Books Your October 2026 Reads Stories You May Like Historic Marker Honors an Ithaca Home of Toni Morrison, MA ’55 Hecho en México: Alum Brings Authentic Flavors to Home Kitchens Why We Must Remember the History of Black Hoteliers This month’s featured titles include a YA book on women in sports and an attorney’s rallying cry to temper justice with mercy 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! See It to Be It Liz Robbins ’92 Geared toward youth aged 12 and up, this inspirational volume is a collaboration between longtime journalist Robbins and barrier-breaking tennis legend Billie Jean King. It's subtitled Eleven Champions Leading Women’s Sports Today. The book features profiles based on King’s interviews with such athletes as basketball’s Caitlin Clark and Chelsea Gray, soccer’s Midge Purce, wrestling’s Amit Elor, and tennis’s Naomi Osaka. School Library Journal calls it “solid sports nonfiction featuring inspiring stories that will reach athletes and nonathletes alike,” while Kirkus praises it as a “winning tribute to remarkable achievements.” A history major in Arts & Sciences, Robbins spent nearly two decades at the New York Times, initially focusing on sports (including the NBA and the Olympics) and later covering NYC. Her previous book—A Race Like No Other: 26.2 Miles Through the Streets of New York—was a deep dive into the New York Marathon and some of its competitors. Imagine a Woman Dorothy Williams Neagle ’04, MA ’05 “Stories have the power to free us, or to hold us captive,” states the publisher, a small press called Gnashing Teeth. “Imagine a Woman is a book about both, and how the retelling of stories we inherit can open a pathway between fear and survival.” Neagle’s debut volume of poetry is organized around four feminine archetypes—the Virgin, the Mother, the Prophet, and the Whore—and offers, the publisher says, a “multi-storied perspective on the many ways a woman is defined, and how femininity is shaped by histories ancient and new.” The Human Ecology alum, who holds two Cornell degrees in design and environmental analysis, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and earned a Yaddo fellowship—both prestigious honors in the literary world. As she writes in a poem titled “Child of a Fire Eater”: “What I swallowed / I became: daughter of rage, / black cloud girl with the punishing / heart of a flashlight beam. But / I love her tenderly, my killer / queen, my poison dart. I will / set my tongue on fire and we / will make it through the dark.” Cast Out Joseph Margulies ’82 “In the United States today, we celebrate cruelty and revel in the pain of others,” Margulies writes in his intro. “Yes, as a country we have been cruel many times before, and yes, not everyone behaves this way. But I can’t think of a time when so many people were so enthusiastically cruel, and when this enthusiasm for viciousness had achieved such cultural dominance.” In the book, the civil rights lawyer and Cornell professor of practice calls for (in the words of the subtitle) a “forgiving society in an age of incarceration.” He presents six case studies of Americans who have committed serious crimes but, he argues, nonetheless deserve grace. “Margulies tells the stories of people who have done monstrous things but are not monsters, are not forever defined by their worst acts. He writes beautifully of pain and loss, but also of redemption and transformation,” death penalty opponent and Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean says in a blurb, calling Cast Out a “wonderfully hopeful book about what it means to be human.” Stories You May Like Historic Marker Honors an Ithaca Home of Toni Morrison, MA ’55 Hecho en México: Alum Brings Authentic Flavors to Home Kitchens Ellipses Annie Sheng, PhD ’22 Sheng, a doctoral alum in anthropology, is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry who publishes under the pen name D.A. Xiaolin Spires. Her science fiction novella follows a biologist named Koharu who’s exploring an exoplanet, searching for a spot to land her team’s orbiting spacecraft. The situation takes a turn for the dramatic when she encounters mysterious footprints that lead her to a pair of benign-seeming alien creatures, huddled together. “Establishing personal contact with another species is a young field biologist’s dream,” observes the publisher, the sci-fi press Infinivox. “To meet the moment she will use visual, auditory, and chemical signaling; proprioception; cutting-edge tech; even an ancient Chinese celestial jade artifact.” In addition to her debut novella, Sheng has published poems in the collection Cozy in the Apocalypse and in the second volume of Reimagined AI Anthology. Jean Toomer George Hutchinson The Arts & Sciences faculty member is both the Farr Professor of American Culture and the Reed Professor of Writing and Rhetoric. His latest book, from Yale University Press, is a critical biography of Toomer, an influential writer during the Harlem Renaissance who’s best known for the 1923 modernist novel Cane. “Born into the Black elite in Washington, DC, Toomer was highly sensitive to the color line and able to move across it,” states the publisher. “Toomer engaged in a lifelong struggle to be released from this system, reinventing himself racially, spiritually, and artistically not as a Black man but as a ‘superman.’ … Hutchinson shows how the tortures of American racism shaped Toomer’s life—and how the struggle to birth a new ‘American’ identity marks his art.” In a starred review, Booklist calls the volume “rich and intellectually ambitious,” praising it as a “compelling reassessment of a singular literary figure and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of artistic legacy itself.” Borderland Solidarity Emily Hong, PhD ’19 The anthropology grad and filmmaker is an assistant professor at Haverford. Her debut book, from Stanford University Press, delves into the often creative, grassroots activism of people in Kachinland, an unrecognized state at the borders of Myanmar, India, China, and Thailand. “Its geography throws into sharp relief the intersecting dynamics of British colonialism, settler colonialism, and protracted war between the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar Army,” the publisher explains. “Kachinland’s rich natural resources—including jade and hydropower—are coveted by the junta-led Myanmar government and its energy-hungry neighbor, China. As resource extraction and land confiscation intensifies, Kachin activists and artists turn to Indigenous law and media to stem the tide of displacement and dispossession.” The book is a companion piece to Hong’s film Above and Below the Ground. 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 October 13, 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 Campus & Beyond The Personal Style of Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54, on Display Alumni Reporter Jenn Abelson ’00 Exposes Dangers of No-Knock Warrants Cornelliana Hail, All Hail, Cornell!