In October 1996, 139 girls are abducted from a Catholic school in northern Uganda by rebel leader Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. One of the nuns tracks the rebels and persuades them to release all but thirty of the girls. In clear and nuanced prose, Minot tells the story of Esther Akello, one of the girls left behind, and of the violence she is forced to endure and commit. A second thread follows an American journalist who meets Esther at a Ugandan rehabilitation center. A vivid and persuasive read infused with hard questions.
You’ve no doubt picked up a paddle in a basement and maybe even played a version that begins with the word beer, but Ping Pong, it turns out, has a strange history. Griffin charts the game’s course from English after-dinner entertainment through its diplomatic role in China, where it paved the way for Nixon’s 1972 visit. Among the cast of hippies and generals, British nobleman Ivor Montagu stands out: son of a British baron, he invented the official rules in the 1920s and became a Soviet spy before helping export the game to Asia. A surprising and suspenseful saga.
It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd ’00 (Yale).
Just mention teens and technology, and the alarms will go off for many
parents. But, after years of interviewing, boyd reports that teens are
more concerned about friendships than gadgets and, given their highly
structured lives, social media can be a lifeline. Basically, the kids
are all right.
ALUMNI NONFICTION
For the Love of Baseball: A Celebration of the Game that Connects Us All edited by Andrew Blauner ’86 and Lee Gutkind (Skyhorse).
The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun ’06 (Scribner).
The Ecology of Spirituality: Meanings, Virtues, and Practices in a Post-Religious Age by Lucy Bregman ’66 (Baylor).
The Forms of the Affects by Eugenie Brinkema ’10 PhD (Duke).
The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Ross Cheit ’95 (Oxford).
GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones by Richard Easton ’77 and Eric Frazier (Potomac Books).
Slice of Life: A Food Writer Cooks Through Many a Conundrum by Leah Eskin ’84 (Running Press).
Murderous Minds: Exploring the Criminal Psychopathic Brain: Neurological Imaging and the Manifestation of Evil by Dean Haycock ’76 AB, ’85 PhD (Pegasus).
Sovereignty: Moral and Historical Perspectives by James Turner Johnson ’60 (Georgetown).
The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia by Alden Jones ’94 (Wisconsin).
Autism Breakthrough: The Groundbreaking Method That Has Helped Families All Over the World by Raun K. Kaufman ’95 (St Martin's).
Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults by Rachel Kapelke-Dale ’07 and Jessica Pan ’07 (Gotham).
Thomas Hardy’s Brains: Psychology, Neurology and Hardy’s Imagination by Suzanne Keen ’84, ’86 AM (Ohio State).
Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott by Christian McBurney ’81 (Westholme).
New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement edited by Ruth Milkman ’75 and Ed Ott (Cornell).
At the Crossroad: An Astrologer Looks at These Turbulent Times by Jessica Murray ’73 (MotherSky).
Intimate Collaborations: Kandinsky and Münter, Arp and Taeuber by Bibiana Obler ’96 (Yale).
Gabriel’s Conspiracy: A Documentary History by Philip J. Schwarz ’62 (Virginia).
Claremont Boy: My New Hampshire Roots and the Gift of Memory by Joseph D. Steinfield ’61 (Bauhan).
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone ’80 and Sheila Heen (Viking).
Spectacular Special Effects: CGI and Contemporary Cinema by Kristen Whissel ’93 AM ’99 PhD (Duke).
The Painting of My Life by Ricker Winsor ’67 (Mud Flat).
ALUMNI FICTION
The Russian Embassy Party: A Novel by Cliff Adelman ’64 (Archway).
Scouting for the Reaper: Stories by Jacob M. Appel ’96, ’96 AM (Black Lawrence).
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon ’02 (Doubleday).
Hyde by Daniel Levine ’01 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Dinner with Stalin and Other Stories by David Shrayer-Petrov; edited by Maxim D. Shrayer ’89 (Syracuse).
ALUMNI POETRY
For My Father by Amira Thoron ’92 (Pleasure Boat Studio).
The Government of Nature by Aafa Michael Weaver ’87 AM (Pittsburgh).
FACULTY NONFICTION
Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics by Lundy Braun (Minnesota).
The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children by Ross Cheit ’95 (Oxford).
Josephine Baker and the Rainbow Tribe by Matthew Pratt Guterl (Harvard).
How The Bible Became Holy by Michael L. Satlow (Yale).
FACULTY FICTION
The Brunist Day of Wrath by Robert Coover (DZanc).
