Bookshelf

(self-published, 2023)
Writing under the pen name George Garcia, the author spins this heartwarming tale about inclusivity and friendship. Young readers will “wriggle, squiggle and laugh” as the Taliaferro’s niece Clementine convinces a new little friend to go with her to school. 

(New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024)
The latest from the New York Times bestselling author — and the third book in the Crescent City series — House of Flame and Shadow continues the story of Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar, whose relationship is forced to the brink and their world on the verge of destruction as they fight to pull their realm back from ruin. Entertainment Weekly has called the series, “A dizzying, suspenseful whirl that surprises at every turn.”

(New York: NYU Press, 2024)
Described as the first book to examine the American prison system through the eyes of those trapped within it, Inside Knowledge draws from writings collected through the American Prison Writing Archive, which the author founded in 2009. Larson draws from the archive’s first-person narratives created by incarcerated individuals and prison workers to illustrate how mass incarceration does less to contain any harm perpetrated by convicted people than to spread and perpetuate harm among their families and communities.

(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2023)
The publisher notes, “Thin body, white skin, and big eyes. Such beauty ideals are ubiquitous across Shanghai, where salons and weight-loss clinics offering an array of products and treatment options beckon city dwellers with promises of a better life.’ Set against the backdrop of China's post-reform era, Modified Bodies compares the radically different attitudes of middle-class Chinese and Western women living in Shanghai toward the pursuit of beauty. Through comparative ethnography, anthropologist Julie E. Starr parses how experiences of bodies and embodied identities, and the politics ascribed to them, are culturally produced for both groups of women. With a focus on the ways in which late capitalism interacts with different bodies, Starr joins an ongoing conversation about the impact of recent economic reforms on social life in China.”

(New York: Poets of Queens, 2023)
According to the publisher, “Moving between narrative and reflection, and reveling in the genre of the long poem, Robert Kaplan uses detailed imagery to invite the reader into a slice of 1980s New York City: the urban landscape, the national politics, gay exuberance and loss, and, weaving throughout, the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. The title poem, “Past/Present,” which is the first half of the book, sprawls through layers of time, failed romance, geographic movement, and growing self-awareness as the narrator sheds multiple selves to find his core. The poems in the second half of the book (re)create a sensory and personal landscape which becomes a metaphorical and meditative platform upon which to address questions of memory, identity, relationships, and how to navigate through an increasingly unstable world.”

(self-published, 2023)
Bringing us closer to our natural environment, this book chronicles life in the forest through stunning photos and artful poetry. Its authors are a highly acclaimed team of photographers and poets from Europe and the United States. According to the author, “… explore the metamorphoses of bugs transforming bygone life into new creations, find solace and guidance from the river's secrets, unlock natural therapies from ancient trees talking with fungi, or take a deep breath of fresh air as leaves breathe and flowers speak.”

  (New York: Del Rey, 2023)
“A rebellious young heroine begins a voyage of self-discovery in the third novel of an epic fantasy series set in the world of Viridian Deep, from the legendary author of the Shannara saga.” So says the publisher of Brooks’ latest work, which tells the story of Char, a girl who runs away from home a month before her 15th birthday to join a Human pirate crew. Her new life leads to love, a daring rescue attempt and “an adventure that will uncover secrets she never suspected about herself, one that will maybe, finally, teach her to look before she leaps.”

(Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2024).

According to the publisher, “Imperial Rome privileged the elite male citizen as one of sound mind and body, superior in all ways to women, noncitizens, and nonhumans. One of the markers of his superiority was the power of his voice, both literal (in terms of oratory and the legal capacity to represent himself and others) and metaphoric, as in the political power of having a “voice” in the public sphere. Muteness in ancient Roman society has thus long been understood as a deficiency, both physically and socially. In this volume, Koenig deftly confronts the trope of muteness in imperial Roman literature, arguing that this understanding of silence is incomplete. By unpacking the motif of voicelessness across a wide range of written sources, she shows that the Roman perception of silence was more complicated than a simple binary and that elite male authors used muted or voiceless characters to interrogate the concept of voicelessness in ways that would be taboo in other contexts.”

(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2023)
The author, Carleton College’s William H. Laird Professor of German and the Liberal Arts, Emeritus, shares this three-volume catalog of a major collection of books he assembled over the past four decades. According to the publisher: “This catalog of an unparalleled private collection of Rubaiyat-related books and materials describes more than 7,000 items and includes color illustrations of over 2,000 book covers. Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam — first published anonymously in 1859 — was by the early 20th century the most popular literary work in the English language. Only the Bible was printed more frequently. The Rubaiyat became such an integral part of the very fabric of English-speaking culture that by 1900 people were speaking generally of a veritable Omar cult.

(Baker Academic, Ada, Mich. 2023)
“One reason the Bible has endured for millennia is its ability to reach our common humanness and give uplifting insights about struggle, resilience, and hope,” notes the book jacket. Inside, readers find candid, personal insights from the author, an Old Testament scholar, that “help readers engage biblical texts with both mind and heart — to learn the Bible’s stories, explore theological ideas, question common assumptions, develop interpretive skills, and grow in their own faith.” According to Publishers Weekly, this book “Tackles scripture from a broad-thinking, feminist perspective. ... Smart and impressive.”