Queer Mythology:
Epic Legends from Around the World
Guido A. Sanchez
Running Press Teens, 2024, $19.99
Catskill resident and middle school teacher Guido Sanchez has collected cultural folklore from all over the world with a queer lens. From Tu’er Shen, the Chinese rabbit god who protected those yearning to come out in an unaccepting world to the Filipino goddess Lakapati, Sanchez proves that queer identities are nothing new and they have existed from the beginning of civilization. The Hawaiian religious myth of Lono and Kapa’ihi tells the story of two lovers reuniting, creating rivers and streams with their happy tears. These myths that have been told for thousands of years are about family, love, creation, and reflect labels that people use today. The short retellings are accompanied by striking illustrations by James Fenner.
Ghosts of a Holy War
Yardena Schwartz
Union Square and Co., 2024, $29.99
In her newest book, Schwartz provides historical context to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Schwartz is an award-winning journalist who spent a decade reporting in Israel and now lives in Rhinebeck. Ghosts of a Holy War goes back to the 1929 Hebron massacre, a seminal event in Arab-Israeli relations, when 70 Jewish residents were murdered by their Arab neighbors. Schwartz demonstrates how the conflict today cannot be understood without the context of ground zero of this century-old war, which began long before the occupation, the settlements, or the state of Israel ever existed.
Swami Salami
Michael Esposito
Bushwack Books, 2024, $24.95
Woodstock legend Michael Esposito has lived an eventful life. In the late ’60s he was the lead guitarist in the psychedelic band the Blues Magoos. He became a monk of a Western Orthodox church perched high on Meads Mountain Road in 1972, and in the `80s he inherited a bike shop, Old Spokes Home on Tinker Street, which he still operates. He was also the resident cartoonist at the Woodstock Times for 40 years, making wry commentary on small town life through his alter ego, Swami Salami. This book collects over 300 cartoons, with an introduction by Woodstock Times publisher Geddy Sveikauskus.
Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Biography
Joseph Luzzi
Princeton University Press, 2024, $24.95
Joseph Luzzi, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College, follows the many trails left by Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece that takes the poet on a journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven, exploring the state of the human soul after death. Luzzi tracks the epic poem’s reception over the centuries and how it has left its mark on writers from Giovanni Boccaccio to James Joyce. With this book, Luzzi unfolds Dante’s thoughts and dives into the lasting impacts of the work on censorship, the role of canonical literature, and organized religion.
American Still Life
Jim Naremore
Regal House Publishing, 2024, $19.95
Naremore, originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, now lives in Hudson. His first novel The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts, won the Independent Publisher’s Book Awards Bronze Medal for “Best First Novel” in 2017. American Still Life tells the story of Skade Felsdottir, a photojournalist who struggles with addiction and self-loathing. When her photo-essay book is unsuccessful, she returns to bad habits and reconnects with her ex-boyfriend while befriending another young woman named Kit. Felsdottir and Kit confide in each other until disaster strikes and Felsdottir is forced to make life-and-death decisions about being a starving artist.
This article appears in December 2024.
