on the banks of the Ganges River. Thrust into an arranged marriage, the two are ambitious yet uncertain of each other—Sagar is a hydraulic engineer, Janavi a worker supporting children in crisis. So, when Sagar lands a civil-service job in Montana, where he’s charged to coordinate the removal of a dam on the Cotton River, trading in a bustling Indian city for Big Sky Country is both a geographic and cultural change. Both experience racist microagressions from the locals, but both also find common ground with them: Janavi in learning about the often troubled women in the area, and Sagar discovering the Native American lore surrounding the river and its echoes of Indian lore. One of the people sharing that world with him is Renny, one of the workers on the dam-removal crew, and in due time Sagar is embroiled in a murder mystery involving tribal history, scapegoating, and an orphaned child. Rao’s novel . . .admirably undoes the conventions of the assimilation novel, focusing less on how Sagar and Janavi fit into their new country than on ways they find human connection outside of the notions of being an American.  A lyrical and propulsive story that makes the most of its double-edged title. Copyright 2025 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.