Bookshelf

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)
According to the publisher, “While levels of religious belief and observance are declining in much of the Western world, the number of people who identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’ is on the rise. Practices such as yoga, meditation, and pilgrimage are surging in popularity. ‘Wellness’ regimes offer practitioners a lexicon of spirituality and an array of spiritual experiences. Commentators talk of a new spiritual awakening ‘after religion.’ And global mobility is generating hybrid practices that blur the lines between religion and spirituality.”

The essays collected in this book examine not only individual engagements with spirituality, but also show how seemingly personal facets of spirituality are deeply shaped by religious, cultural, and political contexts.

(Duke University Press, 2021)
Part of the Refiguring American Music series, this book builds on archival research and oral history interviews, conducted in France, Senegal, and the United States, that examine the popularization of African American music in postwar France and the Francophone world where it signaled new forms of power and protest. By showing how the popularity of African American music was intertwined with contemporary structures of racism and imperialism, the author demonstrates this music's centrality to postwar France and the convergence of decolonization, the expanding globalized economy, the Cold War, and worldwide liberation movements.

One reviewer notes, “Celeste Day Moore takes us on a dazzling and deeply researched tour through the soundscapes and multisensory experiences of the Francophone Black world.”

(Middletown, Del.: BestSellingBook.com, 2021)
Often people realize that a lack of diversity is a problem in their companies, but they don’t have the vocabulary, or tools, to address it effectively. An organizational development expert and consultant, the author explains how middle managers are key to achieving more inclusive, welcoming, and productive workplace environments.

“[Managers] hire new employees, push for their promotions, liaise with senior executives, and affect who decides to stay and leave,” Kalaw writes. “Unlike the executive suite, they’re interacting with employees at various levels and can directly take part in bringing in more diverse employees or carrying out a company’s DEI vision.”

Written in a straightforward, conversational tone, the book includes best practices, helpful exercises, and strategies that managers can put into place immediately to mitigate implicit bias and encourage a culture of active allyship.

(Somerville, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2020)
Little Ernestine is getting ready to go camping for the first time. It’s going to be great … isn’t it? In this delightful children’s book, both written and illustrated by Jennifer Mann ’85, we are all reminded that opening our minds to new experiences, no matter how challenging, can lead to great memories. Described by the author as a hybrid picture book/comic, The Camping Trip has received numerous honors ranging from the Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best List to the Washington State Book Award. The author lives in the Pacific Northwest.

(Oakland, Calif.: University of California Press, 2020)
According to the publisher, this book offers “a new history of what it meant to shoot, edit, and sell news images after World War II” and unravels the mythology surrounding Magnum Photos, a photographers’ cooperative founded in the middle of the 20th century.

“Bair shows that between the 1940s and 1960s, Magnum expanded the human-interest story to global dimensions while bringing the aesthetic of news pictures into new markets” and “made photojournalism integral to postwar visual culture,” the publisher adds. “By unpacking the collaborative nature of photojournalism, [the] book shows how picture editors, sales agents, spouses, and publishers helped Magnum photographers succeed in their assignments and achieve fame.”

The book, the author’s first, was named winner of the Association of American Publishers’ 2021 PROSE Award.

(Dublin, Ohio: Telemachus Press, 2021)
This sweeping novel, the author’s first, uses the flashback/present style to tell the story of Hank Miller in the late days of the Wild West. While most cowboys ride off into the sunset, Miller’s path is more complicated. As the book jacket notes, the protagonist “survives the Civil War, Texas-sized desperados, and the great San Francisco earthquake. With a debt to pay, Hank will place himself and his twin sons in great danger in a new, wild and untamed frontier — Morocco!”

Several fans of the book are hinting at sequels. We’ll have to wait and see! Herrman is a retired physician who lives with his wife in California.

(Kirksville, Mo.: Golden Antelope Press, 2022)
Described as a “story of dispossession, refuge, and the search for justice and humanity,” this novel focuses on two Jewish families in the impending days of the Holocaust — specifically a little girl “kindertransported” to England to be raised by a foster family and a butcher’s apprentice who changes his identity and escapes to England to join the British Army.

The publisher notes, “The novel could be complete and coherent without its ‘third man’ frame, but the Prologue and Epilogue references to the famous 1949 noir film are distinctive and imaginative; they deepen the significance of the several other episodes. In the end, [the male protagonist] recognizes the similarities between himself and the film’s Harry Lime (as grifters who sometimes did questionable things). But he also identifies with his own ‘third man, the one he has tracked with revenge in mind. He recognizes that this man might have been evil, but might instead have been a ‘poor fool like himself, neither good nor evil, just a confused human being trying to muddle his way through this life.’”

The novel is inspired by Splitter’s family. His parents fled Vienna in 1938 a few years before his birth. He is a retired English professor who has written screenplays, made short films, and published short stories, novels, and a psychoanalytic study of Marcel Proust.

(New York: Routledge, 2021)
Written for a general audience, this book proceeds in a sequence of 26 brief “riffs” on topics ranging from singing cowboys and pop songs to postmodern philosophers and climate-driven homelessness. The author argues that “wandering, as a primal and recurrent human experience, is basic to the understanding of certain literary texts. In turn, certain prominent literary and cultural texts (from Paradise Lost to pop songs, from Wordsworth to the blues, from the Wandering Jew to the film Nomadland) demonstrate how representations of wandering have changed across cultures, times, and genres.”

Morris is emeritus professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of two prize-winning books in 18th-century studies and is known for contributions in pain medicine.

(Yaoundé, Cameroon: Editions Ifrikiya, 2021)
In this collection of articles, the author describes Werewere-Liking as “a multitalented artiste … a novelist, a poet, a playwright, a dancer, a choreographer, a painter, a movie maker, and a singer.” One of the first female Francophone writers of African literature, she has taught at the University of Abidjan in West Africa and other universities around the world.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Village Ki-Yi, a school of arts founded by Werewere-Liking that trains mostly underprivileged children, scholars around the world shared articles on various aspects of Werewere-Liking’s multifaceted work, which are gathered in this book.

(New York: Catapult Press, 2020)
The author of eight novels and three collections of stories brings us this tale of an American couple who travel to a snowy European city to adopt a baby. Complicating their mission is the wife’s increasingly debilitative illness, which makes them concerned that the orphanage will not release their child. During their stay at a once glorious but now fading grand hotel, they encounter a strange cast of characters. Publishers Weekly notes, “[A] dreamlike, resonant fable ... Cameron doles out the right amount of eeriness and eccentricity ... emotionally affecting.”