01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, September 1, 2005

The Book Pages will briefly note any book by a local author or of local interest, provided it is readily available, is produced by an established publisher, and it does not promote a commercial enterprise. Books mentioned here may or may not be reviewed subsequently.

To be included, send a copy of the book and, if necessary, a short note explaining the local connection, to Doug Riggs, Books Editor, Providence Sunday Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, R.I. 02902.

Saving Face: How to Lie, Fake, and Maneuver Your Way Out of Life's Most Awkward Situations (paperback, Simons Spotlight Entertainment, 176 pages, $12.95) was written by Andy Robin and Gregg Kavet, who have also written for film and television, including Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. Robin and his family have lived on Providence's East Side for three years.

Spinner Publications of New Bedford has released Douglass & Melville: Anchored Together in Neighborly Style (paperback, 148 pages, $19.95) by Robert K. Wallace. It's a look at the lives and works of Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville -- the similarities, the differences, and their parallel footsteps during the height of their careers.

Wanni W. Anderson, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, and Robert G. Lee, an associate professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown, have edited Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in the Americas (paperback, Rutgers University Press, 301 pages, $24.95). Asians have settled in every country in the Western Hemisphere; bringing together essays by 13 scholars from the humanities and social sciences, the book explores this transnational Asian-American experience.

Chicago Review Press has published How to Rent a Negro (paperback, 196 pages, $14.95), a satire about the current state of race relations in America, by damali ayo, the creator of rent-a-negro.com. She graduated from Brown University in 1994, concentrating on American civilization and public policy/American institutions.

The New Press has released 30 Satires (paperback, 263 pages, $15.95) by Lewis Lapham, a summer resident of Newport. Lapham is the editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of several books, including Theater of War, Money and Class in America, Hotel America and The Agony of Mammon.

Tilbury House Publishers has published The Catboat Era in Newport, Rhode Island (192 pages, $34.95) by John M. Leavens, edited by Judith Navas Lund. Leavens (1907-1987) founded the Catboat Association in 1962; Lund is a former curator at the New Bedford Whaling Museum who writes on a variety of maritime and local history subjects.

Kathryn Kulpa of Bristol, who earned an M.A. in literature from Brown University and a Master's of Library and Information Studies degree from the University of Rhode Island, has written Pleasant Drugs: Stories (paperback, Mid-List Press, 232 pages, $16). The geographic features of Rhode Island -- its ocean harbors and interstate highways, salt marshes and dark forests -- are ever-present in Kulpa's fiction.

Every Sunday (Kensington Fiction, 320 pages, $14) is the second novel by Peter Pezzelli, of Narragansett. This tale about life, love, family and friendship centers around the three daughters of Nick Catini of Providence, a larger-than-life personality.

Commonwealth Editions will release two new titles in its "New England Landmarks Series -- Providence, photographs by Richard Benjamin and text by Katherine Imbrie, and Newport, photographs by Alexander Nesbitt and text by Molly Sexton (each 80 pages, 32 color photos, $14.95).

Benjamin was a staff photographer for The Providence Journal for 27 years before beginning a second career as a landscape photographer; Imbrie has been a feature writer for The Journal for 25 years. Nesbitt, born in Newport, has traveled the world as a freelance photographer and is the owner of Blink Gallery in that city. Freelance writer Sexton, of Newport, was named one of Rhode Island's most influential people in the arts by the Providence Phoenix.

Jennifer Miller of Providence has written Inheriting the Holy Land: An American's Search for Hope in the Middle East (Ballantine Books, 320 pages, $24.95), a synthesis of history, reportage and coming-of-age memoir. Miller attended Seeds of Peace International Camp for Conflict Resolution, a leadership program that brings Middle Eastern youth to the United States, in 1996, and worked there as a creative arts counselor during her years as an undergraduate at Brown University.

Salve Regina University Press/University Press of New England will publish Newport Through Its Architecture: A History of Styles from Postmedieval to Postmodern by James L. Yarnall (336 pages, $50). Newport has the largest number of pre-Revolutionary War buildings in North America, with some 800 on the Point and Historic Hill. The book features hundreds of color photographs, architectural drawings and illustrations.