“Gray Sabbath” by Shawn David Young was published by Columbia University Aug. 11. Young details the history of the Chicago-based Jesus People USA, formed in 1972, and looks at the group’s politics and their now-defunct annual Christian rock fest, Cornerstone Festival.
?”Spatializing Blackness” by Rashad Shabazz will be published by University of Illinois Aug. 30. Shabazz examines African-American migration to Chicago between 1900 and 1940, and how confinement, policing and urban planning continue to have an impact on African-American men in the city.
?”Melody for Murder” by Carolyn Wilkins was published recently by Pen-L. In the mystery, a South Side choir director attempts to solve the murder of a pioneering civil rights judge after one of her students is accused of the crime.
?”Life and Death in China Gulag,” a memoir by Zen Shanz, translated by Don Chin, was published by RoseDog June 6. Shanz, born Zhang Xianchi, spent 23 years in Chinese labor camps. Chin lives in Downers Grove.
?”The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now” edited by Naomi Beckwith and Dieter Roelstraete was published by University of Chicago Aug. 11. The companion book to an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, “The Freedom Principle” explores how African-American artists and musicians on the South Side were inspired by the black nationalist movements of the 1960s. Beckwith and Roelstraete are MCA curators.
?The updated paperback edition of “John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster” by Sam L. Amirante and Danny Broderick will be published by Skyhorse Aug. 25. Amirante, one of Gacy’s defense attorneys, looks back at the trial and Gacy’s murders. Amirante lives in Barrington.
Recently self-published: “The Black Blood in My Heart” by La’Mena Marie and “Forty Rod Road” by Grove N. Mower.
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