New Books in Communications

Today I’m speaking with Stephanie Williams, Director of Wayne State University Press, and president of the Association of University Presses. Every year, NBN speaks with the president of AUPresses in anticipation of University Press Week. This year, press week will take place from November 9 through the 13th, with the theme: #PowerUP. To celebrate, I’m thrilled to speak with Stephanie Williams about all things UPs.

University Press Week Info

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Cybersecurity is often presented as a technological challenge: protecting computer networks, preventing attacks and investing in increasingly sophisticated security systems. Yet even the most advanced technology may prove inadequate if organisations cannot interpret threats, communicate their consequences or respond effectively. What role does communication play in building cyber resilience, and why should it matter to business leaders as much as to cybersecurity specialists?

In this episode, Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo speaks with Nina Paine and Ashley Sweetman about Communicating Cyber Risk: Build Cyber Resilience Through Compelling Communication (Kogan Page, 2026). They discuss the book's origins and the distinction between cybersecurity and cyber resilience. Their conversation examines the role of organisational structures and management practices in shaping responses to cyber threats, as well as the challenges of communicating risk across organisational levels.

Particular attention is paid to the financial sector, where banks depend on interconnected technological infrastructures, payment networks and external service providers. The discussion considers what makes cybersecurity particularly challenging in banking, how multinational financial institutions navigate diverse regulatory environments and organisational cultures, and whether lessons from large international banks can be applied to smaller financial institutions and fintech companies.

The interview also addresses the relationship between organisational and systemic resilience. Financial institutions do not operate in isolation, and cyber incidents can have consequences extending well beyond individual firms. This raises questions about the responsibilities of banks, regulators, governments and other participants in the financial system, as well as the challenges of sharing sensitive information across institutional boundaries.

Drawing on the authors' professional experience and their interviews with senior cybersecurity practitioners, the conversation considers what their research reveals about organisational responses to cyber risk and the extent to which these findings can be generalised across different institutional settings.

Ultimately, the book invites readers to think about cybersecurity not simply as a technical responsibility but as an organisational challenge involving leadership, communication and the management of risk in an increasingly interconnected world.

References and further reading: 
Arsenault, B. (Host). (2021, July 7). Leading an inclusive workforce: Emma Smith, Vodafone (No. 8) [Audio podcast episode]. In Security Unlocked: CISO Series with Bret Arsenault. Microsoft; The CyberWire Network. here

Bátiz-Lazo, B. (Host). (2022, November 1). Ashley Sweetman, "Cyber and the City: Securing London's Banks in the Computer Age" (Springer, 2022) [Audio podcast episode]. In New Books Network. here

Kaplan, J. M., Bailey, T., O'Halloran, D., Marcus, A., & Rezek, C. (2015). Beyond cybersecurity: Protecting your digital business. John Wiley & Sons. here

Paine, N., & Sweetman, A. (2026). Communicating cyber risk: Build cyber resilience through compelling communication. Kogan Page. here

Smith, E. (2026, July 29). Trust in a connected world: Why cyber resilience matters. Vodafone. here

Sweetman, A. (2022). Cyber and the city: Securing London's banks in the computer age. Springer. here

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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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Romantic Media and Wartime Networks (Stanford UP, 2026) by Dr. Deven Parker tells the story of how Britain revolutionized its state communication networks on an unprecedented scale during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, setting the stage for our modern infrastructure state where connectivity and surveillance go hand in hand. Dr. Parker argues that Romantic literary representations of this state communications network managed to reveal—and, on occasion, to resist—its ideological functions.

In a wide-ranging study drawing upon an archive of military surveys, spy reports, trial records, and even ladies' hand fans, Dr. Parker reveals the scope and impact of the British government's investments in shutter telegraphs, mapping projects, and postal routes across two decades of war with France. The writers of the Romantic period, meanwhile, were cognizant of the political motivations undergirding the state's overhauled networks, which were designed to facilitate and speed up but also to more easily control communications. Taking up familiar writers including Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Charlotte Smith, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Thomas De Quincey—as well as lesser-known figures such as radical playwright John Dent, inventor Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and the proto-science fiction novelist Jane Loudon—Dr. Parker reads Romantic literature for its astute chronicling and interrogation of the material hardware of the state's media ecology.

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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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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What should authors be doing to market their books, and when? Book marketing expert Jeffrey Yamaguchi, a writer and poet with 25+ years in publishing, joins Sarah Russo on “The Publishing Playbook” to explain why book marketing and book publicity aren’t the same thing, and why a successful campaign needs both.

In this episode:
• Book marketing vs. publicity: what you earn and what you pay for
• Why your book campaign timeline should start a year or more before pub day
• Why every author needs a newsletter, and when to start a Substack
• Red flags for pay-to-play and AI scams in publishing
• Bouncing back when a book campaign hits a setback
• What vinyl record stores can teach authors about promotion
• What Jeff is reading right now

For more information on Jeff’s work, please visit his website, or check out his Substack, Book Publishing Brick by Brick

Books mentioned in this episode:

“Ten Visits: Brief Accounts of Our Visits to All Ten Japanese American Relocation Centers of World War II,” by Frank and Joanne Iritani

“The Dog Stars,” by Peter Heller

Key Moments

02:19 - Book Marketing vs. Book Publicity 📣
Jeffrey and Sarah untangle the two jobs, what’s earned vs. what’s paid for, and the behind-the-scenes spending authors don’t see.

06:29 - Spotting Pay-to-Play and AI Scams 🚩
Fake podcast and festival invitations are flooding authors’ inboxes. Sarah and Jeffrey share the red flags to watch for.

11:52 - When to Start a Substack ✍️
Jeffrey explains why authors should start a newsletter early, and how to make the most of one even if your book is almost out.

14:34 - “What Should I Be Doing Right Now?”: The Book Campaign Timeline 🗓️
Jeffrey walks through his timeline and why the cover reveal is when a book becomes real.

16:41 - “You Still May Get a No”: How to Make the Case to Your Publisher 🤝
Be strategic with your asks. Jeffrey shares how to lobby for opportunities like regional indie bookseller shows.

19:51 - Bouncing Back from a Campaign Letdown 🌅
Every campaign hits a roadblock. Jeffrey and Sarah discuss regrouping, and why marketing holds steady when breaking news derails publicity.

21:39 - Marketing Lessons from Outside Publishing 🎶
Jeffrey explains why authors should look beyond books, from movie campaigns to how record stores run their social media.

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What is the place of poetry in the modern world? In Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public (Columbia UP, 2025), Keegan Cook Finberg, an Associate Professor of English at University of Maryland, Baltimore County narrates the contemporary history of poetry as the emergence of a public literary form. The book shows poets' engagement with social and economic changes, such as the rise of bureaucracy and office jobs, suburbanisation, feminism, and neoliberalism, alongside changes in literary forms and literary practices In doing so, the analysis demonstrates both the importance of poetry to reflect social and economic change, as well as its potential as a critical force in our moment of social and economic crisis. Ranging widely across individual poets, artistic collectives, and performance activities, the book will be of interest across the humanities, as well as anyone interested in why poetry matters today. 

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John Madden retired abruptly from coaching in 1979, five months after receiver Darryl Stingley suffered a paralyzing injury against his Raiders. The tragedy would never leave him. He had no intention of entering broadcasting. Yet, within a decade—BAM!—he had become the most recognizable voice in football and a driving force behind America’s most powerful sports league.

Veteran sports journalist Scott Howard-Cooper reveals how Madden recast himself at exactly the right moment. Television was transforming sports, and the NFL needed a translator to turn complex strategy into entertainment. Madden didn’t just analyze football; he redefined how it was watched and loved—from the telestrator and pregame film study to Thanksgiving football.

But BAM! goes beyond the booth, tracing Madden’s personal life, unguarded moments, unexpected turns, and his influence through advertising, network wars, labor battles, concussion debates, and the Madden NFL video game—which reshaped gaming and brought football to new generations. Yet, Madden could never entirely escape what the game demanded from the men who played it.

BAM!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game that Changed Sports (Diversion Books, 2026) is the story of how one rumpled, affable man became a defining figure in football’s greatest boom—and its reckoning —and why the NFL cannot stop invoking his name.

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The first book ever on how the press covered the Gettysburg campaign, From Blood to Ink: How the Press Covered the Gettysburg Campaign (U Georgia Press, 2026) chronicles the rise of the press through the Civil War and how its coverage of Gettysburg not only misled the people of two warring factions but also misshaped the battle’s meaning for generations to come. As Dr. Matthew J. Larson reveals, newsmen on both sides transformed the battle into what they needed it to be rather than what it truly was. While the Northern press elevated Gettysburg into America’s Waterloo, the Southern press polished it into another hard-won success for Confederate General Robert E. Lee. In both cases, facts bent to bias, narrative eclipsed reality, and Gettysburg itself became the final casualty.

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 Revolutionary Ink: New York Printers and the Promise of Democracy, 1693-1804 (Cambridge UP, 2026), my guest Mark J. Noonan explores the careers of New York printers whose presses disseminated Enlightenment ideals that fueled the American Revolution and framed the political debates of the early republic. Long overshadowed by the celebrated authors whose works they produced, printers William Bradford, John Peter Zenger, James Parker, Thomas Greenleaf and others helmed presses that provoked civic engagement, cultivated an appreciation for the arts and sciences, and defended press liberty. The book also examines the equally revolutionary work of their wives, who assisted with and sometimes ran their husband's presses. Throughout the narrative, Noonan addresses the discrepancy between revolutionary rhetoric and practice, and argues that to grasp New York's early print history is to confront the paradox of the Anglo-American Enlightenment: its profound advancements alongside the denial of universal human rights.

Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at [email protected]. Blusky and IG: @robbyref 

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