The Old Testament prophets were not just predictors of things that would happen long after their time. Nor were they purveyors of religious platitudes. They were people with an urgent message for their own generation and a passion to declare it whatever the risk. They were singers, poets, demonstrators and protesters, radical critics of their own society and dreamers of a world that could be different.

Can you change the world through song? This appealing idea has long been the professed aim of singers who are part of choruses affiliated with the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA). Theses choruses first emerged in the 1970s, and grew out of a very American tradition of (often gender-segregated) choral singing that explicitly presents itself as a community-based activity. By taking a close look at these choruses and their mission, Heather MacLachlan unpacks the fascinating historical and cultural dynamics behind groups that seek to change society for the better by encouraging acceptance of LGBT-identified people and promoting diversity more generally. She characterizes their mission as “integrationist rather than liberationist” and zeroes in on the inherent tension between GALA’s progressive social goals and the fact that the music most often performed by GALA groups is deeply rooted in a fairly narrowly conceived tradition of art music that identifies as white, Euro-centric, and middle class--and that much of the membership identifies as white and middle class as well. Pundits often wax eloquent about the power of music, asserting that it can, in some positive way, change the world. Such statements often rest on an unexamined claim that music can and does foster social justice. Singing Out: GALA Choruses and Social Change tackles the premise underlying such claims, analyzing groups of amateur singers who are explicitly committed to an agenda of social justice.

THE NEXT TARGET Tracking a serial killer in Harmony Grove turns personal for Detective Lexi Simmons when her cousin becomes a victim. It turns nearly impossible when she's teamed up with Officer Alan White--the almost-fiancé whose heart she broke six years ago. Alan can't understand how two people so right for each other didn't end up together. But they have more pressing matters of the past to attend to: a vengeful killer and a decade-old incident on a college campus. Now Lexi fits the profile of the next name on the hit list. And Alan finds himself not only engaged in a fight for her love--but for her life.

More than forty years ago, Ollie Chandler was only eighteen years old when he was executed on October 18, 1963. In this memoir, Ollie's brother and author W.C. Chandler narrates Ollie's short life story that includes racial discrimination, a miscarriage of justice, and his untimely death. Ollie was one of the fourteen children of John and Leatha Chandler who lived in the rural community of Clyattville, Georgia. Life was not easy for a black family living in the south. And for Ollie, life was even more difficult. Mentally challenged, he wasn't able to finish school. But at age seventeen, Ollie was arrested for a murder he said he didn't commit. His Blood Cries Out for Justice tells the rest of Ollie's story from his time in jail to his trial by an all-white jury and his subsequent death. A moving tribute, His Blood Cries Out for Justice pays homage to this young life that was cut short. It reckons with history while also celebrating one family's deep love and that family's attempt to make sense of a tragedy.

Colonel Quaritch was Haggard’s 7th novel out of an eventual 58, and it shows the author at the peak of his writing powers. Haggard has been quoted as saying that his first 15 books or so were his best, and that those written after the death of his son Jock in 1891 were penned with nowhere near the same enthusiasm.