Faculty Promotions: Book Selections

“32 Yolks may not be what you’d expect from a charming, Emmy-winning cooking show host and cookbook author. In the book, there are, of course, scenes of elaborate meals both eaten and prepared. And all the talk of gigot d’agneau, tarte tatin, petits farcis, paupiette de veau and saumon en croute may prompt a dinner reservation at your local French restaurant. But Ripert’s story is, for the most part, one of profound loss, a tumultuous childhood and abuse, both mental and physical.”—Los Angeles Times Selected by DR. MEGHAN ANDRIKANICH / Science and Mathematics

“Brilliant. . . . Mr. Mahajan’s writing is acrid and bracing, tightly packed with dissonant imagery. . . . The Association of Small Bombs is not the first novel about the aftermath of a terrorist attack, but it is the finest I’ve read at capturing the seduction and force of the murderous, annihilating illogic that increasingly consumes the globe.”
—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal SELECTED BY CLIFFORD ANTHONY / Arts and Humanities

“While forensic analysis has proven to be a valuable investigative tool in the field of computer security, utilizing anti-forensic technology makes it possible to maintain a covert operational foothold for extended periods, even in a high-security environment. Adopting an approach that favors full disclosure, the updated Second Edition of The Rootkit Arsenal presents the most accessible, timely, and complete coverage of forensic countermeasures. This book covers more topics, in greater depth, than any other currently available. In doing so the author forges through the murky back alleys of the Internet, shedding light on material that has traditionally been poorly documented, partially documented, or intentionally undocumented.” [Amazon Review] SELECTED BY LARRY ATKINSON / Engineering, Business and IT

World-renowned canopy biologist Nalini Nadkarni has climbed trees on four continents with scientists, students, artists, clergymen, musicians, activists, loggers, legislators, and Inuits, gathering diverse perspectives. In Between Earth and Sky the reader finds a rich tapestry of personal stories, information, art, and photography and the author becomes our captivating guide to the leafy wilderness above our heads. Nadkarni describes trees' intricate root systems, their highly evolved and still not completely understood canopies, their role in commerce and medicine, their existence in city centers and in extreme habitats of mountaintops and deserts, and their important place in folklore and the arts. [Based on Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DR. RUBY BEIL / Science and Mathematics

This anthology includes the best poetry and prose from Crack the Spine Literary Magazine's weekly publications.
Melissa Marni, Megan Merchant, Luanne Castle, Kim Magowan, Philip Kane, Linda Heuring, Melissa Hammond, Marcia LeBeau, Nick Gregorio, Terry Minchow-Proffitt, Richard Dokey, Daniel J. Cleary, Monique Zamir, Rosie McFarland, BAM, Angel Dionne, Ceridwen Hall, Chris Vola, JT Gill, Robin Landa, Jeffrey H. Toney, Mark J. Mitchell, Mary Jo Melone, Bob Thurber, Ruth Z. Deming, Katie Moore, Claire Polders, David Hicks, Levi Andrew Noe, Charles Kerlin, Vic Sizemore, S. Frederic Liss. [From Amazon review.]The anthology’s name evokes what happens when the reader “cracks the spine” of an often-read book. SELECTED BY DR. DANIEL CLEARY / Arts and Humanities

“In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that … will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY AIMEE DICKINSON / Social Sciences and Human Services

“A fresh examination of how routine behaviors take hold and whether they are susceptible to change . . . The stories that Duhigg has knitted together are all fascinating in their own right, but take on an added dimension when wedded to his examination of habits.”— Associated Press SELECTED BY BLERTA EREDITARIO / Science and Mathemmatics

“You’ve never read a book like The Reason I Jump. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY MICHELLE FOUST / Social Sciences and Human Services

“Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault's rhythmic chant and Lois Ehlert's exuberant collage illustrations have made Chicka Chicka Boom Boom a read-aloud favorite for twenty years.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY BETHANY GEIGER / Science and Mathematics

“…Cass Sunstein and leading decision-making scholar Reid Hastie shed light on the specifics of why and how group decisions go wrong―and offer tactics and lessons to help leaders avoid the pitfalls and reach better outcomes. …[T]hey explain… the distinct problems groups run into …[and] turn to straightforward methods and advice for making groups smarter. These approaches include silencing the leader so that the views of other group members can surface, rethinking rewards and incentives to encourage people to reveal their own knowledge, thoughtfully assigning roles that are aligned with people’s unique strengths, and more.”
[From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY J. MARK HARMS / Engineering, Business and IT

The dramatic and enthralling story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge at the time, a tale of greed, corruption, and obstruction but also of optimism, heroism, and determination, told by master historian David McCullough. [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DOUGLAS HUBER / Engineering, Business and IT

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919) now ranks as the strongest American woman poet of the nineteenth century after Emily Dickinson. Published heavily in all the period's most prestigious journals, Piatt was widely celebrated by her peers as a gifted stylist in the genteel tradition. This selected edition reveals Piatt's other side, a side that contemporary critics found more problematic: ironic, experimental, pushing the limits of Victorian language and the sentimental female persona. Spanning more than half a century, this collection reveals the “borderland temper" of Piatt's mind and art. As an expatriate southerner, Piatt voices guilt at her own past as the daughter of slave-holders and raw anguish at the waste of war; as an eleven-year "exile" in Ireland, she expresses her dismay at the indifference of the wealthy to the daily suffering of the poor. [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY KARIN HOOKS / Arts and Humanities

“Can scientific naturalism, according to which there are no interruptions of the normal cause-effect relations, be compatible with divine activity, religious experience, and moral realism? Leading process philosopher of religion David Ray Griffin argues that panentheism provides the conceptual framework to overcome the perennial conflicts between these views, with important implications for religious pluralism, the problem of evil, and the academic study of religion. Panentheism—God as the soul of the world—explains how theism can be fully natural while still portraying God as distinct from and more than the world. Griffin’s Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism is an essential source for philosophers of religion and others seeking to reconcile faith with science and Christianity with other religions.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DR. YOUNG KO / Arts and Humanities

“… Conquering Gotham re- creates the riveting struggle waged by the great Pennsylvania Railroad to build Penn Station and the monumental system of tunnels that would connect water-bound Manhattan to the rest of the continent by rail. Historian Jill Jonnes … [describes] snarling plutocrats, engineering feats, and backroom politicking packed with the most colorful figures of Gilded Age New York.” [From Amazon review] SELECTED BY CLAUDIA LUBASKI / Engineering, Business and IT

“Named after a small neighborhood in London where its members settled as young adults, the Bloomsbury Group produced an impressive body of work that yielded British Post-Impressionist painting, literary modernism, the field of macroeconomics, and a new direction for public taste in art. This Companion offers a comprehensive guide to the intellectual and social contexts surrounding Bloomsbury and its coterie, which includes writer Virginia Woolf, economist Maynard Keynes, and art critic Roger Fry, among others. Thirteen chapters from leading scholars and critics explore the Bloomsbury Group's rejection of Victorian values and social mores, their interventions in issues of empire and international politics, their innovations in the literary and visual arts, and more.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DR. VALERIE McGOWAN-DOYLE / Social Sciences and Human Services

“Fellow writers reminisce about Gary Snyder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist, mountaineer, Zen Buddhist, and environmentalist, and his influence on their lives” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DR. BYOUNG PARK / Arts and Humanities

Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punk on Film is a movie reference book that has both scholarly and lowbrow appeal, with A-Z coverage of every punk/new wave on screen in 1100 international feature films, as well as countless exclusive interviews with the creators and casts of seminal titles including Repo Man, Return of the Living Dead and Valley Girl. SELECTED BY DR. REGAN SILVESTRI / Science and Mathematics

“In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.” [From Amazon review.] SELECTED BY DR. JEWON WOO / Arts and Humanities