Book reviews

Insight into Shakespeare’s world

A Shakespeare Motley: An Illustrated Compendium Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Thames & Hudson, Inc.

Arranged in alphabetical order, A Shakespeare Motley: An Illustrated Compendium is an inherently fascinating and BOOKS impressively informative collection and MIDWEST presentation of BOOK Shakespearean curiosities that REVIEW will inform, enthuse, intrigue, and amuse anyone who wants to know more about the life and work of the world’s best-known author.

Drawing unusual connections, this ingenious and beautifully illustrated guide will show you what Hamlet’s Ophelia has to do with The Tempest and Twelfth Night, and how a stage direction speaks to Elizabethan treatment of bears.

With entries ranging from “apothecary” to “zephyr,” this succinct compendium is full of captivating details illuminating all corners of Shakespeare’s world.

The volume is illustrated throughout with images taken exclusively from the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Readers will quickly gain a vivid, authentic sense of Shakespearean times, from the fascination of falconry to the elegance of eglantine and the resonances of ring-giving.

Accessible yet also full of expert insight and knowledge, A Shakespeare Motley: An Illustrated Compendium presents a wonderful window on the

ideas and influences that may have informed Shakespeare’s work.

Enhanced with 225 illustrations (185 of which are in color), “A Shakespeare Motley is a fascinating and entertaining volume to simply page through from beginning to end.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is the independent charity that cares for the world’s greatest Shakespeare heritage in his hometown of Stratfordupon-Avon. It is the global center for learning about and experiencing the works, life, and times of the world’s best-known writer. Through the historic Shakespeare family homes, internationally designated museum collections, and award-winning learning programs, the trust attracts approximately three-quarters of a million visitors each year.

The Memorandum: A True Story of Justice Forged from Fire Robert W. Kelley Sutton Hart Press

In The Memorandum: A True Story of Justice Forged from Fire, Florida attorney Robert W. Kelley offers the reader a truly gripping and detailed account of his years-long epic battle against one of the world’s most powerful companies and his efforts to seek justice for a family forever devastated by its misconduct.

Part legal thriller, part personal memoir, part trial strategy, attorney Kelley’s narrative brings to life one of the most important legal cases of the decade, in which a giant corporation, a secret memo exposing its reprehensible conduct, legions of lawyers blocking the truth, are all ultimately brought to justice by Kelley and his relentless band of warriors.

A kind of David vs. Golith story of a major care company’s deadly coverup of their flawed automobile and a grieving family’s struggle for justice against huge odds, The Memorandum is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended read.

Kelley is an award-winning American trial lawyer, author, and one of the nation’s premier catastrophic injury and wrongful death law firms. His professional life is focused on complex, high-profile trials where he battles for justice on behalf of people seriously injured by the negligence or misconduct of an individual or corporation.

My Generation: A Memoir of the Baby Boom Nowick Gray Independently published

Fresh out of college, with $30 to his name, Nowick Gray survives his 3 a.m. catnap crossing the Mississippi, in a VW Beetle bound for the golden vision of California. An education in antiwar politics, the poetry of nature, and the required courses of the era (sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll) has spurred his ambition to follow his bliss.

But by then the mantra of the boomers has already changed from “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” to “Get a job.”

My Generation: A Memoir of the Baby Boom is inspiring, often humorous account, marked by handshakes with fame and brushes with death, as Nowick Gray charts his unique yet representative journey through the tumultuous ‘60s and ‘70s that included a quest for alternatives to corporate conformity and the looming threat of apocalypse.

My Generation also reveals his selfexile from East Coast suburbia spirals through a campus rebellion, California dreaming, a testy Canadian romance, and an Inuit village preparing for its own revolution – bound for a back-tothe-land utopia in the mountains of British Columbia.

While it proves to be an informative, entertaining and nostalgic read by author Nowick Gray’s fellow baby boomers, it is highly recommended for younger folk who would be interested to know what life was like during the ‘60s & 70’s for their parents’ (and even grandparents’!) generation.

Stealing First and Other Old-Time Baseball Stories Chris Williams Sunbury Press

Baseball fans who enjoy memoirs, history and sports reflections are in for a treat with Stealing First and Other Old-Time Baseball Stories. It captures the ironies, adventures and oftenzany stories of players and baseball moments that may not have achieved

broader exploration, using language and description that adopt a “you are there” feel for readers who would use their home easy chair as a bandstand seat.

These statistical baseball essays pair numbers with nostalgia to bring the sport and its notable moments to life. It does so by employing captivating language to draw in readers, who will feel as though they are not just observing a game’s action, but reveling in the lives, personalities and perspectives of its players: “You’d have to be a real grump not to like Germany Schaefer. Even grouchy web trolls might have cracked a smile watching this guy play baseball. If anyone who ever played major league baseball posessed a sense of humor, it was William Herman Schaefer. Nicknamed ‘Germany’ because of his heritage, Schaefer was quite the clown...”

Baseball memoirs, histories and explorations typically don’t appeal to those not already thoroughly immersed in the sport because they tend to belay the personalities and emotions of players in favor of technical observations of the sport itself. Chris Williams cultivates a unique ability to inject excitement and personality into each story, and this in turn offers lessons that embrace both statistical descriptions of events and the players who contributed to historic successes or failures.

Quotes from baseball classic writings and interviews, recreations of personalities and events, and summaries that offer bigger-picture thinking about the sport and its players craft essays that often will prove inviting even to those with minimal interest in baseball statistics or history - although it’s the avid fan who will best appreciate these numerical surveys of baseball history.

This collection also incorporates photos, a sense of humor, and affection for the sport. For some, the many statistical supporting details may prove overbearing, especially given the allure of the personality-based observations made in the introductory tale.

But, again: this is primarily a recommendation for avid baseball fans who enjoy historical explorations backed by statistical representation. The blend of amusing anecdotes and baseball statistics supporting key moments in the sport’s history will attract and delight those who hold a passion for the sport.

Love in the Time of Corona Diana Wiley, Ph.D. DearDrDiana.com Love in the Time of Corona: Advice from a Sex Therapist for Couples in Quarantine is an advice guide that blends sex therapist Dr. Diana Wiley’s tips for better relationships and sexual experiences with the new realities of physical intimacy in the time of coronavirus. It promotes reigniting relationships and sexual intimacy between partners who are sheltering in place.

New approaches fostered by the age of intimacy can benefit from quarantine proximity. Restrictions can lead to actively working on and revising one’s approaches. This will result in lifelong benefits beyond quarantine.

As a licensed family therapist, Dr. Wiley well knows the types of stress and discord that can stem from longterm isolation and prolonged periods of being cooped up together. But while she acknowledges these challenges, she also poses thoughts, routines, exercises and ideas that lead to better communication, understanding and sexual experiences between couples.

The foundation message in this book is: “Enjoyable sexual activity between partners can distinctly benefit a couple’s mental and physical health.”

Chapters explore how this activity can be revitalized, offering couples new avenues for understanding and pleasure. They discuss feedback, creating boundaries and approaches that go beyond survival strategies and into the realm of actively working on improving one’s relationship while sheltering at home.

This approach is every bit as inviting and important for long-term connections as adopting a hobby or expanding one’s leisure life.

Many different lessons are introduced in the course of this exploration, from mindfulness meditation to unlocking deeper states of consciousness through mindful breathing, leading to better sexual satisfaction.

Before And After The First Earth Day, 1970 (2nd edition) David M. Guion

Independently published

The second expanded edition of Before And After The First Earth Day, 1970 points out that the first Earth Day celebration did not begin environmental efforts, as is commonly assumed, but in fact made the public more aware of existing environmental issues. Some of the leaders called into question not only the condition of the environment, but social institutions and democratic processes themselves.

Other surveys of environmentalism have offered a general focus that includes Earth Day, but David M. Guion provides a specific probe of the federal government’s role in environmental management well before and after the event. This focus provides a broader understanding to the history of environmentalism in a survey that should be on the reading lists of anyone concerned about the history of environmental regulation and management efforts.

Chapters outline the state of environmental law, beginning with the Truman administration and how the Eisenhower administration’s economic policies encouraged wastefulness. Perhaps even more importantly, it outlines what Earth Day did wrong and how its leaders still omitted or changed some important truths and insights about humans and the environment.

One of the most important (and, likely, controversial) chapters in this book is “Attacks on Mainstream Society,” which offers much food for thought. For example, the issue of overpopulation led some influential authors to question basic democratic principles: “In 1967, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had declared that any decision regarding family size rested with the family alone and no one else could make it for them. Hardin protested vigorously. And he asserted the impossibility of promoting population control by appealing to conscience. It would require coercion. He denied that it would require arbitrary decisions by some distant bureaucracy, but how else would a critical mass of people relinquish their freedom to breed?”

From the unity that Earth Day brought to the discord that we now experience, and how the event changed the concept of environmentalism from a specialty approach to a mainstream issue, Guion’s important history should be required reading for any environmentally-conscious individual.