In Translation: Norwid’s Dramatic Works by Cyprian Kamil Norwid

January 17, 2022 admin 0

“Perhaps some day I’ll disappear forever,” muses the master-builder Psymmachus in Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s Cleopatra and Caesar, “Becoming one with my work…” Two hundred years after the poet’s birth, it is difficult not to hear Norwid speaking through the lips of his character. The greatest poet of the second phase of Polish Romanticism, Norwid, like Gerard Manley Hopkins in England, created a new poetic idiom so ahead of his time, that he virtually “disappeared” from […]

Art & Culture: A Cheese Sandwich for John Lennon by Maire E. McMahon

January 17, 2022 admin 0

A Cheese Sandwich for John Lennon is a real life journey back to the time when Liverpool, England became a hub for emerging rock and roll in Britain. Born in Liverpool during WWII, Maire E. McMahon begins the journey by revealing her first encounters with rock and roll as she and her pal Bernie discover Buddy Holly through records brought back to Liverpool by merchant sailors. McMahon takes us to ballroom dance class for working […]

Elinor Ostrom

Non-Fiction: The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom by Erik Nordman

July 13, 2021 admin 0

From overfishing to deforestation and water rights, the natural resources we rely on are increasingly under threat from both overuse and the impacts of climate change. Conventional thinking on environmental governance holds that protecting them requires restrictions either from the government or the free market. But is there a third way forward, one that harnesses the ability of communities to successfully manage their common resources? On the anniversary of the publication of Elinor Ostrom’s groundbreaking […]

The Man in the Painter's Room

Graphic Novel: The Man in the Painter’s Room by Jamison Odone

June 8, 2021 admin 0

The Man in the Painter’s Room is a graphic novel by Maryland-based author Jamison Odone that explores the final year of Van Gogh’s life, leading up to his suicide. Carefully researched from first-hand accounts of those closest to him, the first graphic novel focuses on this part of the famous painter’s life. “The Man in the Painter’s Room is an interesting exploration of the last few months of Van Gogh’s life and finding light in […]

Small Steps to Less Waste

Non-Fiction: Small Steps to Less Waste by Claudi Williams

March 27, 2021 admin 0

Would you make your own toothpaste in order to reduce the amount of plastic you use? Small Steps to Less Waste  outlines the practical experience and personal stories of a dozen ordinary people who wanted to ditch plastic. Their tips, alternatives and recipes for everyday products normally sold in plastic bottles, show the rest of us how to make a positive difference. Swimming in a plastic soup while on Vacation in Mallorca in 2015 shocked […]

No Image

World Happiness Week

March 3, 2021 admin 0

A six day summit called World Happiness Week and streamed around the world will focus our energy on recovery, accelerating the global movement for well-being via the most accessible event on the planet. World Happiness Foundation founder Luis Gallardo explains that the goal is “to explore suffering and flourishing at World Happiness Week. It is neither necessary nor desirable to eliminate human struggles and frailties to pursue a flourishing human life. Creating a proper attitude and […]

Creative Compassion

Art & Culture: Creative Compassion, Literature and Animal Welfare by Michael J. Gilmour

December 16, 2020 admin 0

Michael J. Gilmour, a Canadian professor of English and biblical literature, argues that fiction contributes much toward humane education. “Animal-friendly storytellers and poets undermine entrenched dominative attitudes toward the nonhuman,” says Gilmour is his latest book. “They bring animals from the margins to the centre, and in doing so urge a broadening of our understanding of community and inclusivity.” In Creative Compassion, Literature and Animal Welfare (Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics series), Gilmour considers the enormous […]

Literature

This Just In… Literature: the Book, the Place and the Pen by Andrea L. Ambler and Jerald E. Klocek

November 17, 2020 News Editor 0

Literature: the Book, the Place and the Pen was written for teachers by teachers to encourage the teaching of literature in grades 4-12 and responding to it. The goal was to encourage the beginning teacher and to reassure the experienced. Literature: the Book, the Place and the Pen is indispensable for home school students and their parents. Intended to encourage students to become prolific readers in all genres – short story, novel, non-fiction, folk and […]

Bill Gates

The Four Books Bill Gates Likes Best

October 29, 2020 News Editor 0

While surfing Goodreads, Amardeep Parmar, co-editor of Entrepreneur’s Handbook, stumbled across an interesting name while looking at reviews of Jared Diamond’s Upheaval. “The last name I expected at the top was the $100 billion Microsoft founder,” Parmar writes in a piece on Medium, “I assumed it was a spoof account, surely he is too busy saving the world to have time for this kind of thing.” It turns out, however, it was no spoof. It’s […]

Rainstorm

Art & Culture: Rainstorm of Tomorrow: The Ever-Flowing Banquet of Philosophy by Renyuan Dong

September 25, 2020 admin 0

In Renyuan Dong’s newest release, Rainstorm of Tomorrow: The Ever-Flowing Banquet of Philosophy (MSI Press) the author has dexterously woven together several seemingly disparate themes. The storied philosophical themes of truth, ethics, and aesthetics together with the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, neuroscience, epigenetics, social Darwinism, utilitarianism, evolutionary psychology, and modern art — from the soberest rationality to the wildest conjecture. The idea seems to be to generate provocative or even alienated discourse on topics […]