The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman ’98 (Henry Holt).
This hilarious debut novel is a pitch-perfect satire of Brooklyn literary life. Waldman wryly follows hipster Nate Priven from one party and ex-girlfriend to the next. He’s thriving professionally—with a novel coming out, he’s writing a highbrow essay arguing that “conscience is the ultimate luxury.” But in his personal life he makes Count Vronsky look positively chivalrous.

Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History by Paul Schneider ’84 (Henry Holt). It is older than parts of the Atlantic Ocean; George Washington fought his first battle near it; Mark Twain wrote a whole book about it; and many cultures have risen and fallen in its watershed. In this illuminating and very readable chronicle of the Mississippi, Schneider deftly weaves his travels on the river with the many layers of its history. You won’t think of the Mighty Mississippi in quite the same way ever again.

The Glass Ocean by Lori Baker, ’86 AM (Penguin).
In this exquisite and lyrical debut novel, eighteen-year-old Carlotta Dell’oro reimagines the story of her newly dead parents, Leo and Clotilde. Her father was a Victorian artist who sketched creatures from the sea and remade them in glass, while her mother, the daughter of a famous French naturalist, was mysterious and largely unreachable. In piecing together their saga, Carlotta uncovers her parents’ losses and lapses and the many ways the past can echo into the future. This is a captivating journey told with nuanced and haunting prose.

 

 

ALUMNI FICTION

First Among Men: The Story of the Invasion of Attu Island by Jerry Coker ’79 (Pocol Press).

One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin ’94 MFA (McSweeney’s Books).

Damn Love by Jasmine Beach Ferrara ’98 (IG Publishing).

Search Party: Stories of Rescue by Valerie Trueblood ’65 (Counterpoint Press).

A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White ’99  (Touchstone).  

ALUMNI NON-FICTION

Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance by Heidi Boghosian ’77  (City Lights Publishers).

The Life Informatic: Newsmaking in the Digital Era by Dominic Boyer ’92 (Cornell University Press).

Love in the Time of Revolution: Transatlantic Literary Radicalism and Historical Change, 1793— 1818 by Andrew Cayton ’77 AM, ’81 PhD
(University of North Carolina Press).

Living Artfully: At Home with Marjorie Merriweather Post by Estella Chung ’99 AM  (D. Giles, Ltd.).

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty ’70  (Penguin Press).

Hello, I’m Pregnant: A Pregnancy Journal by Alissa Faden ’02 (Stewart, Tabori and Chang).

The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and the Power of Popular Feminism, 1970—2007 by Jane F. Gerhard ’89 AM, ’96 PhD  (University of Georgia Press). 

Writing the Rebellion: Loyalists and the Literature of Politics in British America by Phil Gould ’83  (Oxford University Press).

The Measure of Manhattan: The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel Jr., Cartographer, Surveyor, Inventor by Marguerite Holloway ’85 (W. W. Norton & Company).

Augie’s Secrets: The Minneapolis Mob and the King of the Hennepin Strip by Neal Karlen ’81  (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

The Sex Education Debates by Nancy Kendall ’96 (University of Chicago Press).

Immigration, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Brazil, 1808 to the Present by Jeffrey Lesser ’82, ’84 AM (Cambridge University Press).

A Guide’s Guide to Fly-Fishing Mistakes: Common Problems and How to Correct Them by Sara Low ’83 (Skyhourse Publishing).

Bully Nation: Why America’s Approach to Childhood Aggression is Bad for Everyone by Susan Eva Porter ’87  (Paragon House).

The Law of Kinship: Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and the Family in France by Camille Robcis ’99 (Cornell University Press).

Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Neuroscience  by Sally Satel ’84 MD and Scott O. Lilienfield (Basic Books).

The Joy of Pain: Schadenfreude and the Dark Side of Human Nature by Richard H. Smith ’75  (Oxford University Press).

American Ski Resort: Architecture, Style, Experience by Margaret Supplee Smith ’76 PhD  (University of Oklahoma Press).

Going to the Dogs: Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism, and American Popular Culture by Gwyneth Anne Thayer ’93 (University Press of Kansas).

 

ALUMNI CHILDREN’S

Hold Fast by Blue Balliett ’78  (Scholastic Press).

The Waffler by Gail Donovan ’88 AM  (Penguin).

The Wig in the Window by Kristen Kittscher ’96  (HarperCollins).

 

ALUMNI POETRY

Marvelous Things Overheard: Poems by Ange Minko ’98 MFA (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Undergloom by Prageeta Sharma ’95 MFA (Fence Books).

FACULTY NON-FICTION

Adoptive Migration: Raising Latinos in Spain by Jessaca B. Leinaweaver (Duke University Press).