August is here and with it comes a new publishing season for Syracuse University Press. Our Fall ’25 season includes new translations from around the world, new books in our beloved Irish Studies series, and trenchant studies of life in New York State. Explore the entire catalogue for the season here and take a look at some of our selections for the season below.
For amateur mycologists and foragers alike, the difference between a beautiful fungal find and a potentially toxic mushroom can be difficult to distinguish. Updated and expanded nearly twenty years after its original publication, Common Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of New York, Second Edition is ideally suited to helping foragers of any experience quickly and accurately identify the potentially poisonous and unpalatable mushrooms of the region. Filled with photos and useful descriptions, this book provides key identifying features for the most common wild mushrooms foragers encounter in the region. The updated edition adds more than thirty species not included in the previous version, as well as updated terminology and photos to better prepare foragers. With recipes and additional advice, this is an essential resource for first-time and experienced mushroom hunters alike.
Part memoir, part New York history, and part meditation, Wild Forest Lands explores the rhetorical and spiritual meaning of the Adirondack “wilderness.” Author Phillip Terrie revisits the literature and history of the region, reckoning with how his views on the places he has defended have evolved over time. Rich with detail, Wild Forest Lands grapples with the enduring power of the Adirondacks and what it truly means to preserve something that is, by nature, wild.
Drawing on a trove of archival materials, author Barbara Cali traces the Bear Mountain Bridge’s construction in Steel and Grit, from the selection of the land to the role of Gilded Age icons such as E. H. Harriman and financier J. P. Morgan, to the formation of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, and the New Jersey women’s clubs that were pivotal to the fundraising efforts. Steel and Grit examines the importance of Bear Mountain Bridge, both as a symbol of twentieth-century American ingenuity and as an enduring steel symbol of the Hudson Valley.
Blending elements of Central Asian epic tradition with surrealist storytelling, Sultan Raev’s Castigation is a novel that is at once a scathing critique of power, a meditation on historical violence, and a darkly comic exploration of collective memory. The narrative weaves between present-day desert wanderings and vivid historical reconstructions, challenging readers’ understanding of identity, punishment, and spiritual transformation. Snakes slither through personal and collective histories; eclipses mark moments of existential revelation; and the line between madness and profound insight becomes provocatively blurred. Winner of Kazakhstan’s 2014 Novel of the Year, Castigation offers a stunning meditation on humanity’s capacity for both destruction and transcendence.
The Man of Middling Height follows a short dressmaker whose life is upended when she meets Tallan, a man whose middle height places him outside the rigid tall/short binary that governs their society. As their forbidden romance blossoms, they must navigate a world where height determines everything from social status to romantic possibilities. Through their story and those of surrounding characters—including a short person in a polyamorous relationship with two tall partners, and a tall activist who scandalously loves another tall person— author Fadi Zaghmout deftly reframes contemporary discussions about gender identity and sexuality through the lens of height discrimination.