Bookshelf

(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.”

(self-published, 2023).

This is the fourth in an anatomical series of books focusing on human endeavors. Like in the three previous, the author demonstrates methods of how various world cultures have handled some of life’s most common and difficult challenges. This book explores the funeral rituals that most of the societies around the world had to handle. The book discusses the needs and methods in looking for a path to the afterlife. In addition, a section on funerals of the rich and famous is included. Other works, also published in 2023, include The Anatomy of Religions of the World: Seeking God’s Grace, Anatomy of Marriages from Ancient to Modern Times, and Anatomy of Parenting Throughout the Ages: Cultural Differences of Raising Children from Ancient to Modern Times. The author, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a pediatrician/pediatric allergist, is the author of several other books.

(Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2021).

As part of the Oxford International Law Library, this text focuses on investment treaties, which grant special international protection to foreign investors and give them a means to enforce those rights against States in which they have invested. “This book systematically examines the law of international investment treaties, particularly with respect to its origins, structure, content, and effects. Although the precise provisions of investment treaties are not uniform, virtually all investment treaties address the same issues. This book examines those issues in detail, including the scope of application, conditions for the entry of foreign investment, and general standards of treatment of foreign investments,” the publisher notes.

In this the third edition of the book, last updated in 2015, the author addresses the rapidly and dramatically changing landscape of investment treaty law. For example, the field has seen considerable growth in the number and scope of investment treaties, now estimated at 3,300, and investor-state arbitrations cases, which reached over 1,000 in 2020.

(self-published, 2024)

Forced into quarantine during the COVID pandemic, many people experienced a range of emotions, not the least of which were frustration and anxiety. To address her own feelings and seeking to do more for her friends, family, and local community, Collier began posting ideas to cope with staying indoors (#IncredibleIndoorIdeas). Many of those revelations led her to write this book. She not only figured out ways to stay safe and sane indoors, but also made new culinary discoveries, remembered some old favorites, and used the lessons of resilience to cope with the new normal. “Part recipes, part cocktails, and part call to action, this book takes you on a sensory journey during a time that humbled, hurt, and surprised so many,” she notes.

(Seattle: Wave Books, 2023).

In this, the author’s fifth book of poetry, his work illustrates how “writing is a physical act where writing and lived experience support one another in bodies — animal, plant, mineral, and word bodies — that are injured and heal, that die and continue in new forms, playing new roles.” Sylee Gore, in a review on the Poetry Foundation website, writes: “The five long poems in Richard Meier’s A Duration follow a similar form: a prose stanza breaks off midsentence, leaving a charged empty space. That broken sentence is syntactically ‘completed’ in the next stanza, but though the grammar jives, the reader is sometimes jerked into a world subtly or radically altered, with the poem’s subject, setting, or other details changed. ... The effect is momentary confusion — and delight. Repeated across a book, this device kindles a sense of dream logic, or of daydreaming while ambling with a friend." Meier is professor of English and writer-in-residence at Carthage College.

(Seattle: Marrowstone Press, 2023).

In these his most recent — and perhaps final — books of poetry, the author offers works in two parts. According to the publisher, “… both books are about trekking into what Keats called ‘the old oak Forest’ while recalling earlier and similar journeys, real and imaginary, the poet has made before. In both books, Peter Weltner continues to explore how images from the past, of place, and of passion, recurrently rhyme with the present.”