Book Review: The Catalysts (OT) (the accelerating forces forging the new world financial order)

The Catalysts (The Accelerating Forces Forging the New World Financial Order), by Amanda Wick (Racket  Publishing, $34.95 PB, 2025, 417pp PB) 

The title, The Catalysts, and the front cover illustration led me to believe this book was about the environment. Great! But I was wrong: the subtitle contains the word, financial. Therefore, I put this book at the bottom of my list to read and review. When its turn came up I found out just how wrong I had been - early on. (P.S. Will the average reader know what a catalyst is, or just the chemistry majors?)

Author Amanda Wick opens her book with a zinger - the January 6 incident in Washington, DC. And she writes a non-fiction book that reads like fiction - fast and fascinating.

Subtitles in each chapter are extremely helpful as is the good-sized print which enables one to read in bed at night under less than ideal lighting circumstances.

An amazingly clear debut text with uncluttered drawings of graphs, key points at the ends of chapters (and it might be good to put them in the beginning of said chapters as well), headings and subheadings and subsubheadings emphasize important points for the reader. 

My final comment would be to write a companion book, shorter, and for the populace rather than for  public policymakers, regulators and concerned citizens.

Book Review: Through the Gates of Hell (OT), American Injustice at Guantanamo Bay

Through the Gates of Hell (OT), American Injustice at Guantanamo Bay, by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan (Humanitas Media, 2025, $27.00HB, 232pp HB)

As I've said before, a good book has a good story to tell and is well-written (also called magic since it is hard to define, but "I know it when I see it" [also said in the past of pornography]).

The reader knows a good book early on - by thumbing through it or by starting to read the first few paragraphs or words.

Many good books have been written by journalists or by former authors though not this book. Through the Gates of Hell is authored by a first-time author - an attorney to boot! Joshua Colangelo-Bryan must attempt to explain a lot of legal lingo in words the average person can understand - without being too boring. I believe he has done a quite good job.

Front cover designs are becoming more and more important in selling what is inside and becoming more fashionable to the book buyer (though not necessarily for the library patron. Hell's front cover, though perhaps I should refer to the book as Gates rather than Hell, depicts a wall topped by barbed wire, a universal photo.

Books have changed the world, from sparking an interest in a youngster so he or she goes into a specific occupation or causes someone to visit a certain foreign country. I am not sure Hell will do this but the author is a highly ethical person, even though an attorney, and that shows in the 'plot.'

And lastly, a good book is good all the way through. Hell is this, also. It is a piece of nonfiction that reads like fiction and brings in the rest of the world.

Through the Gates of Hell is a good book. It is about one of the detainees/prisoners at Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) and his American attorney and the hours they spent talking their case (Jaber's release, after 911), and their legal fight for Jaber's freedom due to perhaps mistaken identity.

A sobering, spellbinding, yet inspirational book. Can we really be the bad guys?

-----------------------------------

I have read a few authors that I really like, not only as an author but as a person. Josh is one such person due to his high ethics. At the least, I would like to meet him.

I might suggest that some sensitive readers skip much of the beginning material which depicts treatment of prisoners at Gitmo (Guantanamo). And it was hard for me to believe that much of that treatment was going on - not the Army I knew in the war against terrorism (but I did get an inkling of it when I was in Afghanistan).

Gates does get bogged down in much of the book and that makes it hard to read because we know how it ends, we merely have to read the entire book to find out under what circumstances and when it gets resolved. And some might wonder why the book is about one Bahraini man when there were six at Gitmo at the time.

Book Review: The Immigrant Next Door (OT)(Collected stories of the American experience)

The Immigrant Next Door (Collected stories of the American experience), by JamesKenyon (Meadowlark Press, 2024, 301pp, $25)

What an amazing title! And penned by a veterinarian to boot! Thirty-one stories of 31 immigrants to the  United States - when they came, why they came, and "the rest of the story."

Two chapters, two stories stand out: Elizabeth Drummond Hempfling who saw an ad in her native British newspaper in the late 60s for a nanny for 3-year-old twins in New Hampshire and Isabel Posso Diedrichs from Ecuador, who ended up in Montana (of all places) for college, pledging Kappa Alpha Theta.

The stories belong to the immigrants - people who come to the US, some with the intention of staying and some with not, but who manage to spend their life here anyway.

These stories are mini-biographies with the added bonus of supplying a considerable amount of information about the immigrant's home countries: from Myanmar to Bosnia to Ghana.

Not the first book from this author-veterinarian, The Immigrant Next Door has its hills and valleys of well-written paragraphs and sentences, as if some were carefully crafted, as if some were written by an experienced editor - most just telling a homey story.                                                                            

Suggestions

I was surprised at the dearth of stories from Asia or the Far East (China, Thailand, etc.); nonetheless, a good selection is to be had (read and remembered). You will have your favorites, along with their photos. And the story of how this book came to be is also memorable which may account for the selection of home countries. 

The United States is such a lucky country!

Book Review: The Wire-Walker (OT) (love, care, dreaming)

The Wire-Walker, by James Janko (Regal House Publishing, 2025, #20.95, 310pp PB)

The cover design with illustration, colors, and title is only slightly magnetic and I probably would not have purchased the book, The Wire-Walker. I might have thought it was about a circus, which, in a way, it is. But it is so much more than just a book about a circus. Although the title is 'appropo' I would suggest something more engaging to grab the reader's attention. However, the praise from other authors that is included made my decision for me, even though I knew next to nothing about this part of the world.  

Wire-Walker reads like a work of fiction, which is actually is, with lovely creative prose.

Our 16 year-old Palestinian protagonist lives in a refugee camp* and has learned to walk tightropes so she goes to the 'other' side (Israel) to improve her skills in the circus for kids, The Flying Kids, in which she is an 'aerialist' not a 'tightrope walker.'

One of the subplots will have you reading fast and faster to see what her twin brother finds and finds out. ----------------------------

*Balata has dwellings so crowded they remind me of one of the slums in the Far East with alleys so narrow that one can touch buildings on both sides at the same time and, when looking up,  can see only a sliver of sky and only at noon.

Book Review: Politics, Gangs and Vodou (OT)(Haiti's Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights)

Politics, Gangs and Vodou (Haiti's Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights) by Yvon Milien (Yvon Milien, 2025, $18.99, 268pp) 

Halfway through the introduction and after perusing the 'parts' like the Table of Contents, I realized the reader should read Politics, Gangs, and Vodou in chapter order, for it explains the history and culture, and delves into the future. Then, lo and behold, the next page in the introduction said the same thing but was more forgiving in that the second most valuable way to read the book is to just open it and start where your interests lie.

On second thought, there are 12 sections, each with chapters for a total of 30 chapters. The most memorable divisions in any object are a total of 3 but often goes up to 7 (unsuccessfully). Politics, with12 divisions, is unwieldly with sections that are hard to keep in mind and remember. Many times a book like this would include history, the current day, plans for the future, and maybe culture. However, with short chapters, Politics does a good job.

How can one describe how a nation came to be "born in chains, baptized in fire, and cast into the world alone, . . ."? Once the wealthiest (French) colony in the world due to its climate, soil and indigenous slaves, once Haiti won its freedom, the struggle began.

In order to understand Haiti, author Yvon Milien compares it to the US and compares authoritarianism to democracy, more than just elections, with civilian power and military rule.

Book Review: The Last Bake Sale (OT), The Fight for Fair School Funding

The Last Bake Sale, The Fight for Fair School Funding, by Andru Volinshky (Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2025, $24.95, 224pp )

 

The Last Bake Sale will open your eyes to the issue of underfunded, unequal education for public school students all across the country - and their origins from t he 1600s to the present day. We all live in a bubble and either resides in a school district that funds their schools well or doesn't, but those in the latter districts may not be aware that this has been a problem for eons and is also a problem throughout the nation.

Well-organized, Bake Sale begins with the situation today on the national scene, then focuses several chapters on the situation in New Hampshire and finally proposes some solutions based on New Hampshire where the author resides and has worked on more equitable school funding for many years.

Well-written by an attorney who later ran for (New Hampshire) governor, Bake Sale alternates from being told in the third person to the first person and is very effective in doing so. The reader will almost turn into an expert on New Hampshire school funding over the years nearly to the point of being a word-for-word transcription of some court cases. The reader will become more familiar with Plessy v Ferguson ('separate but equal') and Brown v Board of Education ('separate is not equal').

Readers especially interested in Bake Sale would be those who have lived in New Hampshire or have had children in the school system there (or anywhere) as well as educators and politicians across the country. I would suggest readers take notes because the play-by-play accounts could get detailed and one needs to read this book in chronological order (page by  page).

Book Review: Employment Ethics (OT), Redefining the Employer-Employee Relationship

Employment Ethics, Redefining the Employer-Employee Relationship, by Travis Schachtner (FTS Leaders, 2025, $19.99, 184pp) 

A Gem! 

We have all had a job (or two. . . ) that we just didn't like, but was it the people or the work itself? And how much of a role does salary play, or the manager? Let's redefine the 'employer-employee relationship' in the words of author Travis Schachtner.

Where's the Beef?

It is here. Being a rather small, affordable book enables the reader to carry it with him or her in a purse of pocket, to return to in  spare time. The concerpts are grad school concepts written in everyday language with examples being primarily of blue-collar employment.

Bringing in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and relating it to the real world of work can be challenging but the author does a good job of this (was it his PhD thesis?)

Much (too much?) of the book explains the premise which is: "Employers emphasize financial efficiency seeking to maximize productivity while minimizing labor costs. Employees, however, value their personal time, viewing work as an exchange of giving effort for a certain amount of time for ethical compensation." (p. 44) And much of the time, the author poses questions that outline a poor employer-employee relationship.

 A second theme compares a strong marriage to the employer-employee relationship while a one-night stand (contractors, PT or gig work) or an abusive relationship could be likened to other types of marriages.

And what book would be replete without mention of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Monogah mining or Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster or Willow Island but do you know what improvements in employment law resulted?

Several chapters end with reflections that are questions to summarize the chapter and cause the reader to evaluate his situation. Anyone picking up this book is probably in a difficult work situation and Employment Ethics, besides acting as a therapist, gives a structure to correct the situation.

Suggestions

I'd like to see Employment Ethics in greater use, perhaps by being shorter or condensing the first third or even by adding illustrations. Although I understand the items on the cover, I'd prefer a cover that is more magnetic and grabs the potential  reader to explore inside.