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  Rivermouth - A Chronicle of...

  Alejandra Oliva

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  In this powerful and deeply felt polemic memoir, Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American translator and immigrant justice activist, offers a chronological document of her experience interpreting at the US-Mexico border, and of the people she has encountered along the way. Tracing her family's long and fluid relationship to the border, each generation born on opposite sides of the Rio Grande, and having worked on asylum cases since 2016, she knows all too well the gravity of taking someone's trauma and delivering it to the warped demands of the American immigration system. 
   
   
   
  In Rivermouth, Oliva focuses on the physical spaces that make up different phases of immigration and looks at how language and opportunity move through each of them; from the river as the waterway that separates the US and Mexico, to the table as the place over which Oliva prepares asylum seekers for their Credible Fear Interviews, and finally, to the wall as the behemoth imposition that runs along America's southernmost border. 
   
   
   
  As investigative and analytical as she is meditative and introspective, sharp as she is lyrical, and incisive as she is compassionate, in Rivermouth, Oliva argues for a better world while guiding us through the suffering that makes the fight necessary and the joy that makes it worth fighting for.

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  Uses for Obsession - A Chef's...

  Ben Shewry

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  An intimate, searing and hopeful memoir meets manifesto that reframes the way we think about restaurants, cooking, hospitality, leadership and humanity from one of the most respected chefs in the world. 
   
  Chef and restaurateur Ben Shewry knows obsession well. Whether it's crispy-edged lasagne, saltwater crocodile ribs or the perfect potato, obsession is what motivates him and what makes him tick. It's also what has propelled his Melbourne restaurant Attica into the league of the most innovative, acclaimed dining experiences in the world, and one of the most vital in Australian history. 
   
  In this absorbing and wide-ranging memoir meets manifesto, Shewry applies his sometimes searing, sometimes comic eye to creative freedom in the kitchen, food journalism, sexism in hospitality, the fraud of the farm-to-table sustainability ethos, the cult of the chef, cooking as muse and the legendary Family Bolognese. 
   
  Raised on a farm in a close-knit rural New Zealand family, he shares how a childhood surrounded by nature and a reverence for First People's cultures has influenced his work, the values he lives by, and the meticulous, inventive multi-course menu that is synonymous with Attica. Uses for Obsession also tells the intimate, desperate story of how Attica survived 262 days with an empty dining room. How, during a time of epic hospitality transformation, it morphed into a takeaway food business, a merch shop and a summer camp. He was told it couldn't be done and that doubt both tortured and drove him. 
   
  At its heart, this is a positive story, an antidote to the macho chef culture that thrives on old ideas about leadership and success. Shewry prosecutes the compelling case for a new way forward. A bold blueprint for the restaurant - and workplace - of the future. One built on kindness, community, truth and a commitment to never giving up.

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  Osage Indian Murders The: The...

  Editors Charles River

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  In the late 19th century, Indian Territory became part of the new State of Oklahoma and tribal lands were gradually reduced in size, but on some of the lands assigned to the Osage, which became Osage County, something very dramatic happened: oil was discovered. At first, that didn’t seem too important - in the 1880s, oil was useful but wasn’t the source of wealth it would later become. However, the rise of the automobile changed everything. In 1900, there were only around 4,000 automobiles registered in America, but by 1908, there were over 60,000, and by the early 1920s, there were over 15 million. Every single one needed fuel and lubricants that came from oil, and as a result, “black gold” became one of the most valuable commodities on Earth.  
  	For the Osage, the explosion in demand for oil brought unimaginable wealth. In 1923 alone, the Osage Nation received over $30 million in oil revenue, worth over $400 million in current value, and individual members of the tribe became extremely wealthy. Unscrupulous people began to plot how they could get their hands on some of this wealth.  
  	Then the murders began. 
  	In the early 1920s, members of the Osage Nation and others began to turn up dead, and in many cases, the proceeds of oil revenue owned by these people passed to white “Guardians” appointed by the federal government. By 1925, at least 24 Osage had died in unexplained circumstances, and some accounts suggest that the actual number may have been over 100. Local law enforcement seemed unable (or perhaps unwilling) to investigate effectively, and it was left to a small bureau in Washington to undertake their first homicide investigation under the leadership of a dynamic and ambitious young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover. As a result, the horrifying true story of the Osage County murders became one of the first assignments for the federal agency that would later become the FBI. 

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  Saving MacArthur - The Story of...

  Rudy Tomedi

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  A photo in the New York Times on June 10, 1942 depicted a naval officer, John Duncan Bulkeley, and his wife in the back of a car as they were being treated to a New York ticker tape parade. Hundreds of thousands of people were cheering him in a hero's welcome. The thirty-year-old Bulkeley was back from the Philippines, where he had pulled off one of the most spectacular rescues in United States naval history by taking General Douglas MacArthur out of the besieged islands aboard a PT boat.MacArthur's escape from the Philippine death trap was front-page news. America's most illustrious soldier had been a hair's breadth away from being killed or captured by the Japanese. Both MacArthur and Bulkeley were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. But no mention was ever made of the nearly eighty officers and men of Bulkeley's squadron who were left behind, a tragic sacrifice that no one would admit was unnecessary.Saving MacArthur is the story of the fateful friendship of two otherwise very different men who shared an unquenchable thirst for fame and a willingness to turn history into myth, a story that is as much about the nature of human beings as it is about a glorious moment in our past. But above all it is the story of the men history has forgotten. Saving MacArthur captures their hardships, close escapes, and ultimate triumph.

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  Stumped - One Cricket Umpire Two...

  Richard Harrison

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  An Umpire's Journey Through Cricket's Evolution 
  In a sport where legends are forged on hallowed grounds from Lord's to Eden Gardens, one umpire's story stands apart. 
  A passionate Australian cricketer trades his whites for an umpire's coat, embarking on a journey that would challenge cricket's traditions. For six years, he witnesses the game's magic from cricket's most privileged position - standing in matches across England's most storied grounds, where giants of the game once played. 
  But it's his return to Australia that delivers an unexpected twist - like a Kumble googly that deceives even the most seasoned batsman. 
  Inspired by the rising tide of women's cricket - a phenomenon that has given India superstars like Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana - he makes an unprecedented decision. Joining the Victorian Premier Cricket Umpires Panel, he chooses to stand exclusively in women's matches, becoming a champion for the fastest-growing segment of our beloved sport. 
  Stumped is more than just a memoir - it's a window into cricket's soul. Through the unique lens of an umpire, author Richard Harrison captures the game's finest nuances, from the technical mastery required in decision-making to the various elements that enshrine the spirit of cricket. 
  Join Richard as he shares fascinating insights into: 
  The art and science of umpiring at elite levels 
  Cricket's evolution from traditional men's formats to the explosive growth of the women's game 
  Behind-the-scenes stories that will delight every true cricket lover 
  Don't let this one slip through to the keeper - get your copy of Stumped today and discover how one umpire's decision to challenge convention helped champion the future of cricket.

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  Octavia E Butler - H is for Horse

  Chi-Ming Yang

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  An homage to the childhood genius of Black science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler. 
   
   
   
  The figure of the horse, at once earthly and transcendent, represented the contradictions of freedom and captivity that enabled young Octavia to develop her nuanced sense of voice and place. Drawing on previously unknown archival research, this volume illustrates how Butler's development as a writer was tied to her extraordinary resourcefulness and self-awareness growing up as an awkward, bookish Black girl in segregated, Cold War Pasadena. She persistently re-visited and revised her early writings on teenage angst, Martians, Westerns, and racial politics. In one way or another her supernatural characters defied the constraints of gender, race, and class with equine-inflected resilience. 
   
   
   
  In the spirit of Butler's passion for library research, this book is comprised of twenty-six short A-Z chapters. It is part childhood biography, art and literary analysis, and memoir. It interweaves the author's personal recollections with scholarly musings on poetry, film, and literature inspired by Butler's encyclopedic reading habits and experiments with genre. Just as cross-species kinships are at the heart of her Afro-futurist, eco-feminist storytelling, Butler demonstrates that coming-of-age is an ongoing process and key to healing our damaged planet.

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