Ohio University Press' most recent release hits close to home. Just published, "Bead International 2008 and Beyond Basketry," is a unique book, combining two catalogs in one and illustrating two of the best juried exhibitions held at The Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens.

And it's timely as well: This year's Bead International and Beyond Basketry exhibit opens today at The Dairy Barn Arts Center on Dairy Lane in Athens. The show will remain in Athens through September before traveling to Kansas.

The OU Press volume, edited by Dairy Barn Executive Director Andrea R. Lewis, is available at The Dairy Barn gift shop, in local stores and online.

"Beads have long been worn as jewelry, but in Bead International 2008 contemporary bead artists are shaking things up. From fine jewelry to loom weaving to sculpture, the 68 pieces by 51 artists in this collection represent some of the most innovative and well-executed art in the modern beading world," points out an OU Press promotion for the book. "When the age-old art form of basketry is combined with contemporary visions and techniques, the result is the striking Beyond Basketry, a collection of 65 artworks created by 42 artists from across the United States."

Filled with color photographs that elegantly capture the artists' work, "Bead International 2008 and Beyond Basketry" will inspire and impress readers with the imaginative ways in which beads and basketry are formed.

Other recent Ohio University Press titles:

• "Praising It New: The Best of the New Criticism," edited by Garrick Davis with a foreword by William Logan:  The first anthology of New Criticism to be printed in 50 years includes essays and poems by authors whose literary theories dominated the teaching of literature in the mid-20th century.
  
  
  
• "Azores: Poems" by David Yezzi: Executive Director of The New Criterion, Yezzi is the former director of New York City's Unterberg Poetry Center and is well-known for combining contemporary diction with traditional meter and forms.
  
  
  
• "The Roots of African Conflicts: The Causes and Costs" and "The Resolution of African Conflicts: The Management of Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Resconstruction," edited by Alfred Nhema and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza: In these volumes, African scholars offer views of how and why conflicts start on their continent and explanations of the roots, regimes and resolution of conflict in Africa and demonstrate that peace is too important to be left to outsiders.
  
  
  
• "Art in Context: Understanding Aesthetic Value," by David E. W. Fenner: Presents a straightforward and accessible overview of arguments about the importance of considering an artwork's context in determining its merit.