Books & music

Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.

The Source: Unleash Your Natural Energy, Power Up Your Health, and Feel 10 Years Younger
Kathleen Healy Merrell ’84
(co-authored with Woodson Merrell)
(Free Press)

Kathleen Healy Merrell co-wrote The Source with her husband, Dr. Woodson Merrell, based on his 6-step, 21-day plan for how to create and maximize one’s energy with simple lifestyle choices. An integrative medicine physician, Dr. Merrell combines research in medicine, endocrinology, and neuroscience with ancient Eastern methods and newer alternative practices. The plan addresses the exhaustion and lack of energy that millions of people nationwide report to their doctors.

A Syttende Mai Son
George Nilsen ’47
(PublishAmerica)

During the Great Depression, through hard work and recurrent rejection, a syttende mai (born on May 17, Norwegian Constitution Day) son of immigrant Norwegian parents who divorce seeks, by personal achievement, recognition of worth by himself, his family, and his peers. Increasing difficulty to make ends meet on the family farm and his stepfather’s hatred for him forces the son to leave the farm at the age of 16.

How Capitol Got The Beatles and Then What Happened
Charles Tillinghast ’51
(Outskirts Press)

How Capitol Got The Beatles recounts the story of the record company’s initial rejection of the Fab Four, the group’s U.S. signing with Vee Jay Records, and how Capitol got a second chance and reversed its rejection. Many of the ups and downs between the record company and the artists over the years of their association are discussed. An attorney, Charles Tillinghast worked with Capitol during the years of this relationship and had primary responsibility for the business and legal relationship between the company and the Beatles.

The Art of Social War
Jodi Siegel Wing ’86
(Harper)

Soon to become a major motion picture, Jodi Wing’s debut novel takes a satiric look at Hollywood high society. The heroine, Stacey Knight, is a die-hard New York woman who wants nothing more than to marry her adored fiancé, Jamey, and continue to succeed in her career running the “I Heart New York” campaign. Her future shines as bright as the Chrysler Building until Jamey’s company, a global media firm, acquires a badly run Hollywood film studio, and a condition of the deal is that Jamey must become CEO to orchestrate the company’s turnaround. When Jamey and Stacey have to relocate to Los Angeles, the unwitting newlyweds realize they have landed in a Technicolor, high-stakes social war, pursued by ruthless power brokers. Stacey navigates a sea of unsubtle cultural mores, confusing social obstacles, packs of wild coyotes (literally), and extremely bad behavior. Empowered by the 2,500-year-old military strategy tome, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, she takes control of the “War Game” and learns that she must adapt if they are to survive, and attack (cleverly, of course, and always in stilettos) if they are to thrive.

Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
Robert Garland
(Hackett Publishing)

Drawing on the most recent scholarship, this volume brings ancient Greek society — from food and drink to literacy, the plight of the elderly, the treatment of slaves, and much more — to life. It also explores the mentalities and morals of ordinary ancient Greek citizens at all societal levels. Robert Garland is Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the classics.

Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California
Christopher R. Henke
(The MIT Press)

In Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power, Christopher Henke explores the ways that science helped build the Salinas Valley and California’s broader farm industry. Henke focuses on the case of University of California “farm advisors,” scientists stationed in counties throughout the state who have stepped forward to help growers deal with crises ranging from labor shortages to plagues of insects. These disruptions in what Henke terms industrial agriculture’s “ecology of power” provide a window into how agricultural scientists and growers have collaborated — and struggled — in shaping this industry. Henke is assistant professor of sociology and anthropology.

Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism
Edited by Dan Monk (and Mike Davis)
(The New Press)

Evil Paradises is a global guidebook to phantasmagoric but real places — alternate realities being constructed as “utopias” in a capitalist era unfettered by unions and state regulation. These developments — in cities, deserts, and in the middle of the sea — are worlds of consumption and inequality. The case studies include the gilded archipelago of private islands known as “The World” being built in Dubai, where child slavery existed until very recently. Urbanists, architects, historians, and visionary thinkers contributed these essays to reflect upon the trajectory of a civilization whose deepest ethos seems to be to consume all the resources of the earth within a single lifetime. In addition to co-editing the book, Monk contributed an essay, titled “Hives and Swarms: On the ‘Nature’ of Neoliberalism and the Rise of the Ecological Insurgent.” He is the George R. and Myra T. Cooley Professor of peace and conflict studies, and a professor of geography.

Reclaiming Christianity in the 21st Century: Building a Spiritual Powerhouse
Harvey J. Sindima
(Africa Academy Press)

In Reclaiming Christianity, religion and philosophy professor Harvey Sindima analyzes the current status of Christianity: declining membership, dying churches, biblical and theological illiteracy, poor Christian education, weak faith and commitment, non-biblical–centered preaching, professionalization of the clergy, ineffective leadership, secularization, and privatization of religion. He explores and examines the root causes of these problems in the 20th century and beyond. To address these problems, Sindima develops biblical principles to reclaim Christianity from marginalization.

Also of Note:
A Sunless Heart (Broadview Press), edited by English professor Constance Harsh, is a story of emotional and physical hardship and the power of bonds between women. It explores issues of race, sexuality, and class in the late-Victorian era.

Cities of the World (Rowman & Littlefield), coedited by associate professor of geography Maureen Hays-Mitchell, offers readers a comprehensive set of tools for understanding the urban landscape, and by extension, the world’s politics, cultures, and economies.

When Every Day Matters: A Mother’s Memoir on Love, Loss and Life (Simple Abundance Press), by Mary Jane Hurley Brant, chronicles the author’s first year after losing her daughter Katie Brant ’92 to brain cancer, and provides reflections and advice on accepting the unacceptable trials of life.

Footnotes:

ice underfoot
clear sky and visible breath
anticipating winter

This haiku by human rights activist Rick Roth ’75 appears in Haiku Not Bombs, a follow-up to The Haiku Year (Soft Skull Press, 1998), a project by a group of friends that involved each person writing a haiku for every day of the year and sending these poems to one another in the mail. This reincarnation of the project by a group called Collectivo Haiku was adjusted so that each participant wrote one poem a week in digital/blog format, which was later printed by Another Brooklyn Chapbook.

As the sole researcher on Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Bantam Dell), Lauren Esposito ’01 said she learned that “Warren Buffett is a human being like the rest of us.” The only authorized biography of Buffett, the book was number one on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction best sellers list following its release. “This book gives you a sense of the child, the husband, the father, the investor, the philanthropist, and the showman. He ran away in junior high, committed a number of investing blunders, and made mistakes with relationships at home — it’s how he recovers from these that can teach us all something,” Esposito added. She met the author of The Snowball while working as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley. A top-ranked research analyst, Schroeder chose Esposito for her strong financial background and understanding of business, and they left the company to work on the book together more than four years ago. Schroeder had proposed the idea to Buffett, who agreed to participate as well as give her access to his files and friends. “Studying the life of Warren Buffett in its minutest detail was a big learning experience,” said Esposito. “However, also being taught by this author who took on such a monumental project has taught me what is possible.”



In the media

“I felt like primates were my impetus, and they pulled me along to great places.”
— Adam Hermans ’07 commenting to his hometown newspaper, the Exeter News-Letter (Exeter, N.H.), about studying primates during his journey as a Watson Fellow

“We figured that this was the year to kick off a different way at Colgate.”
— Adam Zimmermann ’10 describing to the Christian Science Monitor new efforts to register voters during first-year orientation

“Even if it turns out that our worst fears are totally unfounded, this is still very worthwhile.”
— Associate Professor of Russian Ian Helfant, chair of Colgate’s Environmental Council, in a Post-Standard (Syracuse) article about efforts to make his home more sustainable

“Let your parents know you need to start learning how to do things yourself.”
— Dean of First-Year Students Beverly Low offering advice to readers of CosmoGIRL magazine about the transition from high school to college

“In my heart and mind, one foot has remained in the Third World.”
— William Northrup ’63 describing his experience serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala to the Tennessean (Nashville)

“Every student should do some kind of community service, but not just with college in mind, as that would be missing the point.”
— Karen Giannino, senior associate dean of admission, speaking to the Post-Star (Glens Falls, N.Y.) about the importance of service


BookCase
A selection from the new titles shelf at Case Library

The Day My Mother Changed Her Name and Other Stories
William D. Kaufman

Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America
Frederick Douglass Opie

Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics Through Popular Culture
Edited by Joseph J. Foy

I Am My Family: Photographic Memories and Fictions
Rafael Goldchain

Jews and American Comics: An Illustrated History of an American Art Form
Paul Buhle

Nights in the Pink Motel: An American Strategist’s Pursuit of Peace in Iraq
Robert Earle

Pecking Order
Omar Tyree

Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics
Joe Biden

Stone Canoe: A Journal of Arts and Ideas from Upstate New York, Number 2
Robert Colley, Paul Aviles, Michael Burkard, David Lloyd, Marion Wilson

The Wasted Vigil
Nadeem Aslam