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 Olufunke Grace Bankole \u201901<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBankole debuts with a beautiful narrative about two Nigerian women who seek independence from their patriarchal culture,\u201d says Publishers Weekly <\/em>in a starred review, calling the novel<\/a> \u201cone to savor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot follows a mother and daughter: the elder, a rape victim who was coerced into marrying her attacker, wants a better life for her child\u2014who grows up to dream of living in the U.S. despite a prophecy that she\u2019ll encounter danger there. The daughter\u2019s story eventually takes her to New Orleans, where she becomes a single mother and struggles to survive during Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kirkus<\/em> calls Bankhole\u2019s book a \u201cglobal, multigenerational novel suffused with heart, feeling, devastation, and hope\u201d while Booklist<\/em> praises it as a \u201cpowerful and emotional debut novel that deftly explores the complexities of identity, family, and belonging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A government major in Arts & Sciences, Bankhole<\/a> is a Maryland native who grew up in both the U.S. and Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anne Chow \u201988, ME \u201989, MBA \u201990<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Chow\u2019s notable career<\/a>\u2014in which she was twice named to Fortune<\/em>\u2019s Most Powerful Women in Business list\u2014has included serving as CEO of AT&T Business. Publishers Weekly<\/em> calls her management guide<\/a> a \u201csensible primer on creating a welcoming workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the book, subtitled The Transformative Power of Inclusion<\/em>, the former electrical engineering major argues that creating an inclusive environment\u2014for people of various races, ages, physical abilities, family status, and more\u2014is not only better for employees, but also benefits a company\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cLead Bigger<\/em> will engage you in a leadership journey that is contemporary, practical, and compelling,\u201d Martha Pollack, Cornell\u2019s president emerita, says in a blurb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDrawing on her decades of experience as a successful leader, Anne Chow shares how taking a broader, human-focused view of our work, workforces, and workplaces will inspire greater performance and wellbeing, increasing the satisfaction of your customers, teams, and stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chow previously coauthored The Leader\u2019s Guide to Unconscious Bias: How To Reframe Bias, Cultivate Connection, and Create High-Performing Teams.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeremy Braddock<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this nonfiction work<\/a>\u2014subtitled The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums<\/em>\u2014a Cornell English professor<\/a> explores the cultural impact of the Firesign Theatre, an avant garde comedy troupe popular in the 1960s and \u201970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Braddock\u2014an associate professor who specializes in modernist literature and culture\u2014notes in an interview<\/a> with the Cornell Chronicle<\/em>, he became a Firesign fan in his early teens, when he received their records from an uncle who came of age in the \u201960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is not an accident that album<\/em> was originally, and remains, a word for a kind of book,\u201d he writes in the volume, published by University of California Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy did it take a stoner comedy act, working in the heart of the culture industry at the peak of the counterculture period, to explore this connection most thoroughly? How did they use this insight as the basis of a much wider-ranging investigation of media, culture, and social life? And how did their sui generis<\/em> novelty albums find a place on the Billboard<\/em> charts?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Says a critique in the L.A. Review of Books<\/em>: \u201cHis analysis of their first nine albums, released by Columbia between 1968 and 1975, is astute throughout, and in its strongest sections, a more compelling book of this kind could hardly be imaginable, at least for a lifelong Firesign listener with an interest in the interplay of culture and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Richard Price \u201971<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ILR alum is an accomplished novelist and screenwriter<\/a> whose work includes Sea of Love<\/em>, The Color of Money <\/em>(for which he received an Oscar nomination), and the TV series \u201cThe Night Of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Publishers Weekly<\/em> calls his latest novel<\/a> a \u201cremarkable excavation of urban angst\u201d that \u201conce again proves he\u2019s the bard of New York City street life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It follows the aftermath of the deadly collapse of a five-story tenement building in Harlem in 2008. <\/p>\n<\/div> The plot traces the lives of several characters impacted by the tragedy\u2014including a struggling undertaker who uses it as an opportunity to drum up business and an NYPD detective who becomes obsessed with finding a resident who mysteriously disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHalf a century after launching an astonishing career that includes some of the best crime writing for books and screens, Price has let the mercy in his stories rise to the surface,\u201d says the Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn the margins, bullets still fly and drugs still flow, but the deadly alleys of Clockers<\/em> and \u2018The Wire\u2019 give way here to a community just trying to account for its dead and find a way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam Hall Kaplan \u201957<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kaplan\u2019s book<\/a>\u2014part memoir, part critique of the milieus of media and design\u2014is subtitled A Critic\u2019s Search for the Soul of Cities and Self<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom the stoops of Brooklyn and the streets of East Harlem to the newsrooms of New York and Los Angeles, from the freeways of Southern California to the shores of Malibu,\u201d says the publisher, an imprint of Academic Studies Press, \u201cAn Urban Odyssey<\/em> traverses the award-winning author\u2019s seven decades in the media and the public and private sectors, as well as his time teaching and advocating for a more equitable, livable city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Over his long career<\/a>, the CALS alum has worked as a reporter and critic in major print and broadcast outlets and as an urban planner in Southern California, among other activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLike many persons, I formed my first image of Los Angeles at the movies,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuch films in my youth as The Big Sleep<\/em>, Double Indemnity<\/em>, and The Postman Always Rings Twice<\/em> presented the city as a place of seedy bars, slick nightclubs, strange mansions, and sordid hotels in which tough, honest, timeworn detectives confronted criminals and con men on behalf of conflicted, not-so-innocent women. \u2026 For an area blessed with sunshine, there were a lot of shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunita Sah<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThank goodness for Sunita Sah\u2019s spirited book \u2026 which unpacks the act\u2014and art\u2014of refusal,\u201d says the Guardian<\/em>, going on to say the \u201cprofessor\u2019s manifesto is a rousing call to action\u2014or inaction, as it may be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sah, who\u2019s both a physician and an organizational psychologist, is on the faculty<\/a> at the Johnson School; she grew up in England as the daughter of immigrant parents, facing constant expectations to be obedient. In her nonfiction book<\/a>, subtitled The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes<\/em>, she explores the science behind the choices we make.<\/p>\n<\/div> As Sah argues, there are rational reasons for (and benefits to) refusal in the face of social pressure to comply on issues large and small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDefiance is often misunderstood as rebellion for rebellion\u2019s sake or as a purely disruptive act,\u201d she says in an interview<\/a> with the Cornell Chronicle<\/em>. \u201cBut true defiance is deeply constructive: It\u2019s about alignment\u2014saying \u2018no\u2019 to what doesn\u2019t serve your values and \u2018yes\u2019 to integrity and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To submit your book for consideration, email cornellians@cornell.edu<\/a>. Please note that to be included in our listings of new titles, books must be recently published by a conventional publisher\u2014not self published, pay-to-publish, publish on demand, or similar\u2014and be of interest to a general audience. Books not featured will be forwarded to Class Notes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Published March 7, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n This month\u2019s featured titles include a debut novel, a leadership guide, and a psychologist\u2019s look at the power of saying \u2018no\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":10396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alumni_hub_syml_posts":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[],"cornell_year_post":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-48501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/TheEdgeofWater-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>The Edge of Water<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLead Bigger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Firesign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLazarus Man<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>An Urban Odyssey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nDefy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/defy-A.jpg\")
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