NEW BOOKS

“Mirth” by Kathleen George, professor of theatre arts (Regal House Publishing, Sept. 27),

“Mirth” chronicles the struggles of a writer, Harrison Mirth, a romantic man who writes about love and tries to find it through three marriages, in three cities, and always with renewable hope. Amanda is first — New York city and youth. Maggie is second and spans the middle age years — Upstate New York. Liz is third — Pittsburgh and the senior years. Harrison Mirth doesn’t say much to Liz about life before her — a thoughtful comment here and there, funny stories, very little casting of blame. But like a quilt maker, Liz puts these scraps together to make a story — how she thinks he was as a boy, then a man sheltering a secret lake of sadness, but somehow always upbeat, cheerful, a willful optimist, forever innocent. To her, that is irresistible. She wants him, all in all.

“Embodied Injustice: Race, Disability, and Health” by Mary Crossley, professor of law (Cambridge University Press, August 2022)

Black people and people with disabilities in the United States are distinctively disadvantaged in their encounters with the health care system. These groups also share harsh histories of medical experimentation, eugenic sterilizations, and health care discrimination. Yet the similarities in inequities experienced by Black people and disabled people and the harms endured by people who are both Black and disabled have been largely unexplored. To fill this gap, Embodied Injustice uses an interdisciplinary approach, weaving health research with social science, critical approaches, and personal stories to portray the devastating effects of health injustice in America. Author Mary Crossley takes stock of the sometimes-vexed relationship between racial justice and disability rights advocates and interrogates how higher disability prevalence among Black Americans reflects unjust social structures. By suggesting reforms to advance health equity for disabled people, Black people, and disabled Black people, this book lays a crucial foundation for intersectional, cross-movement advocacy to advance health justice in America.

BOOK EVENTS

Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series Presents: Music Journalists Will Hermes and Amanda Petrusich
7:30 p.m. Sept. 29, via Zoom

The music writers Will Hermes and Amanda Petrusich will each read from their work, and then join Pitt Associate Professor Peter Trachtenberg in a conversation about their craft, followed by a Q & A.

Will Hermes is the author of “Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever,” a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice in 2011, and he is finishing a biography of the American musician Lou Reed. A longtime contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” he’s a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, Slate and Spin.

Amanda Petrusich is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of three books. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction and has been nominated for a Grammy Award. Her criticism and features have appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford American, Spin, Pitchfork, GQ, Esquire, The Atlantic and Playboy. Her most recent book, “Do Not Sell At Any Price,” explored the obsessive world of 78-rpm record collectors. She is an associate professor in the writing program at New York University’s Gallatin School.

The event is free. Join through this link: https://hipaa-pitt.zoom.us/j/94830107930