Jaywalking with the Irish
David Monagan, A74
Lonely Planet Publications

In 2000, David Monagan, A74, decided to fulfill a dream. So he packed up his Connecticut home and moved with his wife and three children across the pond to Ireland. There, in a rented house in Cork, they tried to fit in, with various degrees of success. In Jaywalking with the Irish, Monagan describes their experiences, from mastering the purchasing of groceries to helping the children adjust to school in a different land to learning to navigate the syntax of Irish English.

Between the Doorposts
Isa Milman, BSOT 71
Ekstasis Editions

Poet and artist Isa Milman, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, gives voice to the passion and pain of the post-Holocaust experience in this first book of poetry. Ancient Hebrew melodies sing of a family and life now lost, and the revelation of a new world, as the poet wrestles with identity and personal “place.”
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Anya’s Echoes
Esty Schachter, J86
Fithian Press

Lea is a 13-year-old girl with the usual problems: family, friends, grades, and boys. It doesn’t seem fair that she has to share a room with her little sister when her great-aunt Anya comes for an extended visit. As if that weren’t enough, Lea’s best friends at school are fighting among themselves, and she has to choose between staying loyal and staying popular. Then Lea discovers a tape her Aunt Anya, a survivor of the Holocaust, has recorded. In time, Anya becomes a wise and caring mentor from whom Lea learns the value of personal courage.

Brave Santa
Nancy Poydar, J64
Holiday House

In Nancy Poydar’s latest picture book, it’s almost Christmas. Jack is excited, but nervous, too. He doesn’t want to have to talk to Santa. So when his parents take him to the mall, Jack slips behind a curtain. Much to his surprise, he’s not alone!

Adventures with Sam, a Victoria Harbour Ferry
Judy Klinger, BSOT 60
Trafford Publishing

In this picture book, Sam is one of eight small ferries that serve Victoria Harbour in British Columbia. As the newest member of the team, he learns his job, including basic nautical terms, transporting people and their parcels, recognizing different kinds of boats, touring the harbor, saving a kayaker, bringing a baby orca back to its mother, traveling through fog to deliver a message, and, finally, earning the chance to “dance” in the Sunday Water Ballet. Illustrations include renderings of well-known Victoria landmarks.
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Sinop Landscapes: Exploring Connection in a Black Sea Hinterland
Owen P. Doonan, A86, G89
University of Pennsylvania Museum Press

For more than 5,000 years Sinop, the central port on the Black Sea coast, has seemed more remote from the rest of the Anatolian land mass than from the more distant Greece, Italy, Africa, the Crimea, Istanbul, and Rome. In this first volume from the Sinop Regional Archaeological Project, Owen Doonan, assistant professor of art history at California State University, Northridge, rigorously explores the connection in social and economic terms between Sinop, its hinterland, and the Black Sea world from pre-colonial Greek settlements through ages of empires, from Roman, Russian, and Ottoman conquests to the present day.

Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Henry David Thoreau
Illustrated by Michael McCurdy, Museum 64, Museum 71
Shambhala Publications

In this 150th anniversary edition, famed children’s-book author and illustrator Michael McCurdy has created 49 simple yet striking woodcuts that illustrate and illuminate this American classic. In 1845, Henry David Thoreau began building a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Walden is a record of the 26 months he spent in withdrawal from society and a declaration of independence from the oppressive mores of the world he left behind.

Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I
Maureen Healy, J90
Cambridge University Press

Maureen Healy, an assistant professor of history at Oregon State University, traces the fall of the Habsburg Empire during World War I from the perspective of everyday life in the capital city. She argues that the home front in Europe’s first “total war” was marked by civilian conflict in the streets, shops, schools, theaters and cafés, and apartment buildings. While Habsburg armies waged military campaigns on distant fronts, women, children, and “left at home” men waged a protracted, socially devastating war against one another. The book will fascinate those interested in modern Europe and the history of the Great War.

A Family of His Own: A Life of Edwin O’Connor
Charles F. Duffy, G73
The Catholic University of America Press

In this biography, the first to be written of Edwin O’Connor (1918–1968), Charles F. Duffy, professor of English at Providence College, examines the complex ways by which O’Connor’s own experience of family and friendship formed essential patterns in his works. When The Last Hurrah was published in 1956, the obscure O’Connor gained sudden wealth and fame with his novel about an unforgettable Irish-American politician. Six years later his intimate portrait of a recovered alcoholic priest in The Edge of Sadness won a Pulitzer Prize. The different worlds of these two novels highlight a striking contrast in their author, a witty, affable man with many devoted friends, yet an intensely private person.

See You at the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance
Susan Gedutis, G00
Northeastern University Press

In this engaging look back at Boston’s golden era of Irish traditional music, Susan J. Gedutis, music book editor at Berklee Press, weaves together narrative with personal reminiscences to trace the colorful dance-hall period from its beginnings in 1940s Roxbury, when masses of young Irish flooded Boston following World War II, through its peak years in the 1950s to its decline in the 1960s, when reduced immigration, urban social upheaval, and a shift in neighborhood demographics brought an end to the heyday of Irish dance-hall music in Boston. See You at the Hall brings to life the rich history of the “American capital of Galway” through the eyes of those who gathered and performed there.

Evidence from the Earth
Forensic Geology and Criminal Investigation
Raymond C. Murray, A51
Mountain Press Publishing Company

The field of forensic geology—using geology techniques to aid in criminal and civil investigations—has been a stalwart in the field of criminalistics since the days of Sherlock Holmes. From stories of safecracking and purloined palm trees to lurid tales of kidnapping and murder—including such high-profile cases as those of Aldo Moro and Adolph Coors—this book leads readers through some of the most intriguing mysteries involving soil and rock evidence. Along the way readers will learn about the history of forensic geology; types of rocks, soils, gemstones, and related synthetic materials; techniques for proper evidence collection and analysis; and how geologic evidence is used in court.

Generating and Sustaining Nonprofit Earned Income: A Guide to Successful Enterprise Strategies
Sharon M. Oster, Cynthia W. Massarsky, and Samantha L. Beinhacker, J89, editors
Jossey-Bass

In collaboration with the Yale School of Management-The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures, this comprehensive guide identifies best practices for generating a reliable income stream and ultimately reducing nonprofit organizations’ dependence on traditional sources of funding. Edited by renowned scholar and consultant Sharon Oster, with Cynthia Massarsky and Samantha Beinhacker, deputy directors of The Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures, Generating and Sustaining Nonprofit Earned Income will teach readers sound business-planning strategies that can significantly benefit their organizations’ internal capacity and financial health.

iPod & iTunes for Dummies
Tony Bove, A76, and Cheryl Rhodes
Wiley Publishing, Inc.

The co-founders and editors of Desktop Publishing/Publish magazine tackle music’s hottest new product in iPod & iTunes for Dummies. This guide teaches users how to set up an iPod, load it with songs (legally), manage music files, fiddle with sound quality, and use the alarm, calendar, and games.

A Voice for Nonprofits
Jeffrey M. Berry with David F. Arons
Brookings Institution Press

America’s nonprofit organizations come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from major symphony orchestras to PTAs run by a handful of volunteers. Increasingly, however, nonprofits are being used to deliver basic governmental services. This is particularly evident in the areas of health and human services, as many of these organizations have become a lifeline to millions of Americans. Jeffrey Berry, the John Richard Skuse Class of 1941 Professor of Political Science at Tufts, and David Arons posit that this governmental policy harms the most vulnerable populations, denying them effective representation in the U.S. political system.

Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers
Edited by Nancy M. Grace and Ronna C. Johnson
University Press of Mississippi

The Beat movement nurtured many female dissidents and artists who contributed to the culture and connected the Beats with the second wave of the women’s movement. Women like Diane di Prima, Joyce Johnson, and Hettie Jones made considerable contributions to Beat literature. Nancy M. Grace and Ronna C. Johnson, a lecturer in English at Tufts, combine interviews with literary criticism and biography to illustrate the vivacity and intensity of women Beat writers, and argue that American literature was revitalized as much by these women’s work as by that of their male counterparts.