Did you know that Cornell has an online book club? Check it out!<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For more titles by Big Red authors, peruse our previous round-ups<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you published a book you’d like to submit? Scroll down for details!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ellen Carlin, DVM \u201907<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this volume<\/a> from Columbia University Press, Carlin and her co-author examine two decades\u2019 worth of disasters\u2014from 9\/11 to the COVID pandemic. Their goal: to understand (in the words of the subtitle) \u201cwhy our approaches to disasters keep falling short.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As they observe, despite a constant drumbeat of disasters both natural and manmade\u2014including earthquakes, severe weather, disease outbreaks, and terrorist attacks\u2014preparedness efforts are chronically underfunded, and institutions fail to learn from experience.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven when action is taken, and trumpeted as progress, it is often anything but,\u201d they write in the introduction. \u201cNonprofits herald response statistics, and governments hail the speed with which they made emergency dollars available, but these data points do not speak to the root causes of our vulnerability, and how focusing on them at the expense of those vulnerabilities may contribute to increasing hazards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A veterinarian, Carlin is also an expert on public policy relating to biological threats, particularly infectious pathogens that move between animals and people. She previously served on the faculty at Georgetown and holds an appointment<\/a> in the Vet College\u2019s MPS program in veterinary parasitology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n D. Dina Friedman \u201979, BA \u201978<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Friedman\u2019s previous works<\/a> include the short-story collection Immigrants<\/em> and Escaping Into the Night<\/em>, an award-winning YA novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (She also recently penned a personal essay<\/a> for Cornellians<\/em> on being chosen as a Chimesmaster during her student days.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her new book of poetry<\/a> explores themes related to borders, both literal and metaphorical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she writes in an entry titled \u201cI Do Not Know\u201d:<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cWhy the wind is so fierce today. Why some people die \/ and others recover. Does a tornado choose its targets? \/ Is there a blueprint somewhere with the secret path \/ of my life mapped out? Will this trail I\u2019m on \/ connect with the ridgeline, or will it keep crossing \/ the same stream? How do I get to the bunker, \/ and what\u2019s hidden there now that the army no longer has it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n J. Robert Lennon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are damaged, resourceful women who make intriguingly flawed, flinty protagonists,\u201d a Kirkus<\/em> review says of the title characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lennon, Cornell\u2019s Ann S. Bowers Professor of English<\/a>, is a prolific author in a variety of genres; Hard Girls<\/a><\/em> is his first foray into thriller territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It follows a road trip by its protagonists, a pair of estranged twin sisters (one of whom works at an Upstate New York college). Acting on a tip, they\u2019re seeking their long-lost mother\u2014a mysterious figure who may or may not be a spy.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jumping back to the past, the story also fills in the blanks about the tragic events that set the sisters on their divergent paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lennon\u2019s many previous books<\/a> include the novels Mailman<\/em>, Happyland<\/em>, Familiar<\/em>, and Broken River<\/em>, and a collection of \u201cshort-shorts\u201d titled Pieces for the Left Hand<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mathew Creighton \u201901<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Creighton, a sociologist<\/a> at University College Dublin, explores the phenomenon of xenophobia\u2014the fear or hatred of foreigners\u2014in this non-fiction book<\/a> from Columbia University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho is the xenophobe?\u201d he writes in the intro. \u201cA predictable starting point is the Greek origin of the word, which couples the concepts of the stranger (x\u00e9nos<\/em>) and fear (ph\u00f3bos<\/em>). This appears to be a straightforward definition, but it\u2019s an illusion. For one, who is the fearful? Moreover, who is to be feared? The answers to both questions are core to the concept, but both have changed over time and place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div> <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Creighton addresses such topics as the rise of populist movements in the U.S. and Europe; the politics of immigration and of admitting refugees; and how levels of overt prejudice can vary depending on how acceptable it is in society. The book is drawn in part from survey experiments conducted in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Norway, and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ari Juels<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In what the author<\/a>\u2014a computer scientist on the faculty at Cornell Tech\u2014calls a \u201ccrypto thriller<\/a>,\u201d the blockchain becomes a weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot, which melds antiquity with modern technology, involves an ancient cult that worships the god Apollo. Its members have launched a rogue program on the blockchain (a system of linked computers that records financial transactions), offering a bounty for assassinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next intended victim: the novel\u2019s protagonist, a NYC software developer who\u2019s recruited by the FBI to battle the threat.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMuch of my research for the book didn\u2019t involve what many novelists do\u2014that is, reading scholarly publications\u2014but instead I was writing those publications,\u201d Juels observes in a Q&A<\/a> in the Cornell Chronicle<\/em>. \u201cPart of the fun of The Oracle<\/em> is that I was, and am, living the research in the novel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dana Luciano, PhD \u201999<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGeology is not conventionally understood as one of the \u2018human sciences,\u2019\u201d Luciano writes. \u201cYet it has long possessed the ability to organize humans in relation to the worlds it describes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The author<\/a> earned a doctorate in English on the Hill. In this scholarly volume<\/a> from Duke University Press, she explores how the then-novel science of geology impacted 19th-century U.S. culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Luciano explains, understanding geological history, with its long timespan, meant challenging notions of human agency.<\/p>\n<\/div> And in the 19th century, Americans came to terms with this new knowledge by combining fact and fiction in what she terms \u201cgeological fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That concept, says the publisher, \u201ctransformed the science into a sensory experience, sponsoring affective and even erotic connections to the matter of the earth.\u201d But it had a darker side, as it \u201cwas often used to justify accounts of evolution that posited a modern, civilized, and Anglo-American whiteness as the pinnacle of human development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luciano, who is on the faculty at Rutgers, previously published Arranging Grief: Sacred Time and the Body in Nineteenth-Century America<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Classic by a Cornellian: Women\u2019s History Month<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Diane Ackerman, MFA \u201973, PhD \u201979<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/catastrophic-incentives-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Catastrophic Incentives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHere in Sanctuary\u2014Whirling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/HERE-IN-SANCTUARY\u2014WHIRLING-A.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/HGLennon-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Hard Girls<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHidden Hate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/HiddenHate.jpg\")
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\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/the-oracle-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>The Oracle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHow the Earth Feels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/HowtheEarthFeels-A.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/03\/zookeepers-wife-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>The Zookeeper\u2019s Wife<\/h2>\n\n\n\n