The Union Bookshelf regularly features new books written by (or about) alumni 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 new release. Our address is Office of Communications, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308.
DR. ROBERT S. HERMAN '41
Adventures of the Mind: Wit & Wisdom with Bob
ISBN 7-5012-2166-9/G – 841
The simple, sincere advice of 85-year-old Bob Herman appears in two popular teen magazines in China and his “Bobisms” have inspired a book of columns published in China called Adventures of the Mind: Wit and Wisdom with Bob.
“I've never been to China, I have no Chinese friends, and I don't speak Chinese,” Herman, a former professor and economics adviser, said at his home in Slingerlands, outside Albany, N.Y. Herman writes about a host of topics including love, education, aging and youth, rebellion, greed, and success. Readers e-mail him letters every day seeking advice and praising him for his insight.
James Baar '49
Spinspeak II: The Dictionary of Language Pollution Authorhouse
ISBN 141842742X $13.50
If you believe that no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it is still a pig, then this book is for you. Spinmeisters today are everywhere. They seek to befuddle us by polluting language, gussying up and diddling down everyday words, moving familiar signposts, changing the maps in our heads. Our words-the gold standard coins of rational thinking-are being debased. Spin rots the mind. Continuing growth of spinspeak pushes us daily toward an Orwellian catastrophe: a mentally benumbed America; a manipulated society trying hopelessly to communicate using words with totally corrupted meanings. Spinspeak II: The Dictionary of Language Pollution is designed to help you fight this slimy tide of fog. The book contains: a history of spin; more than 1,100 current definitions of spinspeak in politics, business, government, academia, health care, the arts, and everyday life; a technical glossary describing more than 80 infectious varieties of wordspin, lookspin, and soundspin. Skeptical exposure is the solution wherever the fog of spinspeak roils communication. The mind you save could be your own. James Baar is a writer, international corporate communications consultant, journalist, software developer, former business executive, Washington journalist, and sometime college lecturer. He is the author of a satirical novel on business and public affairs, The Great Free Enterprise Gambit; four books on politics and technology; a forthcoming novel, Ultimate Severance; and a forthcoming collection of short stories, The Real Thing and Other Tales.
FREDERICK S. FRANK '57
Guide to the Gothic III, Volume I & II
ISBN 0-8108-5101-6 $200
A cumulative supplement to Guide to the Gothic (Scarecrow Press, 1984) and Guide to the Gothic II (Scarecrow Press, 1995), Guide to the Gothic III offers researchers and students at any level a comprehensive bibliographical survey of Gothic scholarship and criticism of the 20th and 21st centuries. Over 1,600 new annotated entries covering 1993 to 2003 are included, along with 4,055 shortened entries from the previous two volumes. New individual author studies on Anne Rice and Angela Carter are included, as well as special sections on Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks, and Shilling Shockers, Pre-Gothicism and Graveyard Verse, Classical English Authors and the Gothic, Gothic Revival Architecture, the Doppelganger in Gothic literature, and Anthologies and Collections of Gothic Fiction. A new section on teaching gothic fiction with TV and audiovisual materials is also included. Reflecting the global nature of contemporary Gothic studies, other special features include sections on French, German, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Australian, and Indian/Pakistani Gothic fiction. Readers are directed to pertinent websites and Internet resources on authors and special subject areas. Two comprehensive indexes are included to facilitate searching. This impressive reference source proves that the genre of Gothic fiction is not frozen in time, but rather is expanding exponentially across cultures, nations, and historical periods, making this a requisite addition to any academic library collection. Frederick S. Frank is Professor Emeritus of English at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania.
DANIEL R. SCHWARZ '63
Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890-1930
ISBN 0-631-22622-2 $27.95
Daniel R. Schwarz has studied and taught the modern British and Irish novel for decades and now brings his impressive erudition and critical acuity to bear in this insightful study of the major authors and novels from 1890 to 1930. After a compelling introduction outlining his method and a substantial first chapter establishing the intellectual, cultural, and literary contexts in which the modern British and Irish novel was produced, Schwarz turns to powerful and sensitive close reading of modernist masterworks. He shows how Hardy's Jude the Obscure, Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow, Joyce's Dubliners and Ulysses, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, and Forster's A Passage to India form essential components in a modernist cultural tradition which includes the visual arts. In his characteristic lucid and readable style, Schwarz's work takes account of recent developments in theory and cultural studies. His persuasive study will not only be invaluable to students and teachers, but will also be of interest to the general reader. Schwarz is Professor of English and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, where he has won major teaching prizes. He is the author of the recently published Broadway Boogie Woogie (2003) and the widely read Imagining the Holocaust (1999; rev. edn 2000). His many previous publications include Rereading Conrad (2001), Reconfiguring Modernism (1997), The Transformation of the English Novel, 1890-1930 (1989; rev. 1995), and Reading Joyce's “Ulysses” (1987; Centenary ed. 2004).
ROBERT E. MAY '65
Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America
The University of North Carolina Press
ISBN 0-8078-5581-2 $21.95
Although the word carries a different meaning today, the “filibuster” of the 19th century was an adventurer who organized or participated in private armed invasions of nations with whom the United States was formally at peace. As these expeditions reached their peak in the mid-19th century, author Robert May writes that “not a month passed when [one] was neither in progress nor in some stage of preparation.” Manifest Destiny's Underworld is the first full-scale analysis of this blatantly illegal movement which, on the eve of the Civil War, frequently captured the attention of the American public. Seen alternately as champions of Manifest Destiny and as pirates, the filibusters ventured into Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other Latin American countries, and were feared by national governments throughout the Western Hemisphere; the resultant impression of bad faith still resonates in U.S. foreign policy today. Robert E. May is professor of history at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. His previous books include The Union, the Confederacy, and the Atlantic Rim and the prize-winning John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader.
JANET SASSON EDGETTE '78
The Rider's Edge: Overcoming the Psychological Challenges of Riding
PRIMEDIA Equine Network
ISBN 1-929164-22-X $19.95
Through her regular monthly column over the past eight years, Dr. Janet Edgette has entertained and educated the readers of Practical Horseman magazine about the influence their thoughts can have on their lives with their horses. Edgette believes that people often assume that equestrian sport psychology concerns itself only with performance nerves in riders, overlooking all the different issues this sport brings up that cannot be remedied by a new bit, a new horse, or extra lessons. In the columns collected in this book, she shows you how to develop healthy attitudes and perspectives that help you to make better choices regarding your horses, training programs, and yourself to bring about better riding. Edgette is an equestrian sport psychologist based in the western suburbs of Philadelphia; she is also a nationally recognized specialist in the area of adolescent and family counseling. She is the author of Heads Up!: Practical Sports Psychology for Riders, Their Families, and Their Trainers and three additional books about counseling and parenting teenagers. From 1995 through 2003, she wrote the “Heads Up” column for Practical Horseman magazine and served for much of that time as its consulting sport psychologist.
STEVEN B. GLAZER '85
Questing: A Guide to Creating Community Treasure Hunts by Delia Clark and Steven Glazer
University Press of New England
ISBN 1-58465-334-5 $24.95
Inspired by the British pastime of “letterboxing,” questing has become one of the fastest-growing recreational-educational activities on this side of the Atlantic. In scores of communities, people from toddlers to teens, parents to grandparents follow maps, clues, and rhyming riddles seeking treasure boxes hidden in natural and cultural locations. In this book, two experts in community education explain how individuals and organizations can create and organize permanent quests to foster place-based education, stewardship, adventure, and fun. In the process of undertaking quests, participants “celebrate and strengthen community life” by forging “lifelong connections to the distinct landscapes and cultural features of their home ground.” This book is intended to offer inspiration and practical advice for parents, teachers, community group leaders, and others interested in learning about where they live and building community ties through questing.