Foreword Reviews

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Explore this week's standout indie books with the Foreword Reviews Book of the Day Roundup! Immerse yourself in our meticulously selected collection that highlights new arrivals and hidden treasures from independent publishers, designed to inform your reading journey. #BOTD #BookOfTheDay #IndieBooks #ForewordReview Check out the complete list here: https://lnkd.in/gQwBt6GW

That we are a nation divided is no breaking news, but to look closely at the actual issues that cause our polarization can be a disheartening affair. Take “take America back,” which is just a catchy little political slogan for Trump-supporting Republicans, but if you’re someone who identifies somewhere along the LGBTQ+ spectrum, TAB definitely makes you feel an outsider, a target, fearful in your own country. And that is the purpose. Can we explain this intolerance for diversity? Yes we can, in a word: religion. Evangelical Christians, especially, cite passages in the Bible to press the case that God disapproves of homosexuality. Another favorite slander from those bullies using Christianity to condemn same-sex love is “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”—as if anything other than male-female relationships is an aberration on God’s green Earth. Josh Davis is here to tell us that science is now making a mockery of that notion. The author of A Little Queer Natural History, Josh notes that homosexual behavior has been officially confirmed in as many as 1500 species, and “it is clear these behaviours are common and prevalent across the entire natural world. … The most obvious assumption then is that most species probably exhibit some form of homosexual behaviour, and being a purely heterosexual species is the exception. While queer behaviours have frequently been presented as something ‘other’ or ‘unnatural,’ it is really doing a disservice to an aspect of nature that is likely exceedingly common and ancient in origin.” Whoa! Confronting those facts should shock more than a few take-America-back backers—and that’s a good thing. We must never forget that positive change is often a gradual process over generations. If libraries and K–12 science classes start placing Josh’s book and others like it showing how fluid and diverse our world really is, kids today will grow up with much greater levels of tolerance and empathy. Read our full interview here: https://lnkd.in/g32s2vUE

For over a quarter of a century, numerous indie publishers, university presses, and self-published authors have seen their titles gain significant recognition and renewed interest after winning an INDIES award. Every year, librarians, booksellers, and avid readers who follow Foreword Reviews and our weekly email, Foreword This Week, eagerly anticipate the announcement of the INDIES winners. More than ten thousand industry professionals and followers across Foreword’s social media platforms see the announcements about the INDIES results. We are now welcoming submissions for the 2024 INDIES from independent publishers, university presses, and author publishers. Register your titles here: https://lnkd.in/g6UfQjRG

Foreword Reviews is dedicated to nurturing the literary community, a commitment that includes strong support for local bookstores. Recently, we visited Leelanau Books, a gem in our local community, to connect directly with the space that brings indie books to readers. By spotlighting exceptional books from independent publishers, we help local bookstores like Leelanau Books discover and stock titles that resonate deeply with their customers. This not only enriches the reading culture but also bolsters the economic vitality of local businesses. Through our hands-on approach, we strive to be a valuable ally, fostering success for bookstores and libraries around the country and world.

Uncover this week’s top indie selections with the Foreword Reviews Book of the Day Roundup! Dive into our carefully chosen list that features the latest releases and undiscovered gems from independent publishers, crafted to enrich your reading experience. #BOTD #BookOfTheDay #IndieBooks #ForewordReview See the full list here: https://lnkd.in/g9KBcNWF

In every issue of Foreword Reviews, we discover a gem of a book that crosses genres and appeals on so many levels that we don’t know where to start. Jenny Haysom’s Keep—reviewed by Rebecca Foster—fits that bill in September/October; it’s a literary novel about aging and letting go but it’s set in Ottawa in 2017, which happens to be Canada’s sesquicentennial, a historical note which allows Jenny to reckon with the appalling treatment of the country’s Indigenous population by its European settlers. In her review, Rebecca says the novel “contrasts hoarding and generosity … raises the moral issue of preservation versus progress [and] … Underneath that is a deeper question of ownership, represented by the graffiti ‘You are all on traditional unceded Algonquin territory.’” If you’re hankering for a high level literary conversation, stay tuned. Read the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/gwd5z3Nt

Of Art & Consequences At Foreword, we love a good dystopian novel. See Kree and The Way in our literary fiction feature for evidence: in them, survivors fight through “fetid” worlds, finding and enacting mercy where they can and clinging to love, community, and other intangible beauties after material comforts have faded away. Reviewer Eileen Gonzalez noted the “Pyrrhic satisfaction” in such tales. These are stories we relish—but whose pages we don’t want to live in. We acknowledge, and strive to avoid, the horrific potentialities they reveal; they are antipodal to the futures we dream of. If we are to inhabit stories ourselves, we want them to offer at least the hope of a happy ending—to embody joy, rather than discord. When this issue reaches you, we’ll be breaths away from a consequential election with dark echoes of the recent past. We’ll be readying ourselves to choose what kind of future we’d like to live in—to write the next chapter in our collective story, knowing that none of us can turn the page alone. I believe that readers are uniquely equipped to navigate such choices, such sharp divergences in the road. Art, after all, is inherently political. It celebrates the best that we are capable of, exposes our vices, warns us of potential missteps, and imagines better worlds. It indicts and invents. Sitting with art and absorbing its lessons, we learn to be discerning, following promises of progress and threats of regression through to their logical conclusions. At this almost-there point, we invite you into these 100+ visions of the world as it is and could be with anxious appreciation. Each title in this issue has something to teach us about who we are and could become. And until the choice is made: we hope. Sincerely, Michelle Anne Schingler Editor in Chief

We are excited to welcome Josie Robinson to our sales team! Josie, a successful indie author, brings a wealth of publishing experience to her new role. She co-founded Evergreen Authors, where she spearheaded marketing campaigns for numerous authors and publishing companies. Most recently, she was instrumental in the development of DropCap Marketplace at DropCap Rights Agency, an innovative platform that facilitates connections between indie authors and the foreign rights market. “My passion for writing and indie publishing, combined with my extensive marketing experience, positions me uniquely to contribute to Foreword Reviews’ advertising initiatives. I understand the challenges and opportunities in the book industry from multiple angles—as an author, a marketer, and a business owner,” Josie shared. “Josie was a standout among the applicants for this position and we’re honored that she’ll be joining the sales and marketing department at Foreword. I am confident that our author and publisher clients will really enjoy working with her and benefit from her industry knowledge, not to mention her delightful personality,” said Stacy Price, Sales Director. At Foreword, we offer publishers a range of marketing services aimed at reaching trade buyers and avid readers. Josie will be providing publishers and vendors with expert marketing guidance across our platforms including our bimonthly print magazine, forewordreviews.com, the Foreword This Week eNewsletter, social media campaigns, and trade shows. She can be reached at josie@forewordreviews.com. Read the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/gd7P7kkV

Explore this week's top indie selections with Foreword Reviews' Book of the Day Roundup! Dive into our carefully chosen picks, featuring fresh releases and hidden masterpieces from independent publishers, destined to enrich your reading journey. Here is the whole lineup: https://lnkd.in/g-tTwXnB #BOTD #BookOfTheDay #IndieBooks #ForewordReviews #ReadingList