Books Your January 2025 Reads Stories You May Like As the Statler’s GM, Hotelie Doles Out Big Red Hospitality Hankering for a High-End Chair? Two Recent Grads Have the Goods Why Your Thanksgiving Turkey Has a Cornell Pedigree This month’s featured titles include a work of nonfiction about honeybees, a kids’ picture book, and a novel set in rural Nova Scotia Did you know that Cornell has an online book club? Check it out! For more titles by Big Red authors, peruse our previous round-ups. Have you published a book you'd like to submit? Scroll down for details! Piping Hot Bees & Boisterous Buzz-Runners Thomas Seeley Kirkus calls this nonfiction book—subtitled 20 Mysteries of Honey Bee Behavior Solved—“fascinating both for its insights about nature and as a portrait of the scientist at work.” Seeley, the Horace White Professor in Biology Emeritus, is a longtime Cornell faculty member in neurobiology and behavior whose previous books include Honeybee Democracy and The Wisdom of the Hive. In his latest title, he explores a variety of intriguing aspects of honeybee life, from an apiculturist’s perspective. Says the publisher, Princeton University Press: “In this book, he weaves illuminating personal stories with the latest science, explaining such mysteries as how worker bees function as scouts to choose a home site for their colony, furnish their home with beeswax combs, and stock it with brood and food while keeping tens of thousands of colony inhabitants warm and defended from intruders.” Knowers and Lovers Ted Leighton ’70, PhD ’84 Leighton’s second novel, published by a small press in Canada, is a sequel to his debut, A Ring of Justice. Set in western Nova Scotia, it continues the dramatic arc of scientist Rick Robichaud, who deprioritized his own promising career to facilitate his wife’s dream of practicing veterinary medicine in a rural area. The plot is catalyzed by the discovery of new construction on a remote part of the Bay of Fundy coast. It eventually comprises environmental threats, piracy, stolen plutonium, and more—as Rick balances his investigations with caregiving for his infant daughter. A theatre arts major as an undergrad, Leighton is a retired veterinary pathologist who holds a doctorate from the Vet College as well as a DVM from the University of Saskatchewan, where he’s a professor emeritus. His work in clinical pathology and wildlife disease earned him the Order of Canada, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. The Inner Life of Race Leerom Medovoi ’86 Medovoi, who was a College Scholar in Arts & Sciences, is an English professor at the University of Arizona, where he’s the founding chair of a graduate program in social, cultural, and critical theory. His third book, published by Duke University Press and subtitled Souls, Bodies, and the History of Racial Power, delves into the roots of contemporary forms of populist racism—exploring how religion and racial animus combine to form Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other types of xenophobic hatred that can be wielded for political advantage. “Bringing the Muslim and the Jew together as twin racial figures reminds us that neither is the unique target of this game of power that is premised on racial invisibility,” he writes. “It is not only that the very idea of antisemitism originally served to conjoin Jew and Muslim together into a unitary threat … but also that at certain historical moments other populations have also been singled out for the invisible danger posed by their inward commitments to religious theologies or political ideologies—Catholics, communists, or anarchists—or even to their perverse inner desires—miscegenators, gays, queers, trans people.” Stories You May Like As the Statler’s GM, Hotelie Doles Out Big Red Hospitality Hankering for a High-End Chair? Two Recent Grads Have the Goods I Dream for You Brett Blumenthal ’95, MBA ’04 & David Wax, MBA ’04 The married couple, who own an online store that sells art prints, collaborated on this children’s book featuring text by Wax and illustrations by Blumenthal. It’s a follow-up to their first book, 2022’s I Wish for You. In both, inspirational verse accompanies heartwarming images of parent-child animal pairs—from whales to polar bears to chameleons. One spread, for instance, depicts two sloths on a tree branch, with the lines: “I dream for you to take your time / to slow your life … enjoy the climb. / Try not to rush along the way, / you’ll miss the beauty of each day. / Embrace the world, clear your mind / and inner peace is what you’ll find.” Kretek Capitalism Marina Welker “Causing harm and death when used as intended, the cigarette is no ordinary commodity,” the anthropology professor writes. “The kretek, in turn, is no ordinary cigarette.” In her nonfiction book from University of California Press—which is also available for free in open-access form—Welker explores the role that smoking and the tobacco industry play in Indonesian society, and the harm they cause. As she explains, two-thirds of Indonesian men smoke, while just 5% of women there do. The nation has more than 250,000 tobacco-related deaths annually. And 95% of the tobacco sales in the country consist of kretek, a type of clove-laced cigarette that has become a deeply ingrained part of the culture. “Anyone who has been to Indonesia will be familiar with the smell of clove cigarettes, which is different from ‘white cigarette’ smoke because it has all this spice in it, like incense,” Welker told the Cornell Chronicle. “The smoke itself is heavier, the way it hangs in the air, which can become very saturated with cigarette smoke. When tobacco control groups measure the air quality at indoor and outdoor events, they find that it’s quite toxic.” Beautiful & Terrible Things Susan Stevens Gebo ’85 Gebo’s latest novel (written under her pen name, S.M. Stevens) follows the dramatic ups and downs of a group of six friends with intertwined lives. Its protagonist, Charley, is the 29-year-old manager of an independent bookstore, above which she lives. She’s mourning the deaths of her parents and grandparents when she meets a man who brings her out of her shell and draws her into his social circle—which both sparks joy and leads to complications. “The new friendships bring back-to-back betrayals that threaten the bookstore—Charley’s haven—and propel her into a dangerous depression,” says the publisher’s description. “Can her friends save the store? And Charley?” Gebo, who majored in English on the Hill, previously penned the middle-grade novel Shannon’s Odyssey—about a girl who can communicate with animals—among other works of fiction. To submit your book for consideration, email cornellians@cornell.edu. Please note that to be included in our listings of new titles, books must be recently published by a conventional publisher—not self published, pay-to-publish, publish on demand, or similar—and be of interest to a general audience. Books not featured will be forwarded to Class Notes. Published January 23, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Bear Hugs ‘How did Cornell Prepare You for Life After the Hill?’ Quizzes & Puzzles September / October ’23 Trivia Roundup Ask the Expert Public Speaking Tips from a Communication Prof