Bookshelf

(Seattle: Marrowstone Press, 2018).
Weltner’s latest book of poetry was inspired while he was reading a lot of Horace and Vergil, ancient Greek lyric and tragic poetry, and ancient Chinese poetry. “Many poems, haiku-like, begin in a landscape that branches quickly into primal terrain, textual and sensual, where the past weaves its spell into a present always on the cusp of slipping away.”

(Other Press, 2019).The winner of numerous honors, including a Kirkus Reviews Best Biography of 2019, this book delves into the life of the French philosopher and writer Denis Diderot, best known for his work creating the first comprehensive Encyclopédie. However, as the author notes on his website, “[Diderot’s] most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity — for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century’s accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.”

(New York: Hachette, 2018).
Drawing from 25 years of experience in both conventional psychology and alternative methods, the author offers advice for seeing the teen years as an opportunity for growth and positive relationship changes. Santangelo, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, asserts that “parents have a far greater impact on conflict with their teen than they may realize, metaphorically handing parents back the power to shift the situation to harmony.”

(New York: Routledge, 2018)
The author examines how, despite the intertwined histories of Africa and Europe, space and place remain racialized, impacting everyday experiences among African Italians, immigrants, and refugees. One reviewer praised Merrill for taking aim at “Italian common sense concerning race, while passionately foregrounding the lives of African migrants and ­Afro-Italians who daily navigate the deadly politics of exclusion.”

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)
The advertising industry has used dance to sell items long before iPods. The author, a professor of dance at California State University, Long Beach, presents an analysis of dance commercials to illustrate how the art form informs and reflects U.S. culture. One reviewer noted, “Written with playful enthusiasm, this book demonstrates how dance matters in contexts of commodities, marketplace, and the social lives of American consumption across three generations.”

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
This book not only provides an introduction to formal deductive logic; it also presents essays on logic and its application in philosophy and beyond. The goal is to integrate writing into what is traditionally a course on strictly formal (i.e., mathematical) methods in philosophy: formal symbolic logic.

(self-published, 2018)
Writing under a pen name, Aviva Schneider K’76 shares commentary gleaned from 15 years of providing health education for her local Planned Parenthood. Many of her clients live in rural poverty, where generational teen parenting and large families are the norm. “Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always compelling and easily accessible, these stories provide a rare, intimate, entertaining, and eye-opening behind-the-scenes look into what informs people’s life choices, and a look at how sex and sexual health can be discussed comfortably and effectively.”

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2018)
The author considers dozens of poems from the Middle Ages to the present that reveal approaches to recognizing and valuing animals’ difference and similarity. In doing so, he demonstrates “how the forms and modes of poetry can sensitize us to the moral standing of animals and give us new ways to think through the problems of the human-animal divide.” On the cover is a photo of Oerlemans’ greyhound, Beloki.

(New York: Ballantine, 2018)
As a New York Times best-selling author noted: “A devoted teacher and his driven students provide something like a perfect picture of what it means to be human: striving with a noble purpose, failing with resilience, and always finding humor and humanity even in the face of tremendous pressure. Both teacher and students will surely teach you many things, but perhaps more important than the lessons is the sheer wonder inhabiting these pages.” The author has worked as an Emmy-winning producer for CBS News and as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Time, and Newsweek.

(Sag Harbor, N.Y.: Permanent Press, 2018).
Former Chicago homicide detective Jack Starkey is lured out of retirement on Florida’s Southwest Gulf Coast when two dead bodies are found shot execution-style aboard a sailboat drifting in the sound. Little does he realize that his leisurely lifestyle will now include an investigation involving offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, corrupt state politicians, a Russian oligarch, and the angry father of a boy who’s not getting much Little League playing time.