The Union Bookshelf regularly features new books written by alumni authors and other members of the Union community. If you're an author and would like to be included in a future issue, please send us a copy of the book as well as your publisher's news release. Our address is Office of Communications, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308-3169.
Hyman Enzer '38
Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer and Hyman Enzer '38 have co-edited a collection of two dozen articles and memoirs about Anne Frank by such well-known personalities as Bruno Bettelheim, Simon Wiesenthal, John Berryman, Philip Roth, Lawrence Graver, and others. Titled Anne Frank, Reflections on Her Life and Legacy, the writings express how interpreters of the Jewish experience in World War II have defined Anne Frank's significance for memorializing the Holocaust.
Enzer, professor of sociology emeritus at Hofstra University, is the author of numerous articles on sociology, literature, and the arts. Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer is an associate professor of English emerita at SUNY Nassau Community College. She has written articles on pedagogy and literary topics. Their book is available from University of Illinois Press. For information, check www.press.uillinois.edu.
Arnold I. Burns '50
For more than fifty years, Arnold I. Burns '50 has been telling stories, and, for more than twenty years, he has been collecting them. An accomplished master of ceremonies, he has told his stories all over the country and to all kinds of audiences. In his book, Laugh Factory, he has gathered what he calls the best and the funniest.
Burns has been deputy attorney general of the United States, chairman of the board of trustees at Union, chairman of the board of Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, senior partner of a prominent New York City law firm, a fundraiser for numerous charities, and a manager of political campaigns. Currently he is managing director of Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, Inc., an international investment banking firm. The book is available from the Xlibris Corp., at www.Xlibris.com.
Rev. Richard Patterson '70
Rev. Richard Patterson '70, who lives in Clifton Park, N.Y., with his wife and two children, is a writer and lecturer on the subjects of children, family, and parenting. He has written his third book, Confident Parenting in Challenging Times, with such topics as “Relax! Nobody's Perfect!,” “Spanking and its Alternatives,” “How Healthy is Your Tree?”, and “God Isn't Finished.”
The goal, according to Patterson, (agreeing with the late Dr. Bruno Bettelheim), is “… the raising of a child who may not necessarily become a success in the eyes of the world, but who, on reflection, would be pleased with the way he was raised and who would decide that, by and large, he was satisfied with himself, despite the shortcomings which all people have.”
Patterson is also the author of It's the Little Things that Count and Brand Name Kids. Information about his book can be found at www.teknabooks.com or by contacting Tekna Books directly in Chanhassen, Minn.
David D'Aprix '73
Have you ever been in a French restaurant and ordered what you thought was chicken and vegetables but got snails on a bed of pastry smothered in melted blue cheese sauce? To the rescue comes The Non-Connoisseur's Menu Guide. Full of valuable pronunciations, definitions, explanations, and drawings, this small book is a guide to ordering French, Italian, and Spanish cuisines.
The author, David D'Aprix '73, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, has served on the faculty of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, where he currently lectures, and has given seminars on culinary arts all over the world. He is working on a companion book, The Non-Connoisseur's Pan-Asian Menu Guide, due out in 2001. The book is published by Living Language, a Random House company (www.livinglanguage.com).
By the same author is the International Foreign Language Guide for Hotel Employees, featuring eight languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese). The set includes a phrasebook, two cassettes, and requires no previous language experience. The guide includes cultural notes addressing sensitive issues as well as phonetic transcriptions to help you pronounce each language correctly. The set is $35 and is also available from Living Language.
Robert Glicksman '73
The third edition of Environmental Protection Law and Policy, cowritten by Robert Glicksman '73, the Robert W. Wagstaff Professor of Law at the University of Kansas, is now available. Written with Frederick R. Anderson, Daniel R. Mandelker, and A. Dan Tarlock, the third edition is a major revision, the original being almost twenty years-old.
According to the authors, the early days of the environmental movement were marked by issues on a local level. Today, there is a broad consensus that we need strict laws to protect our air, water, and land resources. The book seeks to introduce students to the fundamental building blocks of environmental law and to explain the logic behind our current regulatory system. Aspen Law & Business, the publisher, can be contacted at www.aspenpublishers.com.
Thomas Parisi '73
In his first book, Civilization and its Discontents: An Anthropology for the Future?, Tom Parisi '73 shows why Freudian anthropology still merits our attention. This comprehensive study explores the connections between Freud's philosophical views on the human condition and the substance and development of his theory. Also discussed are Freud and ethics, Freud's views on matters of religious faith, his position on the value of femininity, and a comparison of Freudian anthropology and its alternatives in the natural sciences. Parisi says, “When you get to Chapter 9, I have my say on Freud's critics.”
Parisi chairs the department of psychology at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Ind. He has published articles on topics ranging from Freud to the neurophysiology of reflex development. His book is available through Twayne Publishers, 1633 Broadway, New York 10019.
Gregory Derry '74
In What Science Is and How It Works, the author introduces the reader to the process of scientific thinking by addressing a number of questions — How does a scientist go about solving problems? How do scientific discoveries happen? What is a scientific worldview? and others.
Gregory Derry '74 is an associate professor of physics and chair of the Physics Department at Loyola College in Baltimore, Md. He shows how scientists use a small number of powerful yet simple methods to construct realistic models that describe a number of diverse real-life problems, such as the laws of heredity, the inner workings of atoms, and drug uptake in the body. The book is recommended to anyone who wants to see how science relates to religion, ethics, philosophy, or the world in general. The author, an active researcher in experimental surface physics, pursues such interests as the history and philosophy of science.
The book is available through Princeton University Press (pup.princeton.edu).
John Monaco '77, M.D.
As a pediatrician at Brandon Regional Hospital in Brandon, Fla., John Monaco '77 is in a position to see the psychological, social, and physical effects on children of being overweight. He has teamed up with Judy Mazel, author of the bestselling Beverly Hills Diet, to write Slim & Fit Kids: Raising Healthy Children in a Fast-Food World. This book helps parents put their children back on the road to a healthy, fit, vigorous lifestyle. It discusses diet, exercise, how to talk to your kids about their weight, and gives an overview of why different foods interact in the body to create weight gain.
The book is available from Health Communications, Inc., in Deerfield Beach, Fla. (www.hci-online.com).