Bookshelf

(Sundress Publications, 2025).

The publisher provides this description: “Tales from Manila Ave. traces the joys and struggles of Filipino immigrants as they navigate life and ponder identity outside their motherland. Through touching reflections on community and memory, Patrick Joseph Caoile’s debut collection takes an honest yet playful look into the intricacies of longing and belonging. Tenants gather to swap meals and stories, workers strive to prove their worth, sons and daughters revisit their relationships with faith, patriotism, and their own parents. These connections span generations, and in crossing both time and distance, urge us to observe what is lost or changed in the translation.

(Aladdin/Simon & Schuster, 2025).

In a world where despotic sorcerers use their magic to control and intimidate, young Fiora Barrowling finds herself embroiled in the human resistance movement after a fateful encounter. At the resistance academy, she learns to fight and struggles with belonging, all while contending with a possible infiltrator leaking information to the sorcerers. Kirkus describes the book as “breathless” and “a lightning blast of futuristic fantasy.”

(self-published, 2025).

The author asks readers to ponder several questions:

Does your organization feel like it’s running but not really going anywhere?

Have you experienced any of the following: strategic plans that sit untouched in binders; an overflowing calendar yet a sense of an unaccomplished mission; a passionate team that burns out faster than it can recover; fundraising that looks good on paper, but with an impact that feels ... shallow?

(NASPA, 2025).

According to the publisher, “Well-Being Leadership in Higher Education is a groundbreaking guide that reimagines how colleges and universities can center well-being as a strategic priority to enhance student success and institutional effectiveness. Blending theory, research, and practice, this timely volume brings together a wide range of voices from across higher education — student affairs leaders, chief wellness officers, clinicians, and faculty — who share powerful insights and actionable strategies for leading transformative well-being initiatives. Readers will find field-tested approaches for assessing and evaluating outcomes, creating integrated models of care, and engaging students as key stakeholders in shaping campus cultures of health and wellness. As higher education continues to respond to the growing mental health crisis, this book offers a compelling call to action and a clear roadmap for embedding well-being into policies, programs, and daily practice.”

(Harper Muse, 2025).

“Uncle Dixon always told Rennie to tell the bees everything, but somewhere along the way, Rennie forgot. Now, with her life at its lowest, she begins to see the bees in a new light. Will she believe again in the magic of the hives, and will she listen as the bees try to guide her home?”

(Ascend Books, 2025).

People are like redwood trees? Dogs? Porcupines, even? Rabbi Michael Zedek shares how in a refreshing, humorous style that connects with young readers and their families. The illustrated stories in this slim volume inspire empathy and compassion as well as meaningful conversations that remind us we still have room and time to grow no matter our age.

(StarTracker Publishing, 2025).

What if reading one short story each week could guide you closer to the life you were meant to live? This inspiring collection is designed to do just that — help you to slow down, reconnect with yourself, and rediscover the simple joys in everyday life.

(The Troy Book Makers, 2025).

One reviewer had this to say about the author’s third book of poetry: “Bernini's Selected Poems cover lots of ground. They are masterful examples of the ‘poet-as-guide,’ assisting the reader in a spiritual exploration of life’s varied terrain. Insightful, funny, educational, awesome wordsmithery.”

(Fordham University Press, 2026).

As we consider our relationship with the planet in the age of climate change, David Morris asks: Can we continue to be mere stewards of nature, or could parks help us reimage our role as participants inseparable from the natural world?

(Little Creek Press, 2024/2025).

Following Who Are You? (2022), the first book in Bob Lund’s Lake Superior Trilogy, come these final installments where cliffhangers and unresolved issues come to a head with sometimes deadly consequences.