MSI Press Blog

  Today's Publisher's Pride is  A View through the Fog   by Bob McGee, which reached #212 in biographies of artists, architects, and photographers and #384 in coping with suicide guilt. (This book was in on the top 100 list nearly every month through January 2025 and often since.) Book description: A View through the Fog  is compelling, poignant, and packed with both moving and hilarious anecdotes. All human life (and death) is here. With his own distinct voice, McGee opens the door on the dizzying world of the Golden Gate Bridge-the beauty of both nature and the bridge itself, the camaraderie and friction with colleagues, and the devastating tragedies of suicide jumpers. He brings an entire community to the page with a thought-provoking and richly detailed memoir that will resonate with many readers. The motive for his writing this book is love of his subject. He paints this world he knows in a way that gives readers the feeling they are on the Bridge with him. From...

  National Institute for the Humanities The National Institute for the Humanities in Minsk stands as one of Belarus’s central homes for humanistic inquiry. Housed within the National Academy of Sciences, the institute functions as the country’s primary engine for historical, archaeological, and cultural research. Its scholars trace the long arc of Belarusian history, excavate ancient settlements before modern construction reshapes the land, and publish the monographs and research collections that anchor the nation’s understanding of itself. From its base on Akademicheskaya Street, the institute convenes conferences, advises state bodies on cultural preservation, and maintains the archives that hold the country’s collective memory. In practice, it serves as both a guardian of the past and a guide for how Belarus interprets its heritage in the present—quietly shaping the stories a nation tells about itself. In the 1990s, right after raspad , all the departments were focused on re...

  Today's Publisher's Pride is  A View through the Fog   by Bob McGee, which reached #212 in biographies of artists, architects, and photographers and #384 in coping with suicide guilt. (This book was in on the top 100 list nearly every month through January 2025 and often since.) Book description: A View through the Fog  is compelling, poignant, and packed with both moving and hilarious anecdotes. All human life (and death) is here. With his own distinct voice, McGee opens the door on the dizzying world of the Golden Gate Bridge-the beauty of both nature and the bridge itself, the camaraderie and friction with colleagues, and the devastating tragedies of suicide jumpers. He brings an entire community to the page with a thought-provoking and richly detailed memoir that will resonate with many readers. The motive for his writing this book is love of his subject. He paints this world he knows in a way that gives readers the feeling they are on the Bridge with him. From...

  Every February invites us to pause and honor the storytellers whose words have shaped not only Black history, but American history itself. Black authors have long carried the dual burden and blessing of truth-telling—documenting joy, exposing injustice, preserving memory, and imagining futures that once seemed impossible. Their work is not a sidebar to literature; it is literature. Then: The Voices Who Carved the Path From the earliest narratives of enslavement to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, Black writers have used the written word as both refuge and resistance. Frederick Douglass showed the world that literacy is liberation. Harriet Jacobs revealed the intimate, gendered realities of bondage. Zora Neale Hurston captured the beauty and complexity of Black Southern life with unmatched ear and eye. James Baldwin insisted that America confront its own reflection. Toni Morrison gave us language for the interior lives of Black women—language that still reverberates...