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 Danilyn Rutherford, PhD \u201997<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was a widow by the time Millie got her first wheelchair,\u201d Rutherford writes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was also a newly tenured professor. My daughter, who is now an adult, does not walk on her own, or speak, or communicate with signs or symbols.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Published by Duke University Press, Rutherford\u2019s book<\/a>\u2014subtitled Living in a Wordless World<\/em>\u2014is part memoir and part academic work in the field of anthropology, her area of expertise.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n It describes the experience of raising her daughter, who is disabled and nonverbal, and of coping after the sudden passing of her husband, who died of a heart attack when the child was still a toddler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow in her twenties, Millie has never been able to express herself verbally, but she has a thriving social environment rooted in the people around her and in things her companions and family can see, hear, smell, and feel,\u201d states the publisher. \u201cLife in Millie\u2019s world is far richer than might be immediately evident to those who think and communicate in conventional ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Rutherford<\/a> has taught at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abigail Wilentz \u201993<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A former comp lit major in Arts & Sciences, Wilentz coauthored this nonfiction work<\/a> with Suzanne Loebl, a Holocaust survivor who escaped Germany with her family. It chronicles some of the perpetrators, victims, and spoils of the Nazi\u2019s massive looting of European artworks, which they say numbered some 650,000 pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book, which includes some two dozen illustrations of stolen art, unfolds in part as a memoir: Loebl recalls her childhood in Germany\u2014where her affluent family were avid art collectors\u2014and their escape to Belgium, where they went into hiding.<\/p>\n<\/div> The volume explores both the works that the regime prized and those\u2014like German Expressionist paintings\u2014that it found \u201cdegenerate,\u201d but nevertheless profited from. It traces auctions and sales of pillaged collections, and efforts to restore some works to the heirs of their rightful owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kirkus<\/em> calls Plunder and Survival<\/em> a \u201crich portrait of the fate of art\u2014and artists\u2014in the shadow of Hitler\u201d and a \u201cwork that stands out from the immense and ever-growing shelf of World War II literature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robert Berne \u201970, MBA \u201971, PhD \u201977<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Berne\u2019s first novel, Tuscan Son<\/em>, was about a vice president at fictional Olmsted University who finds himself incarcerated in a brutal prison in Panama, after being lured there on the pretext of a major donation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His follow-up<\/a> is also set at Olmsted\u2014but this time, the drama surrounds the efforts of graduate students to unionize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Berne depicts the pluses and minuses of both sides of the campaign, which causes dissension among faculty, students, trustees, and others.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cFifteen or even 10 years ago, the knee-jerk reaction was to oppose unions at private universities primarily because of worries about deterioration of academic quality,\u201d argues one character. \u201cGraduate study and teaching are not piece work, and flexibility and academic freedom typically are not union values.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Berne writes<\/a> from a deep first-hand knowledge of academia, having spent four decades as a faculty member and administrator at NYU. An Engineering undergrad, he earned two graduate degrees in management on the Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trent Preszler, MS \u201902, PhD \u201912<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the tradition of bestsellers like Salt<\/em>, Cod<\/em>, and Mauve<\/em>, Preszler\u2019s book<\/a> explores how something seemingly mundane has played a key role in society, the environment, and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s subtitled The Trees That Shaped America<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it covers a much broader swath of our collective past\u2014going back to when people first figured out that wood could offer warmth, shelter, and a means of cooking food, and stretching to the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div> Along the way, Preszler teases out some surprising, and often deeply affecting, aspects of evergreen-related history\u2014from their connection to slavery in the Deep South to the lumber industry\u2019s surprising role as a refuge for gay workers at a time of severe oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvergreens provide shelter and fuel, nourishment and trade, inspiration and myth,\u201d he writes in the prologue. \u201cThey have sparked wars, built industries, and anchored economies, through centuries of human exploration, invention, and folly. They have stood longer than kings, outlived empires, and borne witness to humanity\u2019s grandest ambitions and deepest failures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to holding two graduate degrees from CALS (a master\u2019s in agricultural economics and a doctorate in horticultural biology), Preszler is a professor of practice<\/a> in the Dyson School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPreszler\u2019s well-researched and often poignant account is strewn with intriguing trivia,\u201d says a Publishers Weekly<\/em> review. \u201cHistory and nature buffs alike will find much to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mary Gilliland \u201973, MAT \u201980<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gilliland is an award-winning poet<\/a> who has taught on the Hill and elsewhere (including at Weill Cornell Medicine\u2019s branch in Qatar). She has published several collections of her work, including Ember Days<\/em>, The Ruined Walled Castle Garden<\/em>, and The Devil\u2019s Fools<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her latest is a chapbook<\/a> that\u2019s inspired by the marine phenomenon of the title. \u201cNourished by human waste and warming waters, cyanobacteria multiply in harmful algal blooms that release neurotoxins,\u201d explains the publisher, the Bodily Press. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn a whirl of games, addictions, concussions, and swimming bans, Red Tide at Sandy Bend<\/em> posits a world of creaturely interdependence visceral and intimate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The work has its roots in a poetry residency that Gilliland did on the southwest coast of Florida, where\u2014expecting a sun-drenched paradise\u2014she was warned to avoid the beach due to toxic algae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she writes in the title poem:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy bronchiae fill with pins, nasals run. Acrid air slices my open eyes. \/ In the darkened wave no swimming this Thanksgiving. \/ Some humans call this era the Anthropocene. As though \/ we were more than fleshy needles on Nature\u2019s world-tree. \/ A single cell organism is resilient: can live without water an eon or more.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kati Griffith, Shannon Gleeson & Patricia Campos-Medina \u201996, MPA \u201997<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The three Cornellian coauthors are faculty members in ILR (a fourth is a colleague at the University of California, Berkeley). In this timely academic volume<\/a>, they investigate the workplace challenges that many immigrants face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBeyond unlivable wages and a lack of upward mobility, low-wage work in the United States is rife with danger and degrading treatment,\u201d states the publisher, the Russell Sage Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cImmigrants and people of color are overrepresented in these \u2018bad jobs\u2019 and often feel as though they are unable to change their working conditions. In Legalized Inequalities<\/em>, [the authors] investigate the government\u2019s role in perpetuating poor and dangerous work environments for low-wage immigrant workers of color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book draws on interviews with more than 300 workers from Haiti and Central America, and their advocates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the authors argue, myriad factors conspire to keep wages low and prevent workers from advocating for better conditions. They include federal regulations around labor unions, employment, and immigration, as well as racial disparities, anti-immigrant sentiment, and weak protections for employees.<\/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 January 15, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This month\u2019s featured titles include poetry, an anthropologist\u2019s memoir, and a novel about unionization at a fictional university<\/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-64902","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\/2026\/01\/beautiful-mystery-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Beautiful Mystery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nPlunder and Survival<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/plunder-and-survival-A.jpg\")
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<\/figure>A Nearly Perfect Union<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nEvergreen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/evergreen-cover-A.jpg\")
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<\/figure>Red Tide at Sandy Bend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nLegalized Inequalities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/01\/legalized-inequalities-A.jpg\")
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