Hot Type

Lou Ann Matossian ’77 (translator), Special Mission: Nemesis, Editions Sigest, 2014; 63 pp. This graphic novel by Paolo Cossi, J.B. Dijan, and Jan Varoujan tells the true story of a young Armenian on trial for shooting the man who killed his family and planned to annihilate his people.

Betsy Polk and Maggie Ellis Chotas ’89, Power Through Partnership: How Women Lead Better Together, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014; 154 pp. This book encourages women to form workplace relationships based on mutual encouragement, flexibility, and accountability.

Paul Frischkoff ’60, Dr. Chuckle and Missed Her Ride: Puns and Malapropisms, Wild Ginger Press, 2014. With 250 original puns and hundreds of malapropisms, the author keeps readers laughing out loud.

Carol Gaiser ’57, Promettimi di non morire, nottetempo, 2013; 255 pp. Gaiser’s collection of her published articles, poems, and letters to her dearest friend Silvana Mauri, translated by Maria Ottieri, is an epistolary memoir and tribute to the miracle of enduring friendship.

Louis Jargow ’10 and Suzahn Ebrahimian, E//O: A Remythologized Epic Poem Based on a Memory of a Memory of a Memory, Publication Studio Hudson, 2014; 95 pp. A contemporary retelling of the classic story of love, death, and a trip to the underworld to rescue love seeks reasons for Eurydice’s decision to remain in Hades.

Osha Neumann ’61 (formerly Thomas Neumann), Doodling on the Titanic: The Making of Art in a World on the Brink, Sudden Sun Press, 2014; 183 pp. Meditating on the creative process, Neumann questions issues such as art’s relevance in an era of cultural and socioeconomic crisis.

Linda Barrett-Osborne ’71 and Paolo Battaglia, Explorers Emigrants Citizens: A Visual History of the Italian American Experience from the Collections of the Library of Congress, The Library of Congress, 2013; 318 pp. In his foreword, film icon Martin Scorsese commends this book as commemorating “a way of life that is now almost gone.”  

John Ridland ’53 and Peter Czipott (translators), All That Still Matters At All: Selected Poems of Miklós Radnóti, NewAmericanPress, 2013; 205 pp. These harrowing poems, recently translated, were recovered from a notebook found on the poet’s body, exhumed from a mass grave in 1946.

Philip Rutter, Susan Wiegrefe, and Brandon Rutter-Daywater ’00, Growing Hybrid Hazelnuts: The New Resilient Crop for a Changing Climate, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015; 260 pp. This book is the first comprehensive guide to growing a crop designed to address a host of problems with conventional modern agriculture.

Maya Schenwar ’05, Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014; 240 pp. While showing how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans is tearing families and communities apart, the author looks toward a world beyond imprisonment.

Benjamin Schwartz ’06, Right of Boom: The Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism, The Overlook Press, 2015; 276 pp. Drawing on historical research and service in the departments of defense, state, and energy, Schwartz constructs the scenario of a nuclear attack on the United States.

John Oliver Simon ’64, Grandpa’s Syllables, White Violet Press, 2015; 92 pp. This legendary poet of the Berkeley Sixties, working in 11-syllable lines, writes fancifully, among other things, of aphids, “the color of lemon lollipops long-licked by luscious tongues.”

Abigail Swingen ’97, Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire, Yale University Press, 2015; 271 pp. Swingen offers a new framework for understanding the origins of the British empire and explores the influence of England’s imperial ambitions on politics, labor, economy, and foreign trade.

Peter Unger ’62, Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2014; 258 pp. In this provocative book, Unger challenges contemporary analytic philosophy, positing that it focuses predominantly on “empty ideas.”

Susan Erlandson Washburn ’60, My Horse, My Self: Life Lessons From Taos Horsewomen, Casa de Snapdragon, 2014; 146 pp. The author’s heartwarming compilation of stories by 18 horsewomen from New Mexico is enriched with delightful photos by Jett Ulaner Sarachek, wife of Norm ’60.