Books & Recordings
Books
The Iron Key: Poems
By James Longenbach
W. W. Norton, 2010
Longenbach, the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English at Rochester, offers a meditation on beauty and its consequences
in his fourth published collection of poetry.
Presbyterians in Zion: History of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Utah
By Frederick G. Burton ’71M (PhD)
Vantage Press, 2010
Burton, a lifelong Presbyterian who moved to Utah in 1989, provides a historical overview of the Presbyterian Church in Utah
from its beginnings in the 1860s to the present.
Bad Land Pastoralism in Great Plains Fiction
By Matthew J. C. Cella ’96
University of Iowa Press, 2010
Cella, a visiting assistant professor of English at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, examines the work of Willa Cather, James Fenimore Cooper, Tillie Olsen, Annie Proulx, and other authors who “chronicle the dialogue between human culture and nonhuman nature on the Great Plains.”
Mother Tongues and Nations: The Invention of the Native Speaker
By Thomas P. Bonfiglio ’72
DeGruyter, 2010
Bonfiglio, the William Judson Gaines Chair in Literature and Linguistics at the University of Richmond, discusses the metaphors “mother tongue” and “native speaker” as products of the anxieties of national identity in emergent nation states.
Grasping Heaven: Tami L. Fisk, a Young Doctor’s Journey to China and Beyond
By Annelies and Einar Wilder-Smith
Deep River Books, 2010
Annelies and Einar Wilder-Smith, a public health physician and a neurologist at National University in Singapore, tell the story of Tami Fisk ’94M (Res), who fulfilled a childhood dream of providing medical care to the poor overseas before her death from melanoma at age 39.
A Crack in the Sky
By Mark Hughes ’88
Delacorte, 2010
In a science fiction adventure for young adults, Hughes features a teenage boy and his mongoose, who attempt to survive in
a disease-ridden and storm-laden futuristic wasteland.
Silver Serenade
By Nancy J. Cohen ’70N
Wild Rose Press, 2010
In Cohen’s latest book, a science fiction romance, a beautiful assassin and a desperate fugitive join forces to catch a terrorist and prevent an intergalactic war.
1947 Santoshabad Passenger and Other Stories: Translations of Telugu Short Stories
By Dasu Krishnamoorty and Tamraparni Dasu ’91 (PhD)
Rupa, 2010
Dasu, a statistician as well as the director of the not-for-profit, online literary magazine Literary Voices of India: Translations of Contemporary Fiction, coedits an anthology of English translations of short stories in India’s second most widely spoken language, Telugu.
Ghosts in the Cemetery II: Farther Afield
By Stuart Schneider ’72
Schiffer Books, 2010
Lawyer and author Schneider offers 86 color photographs of “night spirits” from cemeteries across the United States and France, as well as legends about each of the apparitions.
The Pebble Path: Returning Home from a Forest of Shadows
By Jan Hasak ’76 (MS)
Outskirts Press, 2010
Hasak, a breast cancer survivor and retired patent attorney for Genentech, recounts her experience of cancer in an inspirational
allegory interlaced with poetry.
When Can I Go Home?
By Joseph J. Sivak ’92M (Res)
Niagara Press, 2010
Sivak, a psychiatrist in Duluth, Minn., offers his perspective as both a doctor and a son in his memoir of becoming a primary caregiver, at age 17, to his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
A Practical Approach to Improvisation for the Church Organist
By Robert C. Lau ’71E (MA)
Paraclete Press, 2010
Lau, a faculty member at Penn State University’s school of humanities as well as an organist and choirmaster, provides a guide to simple improvisations for church organists. Topics include improvising hymn introductions, adding nonharmonic material, and embellishing melodies.
The Pressures of Teaching: How Teachers Cope with Classroom Stress
Edited by Maureen Robins ’78
Simon & Schuster, 2010
Robins, a middle school assistant principal and author of books about education, edits a collection of essays by teachers
on managing the stress that arises in dealing with students, parents, administrators, and everyday challenges in the classroom.
Crash to Cash
By David B. Sussman ’63
Disability Research, 2010
Sussman, an orthopedic surgeon in Allentown, Pa., argues that the combined work of tort lawyers, doctors, and insurance companies
is detrimental to auto accident victims because of excessive testing, unnecessary treatments, and damaging surgery.
The Settlement of Western New York With a Review of Early Records of the Town of Gates 1809–1837
By John Robortella
Gates (N.Y.) Historical Society, 2010
Robortella, the associate director of marketing and communications at the Simon School, tells the story of the founding of Gates, N.Y., situating the town’s early history within the context of the settlement of western New York.
Numerical and Statistical Methods for Bioengineering: Applications in Matlab
By Michael R. King ’95 and Nipa A. Mody ’08 (PhD)
Cambridge University Press, 2010
King, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Mody, a postdoctoral associate in biomedical engineering, both
at Cornell, integrate modelling concepts with statistical analysis in a methods textbook.
Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond
By Valerie Ann Leeds ’79
Flint Institute of Arts, 2010
In a book accompanying the first retrospective of the American precisionist Lewandowski, curator and author Leeds, who also
organized the exhibition, surveys the long and varied career of the renowned second-generation artist known for his images
of industrial, urban, and architectural subjects.
Public Sector Leadership: International Challenges and Perspectives
Edited by Jeffrey A. Raffel ’66, et al
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009
Raffel, the Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration at the University of Delaware, coedits a volume of case
studies examining the ways in which public sector leaders around the globe have addressed new financial, security, and demographic
challenges.
Talking to the Sick
By Richard Ugoretz ’69M (Res)
Self-Published, 2010
Ugoretz, a retired medical oncologist and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Diego, presents a clinician’s guide to effective communication, covering subjects ranging from medical interviews to issues related to death and dying.
Darwin’s Disciple: George John Romanes, A Life in Letters
By Joel S. Schwartz ’62
American Philosophical Society, 2010
Schwartz, a professor emeritus at City University of New York and an expert on 19th-century natural history and the work of
early evolutionists, presents the life and letters of a friend and early advocate of Charles Darwin.
Recordings
Abide With Me: Hymns and Spirituals
By the Los Angeles Philharmonic Trombones
Los Angeles Philharmonic Trombones, 2009
The trombone section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including Herbert (Sonny) Ausman ’68E, Ralph Sauer ’65E, and the late Steve Witser ’81E, recorded 30 well-known hymns and spirituals, featuring “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.”
You Can Have Your Moment
By Kneebody
Winter & Winter, 2010
Kneebody, a quintet founded at the Eastman School that includes Shane Endsley ’97E, Kaveh Rastegar ’01E, Ben Wendel ’99E, and Adam Benjamin ’97E, performs 12 new “genre-bending” instrumental pieces.
All Might and Majesty: The Organ Music of Edwin T. Childs
By Edwin T. Childs ’74E (PhD)
Hesed Music, 2009
Brenda Heck Portman performs Childs’s original hymn-based organ music. Childs is an organist, composer, and instructor at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
Don’t Touch Me
By Donna Coleman ’87E (DMA)
OutBach, 2010
Coleman, a pianist at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne, Australia, performs selections by the 19th-century Cuban composer Ignacio Cervantes, whose work she describes as “steeped in Afro-Cuban rhythmic verve and Chopinian pathos.”
Books & Recordings is a compilation of recent work by University alumni, faculty, and staff. For inclusion in an upcoming issue, send the work’s title, publisher information, author, and author’s class year, along with a brief description, to Books & Recordings, Rochester Review, 22 Wallis Hall, P. O. Box 270044, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0044; or by e-mail to rochrev@rochester.edu.
