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 Lisa Kaltenegger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a volume that Kirkus<\/em> calls \u201cabsorbing, informative, and entertaining,\u201d the Big Red astronomer offers a general-interest science book<\/a> on some compelling questions: are there other inhabited planets in the universe\u2014and if so, how might we find them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The topic is of passionate interest to Kaltenegger<\/a>, the director of the Cornell-based Carl Sagan Institute<\/a>. The organization\u2014whose goal is to find life in the universe\u2014is, of course, named for the famed professor and science popularizer, who himself was bullish about the existence of extraterrestrial life.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Subtitled The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos<\/em>, the book \u201cexplains for lay audiences the young field of astrobiology and describes intriguing and potentially habitable worlds that have only recently been discovered around distant stars,\u201d says a Washington Post <\/em>review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Post<\/em> goes on to offer a tongue-in-cheek warning: \u201cThis is a science book through and through, and will disappoint anyone who wants to hear that the aliens are already here, secretly zipping around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yasmin Fahr \u201905<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFahr, author of Keeping It Simple<\/em> and a contributor to the New York Times<\/em> cooking section, wants to help all those readers who are tired of trying to decide what\u2019s for dinner,\u201d says Library Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe gathers together over 100 recipes in her fabulous new cookbook<\/a>, which is divided into fun chapters focusing on how much energy and motivation cooks have at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Subtitled Flexible, Flavorful Recipes for Any Mood<\/em>, the volume lets readers choose from three levels of effort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are super easy \u201clap dinners\u201d (for example, sheet pan asparagus with tomatoes, eggs, and feta); \u201ccoffee table dinners\u201d that require more prep (like roasted chicken thighs with grapes, feta, and mint); and \u201cat the dinner table,\u201d with more elaborate fare (like roasted mustard salmon served with side dishes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to Keeping it Simple<\/em>, Fahr previously penned<\/a> Boards & Spreads<\/em>, which offers recipes and presentation ideas for a variety of meals and occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Cody, MFA \u201987<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The protagonist of Cody\u2019s latest novel<\/a> is an inmate in a maximum-security prison in Upstate New York. He’s at a personal crossroads, just months away from the end of a decades-long sentence he\u2019s serving for a crime he committed as a teenager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The narration alternates between his current life and flashbacks to his difficult childhood, when he was raised by an unreliable mother\u2014named Margaret, but who \u201chad so many names that I was never sure what to call her\u201d\u2014who worked in the sex industry and was addicted to drugs.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe asked me if I minded staying home alone, and I said I didn\u2019t mind, even though I did,\u201d Cody writes. \u201cShe kissed me on the forehead. She said I was her big brave boy, but I wasn\u2019t brave at all. I just knew that she wanted to go out, and that she wanted me to act like I was big and brave, even when I was four or five.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The novel has garnered raves from some fellow MFA alums who are bestselling authors. In a blurb, Stewart O\u2019Nan, MFA \u201992, calls it \u201ccreepily beautiful, full of stillness and darkness. Cody takes us into places we don\u2019t know and shows us strange states of mind that feel absolutely true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Says Julie Schumacher, MFA \u201986: \u201cWalk the Dark<\/em> is harrowing and vivid, taut as a wire. Paul Cody intertwines terror and hope; he knows how to hook his readers from the start\u2014and on every page.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maisie Ganzler \u201993<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Published by Harvard Business Review Press, this management guide<\/a> offers advice on making firms in the food industry more sustainable. Ganzler, a Hotelie, is the former chief strategy and brand officer<\/a> for a food service management company based in the San Francisco Bay Area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In what Publishers Weekly<\/em> calls \u201ca thoughtful examination of the challenges facing corporate efforts to go green,\u201d she taps her decades of experience to describe how companies can make their systems more sustainable and ethical without sacrificing the bottom line.<\/p>\n<\/div> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cConsumers and critics often think that sustainability is a switch somewhere that corporate executives can flip and simply pay the farmer more for regenerative agricultural practices, the factory owner a bonus to use only ethical recruiters of migrant workers, or a premium to the mining company to ensure you get conflict-free minerals. That a company could be more sustainable if it would just spend more for its inputs,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve learned from experience that the complexities of national and even global supply chains, competing priorities, and the challenge of messaging make authentically greening a company much harder than simply writing a bigger check.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary Gilliland \u201973, MAT \u201980<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gilliland is an award-winning poet who has taught on the Hill and elsewhere (including at Weill Cornell Medicine’s branch in Qatar). <\/p>\n\n\n\n This collection<\/a> is her third, following The Ruined Walled Castle Garden<\/em> and The Devil\u2019s Fools.<\/em> \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe riveting poems of Ember Days<\/em> begin with ritual and end with prayer,\u201d says the publisher, Codhill Press, noting that in the works, \u201cintercessory voices step up to our world\u2019s disasters, level with its possibilities, interrogate faith, justice, militarism, madness, and the perception and affection of intimate relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n As Gilliland writes<\/a> in the title poem: \u201cThe almanac\u2019s laconic whistle \/ passes a millennium at last grown \/ nonfungible. Day breaks up the where-were- \/ you party. Feet wander concrete platforms \/ lit with radiance weak and discomfited \/ from two bare bulbs, stilled double-naughts. \/ Mobiles dry-rattle beneath posters for stewpots \/ and holiday sales, the forecast troubled music: \/ history, or at least cold wind of a startling event.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The work was blurbed by Cornell poetry professor Alice Fulton, MFA \u201982, who says, \u201cBy turns mystical and realist, Mary Gilliland\u2019s intensely musical poems consider global apocalypse\u2014’our course set for the destitute sunset\u2019\u2014but also celebrate the generative power of creativity, honoring the passion of cobbler, novelist, saint, inventor, photographer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica Saunders \u201903<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the CALS alum<\/a>\u2019s debut novel<\/a>\u2014which Kirkus<\/em> calls \u201can entertaining and quick read about self-discovery\u201d\u2014a successful lawyer and soccer mom in New York\u2019s Westchester County discovers cracks in her marriage while reconnecting with her first love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The protagonist, Rachel, is shocked to discover that her husband has a gambling problem, and has amassed huge debts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And worse: he has paid them off by selling letters from her high school boyfriend (Jack, who\u2019s now a major movie star) to a tabloid.<\/p>\n<\/div> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSaunders sparkles in her emotional second-chance romance debut,\u201d says Publishers Weekly<\/em>, going on to add that the author \u201ckeeps readers guessing which it\u2019ll be up to the very end while drawing them in with snappy prose and skillful characterization. Flashbacks to Rachel and Jack\u2019s early relationship make it especially easy to invest in their connection. This should win Saunders plenty of fans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/alien-earths-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Alien Earths<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nCook Simply, Live Fully<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Walk the Dark<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nYou Can\u2019t Market Manure at Lunchtime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Ember Days<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLove, Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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