Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy
By Daniel Gross '89
May 2007
The writer of Slate's "Moneybox" and the New York Times's "Economic View," examines the history of U.S. economic bubbles and makes the case for why, in the long run, they are good for the economy. Citing examples from the history of the telegraph, railroads, the Internet, and the current real estate market, he argues that bubbles often leave behind new infrastructures that other companies can use. (Cornell Alumni Magazine)
By Elizabeth Holmes, MFA '87
January 2007
In her second collection of poetry, the publications editor for the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning delves into the experience of pregnancy and motherhood. Whether likening the sound of her baby's heart during a sonogram to "a rolling crackle like cosmonaut voices over the gelled silence of space," seeing her angry child "as if he'd got inside a scary costume and it was alive," or recalling how a deer's hair keeps it warm "by hoarding in each hollow shaft a sip of air,"Holmes discovers extraordinary complexities in the everyday. (Cornell Alumni Magazine)
By Brenda Janowitz '95
April 2007
Janowitz, a Manhattan attorney who teaches creative writing at Mediabistro, proves in her first novel that "chick lit" is more than just throwing together a bunch of bad date and wedding horror stories. (Cornell Alumni Magazine)
By Carol Kammen (Senior Lecturer, History)
May 2006
A compilation of excerpts from student diaries, letters, scrapbooks and other memorabilia from the day Cornell opened in 1868 to the present. The book's entries are drawn primarily from documents in the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. The new book by historian and Cornell lecturer Carol Kammen invites us into the daily lives of Cornell students and captures, through their own words, the undergraduate experience.
Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace
By Noah Kerner, '99; Gene Pressman
May 2007
Kerner, CEO of the marketing agency Noise, and his co-author believe that chasing after cool is a bad idea. They interview artists, designers, musicians, and filmmakers—people who "pursued a vision and, then, somewhere down the road, cool found them."
The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
By Mark Hamilton Lytle '66
February 2007
A professor of history and environmental studies at Bard College explores the life of Rachel Carson and the twin passions, biology and literature, that underpinned her writing.He argues that Carson did not simply warn about the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use, but displayed a reverence for the mysteries of nature. Lytle records the controversy surrounding Silent Spring and how Carson's critics used her gender to discredit her ideas. "Carson understood all too well that the United States in the 1950s was not hospitable to crusades against powerful interests, whether in government or in business." (Cornell Alumni Magazine)
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
By Manuel Muñoz, MFA '98
May 2007
These interconnected stories are the work of a young author who has been heralded as " gifted and sensitive, " " a serious artist who can spin dazzling stories, " and " an extraordinary talent." They mark a major step forward in the career of an explosive new talent who is rapidly joining the ranks of such acclaimed authors as Junot Díaz, Robert Olen Butler, John Rechy, and Daniel Alarcón. From a set of triplets with three distinct fates, to a young single father forced to return home, to a woman fleeing the effect of rumors, to a father who places his hope— and his life savings— in the hands of a faith healer, the recurring characters in this collection cross paths in unexpected ways, revealing the neighborhood as an entity that is both embracing and unforgiving.
Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist
By Nick Salvatore (Maurice & Hinda Neufeld Founders Professor of Industrial & Labor Relations, Professor of American Studies)
March 2007
ILR professor Salvatore offers a major reevaluation of Eugene V. Debs, the movements he launched, and his belief in American Socialism as an extension of the nation's democratic traditions. -- "In this stunning book, Salvatore sets Debs firmly within the central traditions of United States political and social history and depicts, as never before, the triumph and tragedy that characterized the socialist leader's personal and public life." (American Historical Review)
Letters of E.B. White: Revised edition, with introduction by John Updike
By E. B. White '21
December 2006
"Ideally, a book of letters should be published posthumously," White wrote. "The advantages are obvious: the editor enjoys a free hand, and the author enjoys a perfect hiding place—the grave, where he is impervious to embarrassments and beyond the reach of libel." For a man who claimed to avoid writing letters because "it resembles too closely writing itself, and gives me a headache," he wrote a great many. This new collection expands upon the 1976 edition of White's letters and includes correspondence with Garrison Keillor, Andy Rooney, John Updike (who wrote the introduction), and White's biographer, Cornell English professor Scott Elledge, PhD '41. (Cornell Alumni Magazine)
Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland
By Diane L Wolf, PhD '86 (Professor of Sociology, UC-Davis)
January 2007
The image of the Jewish child hiding from the Nazis was shaped by Anne Frank, whose house--the most visited site in the Netherlands-- has become a shrine to the Holocaust. Yet while Anne Frank's story continues to be discussed and analyzed, her experience as a hidden child in wartime Holland is anomalous--as this book brilliantly demonstrates. Drawing on interviews with seventy Jewish men and women who, as children, were placed in non-Jewish families during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Diane Wolf paints a compelling portrait of Holocaust survivors whose experiences were often diametrically opposed to the experiences of those who suffered in concentration camps.
