Reediana Briefs

Cosmosis

Cosmosis

by Mara Manly Stahl ’59 (Limited edition, 2012) 
Cosmosis is a palimpsest of a life lived as a theatre and visual artist. Thus, a limited edition shares the roots of journey over time and through space, following a cartography of telling images and poetic lines. From the work’s conceptual opening, archival binding unfolding to broadsides of peril and peace, we inhabit the world that inhabits her. As we circle her concerted continents, sentient seas, revolving Venn diagrams, we are led to the wonder that is ourselves.

Jumna

Jumna: Sacred River: An American Childhood in India

by Charlotte Gould Warren ’59
(Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2012) 
This memoir chronicles Charlotte’s first 11 years as the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries in India during its fight for independence and follows her coming of age in America during the turbulent ’60s. Charlotte won the Washington Prize for a previous book of poetry, Gandhi’s Lap.

A Desire Path

A Desire Path

by Jan Conway Shapin ’65 (Cambridge Books, 2012) 
Novelist and playwright Jan Conway Shapin researched the past to find the outlines of character and a setting for her latest novel. “My parents went to college in the ’30s and told me tales that made me long for that intense fusion of self and history. I am drawn to stories that highlight that deep desire for meaning.” Set in the era of the Great Depression, the novel introduces readers to three exceptional individuals, whose choices in love and politics lead to tragic results. Jan reminds readers that a desire path is one of convenience and not a shortcut. Read more.

Acting Obsessed

Acting Obsessed

by Peter Silverman ’65 (Create Space, 2012) 
A thin line divides obsession from passion, and in Ginger Brossard’s life in Acting Obsessed the line seems especially thin. Ginger is a young and talented actress with a burning ambition to be on the stage. She embarks on a career with a Shakespearean theatre company in Philadelphia, but soon a rival bent on destroying her begins to stalk her. When she meets an intriguing new man, and then receives in the mail a precious gift from an anonymous admirer, Ginger becomes entangled in a web of lethal danger, unanswered questions from the past, and the obsession of the anonymous admirer who may have the power to devastate her life. In the end she faces a choice between security and a risky chance for happiness. The book is available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon, or at Peter's book site.

Explorations in Transactional Analysis

Explorations in Transactional Analysis:
The Meech Lake Papers 

by Bill Cornell ’69 (International Transactional Analysis Association, 2008)
This book brings together many of Bill’s articles on transactional analysis written over 20 years in his career as a psychotherapist. Called an “intimate collection of lovingly crafted scholarly papers,” Bill’s work  has been praised by scholars for the insightful questions it raises and for the unusual use of the personal voice. “Few books on psychotherapy are as original as this one.” The papers reflect Bill’s ongoing exploration of the interfaces among transactional analysis, body-centered therapies, and contemporary psychoanalysis. Bill also served as coeditor of From Transactions to Relations: The Emergence of a Relational Tradition in Transactional Analysis (Haddon Press, 2005) and edited James T. McLaughlin’s book The Healer’s Bent: Solitude and Dialogue in the Clinical Encounter.

Photography and poetry by Karen Greenbaum-Maya ’73 have been published this past year in such venues as The Centrifugal Eye, Word Gumbo, Waccamaw, poemeleon, Literary Bohemian, qarrtsiluni, and Right Hand Pointing, among others. More online.

New-Media Survival Guide

New-Media Survival Guide:
For Journalists and Other Print-Era Refugees 

by John Bethune ’77 (CreateSpace, 2012)
John personally witnessed the rise of new media and its empowering effects, and created this highly readable guide to explain the key ideas behind online and social media. The guide covers blogging, content aggregation and curation, content marketing, eBooks, multimedia tools, and ethics in six concise chapters; a longer chapter on social networks includes helpful advice on using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Google+. It also provides extensive footnotes and resource lists, as well as eight profiles of leading new-media journalists, marketers, and thought leaders. Whether you are currently working in a traditional media operation, looking for work, or freelancing, New-Media Survival Guide will help position you not only to survive, but also to flourish, in the new-media revolution. Learn more.

golding

Maverick Screenwriting:
A Manual for the Adventurous Screenwriter

by Josh Golding ’82 (Bloomsbury, 2012) 
This book teaches screenwriters how to use the advanced narrative techniques—time, logic, and reality—that change the way we look at the world. For those who want to break the mold, as well as those who want to make mainstream films with a twist, like The Matrix, The Truman Show, or Avatar, Josh encourages writers to adopt innovative approaches which express their own unique way of looking at the world.

“Reinventing the Song As an Artform,” by Peter Herb ’83, appeared in the online music magazine Perfect Sound Forever in October 2011. Peter explores the work of composer and pianist Ed Pastorini. More online.

The Billionaires' Manifesto

The Billionaires’ Manifesto 

by Kurt Opprecht ’85 (Smashwords and Babylon Moon, 2012)

For the first time in print: the secret agenda of the 1 percent. An indignant smackdown to the unwashed audacity of the Occupy movement, The Billionaires’ Manifesto is the revolutionary gambit of shipping mogul Thurston H. to create a New Plutocracy and put the 99 percent forever in their place. (Bleeding hearts, be aware: this book contains harsh reality.)

Answers May Vary 

by Dorothy Zemach ’85 (Wayzgoose Press, 2012)
Twenty-five essays on teaching English as a second language were written by Dorothy, a renowned writer, teacher, and textbook author. The wide variety of topics includes classroom management, testing and assessment, teaching reading strategies, coping with cheating and plagiarism, teaching visual learners, culture shock, the value of a nonnative teacher, and recognizing and overcoming teacher burnout. This volume contains the complete collection of Dorothy’s “From A to Z” columns originally published in TESOL’s Essential Teacher magazine (2003–09).

Trial and Terror

Trial and Terror 

by Adam Penenberg ’86 (Wayzgoose Press, 2012)
The good news is that public defender Summer Neuwirth just won her first case, which involved a brutal rape and kidnapping. The bad news? Her client was guilty. What’s more, he knows all about Summer’s past. As Summer pursues her next case, this time to keep an innocent woman off death row, elements of that past—a mysterious case of childhood amnesia, her police officer father’s involvement with a serial killer, a terrifying attack she survived just months earlier—entwine with her legal work, her missing mother, and her rocky relationship with a private investigator, all of which culminate in a thrilling trial . . . and terror. Wayzgoose has also published Adam’s novel Virtually True.

Race After the Internet

Race After the Internet

edited by Lisa Nakamura ’87 (Routledge, 2011) 
This collection of interdisciplinary essays explores the complex role that digital media technologies play in shaping our ideas about race. Contributors examine the race-based digital divide, the establishment and reinforcement of digital segregation and “ghettos,” digital codes, and biotechnology. Other examples include World of Warcraft, Native American use of digital technology, President Obama’s inauguration, and MySpace.

Death Valley National Park Wilderness
and Backcountry Stewardship Plan 

edited by Candace Schaffer Lieber ’96 
The plan was released to the general public for comment in August 2012. Candace’s wilderness team in Death Valley National Park won the Wes Henry National Wilderness Stewardship Award from the National Park Service. She is also editing a volume of history papers for a small press.

The Modernity Bluff

The Modernity Bluff:
Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire 

by Sasha Newell ’96 (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
In Côte d’Ivoire, appearing modern is so important for success that many young men, called bluffeurs, deplete their already meager resources to project an illusion of wealth in a fantastic display of Western imitation, spending far more than they can afford on brand-name clothing, accessories, technology, and a robust nightlife. Such imitation, however, is not meant to deceive—rather, as Sasha argues, it is an explicit performance so valued in Côte d’Ivoire that it has become a matter of national pride. Using the consumption of Western goods to express cultural mastery over Western taste, bluffeurs engage a global hierarchy that is profoundly modern, one that values performance over authenticity—highlighting the counterfeit nature of modernity itself. One critic calls The Modernity Bluff “a stunning exploration of the power of fakery, masking, and performance, set against larger themes of postcoloniality and modernity.”

The Gift of Correspondence in Classical Rome

The Gift of Correspondence in Classical Rome: Friendship in Cicero’s Ad Familiares and Seneca’s Moral Epistles

by Amanda Wilcox ’96 (Wisconsin Studies in Classics, 2012)
Amanda takes an innovative approach to two major collections of Roman letters, informed by modern cross-cultural theories of gift giving. By viewing letters and the practice of correspondence as a species of gift exchange, she provides a nuanced analysis of neglected and misunderstood aspects of Roman epistolary rhetoric and the social dynamics of friendship in Cicero’s correspondence. She also shows that Seneca both inherited and reacted against Cicero’s euphemistic rhetoric and social practices, and she analyzes how Seneca transformed the rhetoric of his own letters from an instrument of social negotiation into an idiom for ethical philosophy and self-reflection. Amanda is assistant professor of classics at Williams College.

Activities for Teaching Positive Psychology

Activities for Teaching Positive Psychology:
A Guide for Instructors 

by Acacia Parks ’03
(American Psychological Association Press, 2012)
Positive psychology is a rapidly expanding area of study that is of great interest to students at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels. But the field is so broad that those who have an interest in teaching it also encounter difficulties in locating and selecting materials. Activities for Teaching Positive Psychology, coedited by Acacia and Jeffrey Froh, addresses this problem by presenting a comprehensive set of fun, interactive classroom activities devised by contributors who are experienced teachers as well as leading scholars in their areas. The book is a rich source of ideas for all teachers of psychology, from novice to experienced instructors.

A Penance Poems

A Penance: Poems

by CJ Evans ’03 (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2012)
“Evans’ debut connects his own sense of the visible world, with all its plants and animals, its ‘cruel devices,’ to metaphors and examples drawn from an underworld of prisons and mean streets . . . his depth of emotion is real, and rare.”—Publishers Weekly.

Everyday Bicycling

Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bike for Transportation (Whatever Your Lifestyle) 

by Elly Blue ’05 (Cantankerous Titles, 2012)
Getting on a bike for the first time can be daunting. In this engaging guide, Elly takes the hand of novice bicyclists and leads them through everything from choosing the right bike and wardrobe to working with city hall to make a neighborhood more bike friendly. If you haven’t pedaled a bike since Mom sold your Coast King Sting-Ray, this book can prevent you from making costly mistakes as it builds up your confidence and gives you a quick primer in bicycle safety and maintenance.

Kate Rutledge Jaffe ’06, writer, editor, and arts organizer, published two poems in the June 2012 issue of PANK magazine, “Hinterland” and “Made.” Read more about her poetry and fiction.

“This Ain’t Yo Momma’s Muktuk: Fermented Seal Flipper, Botulism & Other Joys of Arctic Living,” by Rebecca Kreston ’07, was published in The Best Science Writing Online 2012 (Scientific American, 2012). Check out Rebecca’s blog, “Body Horrors," where she examines interactions of local geography, cultural and social behaviors, and religion upon communicable diseases.

“‘I Got Next’—A New Arrival Explores New York through Pickup Basketball” by Isaac Eger ’11 was published in the New York Times in July. The article told the story of Isaac’s move from Sarasota, Florida, to New York City. He contributes regularly to the blogs The Pickup: Liberating Sports from the Heathens, and Not a Pro Team: The Blog of a Reed College Basketball Player.

The Ghostman

Ghostman 

by Roger Hobbs ’11 (Knopf / Random House, 2013)
When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry, the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from “Jack.” Only 30 or so people are sure this man exists, some believe he’s dead, and none know anything at all about his true identity. Those are closely guarded trade secrets for an exceptionally talented criminal. But as he struggles to clean up the mess left in the wake of the bungled heist, he finds himself pursued simultaneously by the FBI and other parties—a situation that requires every gram of his ingenuity, especially when offense and defense become meaningless terms. Roger’s debut novel, begun while he was a senior at Reed, set off a spectacular bidding war in the publishing world. Warner Brothers studio reportedly paid six figures for the rights to make a thriller based on the book.