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BOOKSHELF

Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia edited by Ken Shouler, Leonard Koppett ’44, Bob Ryan, Sam Smith and Bob Bellotti.

Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia

edited by Ken Shouler, Leonard Koppett ’44, Bob Ryan, Sam Smith and Bob Bellotti. This comprehensive, 1,280-page encyclopedia, which includes several chapters by CCT Editor Alex Sachare ’71, covers every facet of the game from the rise of the NBA and college hoops to a detailed “Player Registrar” that includes professional players’ statistics (SportClassic, $49.95).

The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems, 1940–2001

by Louis Simpson ’48. The poet’s various personas, from university intellectual to suburban homemaker, echo the underlying issues of American society, such as the individual’s disillusionment in a materialistic society, the failure of marriage and the lost American dream (Boa Editions, $30.95 cloth, $19.95 paper).

A Conversational History of Modern America by Richard D. Heffner ’46

A Conversational History of Modern America

by Richard D. Heffner ’46. The host of the longest-running interview program in public television history, The Open Mind, collects interviews that span five decades and reflect the diversity of American thought, including conversations with Martin Luther King Jr., Donald Rumsfeld, Gloria Steinem and Rudy Giuliani (Carroll & Graf, $28).

Mostly About Me: A Path Through Different Worlds

by Rudolph H. Weingartner ’50. This “autobiography manqué” details a varied life that includes the formative years at Columbia, an academic career in philosophy, struggles as provost at the University of Pittsburgh as well as more private topics, such as his 42-year marriage and its sad ending (1stBooks Library, $35.95 cloth, $24.95 paper).

Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars

by Richard K. Bernstein ’54. This revised, updated edition of the “bible for diabetics” focuses on regulating blood sugars with new materials, methods of preventing or reversing the long-term complications and recent advances in medication, supplements and diet (Little, Brown, and Co., $26.95).

The Pursuit of Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancements

by Sheila Rothman, professor of public health, and David Rothman ’58, Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine and History. Two medical historians trace the history of “the pursuit of biological perfection” and explore the scientific, medical and commercial factors of body enhancements, such as hormone replacement, plastic surgery and liposuction (Pantheon Books, $25).

Gangsters and Gold Diggers: Old New York, the Jazz Age and the Birth of Broadway by Jerome Charyn ’59

Gangsters and Gold Diggers: Old New York, the Jazz Age and the Birth of Broadway

by Jerome Charyn ’59. An examination of the “self-mythologizing, outlaw culture” of the bootleggers, chorus girls, hustlers and celebrities of 1920s Broadway, a street known in the Jazz Age as the greatest “staggering machine of desire” (Four Walls Eight Windows, $24).

PsychoBible: Behavior, Religion and the Holy Book

by Armando R. Favazza ’62. From the renowned psychiatrist who wrote Bodies Under Siege, this study of the Bible focuses on the impact of religion on behavior and how the Judeo-Christian text has evolved throughout history (Pitchstone Publishing, $19.95 paper).

Inside the Mirage: America’s Fragile Partnership With Saudi Arabia Thomas W. Lippman ’61

Inside the Mirage: America’s Fragile Partnership With Saudi Arabia

by Thomas W. Lippman ’61. The former Washington Post Middle East bureau chief, who describes the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia as a “marriage of convenience,” sheds light on the challenges that face the partnership, including the growing anti-American sentiment among younger Saudis and America’s skepticism of the value of the relationship in the aftermath of Saudi-based terrorism (West View Press, $27.50).

St. Agnes Chapel

by Francis J. Sypher Jr. ’63. This historical documentation of the Upper West Side Trinity Chapel, from its construction in the late 19th century to its sale and demolition in 1944, recalls how a “once-stellar” ministry was unable to adjust to the changing landscape of New York City (Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York, available at the Trinity Bookstore).

Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access, Involvement, and Interaction

by James E. Katz ’72 and Ronald E. Rice ’71. Katz (former editor of CCT) and Rice use quantitative data and case studies of websites to examine the impact of the Internet on society. They contend that the Internet, like any form of communication, has its advantages and its pitfalls and is used by Americans as an extension and enhancement of their daily lives (MIT Press, $55).

Bankable Business Plans

by Edward Rogoff ’72. With a foreword by Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, this “step-by-step blueprint for success” provides entrepreneurs with an outline to writing and presenting effective, data-driven business plans and offers lessons on financing (Texere, $49.95).

Satire, History, Novel: Narrative Forms, 1665–1815

by Frank Palmeri ’74. An original synthesis of the theories of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas underpins this exploration of the emergence of narrative genres, conjectural histories and narrative satire, “in the context of successive cultural paradigms and the uneven development of public spheres” (University of Delaware Press, $62.50).

The Commentary of Abraham ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch Volume 3: Leviticus and Volume 5: Deuteronomy

translated by Jay F. Shachter ’78. The first English translations of the works of Abraham ibn Ezra, renowned commentator of the Hebrew Bible, are supplemented by “super-commentaries” that make ibn Ezra’s complex Hebrew easier to understand (Ktav Publishing House, $35 each).

A Tale of Four Cities: Nineteenth Century Baseball’s Most Exciting Season, 1889, in Contemporary Accounts

by Jean-Pierre Caillault ’80. This narrative of the 1889 pennant races — featuring the New York Giants and the Boston Beaneaters in the National League and the St. Louis Browns and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the upstart American Association — draws on major newspapers from each team’s hometown to capture day-to-day developments of these memorable match-ups (McFarland & Co., Inc. $29.95 paper).

Identity Crisis: A Rick LaBlonde, P.I. Novel

by Kevin G. Chapman ’83. A retired New York City cop turned private investigator is on a mission to find his missing niece but finds himself facing a complex mystery and life-threatening danger on a trail that leads from Bermuda to Miami to Dallas to Las Vegas (Xlibris, $32.99 cloth, $22.99 paper).

The Peasant and the Pen: Men, Enterprise, and the Recovery of Culture in Italian American Narrative

by George Guida ’89. This study of Italian-American literature analyses texts includes the late 19th-century Sicilian Giovanni Verga’s peasant tales, John Fante’s realistic novels of the immigrant experience and Anthony Valerio’s narratives of contemporary Italian-American cultural struggles to gain insight into Italian-American male identity and culture (Peter Lang, $48.95).

Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State edited by Charles K. Armstrong

Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State

edited by Charles K. Armstrong, assistant professor of history and director of the Center for Korean Research. This collection of scholarly essays on the political transformation of South Korea from a military authoritarian regime to a democracy focuses on the role of non-governmental political movements and the participation of “ordinary people” in democratization (Routledge, $90 cloth, $28.95 paper).

The Origins of Postcommunist Elites: From Prague Spring to the Breakup of Czechoslovakia

by Gil Eyal, associate professor of sociology. Examining the peaceful separation of Czechoslovakia into two countries in 1993 from a sociological perspective, this book traces a political process that began with the Prague Spring of 1968 and argues that the breakup was a result of a struggle between two factions of “the new class,” which consisted of intellectuals and technocrats (University of Minnesota Press, $60.95 cloth, $21.95 paper).

A Concise History of Bolivia

by Herbert S. Klein, Gouverneur Morris Professor of History. This survey examines Bolivia’s economic, social and political evolution from the region’s first settlers to the present, while bringing into focus for the first time the rising political power of the mestizos and Indian populations (Cambridge University Press, $50 cloth, $20 paper).

Finance, Research, Education and Growth

edited by Luigi Pagnanetto and Edmund S. Phelps, McVickar Professor of Political Economy. In this collection on finance systems, leading international scholars analyze the benefits of research and education in maintaining productivity in the competitive marketplace and explore the role of investment in an era of globalization (Palgrave Macmillian, $70).

Peter Kang ’05

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