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Andrea Kay's Bookshelf
Elemental Essence: A Neurosonic Journey
Ellen Johnson
ellenjohnson.net
Vocal Visions Records
$TBA CD / $20.00 digital
Creator's Website
https://ellenjohnson.net/elemental-essence-purchase
Synopsis: The five instrumental tracks of Elemental Essence: A Neurosonic Journey use binaural beats, isochronic tones, and harmonic layering to target specific brainwave states that facilitate deep relaxation, creative insight, and expanded awareness. The five-track sequence moves systematically from the grounding depths of low theta to the transcendent expansiveness of gamma, creating a complete transformational arc supported by peer-reviewed science.
Headphones are recommended for the best listening experience and full binaural effect.
Critique: Elemental Essence: A Neurosonic Journey is more than a new age music album. Creator Ellen Johnson has drawn upon forty years of neuroacoustic research to promote healing and creative activity, through calibrated frequencies that resonate within her original songs. Inspired by the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether/space), the tracks immerse the listener in an unfolding soundscape of the mind and the senses. Elemental Essence: A Neurosonic Journey is a transcendent choice for connoisseurs of new age music, highly recommended. The tracks are Roots Beneath the Horizon; Amphitrite's Longing; Sirius Spirit; Where the Wind Dreams; and Threads Between the Stars.
Andrea Kay
Reviewer
Carl Logan's Bookshelf
The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza
Robin Anderson
OR Books
https://www.orbooks.com
9781682196267, $22.95, PB, 236pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Complicit-Lens-Coverage-Israels-Genocide/dp/1682196267
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-complicit-lens-robin-andersen/1146055853
Synopsis: With the publication of "The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza ", media scholar Robin Andersen provides a vitally necessary and carefully researched study that deftly examines the way US establishment media ran interference for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, aligning its coverage with Israeli military narratives whilst downplaying, and even condoning, the wholesale massacre of Palestinians.
Commencing with the October 7, 2023, attack, "The Complicit Lens" scrutinizes mainstream journalism, contrasting it with social media reports and international news coverage. It reveals how legacy media presented Israeli violence as defensive and justified, casting doubt on IDF bombings, employing passive language to deflect blame for atrocities, and repeating Israeli talking points, often word-for-word. Massacres of those seeking food became "aid-related deaths," whilst missile attacks on tented refugees were "tragic mistakes."
Meanwhile, well-worn tropes of war propaganda, including claims of the beheading of babies and mass rapes, subsequently revealed to be without foundation, were used to justify Israeli actions and obscure culpability.
Andersen expertly documents the targeting of journalists and aid workers in what has become the deadliest conflict for each on record. She spotlights the editorial censorship that prohibited the use of terms such as "genocide" and "massacre" in the reporting of Palestinian deaths. And, as global protests against the Gaza genocide gathered strength, she examines the hostile media portrayal of these uprisings, particularly those led by young people and Jewish organizations.
Critique: Original, seminal, iconoclastic and ground breaking, "The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza" is a meticulous and documented work of detailed research that is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Israel/Palestine History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, governmental policy makers, political activists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this paperback edition of "The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel's Genocide in Gaza" from OR Books is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99, Barnes & Noble).
Editorial Note: Robin Andersen is professor emerita of media studies at Fordham University and an award-winning author of a dozen single- and co-authored books. Her work examines film, television, and media coverage of war, the environment, politics, and elections. She edits the Routledge Focus Book Series on Media and Humanitarian Action, serves as a Project Censored Judge, and contributes to the annual State of the Free Press. Andersen is on the Board of Directors of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), where she also writes regularly, and is an Izzy Award Judge for the Park Center for Independent Media. Her writing has appeared in CounterPunch, LA Progressive, The Progressive, Salon, Common Dreams, and ScheerPost, among others.
Trash!: A Garbageman's Story
Simon Pare-Poupart, author
Pablo Strauss, translator
Melville House
https://www.mhpbooks.com
9781685892494, $18.99, PB, 192pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Trash-Garbagemans-Story-Simon-Pare-Poupart/dp/1685892493
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/trash-simon-pare-poupart/1148307307
Synopsis: Ably translated into English by Pablo Strauss, "Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" by Simon Pare-Poupart is a fascinating no-bullshit account of twenty years in waste management and paints a vivid portrait of the heroic labor, anarchic spirit, and violent conditions of the people who keep our cities clean.
Pare-Poupart's personal life story is atypical: He started working as a garbageman to pay for school, and after earning graduate degrees and working in more "respectable" fields, he is still on a truck -- out of love for the physical rush, for his rough-and-tumble colleagues, and for an honesty and freedom that no other job has yet given him.
"Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" includes eight black and white photographs of the author on the job.
His sociology background informs his inquiry into our collective wastefulness and individual failure to confront the trash we produce. Every abstract observation comes with hilarious and hair-raising stories from the collection route to his days off spent hunting down furniture and toys for family and friends, as a committed freegan.
"Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" (the French edition of which is a runaway bestseller in Canada) explains and questions efforts to "clean up" a business with longstanding conventions of its own, a last bastion of well-paid employment for people who cannot fit in anywhere else. "Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" will change how you think about your waste and the people who handle it.
Critique: Eloquent, informative, thought-provoking, fascinating, iconoclastic, and a simply riveting read from start to finish, "Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" is the extraordinary memoir of an extraordinary man and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Contemporary Biography/Memoir collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "Trash!: A Garbageman's Story" from Melville House is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $10.99).
Editorial Note #1: Simon Pare-Poupart (www.simonparepoupart.com) became a garbageman in Montreal to pay for his college education. After graduate studies in sociology and international business, and work experience as a journalist and social worker, he returned to the job, and has been a garbageman for twenty years. He lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Editorial Note #2: Pablo Strauss (https://pablostrausstranslation.com) has translated numerous books from Quebec French into English, and is a three-time finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for translation. He lives in Canada.
Carl Logan
Reviewer
Caroline Heinbaugh's Bookshelf
The Road Unveiled
Tim Bishop
https://timbishopwrites.com
Open Road Press
https://openroadpress.com
9798986012551, $18.99 PB, $9.99 Kindle, 388pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Unveiled-Bicycle-Adventure/dp/B0FTK336NL
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-road-unveiled-tim-bishop/1148438528
Synopsis: Lauren Baumgartner pedals toward Yellowstone National Park, anticipating a grand celebration when she reaches the Atlantic Ocean. But when her wedding plans collapse, old wounds resurface - and a haunting secret still holds her heart hostage.
Traveling alone with bear spray and a one-woman tent, she shares the highway with motorcyclists bound for a massive rally, including gang members who eye her as theirs for the taking.
Doug Zimmer, another lone cyclist, is grappling with loss and wondering if anyone will be alongside him when he figures out what's next. He isn't the only one drawn to Lauren's vitality and spirit.
But Lauren may already be in too deep. What she faces on the Golden Prairie Indian Reservation tests her courage - and her faith - more than anything she encountered as a missionary in Uganda.
A woman with a secret and a man healing from loss pedal the rugged roads of the American West on a quest for love and purpose that leads to unexpected horizons.
Critique: "The Road Unveiled" by Tim Bishop is an emotionally charged narrative that explores the complexities of dealing with past struggles and forging a future. I was very encouraged by the message that God always provides our every need and He never leaves us. I was utterly captivated by this story.
The author's vivid descriptions of the miles of road and the breathtaking experience of sleeping under the night sky left a lasting impression on me. From cover to cover, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's an inspiring tale that will undoubtedly stay with me for a long time. I highly recommend this remarkable read.
Editorial note: Tim Bishop (https://timbishopwrites.com) is an award-winning author who has marveled from his bicycle seat at many of the landscapes Lauren and Doug explore. As an online coach, his passion for helping others navigate life's challenges bleeds onto the page, inspiring readers to embrace their own journeys of growth and discovery.
Caroline Heinbaugh, Reviewer
https://www.instagram.com/carolines_pageturners
https://www.instagram.com/p/DQrQwhqjhqG
Clint Travis' Bookshelf
The Brothel and Beyond: An Urban History of the Sex Trade in Early Modern Venice
Saundra Weddle
Penn State University Press
www.psupress.org
9780271100210, $89.99, HC, 240pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Brothel-Beyond-History-Modern-Venice/dp/0271100214
Synopsis: Withe the publication of "The Brothel and Beyond: An Urban History of the Sex Trade in Early Modern Venice", Professor Saundra Weddle deepens our understanding of women's engagement in urban life through a close study of Venice's sex trade. Centering questions of gender, agency, and mobility, it reveals how sex workers were embedded in the social and spatial fabric of the city.
From the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, the Venetian government attempted to control commercial sex by segregating it in municipal brothels in Rialto and later by minimizing the public's contact with sex workers, limiting their profits, and cracking down on recruitment. These decentralized efforts proved ineffective, and women who performed this labor lived and worked throughout the city.
In the pages of "The Brothel and Beyond", Professor Weddle deftly traces the diffusion of sex work from the brothels to the alleys, gondola landings, taverns, bathhouses, and peripheral squares of Venice.
Professor Weddle draws upon legislation, criminal records, contemporary chronicles, and other archival sources to reconstruct the networks of sex workers, procuresses, clients, landlords, and others who facilitated or profited from their labor. Using maps and photographs of key sites, Weddle also demonstrates how the built environment both constrained and enabled women's practices, offering an alternative urban history that foregrounds embodied experiences and vernacular spaces.
By assigning new meanings to everyday locations and spatial conditions, "The Brothel and Beyond" challenges monument-centered and elite-centered narratives of Venice as it redefines the place of women within its urban history. It will be of particular interest to scholars of architectural and urban history, women and gender studies, early modern social history, and Italian studies.
Critique: Original, exceptional, unique, and a seminal, groundbreaking study of human sexuality in Venetian history, "The Brothel and Beyond: An Urban History of the Sex Trade in Early Modern Venice" by Saundra Weddle is informatively enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of numerous illustrations and maps, an Appendix (Selected Legislation and Events, 1128-1789), a a three page Glossary, eighteen pages of Notes, a ten page Bibliography, and an eighteen page Index. "The Brothel and Beyond is an extraordinary work of meticulous research, and one which is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Women's History & Human Sexuality collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this large format hardcover edition of "The Brothel and Beyond" from the Penn State University Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $71.99).
Editorial Note: Saundra Weddle is Professor of Architectural and Urban History and Theory at Drury University. She is also the editor and translator of The Chronicle of Le Murate and co-editor of Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy.
Heroes of Palmar
Dr. Tuvia Book
Gefen Publishing House
c/o Storch
www.gefenpublishing.com
9789657864289, $18.95, HC, 108pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Palmar-Revolutionized-Combat-Medicine/dp/9657864283
Synopsis: When every second matters, heroes run toward the wounded. In the war in Gaza, survival on the battlefield often depended on the speed, courage, and skill of the men and women who came to save lives under fire.
With the publication of "Heroes of Palmar: How One IDF Unit Revolutionized Combat Medicine in Gaza", Dr. Tuvia Book offers a powerful firsthand tribute to the IDF PALMAR combat medical extraction unit and the extraordinary people who served in it during the Swords of Iron war.
Through vivid stories and extraordinary photographs, "Heroes of Palmar" takes readers inside the lifesaving work of soldiers, medics, doctors, and commanders who operated in some of the most dangerous conditions imaginable. Their mission was clear: reach the wounded, provide critical care, and evacuate them as quickly as possible.
Blending memoir, battlefield testimony, and military history, "Heroes of Palmar" reveals how innovation, teamwork, courage, and advanced medical technology transformed combat rescue and saved lives when there was no margin for error.
More than an just another account of wartime medicine, "Heroes of Palmar" is a documented tribute to those who risked everything so others could live.
Critique: Profusely illustrated throughout with full color photography is a fascinating, informative, and compelling account that will hold enormous appeal for readers with an interest in military field medicine and the role of an Israel medical unit during the Gaza conflict, "Heroes of Palmar: How One IDF Unit Revolutionized Combat Medicine in Gaza" is exceptionally well written, organized and presented. While especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Israeli Military History/Biography collections, it should be noted that this hardcover edition of "Heroes of Palmar" from the Gefen Publishing House is also readily available in paperback (9798248860463, $18.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.84).
Editorial Note: Tuvia Book (https://www.booktuvia.com) has a doctorate in education and is the author and illustrator of the internationally acclaimed Israel education curriculum, "For the Sake of Zion: A Curriculum of Israel Studies" (Fifth edition, Koren); "Jewish Journeys, The Second Temple Period to the Bar Kokhba Revolt, 536 BCE-136 CE," (Koren); "Moral Dilemmas of the Modern Israeli Soldier" (Rama); and "Jewish Journeys, The First Temple Period, 1000 -586 BCE" (Koren). His latest book, "Jewish Journeys, The First Temple Period, From King David to King Zedekiah, 1000-586 BCE," (Koren) is part of a series on Jewish history. In addition, Dr. Book served in the IDF reserves (miluim) as a combat medic in the "Swords of Iron" war since October 2023 in a medical combat search and rescue unit (PALMAR) and is the recipient of a prestigious IDF battalion award for his outstanding contribution to the unit.
Clint Travis
Reviewer
Debra Gaynor's Bookshelf
Extinction: A Novel (Cash & Colcord #1)
Douglas Preston
Forge Books
c/o Tor Publishing Group
https://torpublishinggroup.com
9780765317704, $32.99 hc / $19.99 pbk / $12.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Extinction-Novel-Douglas-Preston/dp/1250292360
Erebus Resort dominates a beautiful, hundred-thousand-acre valley. Guests witness wooly mammoths, Irish Elk and giant ground sloths in their native habitat. Genetic manipulation brings the extinct animals back to life.
The son of a billionaire and his young wife are abducted and slain, the suspects are eco-terrorists and a malevolent force within the park. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash joins forces with county sheriff James Colcord. CBI (Colorado Bureau of Investigation).
The body count begins to add up causing the valley to be evacuated. Cash and Colcord must face a primal, clever, and nasty presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection - but extinction. He is known to write books that are intelligent, action packed and edge of your seat books.
I've long been a fan of Douglas Preston. This book "Extinction" will stay with the reader for a long time. While this is a work of fiction it shines an intense light on the science of genetics. It is obvious that Preston spends much time researching the topic.
Genre: Science fiction, mystery, thriller, police procedural.
Plot: A wealthy couple disappears from a high-tech park featuring de-extinct animals, leading to an investigation that uncovers a sinister plot.
Characters: Features CBI Agent Frances Cash and Sheriff James Colcord as investigators.
Themes: Explores the ethics and dangers of genetic engineering, corporate secrets, and the conflict between humanity and nature.
Setting: is the Colorado Rockies.
Series: Book 1 Cash & Colcord series
Paradox: A Novel (Cash & Colcord #2)
Douglas Preston & Aletheia Preston
Forge Books
c/o Tor Publishing Group
https://torpublishinggroup.com
9781250413925, $30.99 hc / $19.99 pbk / $15.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Cash-Colcord-Douglas-Preston/dp/1250413907
An old prospector is ceremonially assassinated. An exobiologist is brutalized and mutilated. A holy relic is marred.
A cloistered man is found deceased under horrific occurrences in the Colorado backwoods, Cash and Colcord are the investigators on the case. The old man was embalmed. The man was a Catholic, a strong believer. He chose to live alone. The man believed in UFOs abducting people and taking them to other planets.
Douglas Preston does it again, bringing readers a 5-star book. He is the author of forty books covering the genre of both fiction and non-fiction. Thirty-two of his books have been featured in the New York Times. Aletheia Preston is the daughter of Douglas Preston.
Paradox is a gripping thriller, filled with intrigue, action, and breathtaking twists you never see coming. The reader knows there is a threat close by and yet far enough away to feel it but not see it.
As Cash and Colcord investigate hideous crimes, they find mind-shattering possibilities. Beneath those bizarre causes lurk something much deeper: the yearnings and faith of many humans who find themselves disturbingly alone in a sea of stars. What should be the consequences for a crazy UFO-Hunting, wealthy recluse in a secluded mountain cabin who is building scrapheap monsters?
This book isn't quite up there with "Extinction" but it runs a close second.
I recommend reading Book 1 first because Book 2 refers to the Neanders several times. I really enjoy watching Cash and Colcord play off each other. A third book in this series is coming up.
Genre: Science fiction, mystery, thriller, police procedural.
Plot: A man is found dead in his cabin. His body has been embalmed. Torture, missing artifacts both alien and Catholic are missing, money laundering and unidentifiable DNA.
Characters: Features CBI Agent Frances Cash and Sheriff James Colcord as investigators.
Setting: is the Colorado Rockies.
Debra Gaynor, Reviewer
www.hancockclarion.com
https://www.facebook.com/book.reviews.by.debra.2025
Jack Mason's Bookshelf
Taking Laps
Aaron Bond
Belle Isle Books
https://www.belleislebooks.com
c/o Brandylane Publishers
https://www.brandylanepublishers.com
9781966369103, $16.95, PB, 174pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Laps-Aaron-Bond/dp/1966369107
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/taking-laps-aaron-bond/1149685947
Synopsis: Bernard Brown is missing!
The unassuming college athlete who is prone to bouts of solitude becomes a regional news story when he disappears for four straight days. No one has seen or heard from him-not even the hodgepodge group of four that has become his closest circle of friends.
While the student body of the small town college gathers in a night vigil for Bernard, his four unlikely friends huddle in their routine study room -- this time to process their fifth member's absence and surmise his whereabouts. As the night darkens, their conversations deepen, revealing more of each male undergrad.
Mike, the biggest and most bottled-up, has a heavy secret. Rico, the group's enigmatic joker, has big notions-some metaphysical. Philip, an idealistic heartthrob, is aching from unrequited love. And Daniel, resentfully indignant, could use a hug.
"Taking Laps" follows Bernard's day leading up to his disappearance and the soul-searching discussions of his friends four nights later.
Critique: Impressively original, deftly crafted, and an inherently interesting read from start to finish, "Taking Laps" by Aaron Bond showcases the author's extraordinary flair for the kind of character and narrative driven storytelling style that makes for a compelling read and a prized addition to community library Contemporary American Literary Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "Taking Laps" from Belle Isle Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $4.99).
Editorial Note: With a Danish-German mother from upstate New York and a Black father from southern Virginia, Aaron Axhoj Bond grew up with multiple cultures in a 1990s world preoccupied by social and racial labels. While his nonconformity and self-determination brought him into conflict with the conventional and rigid settings he found himself in, they also open the door to many unique and rich experiences. He is also the author of his memoir -- "In Gray".
Winter of My Spring
Fartumo Kusow
https://fartumokusow.com
SparkPress
c/o Spark Point Studio
www.gosparkpress.com
9781684633500, $17.99, PB, 296pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Winter-My-Spring-Fartumo-Kusow/dp/1684633508
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/winter-of-my-spring-fartumo-kusow/1147593190
Synopsis: Set in the Lower Shabeele region of Somalia, "Winter of My Spring" by Fartumo Kusow is a story of what happens to Rada and her friends Mika and Sara after they are kidnapped by Al-Shabaab and forced to become child brides. For months, the girls live in fear and endure the harshest of conditions among their extremist kidnappers -- but after Rada and Mika see Sara die as a suicide bomber, they know they must escape.
After running away from their captors, Rada and Mika manage to return home, only to find themselves rejected by their community because they've "known a man's bed" and are therefore, according to their customs, considered ruined and broken women.
"Winter of My Spring" explores what happens to kidnapped girls during their captivity and after they survive the violence and abuse of their abductors. Rada and Mika are forced to navigate a world that denies them autonomy, yet they find resilience and hope in the process of healing and self-discovery.
Critique: Although a deftly crafted work of fiction, "Winter of My Spring" by Fartumo Kusow accurately reflects a devastating reality experienced by hundreds of young girls in those places in Africa that are under attack by Al-Shabaab terrorists. Emotionally engaging and a riveting read from start to finish, "Winter of My Spring" is an unreservedly recommended pick for community and college/university library Women's Fiction collections. It should be noted that this paperback edition of "Winter of My Spring" from SparkPress is also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99).
Editorial Note: Fartumo Kusow (https://fartumokusow.com) was born in Somalia but immigrated to Canada in 1991 at the start of Somalia's civil war. Her novel Tale of a Boon's Wife, published in 2017, received positive reviews from Harvard Review, Booklist, and This Magazine. Her first novel, Amran, was serialized in October Star, Somalia's national newspaper, in 1984. She is the creator and host of two podcasts: Break the Silence, Build a Future, dedicated to advocacy and empowering survivors of intimate partner violence, and My Mother: The Person and the Patient. Fartumo lives in Ontario, Canada.
Jack Mason
Reviewer
John Burroughs' Bookshelf
Walt's People: Volume 21: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him
Didier Ghez, editor
Theme Park Press
www.ThemeParkPress.com
c/o BearManor Media
www.bearmanormedia.com
9798896091271, $37.00, HC, 216pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Walts-People-Talking-Disney-Artists/dp/B0F5MSXD7C
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/walts-people-didier-ghez/1147312434
Synopsis: The Walt's People series is an oral history of all things Disney, as told by the artists, animators, designers, engineers, and executives who made it happen, from the 1920s through the present.
Walt's People: Volume 21 features appearances by Ferdinand Horvath, Ken Peterson, Bob Givens, Sylvia Holland, Tyrus Wong, John Hench, Marc Davis, Alice Davis, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, Floyd Norman, Paul R. Hartley (via his daughter Stacey Hartley), Bill Cottrell, Lillian Disney, Glen Keane, and Darrell Van Citters.
The interview based stories comprising Walt's People: Volume 21 includes:
Ferdinand Horvath provides a unique glimpse into the early Disney studio through his diary and his letters to and from Walt Disney.
Tyrus Wong discusses with Michael Barrier his work as a background artist on Bambi and his departure from Disney after the infamous studio strike of 1941.
Floyd Norman remembers the idiosyncrasies of Disney animator Milt Kahl during their time working on The Sword in the Stone.
Bill Cottrell reflects upon his extensive and varied career at Disney, from his work in camera and story to negotiating contracts and becoming the first president of WED.
And so much more!
Critique: The entertaining, informative, anecdotal stories in every volume of Walt's People will please both Disney scholars and eager fans alike -- and Volume 21 is a 'must' for the legions of Disney fans, for academics, and for anyone else having an interest in learning about those who were fundamental to the Disney success story.
Editorial Note: Didier Ghez has has conducted Disney research since he was a teenager in the mid '80s. His articles about the parks, animation, and vintage international Disneyana, as well as his many interviews with Disney artists, have appeared in such magazines as Disney Twenty-Three, Persistence of Vision, Tomart's Disneyana Update, Animation Journal, Animation Magazine, StoryboarD, and Fantasyline. He is the author of the books They Drew As They Pleased - The Hidden Art of Disney's Golden Age, Disney's Grand Tour and Disneyland Paris - From Sketch to Reality, and editor of Life in the Mouse House: Memoir of a Disney Story Artist and Inside the Whimsy Works: My Life with Walt Disney Productions. He runs The Disney History blog (www.disneybooks.blogspot.com), The Disney Books Network website (www.didierghez.com), and serves as managing editor of the Walt's People book series.
Supervising Patrol Officers
Gerald W. Garner
Charles C. Thomas, Publisher
https://www.ccthomas.com
9780398094935, $33.95, PB, 186pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/SUPERVISING-PATROL-OFFICERS-Excelling-Enforcement/dp/0398094934
Charles C. Thomas, Publisher
https://www.ccthomas.com/details.cfm?P_ISBN13=9780398094935
Synopsis: "Supervising Patrol Officers: Excelling at the Most Important Job in Law Enforcement" by Gerald W. Garner offers valuable, experience-based, and practical advice for the most important people in American law enforcement: first-line supervisors of patrol officers.
Comprised of sixteen chapters that guide both new and experienced patrol supervisors in key areas, "Supervising Patrol Officers" begins by explaining how to foster teamwork between officers and their supervisors and covers what you must do (and avoid doing) to become an excellent patrol supervisor.
The author, Gerald W. Garner is a 54-year veteran of law enforcement who spent 15 years as a sergeant at a nationally renowned agency and served over 20 years as a police chief at three municipal agencies.
Other topics covered in "Supervising Patrol Officers" include building mutual respect and trust with your team, being an exceptional positive role model, succeeding or failing as an effective communicator, training patrol officers, and serving as an effective counselor for troubled officers, including proper discipline.
Additional topics addressed directly include preparing and delivering employee performance reviews, handling citizen complaints, the importance of ethics, protecting officers from street dangers, leading during critical incidents, and assisting personnel in providing excellent service.
The final two chapters advise on helping officers develop career strategies within their organization and plan for their future.
"Organizational survival" is rarely covered in police supervision classes, but it is examined thoroughly here.
"Supervising Patrol Officers" delivers practical leadership advice that benefits both new and experienced patrol supervisors. Along with your current skills and knowledge, it will help you become an even more effective leader of the country's front-line guardians.
Critique: Impressively comprehensive, exceptionally well written, thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "Supervising Patrol Officers: Excelling at the Most Important Job in Law Enforcement" this trade paperback edition from Charles C. Thomas Publisher is an ideal and unreservedly recommended law enforcement curriculum text and a critically necessary addition to personal, professional, college/university, and police academy Police Science library collections and studies lists.
Editorial Note: There is an online listing of books by Gerald W. Garner available at Goodreads -- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15492579.Gerald_W_Garner
John Burroughs
Reviewer
Julie Summers' Bookshelf
Your Brain Loves Patterns: A Parent's Guide to Dyslexia and the Science of Reading
Kim Feller, M.Ed.
https://www.fellerschool.org
Independently Published
9798255868537, $14.99, PB, 106pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Loves-Patterns-Dyslexia/dp/B0GX2PXDZN
Author's Website
https://www.fellerschool.org/your-brain-loves-patterns
Synopsis: What if your child's reading struggle isn't a disability -- but a mismatch between how they're taught and how their brain works?
If your bright, curious child is falling behind in reading, you've probably been told to "wait and see" or "just practice more at home." Meanwhile, you watch their confidence shrink and their frustration grow.
Here's what most schools won't tell you: your child's brain is wired for patterns. We've been teaching them to guess.
With the publication of "Your Brain Loves Patterns: A Parent's Guide to Dyslexia and the Science of Reading", veteran reading specialist and dyslexia expert Kim Feller shares what she learned after years of watching smart children struggle under well-meaning but ineffective reading instruction. Trained in Balanced Literacy and the three-cueing system, Kim did everything she was told to do --until she realized her students weren't actually learning to read.
Instead they were learning to be good guessers.
Through powerful classroom stories and clear explanations, Kim reveals why many struggling readers (especially those with dyslexia) don't need more memorization or more exposure to books. They need explicit, systematic instruction that teaches them the logic of English.
"Your Brain Loves Patterns" explains why English is far more logical and pattern-based than you've been told. It also covers:
The difference between guessing strategies and real decoding
Why "balanced literacy" fails pattern-recognition brains
What brain research shows about how struggling readers build new pathways
Early warning signs of dyslexia you shouldn't ignore
Why timing matters -- and why early intervention is critical
Specific questions to ask teachers and schools
How to advocate confidently for instruction that actually works
"Your Brain Loves Patterns" is not a workbook. It's not a curriculum. And it's not a book about lowering expectations. Rather it is a clear and empowering guide to understanding how your child's brain works -- and how to match instruction to their strengths.
Kim has seen children go from non-readers to confident decoders in a matter of weeks when the method finally fits the brain. When pattern-recognition thinkers are taught through patterns, everything changes -- not just reading skills, but identity, confidence, and joy.
If someone has whispered the word dyslexia and you're not sure what to do next...
If your child can explain a movie plot in detail but can't read the word cat...
If you know in your gut something isn't working...
"Your Brain Loves Patterns" will help you understand why -- and what to do about it.
Your child isn't broken. They are just wired differently. And when we teach to that wiring instead of against it, struggling young readers become strategic thinkers.
Critique: Original, iconoclastic, groundbreaking, and critically important, high priority reading for any parent with an child who struggles with reading or who is informed by school or counseling authorities that their child is dyslexic, "Your Brain Loves Patterns: A Parent's Guide to Dyslexia and the Science of Reading" by Kim Feller (President and Head of the Feller School for Dyslexia) is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library parenting, dyslexia, and education/reading collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for parents, teachers, school counselors, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this paperback edition of "Your Brain Loves Patterns: A Parent's Guide to Dyslexia and the Science of Reading" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99).
Editorial Note: Kim Feller is an educator and the founder of Feller School, a specialty K-6 school in Madison, Wisconsin, dedicated to students with dyslexia and related learning differences. (www.fellerschool.org)
The Alchemy of Motherhood: Unspoken Truths of Birth Trauma and the Postpartum Journey
Casey Keen MS
https://www.casey-keen.com
Cynren Press
https://www.cynren.com
9781947976672, $16.95, PB, 200pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Motherhood-Unspoken-Postpartum-Journey/dp/B0FSJSJ5HX
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-alchemy-of-motherhood-casey-keen-ms/1149285721
Synopsis: Childbirth is often framed as magical, transformative, and universally joyful. For many women, the reality is far more complex -- and far more damaging.
With the publication of "The Alchemy of Motherhood: Unspoken Truths of Birth Trauma and the Postpartum Journey", author Casey Keen examines the physical and psychological aftermath of pregnancy, labor, and delivery, tracing how birth trauma, postpartum depression, and postpartum anxiety are routinely minimized, misdiagnosed, or ignored altogether.
Grounded in her own experience, and informed by her work as a postpartum women's advocate, Keen situates maternal suffering within a health care system ill-equipped to recognize or respond to it. Part personal reckoning, part cultural and institutional critique, "The Alchemy of Motherhood" confronts the myths surrounding motherhood and exposes the structural failures that leave women unsupported during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.
"The Alchemy of Motherhood" is especially written for mothers seeking language to express what they endured, and for anyone invested in maternal health, social justice, and systemic change.
Critique: Candidly informative and exceptionally well written, organized and presented for the non-specialist reader with an interest in the subject, "The Alchemy of Motherhood: Unspoken Truths of Birth Trauma and the Postpartum Journey" by Casey Keen is a seminal and groundbreaking study that is unique, iconoclastic, and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Pregnancy/Childbirth collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that this paperback edition of "The Alchemy of Motherhood" from Cynren Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).
Editorial Note: Casey Keen (https://www.casey-keen.com) is a writer, an advocate, and a mother dedicated to exploring the complexities of the human experience. Her work delves into themes of resilience, identity, and transformation. Her writing spans both deeply personal narratives and richly imagined fiction, whether through the lens of motherhood, mental health, or immersive storytelling. With a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in forensic medicine, Casey brings a unique perspective to the intersection of mental health, trauma, and systemic reform; has founded an online postpartum support community; and is building a platform that provides education, coaching, and advocacy to new mothers.
Julie Summers
Reviewer
Margaret Lane's Bookshelf
Endless Exodus
Peter Decherney
Gefen Publishing House
c/o Storch
www.gefenpublishing.com
9789657801871, $29.95, HC, 120pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Endless-Exodus-Peter-Decherney/dp/9657801877
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/endless-exodus-peter-decherney/1148971869
Synopsis: "Endless Exodus: The Jewish Experience in Ethiopia" by filmmaker and scholar Peter Dechemey is a powerful visual and historical journey into one of the world's oldest and most resilient Jewish communities.
Through striking photographs and highly researched narrative, Decherney captures the spiritual endurance, cultural richness, and everyday life of Ethiopian Jews -- both those who remain in Ethiopia and those who have made Aliyah to Israel.
Spanning from biblical origins through exile, persecution, and migration, "Endless Exodus" deftly weaves together ancient legend, modern history, and contemporary portraiture.
Decherney's lens reveals everyday life in Gondar from matzah baking on injera griddles to children studying Hebrew under corrugated roofs -- all while tracing the community's centuries-long longing for Jerusalem.
Featuring a foreword by Sigal Kanotopsky (a leading Ethiopian-Israeli activist), "Endless Exodus" invites readers to see beyond narratives of suffering and rescue, offering instead a portrait of pride, continuity, and hope. It is both a work of art and a testament to Jewish diversity, identity, and belonging.
Critique: Informative and memorable, this large format (11.3 x 9.92 x 0.59 inches, 1.95 pounds), profusely illustrated, hardcover edition of "Endless Exodus: The Jewish Experience in Ethiopia" from the Gefen Publishing House" is an especially and unreserved addition to personal, professional, community and college/university library Ethiopian/Israeli History collection and supplemental curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note: Peter Decherney (https://decherney.org) is an award-wining documentary filmmaker, photographer and historian. He holds the Edmund and Louise Kahn Chair in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the director of the Penn Global Documentary Institute.
Herbal Pharmacy
Betzy Bancroft
Chelsea Green Publishing
https://www.chelseagreen.com
9781645022770, $44.95, PB, 336pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Herbal-Pharmacy-Preparing-Administering-Medicine/dp/1645022773
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/herbal-pharmacy-betzy-bancroft/1147382993
Chelsea Green
https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/herbal-pharmacy
Synopsis: More and more people are turning to herbal remedies for healing, whether they are purchasing the remedies or making them on their own. Herbalists want their clients to have good experiences with these remedies, both to help them heal and to foster a positive regard for herbs and, by extension, the healing power of nature.
"Herbal Pharmacy: The Science and Magic of Preparing and Administering Plant Medicine" by Betzy Bancroft is in-depth guide that teaches its readers to respect, care for, and understand all the aspects of preparing herbal medicines in order to ensure what they make is safe and efficacious.
The individual chapters comprising "Herbal Pharmacy" address making herbal extractions in water, oils and fats, alcohol, vinegar, honey, glycerin, and other media, supplemented with easy-to-follow tables and charts. "Herbal Pharmacy" also covers the practical aspects of administering herbal remedies: figuring dosage, duration of care, and the specifics of deciding how to apply a remedy to produce the best outcome.
Throughout "Herbal Pharmacy: The Science and Magic of Preparing and Administering Plant Medicine", Bancroft (who is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and who has been educating people in herbal medicines for over three decades) provides detailed instructions to help even inexperienced or anxious medicine makers successfully design and prepare their own recipes for effective remedies.
Critique: This large format (8.02 x 0.68 x 10 inches, 13 ounces) trade paperback edition of "Herbal Pharmacy: The Science and Magic of Preparing and Administering Plant Medicine" by experienced herbalist Betzy Bancroft is comprehensive, beautifully illustrated and impressively 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation making it an ideal and unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Alternative Medicine & Herbal Medicine collections and supplemental Health/Medicine curriculum studies lists. Deftly organized into two major sections (Preparing Plant Medicines & Administering Plant Medicines), it should be noted for medical students, academia, herbal medicine practitioners, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this paperback edition of "Herbal Pharmacy: The Science and Magic of Preparing and Administering Plant Medicine" from Chelsea Green Publishing is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $31.99).
Editorial Note: Betzy Bancroft has been teaching herbal medicine making for more than three decades at herbalism schools and events. Betzy is one of the founders of the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, where she teaches classes including medicine making and formulation, and is a mentor for clinical interns. She also teaches and often leads herb walks at Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary and is a regular presenter at the Vermont NOFA winter conference. She is on the advisory board of United Plant Savers.
Margaret Lane
Reviewer
Matthew McCarty's Bookshelf
Chain of Ideas
Ibram X. Kendi
One World
c/o Penguin Random House
penguinrandomhouse.com
9780593978023, $35.00 US, $48.99 CAN, $13.99 Kindle, 554pgs.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Chain-Ideas-Origins-Our-Authoritarian/dp/0593978021
The United States of America is celebrating a milestone anniversary this summer. It is rare for a country to achieve what America has achieved and to survive for two hundred and fifty years. America has set the standard for what a country is supposed to represent and what a country is supposed to provide to its citizens. However, America has also set the standard for what a country should not be with an unprecedented history of racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-semitism. This negative history has been given an intellectual and philosophical base that has become normalized over the last several years.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, historian of ideas and intellectual history, has written an excellent account of how this negative history has been created and maintained in his most recent book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age (New York: Random House, 2026, 554pgs, $35.00 US, $48.99 CAN). Chain of Ideas is a strong and exceptional work of history and ideas. Dr. Kendi describes the rise of right-wing and extreme ideas in the United States during the last several years with a clear and fact-based narrative. This rise has played out in the public eye, on television, and on social media. It has spread to other countries and has taken hold in many parts of the world where citizens have been lied to and efforts at a false train of thought are obvious.
Dr. Kendi writes with a skill and decisiveness that is impressive. He supports each argument and assertion with vetted sources and impartial evidence. Chain of Ideas makes a well-reasoned argument for a re-evaluation of the dangers of and damage that is being done by the deliberate attempt of many to mislead citizens around the world. Dr. Kendi argues that citizens should read and study what leaders say and write, and that those sources should be gauged thoroughly before becoming accepted fact. Chain of Ideas is a much needed adrenaline boost in the fight against false ideas. Anyone valuing an open and honest discussion of world events would do well to make Chain of Ideas required reading.
Matthew W. McCarty, EdD
Reviewer
Michael Carson's Bookshelf
Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000
Barry Walters
Viking Books
c/o Penguin Group USA
www.penguin.com
9798217059829, $35.00, 496pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Real-History-LGBTQ-1969-2000/dp/B0FM7L8VDB
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mighty-real-barry-walters/1148039686
Synopsis: From the underground dance floors of the Seventies to the global charts of the Nineties, LGBTQ artists and audiences shaped music's sound, style, and spirit.
With the publication of "Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000", veteran journalist Barry Walters chronicles LGBTQ music history from the Velvet Underground to the 21st century's dawn as he honors the artists who redefined gender, defied tradition, and dared to challenge sexual norms with the help of a record business that wasn't as straight as commonly believed.
Drawing on his decades as a New York- and San Francisco-based music critic, Walters examines how LGBTQ musicians, music industry executives, and fans reshaped the mainstream. He connects the dots between David Bowie's dazzling reinventions, Grace Jones's androgynous glamor, Prince's boundary-shattering sexuality, and the radical candor of the Indigo Girls to prove they're all doing the same thing: fighting oppression.
With exuberance, insight, and encyclopedic knowledge, Walters brings to life the songs and society that filled dance floors, bedrooms, and streets as he uncovers yesteryear's coded LGBTQ messages that paved the way for today's unabashedly queer hits.
"Mighty Real" is a masterful love letter to the music that liberated generations, and it's written in a page-turning, personal way that blurs distinctions between chronicle and memoir. This is the rare and revolutionary music history told to help you laugh, cry, and then rally against lingering inequality.
Critique: An original, seminal, comprehensive, and ground breaking study, "Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000" by Barry Walters is informatively enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of an eight page Discography and nineteen pages of Chapter Notes. Exceptionally well written and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "Mighty Real" is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Music History/Criticism collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, music fans in general, and members of the LGBTQ+ community with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of "Mighty Real" from Viking Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).
Editorial Note: Barry Walters (https://barrywalterswriter.com) has spent 40 years documenting the intersection of mainstream and LGBTQ culture. He began his career at The Village Voice (where he came out publicly as a gay man in a 1986 Pet Shop Boys review) before becoming a fixture at Spin and Rolling Stone. In 1992, his work at the San Francisco Examiner made him the first critic to receive an award from The National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association. Throughout the Nineties, Barry was The Advocate's music columnist before a decade's worth of writing at Out. Along the way, he regularly appeared in Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Pitchfork, and other media mainstays.
Russian Sausages: Authentic Recipes and Instructions
Stanley Marianski and Adam Marianski, authors
Bookmagic LLC
https://bookmagic.com/books
9798234110800, $14.95, PB, 148pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Sausages-Authentic-Recipes-Instructions/dp/B0H49KSGN9
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/russian-sausages-authentic-recipes-and-instructions-adam-marianski/1150338169
Synopsis: "Russian Sausages, Authentic Recipes and Instructions" is a complete DIY instructional guide for anyone, amateur or professional, who wants to learn how high-quality sausages were made in the past. Even today, those time-proven recipes are of immense value to people living off grid, on rural farms, or involved in hunting, given that the manufacturing steps for Russian sausages were designed with preservation in mind, allowing them to be kept at room temperature for most of the year.
Those techniques were developed out of necessity due to the damage that Russia incurred during the 1st and 2nd World Wars. It should be noted that these recipes were actually used by Russian meat plants to produce sausages for the general population. Given that the government owned those plants, manufacturing standards were enforced by government meat inspectors, and the quality and appearance of finished products were consistent. The sausages looked and tasted the same regardless of where they were made. And adding chemicals was not permitted.
"Russian Sausages: Authentic Recipes and Instructions" is a collection of 126 recipes that were chosen for their originality and historical value. They have enormous value as study material and as a resource for making meat products and sausages. With the publication of "Russian Sausages: Authentic Recipes and Instructions" the reader and aspiring sausage maker can get a full understanding of the process and create quality products at home.
Critique: Exceptionally 'reader/kitchen cook' friendly in organization and presentation, "Russian Sausages: Authentic Recipes and Instructions" by co-authors Stanley and Adam Marianski is an authentic, unique, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Russian/Eastern European cuisine and cookbook collections and supplemental Food History/Science curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note: There is an online listing of books by Adam and Stanley Marianski on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/325476.Adam_Marianski
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Robin Friedman's Bookshelf
The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding
Joseph J. Ellis, author
Knopf
https://www.knopfdoubleday.com
9780593801413, $31.00 hc / $14.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Contradiction-Tragic-American-Founding/dp/0593801415
Joseph Ellis And America 250
This year, 2026, celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It is valuable to reflect upon our beloved country at this time. An important way to think about the origins of the United States is through this new book by Joseph J. Ellis, "The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding." (2025). Ellis, retired as Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College, has written many works about early American history. He has received both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In his many books, Ellis has explored the significance and lasting value of the American Revolution. In this book he explores its tragedies. Ellis sees two tragedies lying at the source of America's founding. The first is slavery and the second is the treatment of the Indians. They are tragedies in themselves and "Great Contradictions" because slavery and the removal of the Indians contradict the principles of freedom and equality articulated in the Declaration of Independence. In the grand words of the Declaration:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Discussing slavery, which receives most of the attention in this book, and Indian removal in the context of the Declaration is hardly new. What is valuable is the way Ellis approaches his subject with the wisdom and knowledge of over forty years of thought. The book is philosophical as much as historical. Rash, one-sided, ideological conclusions are to be avoided, and Ellis does so here.
In the early sections of the book, Ellis sets out his themes. He asks first if the "tragedies" of the American founding are Greek, based upon fate, or Shakespearean, based upon human fallibility and moral blindness. He asks the reader to consider this question in reflection upon the history.
Next, Ellis offers some crucial points in studying the Founding and history more broadly. He wants to avoid making a mythology of the Founders and the Founding, and seeing them as larger than life rather than as fallible human beings. Conversely, and probably more relevantly to our times, he wants to avoid the tendency to debunk and to criticize on dogmatic ideological and moralizing grounds.
Ellis warns against the "original sin" of "presentism" in historical study by which he means "the presumption that our political and moral values now are wholly reliable standards of truth and justice for our predecessors then." Presentism is difficult but crucial to avoid as the study of American history and the Founding have become intertwined with the unfortunately ongoing culture wars. Among other factors of presentism that Ellis identifies is the faith in democracy and in "we the people". During Revolutionary times, most people identified themselves with their local community or their colony. There was little sense of a "we the people" consisting of a broad nation-state. So too, Ellis argues that there was little sense of "democracy" in early America. Democracy was, rather, something to be feared. The wrong of slavery and the treatment of African Americans and the removal of the Indians were not high on the agenda of most people at the time, although they were recognized as of cruicial importance by some people. The creation of the American Republic was, Ellis argues, a largely top-down affair originating in elite members of the society. This is a theme Ellis developed in his earlier book "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789."
In his study, Ellis shows how with the pursuit of independence from Great Britain, some Americans became painfully aware of the "Great Contradiction" between the goals and rationales for independence on one hand and slavery and Indian removal on the other hand. The book shows why they failed to resolve these issues. As to slavery, Ellis explores the Articles of Confederation, which gave governmental powers to the States, the Constitutional Convention and its four compromises over the slavery issue, the ratification process, and early Congressional action on the slavery issue. The difficulty is whether there was going to be a nation at all, making compromise necessary. Still, with history being the contingent matter that it is, there may have been possibilities to do things differently. With respect to Indian removal, Ellis argues that George Washington and his cabinet worked hard to avoid running over Indian land rights by attempting to treat with Creek Chief Alexander McGillivary. Unfortunately, this effort failed due to the government's inability to control the large onrush of settlers into Creek territory.
In the final two chapters of his book, discussing George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and their respective attitudes to slavery, Ellis emphasizes further aspects of the failure to control or eliminate slavery when it might have been possible. This involved the great reluctance across the American population at the time to accept African Americans as full participants in American society. This reluctance, as Ellis points out, is still unfortunately with us in contemporary America.
Ellis has written a short, thoughtful, and suggestive book. It combines a love for the United States and its history and goals with a real sense of its tragic failings. This is important and not often done today. Reading this book is valuable in considering America's 250th anniversary.
Spinoza, Atheist
Steven Nadler, author
Princeton University Press
https://www.press.princeton.edu
9780691285238, $29.95 hc / $16.17 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Spinoza-Atheist-Steven-Nadler/dp/0691285233
Is Spinoza An Atheist?
Many years ago, as a graduate student in philosophy I was required to select a philosopher to write about as part of my prelims. I chose Spinoza. The examination question was "Is Spinoza an atheist"? I don't remember what I wrote and never completed the PhD. But Spinoza, and the question asked on the exam, have stayed with me.
The question is the subject of philosopher Steven Nadler's new book, "Spinoza, Atheist" (2026). Nadler, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin -- Madison has written extensively on Spinoza. He has the gift of writing for interested lay readers rather than only for specialists in philosophy or Spinoza. As Nadler points out, Spinoza likely receives more attention from nonspecialist readers than any other philosopher. In my view, this is because Spinoza is seen as offering a broad way of thinking about important questions of life separate from the Abrahamic traditions. Nadler lectures frequently to nonspecialist audiences, and he points out that "Spinoza, Atheist" is designed to appeal to lay readers, as the questions the book considers remain important. Nadler writes in a colloquial, accessible style to present his great learning and long thinking about Spinoza.
Was Spinoza an atheist? Yes, says Nadler, unequivocally so. In the opening chapters of his book, Nadler reviews Spinoza's life, his excommunication from the synagogue at the age of 23, and early interpretations of his work. During his lifetime and beyond, Spinoza was largely viewed (and reviled) as an atheist. Some of the reaction was due to poltitics and clergy, but perhaps some hit home. In the 18th Century, Spinoza began to be viewed as a pantheist, a difficult term but meaning that God is immanent in everything. Pantheism displaced atheism as the leading interpretation of Spinoza and remains so today. A still broader position on Spinoza is called panentheism, which means that God is immanent but also goes beyond immanence. This position has attracted some support in contemporary philosophy.Nadler argues against both the pantheist and the panentheist interpretations.
What is clear, Nadler argues, is that Spinoza rejects the view of God of the Abrahamic tradition under which God is at least in part anthropomorphic, creates the world, has will and knowledge, gives laws for humans to follow, and offers rewards or punishment, as the case may be, after death. Beyond that, in determining Spinoza's views, Nadler examines Spinoza's two great works, the "Theological-Political Treatise" and the "Ethics" and their relationship. For a long time, the "Theological-Political Treatise"tended to be less studied. Nadler has written an excellent book about it, "A Book Forged In Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age." (2011) He also studies Spinoza's correspondence.
Nadler finds the two books reach similar conclusions about God and about atheism. In the former book, Spinoza allows for the practice of traditional theism by the unlearned to the extent it teaches justice and love for one's fellowman. But in both books, particularly in Part I of the Ethics which Nadler examines, Spinoza's philosophy turns to atheism, for Nadler. He finds that Spinoza's famous equation "God or Nature" does not allow for the characteristics of theism, whether of an Abrahamic, pantheistic, or panentheistic variety.
Nadler has a great deal of learning in the current large literature on Spinoza. His views seem to me close to the views of Jonathan Israel who has written extensively on "Radical Enlightenment" in Spinoza in, for example, "Radical Enlightenent: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650 -- 1750" (2002).. Nadler examines competing views to Israel in the works of other contemporary scholars including Yitzhak Melamed and Clare Carlisle in her book, "Spinoza's Religion" (2021). Melamed and Carlisle both offer panentheistic readings of Spinoza which Nadler treats respectfully but critiques on historical and philosophical grounds.
It was refreshing to return to Spinoza through Nadler's book. Like many readers, I have been inspired by Spinoza's writing largely through the possibility it offers of an alternative to the Abrahamic tradition of monotheism in a secular age. As between an atheistic and a pantheistic reading of Spinoza, I continue to go back and forth. There are ambiguities in Spinoza's work itself, as come through in Nadler's account and become still stronger when one considers other difficulties in Spinoza's position besides those involving theism. Spinoza frequently seems to want to have things both ways. Perhaps Spinoza was developing a philosophy beyond the easy labels of "atheist" or "pantheist" that form a seeming dichotomy. Nadler quotes, but rejects, a philosopher who in the following passage takes this position.
"The contradictory interpretations of the Spinozist system prove, once again, that singular systems of thought, to the extent that they are complex, rich, and profound, have little to gain by being put into boxes that freeze them in a single optic to the detriment of another that is just as valid. Such systems remain definitively unclassifiable because they are original." (Nadler, pp 148-49, footnote omitted.)
This book is valuable for readers, specialist and nonspecialist, with a passion for Spinoza and for philosophical thinking.
In a Lonely Place
Dorothy Hughes, author
NYRB Classics
https://www.nyrb.com
9781681371474, $15.95 pbk / $11.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Lonely-Place-York-Review-Books/dp/1681371472
Revisiting In A Lonely Place
The New York Review of Books has recently reissued Dorothy Hughes' novel "In a Lonely Place". The novel is also included in a Library of America two-volume set of "Women Crime Writers" of the 1940s and 1950s. I had read and reviewed the novel in the 1940s volume of that set and in an earlier paperback edition of the book. In 1950, the novel was made into a celebrated film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. I had the good fortune to see the film last year as part of a noir film festival. The movie differs substantially from the book. Those familiar with both the book and the film frequently disagree on which they prefer. I prefer the book.
Hughes' book is one of the first novelistic explorations of a serial killer. The primary character, Dix Steele, had been a fighter pilot stationed in England during WW II. Hughes introduces the reader to Dix as he wanders the streets on the outskirts of Los Angeles on a rainy foggy September evening looking for a young woman to rape and murder. The first potential victim evades him, but he soon finds another. The plot is complicated when Dix reconnects with his former Air Force buddy Brub Nicholai, and his lovely and perceptive wife Sylvia. Brub has become a detective who is investigating the murders of young women which, unknown to him, his old friend Dix has committed. A loner who suppresses his feelings of violent rage, Dix has become involved with a young divorced redhead, Laura, with a flair for high living. Dix's passion for Laura leads to his downfall.
Although narrated in the third person, Hughes' novel manages to get inside the mind and heart of Dix Steele. Hughes' taut, hardboiled writing makes the reader understand her chilling character and almost feel sympathy for him. Even with his old friendship with Brub and his attempted love affair with Laura, Dix is an essential loner and a killer, wandering the streets and isolated beaches at night, driving his car through the rain, and plotting his murders. Here is one of many passages in which the author gets inside her character as Dix remembers a woman he had loved while stationed in England.
"He drove away not knowing where he was going or why. Only to get away. He did not know how far he drove or how long. There was no thinking in his mind; there was only sound, the swish of the dark wet water over the cold sand, colder than Brucie; the water was the voice of a girl, a voice hushed by fear, repeating over and over, no ... no .. no. Fear wasn't a jagged split of light cleaving you; fear wasn't a cold fist in your entrails; fear wasn't something you could face and demolish with your arrogance. Fear was the fog, creeping about you, winding its tendrils about you, seeping into your pores and flesh and bone. Fear was a girl whispering a word over and again, a small word you refused to hear although the whisper was a scream in your ears, a dreadful scream you could never forget. You heard it over and again and the fog was a ripe red veil you could not tear away from your eyes. Brucie was dead. Brucie whom he had loved, who was his only love."
The novel gives a portrayal of the anomie that affected many young men after they returned from the war, including those who undertook to live productive lives. The book also portrays Los Angeles in the late 1940s. However this is primarily a work of noir as it portrays the mind of a serial murderer.
The Library of America compilation of women crime writers includes a biographical sketch of Dorothy Hughes (1904 1993) Hughes began her writing career as a journalist and a poet: a 1931 volume "Dark Certainty" won the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Beginning in 1940, Hughes wrote a long series of suspense novels. She was named a "Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America" in 1978. In her later years, she wrote a biography of Eric Stanley Gardner. Although many readers find feminist themes in "In a Lonely Place", Hughes was skeptical about feminism.
I found "In a Lonely Place" an outstanding book which creates suspense and probes the soul. Both the Library of America and the New York Review of Books deserve credit for making this novel available and accessible to readers.
The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud, author
Picador
https://www.picador.com
9781447289418, $25.00 hc / $11.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-Children-Claire-Messud/dp/030726419X
Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children"
Claire Messud's novel, "The Emperor's Children" (2006) is a challenging, if only partially successful, satire of modern urban secularism set in New York City in 2001. In part a comedy of manners and in part a novel of ideas, the book deals diffusely with the pretensions and difficulties of intellectual life.
There are two interrelated groups of central characters in the novel. The first group consists of two people: Murray Thwaite, an aging liberal writer and social critic whose opinions and publications have come to command a nation-wide following. Thwaite's wife is an attorney with a career and life of her own, as she specializes in representing troubled young people. Thwaite has a manuscript in his desk which he hopes to publish someday setting forth in aphoristic form the insights he believes he has won over the years into the good life. Thwaite is also a philanderer and becomes involved, in this book, with a 30 year old woman named Danielle, discussed below. Twaite has a nephew, Frederick "Booty" Tubb who has dropped out of college and who reads writers including Emerson and Robert Musil. Thwaite hires Booty as a private secretary, and Booty betrays this trust by writing a highly uncomplimentary article based upon Twaite's draft and unpublished manuscript and on his observations of Thaite's private life.
The second group of main characters consists of three college friends who are about 30 years of age. Thwaite's daughter Mariana is an aspiring writer who has been struggling for several years to complete a book on children's clothing and its impact on society's view of people. Her friend Danielle is an aspiring producer of documentaries. Their common friend Julius is a free-lance writer who struggles to get by writing reviews. (shades of Amazon reviewing!) Each of the three characters is unmarried as the story opens. Marina and Danielle become rivals for the attention of Ludovic Seely, an Australian who has moved to New York to found a satirical magazine critical of pretension. Seely marries Marina, in the hope of furthering his prospects, and Danielle becomes involved in an affair with Thwaite. Julius is gay and in the midst of what will prove to be an unhappy and destructive relationship.
The plotting in the book is awkward and the scenes of New York City life are not strikingly drawn. But I found the book provocative as a novel of ideas, and this in some measure redeemed it for me. The characters in the story each have their strengths and weaknesses, but they all tend to be self-centered. More importantly, they tend to be, even the successful Murray Thwaite, individuals suffering from a sense of uncertainty in finding a meaning in their lives. Messud writes about the respective situations of the characters without offering any easy answers in a way I found helpful.
In her look at the unfulfilling lives of her characters, Messud alludes many times to two factors I found striking. The first was the professed atheism or agnosticism of every character in the book which, Messud suggests, may have more than a little to do with their vacillating sense of life. But Messud offers a complex vision in which a return to religion is not a panacea. In one of the best moments of the novel, when Thwaite's wife has to interrupt a family holiday to help a young man who has been arrested, she declines to advise the troubled youth to turn to religion as a possible way to mitigate his troubles. Even if religion could be shown to help in such cases, she says, she is a nonbeliever herself, and would not feel she was acting properly in recommending a possible course of action in which she did not herself believe to a young person she was charged with helping. In the discussions of religion and secularity in the book, Messud explores an issue that remains troubling to many people.
The second factor that Messud explores with some subtlety involves gender issues. Messud makes a great deal of the liberal paterfamilias, Murray Twaite and his paternalism and philandering. But she has much more to offer than this somewhat tired critique. The young people in the book all show, at the age of 30, the greatest difficulty in establishing lasting heterosexual relationships. Julius is involved in a gay relationship and remarks at one point that the advantage of such arrangements is that the couple makes its own rules, free of what he claims to be the biases of society. His relationship unravels dramatically, but the point he tries to make about gay relationships seems to apply to all male-female relationships in a modernistic age: the couples make their own rules without standards to help or guide them. (The tie-in with secularism here is, I think, strong.) There is a feeling of sadness in this book that at the age of 30 both Danielle and Marina are floundering in the careers and have shown their inability to make a lasting sexual and loving connection for themselves.
I found a strong temptation in reading this book to see the author as suggesting a return to religion and to a sense of stable, nonfeminist gender expectations as part of a solution to the problems she develops in the book. (Most satire is fundamentally conservative.) But as she develops the character of "Booty" and to some extent the character of Murray Thwaite, I think she turns away from this conservative position. The book left me with the feeling, as she states in several places, that every person must make his or her own way in life. The lodestars are the authors to which Booty is devoted: Emerson, the prototypical American with his sense of the person creating himself anew and Musil, the modernist with his sense of ambiguity and of the difficulty of fixity. This is not a pretty or an easy way but, Messud to me suggests, it is all we have.
This is not a pretty or an easy book. But in the issues it explores it is thoughtful. Readers who are interested in sharper satirical portraits of intellectual life in New York City might enjoy the novels of Dawn Powell, whose works are available in the Library of America series.
This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans
Neil Chatelain, author
Savas Beatie
https://www.savasbeatie.com
9781611217773, $16.89 pbk / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/This-Great-Contest-Afloat-Coastline/dp/1611217776
An Overview Of The Navy In The Civil War
The war on the water in the Civil War often does not get the attention it deserves. Neil P. Chatelain's recent book, "This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans" (2026) offers a succinct yet detailed overview of the broad scope of naval Civil War activity for both Union and Confederacy. Naval actions both began and ended the War, and they were sometimes global in scope. More than 100,000 sailors were engaged. Chatelain, an associate professor of history at Lone Star College-- North Harris, Texas has written extensively on naval activity in the Civil War, including his book, "Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley, 1861--1865" (2020), which covers one of the four theaters of naval activity discussed in this new book.
Chatelain wants to show how naval activity was integrated into the war effort of both sides and yet had a character of its own. Towards that end, he develops four theaters of the war, indicated in the book's subtitle, which differ from the theaters (East, West, Trans-Mississippi) usually identified in land action. The four theaters Chatelain identifies are 1. The Union blockade and Confederate efforts to break it; 2. The Littoral war, involving attacks on coastal fortresses and cities, such as New Orleans or Mobile; 3. The Riverine war. involving the fight for control of the Mississippi River and its tributaries; and 4. the Ocean war which gave the conflict a world-wide dimension. The Ocean war included the Confederacy's efforts to interfere with Union commerce, but included much more. Chatelain's book consists of four parts, one for each theater, with each part consisting of four chapters. The book also includes a Foreword by the late Dwight S. Hughes, 17 maps by cartographer Edward Alexander, over 150 historical photographs, and three appendices discussing African American sailors, naval organization in the Union and Confederacy, and suggestions for visiting naval sites. There is also a brief bibliography for those wishing to read further.
In the Acknowledgements for the book, Chatelain aptly writes that "any single chapter discussed in this book, and indeed many individual paragraphs, warrant its own book-length treatment." For those readers approaching the subject for the first time, the scope and detail of this short book can be overwhelming. In each of the four parts of the book, Chatelain offers substantial detail on the scope and origins of activities in the particular theater, actions of both the Union and Confederacy, and how these actions developed as the war progressed. Probably the most detailed and complex part of the narrative involves the Union blockade. The book discusses, and rightly so, technological developments during the conflict, including an early submarine, torpedoes, and ironclads, which came to have a large role in the conflict as in the famous encounter between the Monitor and the Virginia. The many scenes of litoral conflict get described briefly with the Union's 1863 attempt to capture Charleston receiving a chapter of its own. Confederate and the lesser-known Union activities on the high seas are discussed including the surrender of the Confederate ship, Shenandoah in Liverpool on November 6, 1865, the last act of surrender in the war. The Shenandoah had the distinction of being the only Confederate ship to circumnavigate the globe.
It might be easy to get lost at sea, so to speak, in the scope, detail and learning presented in this book. The broad story of naval activity is enlivened by the photographs and by the many specific human interest stories presented in Chatelain's account. If there is a single lesson to be learned from this history, it is that the army and the navy were not separate, autonomous rival entities, although occasionally they thought they were. On both the Union and Confederate side, Army and Navy had to work together for the ends they had in view. Naval activity was integral to the conduct of the war and to its result. Chatelain concludes his study:
"The Civil War was fought and decided on land. ... The naval elements of the war, however, should not be forgotten. Blockade-runners sustained Confederate armies with weapons, while the blockade gradually wore down that system. ..... Securing the Mississippi River would have been impossible without naval cooperation. .... Though the Anaconda Plan was never officially adopted, it became the strategy that defeated the Confederacy. Without the U.S. Navy, the Anaconda Plan would never have been realized."
This book is part of the Emerging Civil War Series designed to offer "compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War's most important battles and stories." The publisher, Savas Beatie, kindly sent me a review copy.
Robin Friedman
Reviewer
Suanne Schafer's Bookshelf
Liberty Street
Heather Marshall
Ballantine Books
c/o Penguin Random House
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com
9780593975510, $20.00 pbk / $11.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Street-Novel-Heather-Marshall-ebook/dp/B0FRFL674P
Liberty Street is a dual-time line, dual POV novel chronicling the abuses done to women in the fictional Mercer Women's Prison. In the 1960s timeline, Emily Radcliffe is an editorial assistant at Chatelaine magazine, mentored by her boss, feminist Doris Anderson. An anonymous note is smuggled from the prison and ends up at the Chatelaine office, Emily who wants to follow in her war-correspondent father's footsteps, persuades her boss to allow Emily to go undercover in the prison. The cub reporter hopes to follow in the footsteps of the American journalist, Nelly Bly.
In the 1990s time frame, Detective Rachel Mackenzie investigates remains of a unidentified young woman found in an unmarked grave in an Ontario cemetery. Rachel has a rocky family history, and the case brings back her own unresolved issues regarding her mentally-ill mother.
I have read Nelly Bly's memoir Ten Days in a Madhouse, and the descriptions of the atrocities performed in Mercer Women's Prison are consistent with those described by Bly. I enjoyed Liberty Street a great deal and would heartily recommend it as both a reminder of how poorly women have been treated throughout history and cautionary tale about the future if fascism continues its unwarranted stripping of human rights around the globe.
Westerly
Susan Donovan Bernhard
https://www.susanbernhard.com
Little A
https://amazonpublishing.amazon.com/little-a.html
9781662537899, $16.99 pbk / $5.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Westerly-Novel-Susan-Donovan-Bernhard-ebook/dp/B0FXY42CF8
I loved Susan Donovan Bernhard's debut novel, Winter Loon, because of its rich characterization and flawless prose. When I learned she has a new book coming out, I was thrilled.
As in Winter Loon, in Westerly Bernhard writes of family secrets. She also uses a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of crumbs, including character nicknames like "Faye" and "Pixie" to pull in a sense of Irish fairy tales to reinforce a theme of changelings and another world beneath the real one. This is similar to her recurrent use of the winter loon, weather, nature, and Native American myths to reflect and contrast with her characters in Winter Loon.
In Westerly, two German sisters are taken from an orphanage in Germany during World War II and given to an Irish family to foster. A tragedy pulls the sisters apart and begins long-running secrets that the two hide for fifty years. Knowing the secret and what it might do to their families, the reader waits for that secret shoe to drop. Though plenty of shoes drop, when the secret is finally revealed, it's not quite when or how the reader would have predicted. The secrets keep mothers from truly loving their children and thus affect generations beyond their own. One of the best things about Westerly is the positive image of the father and grandfather who are able to give their daughters and granddaughters love that their female role models can't quite muster.
Overall, a truly lovely book, well worth reading.
Suanne Schafer, Reviewer
www.SuanneSchaferAuthor.com
Susan Bethany's Bookshelf
Art Is How God Loves Us: The Sacred Beauty of Created Things
Merideth Hite Estevez
Broadleaf Books
www.broadleafbooks.com
9798889836452, $26.99, HC, 193pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Art-How-God-Loves-Us/dp/B0G6TGQDVX
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/art-is-how-god-loves-us-merideth-hite-estevez/1148951611
Synopsis: "Art Is How God Loves Us: The Sacred Beauty of Created Things" is a radiant exploration of art as a spiritual gateway by Juilliard-trained oboist, writer, and creative coach Merideth Hite Estevez who beautifully illustrates how a spiritual perspective on art guides us toward our Creator and our most authentic selves.
Through stories of music, visual art, nature, and everyday life, Estevez reveals how beauty and brokenness alike can become places of divine connection. Whether standing before van Gogh's olive trees, listening to Brahms in a moment of doubt, or witnessing the chaos of parenting, we see how God's love is expressed through the creative process--both for those who appreciate art and for those who create it.
Estevez redefines art not as a measure of talent but as "Atoms Responding to Transcendence"--a way God speaks, heals, and draws us closer. With poetic language and theological depth, she encourages us to see ourselves as works of art: beloved, unfinished, and held by a Creator who never stops creating.
Critique: Enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of reflective exercises ("Ars Nova"), a study guide, a creative creed, six pages of Notes, and a one page listing of Featured Works of Art, Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez's "Art Is How God Loves Us: The Sacred Beauty of Created Things" is ideal reading for anyone wanting to personally reconnect with joy, beauty, and divine presence through the various forms of artistic expression and creation. A resonating celebration of creativity as communion and a call to live as God's art in the world, "Art Is How God Loves Us" is inspirational, transformative, and unreservedly recommended for personal, community, and college/university library collections. It should be noted that this hardcover edition of "Art Is How God Loves Us" from Broadleaf Books is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99).
Editorial Note: Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez (https://artistsforjoy.org) is a coach, educator, oboist, and author of The Artist's Joy. Through her workshops, her award-winning podcast Artists for Joy, and her one-to-one coaching, she is a spiritual space-maker for artists, leading thousands in various fields to creative recovery. Dr. Estevez has performed with top orchestras and holds degrees in oboe from The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. She is also a Certified Start with Heart Facilitator.
Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents
Valerie Fridland
Viking Books
c/o Penguin Group USA
www.penguin.com
9780593830482, $32.00, HC, 320pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Talk-Funny-Accents/dp/0593830482
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/why-we-talk-funny-valerie-fridland/1147869469
Synopsis: Accents have long held our fascination. As far back as the 7th century BCE, Egyptian pharaohs experimented with babies to test out theories about the "original" accent and the Old Testament relays how a small difference in the pronunciation of "s" became a fatal litmus test of tribal belonging. Still today, from dinner parties to job interviews, you will find people kicking up dust about things like where and how to pronounce a 't,' as in, never in "often," but with proper British poshness, as in "t(y)une."
With the publication of "Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents", Professor of Linguistics Valerie Fridland unlocks the secrets of what linguistic science, psychology and history can tell us about the evolution of human speech, why accents develop, and how they shape our professional and social lives.
With a healthy dose of her signature humor and captivating anecdotes, Fridland explores how the twin forces of physiology and psychology along with the need to fit in changes the trajectory of speech over languages and lifetimes, diving deep into the history and social forces driving the way people talk. Along the way, she emphasizes that accents don't always set us apart, they can also bring us together.
Whether it's the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we've been - even for those who might think they have no accent at all.
The story of language is the story of humanity, and as Professor Fridland reminds us, the funny sounds we make (whether from the mouths of ancient ancestors or the tongues of screenbound teens) all come from the same powerful desire to communicate and belong. "Why We Talk Funny" will change the way you think about your own accent -- and transform the way you listen to the sounds of others.
Critique: Impressively original, exceptionally informative, thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, "Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents" is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended pick for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Linguistics & Popular Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of "Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents" from Viking Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99).
Editorial Note: Valerie Fridland (https://www.valeriefridland.com) is the author of Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English, and a professor of linguistics in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. She writes a popular language blog on Psychology Today called "Language in the Wild," and is a professor in The Great Courses series.
Susan Bethany
Reviewer
Willis Buhle's Bookshelf
Boldest Scientific Formula of God and Creation
Nathanael-Israel Israel
www.Israel120.com
Science180
www.Science180.com
9781969961014, $14.00, PB, 170pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Boldest-Scientific-Formula-God-Creation/dp/1969961015
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boldest-scientific-formula-of-god-and-creation-nathanael-israel-israel/1149956014
Synopsis: For decades, science has operated under the framework of evolution, the Big Bang, and other theories that exclude God. Even so, science has helped humankind to address countless problems and improve lives in many ways.
Although some of them were mistaken, religious people have also helped solve many problems. But with the publication of "Boldest Scientific Formula of God and Creation: Live Better by Quickly Mastering the Only Scientific Theory That Evolution, Big Bang, AI, and Some Religions Desperately Ache You Ignore", Nathanael-Israel Israel shows that we were missing a huge part of the big picture.
His study is a reminder that science is a process of constant refinement. Now, the real work begins: understanding this new theory so we can keep saving lives.
"Boldest Scientific Formula of God and Creation", offers the only scientific formula that:
Against all odds, shockingly cracked the universe's origin at the demystified crossroads of science and faith
If understood, could always cause you to get the scientific proof of God's existence right, therefore freeing your mind from wrong assumptions and improving your health
Solved the biggest question at the intersection of reason and religion and proved that the Earth was formed in 2.82 days, the Moon in 3.32 days, and the Sun in 3.69 days after the universe began, therefore exploding the billions-of-years theory myths
Destroyed the alleged oil-and-water relationship between faith and science, and helps you save money and time
Revealed the new approach to rationality and belief that will change your life forever by helping you to discover and demonstrate God scientifically
Helps you to protect and equip children with an easy-to-understand story of the universe's origin so they can face life challenges with peace of mind
Atheists and all other freethinkers scrutinize and seeking to know more about God
Scientifically prove which religion or faith is incorrect, and live happily
Critique: Original, erudite, deftly crafted, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "Boldest Scientific Formula of God and Creation: Live Better by Quickly Mastering the Only Scientific Theory That Evolution, Big Bang, AI, and Some Religions Desperately Ache You Ignore" will be of particular value to readers with an interest in the subject of science and religion, faith and reason, empirical knowledge and faith-based believe. This paperback edition of "Boldest Scientific Formula of God and Creation" is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, seminary, and college/university library Philosophy/Religion collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note: Dr. Nathanael-Israel Israel (www.Israel120.com) is known as the first person in the world to discover the mathematical equations that scientifically demonstrated that the Earth was formed 2.82 days, the Moon 3.32 days, and the Sun 3.69 days after the beginning of the universe, therefore confirming the intersection of science and the Biblical account of creation.
Israel In and Out of Egypt, updated edition
James K. Hoffmeier
Hendrickson Publishers
c/o Tyndale House Publishers
www.tyndale.com
9798400518003, $59.95, PB, 504pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Out-Egypt-Archaeological-Historical/dp/B0FD7PZ7M9
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/israel-in-and-out-of-egypt-james-k-hoffmeier/1147629388
Synopsis: Did the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt really happen, or is it just an ancient mythological narrative?
Deepen your knowledge of Old Testament history with the updated archaeological evidence and expert scholarship to be found in "Israel In and Out of Egypt: The Archaeological and Historical Background to the Exodus" as Professor James K. Hoffmeier examines the most current Egyptological evidence and argues that it indeed supports the biblical record concerning this famous biblical account.
Over the past thirty or more years, scholars of the Hebrew Bible have been questioning the historical accuracy of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt as described in the book of Exodus. The reason for this rejection of the Exodus tradition is due to an alleged lack of historical and archaeological evidence in Egypt of this event. Those advancing these claims, however, are not specialists in the study of Egyptian history, culture, or archaeology.
In this new and updated edition of his pioneering book, Professor Hoffmeier examines the most current Egyptological evidence and argues that it supports the biblical record concerning Israel in Egypt. This updated edition also includes new and relevant archaeological data discovered at archaeological sites critical to the geography of the Exodus such as:
Qantir (Rameses)
Tell Retaba (Pithom)
Tell el-Maskhuta (Succoth)
These new discoveries help clarify some of the chronological issues and settle problems that align with traditional biblical history. In addition to important discoveries in the Isthmus of Suez, excavations at Tell el-Borg in north Sinai now shed new light on passages from the book of Exodus.
Critique: This new edition of "Israel In and Out of Egypt: The Archaeological and Historical Background to the Exodus" features maps, line drawings, and images, as well as new and relevant archaeological data from sites critical to the geography of the Exodus. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Israel In and Out of Egypt: The Archaeological and Historical Background to the Exodus" is an ideal and unreservedly recommended choice as a curriculum textbook for seminary and graduate level Biblical archaeology studies, but also a valuable resource for Christians and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject. It should be noted for personal reading lists that this trade paperback edition of "Israel In and Out of Egypt: The Archaeological and Historical Background to the Exodus" from Hendrickson Publishers is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $59.99).
Editorial Note: Dr. James K. Hoffmeier is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He was an archaeological editor for the English Standard Version Study Bible, and his books include Israel in Egypt: Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1997), Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2005), and The Archaeology of the Bible (Oxford: Lion, 2008).He directed excavations at Tell el-Borg, Sinai, from 1998-2008, and has appeared in and served as a consultant for television programs on the Discovery, History, Learning, and National Geographic Channels. Dr. Hoffmeier teaches and lectures regularly across the USA and internationally.
Willis M. Buhle
Reviewer
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
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