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Book Reviews
Altered Perspectives
By: Sam Woolfe - Iff Books - $20.95

Overview: This collection of essays within Altered Perspectives: Critical Essays on Psychedelic Consciousness delves into some of the strangest and most profound aspects of the psychedelic experience, such as seeing the self as an illusion, feelings of deep insight, the sublime (fear mixed with wonder), encounters with DMT entities, déjà vu, and existential joy.

Verdict: Drawing on research and theories from a variety of disciplines, author Sam Woolfe reflects on the ways that altered states may inform our understanding of consciousness, the self, and reality.

Particular attention is paid to the philosophy of psychedelics, with the aim of clarifying altered states through the lenses of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, aesthetics, existentialism, and Buddhism.

In these essays, Woolfe balances open-mindedness with a critical and skeptical perspective - he believes that this approach is necessary when examining psychedelic consciousness.

Having now read this new book cover-to-cover twice in the past couple of weeks, I can honestly attest to the fact that it is a fascinatingly thoughtful, dutifully insightful, and wholly enlightened prose that is as beguiling as it is all-encompassing.

Broken down into ten chapters, the philosophy of psychedelics is a growing field, and for good reason. The psychedelic experience, much like philosophy, can instill in us radical shifts in perspective, related to everything that matters to us, and to many things we rarely (if ever) question or consider.

The mind-altering, belief-changing nature of philosophy aligns well with the psychedelic experience, in which these effects are felt more dramatically and viscerally. In a flash of illumination and insight, a particular idea one expected was true can feel confirmed; a cherished perspective may, alternatively, be discarded; or perhaps a belief previously rejected or overlooked is adopted. These changes of mind may occur swiftly or slowly.

Simply put, the author’s aim is that in these essays the reader investigates certain psychedelic phenomena with a critical and skeptical outlook, as there are many experiences one can have on psychedelics that may lead to strong and certain conclusions and consciousness or reality but which nonetheless deserve scrutiny.

About the Author - Sam Woolfe is a writer and blogger who is interested in the intersection between psychedelic experiences and philosophical views. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including IAI News, Philosophy Now, and the Psychedelic Press journal. You can read more of his work at www.samwoolfe.com. He lives in London, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Feng Shui Your Way to Abundance
By: Janine Lowe - O-Books - $12.95

Overview: Here within author Janine Lowe’s new book Feng Shui Your Way to Abundance, you will learn how to unlock the power of your very own space to attract abundance.

So if that sounds like something that you have desired all your life, or perhaps you are only now realizing something like this could happen within you, this brilliant new book is most definitely for you.

Verdict: So, and taking it from the top, What is Feng Shui? Well, we are told that Feng Shui, which translates to “wind and water,” was historically used to select favorable places and times for building homes, growing crops, and other life-sustaining activities.

The philosophy is based on the elements of earth, metal, water, wood, and fire, which can all be represented through various shapes, colors, and materials throughout a home. The right balance cultivates happy, organized spaces that support our well-being and daily lives.

With that in mind, this book holds the key to unlocking within you more Wealth, Love, Good Fortune and so much more. In Feng Shui Your Way to Abundance, author and renowned Feng Shui Consultant, Eastern Astrologer and Energy Coach Janine Lowe reveals how you can transform your environment into a powerful tool for manifesting abundance in every area of your life.

For over 20 years, Janine has worked with clients around the world, guiding them to tap into their personal, profession space and the energies around them. She brings you an easy hands-on guide to help you harness the energy of Feng Shui, showing you how to take control of the energy in your surrounding and manifest your dreams and goals by taking action using Feng Shui.

From the off here, it is very obvious that Janine’s knowledge of Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology are significance, especially since she consults with individuals and businesses on both on a weekly basis, and so the way she peacefully, and with subtle ease, uses Chinese geomancy to help herself and others achieve harmony by using these energy forces is breathtakingly inspiring.

Broken down into 11 chapters plus a Conclusion, Janine opens the book with a chapter on Abundance and what the word, its context, means to her and those that wish to Feng Shui their collective way to it.

As she notes, the book is about using Feng Shui along with the positive energy in your house to attract the abundant life we want, but before she brings the reader into her world, she makes it clear that she wants us all on the same page as to just what exactly what Abundance means.

Abundance means a large quantity of something important to us. Most of us seek an abundant life, but it means different things to all of us.

For some, it is about having more time to spend with family and friends. For others it’s about experiences, travel and knowledge. Many of us think about it in terms of prosperity - which can mean thriving and being successful financially, spiritually, emotionally, or in terms of well-being. Many consider it to be about wealth, financial assets, and material possessions.

A straightforward way of thinking about it is having plenty of what you most desire, whether that is experiences, contentment, money, or something else entirely.

For this book to work, take some time to consider what it means to you. Don’t think about it in terms of what other people want you to have or to be: it’s about what YOU value and want more of in your life.

Achieving an abundant life only works if it’s about what YOU want.

In closing, Feng Shui Your Way to Abundance breaks free from the norm or scarcity that pervades our world, Janine teaches you in simple ways how to bring abundance, better relationships, and financial flow into your life. With her easy-to-follow advice, actionable insights, and the wisdom of thousands of years of Feng Shui, Janine walks you through the process of transforming your space and your life – step by step.

About the Author - It was obvious to Janine Lowe that she wasn’t designed for a 9-5 job and she wanted to use what she was good at as a career. She trained with various masters and became a Feng Shui consultant. Meeting people and being able to transform their lives in such a positive way has brought her immense joy and fulfillment.

Her business in Feng Shui and Chinese Astrology has grown significantly and she consults with individuals and businesses on both. She lives in West Sussex, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





The Taking: A Novel
By: Dona Masi - Roundfire Books - $16.95

Overview: This excellent new novel entitled The Taking, from author Dona Masi, tells a very suspenseful story of a girl besieged by strange events, the beguiling story line exploring what it means to confront the unknown.

Verdict: An unnatural silence and a feeling that you are all alone in the world. John and his daughter, Vera, grieve the loss of Vera’s mother, who mysteriously disappeared when Vera was a baby. As John struggles to raise his troubled daughter, he dismisses connections between his wife’s disappearance and Vera’s bizarre dreams of otherworldly creatures.

But when he finds Vera unconscious, lying in a ring of scorched trees, he begins to believe that a mysterious outside force is controlling her fate and his.

The Taking is a suspenseful story depicting a loving but difficult relationship between a father and daughter, amid the strange events that underlie their everyday life in a small New England town.

Tucked, seemingly at first, inconspicuously into this book as you begin reading it, is a most astutely told story that not only builds upon its tension in a layered manner, but one that becomes dutifully impassioned in such a way that the authors masterful creation of suspense and unexpectedness for the characters and the plot, is as impressive a feat as I have personally encountered in the past decade or so.

That character development blended with a genuine bringing of an angst-ridden, butterflies-affecting stance to those that read it, means what we get here in The Taking: A Novel is a story told, on the emotionally grounded surface, that heads in one direction, whilst the undercurrent silently, and yet with stealth, aches to reveal itself to be a rather compelling psychological thriller of the highest order.

About the Author - Dona Masi is a writer and editor whose short fiction and articles have been used in reading and writing assessments throughout the country. As a playwright, she has written plays that have been performed at the Provincetown Theater Company and on the Bon Mot radio program. When writing fiction or plays, she loves bringing characters to life and depicting them in all their humanity and heroism. She lives in Dover, NH.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Christian Thinking through the Ages
By: David Arnold - Christian Alternative Books - $14.95

Overview: Christian Thinking through the Ages by author David Arnold, is an account of Christian thinking that starts with Jesus of Nazareth’s teaching and then describes how its reception has changed over the last 2,000 years.

Verdict: As noted, Christian Thinking through the Ages takes its reader on a journey through 2,000 years of ideas. It starts with Jesus of Nazareth’s teaching, looks at speculation about Jesus himself and his significance, and describes the attempts to establish uniformity of belief both in the Roman Empire and in the late Middle Ages.

It describes the thinking of medieval monks, schoolmen and friars, of the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment, and goes on to show how the twentieth century’s political horrors led to new theological ideas, most of which have yet to trickle down to the mass of Christians.

I grew up in a very religious household, thus the teachings of Jesus during this time were always freely available to me. These teachings, many delivered in parables, focused on a repentance that would redirect a life to God, a life absolutely obedient to the will of God and following the commandment to love one’s neighbor expressed in Mark 12:28–31.

But sometimes it is hard to find the truth of a historical figure and the truth of what they brought to the world, I get that. I mean, it can be so shrouded in other people’s reactions and what they thought of them that you can hardly see past all that to appreciate the person themselves.

So what author David Arnold does here in his dutifully-constructed new book Christian Thinking through the Ages, is bring forth a profound, yet immaculately balanced, and straightforward learning essay on the subject matter to hand.

One that both allows you to acquire knowledge along the way, perhaps enlightening the reader to aspects they themselves were previously unaware of, whilst at the same time allowing everything to be told in a genuinely cohesive and instructionally lucid manner.

Thus, and as much as this thoroughly beguiling new prose concludes with an explanation of the various ways Christian churches disagree with each other, the book, as a whole, nonetheless ends with the hopeful thought that what Christians have in common and can share with others are the words of Jesus and his sacrifice.

About the Author - David Arnold was born in Hackney in 1933. He was educated at an elementary school and at Christ’s Hospital, was a history scholar of Pembroke College, Oxford, and a fellow commoner of Jesus College, Cambridge. His working life was spent as a schoolmaster, ten years in grammar schools, twelve in independent schools, and twenty in sixth form colleges. He lives in West Sussex, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Nursing Our Healer’s Heart
By: Dr. Lorre Laws - Iff Books - $23.95

Overview: Nursing Our Healer’s Heart is a gentle exploration of nurse-specific traumatization, which affects 96% of nurses, along with an actionable recovery plan for nurses to heal together as they begin to thrive instead of just survive in their practices.

Verdict: As I think we all know now, and have done for quite a few years/decades, nurses in hospitals are frequently under pressure due to a combination of factors including heavy workloads, staffing shortages, complex patient needs, time constraints, and the demanding nature of their job, often leading to burnout and stress, particularly during situations like a pandemic where patient volume may surge significantly.

So yeah, the nursing profession is, in general, in crisis. Within a decade, the world will have just over half the number of nurses it needs. The global nursing workforce has experienced mass, complex trauma secondary to healthcare system inadequacies and a global pandemic. Traumatized and burned out nurses are leaving their roles or the profession in unprecedented numbers. Those who remain are stretched to or beyond their capacity.

As noted, the fact that the healthcare organizations are still grappling with a nursing shortage crisis is nothing new. While some health systems have had success in rebuilding their nursing workforces in recent months, estimates still suggest a potential shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 nurses in the United States, with acute-care settings likely to be most affected, according to a recent article.

And as of March 2023, 45 percent of inpatient nurses reported they are likely to leave their role in the next six months, citing feeling undervalued by their organization and not having a manageable workload as their top two reasons. Healthcare leaders cannot build an effective staffing strategy without understanding how nurses are spending their time, how they would like to spend their time, and how their needs are evolving.

While system-level strategies aim to address this crisis, none of them consider nurse traumatization and its impact upon patient safety, outcomes, and quality of care. We cannot wait for health systems to prioritize nurse safety. Nurses can and must come together as a global community to heal through avoidable and unavoidable nurse-specific traumatization while partnering with healthcare leaders to usher in a new era of nursing.

However, this book, and through an actionable framework, guides nurses in healing the traumas and hardships they’ve endured as individuals and nursing communities. Grounded in the sciences of unitary caring, integrative nursing, neurophysiology, and transpersonal neurobiology, this book supports nurses in restoring their healers’ heart as they come together to address the deep trauma, burnout, attrition, and presenteeism that are central to the nursing crisis.

Thus Dr. Lorre Laws’ book (which is broken down into three sections - Healing Is Possible, Healing Is Happening, and Thriving in Practice & in Life - each with varying chapters within them) diligently explores these entangled, seemingly ever more complex as the years go by layers of trauma, most all too often ignored or overlooked, and strives to bring forth here a dutifully written, expertly cultured, and definitely vitally informative prose of a resource for anyone treating, or even themselves recovering from chronic illness, or a severe sense of burnout or traumatization.

For it is here within these pages that Nurses will learn the language of their nervous system and how to navigate it as a foundational practice to support professional wellbeing. Each nurse will discover their unique innate care plan, which will guide their healing and co-healing with other nurses.

As the author herself admits, This book was written for you, and it is about you, my most respected colleague, nurse and healer. I, too, am a nurse. I wrote this book for nurses who have experienced or are experiencing trauma or burnout, or who do not feel safe, seen, or heard, supported in practice.

And so by embracing the healing and practices offered in this book, nurses will learn how to support their nervous system regulation so they can thrive instead of survive in practice. Working from their healed scars instead of their open wounds, nurses can effectively lead sustainable organizational change and health care reforms that prioritize nurse safety and professional wellbeing.

About the Author - Dr. Lorre Laws is an author, healer, teacher, and integrative nursing professor who helps nurses who are experiencing burnout or traumatization -- often secondary to system inadequacies. Dr. Lorre guides nurses as they heal and recover together; moving from surviving to thriving in practice.

She founded The Haelan Academy, a nonprofit organization to support nurses throughout their career. As an engaging, informative, and entertaining speaker, Dr. Lorre is a beacon of way showing light for nurses and health professions as they usher in Nursing 2.0, a new paradigm that prioritizes nurse safety and professional wellbeing. She lives in Tucson, AZ.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Pagan Portals - Cerridwen: Keeper of the Cauldron
By: Danu Forest - Moon Books - $12.95

Overview: Hearken back to the call of Cerridwen, mistress of initiation and keeper of the cauldron of inspiration. Follow the footsteps of the bards and dive into her mysterious depths in search of the radiant brow of inner vision.

Drink of her Awen, her divine brew, and sit with Taliesin, keeper of the bright knowledge of spirit. Cerridwen has been honored by the Welsh bards for centuries and is known most famously as the mother and initiator of the bardic poet and divine child Taliesin, whose works are the greatest treasures of Welsh medieval literature, unlocking a spiritual tradition whose roots go far back to Britain’s most ancient past.

Verdict: For those not fully aware, this brand new book Pagan Portals - Cerridwen: Keeper of the Cauldron stylishly traces Cerridwen’s roots through layers of history and myth, whilst also providing hands-on exercises and visionary rites to help you realize her immeasurable power in your own magical practice.

For I honestly think that it is rather important that we learn as much as possible about a mother figure who loved her child so ferociously, with such dedication, even though she was very often a misunderstood figure. But author Danu Forest is a Celtic scholar, and her exquisite use of words makes Cerridwen so much more interesting, relatable, and human than the way history, at times, has drawn here.

A Celtic Goddess of the cauldron, Cerridwen was the embodiment of the great transformative power of the cauldron itself — the alchemical vessel through which the ordinary becomes the magical.

While known by many as a shapeshifting Goddess, Cerridwen most popularly represented the darker aspects of Goddess energy—symbolizing the crone, the wise one, the dark one who sees all and knows all.

This is why Cerridwen is most well-known for her ties to the Underworld as keeper of the cauldron (the ultimate inspiratrix and creatrix) — embedding herself at the center of that fateful cycle between death and rebirth. For Cerridwen knows, just like any wise crone would, that to create and to inspire as one does with such power means to invoke the intimate death and rebirth that all of creation requires.

What this book strives to do is bring an engaging, and dutifully balanced overview of just who Cerridwen was, along with her generous ability to teach, and love. Not only is the mythology interesting and symbolic, but the book itself is so beautifully written that the words are inspiring and relevant today.

As for why Cerridwen is so important to the author Forest, well, her interest in Taliesin and Cerridwen first took root within her while she was at school over thirty years ago, and she admits she can recall that even then how they deeply stirred her.

Thus the central work of this book has been to honor Cerridwen as best she could, but no book or journey of study ever takes place in a vacuum, and so she takes this opportunity to thank and honor all those who have supported her path and learning, and who have provided insight and inspiration along the way.

She also acknowledges and honors the rich and vibrant culture and developments taking place with regard to this subject in modern Wales at this time, and so encourages the reader to engage with these as much as possible.

About the Author - Danu Forest is a traditional Celtic wisewoman, of half British and half Irish heritage. She is a writer, teacher and Celtic Scholar with an MA in Celtic studies, her thesis was on Celtic folk magic practitioners and the fairy faith. Danu lives in a cottage near Glastonbury Tor in the midst of the Avalon lakes, in the South West of England.

Exploring the Celtic mysteries for over 30 years, and noted for her quality research, practical experience, as well as her deep visionary love of the land, Danu writes for numerous national and international magazines and is the author of several books.

She is a respected magical teacher, healer and seer offering readings and consultations, workshops and ceremonies, as well as online courses. www.danuforest.co.uk.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Jazz in the New Millennium:Live and Well [Revised]
By: Rick Mitchell - Dharma Moon - $29.95

Overview: Dharma Moon Press is pleased to announce the publication of Jazz in the New Millennium: Live and Well, Revised Edition, by Rick Mitchell.

The 8 ½ by 11 book contains interviews with 84 prominent jazz musicians active in the 21st Century, including such living masters as Charles Lloyd and Pat Metheny, prime time players Jason Moran and Christian McBride and rising stars Esperanza Spalding and Cecile McLorin Salvant.

As Mitchell says in the introduction, “I am shaping the narrative with the questions I ask, and my analysis of the music is never too far from the surface. But as an interviewer, my primary objective is to let the musicians speak for themselves.”

The first edition was published in 2014 by Dharma Moon Press and DaCamera of Houston. At a hefty 275 pages, Jazz in the New Millennium: Live and Well, Revised Edition includes 40 new chapters, and dozens of new photos.

The book is easy to read and full of useful information for those who want to educate themselves about jazz and/or stay current with the latest trends and new artists. The book offers the most comprehensive overview of what is happening in jazz today that exists in print.

Verdict: For those not fully aware, in Jazz in the New Millennium: Live and Well, Revised Edition, author Rick Mitchell argues that the greatest music of the first 25 years of the 21st Century holds its own with any previous era of jazz, as the most talented musicians from around the world continue to find their way to this music and bring their unique cultural perspectives to the tradition of Duke, Monk and Trane.

“Will young listeners 50 years from now discover the recordings of Cecile McLorin Salvant and Joshua Redman and approach them with the same reverence we now have for Billie Holiday and Lester Young?” he asks. “I don’t know,” he answers, “but I am here to make the case that they should.”

OK, so let us be clear about this first fact, and that is this revised edition, now complete with an amazing 40 new chapters, is a big, and noted hefty book, and yet one that once started is so very hard to close until chapters have been completed.

In what is a most highly insightful, dutifully informative, and remarkably diligent with regard not just its content, but the author’s very own heartfelt observations, the prose sets about uncovering the movers and shakers active in jazz, then and now.

Often described as having developed into many different styles, including traditional jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, and jazz-rock, this American music genre can also be broken down into such sub-sections as: Improvisational, Rhythmic, Swinging, Polyphonic, Blue notes and complex chords, Call and response vocals, and Pitch and timbre distortions, et al.

Jazz originated in African-American communities in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was influenced by many musical styles, including blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythms, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music.

Being a music journalist myself, I cover any and all musical art forms, but one that has itself always been accessible to me at times when things needed to slow down around me, when I needed to bring a little calm to my life, was jazz. Sure, I understand there is more to jazz than just the slow, low slung blues-jazz aspects (and no, I am not referring to smooth jazz, moreover cool jazz), but for me I have always personally enjoyed those albums over the faster paced entries within the genre (such as Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, et al).

I also understand, and have witnessed during many a conversation on the subject, that many people think of jazz as an art form of music from the last century and beyond, a genre that has seen its day, played a good game, and has since been long retired, but that is far from the truth.

For many years now, decades even, jazz has seen a resurgence in popularity, which is in no small part due to jazz records being sampled so widely in hip-hop production. Yet in just the last decade, musicians from all across the jazz spectrum have tried to deconstruct some of the outdated tropes of jazz standards; instead opting to create a more open-ended sonic palette that incorporates the musical innovations of the later half of the 20th century.

What Rick does here is make sure that jazz is still very much a living form of music within the general consciousness, showcase that it has been growing all along via a steady undercurrent that has never let its foot off the pedal, and continues to be as well loved today as it ever was back then.

Furthermore, the book actually makes you want to go out and find the music and hear it yourself for all the artists mentioned, which if you do that, please make sure to hunt down the vinyl records of the titles, as CD/digital is just not gonna cut it through your speakers for such an intimate listening experience, trust me.

About the Author - Rick Mitchell is a radio programmer, journalist and teacher living in Portland, Oregon. He has been writing about all forms of music for national and regional newspapers and magazines for 50 years. From 1989 to 1999, he was the jazz and popular music critic for The Houston Chronicle.

His previous books include Garth Brooks: One of a Kind, Workin’ on a Full House (Simon and Schuster, 1993) and Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky Tonk (University of Texas Press, 2007). Since 2015, he has produced a weekly one-hour radio program, also called Jazz in the New Millennium, syndicated nationally by the African American Public Radio Consortium.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.rickmitchell.us





COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham
By: Joe Bergamini - Hudson Music LLC - $29.95

Overview: With COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham, the work and life of this drumming colossus is explored and analyzed.

Written with Cobham’s direct involvement and culled from dozens of hours of interviews with him, the book presents a biography of his early years and the development of his career, and then documents select important recordings and projects from 1968 up to the present day.

Verdict: For those not fully aware, here within these glorious pages of the dutifully constructed COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham, the principle leader Billy Cobham gives his views on the industry, writing music, leading a band, recording, education/clinics, and other topics.

Presented in a coffee-table style full-color layout, an extensive collection of photos (many culled from Cobham’s personal archives) documents Billy’s history — including his contributions to the innovative setup of the instrument itself: left-hand-lead/ambidextrous playing, double bass drums, the contemporary large kit with instrument innovations such as the gong drum, and an endlessly creative approach to playing the drums in ways that continue to defy convention.

And a lot of what we are lovingly presented is simply informatively fabulous to add to what we, as drum followers, already knew. Known as one of the world’s most prolific jazz drummers, Billy was born William C. Cobham on May 16th, 1944, in Panama, where he developed a fascination with the percussion instruments his cousins played when he was a very young child.

Known today as being a jazz fusion maestro, widely recognized, and esteemed for his creative drumming/musical brilliance, over the decades he has significantly contributed as a master drummer, percussionist, composer, producer, educator, clinician, and tireless musical adventurer.

And yet, when asked the question of whether or not he had ever had any kind of formal training on the drums growing up, his answer is astounding: Very little. I went to the Music and Art High School in New York City but they didn’t have a percussion instructor there. They looked down on percussionists. I studied with Morris Goldenberg, who passed on in 1966. I also studied with Warren Smith who was a student teacher in our high school while studying at the Manhattan School of Music. But no other formal training."

Regardless, Billy has played the drums on some of the genre’s seminal early records, including ground-breaking works by Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, before he was a successful musician in his own right.

He has also used his incredible skill to create booming, high-octane mashes of jazz sophistication and rock & roll ferocity when playing at his best. He could play understated, funkier grooves and astonishing solo improvisations, and luckily for us all, we got to hear a lot of that phenomenal skill on his recordings.

COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham chronicles the work and life of this drumming titan is explored and analyzed. Written with Cobham’s direct involvement and culled from dozens of hours of interviews with him, the book gives us his views on the industry, writing music, leading a band, recording, education/clinics, and other engrossing topics.

Also included are exclusive interviews with John McLaughlin, Ron Carter, Randy Brecker, and contributions from Wayne Cobham (Bill’s brother and collaborator) and Ken Hoshino (Tama drums). Contemporary legends who count Cobham among their main influences also contribute their views on Billy’s importance: Will Calhoun, Dennis Chambers, Gary Husband, Simon Phillips, John Riley, Steve Smith, and Narada Michael Walden. Rounded out by a complete discography and a collection of industry advertisements over the years, the book can be used as a musical analysis, biography, or an entertaining look at photos and history of the legendary music career of Billy Cobham.

In short, and both via this book and his world-renowned persona, we learn and embrace the fact that Billy Cobham is a highly skilled soloist whose explosive force and rhythmic precision set the standard for fusion drummers. He also continues to innovate and provide service to the world through his music with the same vigor and enthusiasm he had in his youth.

About the Author - Joe Bergamini is a drummer from New Jersey in the United States. He is the co-founder of the instrumental progressive rock band 4Front. 4Front’s other founder, guitarist/songwriter Zak Rizvi, went on to become a member of the classic rock group Kansas in 2016.

The latest in a series from author Joe Bergamini, who has written best-selling musical biographies of Neil Peart, Stewart Copeland, and Steve Gadd, COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham is a must for the bookshelf of all drummers and fans of jazz and fusion.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.hudsonmusic.com





Vanisher: Chronicles of the Warren
By: Tom Grimwood - Our Street Books - $10.95

Overview: The land of Bryvania once faced a problem: too many adventurers, and not enough mythical beasts and dark wizards to provide the adventures to satisfy them.

The problem was solved when the Baron Kaveshvill opened a purpose-built dungeon, the Warren. Full of rewards and risks, and with a hefty charge to enter, this soon became a thriving monopoly on adventure, and the only opportunity for fame and fortune.

Verdict: Azra, a young girl shunned by her village for her ability to magically disappear and reappear, receives an invitation from a mysterious stranger to take part in the greatest heist in the history of the land: to steal the Warren’s gold.

But the plan is fraught with danger, and working with a legendary adventurer, a notorious trickster and an enthusiastic elf, Azra must learn quickly who to trust and who to fear, if she is to come out of the Warren with its riches - or even with her life.

My goodness, this may well be a short book at just over 100 pages, but what a most wondrous, free flowing, magically adventurous prose ride it is! From start to finish (which I did in one sitting, one evening) I was enraptured from the off and enjoyed every second of this tale of hope, fear, redemption, honor and ultimate bravery.

For in a Warren chock full of many creatures, worldly and unworldly, whether there also be real dragons or not, it doesn’t matter as what these characters encounter, the adventures they submit to, the way their adrenaline pumps, their faces contort, their hearts pump is exactly the way we ourselves find ourselves reading this very same book!

About the Author - Tom Grimwood is Professor of Social Philosophy at the University of Cumbria, UK. His previous books include The Shock of the Same: An Antiphilosophy of Cliches, Key Debates in Social Work and Philosophy, and Irony, Misogyny and Interpretation. He lives in Lancaster, UK.

Official Amazon Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





The Land Beyond The Waste: A Novel
By: B.F. Peterson - Roundfire Books - $18.95

Overview: When Rydara, the mixed-race bastard daughter of a tribal king, finds out that the queen of a neighboring country is murdering tribes people in dark magic rituals, her father refuses to believe her and banishes her to avoid the risk of war.

She and her loyal brother Aander strike out through a desert wasteland to seek the fabled land of elves and dragons, where they hope to find magic strong enough to defeat the queen.

But even if they find the elves, how will Rydara convince them to save a tribe of prejudiced, short-sighted humans? Are her people worth saving--and if so, how much is Rydara willing to sacrifice?

Verdict: Admittedly, I went into this book a little blind to what, if anything, had come before, as I really enjoy not knowing too much about a read before I immerse myself.

But that’s just me, so allow me to provide some context for this new prose ahead of time for those wishing to know (and if you don’t, please forgive me if you are now reading this), because I have since been informed that author B.F. Peterson has another new book coming out in June this year entitled The Ellyrian Code: The Treaty of Edriendor, and thus this book The Land Beyond The Waste is a companion novel to that very same novel.

Does that mean you cannot enjoy this one before you have the other to hand in June so you should delay reading this now? Heck no it doesn’t! It simply means you have this wondrously adventurous new novel to hand now to enjoy over and over, to immerse yourself within, knowing that come June you have its companion to run into, arms wide open, and with a big, wide smile emblazoned!

For what we have here in The Land Beyond The Waste: A Novel is a rather gripping YA tale chock full of fantastical elements, including humans, elves, and dragons, amongst a whole slew of other interesting, nay enthralling, well-written characters.

An epic fantasy tale of the highest order, we read along as the endearing relationship between Rydara and her half-brother Aandar colorizes as the pages are turned, the story line becoming more and more intricate, at times even politically charged, and at all times is a tale told as if it were plucked from the history books.

Complete with poignant descriptions of front and center characters along with secondary and even, at times, background, the prose drawing of the Elves and their land/cultural practices is just second to none. And lest I forget to mention their spoken language as it is truly captivating, highly original and is both expansive and enriching for the unfolding story within these collective pages.

About the Author - B.F. Peterson is a poet, philosopher, and fantasy novelist with a B.A. in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University and a day job in sleep research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison, WI.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





The Devils’ Gospels
By: Christopher Gasson - Christian Alternative - $13.95

Overview: Can we find religious inspiration in great atheist writing? It is a paradoxical challenge but an urgent one. The gap between secular and religious understandings of the world has become impossibly wide. It is damaging Christianity and cutting young people off from the possibility of faith. Yet if God exists, everything we learn about the world should tell us more about God.

Verdict: The Devils’ Gospels started in a youth discussion group at Oxford’s University Church. Each month the author would introduce a different atheist book to the teenagers to see where the discussion would lead. Four of the best are given the status of gospels here: Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Jacques Derrida’s Writing and Difference, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. These books each have, in their own way, shaped the world we live in today.

Author Christopher Gasson is a journalist, publisher, and amateur theologian. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University. While his children were young, he took responsibility for the University Church’s Sunday school and youth discussion group. Growing up he had felt that Church liked to wrap up children in intellectual cotton wool out of fear that their faith be upset by even the gentlest questioning.

He was therefore determined that the discussion group should therefore address the most difficult and dangerous challenges to Christianity rather than ignore them. What he discovered was that God is robust enough to stand up to such questioning and the adults in the congregation had just as much appetite for such discussion as the teenagers. The Devils’ Gospels was born.

The Devils’ Gospels captures the energy of their ideas in language simple enough for a bright 11-year-old to understand, and uses it to shed greater light on the nature of God. But it is not just written for intelligent teenagers trying to find their way towards belief. It is aimed at two other important groups: Christians who feel that they aren’t getting the answers that matter from the Church, and non-believers who want to explore the possibility that there may be more to life than physics and biology.

Thus in what is a most enthralling exploration, The Devils’ Gospels: Finding God in Four Great Atheist Books is one of those cannot put down, page-turning prose that dutifully challenges the reader to question their long-felt, long-standing understanding of right and wrong; albeit here in a way that quickly becomes a reflective re: Faith and the true nature of Evil.

About the Author - Christopher Gasson is a journalist, publisher, and amateur theologian. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and subsequently took responsibility for running the University Church’s Sunday school and youth discussion group.

In his day job he publishes a successful specialist magazine covering the water industry and is an occasional contributor to the New Statesman magazine. He lives in Oxford, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Revealing Light
By: Maryann Weston - O-Books - $15.95

Overview: A spiritual odyssey, Revealing Light: How Cancer Illuminated My Divine Blueprint tells the story of its author’s psychological and spiritual evolution, from confronting her mortality with a deadly illness to creating a community of like-minded people.

Verdict: Here within the pages of Revealing Light: How Cancer Illuminated My Divine Blueprint, YouTube psychic-astrologer Maryann Weston, from Revealing Light, shares her spiritual evolution after cancer had activated dormant psychic gifts, revealing a new purpose.

In 2015, amid a successful career, wife and mother Maryann Weston was diagnosed with cancer. Engulfed first in waves of fear, she didn’t want to die and leave her family. A million questions and reasons to fight flooded her mind. Confronted by death, she felt inadequate and small. If only she had known then how supremely and divinely Spirit would soon walk beside her, onto cancer’s battlefield.

Her fear and doubt suddenly began to lift when she started reconnecting with her childhood clairvoyance, studying mediumship and astrology, drawing from her strong calling to discuss her healing and the psychic abilities she had suppressed since childhood.

Following this battle with cancer and subsequent recovery, dormant psychic abilities were reawakened and Maryann established multiple spiritual platforms, a spiritual blog and podcast, as well as a Patreon platform. Nowadays, she is a clairvoyant and psychic medium and combines these gifts with journalism and research skills to interpret how universal and spiritual truths apply and impact on our world.

She cover’s diverse subjects in her spiritual work, global events, climate change, politics and future world trends and events and uses astrology to look at major planetary movements and conjunctions impacting our world, along with channeling messages from passed over, inspirational souls and on spiritual themes.

This book is about the gifts received through adversity, about learning in the fiery waters of a spiritual baptism that many cancer warriors experience and how crisis can shatter existence to reveal divine purpose in life - a blueprint we agreed to before we were born.

About the Author - Maryann Weston is a clairvoyant & psychic medium who combines these gifts with journalism and research skills to interpret how universal and spiritual truths apply and impact in our world. She has been reading tarot for decades, studying astrology for the past 5 years, and has been a clairvoyant all her life, experiencing psychic and emphatic events from childhood. She lives in Goulburn, Australia.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Impossible to Believe
By: Michael William Templeton - Iff Books - $10.95

Overview: The notion that 21st-century people believe in something is self-evident. Each of us has political, religious, and social notions and beliefs - a simple given of contemporary life.

But while many have watched with horror as ordinary people in the US and around the world express ideas and beliefs that are demonstrably unsupportable, it’s apparent that the very notion of belief is in question.

Verdict: So, how is Belief explained? Well, it can be described as an acceptance that a statement is true, or that something exists, or something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction, perhaps, or it is simply trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

Impossible to Believe focuses on several key sites of belief, such as contemporary religion, politics, and popular culture, to question and examine how these sites have been upended and supplanted. This analysis begins with Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle and extends these ideas into the twenty-first century, taking account of how things such as digital culture and contemporary debt relations continue to cause spectacular life, penetrating our deepest core and proliferating over all we see and do.

Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord where he develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle. The book is considered a seminal text for the Situationist movement. Debord published a follow-up book Comments on the Society of the Spectacle in 1988.

Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing. This condition, according to Debord, is the historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.

The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. The spectacle is not a collection of images, Debord writes, rather, it is a social relation among people, mediated by images.

In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that the quality of life is impoverished, with such a lack of authenticity that human perceptions are affected; and an attendant degradation of knowledge, which in turn hinders critical thought.

Debord analyzes the use of knowledge to assuage reality: the spectacle obfuscates the past, imploding it with the future into an undifferentiated mass, a type of never-ending present. In this way, the spectacle prevents individuals from realizing that the society of spectacle is only a moment in history, one that can be overturned through revolution.

In the Situationist view, situations are actively constructed and characterized by a sense of self-consciousness of existence within a particular environment or ambience.

Debord encouraged the use of détournement, which involves using spectacular images and language to disrupt the flow of the spectacle.

Thus, The Society of the Spectacle is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism, dealing with issues such as class alienation, cultural homogenization, and mass media.

But I digress, for the dominance of forms of spectacular life that were accelerated under neoliberalism and global consumer capital has obliterated things such as Habermas’s rational critical debate and Althusser’s notion of ideology, replacing them with a mode of existence that depends entirely on having over being. Even homo economicus has been replaced by homo consumptor.

For the record, Habermas’s rational critical debate is where Habermas envisioned the public sphere as a neutral zone, devoid of economic and political influence, where rational-critical debate could thrive, and where according to him, this space should be: Inclusive: Open to all citizens, regardless of class or background.

And Althusser’s notion of ideology is where, and according to Louis Althusser, ideology refers to the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence, meaning that people’s understanding of their own lives and social reality is largely shaped by a set of ideas and beliefs that are not necessarily reflective of the true power dynamics and structures around them, effectively acting as a veil that maintains the status quo; this concept is often seen as a way to explain how individuals are interpellated or positioned as subjects within a dominant ideology through institutions like education, media, and the family.

The book may only be just over 100 pages in length, but it is a notably heavy read, chock full of political, religious, and social notions and beliefs, all wrapped up within the cold, hard-faced embrace of what exactly belief is to everyone and, moreover, can bringing it into question change the embedded notion of belief with any of us - and for all the right reasons?

About the Author - Michael William Templeton is an independent scholar and writer. He completed his Ph.D. in literary studies at Miami University of Ohio in 2005. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published by Erratum Press. He has written creative non-fiction and critical essays on contemporary culture, which have been published in online and print magazines and journals. He lives in West Milton, Ohio.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





DEATH: Friend or Enemy?
By: Ann Merivale - 6th Books - $22.95

Overview: Death, as the saying goes, is the great leveler, and though many fear it, while others view it as a blessed release, its inescapability affects us all in some way.

The author of this unusual book makes use both of her spiritual reading and of the knowledge she gained from 20-plus years’ experience of taking her Deep Memory Process clients back to deaths in their previous lives, thus giving a broad spectrum of possible post-death scenarios.

Verdict: And thus these very same possible post-death scenarios are illustrated here with a combination of famous and fictional characters, drawn both from accounts that came from the ‘other side’ through her figurative pen and from factual research.

Part of the book’s aim is to dispel all fears of death itself and to demonstrate that the notion of eternal damnation is mistaken. At the same time, it shows the reader that whether a lifetime lasts 10 years (as did Annie Darwin’s) or 97 (like Bertrand Russell’s), it has a clear purpose and value.

The stories’ precise truth is, however, immaterial, as you will find them enjoyable, educational, and reassuring, one and all, as what you will quickly learn early on is that the author Ann Merivale has created an easy to read page turner of the highest, and most insightful order.

In what is ninth, and supposedly final book, she lovingly brings forth all she has learnt being a Deep Memory Process Therapist, inclusive of 27 individual case studies, allowing us to hear their stories whilst at the same time nudging us toward verifying our own perspectives on how we perceive death.

These differing stories of death are fascinating, allowing for our brains to focus in, and listen intently, because there is nothing more personally interesting to us humans as death - and how others handle it so that we might learn from them.

Ergo, DEATH: Friend or Enemy? is one of those reads that at 400 pages you cannot undergo in one seating, although who am I to say it cannot be done, but for me I broke it down into a weeks worth of consumption.

Yes, OK, we live in uncertain death times, with no clear answers, traditions, or histories to lean on. Death is not a teacher of any specific transcendent wisdom, nor of truth, and the existential lessons are not settled in a fixed curriculum. We die, the body is temporal, and grief is a part of life.

Sure, no arguments there, but, and in counterpoint, this is a well researched, enjoyable, and well-documented new book, full of significant insights and thought-provoking tales of near death experiences, mediums, and revealing soul voyages through past lives that will most definitely open your eyes in readiness.

About the Author - Ann Merivale is a Woolger-trained Deep Memory Process therapist. She lives in Worcestershire, UK and, prior to Covid, was working at the Ripon Natural Health Centre in N. Yorks.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Compassion Based Living Course
By: Heather Regan-Addis & Choden - Mantra Books - $17.95

Overview: This book is a practice-based approach to compassion meditation training that equips readers with skills to bring compassion directly into their everyday lives. It sits within the secular mindfulness tradition and is a unique fusion of Buddhist, evolutionary, and psychological approaches to compassion and includes insights from neuroscience.

Verdict: Based on the authors’ experiences over the last decade of training hundreds of people in compassion meditation, including at the Master’s degree level, Compassion Based Living Course proceeds gradually, building capacity in stages.

It starts with mindfulness and proceeds to self-compassion and then compassion for others, with a final chapter focusing on socially engaged compassion. It is a companion to our earlier successful book, published by O-Books, Mindfulness Based Living Course.

In what is a brilliantly constructed, wholly impassioned and dutifully intriguing new prose, this book is more than just a study in practical DIY for those who might be interested in the aforementioned Compassion Based Living Course, moreover it will have you enthralled from the off and hopefully, come the end, you will have greatly benefited from the content held within along with perhaps even the discussed course.

About the Authors - Heather Regan-Addis began training in Mindfulness with Rob Nairn in 2004. She is a British Wheel of Yoga trained yoga teacher, has a PGDip in Mindfulness Based Approaches from the University of Bangor, Wales and a Masters Degree in Studies in Mindfulness from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

In 2010 she co-founded the Mindfulness Association ( www.mindfulnessassociation.net) which is now one of the largest Mindfulness Training and Mindfulness Teacher Training organizations in the UK and of which she is currently the Managing Director.

She teaches Mindfulness, Compassion and Insight courses and leads the team that developed and delivers the Mindfulness Teacher Training program to teach the 8 week Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC).

Choden (aka Sean McGovern) is a monk within the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, who completed a three year, three month retreat in 1997 and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1985. He is originally from South Africa where he trained as a lawyer and learned meditation under the guidance of Rob Nairn, an internationally renowned Buddhist teacher.

He is now involved in developing secular mindfulness and compassion programs drawing upon the wisdom and methods of the Buddhist tradition, as well as contemporary insights from psychology and neuroscience.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Blue: When Hiding Isn’t Safe Anymore: A Novel
By: Caroline Allen - Our Street Books - $15.95

Overview: In a time of windstorms and wildfires, Blue is a huge tree growing in an ancient forest. Blue’s best friend is Maisie-Grace, a girl with a terrible, beautiful secret. Not only can Maisie talk to trees, she has dreams and visions that come true, a gift she has to hide from everybody.

Verdict: One day, Maisie dreams of loggers coming to cut down her beloved forest. A series of events propels her from the woods, where she has been homeschooled her entire life, to a middle school she doesn’t know.

There she makes unlikely friends with JAX, a paraplegic artist, and Macon, an animal-loving farm girl. The three girls venture into the forest where they get to know the trees, and eventually themselves.

Can they save the forest from being silenced? Will Maisie-Grace come out of hiding and tell people all that she sees? Will she let them silence her, too?

In a day and age where powerful, thought-provoking tales of crucial forethought and insightful decision making is well and truly needed for our younger generation to successfully move forward, along comes Blue: When Hiding Isn’t Safe Anymore, a book that dutifully combines all of that and more for the younger generation to absorb.

Interlocking within a magnificent story line prose and a diligently scattered amount of inspiring messaging, along with clearly showcasing how to build bridges to not only further ourselves mentally, but to build a better future for all, author Caroline Allen has expertly awoken all our spiritual awareness to enable us to think about our connection to the Earth and this most gloriously spun life we exist within.

A transformative, spiritually-hued book, I can honestly say that I read it in just two sittings, but had bed not been calling me that first night, it might have been consumed in one go. For the book is just that good. An effortless read, yet one with such powerful transformations for us to visualize that it is a wonder she managed to create this most deeply colorful world and all that exists within it in just these 216 pages.

Helping us to know our challenges, to be able to handle them accordingly, but moreover to have the courage to step forward, this generational crossover of a story weaves a most beautiful tale of the wisdom of trees, one where if we can teach ourselves to be way more attentive to the roots, the trunks, the branches, the soul of our trees, perhaps we ourselves can walk head held positively high with freshly garnered Mother Nature knowledge into an always uncertain future.

About the Author - Caroline Allen was an international newsroom journalist when a sudden call to give it up left her reeling. She’d spent years giving voice to the voiceless, and now she was being called to find her own authentic creative voice.

With the narrative and characters closely intertwined with nature and climate change, her first four award-winning novels follow one mystic protagonist around the world in search of self-acceptance and purpose. How can she stop running from her gifts and use them to help a world in crisis? She lives in Estacada, OR.

Official Amazon Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Pagan Portals - Modron
By: Kelle BanDea - Moon Books - $12.95

Overview: In the flow of healing waters and the urgent cry of the Earth, we hear the voice of the Celtic mother goddess Modron, also known as Matrona.

A goddess of fertility, abundance and healing, but also of grief and loss and ancestral wisdom, she is still present, although hidden, in today’s world.

Verdict: Here within the acutely written pages of Pagan Portals - Modron: Meeting the Celtic Mother Goddess, we find the myths of Modron in the tales of the Mabinogi, the Welsh Triads and modern tales of Avalon, and her image and veneration in the ancient religions of Celtic Gaul, where she first emerged as a river goddess.

Furthermore, we can trace echoes of her in ancient Indo-European texts and possibly even further back to the agricultural myths of the Neolithic. She is even present in the stars.

As we quickly learn, in Celtic mythology, Dea Matrona (Divine Mother) was the goddess who gave her name to the river Marne (ancient Matrŏna) in Gaul. The Gaulish theonym Mātr-on-ā signifies Great Mother and the goddess of the Marne has since been interpreted to be a mother goddess, with the name of the Welsh mythological figure Modron, mother of Mabon, itself derived from the same etymon (and Mabon has a cognate in Gaulish Maponos).

Author Kelle is a neurodivergent writer of Traveler heritage who is a long time pagan who holds postgraduate degrees in Feminist Theology and Creative Writing, and her work here in this brand new Pagan Portal prose is one dutifully sculpted, impassioned, and always wholly informative (without being weighed down with connotationally shrouded mysteries) throughout.

The lore of the Celtic mother goddess Modron is expertly brought to the fore here and most certainly reveals to us a lot more about the elusive goddess. Broken into two Parts, the first three chapters focus on Meeting the Great Mother, the latter Working with Modron; where these five chapters within serve as a collectively insightful, and clearly distinct reveal of just exactly who Kelle wishes us to get to know better.

Ergo, Modron - Meeting the Celtic Mother Goddess takes a deep dive into this often overlooked goddess who has inspired our modern myths, combining solid academic research with suggestions for personal practice and ritual, from a modern day dedicant and scholar of Goddess veneration. Modron is emerging from the depths.

And so the question is: Will you answer her Call?

About the Author - Kelle BanDea is a neurodivergent mother of three with Traveler heritage. She is a writer, psychotherapist, member of the Druid Network, and a trained spiritual celebrant. You can find more of her work at kellebandea@substack.com. She lives in Warwickshire, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





Storytelling for Magic
By: Dr. Halo Quin - Moon Books - $10.95

Overview: In your hands are the keys to bringing the gifts of the ancient magic-weavers, the storytellers, into your life. The Bards of old wove magic with their words.

Through myth and legend, history and inspiration, they shaped the world around them. Just like them, you can connect with the magic of storytelling to create powerful change.

Verdict: So here within the pages of the brand new book from author Halo Quin, Storytelling for Magic: Bardic Skills and Ritual-Craft for Witches and Pagans, we can join professional performer, ritualist, bard, and witch Halo Quin, and discover how to use your voice in magic, how to unravel the secrets of stories, how to craft your own rituals to bring the power of myths and folk tales into your life, and how to find, learn, and tell stories to enchant the world inside and outside the circle.

In what is an excellent prose for anyone wishing to know more about the aforementioned bardic skills and ritual-craft for both Witches and Pagans alike, we quickly learn that words have power, that words can be magic, and that using this book correctly, giving yourself to its impassioned, structured reasoning, the tools offered up within will soon have you also developing into an astute performer.

Broken down into nine chapters, complete with four appendices, the author Halo Quin herself graciously welcomes us all into her world by opening with the aforementioned, and most heartwarming prose of a hug: Hello my lovely readers! In your hands you hold the keys to bringing the most powerful magic of those ancient magic-weavers, the storytellers, into your lives!

This book is a guide to using the skills of the bard in your rituals to enhance your magic, whether crafting spells on your own, or performing ritual for a crowd. In these pages you will learn how to use your voice in magic, how to unravel the secrets of stories, how to craft your own rituals to bring the power of myths and folk tales into your life, and how to find, learn, and tell stories that enchant your audience.

About the Author - Dr Halo Quin is a practicing witch, storyteller, author, philosopher, and a lifelong lover of magic. She is a devotee of the Faery Queen, a lover of the Welsh gods and myths, and sensual witch exploring the divine erotic and sacred nature of pleasure and beauty, and working to (re)enchant the world. She lives in Aberystwyth, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





One of the Spirits Burning: A Music Memoir
By: Don Falcone - Stairway Press - $24.95

Overview: Don Falcone presents a world where anything can happen and often does: collecting albums and then recording with some of the musicians on those albums; reading paperbacks and then collaborating with one of the authors (Michael Moorcock).

He resurrected a club band into a collective - Spirits Burning - with almost 300 classic and independent rock musicians across 20 albums. And so in a world where mistakes are made, lessons are learned, and dreams are brought to life, with over 125 of the Spirits Burning crew ready to provide their thoughts, One of the Spirits Burning: A Music Memoir is a book all music lovers need to own!

Verdict: In what is an incredible 530 plus-page autobiography, one that comes complete with an insightfully brilliant foreword from Michael Moorcock (English writer, particularly of science fiction and fantasy), we are gifted an incredible insight into the world of the captain of the Spirits Burning music collective and so much more.

More than just a basic, one-dimensional memoir, this new prose provides an impassioned, colorful and openly honest narrative that shares memories from various time periods of his life/career, whilst at the same time reflecting on Falcone as a producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, oh, and also his career as a technical writer for Pro Tools and Dolby Atmos content creation tools.

With over 125 of the Spirits Burning crew ready to provide their thoughts at any given turned page, sure this book is going to be catnip for all Spirits Burning devotees, but moreover it goes to the very soul of the man himself, revealing not just more information on his collaborations with Daevid Allen and other luminaries, but we also get an up to date and full discography with descriptions of each Falcone-touched full-length release.

Inclusive of a plethora of details on his closer collaborations with Daevid Allen, Bridget Wishart, Cyrille Verdeaux, and the aforementioned Michael Moorcock, there is also a CD attached to the book, with pieces featuring all those artists and more, along with a previously unreleased song with David Jackson, and two demo cuts from Don’s early ensembles.

About the Author - Don Falcone (born November 5th, 1958) is an American producer and multi-instrumentalist, and the guiding light behind the Spirits Burning space-rock collective. In Spirits Burning and other offshoot bands and projects, his primary collaborations have been with Albert Bouchard, Bridget Wishart, Cyrille Verdeaux, Daevid Allen, and English writer and musician Michael Moorcock.

Falcone was a member of Thessalonians and the original Melting Euphoria, and had a solo project called Spaceship Eyes.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.donfalcone.com

Don Falcone @ Facebook





The Show Must Go On
By: Mark Green - Mynd Matters - $21.99

Overview: As the owner of Celebrity Talent Agency, a venture 25 years in the making, Mark Green’s story is one of perseverance and innovation.

Hailing from Hackensack, NJ, Mark Green embarked on his career in 1977 as a DJ, performing at high school events and local parties around Bergen County. His early exposure to rapping came from a competition in the Bronx, which he brought back to New Jersey, becoming a mentor to future Hip-Hop legends like Guy O’Brien, aka Master Gee of the Sugarhill Gang. Green’s influence on O’Brien helped shape the early Hip-Hop scene.

Telling his stories galore here within The Show Must Go On: Backstage Stories of a Hip-Hop Agent (out now via Mynd Matters), New York Times bestselling author Mark Green recants the paths taken, the forks in the road both taken and untaken, and the choices made throughout his career that have led him to where he is today.

Verdict: Before I delve into the prose of the book before me, allow me to fill you in a bit more on the man himself. Mark Green’s professional career began with an internship at Sugar Hill Records, the label behind the first major Hip-Hop single, Rapper’s Delight. He went on to work full-time at Hush Productions, where he handled various roles, including project management, artist development, and road management.

His work with notable artists such as Melba Moore, Freddie Jackson, Dru Hill, Prince, Al B Sure, Grandmaster Flash, and Usher solidified his reputation in the industry. This experience paved the way for his next role at Associated Booking Corp, where his talent for spotting rising stars led to the signing of chart-topping acts like Salt-N-Pepa, Roxanne Shante, Kid & Play, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.

Green moved on to EMI/Capitol Records, where he was the Director of Marketing and held roles in Radio Promotions, Jazz, and Rap, earning accolades such as the Promotions Person of the Year in 1992. His work at EMI included producing, writing, and publishing successful tracks like Remember the First Time for Eric Gable and Midnight Hour for Spice MC.

In 1997, Green ventured into independent marketing and promotions consulting and secured a record deal with Light Year/Warner Brothers for his independent label, with Teena Marie as his first artist.

One year later, as a consultant at Northstar Distribution, Green became General Manager, distributing music for Prince’s independent label, which included Chaka Khan and Larry Graham on NPG Records. This role laid the groundwork for launching Celebrity Talent Agency, which represents a wide array of stars, and secures talent for tours, festivals, and commercials globally.

As for the book itself, well, I have to say that I have been a journalist within the entertainment industry for over 40 years now and yet love the fact that even I can still be astounded by the recalling of behind-the-scenes mechanics that led to who we adored back then and, in a lot of cases, still do today.

As we all know by now, every successful person began somewhere, was moved and motivated by people, things, and events, and some of the greatest lessons exist not only in why it happened, but how it occurred.

For Mark, it actually took ahold of him before he toured with, managed, distributed work by, and represented such names as Melba Moore, Lillo Thomas, the Force M.D.s, the Boogie Boys, Al B. Sure!, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Roxanne Shanté, Salt-N-Pepa and Spinderella, Sparky Dee, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Les Nubians, Phyllis Hyman, Tom Browne, MC Shan, Biz Markie, Teena Marie, James “J.T.” Taylor (The O’Jays and Kool and the Gang), Chaka Khan, Prince, Roy Ayers, Lil Jon, Cissy Houston, Dennis Edwards, and Grandmaster Flash.

We first get to know more about this acorn of awareness within him, which seems to have been culled whilst Mark was in high school back in 1975. His band Black Pearl (co-created with his friend Freddie Williams) had broken up and as a result, Mark had a lot of equipment and so had to start afresh.

Black Pearl had made a name for itself in and around Bergen County, New Jersey, covering ’70s R&B hits at weddings and other get togethers, but now Mark wanted more and so (quite literally) amplified his equipment together with his mother’s records. After connecting the equipment to the band’s cabinet speakers, and borrowing a turntable from a friend, all that was then needed to get heard were venues.

Of course, those would soon follow, and DJ L.C. (a moniker born of his football name LC Greenwood) would be playing funk, soul, R&B, pop, and disco artists’ best songs at private parties, rec centers, and sporting events all around town.

Assisted by his partner David Heard (aka Rock Bottom), the native of Hackensack, New Jersey made a name for himself on the decks. He was so successful, a promoter invited him to compete in the Battle of the DJs in the Bronx.

So that was where the acorn of awareness was most definitely born for the industry and his own talents, but it was most definitely as a record executive, where Mark redefined the role as the industry knew it.

Thus here within these 318 or so pages, and complete with some era defining color photographs (including one that shows Mark as an extra on the film Malcolm X alongside Denzel Washington), we first get a professional, albeit lovingly imbibed foreword from Guy O’Brian aka Master Gee, which is backed by an incredible 61 chapters of truly inspirational, educational, and highly impassioned prose that once you start to read is very hard to put down.

Currently, Green serves as Associate Director/General Manager of Lehman Performing Arts Center, Chairman of Artist Relations for The Hip-Hop Museum (THHM), and maintains ownership of Celebrity Talent Agency. He continues to influence the entertainment industry profoundly because, The Show Must Go On.

About the Author - Mark Green, New York Times bestselling author of Who Runs Congress?, worked with Ralph Nader for ten years in Washington, D.C., before serving for twelve years as New York City’s Consumer Affairs Commissioner and Public Advocate.

A television commentator, public interest lawyer, and the former Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Green is also the founder and president of the New Democracy Project, a national and urban affairs institute. He has been a lecturer at the New York University School of Law since 2002, and lives with his family in New York City.

Mark Green @ Facebook

myndmatterspublishing.com





When History Had Other Plans
By: Vladislav Bogorov, Allison McKenzie - Chronos Books - $22.95

Overview: When History Had Other Plans consists of 12 stand-alone chapters which immediately furnish the reader with attention-grabbing one-liners, as evidenced in its choice of chapter titles - Hitler Ended Racism; More Environmentalism, More CO2; The West Encouraged Putin by Discouraging Him - ensuring that it will pique interest and stir up debate.

One line, one story, one chapter. There are no abstractions, no theories, no musings; just verifiable facts.

Verdict: In what is an incredibly page-turning, chapter-devouring new prose from authors Vladislav Bogorov and Allison McKenzie, When History Had Other Plans may well be a thick book to physically hold at over 350 pages, but it is, and without a shadow of a doubt, an engrossingly fleet of foot read for those invested.

With a central theme that courses throughout being that whilst real engineering is still very much an experimental science honed via en masse of real-world experiments, social engineering is solely based on connective hope and abstract theory. To a lot of people, that right there summons the smoke signals of why things, in general, fail to materialize.

And so whilst engineering is an applied science that uses scientific methods to solve real-world problems, it is obviously not a science itself, but it is closely related to science and often involves collaboration between the two fields.

However, at its heart, social engineering is the art of exploiting human psychology, rather than technical hacking techniques, to gain unauthorized access to buildings, systems, or data by convincing individuals to unintentionally give up information through confidence games and manipulation tactics.

Thus this thoroughly engrossing, dutifully engaging new book eagerly invokes immediate critical thinking within the reader, along with a passion to learn more and understand our past and contemporary world.

Not pulling any punches, and going straight for the literary jugular, the prose opens in 1914 and never lets go, and as much as it does have a tendency to bog down for patches, do not stop, always maneuver through, and keep your mind open and, at times, perhaps even observantly malleable.

About the Authors - Vladislav Bogorov is a published author with a background in journalism. He was conscripted into the Bulgarian Army as a tankman. He is probably the only person who is a certified welder and who has won four cases before the European Court of Human Rights as a lawyer. Having been born in Bulgaria, Vladislav now resides in Glasgow, United Kingdom. He has an MSc in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and an MSc in Law.

Having written many shopping lists and lottery tickets over the years, Allison McKenzie is no stranger to writing. With only high school education, she learned about the Nazis from Allo, Allo! and Indiana Jones, and was surprised when Vladislav invited her to join in this book project. It was her ignorance of history that enabled her to edit the book so that it may be enjoyed by everyday people. She lives in Glasgow, UK.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





The Curia Chronicles
By: Jeff Durkin, Steph Nelson - Roundfire Books - $18.95

Overview: Demons charm, tempt and manipulate on a global scale as they wage a covert war on Earth for human souls. The Curia has been fighting them for centuries, training an elite group of demon hunters in partnership with the angelic ambassador to Earth.

Tessa Sinclair, a US Army veteran, has been newly recruited to be a hunter and to snuff out the Demons that hide among us.

Verdict: Haunted by her past, she is on a self-destructive path, numbing her feelings with whiskey and one-night stands. As Tessa trains to become a hunter, she grows suspicious of the organization.

Befriending a recruit who doesn’t believe in the supernatural realm, the two discover a possible conspiracy that could shake the foundations of our modern-day understanding of religion and science.

From the streets of Paris to the nightclubs of Scandinavia, Tessa and her fellow hunters face off against a savage enemy, whose true purpose remains shrouded in secrecy.

In what is a simply riveting prose, from start to finish, authors Jeff Durkin and Steph Nelson have joined forces to bring forth a pulsating, captivating and dutifully crafted read that is the ultimate page-turning experience.

Furthermore, I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an interesting and beguiling read unlike anything they have read in the past few decades, if I might be so bold in saying.

The way the authors have created the world that their characters inhabit is second to none, so much so that even the not-so-good entities come complete with a refreshingly charged disarming candor. Their narratives are individual, never overlapping, and always engaging, the authors masterfully weaving a gripping tale of love, loss, and friendship that keeps readers engaged with every twist and turn.

Combined with a wondrous set of principles throughout, the plot is masterfully weaved, bringing forth a gripping, compelling tale/read that is very hard to put down. But why would you want to, because The Curia Chronicles is just that good, of that you have my word.

About the Authors - Born in Texas and raised in Michigan, Jeff Durkin left the icy Midwest after college for the less-icy Washington DC area. While toiling away in various IT-related jobs, Jeff spends his free time writing (mostly horror and science fiction), painting, biking and running roleplaying games. Jeff currently lives in the great city of Arlington, VA.

Steph Nelson began writing fiction while deployed to Iraq as an Army behavioral health officer. Faced with the stressors of war, Steph used her writing as a way to process her experiences. Following her military service, Steph moved to the Washington, DC area where she currently works as a social worker. She lives in Arlington, VA.

Official Book Purchase Link

www.collectiveinkbooks.com





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