Bookshelf

Obesity Prevention in Children Before It’s Too Late: A Program for Toddlers & Preschoolers by Dr. Alvin N. Eden ’48 and Sari Greaves R.D.N. Eden, a well-known pediatrician and authority on childhood nutrition and obesity, presents a definitive guide for parents and caregivers, with meal plans and recipes by Greaves (Hatherleigh Press, $15.95).

Making It by Norman Podhoretz ’50. A reprint of Podhoretz’s controversial 1967 autobiography that frankly depicted New York’s intellectual elite of the time, with a new introduction by New York Times Book Review columnist Benjamin Moser (NYRB Classics, $17.95).

Complexity: The Evolution of Earth’s Biodiversity and the Future of Humanity by William C. Burger ’53. Telling the history of our planet and life on Earth, acclaimed botanist Burger shows that cooperation and symbiosis have played a critical role, from the cellular level to complex animal and human societies (Prometheus Books, $26).

Jerzy: A Novel by Jerome Charyn ’59. The life and death of enigmatic author Jerzy Kosinski becomes a story told through multiple narrators, including a homicidal actor and Joseph Stalin’s daughter (Bellevue Literary Press, $16.99).

A Mother’s Tale by Phillip Lopate ’64. The author transcribes interviews he conducted three decades ago with his now-deceased mother and comments on both sides of the conversation with the clarity of the present (The Ohio State University Press, $24.95).

Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love by Brad Gooch ’73. Literary biographer Gooch delivers a detailed portrait of the popular 13th-century poet and mystic, including translations of Rumi’s original Persian works (Harper, $28.99).

Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia by Victor Cha ’83. Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., examines the evolution of the U.S. alliance systems and the reasons for its continued importance in Asia and the world (Princeton University Press, $35).

Buying Time: Environmental Collapse and the Future of Energy by Kaz Makabe ’85. The author, a financial systems expert who lived through the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, presents an overview of the state of the environment and the impending choices over energy resources for a growing population (ForeEdge, $27.95).

America, We Need to Talk: A Self-Help Book for the Nation by Joel Berg ’86. “How did we get here, America? How did our relationship get so broken? And where do we go now?” These are the questions Berg suggests we ask ourselves in order to begin doing the work of solving our nation’s problems (Seven Stories Press, $29.95).

Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast Spectacle and Rowing Gold at the Nazi Olympics by Michael Socolow ’91. Socolow, a professor of communications and journalism at the University of Maine, describes how a single crew race between Americans and Germans at the 1936 Olympics became the origin of global sports broadcasting (University of Illinois Press, $24.95).

Leadership Step by Step: Become the Person Others Follow by Joshua Spodek ’93. Leadership coach Spodek, who earned five Ivy League degrees, provides a progression of exercises (analogous to wannabe piano players learning scales) derived from real-life leadership practices (Amacom, $24).

The Production of American Religious Freedom by Finbarr Curtis ’95. This book examines shifts in the notion of religious freedom in the United States from The Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century to contemporary Tea Party conservatism (NYU Press, $28).

Ours to Lose: When Squatters Become Homeowners in New York City by Amy Starecheski ’99. The history of a radical movement that began on the Lower East Side in the 1980s in which illegal building occupants fought for decades to become legal cooperative property owners (The University of Chicago Press, $30).

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich ’01. The author’s debut is part true crime story, part memoir and details how secrets from her own past colored her understanding of a murder case she worked on as a law student (Flatiron Books, $26.99).

Chimeras of a Form: Modernist Internationalism Beyond Europe, 1914–2016 by Aarthi Vadde ’03. Vadde considers how six authors — Rabinath Tagore, James Joyce, Claude McKay, George Lamming, Michael Ondaatje and Zadie Smith — have developed ideas about international belonging in a period defined by globalization (Columbia University Press, $60).

Bed-Stuy Is Burning: A Novel by Brian Platzer ’04. In Platzer’s first novel, longtime residents and newly arrived gentrifiers of the titular Brookyn neighborhood come together to protest the fatal police shooting of a 12-year-old boy (Atria Books, $26).

— Jill C. Shomer