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HOT TYPE: New releases by Swarthmoreans
Margaret K. Nelson ’66
Sociology Meets Memoir: An Exploration of Narrative and Method
New York University Press
Sociology Meets Memoir: An Exploration of Narrative and Method
New York University Press
Memoirs attract millions of readers with their compelling life stories, vivid details, and often startling revelations. Nelson argues that memoirs hold potential as powerful sources for social scientists to engage, analyze, and teach with. The book is a short, accessible, and innovative guide to the significance of memoirs for the field of sociology.
Kenneth Turan ’67
Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation
Yale University Press
Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation
Yale University Press
A tough junkman’s son and a cosseted mama’s boy once dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key figures at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the American film industry.
Art Bell ’78
What She’s Hiding: A Thriller
Ulysses Press
What She’s Hiding: A Thriller
Ulysses Press
A gripping modern-day noir thriller featuring a hotshot lawyer, Henry Gladstone, unexpectedly drawn into a web of violence and intrigue by the ex-wife he hasn’t spoken to since their bitter divorce. Bell masterfully weaves a tale of suspense and emotional turbulence, as a dangerous woman draws Henry ever further into a high-stakes game that neither one of them may survive.
Bruce L. Venarde ’84
The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France
Cornell University Press
The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France
Cornell University Press
Dozens of miracle stories, featuring everything from a wandering eyeball to pirates to a bawdy monk, offer colorful glimpses into the experiences of medieval Europeans from the humble to the mighty. Never before translated into English, these tales reveal much about the social conditions, religious beliefs and practices, sickness and health, labor, and travel of the times.
Alan Gordon ’81 (under pen name Allison Montclair)
An Excellent Thing in a Woman
Severn House
An Excellent Thing in a Woman
Severn House
London, 1947: The spirited Miss Iris Sparks and ever-practical Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are called to action when Gwen’s beau, Salvatore ‘Sally’ Danielli, is accused of murder. Sally has taken a job at the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace, but when the beautiful Miss JeanneMarie Duplessis — one of the Parisian performers over for a new variety show — is found dead in the old theater, a number of inconvenient coincidences make him suspect number one.
Robin McCarthy Arehart ’92
Ecofreak
Self-published
Ecofreak
Self-published
When a new power plant is proposed for her Southern California town, “Ecofreak” Liz is spurred into action by the memory of her mom. Nature-loving Josh is the only one who seems to “get” her, so Liz is devastated when it turns out that his dad is the lawyer for the power plant. But Liz is determined. She wants to take the fight all the way to the town council chambers, even if it means a ride in the back of a police cruiser. Yet only a dramatic shift in the way Liz relates to herself and to the people around her will give her a chance to heal and make an impact on the world.
Adam Haslett ’92
Mothers and Sons
Little, Brown and Company
Mothers and Sons
Little, Brown and Company
A mother and son, estranged for years, must grapple with the shared secret that drove their lives apart in this enthralling novel about family, forgiveness, and how a fleeting act of violence can change a life forever.
Topher McDougal ’00
Gaia Wakes: Earth’s Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation
Columbia University Press
Gaia Wakes: Earth’s Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation
Columbia University Press
Starting from a strong foundation in economics and drawing on a vast range of multidisciplinary scholarship, McDougal explores the possibility of a transition toward an upgraded Earth: the development of a technologically enabled planetary brain capable of coordinating ecological functions and peering far into the future and universe.
Sarah Yahm ’01
Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation
Dzanc Books
Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation
Dzanc Books
Bursting with humor and heartbreak, and inspired by Yahm’s own experience as a disabled author facing the existential terror of parenting while ill, Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation leaps into the trials of motherhood, the impossibility of adolescence, the hopelessness of grief, and all the wild beauty and hilarity that makes life worth living anyway. Cover by Fabien Tepper ’01.
Justene Hill Edwards ’04
Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank
W. W. Norton & Company
Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank
W. W. Norton & Company
In the years immediately after the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank. Hill Edwards illuminates the hope with which the bank was first envisioned, and demonstrates the significant setback that the sabotage of the bank caused in the fight for economic autonomy. She argues for a new interpretation of its tragic failure: the bank’s white financiers drove it into the ground, not Fredrick Douglass, its final president, or its Black depositors and cashiers.
Emma Otheguy ’09
Cousins in Times of Magic
Simon & Schuster
Cousins in Times of Magic
Simon & Schuster
History is alive with magic. That’s what zany Tía Xia is always telling cousins Jorge, Camila, and Siggy. But when the three stumble upon a time portal in their aunt’s yard, they are transported back to 1862, a past filled with wonders — and dangers. To return to the present, they must race to deliver the sword to General Ignacio Zaragoza in time for the historic Battle of Puebla in Mexico: the foundation of the holiday Cinco de Mayo.
Jasmine Rashid ’18
The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth and Collective Well-Being
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth and Collective Well-Being
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
The Financial Activist Playbook offers eight accessible, actionable, “choose-your-own-adventure” strategies for readers to experiment with. Drawing on timely insider knowledge from the worlds of impact investing, social justice, and more, Rashid unveils a treasure trove of stories demonstrating how people power can flow big bucks out of extractive industries and into the economy of care and abundance we deserve.
Sibelan Forrester (Susan W. Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages) and Olga Partan
The Russian Intelligentsia: Myth, Mission, and Metamorphosis
Academic Studies Press
The Russian Intelligentsia: Myth, Mission, and Metamorphosis
Academic Studies Press
The Russian intelligentsia is the historic phenomenon of an educated opposition, and it has inspired a substantial body of Russian and Western literature. This book focuses on the intelligentsia’s myth, mission, and metamorphosis as discovered in literature, journalism, and theater. The chapters define essential elements of the myth of the intelligentsia as a distinctive social group and a spiritual formation claiming high moral standards and expectations for the self and for society.
The Bulletin receives numerous submissions of new publications from the talented Swarthmore community and can feature only a fraction of those submissions here. Please note that work represented in Hot Type does not necessarily reflect the views of the College.