Spin Cycle: Notes from a Reluctant Caregiver by Alfredo Botello
High school math teacher Ezra Pavic is having a hard time. His wife left him, his son barely tolerates him, and now he’s being blindsided by something he never saw coming: the emotional spin cycle of parenting a parent. His mother Irene has dementia, and it’s exhausting. Caring for her is a constant source of frustration, resentment, and guilt. Lots of guilt.
Overwhelmed by it all, Ezra opens a strip-mall school to help others-and himself-become better caregivers. As he learns to handle the personalities of his nine misfit students, Ezra must also navigate the complex feelings he has toward his mother. It doesn’t help that she adores his do-nothing slacker brother.
But Ezra hasn’t told his students that he also has an agenda beyond becoming a more compassionate caregiver. And, it turns out, so does one of his students. Ezra confides the entire tale to his childhood friend Danny as he attempts to sort it all out and find room in his heart again for compassion and love.
Boys by Roger Newman
Brotherhood is more than skin-deep.
After Alex’s family is killed by the Ku Klux Klan during the Great Depression, he takes refuge in the barn of a nearby dairy farm. The family that owns the dairy, including their young son Pete, take in Alex and raise the boys together. Pete and Alex consider themselves brothers and together they navigate the Jim Crow racial intolerance of the rural South, a challenge experienced differently because Pete is White and Alex is Black.
Anticipating European war, Pete and Alex join a segregated US Army. The brothers discover their own identities amid the crucible of battle, leading them to separate for many years as they continue their careers in the Army. They finally reunite at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1969. Confronting escalating racial and civilian hostility in response to the Civil Rights and antiwar movements, Alex must find those responsible for the brutal off-base beating of Pete. He must also reengage with his childhood and what it means to be a Black man with a White brother.
The AI Lead: Overcoming Data Drag to Accelerate Digital Dominance by Brian Lambert, PhD
AI is coming inside your organization, and it’s way more than a chatbot. Are you ready? If you’re not, you’re already behind. The AI Lead is now the ultimate guide for business and IT leaders who must evolve their enterprise. The AI Lead treatise translates data and AI complexity into action across people, processes, data, and technology.
“The concepts in Brian’s book have been implemented to enable our sales strategies and fundamentally changed how we engage with our customers.” — SVP, Salesforce
You’ve heard the buzz about AI. But here’s the truth: You need to lead it—and have a point of view. The AI Lead isn’t just a book; it’s a transformational guide designed to make you and your teams the driving force of AI in your organization.
This is your moment. It’s time to stop scrolling, stop buying into the hype, and start forging a unified AI path forward. Collaborate to redefine what’s possible for your enterprise—and this book will guide you every step of the way.
Align, Feel, Heal: An Integrated Solution to Eliminating Chronic Pain at Its Roots by David Starbuck Smith
Despite the best efforts of traditional Western medical care, millions of people worldwide are left suffering from a chronic pain condition they can’t seem to shake. Considering we are hardwired to heal at every level, having healed every ache, pain, illness, and injury up to this point, the question is, why? What is blocking the body’s magical ability to heal, and how does one become stuck in a cycle of chronic pain?
If you are one of many who suffer every day from chronic pain, David Starbuck Smith-using science-backed solutions and over two decades of clinical experience-will answer these questions while helping you uncover and remove the common blockages that doctors aren’t trained to treat. In Align, Feel, Heal, David will lead you on an eye-opening and transformational journey to discover the tools that will help you connect to your body, heart, and soul in a way you may never have before. Ultimately, you will tap into your body’s extraordinary capacity to heal, freeing you from chronic pain and putting you back in charge of your health and life.
Portrait of a Presidency: Patterns in My Life as President of The College of New Jersey by R. Barbara Gitenstein
“Gitenstein’s journey as a stunningly successful pioneer in higher education should give us all great hope.” -Freeman A. Hrabowski III, UMBC president emeritus; co-author, The Resilient University and The Empowered University
As public opinion began to sour on higher education, Barbara Gitenstein became president of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), today one of the most competitive and successful public undergraduate institutions in the Northeast, second among New Jersey institutions only to Princeton in successful admission of students to graduate programs.
During her nineteen-year tenure as president, she confronted multiple crises, including 9/11, student deaths, controversial speakers, and political interference. By partnering with other agencies and working to build a team of esteemed colleagues, she successfully navigated the complex expectations of a higher education leader-but not without a few missteps along the way.
Told with a self-deprecating humor and a spirit of gratitude for all angles of her time as president, Portrait of a Presidency: Patterns in My Life as President of The College of New Jersey offers insights on successful leadership that will resonate across industries.
Sergeant at War: Letters Home from Vietnam by Brett Gordon
I could probably use a thousand words to try to describe how it is over here and never really quite explain it at all. Sergeant at War: Letters Home from Vietnam depicts the true story of Sergeant Michael Gordon’s time in the Vietnam War, as shared in letters written to his father from his enlistment in 1965 to his discharge. As Gordon evolves from an idealist hoping to become a pilot to a war-weary staff sergeant managing his own platoon and earning two Purple Hearts, readers will discover exactly what it’s like to confront a war without end while trying not to lose hope.For those who are interested in what it was like to be there, on the front lines, with men in your charge, not knowing your enemy from your friend, Sergeant at War grabs you right from the first letter.
A Quest for God and Spices by Dean Cycon
A Quest for God and Spices begins an epic journey across the ancient world. In the year AD 1200, a new pope agitates for a renewed crusade to reconquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem. European monarchs largely ignore his call, too involved with squabbles among themselves. The pope chooses two men-Brother Mauro, an older monk, and Nicolo, a young, striving merchant-to traverse the treacherous political, religious, and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, a mysterious king in the Far East who has promised to put his wealth and vast armies to the service of the pope’s crusade.
Nicolo’s task is to guide Mauro, but a corrupt cardinal has secretly charged the young man with finding the source of the precious spices that ensure the Venetian and Arab trade monopoly. Nicolo’s youthful exuberance, carelessness, and desire to be important jeopardizes their mission, while Mauro’s knowledge of scripture and pagan works has not prepared him for the schemes of doges and emirs, clergymen and kings.
Muddy the Water by Matt Barrows & Jessica Barrows Beebe
A popular fishing captain is murdered on his own trawler and everyone in Haversport, Massachusetts, knows the culprit is a young deckhand named Ben Broome, including Detective Lillian Grimes. But Ben has discovered the perfect hiding place: as a reporter writing for the tiny Coastal Packet, a newspaper down in South Carolina.
When a half-eaten body washes in, it becomes the biggest story in the paper’s history and brings cunning, charismatic Ben immediate success. But it also leads Grimes closer to the truth. She soon teams up with hungry rival reporter Florence Park to hunt Ben down before he can charm-or kill-his way to freedom.
Shown from three perspectives, killer, detective, and reporter, Muddy the Water brings readers inside the newsroom of a struggling small newspaper on the bucolic South Carolina coast and speaks to the concept of identity-and whether anyone ever shows his or her true self.
The Bad Girls Club: Promises of a Spirituality-Based Recovery by Karen Marginot
There’s a seismic shift happening worldwide, as individuals from every social class question their relationship with alcohol and drugs. While marijuana gains mainstream acceptance, a profound inquiry persists: Is this okay? Am I drinking too much? Is this normal? These questions resonate deeply, particularly among professional women who are drinking at higher rates than anyone else, and White women are drinking themselves to death. Beyond the health risks, high alcohol consumption affects women’s personal and professional relationships and ability to successfully function and lead in their professional roles.
The Bad Girls Club: Promises of a Spirituality-Based Recovery encapsulates Ms. Marginot’s journey through addiction to redemption. Delving into Karen’s tumultuous past, she narrates how she found healing and renewal through spiritual tools, transcending addiction to create a fulfilling career in tech and leadership coaching.
This isn’t merely a narrative on redemption; it shines a light to a way out for those grappling with the devastation of alcoholism and addiction. The Bad Girls Club doesn’t preach; it shares a deeply personal odyssey from self-destruction to empowerment.