Bookshelf

(Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2022).

The latest from this award-winning author of books for young adults tells the stories of 15 women who changed the world through their entrepreneurship in the areas of food, fashion and clothing, health and beauty, science and technology, and education. As one reviewer noted, this book is “full of empowering stories that are sure to inspire a new generation of creative thinkers and future entrepreneurs.”

(Paris: Présence Africaine, 2022).
The French edition of the author’s novel written in 2004 places a woman as head of state in Africa, before this became a reality in Liberia. “This new version comes with a preface by writer Maryse Condé, a 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize winner. The honor of being published by Présence Africaine and prefaced by Maryse Condé is very humbling to me,” Mwantuali says.

(Washington, D.C.: Pen Women Press, 2022).
A finalist in the 2019 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing competition in the novel category, this book takes the reader into the life of a writer. One reviewer provided this summary: “A group of fledgling writers confront the suicide of their literary hero and nemesis, Adrian Gerd Wahl. Wahl is a writer’s writer, and his enviable career stands in stark contrast to these young writers’ quotidian realities. Listening to their voices, we enter into the world of writers, their habits and routines, triumphs and travails, failures and successes. As they reflect on their relationship with Wahl, speculating, emailing, texting, and tweeting about their idol, we come to know this widely published and highly celebrated author, and we share their wonderment and curiosity about the events leading up to his death. Dafoe has written a must-read — for those of us consumed with the question of why we read and why we write.”

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
This book explores central questions at the heart of amateur and professional sports: Does the corrupt side of sports compromise their potential to deepen our moral lives? Are the virtues of sports even certain? The author, a leading sports philosopher, has published previously on such issues as gender equity, comparable worth, moral judgment, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.

 (Fabius, N.Y.: Standing Stone Books, 2022).

This father-daughter collaboration is filled with beautiful images that capture the ever-changing beauty of the Outer Cape Cod landscape, from beaches to grasslands to waterways. The Colley family have been longtime seasonal visitors to the cape and their stunning book was featured in the August 2022 edition of Cape Cod Life. “I feel as if I’ve been at Bob Colley’s side on his walks, noticing what he notices, watching him see. His gift — the lovely, deceptive quietude of his images — invites me to pause and make my own discoveries,” noted Gregory Heisler, Distinguished Professor of Photography at Syracuse University.

 (New York: World Editions, 2022).

According to the publisher: “In what was once a Scottish tea planter’s mansion in the highlands of Peninsular Malaysia, all religions are one and race is unheard of. That is, until the occupants of what is now known as the Muhibbah Centre for World Peace are joined by Salmah, a Malay Muslim woman. ‘All are welcome here,’ they are reminded by their spiritual leader, Cyril Dragon, who is ignoring news of the changing political climate with its increasing religious intolerance. He is still trying to forget May 13, 1969, when ethnic tensions boiled over into bloodshed. Tale of the Dreamer’s Son guides us from that fateful incident in Malaysian history to the present day. Throughout, Samarasan’s polyphonic, rambunctious prose brilliantly navigates the tug-of-war between ideals and reality.”

(New York: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, 2022).

The fourth book in the pick-your-own-path mystery series finds the Las Pistas Detective Agency on its first international case at an archaeological dig in Greece. The author creates a hilarious and interactive adventure for middle-grade readers who can choose which suspects to interview, which questions to ask, and which clues to follow as they work to crack the case!

(Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

Clark uses what he calls the “dual function” of Socrates’ “What is F-ness?” question to find positive philosophical content in Plato’s dialogues of definition. The publisher’s description of the book says that Clark uses the question as a springboard for two types of investigation — conceptual and causal — noting that the key to understanding any of the dialogues of definition, therefore, is to decipher between them. “Clark offers a way to do just that, at once resolving interpretive issues in Socratic philosophy, providing systematic interpretations of the negative endings, and generating important new readings of the Charmides and Lysis, whilst casting further doubt on the authenticity of the Hippias Major.”

(Melton Mowbray, United Kingdom: Monsoon Books, 2022).

According to the publisher: “When a dikir barat singer is invited to perform at a circumcision ceremony in a remote coastal village in Kelantan, Malaysia, things take an unexpected turn in the normally quiet fish market. Mak Cik Maryam is called to investigate a baffling double murder, and the motives must be untangled and the guilty identified. Maryam’s own life is in grave danger when she and Mak Cik Rubiah delve deeper into this world of secrets.” Join Maryam in her sixth adventure in the latest in the Kain Songket Mysteries series.

(Colfax, Wis.: Hayriver Press, 2022).
This beautiful volume appeals not only lovers of nature and ethnic photography, but also to those fascinated by the North America’s ancient origins and living legacies, as embodied in its sacred sites and native peoples who revere and preserve them. According to the publisher, “The book — a collection of Butler’s photographs — uniquely draws together the apparent disparate qualities of our modern age with North America’s prehistoric roots. It achieves this unusual synthesis with magically evocative photography of sacred sites. Far more than any documentary style, Lynn Butler’s photographs capture the elusive spirit of traditionally holy locales. These include Wisconsin’s Black River Fall, with its secret rock art, disclosed to the outside world for the first time since the last Ice Age, some ten thousand years ago.”