The book is indeed still with us! Checking through university press catalogs confirms a vibrant, optimistic world of publishing, a universe of ideas in print. In contrast to a digitally-delivered product, a book offers the easy to and froing, the penciled note, the check mark in the margin, all without the intermediation of keyboards and screens.

Increasingly, independent publishers are giving much deserved attention to African American leaders, blues music, political issues, and little-known aspects of slavery. Here we present a collection of reviews of some of the most intriguing of these books as Black History Month approaches. From the pages of the Jan/Feb issue of ForeWord Reviews.

America has an exploding obsession with crime and the books that chronicle it. Author Mardi Link peels back the crime scene tape to review six new books that examine recent high-profile cases and/or investigative methods. From the January/February issue of ForeWord Reviews.

Religion is changing. New faiths are incorporated into society, and as people learn, their own views of God and Christianity change. In this collection of reviews we discuss books that deal with modern religion. From a new look at sin to the trend toward small churches, these books help readers keep pace with religion in a fast-moving world. From the January/February issue of ForeWord Reviews.

If Chris Welles Feder's new memoir were just another biography of the entertainment giant Orson Welles, it would still be cause for celebration among scholars and fans of the man and his work. Welles Feder has presented us more than a biographer (and there have been plenty) ever could: she gives us a glimpse into what Welles was like away from the stage and the camera, both in his presence and heart-rending absence.