Off the Shelf: Words Worth a Second Look

N o n f i c t i o n

CEO of Me: Creating a Life That Works in the Flexible Job Age
By Ellen Ernst Kossek ’79 and Brenda A. Lautsch (Wharton Press)

Are you finding the line between your work and home life blurred? Are you sick of juggling work tasks while trying to spend time with your children? Ellen Kossek’s book helps people clarify their work-life values and learn new ways to manage work-life relationships.

Ellen Ernst Kossek is a professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University and a leading research expert on work and personal life.
 

My Life and Battles
By Jack Johnson; translated by Christopher Rivers (Greenwood Press)

African American Jack Johnson (1878–1946), whose defeat in 1910 of heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, who was white, spurred race riots across the country, has been called “the first African American pop culture icon.” My
Life and Battles uncovers Johnson’s depictions of his colorful life and battles as well as the “color line” in boxing and American society in general.

Christopher Rivers is a professor of French at Mount Holyoke. He is writing a book on Georges Carpentier, the celebrated French boxer of the pre– and post–World War I era.
 

This Too Is Diplomacy: Stories of a Partnership
By Dorothy J. Irving ’43 (AuthorHouse)

An occupied city, an active volcano, and a presidential visit were all part of Dorothy Irving’s experience as a Foreign Service spouse, which she faithfully examines in this book. Irving paints a broad canvas of raising three children in numerous countries; coping with unfamiliar customs and languages; and how to accept humbly the special treatment often accorded diplomats.

Dorothy Petrie Irving has long been involved in interracial and intercultural activities and has received several awards in this field, including an MHC Sesquicentennial Award.

Taking the Pulse of the U.S. Health Care System
By Catherine Farmer Hosmer ’49 (iUniverse)

What has happened to a once-great health care system often proclaimed by many as best in the world? The author interviewed hundreds of people and was shocked by the disdain with which most of those questioned view the U.S. health care system. This book tries to answer the questions “How did it happen?” and “If our health care system is broken, how can we fix it?”

Catherine Hosmer is author of several fiction and nonfiction books and contributes freelance articles to national newspapers and magazines.
 

Democracy and Lobbying in the European Union
By Karolina Karr FF’98 (Campus Verlag)

Can interest groups and lobbyists operate in a democratic system without hindering the people’s interests? This timely book explores how the power of interest groups has developed, thanks to the growing distance between elected representatives and the European people, and forecasts what this might mean for government vitality.

Karolina Karr lives in Berlin and works for German Rail. This book is part of her PhD in political science.
 

Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York
By Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom (The New Press)

This book takes a fresh look at the Progressive Era social reformer, journalist, and pioneer photographer who publicized the conditions of the desperately poor in turn-of-the-century New York. It includes ninety illustrations of Riis’s work and an eight-page duotone photo essay.

Daniel Czitrom is a professor of history at MHC. He is the author of Media and the American Mind and coauthor of Out of Many: A History of the American People.
 

Global Capitalism Unbound
Edited by Eva Paus (Palgrave Macmillan)

This book brings together experts who analyze the rapid growth of offshore outsourcing and its huge implications worldwide. From the promise of rapid economic growth to the unraveling of social contracts, the diverse accounts of winners and losers offer a comprehensive look at the phenomenon and how policy might be used to spread its benefits more widely and equally.

Eva Paus is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Global Initiatives at MHC. She is also the author of Foreign Investment, Development, and Globalization: Can Costa Rica Become Ireland?
 

Anger-Related Disorders: A Practitioner’s Guide to Comparative Treatments
By Eva L. Feindler ’75 (Springer Publishing)

In this groundbreaking exploration, Eva Feindler seeks to answer the following questions: What are anger-related disorders? What do they have in common and how is each different? How do we treat anger-related disorders? The book provides an overview of how clinicians can implement therapies and tailor numerous treatments to individual clients’ needs.

Eva L. Feindler is professor of psychology at the Long Island University and is directly involved in programs to help children and families manage their anger and resolve conflict.
 

Shakespeare’s Genealogies: Plots and Illustrated Family Trees for All 42 Works
By Vanessa James (Melcher Media)

In Shakespeare’s Genealogies, Vanessa James uses a unique, fully illustrated, seventeen-foot-long, double-sided format to trace the genealogies of the more than 1,000 characters mentioned in all forty-two of William Shakespeare’s plays and dramatic poems. Beginning with Shakespeare’s own family tree and proceeding into plot outlines and charts organized by category of play, the book’s thorough and inventive scholarship makes it a must-have for any serious student of Shakespeare.

Vanessa James is a professor of theatre and chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Mount Holyoke. She has designed many off-Broadway shows and her work is documented in the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute.
 

Petit Guide de la Suisse insolite: Made in Switzerland
By Mavis Guinard ’46 (Metropolis Editions)

This is a collection of offbeat features on Switzerland that first appeared in the International Herald Tribune. From insights into why Switzerland became so clean to the birth of Frankenstein, Made in Switzerland will please fans of historic anecdotes and armchair travel as well as the practical traveler, who will benefit from the author’s tips and index of places.

Mavis Gaipa Guinard has lived in Switzerland for forty years. She has translated numerous books, including Mummenschanz and This Prison Where I Live.
 

Teaching About Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism
Edited by Leslie S. Jones ’77 and Michael J. Reiss (Peter Lang Publishing)

The evolution/creationism controversy has crippled biological education. Many students finish school without a basic understanding of a theory that is a fundamental component of scientific literacy. This book takes an educational point of view that respects both the teaching of evolution and religious beliefs and offers a collection of perspectives that begin to dismantle the notion that religion and science are incompatible.

Leslie Jones is a science educator in the biology department at Valdosta State University in Georgia.
 

F i c t i o n

Seven Blackbirds
By Helen Black Medeiros ’81 (Four Elk Press)

How do you reclaim your life after an abusive marriage? Seven Blackbirds follows Kimberly Baltakis as she stumbles along the road toward wholeness and independence. Shunning stereotypical characters, the novel gives the reader fresh insight into the dynamics of abuse.

Helen Black Medeiros lives in Portland, Oregon.
 

Prisoner for Liberty
By Marty Rhodes Figley FP’03 (Millbrook Press)

Prisoner for Liberty follows the story of James Forten, a  fifteen-year-old African American boy, during the American Revolution. Captured by the British while working on an American ship in 1781, Forten wonders where his fate will deliver him.

Marty Rhodes Figley has written many children’s books and currently lives in the Washington, D.C., area.
 

To Hell with Love
By Sherri Erwin ’90 (Kensington Books)

When Boston designer Kate Markham meets real-estate mogul Owen Glendower, sparks fly. Swept off her feet, Kate lets herself fall into a breathtaking sensual journey she hopes will never end, even when Owen reveals his little secret: he happens to be Hades, ruler of the underworld and the devil himself.

Sherri Browning Erwin ’90 lives in western Massachusetts and writes women’s fiction with a paranormal twist. Her other novels include The Scoundrel’s Vow and Once Wicked.
 

Murder New York Style
Edited By Randy Kandel ’66 (L&L Dreamspell)

Twenty-one stories of murder and mayhem in New York City make up Randy Kandel’s mystery anthology. Stories involve a labor strike in the early twentieth century; the gentrification of the Lower East Side; the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the contemporary paranoia of a Westchester community college.

Randy Altman Kandel is a New York City agency judge, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and president of the New York/Tri-State chapter of Sisters in Crime.
 

A u t h o r  I n t e r v i e w

War at Home: One Woman’s Experience in the Bangladesh War of Independence

Fiction, says Tahmima Anam ’97, encourages readers to make empathetic leaps into other worlds. And that’s exactly where this author of a much-celebrated first novel, A Golden Age (HarperCollins), wants them to go.

Set against the backdrop of the war for independence in Bangladesh in the early 1970s, the book revolves around a young widow, Rehana Haque, whose political and emotional consciousness is transformed as she struggles to keep her two children safe and negotiate the turmoil and unexpected passions that the war ignites.

While the conflict always fascinated Anam, who was born in Bangladesh in 1975, she originally researched the period’s events for an oral history as part of her doctoral thesis in social anthropology at Harvard. But her interviews with survivors so moved her that she felt she had to write the novel.

“I just wanted to convey something of that mood; wanted people to feel transported to another time and place, and the only way to do that is through fiction.”

Although she was born after the war, Anam’s parents and extended family were active in the independence movement and told stories throughout her childhood that not only piqued her curiosity but also deeply affected her sense of personal belonging.

“I thought the novel would mostly be about the widow’s children, but this character, Rehana, took over,” Anam explains. “I felt much closer to her. [A native of India,] she’s not sure whether she belongs in this country or not.”

Anam felt much the same way in all the places she lived as a child in a diplomatic family posted to Paris, New York, and Bangkok. “Wherever we lived, it was like we didn’t actually live there,” she recalls. “There was always an idea to go back [to Bangladesh] and give back—and that was my job, too.”

Currently a resident of London, Anam has written for the New York Times, Granta, and the New Statesman, where she is a contributing editor. She has started to think about the second book of what she anticipates will be a trilogy. The next installment will focus on Rehana’s father and the dying days of colonialism in India, and will be set in Calcutta in the 1950s.

“At the end of this book I thought, ‘I can’t let the characters go’ and I want to look at history through the lens of this family. There are so many things that happened in Bengal in the last hundred years. I have so much, so many things to [discover].” —M.H.B.

This is the second in a series of occasional spotlights on books of particular note.

Photo of Anam by Paul Schnaittacher