BookTrib’s Bites, a regular feature from (BookTrib), highlights a slate of new titles that each wrestle with large questions about family, free will and the future. The selections, drawn from fiction and nonfiction, examine how modern pressures—biological, social and technological—are reshaping intimate life and collective destiny.
In “Birth-Rate Crisis: Reclaiming Family and Purpose in a Dopamine-Driven World,” Jim Penman and Andrea Pearson ask why people across the globe are having fewer children than they hoped for. While housing costs, career pressures and the search for a partner are familiar obstacles, the authors propose another possibility: modern overstimulation may be altering the brain’s sensitivity to dopamine, making the everyday pleasures of family life less rewarding. Drawing on history, demographic research and their own experiences as parents, they examine ancient societies, the postwar baby boom and close-knit communities where larger families still thrive. Their discussion of parenting styles and shared responsibilities offers practical ideas for making raising children more manageable and enjoyable today. They also call for research into possible biological treatments, an effort Penman is already supporting through research funding. The book is available at https://books2read.com/u/mveYGe.
Rebecca Chamian Ribaudo’s “Crossing Division Street” is a dual-timeline saga of loyalty, betrayal and survival that spans a century of American history, from a late-1800s sugarcane plantation to the tenements of Little Sicily and the towers of Cabrini-Green. When a little girl jumps into attorney Sidone Russo’s car in Cabrini-Green, crying, “Go lady! They gonna kill me!” Sidone must reckon with a past she put behind her long ago. Across four generations, the novel traces the forces of family, events and circumstance that shape identity—from parts inherited and embraced to those rejected and left behind. The conflicts converge in an adoption trial in which Sidone must choose between her heritage and the principles guiding her life. At stake are her career, her family’s deepest secret, a little girl and the only man she has ever loved. At the heart of the novel is one question: How much of our identity is owed to what we inherit, and how much should be ours to choose? Learn more at https://www.crossingdivisionstreet.com/ or purchase at https://tinyurl.com/crossing-division-street.
Marlen Suyapa Bodden’s “In Defense of Earth” is an Afrofuturist novel that moves from intimate family struggles to threats facing all humanity. Seventeen-year-old Elaine Johnson-Coleman is a competitive swimmer, but nothing prepares her for the devastation Hurricane Zeta brings to New York in 2046. As floodwater rises through her grandparents’ Harlem brownstone, keeping her family alive becomes a desperate struggle. Years later, Elaine’s geothermal engineering expertise draws her into a secret NASA project. An extraterrestrial android called Axy promises limitless clean energy and a solution to climate catastrophe, but its hidden mission could destroy the planet it claims to want to save. Meanwhile, New York’s post-hurricane government monitors residents, criminalizes protests and enforces a one-child law. When Elaine discovers she is carrying twins, protecting her children means defying the authorities. The novel imagines a future where governments use the promise of safety to justify surveillance, political repression and forced family separation—a world one climate catastrophe away from our own. Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/in-defense-of-earth.
J. Adrian Betancourt’s “Maya Lin & The Ancient Order of Seshat: the arQitect” opens after the sudden death of Maya Lin’s father, when she receives an ancient gold medallion from her grandmother—and someone ransacks her home looking for it. When even the police become a threat, the architectural historian flees across Biscayne Bay and into a family history she never knew. Her grandparents belonged to the Ancient Order of Seshat, protectors of knowledge that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands. Now a stolen scroll has reached QiNIUS, whose popular meditation device could become a way to control other people’s minds. Joined by her former Kung Fu teacher, an artifact retriever and a technology whiz with an AI robot dragon, Maya follows clues through San Francisco landmarks while enemies close in. Ancient mysteries, Taoist philosophy and technological ambition fuel this playful adventure, where a 90-year-old grandmother can be as resourceful as any warrior—and preserving wisdom means knowing whom to trust with it. Purchase at https://tinyurl.com/the-arqitect.
