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Open Books Featured Titles
The Alchemy of Stories
Editors: Monika Lee and
Clara Sebben
As readers, we construct our perceptions of the world through ongoing experimentation with the porous boundary between fiction and reality, and we often err in these trials. Sometimes, however, a literary exemplar aligns with a life experience to create a paradigm shift, and metamorphosis ensues.
Scholarly and Academic titles from around the world
Featured Title 2025
Featured Title 2025
The Grace to Carry On:
by AJ Wyman
When a baby girl is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer before her first birthday, her parents are thrust into a relentless fight to save her life. While her mother becomes a pillar of strength, her father quietly unravels, overwhelmed by fear, guilt, and despair. This raw and unflinching memoir reveals not
Upcoming in Fall 2025
Lobster Dreams
by Stephen Spotte
Lobster Dreams is a wonderfully original and unexpectedly profound novel, written with both scientific authority and literary flair by an oceanographer. At its heart is Sonny, a young man who undergoes a surreal metamorphosis into a lobster—a transformation that becomes the gateway to an immersive deep-sea
Featured Title 2025
Featured Title 2025
Monika Lee, Editor
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The Alchemy of Stories: Essays on Literature and Life
Edited by Monika Lee and Clara Sebben
“Oh! I am delighted with the novel, and should like to spend the rest of my life in reading it,” exclaims the heroine of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Spellbound by The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine Morland cannot help projecting the novel’s melodrama onto the walls of her friend’s home. She transforms a visit to Bath into a Gothic misadventure, complete with forbidden chambers, family secrets, and utter mortification when her literary infatuation precipitates an offensive misunderstanding.
We readers, like Catherine, graft our favourite stories onto our quotidian lives. She is the child who, upon finishing the Nancy Drew series, begins to see “mysteries” unfolding in her schoolyard, the teenager whose attempts to channel Elizabeth Bennet’s conversational style result in frequent social faux pas, and the university student who, encouraged by The Secret History, enrolls in Latin 1000 anticipating arcane rituals and secret societies.
As readers, we construct our perceptions of the world through ongoing experimentation with the porous boundary between fiction and reality. Like Catherine, we often err in these trials. Sometimes, however, a literary exemplar aligns with a life experience to create a paradigm shift, and metamorphosis ensues. The Alchemy of Stories is a modern, analytic collection of literary criticisms serving as an ode to those moments — the alchemical convergence of literature and life.
Monika Lee is a full professor in the Department of English and Writing Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada where she teaches English literature. Author of three books, Shelley’s Impact on Rousseau: Figuring the Written Self (1999), gravity loves the body (2008), and If water breathes (2019), she has also written many essays and articles on English Romanticism, an award-winning stage play The Petting Zoo, two poetry chapbooks, short fiction, a libretto for an opera The Maker, and dozens of poems in literary journals and anthologies. She was awarded the Brescia Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Clara Sebben holds an M.A. in English Literature from Western University and a B.A. in English and French Literature from Brescia University College, where she earned the Gold Medal. She is presently a J.D. candidate at Western University's Faculty of Law. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, crochet, and spending time with her family.
Clara Sebben, Editor
The Grace to Carry On
A Story of Hope and Redemption
by AJ Wyman
When a baby girl is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer before her first birthday, her parents are thrust into a relentless fight to save her life. While her mother becomes a pillar of strength, her father quietly unravels, overwhelmed by fear, guilt, and despair. This raw and unflinching memoir reveals not only the physical battle to keep a child alive but also the emotional toll that strains even the strongest bonds of love and family.
A powerful reflection on the often-overlooked weight of caregiving, this is a story of survival—not just of a child, but of a father learning how to live again in the aftermath of crisis.
"When AJ Wyman’s baby daughter was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer before her first birthday, life as he knew it shattered. In The Grace to Carry On, Wyman opens his heart to reveal not only the physical fight to keep his child alive, but also the hidden toll of caregiving—the silent unraveling of a father who was expected to be strong, even as he felt himself falling apart."
—Reviewed in Bookglow Magazine Read full review
LD 100
Kill Them All
by John E. Espy
Born of the jungle—or made in the shadows? Only love and truth stand between humanity and extinction.
A lethal virus erupts in the heart of West Africa—swift, unstoppable, and unlike anything seen before. As entire villages fall, virologist Dr. Isabella Kitchen is sent to investigate, but what she uncovers shakes her to the core: a lone child mysteriously immune, a growing trail of bodies across continents, and whispers of a virus that may not be of natural origin. Partnering with the brilliant and enigmatic Dr. Aniru Conteh, Isabella finds herself drawn into a deepening conspiracy where political interests outweigh human lives. When the outbreak leaps to small-town America, they must risk everything to expose the truth—because if 666 was born of the jungle, it can be stopped. But if it was made in the shadows… humanity may already be lost.
"Replete with twists readers won’t see coming and satisfying social, cultural, and ethical inspections, LD100: Kill Them All is a supercharged, suspenseful story that delivers the one-two punch of feeling too close to home to be fiction."
—Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer at Midwest Book Review Read full review
world. The novel is rich with fascinating detail about lobster biology and behavior, from larvahood and molting to eating, mating, and fighting, all presented with humor and insight.
What truly elevates the book is its blend of sharp wit, philosophical depth, and a uniquely imagined underwater setting. The dialogue—especially between Sonny and his fellow metamorphosed lobsters, most notably the wise and quirky Professor—is consistently clever and engaging. Lobster Dreams is a smart, funny, and esoteric meditation on identity, transformation, and what it means to be human—or lobster!
The Artfulness of Women
by Naomi Weiss
Between blues and bloodlines, she found her own song.
The Artfulness of Women is an emotionally rich novel that explores the complexities of womanhood, ambition, and generational trauma through the unforgettable character of Bayla Szabo.
Naomi Weiss, Author
Naomi Weiss is an award-winning writer and essayist. She wrote "Hedda’s Story", on domestic violence, a People Magazine cover story, for which she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and A & E’s American Justice. She was accepted into the Iowa Writer’s Summer Workshop, won first place for "Overcoming Inferiority," National Council of Family Relations, Honorable Mention for "Teenage Pregnancy and Prevention," Human Relations Media." Recent work has appeared in Splice Today, I Come From the World, Montgomery Magazine, Furious Gravity, an anthology of D.C. Women Writers, Canada's NIV Magazine, The Potomac Review, and Pen in Hand Literary Journal.
Naomi is a member of The National Press Club, Member Book and Author Group, Washington, D.C.; the Women's National Book Association, Maryland Writers’ Association, The Writer's Center, Bethesda, MD, and Politics and Prose.
The Artfulness of Women
by Naomi Weiss
Between blues and bloodlines, she found her own song.
The Artfulness of Women is an emotionally rich novel that explores the complexities of womanhood, ambition, and generational trauma through the unforgettable character of Bayla Szabo.
Set against the backdrop of Depression-era New York and mid-century America, the novel explores the inner lives of women—their longings, contradictions, and resilience—while weaving in Jewish immigrant culture, blues music, and feminist themes with remarkable grace.
This is a profoundly human story about the cost of dreams and the artfulness required to survive, love, and endure.
Don Schofield, Author
Don Schofield has lived in Greece for four decades, during which time he has taught literature and creative writing at American, British and Greek universities, and traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and farther afield.
His most recent poetry collections are The Flow of Wonder (Kelsay Books, 2018) and A Different Heaven (Dos Madres Press, 2023). He is a recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award (US) and the John D. Criticos Prize (UK). His poems and translations have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the Greek National Translation Award.
From The Cyclops Cave: A Braided Memoir
by Don Schofield
A braided memoir of resilience, self-discovery, and the search for home.
From the Cyclops Cave: A Braided Memoir intertwines past and present, weaving a turbulent childhood in 1950s California with an adult life shaped by solitude on the Cycladic islands of Greece. Abandoned by his father and raised by strangers, the author grows up yearning for connection; decades later, in a primitive hut he names the Cyclops Cave, he finds both refuge and reckoning. Through braided chapters moving between memory and the immediacy of Greek island life, this poignant memoir explores resilience, identity, and the lifelong journey to belong.
Prisoner of Wallabout Bay
Sequel to Outcasts of Essex
by Jane Hulse
Sarah Barrett has only two choices …
She can bow to her mother’s nagging and marry a handsome young lawyer who is well-connected to the British military occupying New York. Or she can stick to her inky grind as a lowly apprentice at a newspaper where her foul-mouthed, ill-tempered boss keeps assigning her stories on ladies’ hair trends instead of the Revolutionary War intrigue she so wants to cover.
Sarah’s relentless digging uncovers a story that nobody wants to even talk about, no less print. The British have set up decaying prison ships in the waters off New York. Risking everything, Sarah fights to expose rampant cruelty and wretched conditions, and in the process just happens to find love.
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Trailers, Quotes, The World of Literature, Did you know?
Much, much more!
Set against the backdrop of Depression-era New York and mid-century America, The Artfulness of Women explores the inner lives of women—their longings, contradictions, and resilience—while weaving in Jewish immigrant culture, blues music, and feminist themes with remarkable grace.
This is a profoundly human story about the cost of dreams and the artfulness required to survive, love, and endure.
Upcoming in Fall
Lobster Dreams
by Stephen Spotte
Lobster Dreams is a wonderfully original and unexpectedly profound novel, written with both scientific authority and literary flair by an oceanographer. At its heart is Sonny, a young man who undergoes a surreal metamorphosis into a lobster—a transformation that becomes the gateway to an immersive deep-sea world. The novel is rich with fascinating detail about lobster biology and behavior, from larvahood and molting to eating, mating, and fighting, all presented with humor and insight.
What truly elevates the book is its blend of sharp wit, philosophical depth, and a uniquely imagined underwater setting. The dialogue—especially between Sonny and his fellow metamorphosed lobsters, most notably the wise and quirky Professor—is consistently clever and engaging. Lobster Dreams is a smart, funny, and esoteric meditation on identity, transformation, and what it means to be human—or lobster!
"What if the boundary between human and animal dissolved, and the sea became not just a setting but a way of being? In Lobster Dreams, esteemed oceanographer and novelist Stephen Spotte crafts a story that is as witty as it is profound, blending marine biology with literary imagination to explore what it means to be human—or lobster."
—Reviewed in Bookglow Magazine Read full review
only the physical battle to keep a child alive but also the emotional toll that strains even the strongest bonds of love and family.
A powerful reflection on the often-overlooked weight of caregiving, this is a story of survival—not just of a child, but of a father learning how to live again in the aftermath of crisis.
A Story of Hope and Redemption
Set against the backdrop of Depression-era New York and mid-century America, the novel explores the inner lives of women—their longings, contradictions, and resilience—while weaving in Jewish immigrant culture, blues music, and feminist themes with remarkable grace.
This is a profoundly human story about the cost of dreams and the artfulness required to survive, love, and endure.
The Alchemy of Stories is a modern, analytic collection of literary criticisms serving as an ode to those moments — the alchemical convergence of literature and life.
Naomi Weiss is a member of The National Press Club, the Women's National Book Association, Maryland Writers’ Association, The Writer's Center, Bethesda, MD, and Politics and Prose in Washington, DC.
