Books: Spring 2026

Mise en Scène: Illustrating French Interiors

Illustrator Cora Trout’s latest project combines paintings of ten distinct spaces across Île-de-France—from a palace to a 1950s suburban home. A French major at Macalester, Trout created the work during a two-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. We spoke with her about the project, recently featured at the Columbia Art League.

How did it feel to immerse yourself in these French interiors?

It was special to work on these paintings while I was in Paris. My desk at the Cité Internationale des Arts overlooked the Seine, and I could see the spire of Notre Dame. When I returned to St. Louis, painting these interiors brought me back to Paris. Even thousands of miles away, I could feel connected to the city again.

What got you interested in this project?

I first became interested in French interior design after coming across Jean Badovici’s Intérieurs Français (1925) and the Répertoire du Goût Moderne (1928-29), a five-volume set of folios depicting domestic interior design illustrated by many famous designers and architects. These books were part of the “advice literature” genre circulating in Paris at the time. They helped shape the debate over what constituted good taste, and sought to disseminate those views on an international scale.

What do you hope someone viewing these illustrations takes away?

Many of the locations I feature in my book were, at the time of their creation, tangible manifestations of power and wealth. And their interiors followed suit. Today, these interiors help us understand furniture and furnishings as objects of social history. A room—her chairs, cushions, curtains, commodes, china, all of it—is a mirror for human emotions, needs, and desires, however rational or irrational they may be. I hope this book helps people think differently about the spaces they inhabit. I also hope they can feel transported to another place.

Additional Titles:

Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media book cover

Sonia Hazard ’08. Empire of Print: Evangelical Power in an Age of Mass Media (Oxford University Press, 2025)

A religious studies and art history double major, Hazard examines how the American Tract Society built a nineteenth-century media network that shaped information distribution across the United States. The book, dedicated to her late religious studies professor Paula Cooey, explores how power operates through everyday information systems. “I hope readers see that the story I’m telling about the nineteenth century is not the distant past, but a moment that helps illuminate the roots of our modern media environment,” Hazard says. The cover was designed by Patricia Olson ’73, Hazard’s mother.

What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle book cover

Jonathan Bernstein ’11. What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle (Hachette, 2026)

A fact-checker and journalist at Rolling Stone, Bernstein traces the book’s origins to his sophomore year at Macalester, when he first saw Justin Townes Earle perform at the Turf Club. The biography explores the late singer-songwriter’s life and legacy. “One of my aims in writing this book was to try to investigate some entrenched and in many ways harmful ideas in music, and in our culture at large, about the correlation between creativity and self-destruction,” Bernstein says.

Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader book cover

Báyò Akómoláfé, Hubert Humphrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies. Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader (Ayin Press, 2026)

Known for investigating the fundamental assumptions of our current culture in crisis, Akómoláfé’s collection presents a wide range of aphorisms, poems, and philosophical ideas. Taken together, they examine his signature concepts of ontofugitivity, ecocognitive assemblage theory and postactivism, drawing inspiration from thinkers ranging from Édouard Glissant to Octavia Butler. The title of the collection draws on a Hebrew word suggesting ecstatic exclamation.

How to Lose Yourself Completely book cover

Peter Bognanni ’01, Associate professor of English and creative writing. How to Lose Yourself Completely (Balzer + Bray, 2026)

Dr. Sterling Bunnell: From Son of the Gold Rush to Founding Father of Hand Surgery book cover

Anthony Smith ’73 and Steven J. McCabe. Dr. Sterling Bunnell: From Son of the Gold Rush to Founding Father of Hand Surgery (American Society for Surgery of the Hand, 2025)

He Didn’t Know What He Didn’t Know book cover

David Lapakko ’72. He Didn’t Know What He Didn’t Know (Innovative Ink, 2025) The “almost entirely autobiographical” coming-of-age novella is partly based on Lapakko’s experiences as a Macalester student.