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Table of Contents
Reviewer's Choice
Letters to the Human Race... From the Cat
Vicky Halls
Cassell
c/o Octopus Publishing
www.octopusbooksusa.com
9781788405546, $14.99 PB, $6.99 Kindle, 160pp
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Human-Race-Cat-frustrations/dp/1788405544
Letters to the Human Race... From the Cat is the perfect gift for a cat lover who 'has everything.' They likely won't have this fine book, reminiscent of Paul Gallico's classic cat's perspective of life, The Silent Meow. The cat narrator's 'fellow felines and I' have put paw to keyboard to produce a series of letters covering common cat care errors that humans are prone to making. From being compelled to eat things not normally edible (a real condition identified by humans as "pica") to playing appropriate killing games with kitties, Letters to the Human Race... From the Cat offers hilarious food for thought in a title highly recommended for libraries and gifting to cat servants alike.
The Business Shelf
Business Warfare
Paulo Cardoso do Amaral
Armin Lear Press
https://arminlear.com
9781963271218, $34.95, HC, 404pp
9781963271201, $24.95 PB, $9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Warfare-framework-Clausewitz-Machiavelli/dp/1963271211
Business Warfare offers a framework for revised business approaches based on the philosophies of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Foch, and Machiavelli. While prior familiarity with these thinkers is not a prerequisite (because Paulo Cardoso do Amaral deftly covers their philosophies in the course of his discussion), independent reading will certainly lend a deeper understanding as to why Cardoso do Amaral's building blocks of business revision are so productive and important.
Readers with entrepreneurial interests who already know these ideas will have a leg up on this book's expanded insights and business applications. While they may, for example, know of Sun Tzu's writings, Cardoso do Amaral offers specific applications and extrapolations key to understanding how cultural and business warfare coalesce and clash. Even more importantly, Business Warfare invites a dialogue between business, political, and personal interests which reveals the boundaries of these three intersections and how players in different infrastructures and belief systems interact on many levels.
This, in turn, represents both heady, thought provoking reading and a call to action based on revised perceptions and thinking about all kinds of business and social issues: The five traits mentioned by Sun Tzu constitute a leadership audit to validate the merits covered in Sun Tzu's "Leadership Virtues." It's good to check these before and during battle due to their implicit nature. Some traits only reveal themselves through practice and can significantly influence combat decisions. Therefore, it becomes mandatory correcting any dysfunctions at this level. Please keep in mind the difficulty in being self-aware about tacit shortcomings and the risk of having authoritarian leaders completely immune to feedback and unwilling to evolve their leadership competencies.
By deploying a 'battle strategy' approach to better understand leadership, innovation, and impact, Cardoso do Amaral's multifaceted book evolves within (and possibly even beyond) business special interests, crafting discussions that will prove vivid and unique... especially to business leaders who traditionally receive pat answers and set programs and approaches to achievement from their business reading.
This is why business libraries and college-level discussion groups need to make Business Warfare an essential collection addition. Its juxtaposition of social inquiry, psychological insight, and business applications makes for a standout in business literature, reaching into other disciplines, as well: Humbleness precedes learning because acknowledging unknowns is mandatory, with either a tacit or explicit nature. Without this recognition, learning cannot occur. On the one hand, being humble with explicit knowledge means being honest about ourselves. When we acknowledge what we don't know, it's easy because we can take deliberate action to acquire that knowledge it. But how can we become aware that there is something new to learn when we are unaware of what we should already know? That is why learning is a constant search for the unknown, with humbleness as its cornerstone.
The Marriage Shelf
The Little Black Book of Marriage
Mike Kowis, Esq.
www.mikekowis.com
Lecture PRO Publishing
9798990013360, $9.99 Paperback, $2.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Black-Book-Marriage-Wisdom/dp/B0DFFPB5FK
Quote wizard Mike Kowis is at it again with a succinct but hard-hitting collection of quotes in another collection -- this one centering on marriage. The Little Black Book of Marriage should be prominent on any couple's wedding gift table because its words of wisdom (collected from all manner of writers, from Oscar Wilde and President Abraham Lincoln to novelist Philippa Gregory and sci-fi writer Tamora Pierce) will observe and smooth many a marriage pathway with its insights.
The quotes are organized in themed chapters which move from marriage to divorce, juxtaposing such insights as: "Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed." -Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) with: "I think a lot of people get so obsessed with the wedding and the expense of the wedding that they miss out on what the real purpose is. It's not about a production number, it's about a meaningful moment between two people that's witnessed by people that they actually really know and care about." -Jane Seymour.
The diversity of writers and reflections identifying what marriage is, how it operates for better or for worse, and the foundations of connection and discord which lead to either heady relationships or dysfunctional separation create powerful insights that will be perfect for those already married as well as readers contemplating marriage.
Libraries will find the diversity and attraction of this book extensive. It holds the power to reach out to any patron interested in the institution of marriage, the rigors of commitment and love, and the outcomes of engagement and melding lives.
The Biography/Memoir Shelf
Beyond Everest
Corinne Richardson with Pem Dorjee Sherpa
https://corinnerichardson.com
DartFrog Books
https://dartfrogbooks.com
9781961624856, $15.99
https://corinnerichardson.com/beyond-everest
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Everest-Sherpas-Summit-Nepal/dp/1961624842
Beyond Everest: One Sherpa's Summit and Hope for Nepal is not your usual mountaineering story of scaling the famous mountain, but documents the life of a Sherpa whose summit of Everest saved him from poverty and opened new doors to success. In the course of describing the influences changing this life, Corinne Richardson presents a masterful series of insights into the Nepalese people that combines true-life adventure with personal and cultural insights.
Of special note is her focus on economic conditions, which are largely omitted from similar-sounding Everest stories in favor of an adventure focus. This gives the story added value by surveying poverty, how communities struggle and develop pathways towards better living, and the economic impact of tourism and adventuring on participants and countries hosting exploration opportunities.
Pem Dorjee Sherpa introduces the saga with a note to readers which places his life, culture, and story in perspective. This invites further reading and armchair explorations. Why is his story novel? Because: Many Sherpas have similar stories of hard work and sacrifice, but not many Sherpa stories get told. My story is a bit unique because I was able to overcome the hardship my family was facing and help educate my siblings. Unfortunately, most Sherpas are unable to change their situation because of a lack of education and good paying jobs in Nepal.
The other reason Sherpa stories often remain untold is the language barrier and the need to know English. Enter writer Corinne Richardson, whose abilities made Beyond Everest possible as she follows Pem's life both in Nepal and as an immigrant to the U.S. Corinne's own familiarity with and travels through Nepal gave her an edge of personal experience that Pem found to be the perfect fit for his desire to present his life to a wider audience in a book.
From this association comes a candid third-person review of life in Nepal, with stories personalizing and highlighting social challenges and conditions: In the twenty-first century, girls are still less valued than boys, often preordained to child marriages or sold into the sex trade. Stocking up on groceries requires the same six-day walk. There are still no motorized vehicles in these villages. Commerce, farming and transporting goods from place to place is conducted by foot on the backs of villagers, or by yak or zokyo, a hybrid pack animal, a cross between a yak and a cow.
It's nearly impossible to climb to the top of poverty and leave behind its restrictions, but how Pem did exactly that creates as much insight and adventure as the actual mechanics of mountain climbing. The result is a memoir that holds special excitement for not only adventure-oriented readers, but those who would explore poverty and economic transformation from a more personal (and very different) perspective than most books about Nepalese mountaineering. This is why Beyond Everest is a top recommendation not only for its vivid autobiography and "you are here" feel of explorations and adventures on the mountain, but for its equally compelling social and economic insights off-slope.
Libraries seeking a blend of memoir, adventure story, and socioeconomic exploration will find Beyond Everest widely appealing to a range of patrons. It's also more than suitable for recommendation to book clubs that may not have anticipated that a story about Everest would also prove to be a powerful survey of poverty, achievement, and immigrant experience.
The Fantasy/SciFi Shelf
Baen Books
www.baen.com
Two new science fiction titles from Baen Books are all top picks for personal reading lists and community library collections.
https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Fire-Black-Tide-Rising/dp/1982193611
Jason Cordova's Mountain of Fire (9781982193614, $28.00) builds on John Ringo's Black Tide Rising series, depicting an isolated school that proves a refuge for students who survive a virus that wipes out most of humanity. Zombies and dictators threaten them, staved off by the only surviving nun, Sister Ann, who directs the girls at St. Dominic's Preparatory School in new directions. More than another story of post-apocalyptic survival, however, Mountain of Fire creates a thought-provoking, absorbing story of various forces that require the students to not just rebuild, but rely on one another in new ways. A first person perspective lends to superior character development, intrigue, and observations that keep this survival story extraordinarily absorbing, making it a standout.
https://www.amazon.com/Freelancers-Neptune-Sol-Blazers-Book-ebook/dp/B0D5ZYSX24
Jacob Holo's Freelancers of Neptune (9781982193683, $28.00) is set in the distant future, when Saturn's rings are gone and the entire solar system has been reshaped by AIs who, themselves, are fading into oblivion. In this environment, Captain Kade, a freelancer struggling to maintain his spaceship, encounters a mysterious girl intent on stealing a spaceship. His encounter with her brings trouble to both as they become an unlikely team on the hunt for treasure and, ultimately, survival. Both are fine additions recommended for any sci-fi library.
Baen Books
www.baen.com
New science fiction and fantasy titles from Baen Books are all top picks for personal reading lists and community library collections.
https://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Ascent-Empire-David-Weber/dp/1982193603
Military sci-fi fans are in for a treat with David Weber & Richard Fox's Rebel (9781982193607,$28.00), because it comes packed with action and political jousting, from the simmering emotions of the peoples of the Fringe Worlds to the elite families, The Five Hundred, that have long grown wealthy on the back of a never-ending war. Conspirators, men of honor, and the forces of both the Fringe and The Five Hundred clash with special interests in mind as the Federation teeters on the edge of destruction and the major characters find their associations, secrets, and military might tested. When fighting seems the only option, how can civilians and leaders choose their battles? Military sci-fi enthusiasts will find plenty to relish in Rebel, where heroes are often flawed and not always evident by their actions and choices.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Brothers-Keeper-Tim-Powers/dp/1982192860
My Brother's Keeper by Tim Powers (9781982193706, $18.00) is a wonderful story that's difficult to neatly peg. At once a ghost story, packed with werewolves and powered by the character of a young Emily Bronte, whose rescue of a stranger introduces her to an odd pagan shrine, the story's unexpected twists and turns represents a powerful foray into supernatural intrigue that will delight fans of ghosts, fantasy, and eerie productions.
https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Smoking-Mountain-Chronicles-Hanuvar/dp/1982193670
Shadow of the Smoking Mountain by Howard Andrew Jones (9781982193676, $28.00) is the third book in the Chronicles of Hanuvar series and is highly recommended for prior fans who will appreciate this story's ongoing saga. Here Hanuvar and his band have enjoyed success, but continue to face unexpected adversity with more forces that have learned he is still alive. Secrets, sorcery, gladiator threats, and more battles emerge against the backdrop of smoking mountains and smokingly rich action to keep the story fast-paced and exquisitely complex.
All three of these new titles from Baen Books are highly recommended reads for science fiction and fantasy fans -- and popular picks for community library collections.
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
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