Public Books is an online magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship. www.publicbooks.orghttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtwgjvldxq22“It leaves an imprint on your body, not just the human connections that you form in ethnography, but the fieldwork itself.” New at PB: For Recall This Book, @ievajusionyte.bsky.social discusses her fieldwork in Mexico and her book “Exit Wounds.” https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/25 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtwgjvldxq22https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mttzlz7tbp22“Thomas C. Gannon’s ‘Birding While Indian’ and J. Drew Lanham’s ‘Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves’ insist on locating birds and birding within the fraught social and political landscapes from which birding, nonetheless, also provides temporary reprieve.” https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/24 Aug 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mttzlz7tbp22https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mttw2viv6w27“One of the paradoxes of suicide is that the decision to opt out of the future makes the future.” https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/24 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mttw2viv6w27https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mttgaufejo2a“Most gun violence happens in inner-city neighborhoods. It involves handguns and it’s not the kind of violence we rally around.” https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/24 Aug 2026 13:35 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mttgaufejo2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtrlotvckz2r“It is refreshing to come across books by other bird enthusiasts that push beyond the conventional genre of finding oneself or personal transformation through birding.” New at PB: A review of 3 books on birding. https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/23 Aug 2026 20:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtrlotvckz2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtrflxlx2q2q“For all its pretensions of salvation, ‘Convent Wisdom’ conspicuously lacks chapters on concepts like selflessness, service, and empathy. Not even in our age of newly ascendant religiosity does anyone want to read a preachy book.” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/23 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtrflxlx2q2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtr66br2t72v“If we strip off this designation that this violence is legitimate because it belongs to the state & this one is not, what can we really understand?” New @ PB: @ievajusionyte.bsky.social discusses “Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border.” https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/23 Aug 2026 16:05 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtr66br2t72vhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtr2wgdlwd27“Taken together, ‘Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves,’ ‘Living as a Bird,’ and ‘Birding While Indian’ celebrate the uncanny ability of birds to defy, escape, and elude our human calculations and classifications.” https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/23 Aug 2026 15:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtr2wgdlwd27https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtqvrwklrv2e“Part of the power of String Theory resides in its willingness to articulate the contradictory emotions that crop up around suicide.” New at PB: @c4noff.bsky.social reviews “String Theory / Teoría de Cuerdas” by Karen Villeda. https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/23 Aug 2026 13:35 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtqvrwklrv2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtoynphaif2zCal Biruk reviews three recent books that look at “the racial colonial capitalist baggage that birding carries.” https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/22 Aug 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtoynphaif2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtov4zutzf2zNuncore is everywhere. Paul Michael Johnson asks: “Can looking to women beholden to God help us escape a society so fixated on itself? Or does it simply package those devout lives as the latest content for a culture industry desperate for the next trending topic?” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/22 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtov4zutzf2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtonpd3l7x2l“I’m very interested in how we decide where the boundary between legal and illegal is: What is crime? And what is justified state forms of violence because it’s part of the state’s monopoly on force?” https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/22 Aug 2026 16:05 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtonpd3l7x2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtokhiwt5d2z“Birding is a practice I have made my own by throwing away my field guide.” Birds are starting their migration south. In a new essay for Public Books, Cal Biruk advises: Don’t miss the birds for the “field marks.” https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/22 Aug 2026 15:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtokhiwt5d2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtofczjzpy27“Di Benedetto’s novel is not a serious account of suicide, or of the grief left in its wake. It is oriented elsewhere: a sardonic take-down of society’s lurid fascination with suicide and of the men who fixate on it.” @c4noff.bsky.social reviews “The Suicides.” https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/22 Aug 2026 13:35 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtofczjzpy27https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtmkqzmnsn2v“In my binocularized tunnel vision search for these small details, I was often missing the birds altogether.” New at PB: In a review of three recent books on birding, Cal Biruk throws away the “rules” of birding. https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/21 Aug 2026 20:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtmkqzmnsn2vhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtmi6qzq2d2z“The incongruity between traditional religious piety and modern egocentrism raises deeper questions that the book’s selectively hagiographic take on early modern nuns leaves unresolved.” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/21 Aug 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtmi6qzq2d2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtmeo57xzy2l“I became very curious and I thought I would like to follow the guns south.” New at PB: In partnership with Recall This Book, @ievajusionyte.bsky.social is in conversation with John Plotz and Elizabeth Ferry. https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/21 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtmeo57xzy2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtm6epy2ht27Cal Biruk reviews Thomas Gannon’s “Birding While Indian” (@ohiostatepress.bsky.social), Vinciane Despret’s “Living as a Bird” (@politybooks.bsky.social), & J. Drew Lanham’s “Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves” (@hubcitypress.bsky.social). https://www.publicbooks.org/birds-beyond-birding/21 Aug 2026 16:25 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtm6epy2ht27https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtm5aghmoo2l“Two Latin American books recently translated into English explore the difficult subject of suicide through markedly distinct forms and styles.” https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/21 Aug 2026 16:05 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtm5aghmoo2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtk2c4dw4t22“I didn’t know that most guns recovered in crime scenes in Mexico—over 70% and probably more—come from the United States.” https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/20 Aug 2026 20:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtk2c4dw4t22https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtjq6no3ns2vIn the latest Recall This Book, Elizabeth Ferry & John Plotz talk with @ievajusionyte.bsky.social about her book “Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border” (@ucpress.bsky.social), which follows the illegal flow of guns from the US to Mexico. https://www.publicbooks.org/our-guns-make-the-violence-that-people-are-fleeing-ieva-jusionyte-on-guns-violence-in-mexico/20 Aug 2026 17:06 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjq6no3ns2vhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtjmrnrvqq22In some ways, writes @c4noff.bsky.social, “The Suicides” by Antonio Di Benedetto and “String Theory / Teoría de Cuerdas” by Karen Villeda couldn’t be more different. But “both books are fundamentally preoccupied with how the suicides of others informs the self.” https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/20 Aug 2026 16:05 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjmrnrvqq22https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtjefa2wum2b“‘Convent Wisdom’ is remarkable for how it brings centuries-old nuns breezily down to earth without skimping on historical precision.” New at PB: Paul Michael Johnson on “Convent Wisdom” by Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita. https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/20 Aug 2026 13:35 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjefa2wum2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mthjt6o3o32z“From this vacuum of understanding, writing emerges.” New at PB: Carolyn Fornoff reviews “The Suicides” by Antonio Di Benedetto and “String Theory / Teoría de Cuerdas” by Karen Villeda. https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/19 Aug 2026 20:07 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mthjt6o3o32zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mthhbg5ity2tPope Leo XIV could have used a more forceful papal register in his encyclical on AI, writes John Plotz. But he avoids the “blinkered and bullying limitation of right-wing American religious thought these days” and uses his “words and words alone.” https://www.publicbooks.org/how-i-learned-to-fear-ai/19 Aug 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mthhbg5ity2thttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mthdqblcig2k“The same week that Rosalía dropped Lux, Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita published ‘Convent Wisdom: How Sixteenth-Century Nuns Could Save Your Twenty-First-Century Life.’” New at PB: Paul Michael Johnson looks at the rise of “nuncore.” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/19 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mthdqblcig2khttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mth4fgaaeu22@c4noff.bsky.social reviews 2 recent Latin American books about suicide: “The Suicides” by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen (@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social) & “String Theory / Teoría de Cuerdas” by Karen Villeda, translated by NAFTA (Cardboard House). https://www.publicbooks.org/literature-in-the-time-of-suicide/19 Aug 2026 16:06 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mth4fgaaeu22https://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtewrypamz2z“We have much more in common with 16th-century nuns than fantasies of their otherworldly aura might suggest.” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/18 Aug 2026 19:21 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtewrypamz2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtetbfnahu2z“No matter how it might get dressed up, the problem of playing by someone else’s rules remains.” https://www.publicbooks.org/conflicted-futures-convex-literatures/18 Aug 2026 18:18 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtetbfnahu2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/publicbooks.bsky.social/post/3mtelfwemrs25In a review of Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita’s “Convent Wisdom” (@avidreaderpress.bsky.social), Paul Michael Johnson asks, “Can looking to women beholden to God help us escape a society so fixated on itself?” https://www.publicbooks.org/can-centuries-old-nuns-really-save-us-from-ourselves/18 Aug 2026 15:57 +0000at://did:plc:vdfpnbcdvsd5veibtdpvceiw/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtelfwemrs25