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 Maria Adelmann \u201907<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Booklist<\/em> calls the Arts & Sciences alum\u2019s latest novel<\/a> \u201ca darkly funny, deeply incisive exploration of academia\u2019s underbelly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her protagonist is a young woman scraping together a living as an adjunct professor when her latest gig puts her on the same campus as her former PhD advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She already has a complicated history with her ex-mentor that has bedeviled her own career\u2014and now she learns that his new novel, about a prof with a shady past, includes a character that may be based on her.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cThis expos\u00e9 of academia from the perspective of its most vulnerable residents offers a vital message at a time when it\u2019s easy to forget what\u2019s supposed to be at the center of all institutions: people\u2014messy, unpredictable, and filled with fragile hope,\u201d says Kirkus<\/em>, calling the book \u201ca crucial new take on the time-honored tradition of the campus novel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adelmann previously penned<\/a> the novels How to Be Eaten<\/em> and Girls of a Certain Age<\/em>, among other work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kimberl\u00e9 Williams Crenshaw \u201981<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A prominent legal scholar<\/a> and civil rights advocate on the Columbia faculty, Crenshaw is a founder of critical race theory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s widely known for having coined the concept of \u201cintersectionality\u201d\u2014the confluence of racism and sexism that exacerbates both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her memoir<\/a> \u201ccharts Crenshaw\u2019s extraordinary journey from precocious child to renowned public intellectual,\u201d says a New York Times<\/em> review, which praises the book as a \u201crousing call to see the story of the future as one in which \u2018the spirit of freedom was nurtured by talking back.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n The memoir traces Crenshaw\u2019s experiences from her Ohio childhood\u2014when she was encouraged to express her opinions and to be aware of racism\u2014through the untimely deaths of both her father and brother to her years on the Hill (where she majored in government and Africana studies), at Havard Law School, and in the worlds of academia and activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy parents did not teach me to take on the pain of injustice as if I deserved it,\u201d she writes, recalling her heartbreak after being passed over throughout kindergarten for a classroom musical rite that always featured white girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey refused to hide the truth that the wound was inflicted. \u2026 Their only question was how I would remember this day when my finger ran over the scar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rob Marciano \u201991<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This photo-laden volume<\/a> from an imprint of National Geographic is subtitled Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow<\/em>. In it, a CBS News meteorologist<\/a> and reporter explores technologies that could shape our future in four areas\u2014energy, electricity, infrastructure, and information\u2014while his coauthor, a physicist, weighs in on the science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Topics include nuclear fusion, single-person electric aircraft, AI, skyscrapers made of wood, solid-state batteries, quantum computers, robots, and 3D-printed homes.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cOften, when we talk about the future, there are a lot of worst-case scenarios,\u201d the CALS alum<\/a> writes in the introduction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s true that if we don\u2019t change the way we do nearly everything, entire ecosystems could collapse. But right now\u2014especially after I\u2019ve taken a deep dive into the innovative science and technologies on our horizon\u2014I\u2019m hopeful we can meet that crisis and change our planet\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book got a blurb from former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who called it \u201can optimistic look into the future with a preview of the technologies that will make the world a better place\u201d and \u201can inspiring journey that clearly and smartly describes the science and engineering that will make it all possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joy Lin, MMH \u201910<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This children\u2019s book<\/a> for kids aged four to six takes inspiration from\u00a0traditional Chinese philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s the latest from the Hotelie, a Taiwanese-American artist who works under the pen name Regina Linke<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It tells the tale of a boy named Ah-Fu, who just wants to have fun on a beautiful day\u2014flying a kite, riding in his grandfather\u2019s oxcart, and having a picnic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But impediments crop up, including a tangled string, a busy cousin, and a fallen tree. That prompts Ah-Fu to come up with some creative solutions, both salvaging his day and helping others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLinke\u2019s thoughtful narrative cleverly reveals the interconnectedness of the villagers\u2019 lives,\u201d says Kirkus<\/em> in a starred review. \u201cHer meticulously detailed art\u2014an enhanced realism in gorgeously soft, full color\u2014is a splendiferous delight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linke\u2019s previous children\u2019s books are Big Enough<\/em> and The Oxherd Boy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judith Peraino<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The volume<\/a>, from Cornell University Press, sprang out of an exhibit in Kroch Library highlighting its collection of punk rock artifacts and memorabilia, as well as the 2016 conference Punkfest Cornell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s coauthored by Peraino, a music professor<\/a> in Arts & Sciences who teaches a class on the history of punk, along with a former colleague who\u2019s now on the faculty at Berkeley.<\/p>\n<\/div> As the publisher observes, the editors \u201ccelebrate the ways punks have built and documented their own misfit collectives since the mid-1970s, assembling alternative worlds of riotous music, art, fashion, and writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It comprises more than 400 images\u2014of flyers, photos, letters, and more\u2014as well as interviews and essays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Peraino noted<\/a> in the Cornell Chronicle<\/em>, the editors aimed to depict the genre in all its regional, generational, and other diversity, observing, \u201cThere\u2019s a big tent element to the misfit culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarah Jefferis, MFA \u201999<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n An alum of Cornell\u2019s master\u2019s program in poetry who also holds a doctorate from Binghamton University, Jefferis is a visiting lecturer<\/a> on the Hill, teaching rhetorical writing in Dyson. She previously published the poetry collections Forgetting the Salt<\/em> and What Enters the Mouth<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLucky to Have You<\/em><\/a> is a collection of narrative lyric poems that meditate on romantic loss and love,\u201d explains the publisher, Finishing Line Press. \u201cLoss and luck are synonymous; luck always appears amid heartbreak, and in moments of unexpected luck, aged sorrow rears its wrinkled forehead.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n The collection comprises three sections: on finding love, keeping it, and losing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese imitation love poems travel up and down the East Coast, from Virginia to New York,” continues the publisher, “and shadow all kinds of marriages that died under the weight of addiction and infidelity, or power dynamics across religious assaults, or the possibility of first dates, or the stalled gift of situationships, or deep, authentic interracial love swamped in an America that refuses to face its own history.\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 June 16, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This month’s featured titles include a novel about academia, a civil rights advocate’s memoir, and a dive into punk rock archives<\/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-72985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Adjunct<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Backtalker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nThe Next Big Thing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Little Helper<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWe\u2019re Having Much More Fun<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>Lucky to Have You<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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