Bookshelf

(Scribner’s, 2024)
The author, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, takes us on a fast-paced and entertaining tour of playful animals and the scientists who study them. The publisher notes, “From octopuses on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to meerkats in the Kalahari Desert to brown bears on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, we follow adventurous researchers as they design and conduct experiments seeking answers to new, intriguing questions: When did play first appear in animals? How does play develop the brain, and how did it evolve? Are the songs and aerial acrobatics of birds the beginning of avian culture? Is fairness in dog play the foundation of canine ethics? And does play direct and possibly accelerate evolution?

(Harper Muse, 2024)
As one reviewer notes, “Put on a pot of coffee, cut yourself a wedge of chess pie and dive in.”

Set in a gossipy small town during the turbulent 1960s — and full of Southern charm and unforgettable characters — this hilarious book by a first-time novelist tells the story of 38-year-old Posey Jarvis, who knows she’s the rightful “empress” of rural Spark in Cooke County, Tennessee... if only everyone else would just realize it too.

(Harvard Education Press, 2024)
Drawing on extensive research and case studies, the authors outline successful strategies for whole child and whole community support that can help school systems meet broader student needs in times of disruption. They focus on Integrated Student Support (ISS), an approach to education policy and practice in which schools focus on attending to students’ basic physical, social, and emotional needs before learning occurs.

 (She Writes Press, 2024)
Klara Lieberman is 49, single, a professor of archaeology at a small college in Maine — a contained person living a contained life. That was before she receives an unexpected letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, with the long-overdue news that her father is dead. What prompts her mother’s timing? The Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during World War II, and Bessie wants the money. Klara, on the other hand, wants answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.

(Cambridge University Press, 2024)
According to the publisher, “The study of gesture — the movements people make with their hands when talking — has grown into a well-established field, and research is still being pushed into exciting new directions. Bringing together a team of leading scholars, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of gesture studies, combining historical overviews as well as current, concise snapshots of state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary research. ... Attention is given to different theoretical and methodological frameworks for studying gesture, including semiotic, linguistic, cognitive, developmental, and phenomenological theories and observational, experimental, corpus linguistic, ethnographic, and computational methods. It also contains practical guidelines for gesture analysis along with surveys of empirical research. Wide ranging yet accessible, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in linguistics and cognitive sciences.”

(Business Expert Press, 2024)
“Both our work and private lives require us to build new institutions or renovate old ones, from launching a business in your home to creating a new corporate division at work, from establishing a local charter school to organizing an athletic club with friends,” notes the publisher. But how does one ensure that all the resources necessary for a successful building project are within reach?

(New York: Hachette Go, 2024)
“How do I build a brand in today’s social media world?” That’s the question the author, the real estate broker and star of Bravo network’s Million Dollar Listing New York, answers in this, his third book. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that 50% of the workforce will be the gig economy by 2027, Serhant says no one is being taught the skills or ideas to be successful in this new marketplace. “They are being trained for the jobs of a decade ago or a world where there weren’t personal brands or so many small businesses that need to brand and market themselves,” he says.

(Albany, N.Y.: King Jesus Press, 2024)
This book asks the question: “If you’re invited to the party and it’s not jumping, do you leave or stay and make the party?” Breland, the former longtime director of Hamilton’s Opportunities Programs, offers lessons for those seeking positive change to “embrace themselves, create new habits, and live the new behaviors that bring them incremental change they can believe in.” In other words, this book is a compilation of lessons to keep the party going.

(Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Special Publications, 2024)
The author, trustee professor of English emeritus at Ohio University, explores his life as a champion of the Bard and a fan of the Detroit Tigers. According to the publisher, “He saw his first Tigers game in the summer of 1950 (Hal Newhouser beat the Chicago White Sox) and his first Shakespeare play in 1953 (Alec Guinness as Richard III at Ontario’s Stratford Festival) and has spent almost 75 years enjoying and writing about the pleasures of play that each provides.

(self-published, 2022)
Written for children 7 years of age and younger, this book encourages interaction by posing questions the reader is asked to answer by drawing from their own experiences and knowledge. The story documented is true, and the characters in the book are real. The author reminds young readers not to tell anyone who is the guest, so that others will also be excited to find out “who came from nowhere.”