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 And did you know that Cornell has an online book club? Check it out!<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan Choi, MFA \u201995<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a novel about exile in its multiple forms, and it reads like a history of loneliness,\u201d says the New York Times<\/em>. \u201cNearly every person has the detachment of a survivor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flashlight<\/em>\u2014which follows four generations<\/a> of a family, from World War II-era Korea to the U.S. post 9\/11\u2014is the sixth novel<\/a> for Choi, who won a National Book Award for 2019\u2019s Trust Exercise<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It opens with an apparent tragedy: after a seaside walk, 10-year-old Louisa is found unconscious on the beach and her father has vanished, presumed to have drowned.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n The novel traces the family\u2019s history, starting when the father\u2014originally named Seok, later Americanized to Serk\u2014is a child whose impoverished parents leave Korea for Japan in search of work. When they\u2019re later duped into moving to North Korea, he refuses to join them and goes to the U.S., where he earns a PhD and meets his future wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, their child\u2014Louisa\u2014grows up to have kids of her own, as the legacy of her parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 collective trauma is passed down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFlashlight<\/em> is acutely aware that for every miraculous survival, there are countless stories that remain mysteries, the \u2018presumed\u2019 in \u2018presumed dead\u2019 freighted with many unanswerable questions,\u201d says the Chicago Review of Books<\/em>. \u201cEven what might read as a happy ending from the outside does not eliminate the scars of what it took to get there, all the minutes that slogged by, hard to explain but crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ellen Andersen \u201988<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Andersen is a professor of political science<\/a> at the University of Vermont. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her nonfiction book<\/a> focuses on Lambda Legal<\/a>\u2014the nation\u2019s oldest nonprofit legal advocacy organization devoted to LGBTQ+ issues\u2014and its major civil rights cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The coffee-table volume, from the art book publisher Phaidon, is laid out in a style akin to a scrapbook\u2014with numerous images and ephemera, like pamphlets. <\/p>\n<\/div> It covers cases that have safeguarded LGBTQ+ rights in a wide variety of realms, from employment to housing to military service. They include Nabozny v. Podlesny<\/em> (1996), which mandated that schools protect students from anti-LGBTQ+ bullying; Lawrence v. Texas<\/em> (2003), which struck down state sodomy laws; and Obergerfell v. Hodges<\/em> (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andersen co-authored the book\u2014which features a foreword by famed writer and academic Roxane Gay\u2014with Jennifer Pizer, the organization\u2019s chief legal officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen Lambda Legal opened its doors in 1973,\u201d they write, \u201cit confronted a world in which one of the biggest challenges facing LGBTQ+ people was the government itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Margaret Caplan \u201903<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Arts & Sciences alum and physician teamed up with her screenwriter husband, along with an illustrator, to co-author this graphic novel<\/a> for middle-grade readers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (It\u2019s published under her pen name, Margaret Rae.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its heroine is a green-skinned monster named Poe, who lost her parents to the humans who hunt her kind. With her home in an abandoned building facing demolition, she and her two adopted siblings venture out in search of a fabled monster sanctuary.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n As it happens, it\u2019s Halloween\u2014and the holiday allows them to pass as kids wearing masks. They eventually make friends with a human boy, whose own experience with social rejection helps him sympathize with the monsters\u2019 plight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis touching graphic novel uses monsters as a metaphor for any marginalized community seeking safety and acceptance,\u201d says School Library Journal<\/em>. \u201cThe monsters are feared not for their actions but how they look, and the story highlights themes of identity, chosen family, and resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Fontaine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Subtitled An Ancient Guide to Not Giving In<\/em>, the volume<\/a> is the latest entry in the \u201cAncient Wisdom for Modern Readers\u201d series, several of which have been penned by the Cornell classics professor<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the spirit of the best ancient self-help writing, Plutarch, a pagan Greek philosopher and historian, offers a set of practical recommendations and steps we can take to resist pressure and to stop saying \u2018yes\u2019 against our better judgment,\u201d says the publisher, Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cAnd in a delightfully different work, Prudentius, a Latin Christian poet, dramatizes the necessity to actively fight temptation through the story of an epic battle within the human soul between fierce warrior women representing our virtues and vices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previous editions by Fontaine have included<\/a> How to Get Over a Breakup<\/em>, How to Drink<\/em>, How to Grieve<\/em>, and How to Tell a Joke<\/em>. Next up: How to Speak Freely<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s simply follow Homer, since he said, \u2018Shame, which does men both great harm and great help,\u2019\u201d says Fontaine\u2019s new translation of Plutarch. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t wrong to mention the harm first, incidentally, since shame only becomes healthy once reason has removed the excess and leaves us with the right amount.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesi Bender Buell \u201907<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A work of experimental fiction, this historical novel<\/a> is set in Utica in the 1890s, and it interweaves many local landmarks and real-life residents of Central New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The protagonist is a 13-year-old girl whose parents have contrasting interests: her mother is pursuing Spiritualism while her father focuses on electrical engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bender’s previous publications include the poetry collection Dangerous Women<\/em>, the experimental play Kinderkrankenhaus<\/em>, and the debut novel The Book of the Last Word<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Also an artist<\/a>, she currently works at the Cornell University Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen the reader encounters the story of how the mother and father came together, I start the text as two columns telling two separate stories,\u201d Buell explains in a recent personal essay<\/a> in Cornellians<\/em> that explored the importance of experimental art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs they meet, the columns alternate line by line and start to \u2018braid\u2019 together until they form one passage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barry Strauss \u201974<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A longtime Cornell faculty member<\/a>, Strauss is now Arts & Sciences\u2019 Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies Emeritus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has published numerous books on classical history, including The Battle of Salamis<\/em>, The Trojan War<\/em>, The Spartacus War<\/em>, The Death of Caesar<\/em>, and Ten Caesars<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With his latest<\/a>, he chronicles (in the words of the subtitle) \u201ctwo centuries of rebellion against the world\u2019s mightiest empire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div> Strauss describes the three major Jewish uprisings against Roman rule that roughly spanned from 63 BCE to 136 CE\u2014revolts that both reshaped the faith and saw the rise of Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHistorian Strauss hits another home run with this thorough account of the tumultuous relations between Rome and its most contentious subjects, the Jews, in ancient times,\u201d says Library Journal<\/em>, adding: \u201cThere is no better history of this important but little-known subject.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Strauss observed in a Cornell Chronicle<\/em> story<\/a> about the book: \u201cIt was amazing in writing this to see how little has changed in the geopolitics of the region: Israel, a small state between large empires, was also the situation in antiquity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To submit your book for consideration, email cornellians@cornell.edu<\/a>. Please note that to be included, books must be recently published by a conventional publisher<\/strong>\u2014not self published, pay-to-publish, publish on demand, partner-published, 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 September 3, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n This month\u2019s featured titles include the latest by a National Book Award winner and a classical history of Jewish resistance to Rome<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":10398,"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-57601","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\/09\/flashlight-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Flashlight<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMaking the Case for Equality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Masks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHow to Have Willpower<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/childoflightfrontcover-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Child of Light<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nJews vs. Rome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/09\/jews-vs-rome-A.jpg\")
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