Pedwell’s rich study examines the diverse ways in which empathy is mobilised – from political speeches that uphold neoliberalism, to postcolonial literatures that refuse certain forms of empathic connection. Empathy is an affective relation often conceptualized in liberal and neoliberal thought as the imaginative and felt ability to “put oneself in the other’s shoes”.

Looking for a more nuanced politicization of temporality, Sharma moves away from speed theorists who characterise modern life around fast/slow or time rich/time poor binaries (page 6). Instead, In the Meantime addresses “the micropolitics of temporal coordination”, calling for attention to the subtleties of how power is maintained and enforced through temporal structures.

Insusceptible to proof although not necessarily to falsification, illusions themselves can easily enter into a zone of indistinction with those very delusions that deny the claims of reality tout court. Note in Schechter’s titular inversion of Freud’s the supplantation of the definite article by an indefinite, and a singular by a plural. There will always be a future for illusions — even if it’s an illusory one.

"Articulating Dissent" is about the organisational frameworks that structure alternative and mainstream public spheres, and the methods protest movements employ to overcome their political differences when communicating with each other. It is an engaging book that is clearly the result of several years of considered thought and in-depth empirical research.

In "Mobile Technology and Place", an edited collection in the Routledge’s Studies in New Media and Cyberculture series, Rowan Wilken and Gerard Goggin outline and explore how place is conceptualised in a world increasingly influenced by mobile technology. Including chapters written by scholars from a wealth of social and cultural fields, the book leads the way in an emerging research area. It would be no surprise to see this book becoming an introductory classic in the field in the years to come.

More Than Shelter provides a succinct overview of the history of public housing and privileges the voices of SFHA tenants. Her work provides scholars and public officials with a succinct overview of the history of San Francisco’s public housing, and offers them a number of thoughtful conclusions that might contribute to better initiatives in the future.

We Will Shoot Back builds upon an important and growing body of scholarship that challenges a narrow conceptualization of civil rights activism, countering the dominant interpretation of the southern Black freedom struggles as an overwhelmingly peaceful and non-violent response to the violence of white supremacy.

Martins’ engagement of the images she has selected to highlight, her interaction with protagonists, subject matter, and the motives of those who held the camera, is never allowed to detract from, or impinge on, what she has to say. Her myriad takes, rather, are threaded in to chapter content and argumentative thrust strategically and seamlessly, to illuminating effect.

"Co-habiting with Ghosts" adds to an emergent body of literature which is moving beyond the worn-out question “are ghosts real?”, and asking instead, what impact does experiencing “a ghost” (whatever that may or may not be) have for people in our rational modern world? Lipman is not attempting to explain away ghosts as many academics do, but rather takes the more difficult path of adopting a critical approach to trying to understand and make sense of them within the personal, social and spatial contexts they occur.

Loukaki's book offers a comparative analysis of archetypal spatialities and their emergence in different moments of cultural history through various media, such as poetry, painting, urban landscape and architecture, and between polarities such as past/present and East/West. The book can be read as a montage of “snapshots” (page 14) or episodes that are interconnected, even if they seem to be antithetical to one another.