February 2023 MBR Reviewer's Choice

Reviewer's Choice

Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence
Jerry White, author
Georgette F. Bennett, author
Post Hill Press
www.posthillpress.com
9781637581018, $28.00, HC, 352pp

https://www.amazon.com/Religicide-Confronting-Roots-Anti-Religious-Violence/dp/1637581017

Synopsis: Religion related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, with the publication of "Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence ", co-authors Jerry White and Georgette F. Bennett deftly explore the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.

The two authors tap into their decades of activism, interreligious engagement, and people-to-people diplomacy to delve into a gripping examination of contemporary religicides: the Yazidis in Iraq, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, and the centuries-long efforts to wipe out Indigenous Americans. Yet, even in the face of these horrific atrocities, the authors resist despair. They amplify the voices of survivors and offer a blueprint for action, calling on government, business, civil society, and religious leaders to join in a global campaign to protect religious minorities.

Critique: Timely and relevant given the rise in America of White Supremacist and Militant National Christian attempts to seize political power by intimidation, persecution of religious minorities (particularly Jews & Muslims), and increasingly (and now almost daily) frequent mass racial and religious mass shootings around the country, "Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence" will have a special value for readers with an interest in identifying and combating religious intolerance, persecution, and religion based political corruption. While unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Religion & Politics collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for student, academia, clergy, political activists, and non-specialist general readers that "Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence " is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).

Editorial Note #1: Dr. Georgette Bennett (https://bennettny.com) is a sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist for NBC News. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the go-to organization for combating religious prejudice. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, which has worked to raise awareness and mobilize more than $175 million of humanitarian aid, benefitting more than 2.2 million Syrian war victims. She is also a co-founder of Global Covenant Partners and served on the U.S. State Department's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group tasked with developing recommendations to engage religious actors in conflict mitigation. Having published four books and more than eighty articles, Bennett was awarded a 2019 AARP Purpose Prize, and in 2021 was selected as one of Forbes' 50 over 50 Women of Impact.

Editorial Note #2: Jerry White (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_White_(activist)) is an activist entrepreneur known for leading high-impact campaigns, three of which led to international treaties: the Mine Ban Treaty; the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and the Cluster Munitions Ban. White shares in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. As co-founder of Landmine Survivors Network, he worked with Diana, Princess of Wales, to help thousands of war victims find peer support and job training. White served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State to launch the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, introducing advanced decision analytics to predict the outcomes of complex negotiations. White is also a Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia.

Frozen By Fire
Donald Kentop
Black Heron Press
www.blackheronpress.com
c/o Independent Publishers Group (distribution)
https://www.ipgbook.com
9781936364398, $18.00

https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Fire-Donald-Kentop-MA/dp/1936364395

Frozen By Fire covers over a century of American history, following the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 and its aftermath. In verse. This approach sets the story apart from any other feature of the events that surrounded one of America's greatest tragedies, painting poetic portraits that run from a prologue of events to the fire itself, and its lasting impact.

An introduction sets the stage by recounting, in prose, the roots of this poetic discourse. It all began when author Donald Kentop, a New York University student attending classes in the Brown Building, came to realize that the structure actually was once known as the Asch Building, and was the site of a tragic fire.

Decades after learning this history, Kentop wrote his first poem, then discovered accounts by survivors of this ordeal. More than a hundred years after the fire, this collection brings history to life in a shocking account of working conditions and experiences that is tempered by a dual attention to preserving the meter and foundations of poetic structure. Why reproduce this story in verse, then? Because, in so doing, Frozen By Fire poses a more personal and vivid impact than the usual account backed by facts, figures, and accompanying dryness.

Kentop's effort personalizes and produces a history that can reach easily into a much wider audience than the usual staid nonfiction review. The author says it best, himself, in his introduction: "...the restrictions of verse, paradoxically, liberate characters and events from the prosaics of reportage and open a way of learning through the heart." What is best recalled long-term is that this heart-centered method of learning in Frozen By Fire offers a rare opportunity for immersion, adding another notable difference to the effort -- quotes from source material, outlines of characters involved in the tragedy at all levels (from owners to survivors and responders), and details that personalize the motivations and actions of all involved.

History is thus presented in a truly unique fashion that does justice to both historical research and facts and to the literary poetic structure that synthesizes and represents them. The result is highly recommended for two types of readers and library collections: those interested in making history more accessible to lay audiences and who harbor a special interest in working conditions and experiences of the past; and those interested in profiling unusual poetic devices that intersect the seemingly-disparate worlds of history and literature.

Hotel Splendide
Ludwig Bemelmans
Pushkin Press
www.pushkinpress.com
9781782277910, $15.95, PB, 144pp

https://www.amazon.com/Hotel-Splendide-Ludwig-Bemelmans/dp/1782277919

Synopsis: "Hotel Splendide" is a charming and uproariously funny hotel memoir in which Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide (the thinly disguised stand-in for the Ritz) a luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter in the 1920s. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he uncovers the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls.

In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maitre d'hotel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Illustrated with his own charming line drawings, Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of extravagance are as charming as they are riotously entertaining.

Critique: Originally published in 1941 and now brought back into print by Puskin Press for a new general of appreciative readers, "Hotel Splendide" by the late Ludwig Bemelmans is a fun read from first page to last. While highly recommended, especially for both community and academic library collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Hotel Splendide" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $8.57).

Editorial Note: Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was an Austrian-born American writer and illustrator of books for children and adults. He travelled to American in 1914, at the age of sixteen, and worked for three years in the dining halls of what he called, in his autobiographical works, the Hotel Splendide. In 1926, he quit working in hotels to become a full-time cartoonist and made frequent contributions to the New Yorker, Vogue and Town and Country. He is also the author of the beloved Madeline books. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Bemelmans)

#ambulancetumblrguy
Nedwin J.K.
Author Solutions Inc.
9781669809708, $29.99 Hardcover/$19.99 Paper/$3.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Ambulancetumblrguy-Nedwin-J-K-ebook/dp/B09TNT2PQM

#ambulancetumblrguy is a study of the human condition, which is examined with short staccato phrases and inspections that represent the most said in the least amount of words. Its special brand of social, political, and psychological examination embeds philosophical reflection with in-the-moment images of the human-centric condition, capturing these minute points in time with a Proust-like tendency to over-examine, yet revel in the moment.

These inspections open powerfully from the start, in chapters which include such insights as: "The camera never lingers long apart from people because little that happens is independent of our influence or far from our gaze." The gaze of this life consideration comprises a novel that flits between subjects as diverse as values, teaching, the complicated life and relationship of Hannah and John, the life of Mark (who is "only inspired by strangers. The better he knew somebody, the more plain and simple they became"), and friendships between characters whose lives come and go like ghosts throughout the story.

Readers looking for linear reading, staid plots and predictable outcomes, and the kinds of relationships that tend to be banal will find none of these elements in this free-flowing discourse. There are over a hundred chapters, but each assume a brevity of subject and impression that belays the initial notion that this exploration will be unduly lengthy or challenging.

#ambulancetumblrguy's study in processes and living life moves between first- and third-person expression, and between characters whose outcomes and lives move on both conventional and unconventional paths. Many of these brief inspections are only a few paragraphs long, but incorporate much food for thought that requires slow digesting rather than the usual fast pace of the typical novel: "When the author reads through the final proof, he feels horror from the deeply troubling and inescapable sentiment that all of his work was a waste. He disagrees with everything he wrote. Mark feels the same about his life."

While #ambulancetumblrguy could have been featured in the 'Literature' category, it would be a shame to limit its audience to college students alone. Ideally, this story will reach a broad spectrum of readers interested in different lives, cultures, and ideas which intersect, break apart, and come together in new ways. Impossible to easily define or categorically pinpoint, #ambulancetumblrguy's elusive countenance makes it a thought-provoking, intriguing, candid examination of life, death, and disappearances alike, couched in a literary overlay of form that will appeal to English majors and general-interest readers alike.

The Business of Giving
Denver Frederick
Signature Philanthropy
9798987133620, $22.99, HC, 354pp

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Giving-Practices-Nonprofit-Philanthropic/dp/B0BNK8K3Y2

Synopsis: As a nonprofit leader, you're committed to doing the most good. Your organization is poised to make real change-yet your mission can be derailed by the unprecedented challenges that have arisen over the past several years. But with no playbook to go by, how can you ensure that you're making the right calls for the organization and the people you serve?

Denver Frederick is a trusted advisor to nonprofit CEOs. He has spent countless hours curating a guide to becoming an exceptional nonprofit leader. It is a resource filled with wisdom from subject experts and the most influential people in philanthropy. Culled from his longtime radio show and popular podcast of the same name, with the publication of "The Business of Giving: New Best Practices for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leaders in an Uncertain World" he provides thoughtful strategies and novel approaches you need to step up and become the "sense maker" for your organization.

"The Business of Giving" covers: What your counterparts are doing to address the same challenges you face; How to significantly improve your organization's problem-solving capacity; Keys to scaling for maximum impact; Obstacles that derail your decision-making process and how to get back on track; 7 distinguishing features that make tech-centered nonprofits stand out; and 150 tips from exceptional leaders that you can start using tomorrow.

"The Business of Giving" is every nonprofit leader's master class for successfully navigating turbulent social and economic times. In addition to providing fresh, actionable ideas, it will validate much of what you and your team are already doing.

Critique: Offering a complete course on the benefits of non-profit and philanthropic organizations and how best to operate and management them for maximum benefit and success in their particular missions, "The Business of Giving: New Best Practices for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leaders in an Uncertain World" is an ideal DIY textbook for anyone charged with the responsibility of leading and/or advising them. Impressively well written, organized, and presented, "The Business of Giving" is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, organizational, and academic library Non-Profit/Business Ethics, Processes, and Organizational infrastructure collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that "The Business of Giving" is also available in a paperback edition (9798987133606, $16.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Denver Frederick (https://denver-frederick.com) is a trusted advisor and executive coach to nonprofit CEOs, acting as a comprehensive resource, confidante, and consultant. In his 40+ years in the sector, he has served as a CEO, led the fundraising campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and partnered with Michael J. Fox in launching his Parkinson's Foundation. He pioneered two seminal contributions to the field: corporate sponsorship and peer-to-peer fundraising. For the past 10 years, Denver has hosted The Business of Giving, a nationally syndicated radio show turned podcast.

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James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review