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 Liz Robbins \u201992<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Geared toward youth aged 12 and up, this inspirational volume<\/a> is a collaboration between longtime journalist<\/a> Robbins and barrier-breaking tennis legend Billie Jean King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s subtitled Eleven Champions Leading Women\u2019s Sports Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book features profiles based on King\u2019s interviews with such athletes as basketball\u2019s Caitlin Clark and Chelsea Gray, soccer\u2019s Midge Purce, wrestling\u2019s Amit Elor, and tennis\u2019s Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div> School Library Journal<\/em> calls it \u201csolid sports nonfiction featuring inspiring stories that will reach athletes and nonathletes alike,\u201d while Kirkus<\/em> praises it as a \u201cwinning tribute to remarkable achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A history major in Arts & Sciences, Robbins spent nearly two decades at the New York Times<\/em>, initially focusing on sports (including the NBA and the Olympics) and later covering NYC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her previous book\u2014A Race Like No Other: 26.2 Miles Through the Streets of New York\u2014<\/em>was a deep dive into the New York Marathon and some of its competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dorothy Williams Neagle \u201904, MA \u201905<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cStories have the power to free us, or to hold us captive,\u201d states the publisher, a small press called Gnashing Teeth. \u201cImagine a Woman<\/em> is a book about both, and how the retelling of stories we inherit can open a pathway between fear and survival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neagle\u2019s debut volume of poetry<\/a> is organized around four feminine archetypes\u2014the Virgin, the Mother, the Prophet, and the Whore\u2014and offers, the publisher says, a \u201cmulti-storied perspective on the many ways a woman is defined, and how femininity is shaped by histories ancient and new.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n The Human Ecology alum<\/a>, who holds two Cornell degrees in design and environmental analysis, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and earned a Yaddo fellowship\u2014both prestigious honors in the literary world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she writes in a poem titled \u201cChild of a Fire Eater\u201d: \u201cWhat I swallowed \/ I became: daughter of rage, \/ black cloud girl with the punishing \/ heart of a flashlight beam. But \/ I love her tenderly, my killer \/ queen, my poison dart. I will \/ set my tongue on fire and we \/ will make it through the dark.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joseph Margulies \u201982<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the United States today, we celebrate cruelty and revel in the pain of others,\u201d Margulies writes in his intro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, as a country we have been cruel many times before, and yes, not everyone behaves this way. But I can\u2019t think of a time when so many people were so enthusiastically<\/em> cruel, and when this enthusiasm for viciousness had achieved such cultural dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the book<\/a>, the civil rights lawyer and Cornell professor of practice<\/a> calls for (in the words of the subtitle) a \u201cforgiving society in an age of incarceration.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div> He presents six case studies of Americans who have committed serious crimes but, he argues, nonetheless deserve grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMargulies tells the stories of people who have done monstrous things but are not monsters, are not forever defined by their worst acts. He writes beautifully of pain and loss, but also of redemption and transformation,\u201d death penalty opponent and Dead Man Walking<\/em> author Sister Helen Prejean says in a blurb, calling Cast Out<\/em> a \u201cwonderfully hopeful book about what it means to be human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Annie Sheng, PhD \u201922<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheng, a doctoral alum in anthropology, is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry who publishes under the pen name D.A. Xiaolin Spires<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her science fiction novella<\/a> follows a biologist named Koharu who\u2019s exploring an exoplanet, searching for a spot to land her team\u2019s orbiting spacecraft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The situation takes a turn for the dramatic when she encounters mysterious footprints that lead her to a pair of benign-seeming alien creatures, huddled together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cEstablishing personal contact with another species is a young field biologist\u2019s dream,\u201d observes the publisher, the sci-fi press Infinivox. \u201cTo meet the moment she will use visual, auditory, and chemical signaling; proprioception; cutting-edge tech; even an ancient Chinese celestial jade artifact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to her debut novella, Sheng has published poems in the collection Cozy in the Apocalypse<\/em> and in the second volume of Reimagined AI Anthology<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n George Hutchinson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Arts & Sciences faculty member<\/a> is both the Farr Professor of American Culture and the Reed Professor of Writing and Rhetoric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His latest book<\/a>, from Yale University Press, is a critical biography of Toomer, an influential writer during the Harlem Renaissance who\u2019s best known for the 1923 modernist novel Cane<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBorn into the Black elite in Washington, DC, Toomer was highly sensitive to the color line and able to move across it,\u201d states the publisher.<\/p>\n<\/div> \u201cToomer engaged in a lifelong struggle to be released from this system, reinventing himself racially, spiritually, and artistically not as a Black man but as a \u2018superman.\u2019 \u2026 Hutchinson shows how the tortures of American racism shaped Toomer\u2019s life\u2014and how the struggle to birth a new \u2018American\u2019 identity marks his art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a starred review, Booklist<\/em> calls the volume \u201crich and intellectually ambitious,\u201d praising it as a \u201ccompelling reassessment of a singular literary figure and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of artistic legacy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily Hong, PhD \u201919<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The anthropology grad and filmmaker is an assistant professor<\/a> at Haverford. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her debut book<\/a>, from Stanford University Press, delves into the often creative, grassroots activism of people in Kachinland, an unrecognized state at the borders of Myanmar, India, China, and Thailand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIts geography throws into sharp relief the intersecting dynamics of British colonialism, settler colonialism, and protracted war between the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar Army,\u201d the publisher explains.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cKachinland\u2019s rich natural resources\u2014including jade and hydropower\u2014are coveted by the junta-led Myanmar government and its energy-hungry neighbor, China. As resource extraction and land confiscation intensifies, Kachin activists and artists turn to Indigenous law and media to stem the tide of displacement and dispossession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is a companion piece to Hong\u2019s film Above and Below the Ground<\/em><\/a>.<\/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 October 13, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This month\u2019s featured titles include a YA book on women in sports and an attorney\u2019s rallying cry to temper justice with mercy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":1318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"This month\u2019s featured titles include a YA book on women in sports and an attorney\u2019s rallying cry to temper justice with mercy","alumni_hub_syml_posts":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[],"cornell_year_post":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-77322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nSee It to Be It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/see-it-to-be-it-A.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/imagine-a-woman-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Imagine a Woman<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nCast Out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/cast-out-A.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/ellipses-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Ellipses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nJean Toomer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/jean-toomer-A.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/borderland-solidarity-A.jpg\")
<\/figure>Borderland Solidarity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n