Books Your January 2026 Reads Stories You May Like President Emerita Honored With ‘Pollack Plaza’ Alum’s Big Red Memorabilia Collection Captures a Bygone Era Take a Cross-Country Trip—from ‘Cornell’ to ‘Cornell’ This month’s featured titles include poetry, an anthropologist’s memoir, and a novel about unionization at a fictional university 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! And did you know that Cornell has an online book club? Check it out! Beautiful Mystery Danilyn Rutherford, PhD ’97 “I was a widow by the time Millie got her first wheelchair,” Rutherford writes. “I was also a newly tenured professor. My daughter, who is now an adult, does not walk on her own, or speak, or communicate with signs or symbols.” Published by Duke University Press, Rutherford’s book—subtitled Living in a Wordless World—is part memoir and part academic work in the field of anthropology, her area of expertise. It describes the experience of raising her daughter, who is disabled and nonverbal, and of coping after the sudden passing of her husband, who died of a heart attack when the child was still a toddler. “Now in her twenties, Millie has never been able to express herself verbally, but she has a thriving social environment rooted in the people around her and in things her companions and family can see, hear, smell, and feel,” states the publisher. “Life in Millie’s world is far richer than might be immediately evident to those who think and communicate in conventional ways.” Now the president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Rutherford has taught at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Plunder and Survival Abigail Wilentz ’93 A former comp lit major in Arts & Sciences, Wilentz coauthored this nonfiction work with Suzanne Loebl, a Holocaust survivor who escaped Germany with her family. It chronicles some of the perpetrators, victims, and spoils of the Nazi’s massive looting of European artworks, which they say numbered some 650,000 pieces. The book, which includes some two dozen illustrations of stolen art, unfolds in part as a memoir: Loebl recalls her childhood in Germany—where her affluent family were avid art collectors—and their escape to Belgium, where they went into hiding. The volume explores both the works that the regime prized and those—like German Expressionist paintings—that it found “degenerate,” but nevertheless profited from. It traces auctions and sales of pillaged collections, and efforts to restore some works to the heirs of their rightful owners. Kirkus calls Plunder and Survival a “rich portrait of the fate of art—and artists—in the shadow of Hitler” and a “work that stands out from the immense and ever-growing shelf of World War II literature.” A Nearly Perfect Union Robert Berne ’70, MBA ’71, PhD ’77 Berne’s first novel, Tuscan Son, was about a vice president at fictional Olmsted University who finds himself incarcerated in a brutal prison in Panama, after being lured there on the pretext of a major donation. His follow-up is also set at Olmsted—but this time, the drama surrounds the efforts of graduate students to unionize. Berne depicts the pluses and minuses of both sides of the campaign, which causes dissension among faculty, students, trustees, and others. “Fifteen or even 10 years ago, the knee-jerk reaction was to oppose unions at private universities primarily because of worries about deterioration of academic quality,” argues one character. “Graduate study and teaching are not piece work, and flexibility and academic freedom typically are not union values.” Berne writes from a deep first-hand knowledge of academia, having spent four decades as a faculty member and administrator at NYU. An Engineering undergrad, he earned two graduate degrees in management on the Hill. Evergreen Trent Preszler, MS ’02, PhD ’12 In the tradition of bestsellers like Salt, Cod, and Mauve, Preszler’s book explores how something seemingly mundane has played a key role in society, the environment, and beyond. It’s subtitled The Trees That Shaped America. But it covers a much broader swath of our collective past—going back to when people first figured out that wood could offer warmth, shelter, and a means of cooking food, and stretching to the present day. Stories You May Like President Emerita Honored With ‘Pollack Plaza’ Alum’s Big Red Memorabilia Collection Captures a Bygone Era Along the way, Preszler teases out some surprising, and often deeply affecting, aspects of evergreen-related history—from their connection to slavery in the Deep South to the lumber industry’s surprising role as a refuge for gay workers at a time of severe oppression. “Evergreens provide shelter and fuel, nourishment and trade, inspiration and myth,” he writes in the prologue. “They have sparked wars, built industries, and anchored economies, through centuries of human exploration, invention, and folly. They have stood longer than kings, outlived empires, and borne witness to humanity’s grandest ambitions and deepest failures.” In addition to holding two graduate degrees from CALS (a master’s in agricultural economics and a doctorate in horticultural biology), Preszler is a professor of practice in the Dyson School. “Preszler’s well-researched and often poignant account is strewn with intriguing trivia,” says a Publishers Weekly review. “History and nature buffs alike will find much to enjoy.” Red Tide at Sandy Bend Mary Gilliland ’73, MAT ’80 Gilliland is an award-winning poet who has taught on the Hill and elsewhere (including at Weill Cornell Medicine’s branch in Qatar). She has published several collections of her work, including Ember Days, The Ruined Walled Castle Garden, and The Devil’s Fools. Her latest is a chapbook that’s inspired by the marine phenomenon of the title. “Nourished by human waste and warming waters, cyanobacteria multiply in harmful algal blooms that release neurotoxins,” explains the publisher, the Bodily Press. “In a whirl of games, addictions, concussions, and swimming bans, Red Tide at Sandy Bend posits a world of creaturely interdependence visceral and intimate.” The work has its roots in a poetry residency that Gilliland did on the southwest coast of Florida, where—expecting a sun-drenched paradise—she was warned to avoid the beach due to toxic algae. As she writes in the title poem: “My bronchiae fill with pins, nasals run. Acrid air slices my open eyes. / In the darkened wave no swimming this Thanksgiving. / Some humans call this era the Anthropocene. As though / we were more than fleshy needles on Nature’s world-tree. / A single cell organism is resilient: can live without water an eon or more.” Legalized Inequalities Kati Griffith, Shannon Gleeson & Patricia Campos-Medina ’96, MPA ’97 The three Cornellian coauthors are faculty members in ILR (a fourth is a colleague at the University of California, Berkeley). In this timely academic volume, they investigate the workplace challenges that many immigrants face. “Beyond unlivable wages and a lack of upward mobility, low-wage work in the United States is rife with danger and degrading treatment,” states the publisher, the Russell Sage Foundation. “Immigrants and people of color are overrepresented in these ‘bad jobs’ and often feel as though they are unable to change their working conditions. In Legalized Inequalities, [the authors] investigate the government’s role in perpetuating poor and dangerous work environments for low-wage immigrant workers of color.” The book draws on interviews with more than 300 workers from Haiti and Central America, and their advocates. As the authors argue, myriad factors conspire to keep wages low and prevent workers from advocating for better conditions. They include federal regulations around labor unions, employment, and immigration, as well as racial disparities, anti-immigrant sentiment, and weak protections for employees. To submit your book for consideration, email cornellians@cornell.edu. Please note that to be included, books must be recently published by a conventional publisher—not self published, pay-to-publish, publish on demand, partner-published, or similar—and be of interest to a general audience. Books not featured will be forwarded to Class Notes. Published January 15, 2026 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 Producer Alum Sees the Performing Arts as a Potent Force for Good Students After Wowing Gordon Ramsay, Student Chef Is Really Cooking Cornelliana Far Beyond a Quonset Hut: Fascinating Facts about ILR