Young Money by Kevin Roose ’09 (Grand Central). In this fine report from the Wall Street front, Roose follows eight young bankers in the wake of the Great Recession as they leave the pleasant bubble of college for what they believe will be high-powered and exciting investment-firm jobs. Their hefty paychecks come with 100-hour work weeks filled with financial grunt work, creeping disillusionment, and tattered personal relationships. Required reading for all considering the life, as well as their loved ones.
 
The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun ’06 (Scribner). Part memoir, part manual for social entrepreneurs, this is the story of how Braun, who studied economics and played basketball at Brown, gave up his young New York City consulting career to create Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit that so far has built more than 150 schools around the globe. The idea came to Braun in India, after he asked a boy begging on the street what he wanted most in the world. The answer: “A pencil.” A compelling, if somewhat self-congratulatory, read.

The Idea of Him by Holly Peterson ’87 (William Morrow). In old-fashioned bodice rippers, lust, longing, and lots of sex (finally!) land the girl her guy. In this post-feminist version, a Manhattan mom (finally!) figures out that her hip magazine-editor husband, her PR-mogul boss, and her ex-con client are all scoundrels. Along the way she brushes elbows with socialites and hookers dressed in Chanel, Valentino, and Dolce & Gabbana. Perfect beach reading by the author of the best-seller The Manny.

 

 

 

ALUMNI NONFICTION

Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction by Charles L. Adler ’87 (Princeton University Press).

Notes for a Book by Dirk Q. Allen ’77 (Dog Ear Publishing).

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd ’00 (Yale University Press).

The Perfect Pro Football Coach by Robert DeLuca ’66 (BookBaby).

Singing for the Dead: The Politics of Indigenous Revival in Mexico by Paja Faudree (Duke University Press).

How it Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement by Ruth Feldstein ’89 AM, ’96 PhD (Oxford University Press).

Ping Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game that Changed the World by Nicholas Griffin ’93 (Scribner).

Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence  by Christina B. Hanhardt ’94 (Duke University Press).

Art, Vision, & Nineteenth-Century Realist Drama: Acts of Seeing by Amy Holzapfel ’96 (Routledge).

The Legislative Legacy of Edward M. Kennedy: Eleven Milestones in Pursuit of Social Justice, 1965-2007 by Craig A. Horowitz ’83  (McFarland).

American Cocktail: A ‘Colored Girl’ in the World by Anita Reynolds with Howard M. Miller, edited by George Hutchinson ’75 (Harvard University Press).

One Korea: A Proposal for Peace by Shepherd Iverson ’81 (McFarland).

Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott by Christian McBurney ’81 (Westholme Publishing).

Unfinished Business: Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family Policy by Ruth Milkman ’75 and Eileen Applebaum (Cornell University Press).

The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance by Eswar S. Prasad ’86 AM  (Princeton University Press).

The Commercial Aircraft Finance Handbook by Ronald Scheinberg ’80 (Euromoney Institutional Investor).

Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History by Philip J. Schwarz ’62 (University of Virginia Press).

Sacramental Shopping: Louisa May Alcott, Edith Wharton, and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism by Sarah Way Sherman ’83 PhD  (University of New Hampshire Press).

Selling the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany by Pamela E. Swett ’93 AM, ’99 PhD (Stanford University Press).

 

ALUMNI FICTION

The Keeper by Ellen Jensen Abbott ’88 (Skyscape).

The Strategist by William Cunningham ’83 (Creative Content Corporation).

Hawaiian Tales: The Girl with Heavenly Eyes by Lee A. Jacobus ’57, ’59 AM (Tell Me Press).

Over the Line by David Lloyd ’85 AM, ’85 PhD (Syracuse University Press).

Thirty Girls by Susan Minot ’78 (Knopf).

Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street by Mike Offit ’79 (St. Martin’s Press).

 

ALUMNI POETRY

Warriors by David Lloyd ’85 AM, ’85 PhD (Salt Publishing).

FACULTY NONFICTION

Foreign Gods, Inc.  by Okey Ndibe (Soho Press).