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The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College

The Cleveland Anthology (Second edition)

Richey Piiparinen

$20.00

The Cincinnati Anthology

Zan McQuade

$20.00

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Steve Volk

The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College

9781948742849

$16.95

A succinct and impassioned call to reimagine and revive the small liberal arts college, by two veteran educators.

Private liberal arts colleges have struggled for decades; now, as the COVID-19 pandemic widens cracks latent in many American institutions, they are facing a possibly mortal crisis.

In The Post-Pandemic Liberal Arts College: A Manifesto for Reinvention, Steven Volk and Beth Benedix call for small colleges to seize this moment and reinvent themselves. With the rise of rankings that set peer institutions against each other, tuition that outpaces income, creeping pre-professionalism, and a race to build student “customers” the splashiest new amenities, many private liberal arts colleges have strayed from their founders’ missions. If they could shed the mantle of exclusivity, reduce costs, facilitate true social mobility, and collaborate with each other, the authors argue, they might both survive and again become just, equitable, accessible institutions able to offer the transformative and visionary education that is their hallmark.

Educators, students, parents, and anyone invested in the future of higher education should read this book.

Ben Gwin

Team Building

9781953368331

$17.95

An “engaging” firsthand account of the organizing effort inside one of the world’s largest tech companies—and its impact on one Pittsburgh family (Booklist).

In 2019, Ben Gwin played an integral role in organizing the contract workers at Google’s Pittsburgh offices. In Team Building, he takes us inside the employees’ fight for better benefits and more flexible scheduling, offering us a candid account of today’s labor movement and the forces in America that aim to divide workers and maintain the status quo.

But this is also a personal story of struggle and triumph. As Ben works with the union, he’s suddenly faced with the prospect of raising his teenage daughter alone after her mother dies of a drug overdose. As he juggles work and the challenges of single fatherhood, he offers us a frank portrait of daily American life, where it sometimes feels like every moment is an uphill battle.

Expertly crafted and tightly structured, Team Building artfully explores the ways our working conditions reach deeply into our lives outside the office. It’s an honest and ultimately hopeful look at the importance of building solid foundations with the teams that matter most.

“Depict[s] the many ways unfair work policies can impact employee lives.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This engaging memoir goes beyond detailing a period in Gwin’s life, also offering a forthright take on the frustrations of the contract worker. It’s an essential piece for understanding the fight for labor rights. Gwin’s resolve shines through in this moving tale.” —Booklist

Ryan Schnurr

In the Watershed

9780998904108

$16.95

“An engaging narrative . . . braiding together [Schnurr’s] personal observations with history, science, and folklore.” —Scott Russell Sanders, author, Earth Works: Selected Essays and A Conservationist Manifesto

For several years, Ryan Schnurr watched media coverage of Lake Erie algae blooms with a growing sense of unease. An Indiana native, he wanted to learn more about role of the Maumee River in the lake’s environmental woes: the Maumee is Lake Erie’s largest tributary and the center of the largest watershed in the region, spanning more than 6,600 square miles of land. So in the summer of 2016, Schnurr walked and canoed the length of the river from its headwaters in Fort Wayne, Indiana to its mouth in Toledo, Ohio. In The Watershed: A Journey Down the Maumee River is the story of that voyage. As he walks the banks, Schnurr tells us the history of the river, from its formation by glaciers, function in Native American and American history, uses by industry, and role in current economic and environmental issues. Part cultural history, part nature writing, and part narrative, In the Watershed is a lyrical work of non-fiction with a timely and important warning at the core. “What is happening in Lake Erie,” Schnurr tells us, “is a disaster by nearly any measure—ecologically, economically, socially, culturally.”

“The Maumee River [is] a rich, complex, and fragile place, and Schnurr is a superb guide through it.” —Mark Athitakis, author, The New Midwest: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction of the Great Lakes, Great Plains, and Rust Belt

“Delightful.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, author, The Devil’s Highway and Into the Beautiful North

Frank Norris

The Pit

9781455629060

$20.00

Financial ambition, a tortured marriage, and an American city on the rise are brilliantly depicted in Frank Norris’ 1903 masterpiece. Curtis Jadwin is obsessed with speculating on the market, manipulating it so he can control the nation’s wheat supply. He neglects his wife, Laura, who seeks refuge in the arts, and in particular one artist, Sheldon Corthell. The Jadwin’s wealth buys them a mansion on Lincoln Park with an art gallery that strangers gawk at, but inside they struggle. And is Jadwin’s gambling sustainable, or is there a bear market in his future?

Curtis and Laura play out this American Dream scenario in the streets of Chicago, where they attend the opera at the Auditorium Building, visit the new art museum on the lake, and, from the comfort of their carriage, watch the trains and grain elevators. At the Board of Trade, in the pit, men yell and knock against each other, performing the theater of capitalism in front of an always crowded visitor’s gallery.

Few novels depict the struggles of marriage, the world of finance, or the rise of Chicago from the flatlands of the Midwest, as viscerally as this novel, originally published in 1903. Norris’s novel may immerse readers in a historic setting, but it’s punishing and profound themes are anything but dated.

This Belt Revivals edition features archival photographs and an introduction by Whet Moser.

Glenway Wescott

Goodbye, Wisconsin

9781540270313

$20.00

A collection of stories, originally published in 1928, from the author of The Grandmothers and The Pilgrim Hawk.

A couple set fire to an old farmhouse to collect insurance money. A groom contemplates an old sexual escapade while he waits for his bride at the altar. A young farm boy returns to tell his brother about his capers while stationed in France in the Navy. The eleven stories in this collection, including an introductory essay by Wescott on returning to his parents’ West Allis home outside Milwaukee, deal with themes of exile—often self-imposed—and return.

This Belt Revivals edition features a new introduction by Patrick Nathan.

Andrew Wittkop

Literary Voyagers

9781540270290

$19.95

A complicated friendship blooms during a fated meeting in northern Michigan between two nineteenth-century women writers.

In the mid-1830s, the author Anna Brownell Jameson was called from Britain to Canada to see her husband. Before she returned back home, she embarked on a trip around the Great Lakes to gather material for a book on the “plight of the Indian woman.”

In a remarkable interaction on Mackinac Island, where the current-day lower peninsula of Michigan meets the upper peninsula, she met Jane Johnston Schoolcraft—an Ojibwe American poet and translator married to the geologist Henry Schoolcraft, who was working as an Indian agent for the United States government. The two women talked extensively, bonding over their interests and plights, and sharing private demons.

After their meeting, Anna continued to gain recognition for her writing and become a larger part of the literary scene in Britain and the Continent, entangling herself in the affairs of the likes of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Ottilie von Goethe, Lady Byron, and Ada Lovelace. Jane became sicker and less able to work.

In Andrew Wittkop’s sensitive, subtle retelling, complete with Anna's sketches and other historical images, the nuances of the relationship between the two women reveal much about the complicated nature of connection and disconnection and Anna’s blindnesses and missed opportunities. This inventive debut opens a window on two under-remembered writers.

Richey Piiparinen

The Cleveland Anthology (Second edition)

9780985944162

$20.00

A literary snapshot written by the city’s citizens that serves as an intimate reminder “that strength of character abounds in the Cleveland community” (Freshwater Cleveland).

The past few years have been full of stories about Cleveland’s ongoing revitalization and renewal, mostly from people from outside the city. This collection of essays, photographs, and poems offers an insiders’ view, telling the story of the city as it actually exists on the ground. Citizens of Cleveland will connect to the experiences and locales detailed here. Readers from outside the area will gain invaluable insight into what it means to live in here, why the city is loved or hated, and why some people obsess over it.

The collection looks at popular Cleveland attractions like Harvey Pekar and the Cuyahoga River, but also looks at life on the Number 9 bus and the delis of Slavic Village. Through photographs, essays, and poetry, the collection questions the notion of “Rust Belt Chic” and the truth behind that statement. It includes contributions by: David C. Barnett, Sean Decatur, Mansfield Frazier, David Giffels, Alissa Nutting, Jim Roakakis, Connie Schultz, and many more.

A wide-ranging portrait of a city of contradictions, written by those who have lived the story.

“Touching always on the idea of a post-industrial landscape as a form of innate and historical beauty and integrity, this book creates a genuine and intimate look at Cleveland. Those who hail from “rust belt” cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Milwaukee will find a special place in their hearts for this book.” —Riffle NonFiction

Zan McQuade

The Cincinnati Anthology

9780985944124

$20.00

A part of Belt's City Anthology Series, A deft, well-considered collection of essays, illustrations and photographs that represents...'the visions of those who have fallen madly in love with the city of Cincinnati, either for the first time or all over again.'--Cincinnati CityBeat

The Cincinnati Anthology brings together some of the Queen City's most notable residents, native sons and daughters, and creatives to tell tales of a city's triumphs and tribulations.

Edited by Zan McQuade, this collection reflects Cincinnati's true complexity: its present and its past, its transitions and its legacies; what defines it and distinguishes it; what makes us love it and what makes some eventually leave it. It is an anthology on genealogy and geology, race and progress, and experiences from the suburbs to Over-the-Rhine. Included are contributions from Curtis Sittenfeld, John Curley, Cedric Michael Cox, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Jack Heffron, Polk Laffoon IV, Katie Laur, Sam LeCure, Over the Rhine, Michael Wilson, and many more. Here you'll find:

- Portraits of Price Hill Residents

- The dog parks of Over-the-Rhine

- 5 Things a Relief Pitcher for the Reds loves about the city

- A legacy of segregation that still resonates today

- The Freestore Foodbank

- An ode to Pete Rose.

An insider's guide to the story of Cincinnati and the myriad lives that are lived there.